Tchansu

The Tchansu are one of the Precursor Alien Races in The Long Journey Home.

Description
Many temples and ruins of the Tchansu bear the epitaphs and emblems of draconic beings and even their own art glorifies only one image as absolute, a proud four armed draconic creature grasping for the stars.

It is the most likely actual depiction of the Tchansu by themselves as the creator of the artifacts. Due to lack of detail it is unclear if they had six eyes, two eyes and four nostrils or even other sensory organs. The only thing that is known is the draconic body with its tail and horns, as well as two legs and four arms. Their skin or scales were of at least two types, similar to the soft scales of a snake along the stomach and face.

Even though the Maylaa left the biggest impact in the galaxy and developed many marvels which only come to light in the Daedalus-7 expeditions, it is the Tchansu which are the most mysterious race in the galaxy. At first their ruins and they themselves appear to be a species of low intellect that somehow mastered spaceflight and became a religious war fleet that invaded the Entrope controlled space in the name of their gods. Most of what they left behind while beautiful is tainted or rather dangerous and many think they and their gods will destroy the universe. All of this is pure superstition, but there is a hidden truth behind it. The more sober races acknowledge the actual technology below the surface of their religious symbols and totems, which at their pinnacle not only are far beyond the K'schar, but rival the Maylaa. Every sufficiently evolved technology does indeed appear as magic.

Art was important for the Tchansu and every building, every artifact and every message is influenced by that. Even their common life was dictated by the tragedy of their own religion. Theirs was a life of prophecy, of faith and ultimately of suffering and death. They had accepted the truth of life as part of their own pantheon and were constantly defending their homeworld against the galaxy's terrors which manifested as new gods in their pantheon. And somewhere along the line, they chained their fate to that of their origin. Theirs was a homeworld they never left. The Tchansu didn't prepare colonies, only strategic outposts, their military temples.

The Tchansu mastered their war hungry nature and found peace. They learned to accept pain as part of their lives. They faced the great plague, the black goo that turn all things into mindless husks bend on eternal feasts regardless of reasoning. At some point they also protected themselves against psionic energy and its power. Even later they attained near unlimited energy by trapping blackholes, the symbol of their god of death in the universe.

And when the dark energy, the entropy came to rob their stars light and consume the life of their region, they faced the Dragon of Entropy that the Cueddhaest and their predecessors weren't able to defeat and tamed it like the Maylaa chained the Ceruleans. It was just a monster that sought to destroy them. The Tchansu never revered their gods, they were something to be fought! But they knew they were dangerous and so they tried to spread them thin and contain them in their many outposts. So that if one fails, not all of their old foes will return at once... or to their homeworld. Until their end, they succeeded. Their homeworld was safe.

If not the oldest known biological and mortal race, so are the Tchansu definitely one of the oldest races to ever live in the Milky Way galaxy. They lived to see the end of their own cluster of the galaxy as it got irradiated by their solar system's twin star eating its sister and going into a supernova. Despite their huge nomad fleets and excursions into the Gamma Quadrant, the Tchansu were always a metropolitan and sedentary empire in a slowly dying dark region of space outside of the Entrope sector. It didn't have to end for them, it was THEIR choice! They knew what was coming and embraced their end together with their homeworld. In that sense they held true to their own idea of the apocalypse and ragnarok until the day their watch had ended. They left behind an awful prepared galaxy with no uniting empire which has to face the monsters they sought to bind in the past. The Avulco might already have suffered the ultimate fate by the black goo, Substance 1994, the Sleaze. However one calls it, the hunger consumes and spreads. And with the Sleaze and the Famine joining hands after the dark energy has been freed by the all consuming oil, the stars might soon be doomed, until a new galactic empire steps up to hold the line.

Quote
"Clever aliens, the Tchansu. (Not that it helped them). Much technology to be found in their totems. Cursed totems. (Superstition? Probably. Still not taking any chances.)" - Glukkt

"Do not speak that name! The Tchansu thought to send their gods away. They never thought of the races that would have to deal with them. Watch for the totems breaking. That means they are amongst you, as they were once amongst us. The Eater of Stars. The Devourer of Worlds. The... the..." - Cueddhaest

"To be places of evil. To be shadows in Domain. The Vine avoids. To recommend the same." - Vine Consensus

"Evil begets evil. We do not set foot in Tchansu ruins. We would raze them to the ground, if not for fear that whatever may linger there might be released." - Wolphax

"Such an evil race. Worshipping gods of death and pain and fear? We Logos attempted to advise them, but they would not listen to our wisdom." - Logos

"We art not enthused by such grandiose displays of religion. 'Tis a waste of energies better spent on admiring us and basking in our glory." - Meorcl

"You know their purpose, yes? The Tchansu believed that if they went far from their homeworld to establish temples to their dark gods, it might draw them away from their homeworld. How amusing that after the supernova, those dark gods of fear and death and famine are all that remain of them in the universe." - Ilitza

"Yeah, we've found more'n a few of those temples. Way I reckon it, there's no world big enough for us and them to share comfortably. That black oil stuff, that Sleaze... you ask me, that stuff's pure evil." - Reeve

"mizzurani no like black sleaze mizzurani avoid" - Mizzurani

"Think we disapprove? No! Much technology in Tchansu totems. Containers of ancient knowledge! Much to be learned. Secrets of empire! Weapons of war! Just have to retrieve. There, the problem." - K'schar

Assessment of the Entrope
(only accessible with Admin-Device on Entrope Stations)

Intruders from outside Control Space. No information available. Left totems devoted to religious figures in temples around Entrope monitored space. One in five has shown evidence of Substance 1994; translated codename, SLEAZE.