History:
The Xellnen Empire has been long argued point over the actual classification. Many consider then to be an artificial race, while others argue that because they were not genetically manipulated that they are a natural species.
The Xellnens are a sub-species of humans. The change in evolution was brought about by a long dead race which transplanted the one celled human ansestors to an entirely water planet. Over millions of years, the Xellnens evolved into a humaniod race of aquatics.
Xellnens are almost identical to humans with a few exceptions. They posess slightly enlarged lungs that are naturally stronger, which allows them to "breathe" water. For a strange reason, all Xellnens are Aesthetically pleasing (it is believed there may have been some involvment by the scientists in this part, however it is not know for sure). Even though they are aquatic, by some strange miricle, they didn't develop webbed hands or feet. It is thought that maybe they did, but manipulating things with their fingers caused the webbing the de-evolve. Xellnens also rarely reach six feet tall. Due to the Xellnen homeworld (Sigma Alpha) being a moon of a solid planet (Demondis) with a mass three times that of jupiter, the gravity of Sigma Alpha was increase substantially, making Xellnens several times the strength of humans. Xellnens are also Psychic, probably one of their most proment features. Humans are Psychic, but due to the Xellnen's disadvantage of not being intended as aquatic, the powers developed much more rapidly, and they're stronger. The attribute of no natural death is also a result of being an experiment. The long life allowed the scientists to experiment and contrast generations better.
If Xellnens did fight amongst eachother, it was only briefly. The race responcible for their translocation periodiacally dropped in other races to see how well the Xellnen's Farred. Due to all this fighting, The Xellnen people became unified early. They also developed a fierce warrior instinct.
What is enevitable is that the Xellnen's wouldn't remain naive for long. Once glass deposites were located, the Xellnens we're capable of constructing crude telescopes, which allowed them to discover the race of scientists. On a routine mission to observe their creation, a small group of scientists we're ambushed and their ship hijacked. The aleins may have been much more technologically advanced, but they didn't want to risk an open confrontaion with a Pyschic Warrior race of there own creation. They knew the Xellnens could out strategize them and even though all they had were Thermonuclear weapons, that be enough. So they just left the Xellnens alone. Within two years of examining the stolen craft, The Xellnens had modernized from earth tech of the late twentieth century to advanced technology of up to One thousand years later.
Seeking the secrets of FTL drives, the Xellnens prepared two legions of they're finest troops to infilatrate and capture one of the vessels in orbit. Early that morning, one hundred shuttles took off and began a run on the nearest vessel. The shuttles latched on and ripped open the hull, spewing troops into the corridors. Once inside, the commander marched to the bridge and demanded that they concede control of the ship to the Xellnens. The Captain agreed. Unfortunatly, several members onboard, not hearing the order from the captian, tried to liberate the ship and attacked a rear flank. Fearing treachery, the scared Xellnen commander ordered the Imprisonment or extermination of all onboard. Out of the two thousand crewman onboard, only forty three were captured. Once in control, they attempted to land the ship under water.
All would have been fine, except that a neighboring vessel attempted to fire on the surface in retalliation. The Xellnen Missile Defenses Immediatly opened fire, showering the nearby space with thousands of nuclear missiles. Now the damage had gone to far, the crisis escalated into war. The Xellens and Scientists went back and forth, destroying and being destroyed. Eventually, the Xellnens began to overpower the weak scientists. In a last ditch effort to win, the scientists irratiated the planet. Only Three ships, a total of thirty thousand people, made it out in time. Now Furious with rage, the Xellnen people ferociously hunted the scientist race down until only their DNA record in the Xellnen library, buried under miles of toxic radiation, was left.
With no homeworld left the Xellnens left and became nomadic wanders. They ventured far throught their galaxcy (The Ujitoan). Every race they encountered drove them away, either in fear or hatred. The Xellnens long life wasn't enough. Xellnens are very slow to reproduce, a Xellnen Female only carries four eggs! Plus Xellnens require water in order to fertilize. Without a planet to get fresh water from, the Xellnens slowly began to lose population. Eventually the fleet fell from three crusiers to two. The one was scraped and it's parts sold. Races slowly began to pick on them. One instance an alein team boarded a crusier and tried to kidnapp several females. This was too much. The Xellnens retaliated by flooding a planet with pure antimatter, completely annihalating it. This caused a massive upheaval, and the whole galaxy voted to banish them from the Galaxy. Thus the Xellnens were thrown through Warp Gate.
The two cruisers wandered slipspace until at last they emerged in the Milky Way Galaxy. Unfortunatly the people of the Milky Way were much more hostile. The Xellnens were ruthlessly hunted for sport. The two Cruisers were far too large to escape quickly and thus were easy targets. The Xellnen refugees finally abadoned their cruisers and took shelter in an asteriod belt in the Delta Quadrant.
