Skrell Biology

Anatomy

Skrell are humanoids with an average height ranging from 170 to 190 centimeters tall, Their feet and hands are webbed to support locomotion in water. Their respiratory system is a complex combination of vestigial cutaneous breathing, lungs, and gills placed at the back of the neck and protected by headtails. Their bones are made of cartilage, and as a result, far more flexible than human ones, making them less likely to break under shock but also weaker. Their blood is a light blue colour and carries hemocyanin rather than hemoglobin. Life expectancy ranges around 200 years on average.

The skrellian life cycle starts as a tadpole, hatching from eggs after the female’s eggs are fertilized by the male. During the next six to nine months, said tadpole will grow and develop its adult limbs, along with gills and headtails during the later stages of development. During this phase, the Skrell is forced to live underwater, and is very vulnerable: illness, environmental changes, and even the most minor wound will brutally disturb the tadpoles growth. Out of the fifty spawn generally birthed at the same time, it is rare that more than five of them survive to infancy. The transition to their next stage of growth is progressive. The Skrell is around 30 centimetres long at this point and doubles in size over the next month. Underwater, the gills start functioning to compensate for a now insufficient cutaneous respiration system, and their now-developed lungs allow them to take their first steps on land. Once past the tadpole stage, Skrell growth steadily plateaus. The tail only disappears fully after they are twelve years old, and Skrell reach proper adulthood after twenty years, with no further radical change to their physiology.

A Skrell’s skin can have a large variety of colours, ranging from dark blues and vivid reds to bright greens and jet black, with shades of various shapes across the body. It is slightly translucent in areas, especially the headtails, and exudes a thin layer of slime making the Skrell appear somewhat gelatinous at first sight. As a vestigial trait from defense mechanisms of primitive Skrell, their slime has minor hallucinogenic properties. This slime has the added benefit of protecting the sensitive skin of a Skrell, preventing minor injury and irritation from chemical and gaseous substances out of the water. However, this skin can still become itchy and even crack in dryer atmospheres, leading to many Skrell on human vessels self-moisturizing by pouring water on themselves, taking regular showers, or swimming in available pools. Despite being insufficient to fully supply the Skrell in oxygen, their skin still retains its respiration capabilities: should one of the lungs fail, the Skrell can normally function, albeit with some difficulty. While they are used to heavy pressures like on their homeworld, the fragile organ that is their skin makes them extremely vulnerable to lower ones; in tolerable amounts, it will only lead to large hematomas while lower pressures will inevitably lead to external and internal haemorrhages and air embolism, causing far more damage faster than a human would suffer. It also allows chemicals to travel easily through the skin, making Skrell somewhat vulnerable to cutaneous contact with chemicals; many drugs developed in skrellian culture are used this way. The Skrell's sense of touch is overall more sensitive than a humans, but also more crude, lacking in detail. A common misconception held by humans is that a Skrell's skin can scar. This is, in fact, incorrect, as they breathe through it. Skrell will simply re-generate their skin instead when necessary.

Skrellian heads are comparatively simpler than human ones. In place of a nose are simple slits, lips are almost nonexistent and while it has as many facial muscles, most of them are located in the lower area, significantly decreasing the Skrell’s ability for facial expressions. Skrellian ears also lack an auricle, its function being taken over by a complex inner canal. Their eyes are far larger than human's, generally occupying half their face and entirely black when observed from the outside: Their size and their position, being further apart than on human faces, gives the Skrell a broader field of view. They also allow the Skrell to see better underwater and in the dark, although they are very sensitive to bright lights and fast changes in luminosity. Skrell see colours more vividly, with blue being a predominant one and ultraviolets being partially visible. In addition to the eyelids, the eyes are also protected by a nictitating membrane, most often seen when the Skrell is underwater. Skrellian hearing is, in most regards, far superior to humans. Their hearing range is close to a dog's, and while they have more difficulties identifying the location of a sound, they do not suffer from a decrease in ability under water. While their sense of taste is very delicate, allowing them to detect potential dangerous substances in their food, their sense of smell is underdeveloped, both lacking in sensitivity and scent distinction. Their vocal cords, accompanied by internal vocal sacs, give them a very large range of pitch, the upper levels being inaudible to humans.

The aforementioned headtails vary in size, based on caste. A thinner skin allows the veins to be seen, much like hands. Their biological purpose is to protect the gills from external aggression, such as dust and microbes when outside of water. The sterile, dark and humid area quickly led Skrell to store their fertilised eggs between the neck and the headtails, the slime preventing them from falling off except in case of violent movements. Later in their history, Skrell started decorating their headtails with jewellery and various decorations, despite this practice sometimes leading to infections near the gills.

These headtails are mostly composed of fatty and muscular tissue, with many nerve-endings which make them somewhat sensitive parts. This muscle control does not include fine control, though one can generally raise, position, and often wiggle their tentacles. These are also used for emotional displays and gesturing, albeit not frequently.

The Skrell's physical appearance leads to the more xenophobic elements in human societies calling them frogs, salamanders, squidheads, and other less pleasing names, although the Skrell pay little attention to these remarks born of ignorance and false assumptions.

Diet

The Skrell are vegetarian, as indicated by their large, molar-like teeth. Not only are they unable to absorb animal protein, but doing so is likely to get them sick and nauseous, with food poisoning being possible if meat is ingested in too large quantities. Skrellian traditional foods are heavily based on the fungi-like organisms found on Qerr'balak, with prepared food being the average meal for the common populace.

Despite an extremely low resistance to alcohol, Skrell have otherwise developed a high tolerance to a large amount of chemical substances, a result of their homeworld's flora being generally poisonous as a defence mechanism. Consequently, skrellian food, and many of their medicines and herbal remedies are generally too harmful for human consumption.

Psionics

Those known as "psionics", "psions", or "mentalists" possess the ability to interact with an exotic field of mechanical influence, akin to gravity, inertia, or electrical magnetism. This field, known primarily as "Investiture" by Skrell, appears to possess poorly-understood interactions with the other primary mechanisms of the universe, and is rendered torpid in the presence of living entities or complex mechanical systems, creating gravity-like wells of accumulation and competing influence throughout space, both individually and in the case of larger collections of machines or organisms.

The ability to perceive this field, and thus basic awareness of it, is fairly common throughout the universe- some simple lifeforms have been observed producing crude organelles that use field density to detect prey or flee from far-away predators, and it has long been theorized that the secondary "Navigation brain" of Stellae Xenocarpio uses the field as a geolocational tool with which to navigate three-dimensional space in a vacuum.

For reasons unknown even to the most experienced and well-studied skrellian Physicians, Biologists, Historians and Paleontologists, Skrell are able to both perceive and interact with this exotic field through their mind, to varying degrees of control and usefulness which depends both on the individual in question and on their caste, while also allowing them to sense those who share a degree of control with this field and those who do not.

Despite their advanced technologies, Psionics are still an not entirely understood phenomena even for Skrell. In spite of this, research and development laboratories all over the skrellian territory work tirelessly to develop new technologies which incorporate psionic potential into technology, with Kale’Kale Manufactures making some of the most important breakthroughs recently. Although mostly crude and unrefined, psionic-based technology sees an increasing presence in the core skrellian territories, and some speculate as to a possible new industrial revolution by merging their current manufacturing systems with psionic technology.