The Qu (All Tomorrows)

Qu

The Qu are a fictional, sapient race of extraterrestrial insectoid beings who act as the main antagonists of the speculative evolution book All Tomorrows, written by Nemo Ramjet. Due to their advanced technology, they perceived themselves as the rightful masters of the universe and sought to remake it in their own image by warping other sapient species they considered unworthy into freakish, bizarre beasts wherever they went.

They are responsible for mutating humanity beyond any recognition and cruelly enslaving them before departing, only to eventually be defeated and subjugated by the very race they experimented on.

Description

The Qu are insectoid creatures with four wings, stalked eyes, pincer-like jaws, and a long prehensile tail that allows them to manipulate their appliances. They are also said to have aquatic larvae.

The Qu

History

Little is known about the species' past or evolutionary ancestry, but it was well known across the galaxy that they were intergalactic, highly-advanced conquerors who sought to create a great empire under the perception they were the only rightful rulers of the universe and other species were not worthy of sapience. They also possessed such developed technology in genetic engineering, they constantly kept self-modifying and transformed other sentient beings into devolved monstrosities they enslaved.

In their first contact with mankind, the Qu triumphed in their invasion, colonized every habitable world and transformed humans into a multitude of strange forms as a display of their power. They dominated the galaxy for forty million years, then moved on to follow their dogma of tailoring ecosystems as they saw fit. After about five-hundred million years, the asteromorphs along with other extragalactic species re-discovered the Qu and successfully defeated them, putting a definite end to their monstrous campaign. While it isn't specified if the Qu were defeated and driven to extinction or simply subjugated, the author makes it clear their reign of terror has finally ended for good.

Source: villains.fandom.com

The Star People

Star Person (All Tomorrows)

The Star People are a posthuman species that lived in a united solar system. They are the hybrid descendants of the Martians and the people of Earth.

Biology

The Star People were genetically engineered humans with bigger brains and heightened talents, in every way superior to the humans of Earth and the Martians.

Star people from All Tomorrows by C.M. Kosemen         

History

Aftermath of the civil war

After the civil war between Earth and Mars, the humans of both planets agreed that to overcome their differences, they had to become one species again. So they decided to create a new human subspecies which was able to adapt to the environment not only of Earth and Mars, but also of other, newly terraformed planets. They were also modified to have a bigger brain and heightened talents than their predecessors.

The people of both planets were given the choice between sterilization or giving birth to the new human subspecies. In the aftermath of the civil war, there were only small complaints to such a severe decision.

After only a few generations, the Star People united Earth and Mars and colonized Venus, the asteroids and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. After that, they started to travel to planets beyond our solar system.

Colonization

The first attempts to interstellar colonization were generation ships, but those succumbed to technical difficulties and anarchy after a few generations.

The next attempt was to send fast, semi-sentient ships to the stars. Those were programmed to terraform the planets they found and rebuild the Star People from genetic information stored on board.

The first humans created by those machines viewed the machines as their parents and rejected other humans. Nearly half of the colonies founded by the machines perished because their humans only had eyes for the machines, not for each other. But the other half was enough to colonize one spiral arm of the Milky Way with the Star People. Many colonized planets were devastated by humans and had their native ecosystems replaced by cities and small groups of Earth-derived animals and plants, genetically modified to survive on those planets.

The Summer of Man

The surviving colonies prospered and some even surpassed the colonies of the solar system. Through ultra-fast communication methods, the Star People of all those worlds stayed in contact, even though they never met each other.

As a result, technology rapidly grew and new inventions were shared with other colonies. Living standards rose to previously unimaginable levels.

Qu

On one of the worlds, the Star People found fossils of a creature they called Panderavis and which turned out to be a highly derived dinosaur from Earth. This was the only Earth-descended creature on a planet of tripedal creatures with copper-based skeletons, and it served as an early warning that other civilizations had been there before the Star People.

Because nobody knew if the creators of this creature were still out there and if they were benevolent or not, humanity began stockpiling weapons again. These weapons were strong enough to nova entire stars and destroy solar systems.

But when they finally made first contact with another sapient species, called Qu, they were annihilated. Offended by the thought that a race other than themselves had tried to rebuild the universe, the Qu destroyed, depopulated or changed every human world within less than 1000 years. Many humans were genetically modified to become mere animals, who served as pets or slaves to the Qu or were left alone, unable to recreate their civilizations.

Source: Wikifandom

The Martians

Biology

Biologically, the Martians were similar to the humans of Earth, but hundreds of years in the lower gravity of Mars caused them to grow taller and thinner. Together with some degree of genetic engineering, they have become their own species. 

                                      The Martians                                           

History

Colonization of Mars

The eventual political unification of the human race, they were finally able to colonize Mars. This was driven by the weakening of the environment by a population size of 12 billion people on Earth.

The first step was to create a breathable atmosphere, which was achieved by bombarding Mars with genetically tailored microbes. Those took centuries to turn the atmosphere of Mars into something that humans could breathe. After that, oceans were created and genetically modified versions of terrestrial flora and fauna was brought to the planet.

Mars was then colonized in one-way ships packed with colonists. For several hundred   years, Mars prospered, but was never as economically advanced as Earth. Earth's businesses relocated their environmentally damaging industries to Mars to spare their own tired biosphere, and Earth's ecology prospered.                                                                                

Mars-Earth Schism

After some time, the inhabitants of Mars began to develop their own, separate identity as Martians. This was not only a cultural difference, but a biological one as well. A combination of genetic engineering and natural evolution altered the Martians' bodies to look more spindly, an adaptation to the lower gravity on Mars. Over many generations of accelerated evolution, Martians became their own species, genetically distinct from terrestrial humans.

Practically since its establishment, Martian culture was suffused with an explicit theme of rebellion against Earth. Songs, motion pictures and daily publications touted these notions again and again until they became internalized. Earth was the old, ossified home that held humankind back, while Mars was new; dynamic, active, and inventive. Mars was the future.

Civil War

Roughly 1000 years from now, Mars banned nearly all trade and travel with Earth. This was a catastrophe for Earth both environmentally and economically. Because essential trade was still permitted, nobody would have to starve, but the ban cost the people of Earth roughly a third of their yearly income.

This was the straw that broke the camel's back. Earth declared war on Mars. The war was mostly fought by drones which were programmed to do as much damage as possible to the other side. Phobos, one of the moons of Mars, was destroyed and rained down on Mars as meteorites, while an impact on Earth killed a third of its population.

Aftermath

After the death of about eight billion people, both planets finally made peace and founded a united solar system. Both sides agreed that massive changes were necessary to secure peace between the planets, and through genetic modification, the Star People were created as a new, unified humanity.

Source: aliensfandom.com