Liiya

The Liiya are a jellyfish-like sapient race first encountered by the Magdoran Conglomerate almost a century after its formation, and assimilated shortly thereafter. They are well-known for their high intellects and artistic skills, the containment devices they use for transport and manipulating the world around them, and their theoretically infinite lifespans.

Biology
As organisms comparable to jellyfish, the Liiya consist primarily of a central body and numerous prehensile tentacles, and have adapted to survive in oceanic environments. Likewise, they possess no traditional organs, aside from a stomach pouch and the amalgamated neural tissue that constitutes their "brain". Their body is capable of conducting significant electrical currents through and around their nervous system, which they use for natural defensive and offensive reasons, as well as in their civilized life.

Thanks to lacking a skeletal system, and generally having arose and thrived in such, Liiya are reliant on being fully submersed in water for basic functionality and survival. Were a Liiya to be removed from water, they would be completely incapacitated, and would die if allowed to dehydrate. To this end, Liiya make frequent use of containment devices, suits, and vehicles, when suitable bodies of water are not available. In this vein, space vessels built for Liiya, including pre-contact spacecraft, were filled completely with water, to allow free mobility for its occupants, without the limitations of many more personal containment devices.

Electrical Abilities
To facilitate feeding and self-defense, most of their body is capable of generating electrical currents, which are enough to stun prey fish and ward off would-be predators on their homeworld, however the shocks are too small to harm most other known sapients, as well as the larger predators native to their oceans. These electrical currents are generally generated in specialized structures spread across their body, and through channels around their nervous system.

The ability for a Liiya's body to produce electrical currents has adapted to multiple uses both in their nature evolution, and in their cultural development. One of the main uses for this ability outside of handling prey and predators is in providing them a rudimentary sense of their surroundings, through the generation of a weak electromagnetic field around themselves. Ordinarily, this only allows them to sense objects in their immediate vicinity, but this tends to become more precise as Liiya age.

In civilized scenarios, Liiya also use their electromagnetic fields as a means of communication, with specific fluctuations and "tones" being equatable to sounds and words. Given their extreme capacity for age, even prior to being a spacefaring race, they never developed a traditional written counterpart to this language, however. They use the electrical capacities of their bodies to interact with mechanical devices built to facilitate such interaction. They are capable of interacting with less sophisticated machinery, provided it is in a body of water with them, however this was extremely rare even before the Liiya made first contact with the Magdoran Conglomerate.

Neural Mass
The neural mass of a Liiya is considerable, for a sapient- not only for its less rigid structure, and naturally superior cells, but also for the significantly higher ratio of neural tissue to the rest of a Liiya's body. As a result, Liiya have a much higher mental capacity than other known sapients. In practice, this makes Liiya highly intelligent, with above average memories and capacity for learning. Combined with a natural fortitude for exploration and discovery, Liiya are natural scientists, as well as cultural aficionados.

Aging
Liiya have a relatively short maturation cycle, despite the length at which they can live. The time it takes for one to reach the polyp stage can vary wildly, depending on the conditions in which they are hatched, but once in this stage it can take about 3 years before they are mature enough to move freely, with another 5 often being enough for them to reach their adult stage.

Liiya are not known to grow elderly and die of old age, thanks to their ability to naturally produce enzymes that counter the breakdowns that lead to such. If supplied with sufficient food, though, a Liiya would grow endlessly in the process, which itself would eventually result in a breakdown of the Liiya's neural tissue. This would require said Liiya to be an exceptional hunter, however, and is easily controlled in the modern day.

Containment Devices
One of the most notable traits of a Liiya is their containment device, which can come in a broad variety of designs, depending on the needs and tastes of the user, with most being specifically commissioned for its occupant.

In broad terms, a containment device is any object piloted by a Liiya that allows for them to interact with the world like other sapient beings, but there are also designs specifically made to inhibit interaction, though these are generally reserved for transportation only. Largely because of their amorphous nature, the specific designs of containment devices can vary wildly, from ones designed in likeness of bipeds- known commonly as containment suits,- to industrial machinery and entire starships.

Because they lack traditional sensory organs beyond a subtle electric field, containment devices also act as the "eyes and ears" of its pilot, as well as granting them the ability to more freely communicate with others.

Before and around first contact, freely mobile containment suits were uncommon and rudimentary. These suits were often only used as a necessity rather than by choice, with the control mechanisms and the construction of the suit itself typically being described as uncomfortable and unwieldy. Modern suits are far more capable, to the point that most Conglomerate citizens find them indiscernible from true bipeds, though comfort is still an issue for first-time suit users and those who rarely use them.

In theory, the potential designs for a containment device are only limited by physics and the capacity for a Liiya to control said device. In the case of containment suits, this allows for a larger amount of physiological arrangements than seen in nature, though the practical application of this has focused on increasing the number of limbs the user has, as well as atypical arrangements for said limbs. As seen throughout their history, this nigh-unlimited range of potential designs allows for Liiya to "pilot" industrial machinery, starships, and other vehicles, but it also allows them to interface more directly with objects like computers. Of these, direct computer interfaces are the most common, but this is alongside Liiya-piloted exploration vessels and science stations. On oceanic and swamp worlds, it is not uncommon for infrastructure like transit networks to be piloted, either.

Personalisation
The highly specific needs and tastes of Liiya when it comes to containment devices has led to a lucrative commission-based economy surrounding their design and development, with containment suits in particular often having a litany of details and features that make an individual unit completely unique. With the rapid spread of Liiya across Magdoran territories, the sight of a containment device boutique would become common on most well-trafficked stations.

The most common touches a Liiya might make to their containment devices, aside from the overall design and colouration, include the inclusion of designs and symbolism adopted from cultures and events the Liiya has taken an interest in, or is otherwise significant to them. This can go so far as to include engraving said designs onto the device itself, with some of the oldest Liiya containment devices having almost every visible surface covered in them.

Devices like this are highly coveted for their cultural and artistic value, when their owners no longer have a need for them, in one sense or another. Liiya culture leads to these devices being donated to museums and familial displays, or completely destroyed when the owner no longer wishes to keep it. The idea of "Handing down" a containment device is practically unheard of however, given the highly personal nature of the devices.

Among younger Liiya, particularly those raised by multiple generations of Conglomerate-borne Liiya, it is far more common to see containment suits that closely resemble more typical biped, often also featuring transparent sections where popular clothing might expose bare flesh. Along this vein, some have also taken to adding coloured lighting to the inside of their suit. These touches are often derided as being impractical by pre-Conglomerate Liiya, but many still appreciate the shifts their culture has taken.

Language and Communication
Despite lacking many of the organs often considered necessary for it, the Liiya did develop multiple pseudo-vocal languages in their past, as well as an understanding of their own body language, with a single unified variant surviving until and beyond first contact with other races.

Unlike most other races, the Liiya language is done through electrical frequencies rather than sound. Primitive Liiya were only capable of crude communication by shocking each other, but this process evolved over millenia to the point that modern Liiya are capable of manipulating the exact electrical voltage and frequencies that they emit- with some particularly adept members even capable of applying this technique to their latent electrical field. To the extent needed for a formal language, the frequencies used in these contact shocks are analogous to members of a phonetic alphabet, with some variance granted for contextual needs.

Translation between the Liiya electrophonetic language and other vocal and written languages is often considered difficult, especially considering the Liiya lack a written counterpart to their electrical signals. Most need for this is handled by the Liiya and their containment devices, however- so anyone else needing to translate it is rare and often unnecessary.