Arilou Lalee'lay

Arilou Lalee'lay

ArilouComm.png The enigmatic Arilou

Homeworld: Falayalaralfali Coordinates: QuasiSpace Member of: Alliance of Free Stars, New Alliance of Free Stars Ship: Skiff

The Arilou Lalee'lay, or Arilou for short, are an enigmatic and reclusive species. They first made themselves known to the Galaxy during the First War, suddenly appearing and applying to join the Alliance of Free Stars. Their actions were equally mercurial at the end of the war, retreating and abandoning the other races as soon as the Humans were slave-shielded. The motives for their actions seem to be some mysterious connection they have with the Human race.

First Contact, Recent History

No Alliance race had made contact with the Arilou before the beginning of the First War of the Alliance against the Ur-Quan Hierarchy. Even as open hostilities began between the two coalitions, the Arilou remained absent and silent until the Chenjesu made first contact with the race of Humans in 2116. On the day August 2 on the Human calendar, the day after the Human United Nations formally ratified a treaty joining the Alliance, a fleet of small, disc-shaped vessels suddenly appeared orbiting the satellite moon, Luna, of the human homeworld Earth. Landing on the moon, the ships transmitted a request to meet with Alliance representatives.

It was on the moon's surface where Human and Chenjesu delegates met the Arilou La'leelay for the first time. Claiming that they, too, were under threat from the Ur-Quan Kzer-Za expansion, the Arilou asked for the Alliance's protection in return for its support. Alliance leaders quickly decided they needed any help they could get and welcomed the Arilou into the fold.

Even so, many Alliance members had reservations. The Arilou were extremely secretive, refusing to reveal any details about their civilization or their technology, even refusing to give the location of their homeworlds or the means by which they'd come to Luna. More disturbing, however, was the Humans' reaction. To their eyes, the Arilou appeared exactly like the stereotypical image of a legendary alien race long rumored to have secretly interfered in Human affairs, variously called "Martians", "Roswell Grays" or "Zeta Reticulans". Ancient archives kept by Human governments proved the resemblance too close to be coincidental, but the exigencies of war and the closedmouthness of the Arilou prevented them from examining the matter any further.

The Arilou fleet played a key role in the war; despite its small size, it had an amazingly fast travel time, disappearing and reappearing from combat sites at speeds far greater than the most advanced HyperSpaces known to the rest of the Alliance could allow. The Arilou Skiff, though an apparently weak ship, employed many unique, exotic technologies, such as an inertialess TrueSpace propulsion system allowing it to hover in gravity wells and an incredibly powerful short-range Hyperdrive allowing it to "teleport", making it unmatched for scouting and harassing enemy ships.

However, the small and lightly-armed Arilou fleet took heavy casualties during the course of the war, as they were primarily engaged in the main fighting on the Coreward Front defending Human space. When the Alliance began to crumble and Hierarchy forces pushed rimward and took the Sol system, slave-shielding the Humans, the remaining defenders of the Front understandably, if regrettably, scattered. As the Yehat and Shofixti retreated to the Gorno system, the Arilou and Syreen fleets were left huddled together; expecting help from the Arilou, the Syreen were shocked to see the Arilou wordessly retreat and vanish into space, abandoning them to the Ur-Quan. The cowardice and treachery of the Arilou are still cursed by the Syreen to this day.

Identifying Characteristics and Behavior

The Arilou are apparently very physically similar to Humans, with a build very close to that of a Human child, standing at about 1.5 meters tall, with a disproportionately large head compared to a normal Human adult. They have almost no pigmentation to their skin, which appears extremely pale to a Human eye, with a hue that ranges from pale gray to green. Their faces appear inhumanly expressive, despite the fact that they have very small chins and tapered mouths, and a tiny, almost completely flat nose, thanks to their enormous almond-shaped eyes. Their eyes appear to contain a tapetum lucidum over the retina (like Earth cats, or the Syreen); the resulting internal reflections cause their eyes to appear to glow in dim light.

In their dealings with the Alliance, the Arilou never spoke verbally. They appear to have quite an advanced degree of psionic ability, and communicated solely using telepathy. Many, especially Humans, found this unnerving, as in most communications they would appear completely motionless, wearing an enigmatic smile. They would remain motionless as well while piloting their ships, manipulating the controls using psychokinesis, and periodically displayed their power to read others' thoughts and detect psychic activity.

Current Events and Revelations

Though contact with the Arilou had been lost after the First War of the Alliance, when Captain Zelnick used the Vindicator to begin the anti-Hierarchy actions that became known as the Second War, he inadvertently discovered the Arilou once more, reestablished contact with them on behalf of the New Alliance of Free Stars, and became privy to many of their most closely held secrets.

