Architects

The Architects are an aquatic species from Vintosh. They were driven to extinction near the start of the Cosmic War, but they built a huge machine to live on and fight for their cause.

Biology and Appearance

The Architects have extendable eyestalks, which are useful for seeing into crevasse, where their pray usually hide. They have large mouths where they store food until it gets it turns to be digested; the Architects can only digest one item at a time. Spindly little polyjointed legs are useless on land, but in the water can be whipped around like helicopter blades or boat props to propel them through the water. Bulky feet help them get more momentum when spinning their legs around as propellers, and also make them bottom heavy so that they are almost always facing upright in the water and never get disorientated. The Architects don't need very big arms because they grab most things with the finger-like appendages on their feet. These puny arms are mainly for turning and control when swimming.

The Architects are generally not very intelligent on their own, they are not even considered sentient. Their true intelligence comes from their culmulative consciousness. The ocean planet which they inhabit is not actually comprised of water, rather a liquid called Vintoshium that is conductive. Not conductive of electricity, however, but it conducts thought. The ocean in which the Architects live actually transmits the thoughts and memories if it's inhabitants, giving the Architects something like a "shared brain". This means that the Architects are almost just agents of one consciousness; it also means that they learn faster than any other species. Only one member has to learn anything for them all to know it, so they advance as a unit rather than as individuals.

History

The history of the Architects was fairly uneventful until their intelligence took a major leap in 512 u.d.r. when a Genius spacecraft crashed into Vintosh. Geniuses had visited this planet many times before to collect it's Vintoshium, but had never realized that any life existed on it. The Genius was killed, but his entire mind and all of his knowledge was emptied into the Vintoshium, giving the Architects a comprehensive knowledge of pretty much everything. This is when they learned of the Cosmic War that was going on and they would most likely be driven to extinction soon. A giant Omega Missile was being constructed by the Grudges to destroy every planet in the system, in an attempt to wipe out the Geniuses. Even though no one knew of the Architects existence, every planet had to be eliminated to ensure all the Geniuses would be weeded out.

Realizing the truth, the Architects decided to construct "The Machine". It was designed to live on after their inevitable demise and fight for them in the ongoing Cosmic War.

The Construction of The Machine

As Vintosh is entirely made up of water (or Vintoshium), all the materials for the construction of The Machine had to imported. Vast quantities of metals were brought in from Vitruvanosis. Construction began at the surface, with thousands upon thousands of Architects gathering to produce their creation. Some teams assembled the outer shell, some teams did the programming, some teams designed sensory outputs and propulsion systems. Eventually, The Machine became very big and sank to the centre of their planet, making it quite difficult to continue production. In order to get the supplies down to the bottom, hundreds of Architects had to climb on top of cargo crates. They began eating stones and rocks to make themselves heavier so they could get to the bottom easier. This predicament stalled construction immensely, yet eventually, their Machine was finished.

The Death of the Architects

As the Omega Missile was aimed, the head Architect swam to The Machine to activate it. Inserting the last piece of crucial programming, their goliath creation was set to go. It's massive heat pads warmed up and vaporized the entire planet around it, then turned to destroy the Omega Missile. It then dissapeared into space to take part in Galactic conquest for it's creators.