Vaq-ekh
The Vaks are a species of black creatures that can best be described as a cross between a crow and a wasp. They range from 8 - 10 feet tall, averaging at around 9. Females are usually taller than males. Being mostly bipedal, they have long limbs and sometimes use their arms to balance their weight. Their torso is somewhat similar to a bird's and they have bird like feathers covering most of their bodies. They have black feathered wings. They are however flightless, the wings merely being used for body language.
Vaks usually wear thick dresses and headscarves that obscures much of their body. A Vak's head is a strange mix between that of a dog and a wasp. They have a long snout above a very wide mouth which holds a row of sharp teeth. Their eyes are unusually large, pupiless and are olive green. They have one set on the sides and one set on the front. They have doglike ears that are obscured by their headveils and a set of gray antennae which are left uncovered.
Millions of years ago, the ancestors of the Vaks were a non-sentient eusocial species similar to termites; A king and a queen provided the reproductive work of the colony while male workers cared for the offspring and female workers/soldiers provided food and defended the colony from attacks.
However, a long time ago, the planet of Tshkir entered an ice age. The Pre-Vaks who lived deep in the planets south witnessed their climate transform from a Mediterranean one to a subpolar one. After that, the planet experienced a mass extinction and migration as animals struggled to cope with their new environments, often times forcing them to try and battle with other species for new territories. And due to being surrounded by a desert and a large ocean to the north, the Pre-Vaks had nowhere to run when new and vicious predators entered the arena from the now uninhabitable south.
What happened next, Vak evolutionary biologists aren't too sure. But whatever occurred, it saw the social system of the Pre-Vaks evolve to accommodate the new environment. Their old prey were getting scarce, their new predators were twice their size. The colonies needed "all hands on deck" so to speak and a "supercaste" was created in the following years that would eventually supersede all other castes, retiring eusociality. Though some Vaks to this day would sometimes be born with a few of the traits of a particular caste. Most notably a few Vaks are born with the reproductive capacity of a King/Queen and have been historically used in Vak societies as a means for auxiliary births due to the harshness of their environment.
Though biological eusociality disappeared, its psychological effects did not. The colony wasn't abandoned. As was stated before, a couple of Vaks with exceptional reproductive capabilities would be forced to act as they colony's "King and Queen" - Their children being property of the colony and typically used to fill the colony's "soldier" caste. Men were forced to look after the offspring and were despised by their female counterparts as weak and unintelligent.
As the Vaks grew in population, colonies began to butt heads often. This is where the thousands of years of colony warfare began. The Kings and Queens children were raised as professional soldiers to fight constant, bloody tribal wars with other colonies over hunting ground. The colony wars severely held back the Vaks in multiple ways, preventing the colonies from developing into more sophisticated societies and with that, technological advance was scarce. The Vaks never expanded out of their original habitat during this period.
Then, in around ~2400 BC, something changed massively. A religious movement swept colony after colony, much of the archaic eusocial structures were abolished, colony warfare almost disappeared. Just 3,000 years later, the Vaks would be exploring their solar system. This was the spread of Hkll-Tda. A monotheistic faith emphasizing peace, kindness, justice, equality and piety. With Hkll-Tda, most of the colonies came under control of a single government. The Vaks now united under the banner of religion, they turned their attention from war to philosophical, technological and scientific pursuits. A golden age bloomed for a thousand years as the Vaks transformed from a Neolithic society to an industrial society.
This new society wasn't harmonious however. Though the prophets an early priestesses of Hkll-Tda tried their hardest, they couldn't dismantle the Matriarchal system. Additionally, as the Vaks needed guidance away from their corrupt eusocial ways, they began to heavily consul priestesses for anything and everything. As priestesses had little stringent obligations, anybody could be one. Priestesses recognized the populations need for their consultation on a variety of subjects and facilitated by creating "specialised Priestesses" - Economic Priestesses, Education Priestesses, Lawyer Priestesses, etc. This created a complex totalitarian theocracy.
This theocracy was dismantled with the conquest of the Vaks as the galaxy was united. But now that the Vaks are now independent, the theocracy has returned. This theocratic and totalitarian system is increasingly proving to be a burden on Vaks and there is growing dissident voices from all areas of society, but it doesn't seem to be going anywhere for now.
