Species Profile: Dos Oligo

One of the many alien species of my sci-fi webcomic Thugs and Scoundrels ---> [link] <---

The Dos Oligo (meaning: the elected people or the appointed people) (singular: Oligos) are one of the major economic and cultural forces of the galaxy. This is why many of the other species are named using the Dos prefix of Oligo Standard. Up to 1/5th of merchant and exploratory vessels are owned by Oligo dominated corporations and Oligo Standard is the lingua franca of commerce, research and diplomacy.

The Dos Oligo are an aquatic species with 5 sets of tiny manipulators and a larger claw on their posterior for heavier grasping. While they are physically weak, their use of tools and traps have allowed them to survive the deep, hostile waters of their homeworld. Once the Oligo developed the means to leave the water and utilise the many resources on offer on the few vast continents of their planet they were able to develop powered flight and eventually interstellar travel. To operate in a terrestrial environment the Oligo have to be hooked up to a mechanical suit that functions not only as their arms and legs but also as a life support system to maintain their fluid levels and filter out unwanted substances.

The motile, worm-like form, most often thought of as the adult Oligos, is actually the larval stage of a 2 stage reproductive system. The first stage is the sentient, motile, haploid larval stage and it is in this stage that an Oligos will live up to 90% of its life. At an advanced stage of their life, two hermaphroditic larvae will mate and fuse to create a non-motile (and it seems non-sentient) polyp-like form. This second stage is the reproductive stage where the two haploid genomes are shuffled and around 14 haploid larvae will bud off before the reproductive polyp runs out of stored energy and dies.

While many pockets of the former diversity of Dos Oligo culture remain, their dominant culture is that of Oligo Standard (or simply Oligo). Their societies are often loose libertarian-style plutocracies although there are many instances of autocracies, republics and even a few monarchies. Oligo society tends to be non-exclusive and citizens are judged largely on utility and merit.