he Reep
· The Hundred Suns: Reep
The Reep are an ancient interstellar-capable race. The Reep home world is located close in the center of the galaxy and is unknown (and unnamed) by human astronomers. First contact with the Reep occurred in 2620 when a Hundred Suns scout located a Reep colony. This colony planet (now known simply as Reep) soon joined the Hundred Suns. Other Reep planets are apparently unperturbed by this change in alliance.
Reep are amorphous translucent beings that generally occupy twice the volume of a grown human and about two and a half times the mass. They are often described as a "pile of shellac" or less charitably, "Snot creatures."
Reep typically assume a haystack-shaped form but are capable of stretching into other shapes (puddles, cylinders, simple branches, etc.). Some individual Reeps have more skill at this than others. Reeps can extrude "wedges" or appendages for several feet (typically no more than four feet). These can be used to push, pull, or move or even swat objects but have very little dexterity. Wedges, or indeed any portion of a Reep's surface can be made adhesive and can engulf an object and draw it to within the Reep's body. Once inside the body, it can be digested, contained in a pouch-like vacuole, or preserved in a manipulative tube. Both vacuoles and tubes can be expanded or contracted to accommodate quite large objects (even human-sized). Manipulative tubes are lined with many finger-sized appendages that can handle, activate, or if necessary crush the objects contained within.
Reep have a complex approach to reproduction. The sentient form is hermaphroditic and mobile male and female pods are extruded and released. These unintelligent clones find unrelated pods and combine to produce young Reeps. Reeps can therefore be very long lived. On the other hand, Reep memory begins to fade after about thirty years, so a long-lived Reep will not typically remember events longer ago than fifty years.
Reep culture is extremely varied and there are thousands of tribes with different political systems, economic systems, and religions. Individual Reep often move from tribe to tribe as they grow (and forget) in experience. Reep are comfortable dealing with aliens (or humans) and easily adapt to new social or cultural situations. Many Reep are most comfortable traveling in small groups of their kind, but lone Reeps are also common.
Reep technology emphasizes electricity, optics, and organic chemistry. Reep often adopt and use technology they do not really understand. For instance, Reep are much less capable with inorganic chemistry, higher math, physics, astronomy, and geology. Reep apparently did not invent their FTL space drive but rather purchased it many millennia ago. They never developed nanotechnology, telepathy, or magic, but will use them when available.
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