Unbeknownst to the Humans, the Arilou had long held a semipermanent base of operations in the Chandrasekhar constellation in HyperSpace, establishing a small sphere of influence and an amicable relationship with the neighboring Umgah. Traveling to investigate various reports of a strange radiating body that appeared like a variable star in the area, Zelnick discovered the area to be rife with Skiff starships piloted by Arilou.

The Arilou explained that they were not native to this region of TrueSpace but resided in QuasiSpace, an alternate dimensional space only reachable using their unique brand of Dimensional Fatigue technology. The local region of QuasiSpace contains a total of sixteen natural overlaps with or "portals" to with HyperSpace, but fifteen of them are unidirectional from QuasiSpace to HyperSpace, so the Arilou found it most convenient to post the majority of their ships in the HyperSpace region immediately surrounding the single bidirectional portal.

Since they carried on very little contact with other races and had very little business in TrueSpace at the time, their reasons for keeping detachments of ships in HyperSpace are unclear. They claim their primary purpose was hunting and trapping strange creatures called Nnngn for sport, apparently because the Nnngn frequented the areas around the portals or were easier to trap there. The Nnngn apparently hailed from QuasiSpace and were composed of a native QuasiSpatial form of matter that Humans could not perceive or interact with, perhaps "vibrating" at a "higher dimensional level"; the Arilou merely described Humans as "not solid enough" to interact with them or other forms native to QuasiSpace, and refused to describe the matter further.

The Arilou seemed quite taken with Zelnick's cause and offered him passage through the bidirectional portal into QuasiSpace, where he found the Arilou homeworld, Falayalirafali, a single TrueSpace planet kept in an artificial pocket of TrueSpace within QuasiSpace. There, Arilou leaders informed Zelnick that their numbers and physical resources were too depleted from the previous war for them to provide material support to the Alliance, but they were willing to supply technology and information.

The degree of their knowledge about local events was impressively widespread despite their cloistered appearance, and through unknown channels they were able to inform Zelnick about the existence of the Slylandro, the nature of the Mycon Deep Children, and the history of the Ur-Quan.

Moreover, in one of their rare altruistic interventions into other races' affairs, they had discovered the wreck of an Ur-Quan Dreadnought on Alpha Pavonis VII, which had miraculously failed to self-destruct upon impact. This allowed them to rescue the single surviving life form, the ship Lord's Talking Pet. At the same time they discovered the powerful starboard Ur-Quan Warp Pod was intact, and instructed Zelnick to salvage it. Using the warp pod, the Arilou were able to construct a QuasiSpace Portal Spawner capable of generating artificial portals that allowed the Vindicator to travel through QuasiSpace at will. This allowed the Vindicator to share the immense reduction in travel time that had proven so useful to the Arilou during the First War; it was able to hop across local space much more quickly than it would have otherwise been able, given its great mass. The Arilou's provision of free passage through QuasiSpace proved to be one of the New Alliance's most critical advantages in carrying out its missions against the Hierarchy.

They entrusted it to the care of the Umgah, whose understanding of corporeal biology exceeded theirs, only for the Umgah to accidentally activate the creature's latent genetic abilities, transforming it into a powerful and malevolent neo-Dnyarri. However, Zelnick, taking the Arilou's advice, was able to strike a deal with the neo-Dnyarri, and its psychic powers proved to be the crucial element in breaching the Ur-Quan defenses at the Battle of the Sa-Matra that finally defeated the Ur-Quan and ended the war. It was at around the time of this battle that the Arilou finally reentered TrueSpace contact with the Alliance races, as a flotilla of four Skiffs materialized at the Earth Starbase and offered their much-needed assistance for the assault on the Sa-Matra.

Interestingly this wreck represented a colossal and, as far as we know, unprecedented failure of Ur-Quan Kzer-Za technology, normally a benchmark for reliability. Not only did the Dreadnought crash in a safe, deserted area suspiciously far from the main battleground of the Doctrinal Conflict and suspiciously near the Arilou's base in Chandrasekhar, its self-destruct systems utterly failed and two incredibly valuable weapons, the warp pod and the Talking Pet, both survived intact. The Arilou gave many hints that their degree of knowledge and control was far greater than they let Zelnick know, and many suspect that they engineered this wreck as well as other events within the war on humanity's behalf, including their fortuitous meeting with Zelnick in the first place.

Relations with Other Races

Humans

Upon initial examination most Humans quickly recognized the Arilou to be uncannily similar to popular depictions of a certain class of science-fictional extraterrestrial in the 20th and 21st century. Often called "Martians", "Zeta Reticulans", "Little Green Men", "Enochian Angels" and so on, the most common and neutral term for such aliens was "Grays" after their skin color. These depictions were based on a series of reported encounters between such beings and Humans, occurring primarily in Earth's period of rapid industrial development following the Second World War (the 1950s) and ending some time before the Small War and the creation of the United Nations Peacekeeping Army and Star Control (the 2000s).

