Vogal

The Vogal are a birdlike people hailing from the planet Allvestas, roughly half way between the humans and Senate Space. They are a peaceful, exploring and curious people. They hold the award for the first intelligent, space-faring race to make contact with the humans, for better or for worse.

Physiology
The Vogal are, generally, feathered bird-people. Their feathers are usually if not always purple with hints of deep-green and dark-blue. In their 'resting pose' - ie knees bent, they stand at anywhere between 5.5ft to 6ft but when brought to their full, more unstable, height they stand at around 7ft. All Vogal share certain common traits such as black 'finger' talons, a golden/brass coloured beak, golden/brass coloured 'foot' talons and a lack of wings. Under UV light - which for them is part of the 'visible' spectrum they appear to have many more patterns and colours to them.

Male and females to one who can only see the visible spectrum appear to only have one key difference: female's have white around the eyes. However when, again, viewed under UV light it becomes evident that males are more intricate - more impressive, patterns on their skin.

Vogal live on average between 90 and 100 years, anything higher than 100 is not strange, but certainly considered living on 'borrowed' time.

Sub-Species
The Vogal have five sub-speices, one for each captial region - see the captial cities below. Each of the five is summed up quickly below.

Expelonian: Expelonians are generally tall with an above average amount of green and blue feathers. Their plumes are medium size but their beaks are small.

Festasian: Festasians are known for their small plumes, medium sized beaks and their intricate UV designs. In the visible spectrum they have an average amount of green and blue feathers.

Uiltan: Uiltans have the largest plumes of the five sub-species. They have long, narrow beaks and have a large amount of green and blue feathers around their face.

Muiltan: Muiltans, like their close relations the Uiltans have large, long beaks, slightly smaller plumes, a large amount of green and blue feathers around the body but lack very intricate UV designs.

Desbaxian: Desbaxians are known as the average sub-species. Their characteristics fall within 'average' amounts: Average beak and plume size, average UV designs and average amount of coloured feathers.

The Vogal Empire and Allvestas
The Vogal are natural explorers and ever since they figured out to break Allvestas' atmosphere they've been exploring the cosmos. Unlike certain other space explorers the Vogals as a whole didn't care much for resources as they had managed theirs well over the centuries. Rather they sought to colonise because they could. While some planets in the Empire are well built up many consist of only a single outpost or research station. The Empire however still spans wide on the basis of 'claimed' planets and the Vogal have a wealth of resources at their disposale. The colonies as a whole are controlled from centers on the homeworld, Allvestas but many of the larger city worlds have their own governments or other systems of governing.

While Allvestas is a rather large planet - covered mostly in forest and jungle, the Vogal have managed to delegate governing of the planet down to five bodies representing the five captial cities: Expelon, Festas, Uilta, Muilta and Desbaxt - the first of which exist in the forests or jungles, Desbaxt being the only one in the barren land, named after the Vogal word for barren, 'Desbax'. These five governments work together to ensure peace on Allvestas and peace within the Empire, often to great success.

Culture, Religion and Science
The Vogal have, for the longest time, had the one major culture. This is due to the fact that, like birds, they migrated seasonally in search of food and places to settle when they were still tribal and thus many tribes mingled and shared their ideas. There was however four major tribes at the time, in the four major reigions of the planet where now rest four of the five capital cities. The Vogal in this time - and even in modern times with the advent of radio, seen storytelling as one of the best forms of entertainment, be it through books, drama or a specific story teller.

The Vogal have long since abandoned most of their religious faith however there was a time in which they believed there were Gods. The Vogals saw the stars that shone in the night sky as Gods but, oddly enough, they did not see themselves as servants or children of these Gods. Rather they saw themselves as Gods themselves who had been cast out of the heavens and were no forced to redeem themselves by once again joining the Gods in heaven. Thus they've always had a religious fervour for leaving the planet's atmosphere and this sped up their scientific endevours by a huge deal. When the first planes were invetted they tried to take them beyond the atmosphere, which, obviously, led to many deaths. In fact the first words spoken by a Vogal in space were: "Now I have ascended and joined the Gods in all their glory, and on behalf of the Gods above me, and below me, I'd like to say that I shall - that we shall, return to this heaven, for though it has been long since we lost our flight, today we soar." Despite the fact that the majority of Vogal at this time were atheist.

Throughtout Vogal history science has been a huge part of Vogal existence. However their peaceful nature was both a hinderence and a boost to this goal. While true that the Vogal tribes and later Kingdoms and Nations held only small standing armies and the majority of the population could focus on more than just making food and fighting the lack of war too slowed down the creation of technology. This is clearly evident in much Vogal technology pre-space age. Their original rocket boosters for example are much less weaponizable than the human equivilant. However the Vogal still achieved space flight much earlier than would be expected on part to the above and also their goal for spacetravel from a religious point of view.

