The Lytian Species
V1.0, updated 10-10-2020
Table of Contents:
Similar settings and inspirations:
Sexual Traits and Reproduction:
The Milky Way galaxy in the far future, with diverse alien races, faster-than-light-travel, vast unexplored regions of space, and slick sci-fi spaceships.
Lytians are a space-faring race that evolved on a very bright planet called Lytia in the GG Tauri system, 450 light years from Earth. Lytia was surrounded by four young suns, assaulting it with constant daylight and harmful ultraviolet rays. As a result, Lytians evolved away from eyes entirely, and now they use an organ called an emmeum and electromagnetic fields to sense their surroundings instead. They can ‘see’ the shape of solid objects up to 50 feet away, even around corners, and have a vague idea of things up to 200 feet away.
They can also interpret the fields emitted by living things and electronics within 10 feet and can accurately sense other Lytians’ emotions. In theory, with enough exposure to another species, a Lytian could learn to interpret that species’ emotion fields as well.
When Lytians entered the intergalactic community and encountered races that used facial expressions in their communications, the Lytians struggled to communicate their emotions with their new allies. Some races that are highly-dependent on facial identification also had trouble telling them apart. Lytians are a peaceful race and tend to be eager to accommodate and cooperate, so they invented cybernetic masks that read their own emotions and display them in real-time as simple facial expressions, picked from a cultural database of whoever they’re interacting with. The masks also move the displayed eyes to indicate where the Lytian’s attention is focused, after the first mask models that stared blankly ahead were considered almost as unnerving as being faceless.
Each Lytian customizes their own mask, choosing the kind of facial features displayed on it, as well as their color and style. Some Lytians find settings they like and leave them alone, while others change them daily to color coordinate with their clothes. After a successful ad campaign by a manufacturer of customized masks, many Lytians also started to add ears to the mask, using delicate robotics to synchronize the ear movement to their emotions. Lytians who frequently interact with tailed species will often add a cybernetic tail to help express themselves further. Outside of their home planet, most Lytians never take off their mask; it has become as much a part of them and their culture as faces are to other species.
The facial expressions on their masks are simple and the light-emitting diodes are far less advanced than the cybernetic muscles in their ears and tails because Lytian society and technology are very far behind when it comes to anything sight-related. But this has led to a quirky low-fidelity pixel style that is rather endearing and has been well received by other races. Another advantage of the simple display is that Lytians can ‘read’ it via the electromagnetic field emitted by the lights and understand what is being displayed.
Their cybernetic ears and tails can either appear natural, complete with fur and skin, or contain non-organic shapes like hexagons to make it clear that they are artificial. Some models are even translucent or luminescent.
Lytian society values cooperation very highly and most Lytians are eager to please. They love to communicate and learn from others, valuing knowledge from other people more than their own personal observations.
When they entered the intergalactic community, their culture began to prioritize diplomatic relationships very highly. They seek to maintain alliances with any civilized species they encounter, and are willing to expend a great deal of effort to support others in their times of need.
Lytians value sapient life above material goods and refuse to cooperate with violent or needlessly cruel people. While they are generally peaceful, if forced to act, they will use advanced electromagnetic weaponry to defend themselves or apprehend criminals.
Influenced by their social and friendly culture, Lytian names tend to contain uplifting sounds and associations with positive words from their language or other languages they’ve encountered. Examples include Tello (which is reminiscent of Hello), Frenna (reminiscent of Friend), and Rytia (derived from Lytia). Almost all Lytian names end with a vowel sound, and they don’t follow any gendered conventions (so ending in 'o' or 'a' doesn't imply male or female). Lytians can’t fully pronounce ‘dental consonant’ sounds like D, L, and T, so those letters are pronounced much softer and are included less often in Lytian names.
Additionally, Lytians who interact heavily with other species may name their children using names they’ve formed positive associations with. The biggest example was the wave of babies named Timmo or Timothy after human ambassador Timothy Altaro, one of the first humans to interact with Lytians in FTL 133.
Their body is humanoid and bipedal, with digitigrade feet, dextrous hands, and short soft fur. They have longer-growing hair on their head, but their face is just smooth and featureless. Their skull houses the brain, an EM-field sensor called an emmeum, and interior eardrums.
Despite having no mouths, Lytians do have vocal chords, and they breathe and speak through small vents under their chins. Without a tongue, their enunciation isn't as finely tuned as other races and they struggle with hard consonant sounds. Lytians who frequently interact with other races sometimes seek cybernetic improvements to their voice.
Lytians take their sustenance from visible light funneled into their skin through fiber-optic fur and absorb water and nutrients passively through their skin during daily nutrient baths. Lytia is a diverse planet with vast oceans, heavy rainfall, and a variety of lifeforms on both land and sea. Lytians can swim quite well but they breathe air and live on land. They prefer humid climates, but can live anywhere as long as they have enough water, carbon-dioxide, and light energy for their photosynthesis. Since they exhale oxygenated air, Lytians are desirable crew members on spaceships with oxygen-breathing species.
Adult Lytians range from 5 to 7 feet tall, with diverse body types based on genes and lifestyle. They all have digitigrade feet with fur-surrounded toe beans. Their natural fur can be almost any color and pattern, but the blind Lytians need to use technology to detect color and don’t usually care about their own coloration.
The fur changes vibrance as it automatically dilates to control the amount of light it absorbs: when a Lytian is hungry, they become a bit darker to absorb more light, and when they are very excited or aroused, their fur takes on a lighter shade as their body switches its focus away from photosynthesis and over to whatever task is at hand.