In such encounters, Humans living in isolated locations were typically abducted by Grays using ships colloquially known as "UFOs" (Unidentified Flying Objects) or "flying saucers", after their disc-shaped bodies. Not only were these ships extremely similar in appearance to the Skiffs the Arilou piloted in the First War, but they exhibited similar capabilities of inertialess acceleration, indefinite hovering in gravity fields, and even short-range teleportation. Though most abductees' memories were hazy, possibly suppressed or modified, they did describe undergoing strange, high-tech medical procedures, often finding themselves with an unplanned pregnancy soon afterwards. These subjects usually reported one major operation or procedure being done on them in their first abduction, and one or more secondary abductions taking place afterwards, as though their captors were checking on the progress of their modifications.

The Grays were associated with other strange activities as well, including experimentation on non-Human animals, frequently experienced by farmers as mysteriously mutated livestock, and more bizarre behavior, like strange patterns of circular depressions left in crop fields.

For some unknown reason, the Arilou seem to have a vested interest in the well-being of humankind. This attitude covers not just Humans, but their offshot species the Androsynth as well as the genetically compatible Syreen. The Arilou often take a patronizing attitude towards these races, hinting that they know more than they are willing to say. They reveal little of what they truly know or what motivates their actions, and even when they do their answers are cryptic and generally leave even more questions in their wake.

The Arilou have a strong dislike of the newly-arrived Orz, although this may be simply be an extension of their protectiveness of the Andosynth, who the Orz are assumed to have eradicated.

The Arilou also have moderately friendly relationships with the Umgah, and frequently chat with them while passing through their home stars in Orionis constellation. The first war did not effect this relationship, and although they were on the opposing sides, the arilou took no pleasure in blasting Umgah ships to oblivion (and vice versa).

When it comes to the other races of the galaxy the Arilou take no notice as long as they are not a threat to their chosen wards. With this in mind, their actions in the first war seem quite reasonable; the Ur-Quan Kzer-Za would not have destroyed humanity, instead they would have given them the option to serve as battle thralls or to be slave shielded; therefore the Arilou took no action. Once humanity decided to join the Alliance of Free Stars though, there was a chance the species could have been decimated by the conflict, so the Arilou joined in to defend them. And once Humanity was defeated and place beneath an invincible slave shield, the Arilou found it safe to retreat back into anonymity.

Needless to say, the Arilou are concerned about the possible victory of the Ur-Quan Kohr-Ah over their Kzer-Za brethren, as their Eternal Doctrine would be a great threat to Humanity and the Syreen. Therefore, the Arilou's assistance could be counted on in the Second War.

Theories

The following statements are not proven, and in many cases are not accepted by the majority of the community.

The genetic similarities between Humans and Syreen, left to chance, are a statistical impossibity. Knowing how long the Arilou have been associating with Humans, it is likely that they are somehow responsible for this developement. Perhaps they seeded both the Human and Syreen homeworlds with the same species, or have continually crossbred the two to maintain genetic similarities, or perhaps have used some kind of otherwise unknown technology or psychic phenonmenon to guide the two species' evolution. The quesion is, why?

There are other disturbing facts about the Arilou. During one conversation between Arilou leaders and The Captain, the translator was unable to properly translate one Arilou concept, instead providing a best-fit word: *time*. This indicates that Arilou may have a more profound understanding of what we think of as time. This has led to some speculation that the Arilou could be a future state — or at least a possible future state — of humanity (or the Syreen or their offspring). Indeed, the Arilou's seemingly magnanimous actions certainly take on a more logical — and also more self-serving — tone if one assumes that they are working to promote their own existence. This would also explain the similarity of Falayalaralfali to Earth.

Another possibility is that the Arilou have, in succeeding in timetravel broken the course of history and now either have to alter the present to insure the breeding between man and Syreen or are purposefully altering the past to change the future. Possibly, they are altering things in the two species that gave birth to them in order to avoid an end to their race through a new disease or threat of another sort. Maybe the long standing conflict between the Orz and Arilou is actually due to the Orz traveling to the future from an acient past and ploting the destruction of the Arilou, and the first blow was destroying the Androsynth. The past is fighting to unmake the future. The Orz could easily have joined forces with humans to spy on them and find ways to change the Arilou on one side of their genetics. This raises a question, what part of the Arilou's past has been undone with the extinction of the Androsynth? What was the purpose of the Androsynth in the future that the Orz immediately destroyed them but would rather not immediately distroy man. Or did the Androsynth join the Orz and go to their [its?] natural space time?

If one follows this path of thinking, it raises some interesting possibilities about Orz's statements that the Arilou are from *above* (the future?) and that Orz is from *below* (the past?). These beliefs are likely incomplete, or at least naive simplifications, considering our lack of complete understanding for the Arilou concept of *time*.