Titans

[beejazz]

"It appeared as a great shape in the clouds, like a man or a fish. Its great eyes stared over sharp teeth or baleen. And as soon as I had glimpsed it, it was gone; vanished into the pink clouds above. And the city was likewise vanished." [note]Yeah, this is part of my yet-to-be-named scifi project. Discuss here .[/note]

Long before humanity arrived, and early in the local history, there existed great and terrible creatures called titans. Like humanity, they travelled here from another world, perhaps as far as another hubble volume. But these creatures were unlike humanity, closer akin to terrestrial gods.

[spoiler=Appearance and Anatomy] A Titan stands roughly thirty feet tall and looks like a cross between an angel and an anthropomorphic sea creature, like a whale or a turtle. It has three perfectly circular and bulging eyes over three circular mouths full of a cross between baleen and needle-sharp teeth. A whispy mane hangs over a long neck. The body is longer and the legs shorter than human proportions, and all the limbs are as a cross between normal arms and legs and rubbery flippers. Out of the back sprout two tiny articulated fins with the appearance of wings. A Titan moves by walking, or by drifting through the air as it pleases, buoyed by pockets of superlight gas and steered by its own will.[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Technology] If there are two words that define titan technology, they are "spacial anomaly." Titans warped space for travel, storage, warfare, and even the arts. This technology has proven excruciatingly difficult to reverse engineer given that it does not actually exist. Titan technology functions on levels that are impossible for human beings to grasp in the invisible dimensions currently hypothesized by m-theory. These machines are created and manipulated by the psychic will of the titans and are aptly called "psychic constructs." While some have created machines to activate the psychic constructs, for the most part only titans have the willpower to activate them.
 [spoiler=not real?]Actually, psychic constructs do have a physical form. However, because the function of the machine takes place in its invisible dimensions, the object is usually not discernable as such a machine. Rather, they appear as massive chunks of rock. If you'd like to go a little closer to the source material for videogame scifi, you could describe them as crystals instead. It's something of a moot point, though, as the vast majority of psychic constructs are contained in unique demiplanes to prevent inadvertent damage.[/spoiler]
 [spoiler=rapture?]Rapture weapons are unique and terrifying weapons that spell absolute doom for all in their path. They work by creating new universes, sending the targeted matter there via wormhole, and then letting the universe collapse. The paramaters and location of the wormhole can be set to any value. The wormhole can be the size of an atom or the whole of the universe, but the end result is the same: Anything targeted is destroyed utterly. In actuality, it may not be necessary to even collapse the new universe, as matter sent in is subject to entirely alien laws of physics. The collapse is just insurance and a means to conserve the energy that would otherwise be necessary to sustain the universe long enough for it to become independant.[/spoiler]
 [spoiler=infinite energy?]In the laws of physics as written, neither infinite energy nor perpetual motion is possible. However, energy is required if anything at all is to happen. Originally, Titans were able to directly harness the nuclear energy of the stars. This, however, did not meet the massive energy requirements of titan technology. So they began the search for new sources of energy.

They began with the realization that a vacuum is actually anything but. In reality, particles and energies are spontaneously generated before winking out of existence in a universe with laws of physics that will not sustain them. The titans learned to sustain these particles and energies, but that was not enough. It required huge sums of energy to sustain these exotic particles, leaving the titans at a net loss. This did not dter them, however. By creating a stable field with altered laws of physics (which, in itself, cost many suns), they were able to attain the dream of infinite energy.

To their detriment, certain laws held true. As it turns out, the particles were not spontaneously generated, but leaked from another universe whose existence was wiped out by the creation of our own. The titans were driven mad by exposure to this other side, and either wiped themselves out or went into hibernation.[/spoiler]
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=psychology]As you might have guessed, Titans just aren't like us. In the sense that their technology is infinitely beyond ours, and in that they can instinctively see sides of the universe we'll never grasp, it can be said that they are far more intelligent than we are. However, it would also seem that they have no math, science, language, culture, politics, or any of those other things that we identify with intelligence. To us, they may as well be enourmous herd animals endowed with all the powers of divinity.[/spoiler]
[spoiler=inspiration]Well, to call the Titans wholly original would be a lie on my part. I've seen plenty of things like these guys in fiction and especially in anime. Largely, these guys are inspired by Evangelion's angels. Otherwise, there are also those great red giants from Naussica, and the necessary forerunner/Xel Naga types from Halo or Starcraft (I still see those games' settings as one and the same).[/spoiler]
[spoiler=doubts] I don't really know if I want to make these guys all anthropomorphic like this. The other option is to make them like big, egg-shaped balls of flesh. It's a considerably more alien option, no? You'll see part of my reason why when I've gotten into both the Host and mecha (specifically the Omega armor) and you can see a bit of redundancy.[/spoiler]

[Tybalt]

Yikes! Are they friendly?

[beejazz]

Tech updated. Comments in the other thread please (linked in the little yellow note up top.)