Gloosh

The Gloosh are a species introduced in the Earth Rising DLC for Star Control Origins. A prey species, the Gloosh were uplifted to the galactic stage, without much say to the contrary.

Biology

Gloosh are a race of quite floppy individuals, with four limbs ending in dangling appendages and a head with four eyes all mounted on stationary stalks. Their mouth resembles a series of six spikes surrounding a large opening. The Gloosh thought process seems to be slow, similar to their mannerisms.

They were originally a race of branch dwelling creatures who were prey to most animals on their planet. Gloosh have a peculiar method of preserving their own lives in the face of danger, throwing their children to the predators first, because their “organs are the tastiest”.

Gloosh still live in trees on their new homeworld and have a ponderous method of travel, slowly flopping themselves across the trees when they want to or at a quicker pace when they are being eaten. Not much energy diet is found in the normal Gloosh diet, so they conserve all energy where they can, thus the flopping. The Gloosh diet included insects, who would crawl into the dangling Gloosh’s mouths, but their main diet is leaves from the trees they dangle on.

Culture

Gloosh culture revolves entirely around their need to conserve energy and their status of prey animals. The Gloosh are a quite pessimistic and lazy species, more content to float about doing nothing than they are trying to develop their own technology. They view most aliens they encounter as predators and thus have taken to using extremely advanced stealth technology they have found to hide their ships and their people. They prefer to dangle around their homeworld, with flopping and dangling playing a key part of their culture. They even dangle near their children as a method of calming them when danger is imminent. They refer to aliens as mmmon-Gloosh, as they have a very exaggerated manner of speech, with high-pitched whiny voices that drag on most words.

Gloosh tendencies to view other aliens as hostile doesn’t seem to extend to those within their own species, though they admit to conducting friendliness surveys that are near completion to determine this factor. This inability to complete surveys are part of their species inherent laziness. Gloosh’s focus on flopping even extends to their concept of time, as they equate times of peace as casual flopping and times of danger to anxious flopping. They even dislike talking, as it is a waste of energy.

The Gloosh, despite their history of being prey, still dislike their status as prey and fear for their lives every day. The Gloosh are relatively new to the sector and are unware of the Scryve. They possess ships, but lack the motivation to prepare any form of military and see it as wasted energy given their lazy nature.

History

The Gloosh were originally a species of tree dwelling animals who originated on their homeworld of Noma. They would flop through the trees as a plodding pace, only exerting energy to escape the numerous predators who fed on the Gloosh. This somewhat peaceful existence was disturbed by the arrival of an alien species called the Crhrtany.

The Crhrtany were relatively new to space travel and were unfamiliar with the dangers of arriving on other planets. Whilst the Gloosh didn’t fear the Crhrtany for some reason they cannot explain, the diseases the Crhrtany possessed were a different story. These illnesses spread through the Gloosh ecosystem, annihilating the trees on their homeworld and putting the Gloosh in danger of going extinct.

Wracked with guilt for what they had done, the Crhrtany provided the Gloosh with technology to help them gain some form of independence and means of survival after the destruction of Noma. The Gloosh hated this whole process, unable to understand where they had managed to get themselves to in the galaxy. Unfortunately, the Crhrtany were destroyed by some external force, potentially the Scryve Empire and the Gloosh were left to their own devices.

Alone and without a way back to Noma, the Gloosh were stranded on a new homeworld. Luckily for them, the Gloosh managed to discover extremely advanced cloaking technology and were able to incorporate it into their culture at large, hiding their entire species from the galaxy to protect themselves and resume their lives of lazy flopping. This came to an end however when the Arilou pointed the Captain of the Vindicator in their direction.

Upon meeting this new creature, the Gloosh were horrified, believing their kind was to go extinct and that the Captain would devour every last member of their species. This wasn’t the case however, as the Captain was merely in the system to ascertain some information the Arilou had intended for him to find in regards to the W51 phenomenon. After some careful persuasion and pointing out that the Gloosh would expend more energy moving their culture than just joining the Federation of Allied Species, the Gloosh reluctantly joined.