Ly-Cilph

In The Night's Dawn Trilogy, the Ly-Cilph are an alien race that evolved on an unnamed moon orbiting a gas giant planet. The unstable nature of the Ly-Cilph's homeworld's orbit meant that every nine years, the moon was consumed by violent storms. Millennia of evolution meant that even while the Ly-Cilph's corporeal bodies were destroyed, they transcended to a state of higher existence.

Biology

The Ly-Cilph begin their lives in a fish-like form, swimming in the shallow pools of their homeworld. After three years in this form, they lose their tails, and develop a snail-like skirt. They emerge onto the land, and feed upon "nodes", biological time capsules left behind by previous generations of Ly-Cilph. When they consume these nodes, not only do they gain the vast understanding of their ancestors, but the telepathic centres of their brain are stimulated, allowing them to communicate with other Ly-Cilph. Prior to consuming these nodes, the Ly-Cilph do not possess sentience.

When the orbit of the moon causes the nine-year cycle to end, and storms to begin spreading across the planet, the Ly-Cilph stop whatever they are doing, and anchor themselves to the ground. Nodes grow from their skin, and drop to the ground like fruit. A flash of radiation from the gas giant kills their corporeal bodies, but also provides their minds with enough energy to transcend and become non-corporeal. The freed Ly-Cilph minds drift up into orbit of their home, and then set out to discover the universe.

Culture

Due to the impermanent landscape of their home, the Ly-Cilph do not build structures or tools of any kind. Arts and Sciences such as architecture and engineering are practically unknown to them, as are pursuits that require tools, such as computer science and archaeology. On the other hand, sciences like mathematics, physics, and astronomy are quite highly developed.

The primary goal of the Ly-Cilph is to gain knowledge. For this reason, their entire lifetimes, as well as the time after their transcendence, are spent learning and exploring. After they transcend, most Ly-Cilph travel throughout the universe, observing other civilisations and phenomena. This is primarily a solitary exercise, as the Ly-Cilph are usually unable and uninterested in directly altering or affecting events in the universe. An exception to this was in 2611, when a Ly-Cilph inadvertently opened a transdimensional portal on the human colony world of Lalonde.