Echetchens

Echetchens
Biological Classification
Common Name	Echetchens
Type	Humanoid
Classification	Post-Sollurian
Physical Characteristics
Average Height	162 Centimetres
Skin Colour	Pale Purple, Dull Yellow
Sexes	Androgyne (Only one 'Sex' capable of reproducing with all individuals)
Respiratory Gas	Oxygen
Locomotive Method	Bipedal
Distinctions	Purple-coloured Sclera Harder 'shells' surrounding eyes and covering ear-holes composed of cartilige. Shorter Stature than most relatives
Average Lifespan	201 Years
Demographics
Inhabits	Second Galactic Federation Echqatja Galactic Community
Population	2,8 Trillion
Distribution	Least Concern
Sociocultural Characteristics
Intelligence	Sapient, Sentient
Homeworld	Ekatgija*

Echetchens are a sapient humanoid species native* to the planet Ekatgija found at grid N11 in the Milky Way Galaxy's core regions. Much like many other species inhabiting this region, the Echetchens are descended from the now-extinct Sollurians, deriving many of their physical traits from these ancestors they had diverged from hundreds of thousands of years ago. Echetchens have a generally humanoid frame, featuring a torso, two legs, two arms, and a head at the top with dark hair growing out of their scalp. Their most notable physical variation to their relatives is that the typical harder facial patterns seen in their relatives are much harder and larger in the Echetchens, adapting them as shields for their eyes and ears to endure their home-world's harsh sandstorms. On the outer edges of these structures they have four 'whisker-like' structures composed of the same material, which they can use to partially identify upcoming atmospheric conditions.

Thanks to their home-planet's harsh desert climates, Echetchens adopted a highly nomadic lifestyle prior to urbanizing and unifying among one another, organizing themselves into family-based groupings of Echetchens known as 'Echais' bound together akin to clans which often joined together in vast 'Echqatjas' ('federations'). After several milennia of being divided into Echais, the Echetchens gradually unified under a single Echqatja, which adopted a fairly militaristic and cautious worldview where most influence was concentrated into the most powerful Echais. Once the Echetchens became an interstellar species several thousands of year in the past, their now spacefaring 'Echqatja' spread across many additional worlds, leading to each Echetchen world eventually coalescing under its own planet-wide Echai loyal to the Echqatja. Modern Echetchens still hold their traditional familial culture as important, valuing honour, respect and staying together even if their definition of 'Echai' has expanded to cover entire planets. The Echetchens settled their region of the galaxy with little competition aside from other species still genetically similar enough to them to be seamlessly assimilated as Echetchens over a couple generations, until eventually only those Post-Sollurians which had diverged enough over hundreds of thousands of years to be fully separate species remained, eventually leading to the Echqatja would later become one of the founders of the Galactic Federation between four of said species, within which it would become the 'Echqatjan Collective' which nowadays functions as one of the member/polities of the extant Second Galactic Federation. A plurality of their population still resides within their old borders, yet an increasingly large amount have ventured out and moved to other regions of the Federation or in rarer cases moved to the Federation's various allies in the Galactic Community.