Seti

Important Info for Commissions

HEIGHT: 6' to the top of the head, 7' 6" to the top of his horns
BUILD: Extremely slim, almost no musculature
EYES: Purple
OTHER IMPORTANT TRAITS: Pretty much the whole thing. It's complicated.
PERSONALITY: Curious to the point of lunacy. Will do anything for more knowledge. Very naive, and extremely honest - no knowledge of 'lying'.

Appearance

Seti is a quadrupedal alien with a centaur-esque body type. His lower half is centered on a long, lean body that extends into a semi-rigid tail that's the length of his body and a half long. The tail is only semi-prehensile, and largely used for balancing out his torso. He can sway it back and forth, but can't do all that much with it, making the tail itself quite cumbersome. His four legs are digitigrade and about equal in strength and shape. Each leg ends in a single foot, functionally identical to his hands but more heavily calloused. Behind the front two legs float oblong purple disks, hovering an inch behind and below his front knees.

Seti's torso is slim and lacking in much muscle. He has two arms, of humanoid size, with thin hands at the end of each. Each hand has two fingers and a thumb, with the back of his palm and fingertips in white. Spotted across his palm and the base of his fingers are soft purple pads which give him extremely good grip. While Seti's grip strength (or arm strength) is below even that of a human, his precision is far beyond what most humans are capable of, and with small tools can perform the sort of operations normally handled by advanced robotics only.

Seti's neck features a large light purple throat that's similar in nature to the throat of a frog, capable of expanding to allow him to swallow large amounts of food. Bizarrely, Seti actually digests all food in record time while it's in his throat, allowing what amounts to a slurry to slide down into his stomach proper. His head is oddly shaped, with two eyes, a large mouth, and a variety of horns. There are several small bumps outlined in white, including two small horns at the top of his face, but more prominently Seti has a horn-shaped sensing organ in the center of his face, most closely related to a nose but lacking the ability to actually smell. It's used to pick up communication from other Librarians, and has no other use. The most obvious of his horns are the two large 'antennae' that protrude from the top of his neck, just behind his face. Large and purple, matching the shards behind his front legs and back, these send information Home.

Just behind Seti's shoulders are the matching shards to those behind his legs. The largest is about twice the size of hte others, floating parallel to his neck, and features a large pearlescent orb of unclear purpose. On each side of it float two smaller shards, flat and oblong. Each floats parallel the top of Seti's lower half, rather than their position being related to the largest shard.

His face is generally described as friendly by most who meet him, largely due to his smile. Much like a dolphin, Seti's mouth is permanently frozen in a position that makes it look like he's smiling. He's absolutely incapable of changing this, and is thus incapable of actually showing his emotions on his face. He's always smiling, save when he's eating. In order to eat, Seti effectively swings the front of his face up and out, revealing his tongue (a dark blue and rather firm, good for poking things down his throat) and throat. This is, generally speaking, fairly alarming, and thus Seti tends to eat in private to avoid distressing anyone.

Seti's skin is a light blue, and his body (minus his hind legs) are dotted with detailed white patterns. There's no obvious method to the patterns themselves, with some being swirls, some simply being dots, and some being elaborate arcs or bands.

Seti's eyes are a purple that matches his horns. To the top of his lower back is approximately three and a half feet, while the top of Seti's head is around six feet tall. His horns extend to almost seven and a half feet, making trips through doorways tricky.

Despite Seti's large physical size, he is exceedingly light, weighing in at around 150 pounds.

Personality

Seti is curious above all else. It's his defining trait, and the thing that people will recognize him by the most. His drive to learn is both a biological drive and a personal flaw--he'll do anything to learn, even if he probably shouldn't. That means poking his face right in where he shouldn't, investigating things that others would find painfully mundane, and mumbling about how interesting an origami crane is for an hour while he puzzles out exactly how to fold the perfect one. Everything is interesting. Everything is delightful. He's almost childish in his enjoyment of things, because every piece of information collected only serves to please him.

Despite his intense drive to know everything, Seti is fairly naive. He knows nothing of human culture, and until he's had time on the island, there's plenty he doesn't know. The concept of lying--of saying something that is false--is abhorrent to him, and not something he would even consider. He simply doesn't understand it, so when someone says I have a bridge to sell you his answer is inevitably something along the lines of I have no need to purchase a bridge.

Even so, Seti is extremely intelligent and quick to adapt. His perfect memory makes it easy for him to make connections, recognizing his mistakes and correcting them. He has no sense of pride, nor any reason to hold back. If he is wrong, he will announce that he was wrong and correct his behavior.

Species Abilities

Seti is a member of an alien race with no clearly defined name. He refers to them as Librarians, based on the fact that he considers their primary purpose to gain, archive, and then spread knowledge. As a non-human, Seti's race is better than humanity in some aspects, and noticeably worse in others.

Physically, his musculature is significantly lower than that of a human. Despite his size (larger than most humans in terms of height, and the addition of a hindquarters) he's lighter than any human of his height would be. His strength is enough to lift twenty-five pounds at most with his arms, and if he put his lower half into it fully he might be able to reach a full fifty. While his four legs might suggest that he's good at running, Seti is anything but. He doesn't run much faster than a human can jog, and his stamina is poor, similar to an nonathletic human adult. His primary physical advantage is stability. With the balance of his tail and use of all four legs, Seti will not fall over. Even on unstable ground he can manage just fine, allowing him to climb unstable or sheer surfaces much like a mountain goat. The pads on his feet are calloused so he doesn't feel much pain, but they do provide good grip, and since he can move his toes in the same way he can move his fingers, he can easily get an excellent grip. His spine is also quite flexible, meaning his length isn't a hindrance.

