Beast Tribes

From Axalon RPG

Physiology

Tribal technorganics are cyborgs in the traditional sense. They are living breathing animals (and plants? fungi?) with Transformer nanites and mechanisms woven throughout their bodies.

A spark, nanites, and a small amount of protomatter is carefully inserted into the organism at an embryonic stage. The organic and cybernetic organisms then develop in tandem. Technically speaking, the resulting being is actually two organisms, living in close symbiosis. The development sequence is very delicate, and the cybernetics must be carefully programmed to work with the organic species' growth. Trying to replace an organ with cybernetics too early or too late can easily kill both embryo and spark. Therefore, almost every growth facility, or Nest, is specialized to handle only a certain range of species.

At birth, cybernetics still have little more than a toehold in many systems. As the beast-bot grows, extensive modifications and enhancements take place, often in spurts. It is not until adolescence that a bot is capable of transforming to robot mode, and even then it can be painful and awkward for the first several years. First Transformation is an important ritual rite of passage in most tribes.

Bodily Systems

• Nervous - Numerous tiny subprocessors handle base robotic functions, organic brain handles base organic functions and basic behavior and organic senses. A central processor sits over that to provide higher thought processes. Sensory functions are sometimes cybernetically enhanced. The details of neural architecture vary greatly by species, tribe and individual. Sometimes the brain and CPU are entirely seperate entities, sometimes they are melded together at a cellular/nanite level.

• Skeletal - Vertebrate skeletons are replaced entirely by Cybertronian steel alloy. Robotic servos for transformation and robot mode movement grow out of these metallic bones. Invertibrates typically have a second layer of metal over or under their outer shell, and servos develop with the muscular system instead.

• Muscular - Cybernetically enhanced organic muscle for the most part, supplemented by motor servos for transformation and robot mode movements that no muscle can by modified or built to to create.

• Circulatory - Tube networks extensively expanded and modified to handle the twists of transformation, passing through robotic components, and providing more or less blood to certain parts in robot mode. Heart may be cyber-enhanced or completely replaced by a mechanical pump if the organic heart cannot deliver enough pressure or regulate properly, but in about 90% of bots the heart is kept completely organic-- basically if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Mechfluid has its own seperate circulatory system. In early versions, mechfluid can be toxic to the organic parts if it leaks. Later revisions found a non-toxic formulation, and the most advanced beast-bots actually have a single boodstream that supplies both halves, though there is still a seperate robotic lubrication system.

• Reproductive - (Hey, it'll come up sooner or later) Two completely seperate systems of organic reproduction and spark reproduction. There is a unified interface option and a dual interface one (the two are known by many slang terms). Unified interface means the robotic spark intercourse is routed through the organic sex organs. Dual interface gives you a robot sex organ and an organic one. This may sound fun, but it can be physically awkward and psychologically confusing in practice. One can easily have one of them turned on and the other turned off at the same time. Unified interface is easier to deal with, but has the drawback that one can only mate with a bot of a compatable species. Most tribal elders endorse, with varying degrees of strictness, unified interface for their tribesman, however dual interface mating between leaders of different tribes is common.

More random info from an edited IM log

RibotronPrime: Forget who i was discussing with.. it involved human-maximal hybrids
RibotronPrime: Something like the Maximals are unable to create new bodies on their own, and have to implant sparks into humans or animals, along with cybernetic enhancements.

RibotronPrime: think i was big on a tribalist subfaction, Maximals who stayed true to their origins and only used beasts for their bodies, that would form an uneasy alliance with the vehicons... that idea later morphed into one for early and/or isolated, very feral Predacons that lived in villages centered around nests where they breed and merge with the tribe's chosen animal (spider, lizard, cats, dogs, etc)

Voodoo Overlord: So would it almost be akin to having a tribal leader and a pack/herd/whatever of 'drones', except in this case they're distinct individuals?
RibotronPrime: I was modeling it after human hunter-gatherer cultures, really.

Voodoo Overlord: Yeah, I figured that based on the tribal aspect. I was just thinking about the dynamic it'd create. So what do they hunt? Each other, or is that not allowed?
RibotronPrime: Hmm.. some of them hunt each other, yes. Hunting non-TFs is preferred by many tribes. Some of them will hunt other TFs if there's no other food. Some tribes, and some individuals actually prefer to hunt TFs, for the challenge.

Voodoo Overlord: Well, I can see how that would definitely be hard to work into an RPG.
RibotronPrime: yeah its a little closer to a game of nations thing
RibotronPrime: or a story focused on one character (young warrior, outsider, exiled tribesman, something like that) with the various warring tribes as a backdrop
RibotronPrime: or a uniting common threat deal

Voodoo Overlord: Yeah! Zzzackly. I think I like the first one better, actually.
Voodoo Overlord: one story with the wars serving as a backdrop.

RibotronPrime: Thing is, it could also be interesting to roleplay. The beasts play a much heavier role in the personality. Playing up an aspect of Beast Wars that we tend to ignore.

Voodoo Overlord: Yes, very true.
Voodoo Overlord: Oh, alright. I saw that, I just saw the two things after that as being separate. It sounds to me like the idea is taking the basic premise of Beast Machines and expanding it. Except the Maximals maybe forget the threat the Vehicons represent.

RibotronPrime: you mean the predacons represent? In any case, yeah its a situation where a single faction gets isolated, or both factions but the distinction is buried, and due to the needs of survival they center around their specialized breeding facilities, and seperate cultural identities grow from there.

RibotronPrime: Maybe it's all Maximals, but the ones who form the spider tribe become just as treacherous as Tarantulas and Blackarachnia over time, and their clan culture develops accordingly

RibotronPrime: Also think it could incorporate the thing about being stuck in beast mode for a time. In this case though its a physiological limit. The robotic and organic parts need to grow into each other enough to make it possible to transform without ripping oneself apart. Many tribes would consider transforming a rite of passage.
Voodoo Overlord: That's actually way better than what they did in the original BM.
RibotronPrime: Heh, well nearly anything would be