After about four decades of hiding, the remaing two hundred and fifty Xellnens disembarked their asteroid on a modified cruiser. They decided to become miners and attempt to buy an ocean planet. Despite the bitter welcome they recieved intially, they slowly become tolerated. Their new cruiser was much smaller than the last an thus farred in battle alot better. After about two years of fighting, the other races reliezed the new ship badly outmatched their own, and thus the Xellnens were finally fully tolerated.
The advanced tech that the Xellnens had access put them worlds ahead af their competition. Unfortunately, all the planets suitable for them were under the control of a race known as the Betsari. The Betsari utterly hated the Xellnens for humiliating them several times in combat. Thus, everytime they'de try to buy a planet, the Betsari would raise the price. Yet the Xellnens still presisted. Eventually their population became enough that they were able to build another ship and spread their population evenly. This greatly increased their productivity. Certain the Xellnens would be able to meet the high prices, the Betsari began colonizing and selling all the water planets.
The Xellnens were now heartbroken. Without a chance of gaining a water planet they would be condenmed to living a petty miners, workers for inferior Empires. This was far to much for the Xellnens to handle. They immediatly demanded that the Betsari give them a water planet or they would declare war. Within a large betsari fleet arrived to try to convince te Xellnens to back down. However this did not scare them. The crews could still here the Xellnens laughing as the torpedoes ripped their hulls open. The Xellnens were now hellbent on siezing a water planet by force. The Betsaru tried to stop the two cruiser, but each time found their technology too inferior to even down thier shields.
The Xellnens got within five systems of a water planet when a massive force, comprised of vessels from seven empires, stood in the way. Seeing that the odds were pitted utterly against them, the two cruisers escaped. Now the Xellnens were determined not only to take a planet, but also to take revenge on the Betsari for their harsh treatment.
The Xellnens began to prepare their four hundred some odd people for a possible unwinnable war when another oppertunity presented itself. A forward observer detected a sizeable humanoid settlement in the system. Upon further telepathic examination, they discovered that the humans were exiles from earth. Even better was that they were developing psionics. A thought struck the Xellnens. The settlement was approximately twenty times that of there own. If they could modify their DNA so they were Xellnens, they could easily persuade them to join them. With a larger force, they could easily take the Betsari and their allies. The Xellnens landed and made their preposal. After consideration, the exiles agreed. The Xellnens gave them the blueprints for their cruisers and instructions to build thrity one of them. The Xellnens attempted to reenginneer the humans DNA, but reliezed they didn't have sufficent knowledge on protogenetics to be 100% certain of success. Thus they prepared to return to the Ujitoan Galaxy and access their old library, which contained all the knowledge of the scientists race which had created them. So the Xellnens created a warpgate and jumped towards the Ujitoan.
The Xellnens emerged four months later to find their home galaxy shattered by war. Once the Xellnens were detected, the enemies began to persue, determined to enforce the banishment placed so long ago. However, the aeons of war had caused technological development to stagger. Thus the Xellnens had no trouble outrunning their persusers. Once they reached Sigma Alpha they found it still severly irradiated. They prepared a team to dive in and retreive the data. While the divers made their way down the Xellnens detected life on the planet the moon home orbited. Upon examination they found herds of wild demond cats, calling to be taken along. The remaining races had treated them harshly as sport game. Thinking far back, the Xellnens finally remembered the demond cats. They had once been loyal companions to their people. So they loaded about three hundred kittens and promised that they would return to save the rest. As soon as the ships returned to orbit they detected an enemy fleet jumping in. They contacted the ground team and found that they had only just accessed the databanks and it would take four hours to download it all. With only about half an hour until they were intercepted they instructed the ground team to only pull data on Protogenetics and genetic enginneering. After about twenty long minutes the grund team finally began to surface. The cruisers quickly pulled them in and nailed their wormtunnel drives. Narrowly escaping a salvo from the incoming attack force. They high-tailed it all the way to the warp gate. This time they were able to insert the precise coordinates of the other gate and go through, making the trip only five minutes. When they returned, they found that the humans had one ship to finish.
The Xellnens began the five year genetic alteration process and began to settle the demond kittens on the planet. They them began to manipulate the cats DNA so that thier litters would produce pigmy demonds, Demond cats the size of a normal housecat. For the five years the Xellnens trained the human exiles on how to control the vast new psychic powers they were beginning to gain.
Five years later the new Xellnen fleet disembarked from the planet. They charged headlong into the Betsari empire, crushing all in there way. The Betsari fell in a matter of weeks. Once word of this got out, all the other races immedaitly backed down.
The Xellnens had finally crushed the Betsari. Unfortunatly they only aquired two water planets, and both in the same system. Thus the Xellnens settled down on the planets. They then created a drone like vessels to border their system. The Xellnens claimed thier system, and a radius of five systems as a buffer zone. They deployed their drone ships to mark their territory and began working their prized territory.