Sense-wise, Librarian's are quite varied. Entirely lacking a sense of smell, their sense of hearing is similar to that of a human. Their sense of taste is dulled, picking up almost no bitter or sour flavors, while capable of fully enjoying sweet or savory flavors in a diminished capacity. The Librarian sense of sight is quite enhanced compared to that of a human. While the degree of clarity is only a bit better, Librarians are capable of a much broader sense of vision, viewing UV, infrared, and other wavelengths. Related to their lack of sense of smell, Librarians do not actually breathe, entirely lacking the need for oxygen.

Despite their strange eating mechanics, Librarian's are actually capable of eating almost anything they can fit inside their throat. Strong acids will chew through the substance, allowing nutrients to be collected from it in their stomachs. If he needed iron, for example, he could literally simply drop an iron object into his mouth and digest it as is. He can (and does) eat and enjoy food, but the ability to eat anything is an important survival tool.

The horns on a Librarian's head are used to send data to Home. There's no true benefit to the Librarian themselves, but their horns are carefully protected from damage as a result of this. Similarly, Librarians are capable of telepathy exclusively with other Librarians, although they're incapable of contacting other species in this way. This also plays into their extremely important rank hierarchy. A Librarian's rank is absolute, and if a higher ranked Librarian gives an instruction, it must be obeyed. This isn't a choice or a social matter, but instead a biological imperative, with the telepathy literally replacing the subservient Librarian's own conscious thoughts.

Socially, the Libriarians are severely hindered. While useful and valued for their willingness to spread knowledge freely, they lack any ability to display emotions on their face. They cannot frown or grimace, and they have no eyebrows to scrunch together. All emotional displays must be either verbal or done with body language. Their voices are within the human range of hearing, although slightly higher pitched than the average human.

Intellectually is where Librarian's shine. All Librarians are extremely intelligent, and gifted with perfect recall. They do not forget, and are not capable of forgetting short of serious brain damage. This is both a blessing and a curse, as it allows them to acquire knowledge, but does not allow them to forget details of particularly terribly truths or events.

The Librarians are gifted with useful (although not terribly powerful) telekinesis. The range is fairly short, only capable of manipulating objects within around a ten foot range from the center of their body. The lifting force of the telekinesis is similarly minor--they aren't going to be lifting any trucks. At best, they'll be lifting 50 pound bags of food with ease, or hundred pound weights with effort. More usefully, there's no clear limit on the number of points of manipulation. If a hundred grains of rice were tossed at him, they could effortlessly pluck each one from the air and deposit them in a pile. This ability works well with their extremely precise hands, allowing them to lift things with their mind while manipulating it with their hands.

While the majority of a Librarian's capabilities are public knowledge, one remains secretive: Librarians are not capable of death. While the exact mechanics remain secret, a Librarian who is killed will send themselves to Home using their horns immediately before death (or, in theory, in the milliseconds before their horns are removed from their body). Home then prepares a new body, and sends them out again, although depending on the circumstances they might not be sent back to their old post. Returning to earth would take three or four weeks on average, from time of death.

The most individual of all a Librarian's capabilities have to do with the shards. Their shards float on their own (without use of the Librarian's telepathy), but are deeply personal. Each Librarian has their own set of shards, capable of their own things. Some shards will enhance a Libararian's existing abilities, enhancing their telekinesis, their physical strength, etc. Others will grant Librarian's entirely new powers. The shards themselves take a while to attune themselves to their Librarian, but on occasion have been seen to grow (or even multiply) seemingly on their own. This is actually in response to orders from Home, releasing new powers for the Librarian to use in recognition of their hard work.

Powers

Seti has three sets of shards, although they are often mistaken for just two. Behind each foreleg is a flat oblong shard, over his back are two similar shards, and just behind his shoulders and neck is a single larger shard, which is slightly thicker then the others and marked by what appears to be a half of a pearl fused to the center.

Seti has not attuned to any of his shards, and is unclear on what they will do.

Biography

Seti was, effectively, only just born. It's difficult to map ages onto either him or his species, since he was effectively born fully grown. Librarians are an artificial species, created by a being that functions as both their home, their god, their creator, and their commander. Since that being has no name, Seti has taken to referring to it as Home, and refers to it on occasion. Seti was created for the sole purpose of being sent to Manta Carlos, gathering knowledge there, and sending that information back. He has interacted with other Librarian's only briefly while Home, but was born with a wide understanding on a number of topics. He understands Home, his species, and a variety of physical fundamentals. He knows how to calculate extremely complex math, and a variety of other concepts that sometimes translate to human equivalents and often do not. Only a few days after creation, Seti was dropped into a pod and shot off towards Manta Carlos, to land and gather knowledge as much as he could.

While many species are aware of Librarians (whose names for themselves are as numerous as there are stars in the sky), the exact nature or location of Home remains a secret.

Extra Info

Seti refuses to reveal his exact age, as it would reveal the distance of Home from Earth. Instead, they counts his birthday from the date of arrival on Manta Carlos, which they consider his 'Earth Birthday'.

Seti's name is not a coincidence. After some confusing first introductions, Seti eventually picked the name because his own purpose is similar to SETI's own. Similarly, his species name is based on a vague translation as 'person who makes knowledge available to everyone'. He doesn't actually work at the library.

Seti uses any and all pronouns, although he finds they to be awkward to use in English, the common language of the island.