Some Lytians, desiring to stand out while interacting with other species, have started dyeing their fur using a special process that doesn’t harm the fiber-optic function.
(sexual content warning)
Female Lytians have two breasts which range in size from nearly flat to the size of her own head. Smaller breasts will swell considerably for the duration of child rearing and can support two nursing babies at a time. This is crucial because Lytians are almost always born in pairs of non-identical twins, one male and one female. Babies nurse through the same chin vent used for respiration, but only until their skin’s nutrient absorption ability becomes active at around 4 months of age.
Compared to other races, Lytians mature slightly slower than average. Gestation takes approximately one Earth year, and children reach sexual maturity after 20 years. They tend to live a little over 100 years, and are capable of sexual reproduction their entire adult lives.
Male Lytians have surprisingly diverse penises, ranging from 5 to 14 inches while erect, and with a variety of shapes. Pointed, flared, or bell-shaped tips are all possible, as are knots and medial rings. Many males take pride in their unique penis, while others choose to get cosmetic surgery to reach their own ideal. Testacles are more standard: two orbs between 1 and 2 inches in diameter, carried in a soft and elastic pouch. While relaxed, the testes are held very close to the body and out of the way, and while aroused, they drop 1 to 3 inches and swell to double size. While aroused, light physical contact can be pleasurable, so some Lytians like to have their testicles massaged or held.
Female Lytians have equally diverse vaginas. They naturally range from narrow to wide, shallow to deep. The interior is packed with pleasurable nerves, and each woman has a unique distribution of these nerves across her clitoris, vaginal walls, and even the cervix. The exterior tends to feature a prominent clitoral hood that covers the clitoris except when aroused, but the labia vary widely, from almost non-existent to unfurled like a flower’s petals. It is speculated that as Lytian vaginas evolved more variety, the males’ penises changed to match in an evolutionary arms race.
In Lytian culture, women tend to be the initiator in romance, and penis size and shape are common factors in their choice of mate. A woman with a shallow vagina will often prefer a man with a smaller penis, because a good size match can improve pleasure. Lytians can ‘see’ through most clothes, so it’s easy for Lytians to know their physical compatibility before actual intimacy. As a result, they are not particularly shy about nudity, and will often forego clothes entirely.
Since Lytians long ago evolved away from consuming solid food, they have no intestines and their colon has become vestigial. That region contains almost as many pleasurable nerves as the vaginal region, so both sexes often engage in anal penetration and surface play for sexual recreation. The colon is quite deep and the anus is very elastic, allowing couples who don’t have a good vaginal size match to find more comfortable pleasure in anal sex.
Thanks to their long lives and paired births, Lytian society does not need many pregnancies to maintain population equilibrium. As a result, Lytian culture welcomes homosexual relationships and encourages anal sex as a birth control option. Monogamy is common, but not required or assumed by any cultural institutions.
Lytians have also engaged in sexual intercourse with other space-faring species, but it does not result in reproduction. To date, no genetically compatible species have been discovered.
(end of sexual content)
1.5 million years ago - Formation of the GG Tauri star system, including the planet Lytia. Thanks to an abundance of liquid water, life begins to flourish.
500,000 years ago - Origin of the Lytian species. Due to skeletal similarities to humans, Lytians may be descended from a proto-human race who seeded the galaxy with their likeness. Under the harsh light of four suns, Lytians’ eyes rapidly devolve, and they evolve photosynthesis and fiber-optic fur.
900 years ago - Lytians harness the power of electricity. They’d been aware of it for some time, since they can sense electrical current with their EM-Field sense, but other industries needed to advance to provide the necessary technology to generate and utilize electrical power.
500 years ago - Lytians achieve full control of their home planet’s natural resources and switch to a safe and comfortable way of life. Technology begins to advance very quickly.
400 years ago - Lytians achieve space-flight. Thanks to their unique biology, sustaining life in space is not particularly challenging. The solar radiation and cosmic rays of outer space are no more intense than what they already experience on their home planet, and they can take in sustenance from sunlight.
200 years ago (0 FTL on the New Lytian Calendar) - Lytians achieve faster-than-light travel and join the intergalactic community. Due to their friendly attitudes and desire to please, they are quickly welcomed by the other races. Other than visual and light-based tech, Lytian technology is already more advanced than that of their new neighbors.
6 FTL - Lytians invent electronic masks to better interact with other space-faring species. The first model is very clunky, but they are quickly improved with feedback from other races.
30 FTL - Inspired by the furry features of some allied races, a Lytian inventor creates cybernetic ears to assist in expression and individuality. A successful ad campaign makes them ubiquitous among Lytians.
35 FTL - Another inventor creates cybernetic tails after developing a fetish for races with tails. Originally designed as erotic toys, a mundane spinoff becomes very popular among the Lytian populace.
102 FTL - Humans achieve faster-than-light travel and enter the intergalactic community. They spread through the galaxy far faster than other races, spurred by their extreme curiosity.
133 FTL - Lytians encounter humans for the first time in a peaceful diplomatic meeting. A Lytian ambassador named Emmi Anama surprises and offends a male human ambassador named Timothy Altaro when she remarks on his genitals, having observed them through his clothes with her EM-field sense. Fortunately, the situation is resolved peaceably and the two become lovers for a time.
175 FTL - Mica is born on a deep-space cruiser to parents who are interstellar explorers.
178 FTL - Tello is born on Lytia to parents who are engineers at a cybernetics factory.
198 FTL - Tello and her twin brother reach maturity. Fascinated with other races, Tello decides to enroll in the Galactic Explorer Program, an interstellar organization that aims to document the known universe for the benefit of all races.
200 FTL - Today