[Space] [Racial Templates] Really Alien Aliens

[SydneyFreedberg]

Here be... well, not dragons, but some really weird things for your game. These alien races are written with a specific background in mind (it emerges through the "description" text) but should fit in any space-operatic background and even some relatively realistic ones. I've avoided magic and psychic powers for that reason. I'd love suggestions on how to improve these designs!

I've played around making aliens in GURPS since the original Aliens book came out, and one thing I've always tried to do -- and which GURPS 4e is especially good for -- is have them make biological and evolutionary sense in a genuinely alien way. Have I succeeded? How can I do better? I'd love feedback on that too.

I'll be posting more as I go, but first up are the first species to achieve Faster-Than-Light travel (in my setting; in another setting, they might have simply carved out a local empire and first-contacted a bunch of pre-FTL races): the Trinocs.

Details are in spoiler tags to prevent Wall Of Text.

Trinocs
Skittish but brilliant, they once conquered the galaxy in a fit of panic.

Description:

Spoiler:  

A prey species on their home planet, the Trinocs invented the first faster-than-light drive in galactic history — and then, terrified to discover a galaxy full of meat-eaters, tried to preemptively conquer as much of it as possible. The Trinoc Empire maintained a near-monopoly on FTL for centuries but eventually crumbled as its subject races reverse-engineered the secret. Today, Trinocs are widely scattered in small communities across the galaxy, sometimes revered and sometimes resented for their imperial past.
Trinocs are spindly centauroid creatures, about five feet tall and five feet long, with four thin legs, two arms, and a triangular head with an eye on each side, giving them 360-degree vision to watch for predators. They evolved as grazing herbivores similar to Earth gazelles or deer, living in small herds of closely related individuals and hunted by much more powerful animals they could escape only through headlong flight.
Once caught, a Trinoc had no chance of personal survival — but, if it delayed the predators, it could buy the rest of its herd-family time to escape. As a result, they evolved a kind of species-wide split personality: normally nervous and quick to flee, they became suicidal berserkers once injured.
Further, as Trinocs evolved intelligence — largely under pressure from clever predators — they evolved a third psychological mode, one of hyperfocused attention to a particular problem.
One of the first “technologies” Trinocs developed was the brewing of plant-based potions to control their sudden shifts from coward to berserker to savant. Trinoc rulers learned how to enforce an artificial calm upon themselves while keeping most of their populations passive and drugging others into kamikaze shock troops. As their technology improved, the Trinocs exterminated most of their predators — with disastrous ecological consequences — and developed a global government called the Narcotic Council. The Council ruled by systematically drugging the population, first through the water supply and later through towering pheromone factories that pumped the requisite chemicals into the atmosphere.
But with typical Trinoc paranoia, the Narcotic Council feared their planet would be destroyed by a solar flare or rogue asteroid, so they invested massively in space flight — leading to the invention of FTL. Elements of the Trinoc space fleet used the new technology to escape the Council’s control, fleeing to new planets with undrugged air and water, and ultimately returned to liberate their home world.
But the new Trinoc government, the Admiralty, also discovered alien worlds where predatory animals had evolved intelligence and civilization— a terrifying prospect. The initial response was to commit genocide from orbit. As the Admiralty encountered more carnivore and omnivore civilizations, however, it decided that mass extermination was wasteful and that it should try to subjugate alien species instead. Since Trinocs feared to land ground forces on hostile planets, they preferred to rule from orbit, letting client races run their own worlds — and even colonize new ones — as long as all space travel and interplanetary trade remained under Trinoc control.
In the long run, of course, it was impossible to keep faster-than-light technology a secret forever. Some species were too clever and persistent, and some local Trinoc governors were too lenient or corrupt. What’s more, the Empire became increasingly reliant on its thrall species as ground soldiers, technicians, and even bureaucrats, making the leakage of technology all the greater.
Eventually, enough subject races built FTL spaceships and rebelled that the Trinoc Empire collapsed. Some former vassals massacred their overthrown overlords, while others enslaved them for their scientific talents. The Trinocs who survived formed insular communities that kept their heads down and made themselves useful to more powerful neighbors.
Today, the Trinocs are dispersed widely across the galaxy they once ruled. Most live in small enclaves on other races’ worlds, acting as insular castes of scientists and technicians, sometimes respected but all too often as second-class citizens. Others spend their entire lives aboard starships, living as merchant clans. A few have fled to distant worlds to live on their own, far from predators. And there are always rumors of Trinoc factions plotting to somehow resurrect their long-lost empire, although this is often just a pretext for other races to oppress them. Indeed, many Trinocs believe their own experience shows that imperialism is ultimately bad for everyone, even the overlords.
Living in fear of other species, many Trinoc communities have returned to the ancient techniques of the Narcotic Council, believing that survival requires drugging their populations into compliance. But most Trinocs despise this kind of pharmaceutical tyranny and jealously guard their mental self-determination. The motto of this majority : “Neither masters nor slaves, but finally free.”

[EDIT: I've extensively revised the racial template to reflect some very helpful feedback from this thread -- click here for the final version of the Trinocs.]

Racial Template: Trinoc (18 points)

Spoiler:  

Attribute Modifiers:
ST -2 [-20]
ST+3 (only when berserk, -40%) [18]
IQ 12 [40]
HT -1 [-10]

Secondary Characteristic Modifiers:
Basic Move +2 [+10]
Hit Points -1 [-2]

Advantages:
360 vision [+25]
Acute Taste & Smell x3 [6]
Extra Legs: 4-legged [+5]
Single-Minded [+5]
Versatile [+5]

Disadvantages:
Berserk (9) [-15]
Chummy [-5]
Cowardice (9) [-15]
Fearfulness 4 [-8]
Intolerance: meat-eaters [-5]
No depth perception [-15]
Reputation: former galactic overlords (-2 with almost everyone; +3 with species that did well under the Trinoc Empire, a large group) [0]
Quirk: Personality Change (coward to berserker to single-minded savant) [-1]


Common but optional traits:
These traits are NOT part of the racial template but are included as suggestions for individual characters
Gadgeteer [+25 or +50 points]
Talent: Artificer [+10/level] or Mathematical [+10/level]
Phobia: meat-eaters [-15]
Reprogrammable (for ordinary Trinocs living under a Narcotic Council) [-10] or Code of Honor: oppose all forms of brainwashing & mind control (for Trinocs living free of a Narcotic Council) [-5]
Social stigma: Second-class citizen [-5] or Minority [-10] or Valuable Property (-10) or Subjugated (-20)
“The Trinoc Empire should be restored” or “No species should ever have dominion over another”: either can be anything from a Quirk [-1] to Fanaticism [-15]