Bandar (non-humanoid species)

The bandar are a highly advanced non-humanoid civilisation native to the heavy gravity world, Bantmitual. Though gregarious amongst their own kind and having advanced technological abilities, few bandar leave their world of birth, and no bandar has ever left their home system. They give their name to the Bandar Gulf, a region of empty space some forty light years across, in which Bantmitual's sun is the only star.

Bandar have four short, very thick legs to cope with the immense gravity, and long, low-slung thorax. Their shovel-like head or forebody extends from the top of the thorax, curving upward in an S shape, ending in a horny rim protecting four eyes, two facing forward and one at each tip, giving a broad degree of vision. The mouth is at the base of the forebody where it connects to the thorax, and has hand-like flexible mouth parts, enabling them to easily reach the ground and raise food to their mouths, or more importantly in modern times, to use tools.

The thorax is covered in a tough leathery hide on top to protect the body from weather and falling objects, essential in a high-gravity environment. In ancient ancestors the main body had a thick dark hide with three rows of tough or spikey ridges. Modern bandar have a great deal of racial diversity, their hide colour ranging from a pale dun colour through red to brown, grey and black. In modern bandar the dorsal ridges are reduced to stripes or faint discoloration, though some have vestigial thick knobbly skin.

Vestigial features like horns, stripes and spikes were once a focus for racial bigotry amongst Bandar, but this has largely been relegated to history.

Their brain stem is at the front of the thorax, closer to their nose and mouth than the eyes, giving bandar an acute sense of taste and smell. Their main circulatory system is confined to the thorax, with main blood vessels running horizontally to avoid strain on the heart.

Their relatively high pressure means bandar cope badly with micro-gravity. Early attempts at space flight, or even ascension by space elevator, caused internal haemorrhage, brain damage and death. Along with their risk-averse nature, this was the main early limiter on bandar expansion into space.

In later eras bandar developed medical interventions to allow themselves to survive in space, but this was a permanent change requiring further risky surgical intervention to reverse. Bandar settled other worlds and habitats in the Bandar system, but were unable to return to the home planet.

Modern bandar have developed the ability to modify their internal and external biology by force of will, though this takes time. This has allowed them to overcome biological limitations, but radical alterations to the body are considered gauche, and mainly seen in the young.

Bandar are hermaphroditic, with a breeding season that occurs three times every solar year. There is little sexual dimorphism between those in a male and female cycle, although males tend to be more aggressive with a thicker hide and more pronounced skin mottling, whereas females are smaller with a smoother skin. Gender fluctuates with age and social circumstances, though bandar tend to be female in youth, progress to male as young adults, and return to male when mature, and sometimes change to female late in life. The vagaries of gender was the subject of a whole genre of lyric poetry in the pre-technological age.

In nature, bandar gender changes are triggered by social dynamics and pheromone-like scent markers. For example in a tribe with a number of hunter-males, the nest-makers will generally gain females to balance the population. In modern society however, gender is a matter of personal choice and the dynamic between personal relationships. Bandar developed drugs to control gender and fertility many thousands of years ago, but modern bandar have an ingeneered ability to change gender at will, though this takes some time. In the past bandar experimented with changing their race and appearance at will, though the process took some months. Though some still do this, in modern society it is considered gauche.

In ancient times some bandar societies developed the ability to force captured prisoners into a docile, desexualised form, using food denial, drugs and psychological abuse. This essentially created an enslaved servant class. It is considered the most shameful part of bandar history.

Bandar mate via external sexual reproduction. Mating pairs have extended physical stimulation during courtship and mating, but partners rarely touch each other's reproductive organs during intercourse. Traditionally, males would first build a nest-hole in damp earth. Males and females touch each other to initiate mating, rubbing their mouths and forebodies together whilst the female lays usually one egg into the nest hole. The pair then change positions and continue stimulation until the male has fertilised the egg. The male, female and nest family take turns to care for the egg until the nestling hatches, after which they continue to be nurtured by the group. Nest sites were the start of civilisation, since as they evolved intelligence, bandar pairs built shelters around their nests, developing into villages made of linked huts.

Modern bandar mating is as complex and varied as can be expected in any advanced civilisation.