The Nimhishian people, The Nim, are a curious bunch with origins as a non-native semi invasive species on the Planet Kenzruck. During the scanning of Kenzruck, the only species discovered on Kenzruck being the native primates on the verge of evolving into low grade sentience. Upon the arrival of surveying teams, they were surprised to find highly evolved, multi cellular 'protist' beings calling themselves the Nim.
Having shown up on scans as large bunches of fauna, the Nim are actually large colonies of bright blood red vines similar to briars and certain thorny roses. These vines link together tightly, tangling and intertwining before forming a thick, chitinous membrane of blackish blue material made from a form of sucrose. Side note, this material making up the 'skin' of the Nim apparently is extremely sweet tasting.
The individual strands of vines within the Nim are on the level of sentience to that of predatory insects, actively growing and entrapping prey species by hooking them with their barbs and growing to envelop organic material. Once the prey perishes, the carcass is subsumed through the vine, bones and all, to fuel further growth and predation, as well as allow them to split and continue to breed. When needed, the vines can withdraw or extend their barbs. When retracted, the vines are a firm but soft fleshy material which emit a harvestable sweet oil with properties similar to the Terran Olive oil. This can be done harmlessly when a vine exhbits trust in an individual and has been described as 'milking'
After forming their membrane, the Nim grow specialized lengths of fiberous material from their 'heads' which act as sensors to help comprehend their surroundings in tandem with soft, squishy pads of optic cells forming 'rudimentary' eyes. Both of these adaptations are still fairly basic and the Nim have extremely basic sight capabilities, often nearsighted and almost completely color blind. Apart from their sense of touch, most of their basic senses are fairly lacking.
Within their shell, their vines continue to grow and spread, often splitting their form to drop new growth. Interestingly enough, each individual strand of vine constitutes an individual Nim, or at least part of one. When broken apart or isolated, each strand falls back into its original predatory plant state, only when at least fifty combined Nim vines have connected so we see sentient level intelligence blossom. These individuals make up the majority of the populace, the vines germinating within their shells with each other to 'birth' more vines. Very rarely do Nim acquire more than 200 vines in an individual, preferring to instead grow new 'colonies'. Such individuals with 200 or more are seen as incredibly wise sages, as intelligence within the Nim is linked to the amount of vines they have within them, but these beings are extremely strong, durable and large.
All Nim prefer to split and pair up with new vines, individual vines are capable of self germinating and eventually forming a body but this act is seen with great cultural taboo by the Nim. Something similar to incest among binary species. On the matter of gender, Nim have none. But tend to take on masculine features and traits as their vine numbers increase, lending to the myth that it is Male Nim that give birth, these physically more imposing Nim who are giving birth often act as caretakers for new vines and act hostile towards anyone threatening their new growth.
Unlike their curious biology, the History of Nimhishian is not nearly as interesting. After discovery by surveying groups, they were peacefully brought into diplomatic talks wherein it was discovered that the culture of the Nim is extremely apathetic to the idea of life beyond the stars. Essentially 'rooted' to their world very rarely do they leave by choice, content to live in small scattered societies of semi nomadic groups.
The few that do leave the planet are usually quite young and barely sentient, but make excellent employees for a variety of roles in most industries. They tend to be blunt at any age and number and until they gain more vines, and intelligence, are not seen as very bright. The Nim while young are extremely susceptible to naivety but will retain memory of their time as youth when they grow older, it is not a rare thing for a 200 strong Nim to hunt down and harm a being that took advantage of it while young.
The one small note of regulation and conflict regarding the Nim is of importance. Nim over the number of 175 and over the age of 15 are not allowed on planets unescorted at any time. This is due in part to their colonial efforts and if they get roots down into a planet, they will grow and split and grow and split and begin to displace flora, fauna, and cultures on said planet, gaining them the slurs of 'Weeds', Forget me Nots, or pollen suckers. The last one in particular irritating Nim the most as they don't even have pollen
A psionically blank species, the Nim have no capability to operate any psi technology and are immune to pure psionic attacks. This is theorized to be in part due to the lack of a brain and the presence of their own small network of communication within their vine conglomerate. This biology also has considerable impact on their ability to be networked into cybernetics. While no direct MMI (Mind-Machine-Interfacing) can be done, Nim can be given technology and armors to 'bond' with or 'envelop'. This has only been done a dozen or so times with particular Nim groups but has promising potential. A Nim group of nearly 400 vines was fitted with naval grade armor, a large ship grade cannon, and basic communications technologies and deployed as a shock troop against an isolated antagonist outpost. By the time cleanup crews had arrived, most of the biological matter had been consumed post mortem by the Nim who had by then begun rooting to the mineral surfaces of the station and breeding.
Nim political culture is still, on galactic scale, in its infancy. Their biology causing them to have issues in forming a stable 'singular' government and tend to prefer their clades of small groups of individuals. There is a harsh disconnect between having someone control them from on afar and the here and now. This had led to difficulty working with them as a prospective species for NGR as after representatives leave, they simply fall back into their original behavior. The longest running successful integration of the Nim has so far come from the small colony of ~150 humanoid individuals, (~1,700 vines) being housed on The Euphrates. This small colony growing rapidly with the Nim integrating at a baseline level with the populace. Most of them happily working as low grade service workers within the station.
Despite their lacking in senses of sight and sound, Nim have developed their own music and literature, the oldest of which was literally etched into stone by Nim running their vines over the rock face. Their works being quite short but filled with exciting and tantalizing content not often found in their actions. A sense of longing for something more than what they are, perhaps a jealousy at the in their eyes, decadent lifestyle of mammalian species.
In total, the Nimhishian in their origins are a bit of a mystery but hold within them the capacity for great good or great evil. Boiling down to the core of their vines. A drifting species with no core direction except base biological imperatives who are just starting to lift their eyes from the dirt to question their place in the universe.
1-5 scale (1 being poor, 5 being outstanding)
Hand-to-hand combat: 4-5
Long ranged combat: 1
Physical strength: 1-5
Mental strength: 1-4
Psionic Aptitude: 1
Cybernetic augmentation capability: 1
