Wanna help tweak a species?

[notecardPASTA]

This is Data. He's a Citobor, an artificially engineered creature made partially of technology. He feeds on electricity and uses it to power both organic and robotic parts.

Oh, yeah. He can also shoot lazers.

Most of the time I am pretty thorough when creating a new species, but this time around I've decided to get some suggestions from other people, to perhaps make it more unique. So here's some things I would love some collaboration on:

The Planet: Where should these guys live? I would stick them on Terrevanimus, (a headworld/ alien planet of mine, ) but it doesn't have the technology needed to actually engineer them. So I was thinking of an alien planet that was mostly made of technology, and that it barely had any of the original organic material left. So would all the inhabitants be partially robotic? Like a genetic malfunction, but this time with coding instead of DNA?

General Anatomy: I'm open for suggestions on altering the anatomy of these guys, but the stick legs are staying.

History: How were they created? Why were they created? Why were they made to survive on energy? Perhaps there were some unwanted energy leaks from unstable power generators?

Gendered or not?

I'm looking forward to any suggestions!

 

[Kestrel]

Well, this is kind of going backward for me, because I usually use the environment to determine a species more than a species concept to determine an environment. However, a few questions you could ask yourself are; why were they created? What function were they supposed to fulfil? I mean if they're engineered, it's probably not for the sake of being let out into the wild. It'd actually make most sense to me if they were tools to the race of their creators.

They have the ability to shoot lasers. Why? I mean I get why, rule of cool, lasers are awesome, but again, given they're engineered, there is probably another idea behind it because lasers are not the most energy-effective things out there. Maybe it is for mining certain very hard metals? That'd make some sense, and help explain their anatomy; able to nimbly and quickly scale mountains where such ore is found.

As for surviving on energy, perhaps the planet contains natural resources that generate power on their own? Certain electrical fields they can leech off, which are also prominent in said mines, counter-balancing the massive discharge of energy for a laser with plentiful ways to get it back up. I mean it's all a little far-fetched, but eh, just spitballin'

 

[notecardPASTA]

Well, this is kind of going backward for me, because I usually use the environment to determine a species more than a species concept to determine an environment. However, a few questions you could ask yourself are; why were they created? What function were they supposed to fulfil? I mean if they're engineered, it's probably not for the sake of being let out into the wild. It'd actually make most sense to me if they were tools to the race of their creators.

They have the ability to shoot lasers. Why? I mean I get why, rule of cool, lasers are awesome, but again, given they're engineered, there is probably another idea behind it because lasers are not the most energy-effective things out there. Maybe it is for mining certain very hard metals? That'd make some sense, and help explain their anatomy; able to nimbly and quickly scale mountains where such ore is found.

As for surviving on energy, perhaps the planet contains natural resources that generate power on their own? Certain electrical fields they can leech off, which are also prominent in said mines, counter-balancing the massive discharge of energy for a laser with plentiful ways to get it back up. I mean it's all a little far-fetched, but eh, just spitballin'

Ooh, I really love the mining idea. Maybe they mine a kind of ore that has a high energy output, and their creators use it as a fuel, but if they mine it themselves they get some kind of poisoning from it, similar to radiation.

 

[Roose Hurro]

There's another possibility for the "why" of their creation. Perhaps their creators are a species who go about finding "ruined" planets, worlds where the old inhabitants have wiped themselves out? or perhaps in some other way gone extinct. Leaving behind a world of living and technological "rubble" they for some reason feel compelled to "repair" in some way, creating artificial lifeforms to re-inhabit.

Oooor...

Perhaps the reason for a Citobor's laser "weapon" is just that... a means of defense. Perhaps their creators created them as a form of weapon, designed to drain energy from tech and use it not only as "food" but as a means to take out "The Enemy."

Hmmm... just some thoughts.

Gendered? Well, that would depend on whether their creators wanted them to reproduce. I would think having male/female able to have young would be a very efficient way to "manufacture" a Citobor. Especially since such an artificial lifeform would need to be as bio-mimetic as possible in order to "survive" potentially without their creators' support. Since, you know, "The Enemy" would likely hunt the Citobor. If they were, indeed, used as weapons in some odd bio-tech war.

And of course, nothing says the Citobor (or other bio-tech creations) couldn't escape their creators control. If, say, they lost the war.

Heh... then again, their creators could have made them "Just because."

Oh, one other thing you might want to decide... are Citobor intelligent and/or sentient creations? Or may they perhaps be just a single, non-sentient species tended by a sentient bio-tech "master"... another creation?

Sounds almost like you've come up with an idea for your own "Cybertron." And at least this one critter to inhabit it.