The Arrival of the Humans
Roughly 200 years before the present day a German funded exploration fleet intercepts an unknown radio signal while far away from Earth. At first they believe it to be a stranded human shuttle, but find it to be no standard distress signal. To prevent mass panic in the Human Empire for fear of a hostile alien race the human exploration fleet set off in the direction of the signal, expecting the worst. Eventually they reach the origin of the signal and encounter a Space faring race of equal capabilities, which the German crew begin to refer as Vogel thanks to their bird like characterisitcs. After many frantic weeks of translations the two races are finally able to communicate and they extend a hand of peace to one another. To prove this peace the Vogal's offer humans free right to come and live in the cities in their mostly forest and jungle homeworld, Allvestas.

At first the humans are welcomed anywhere on the planet. But an issue soon arrises: Humans are dying randomly and seemingly without cause. Turns out in the jungles and forests is produced a gas which the Vogals have evolved to withstand but kills humans without proper protection gear. The Human Colony Rights Foundation or HCRF urges the Vogals to cut down the forests and jungles and destroy the source of the gas, but they refuse, offering instead a counter-point: The Vogals will give control of Desbaxt to the humans and make it a human city within the vast Vogal empire. The humans accept, rename the city to Safeport and life is good for a number of years.

Struggle with the Humans and the Free Soarer Rebels
At the current present day we find that the human government in place in Safeport are oppresing the Vogals living in and around Safeport. Targetting them when Riot police are sent in, treating them unfairly in court and eliminating key individuals with subterfuge. The Vogal Governments and Empire are aware of this, but don't want to bring it up with the humans in fear of sparking a galatic war and the common human Safeporter is unaware to the oppresion going on as it's quiet but brutal. herefore it falls onto the 'Free Soarer' rebels - funded in secret by the Vogal Empire, to loosen the grip the humans have over Safeport and make them see the error of their ways without sparking a war. This group is lead by an ex-Vogal Demolitions Expert, Vanser Relferis.

Commander Relferis is a man who firmly believes in propaganda and the power of it and thus plans to use the human radio network against them in the rebellion. The general Free Soarer tactic is to reveal the faults of the Safeport government to the people of Safeport and hopefully cause unrest amongst the human population of the city. Therefore the defacto second in command of the rebels is the Officer for Propaganda and Enlightenment, Exious Nalferis.

So far the rebels have had some success in weakening the human control on the city but their efforts are countered at every turn by the Human government, who often force the rebels to take militant action and then labelling them as terrorists.

The Vogal Communication Network, LRDR and the First Senate Contact
With an Empire as widespread as that of the Vogal's it was imperative that they develop a robust communication network. Through much tireless research and development and many manhours spent in construction the Vogal have built the most advanced communication network in the known Galaxy. They can instantly send high quality sound and picture across huge distances. It is because of this they've become great diplomats and that radio and radio dramas have become popular.

One of the most reknown feats in the VCN is the communcations station set up in a Lagrange Point around Allvestas. The station - dubbed LRDR, is essentially a massive antena, transmitter and reciever bundled into one. The station is operated by 10 Vogal at a time - 5 technicans, 1 chef, 2 security officers, 1 janitor and a 'radio commander'. LRDR is where all communications leaving or entering Allvestas - military or civilian, go through as they're broadcast across the Empire. The radio commander therefore is in charge of ensuring the signals are going where they need to go.

Shifts on the station rotate every three Earth weeks and teams are brought up and relieved via shuttle. Recently however when a shuttle was docking with the station LRDR was shifted a bit, changing the direction some of the signals were being broadcast. The shift was minimal and save a few cases no radio communcations were interupted. However this event caused a popular Allvestian radio show to be broadcast straight into a crowded station within Senate space, eventually prompting the offical contact between the Vogal and the Senate. The Vogals, however, have withheld the information of a greater galatic civilisation from the Humans, sending instead members of the Free Soarer rebels to deal with the issue of first contact. The Vogal hope to use the rebels as scapegoats if/when the Humans find out they've been withholding information from them. However it is unlikely the Humans will accept this - or any other excuse.

Insults
The Vogal have quite the number of insults, but some are more common than others. Below are the most common Vogal insults, their origins and explanations. Many of them orginate post-Human First contact.
 * 'Testicle': Orginated shortly after the humans arrived, orginally calling a Vogal a 'Testicle' meant they were a human sympathisier, the logic being that they're 'already halfway to having human genitalia' now however it is just generally used in a derogatory manner.
 * 'Turkey': Their is a rare disease present in a small number of Vogal at birth that renders them medically retarded, unable to speak and unable to think properly. The derogratory way of refering to them is by calling them 'Turkies' thus the insult has also come into common use when calling someone stupid.
 * "Go stick your beak in the Mud": One of the Vogal insults that is an actual phrase no one is quite sure when it origanted, but is present in some older Vogal texts. The phrase references certain birds' tendancy to stick their beaks in the mud to catch worms, a practice seen as uncultured by Vogal.
 * 'Colibri': Referencing the human bird of the same name the term orginated after several of the creatures were introduced to Allvestas, only die to within four hours. The insult is used when one wants to call another weak, powerless or cowardly.
 * 'Ostrich': When the humans showed the Vogal the Earth ostrich they were dumbfounded that a bird that could not fly could survive for so long. When word reached the home world about such a creature the term quickly grew into a way of calling someone ridiculous or silly, one of the least offensive insults the Vogal have.