#brokenyolkgalaxy

[selkra-souza]

The delorix, now with retractable claws on their pedipalps. Good for peeling fruit and scratching the faces off people they don't like.

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Doodle of a masaka about to enjoy some imported GMO worm slices on a pike.

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zero gravity alien spaceship TV dinner

[selkra-souza]

One of the most prominent results of the work of masaka and delorix agricultural scientists is the staple crop of sessile worms. These are genetically engineered oligochaete-like worms from the masaka taxonomic tree that have been modified for lifelong stationary lives. Their neurological systems have been removed, their mouths have been converted to mycilia-like tendrils for absorbing nutrients, and they're designed to easily regrow after being cut into pieces as long as their tendrils are still rooted. These worm crops have been developed to make farming meat for masakas less resource intensive, as they are obligate carnivores. Nowadays these crops are common among masaka colonies across the galaxy, present in communities from factory farms in metropolis cities to logs in rural communities like in the above picture. All they require to grow is a damp, minimally ventilated moist environment, and scraps of vegetation to feed off of. They can be processed in a variety of ways, including as stuffing in baked or fried dough, grilled, sauteed, pickled, dried in salt, as well as eaten raw. As widespread as these GMO crops are, there are masaka planet colonies (or smaller communities) who choose to abstain from these producing these crops, preferring instead to continue to cultivate their traditional farm animals.

[selkra-souza]

One alien ref down, two to go!

Donelja works as a hauler who transports bio samples between a lunar nature preserve and a planetary research facility in the university they earned a degree they didn't want. They're bitter about their academic failures leading to "grunt-work" when their dream carer is to be a xenobiologist among the nature preserve conservationists. Don hopes that hauling enough samples will get them noticed enough by the scientists they transport them for to offer them to work their way up in their dream carer.

In the meantime, Don is coasting in space on-ship with their platonic partner Rutan, and their newer much more annoying roommate Vertex.

[selkra-souza]

Disgruntled platonic couple.

[selkra-souza]

In the Spectrum Solar System in Broken Yolk Galaxy, three roommates travel from planet to planet on the spaceship Appex (x)(x), for work and misadventures.

Rutan was born and raised in a zrai community on a space colony that broke off from an older zrai colony that was uplifted by the sophant space faring nedal centuries ago, which chose to recreate ancient zrai traditions. He was brought up to follow his ancient ancestors’ culture, but grew up ostracized due a skin condition that makes communication difficult and leaves him with difficulty socializing. It also didn’t help that he was more interested in nedal culture, and that the art he wanted to make didn’t follow his cultural norms. So when a pair of nedal ambassadors recognize his artistic prowess, Rutan made the tough decision to move abroad on-planet to study art in a nedal university. With the accommodations he received, he was able to graduate in 3D modeling and animation. He works for a while in animation before going solo.

He acquires the spaceship Appex and decided to pilot it around the solar system traveling to new places. He does this at first on his own, and still does so now with his roommates. Rutan is sociable and energetic, though his lack of close friends throughout most of his life left him prone to being clingy and naive to being taken advantage of. He greatly enjoy the company of close friends, but because it’s a rarity for him, he’s adapted to his favorite hobbies which he mainly does alone, such as urban exploring overlooked infrastructure, surfing ancient websites that are centuries old, and artistically recreating his dreams.

Donelja is a delorix who’s from a moon colony that’s cohabitated by delorix and masakas. The main landmark of the moon colony is an expansive national park that they’ve dreamed of working in since childhood. Biology is a life long passion for Don, but earning an academic certification in it has been a life long struggle. Only being able to graduate in general studies, Don tried various volunteer work in the nature preserve instead, living year to year in various leased board housing, but was never satisfied doing ‘grunt” maintenance when they wanted instead to be a scientist.

It wasn’t until Don met Rutan visiting the moons’ national park, offering more permanent room in his ship, did Don see an opportunity to work more closely with the preserves’ scientists by hauling their bio samples off-moon to the neighboring planets’ laboratories. Don became more satisfied working more directly with the scientists they admired since childhood, though still laments not being to do their work directly. Don has pathological anger issues, and resents their lot in life. It’s been an uplifting opportunity to have a friend like Rutan as support in their career and emotionally. They both bond over journaling, while Rutan journals about cities in their travels, Don journals about the nature they come across.

Vertex spent several months on the run as a hobo before Rutan offered to take him in, something Donelja was never on board with, but ultimately whatever captain Rutan says goes! Ver doesn’t like talking about where they came from, and is emotionally closed off. They’re constantly taking about moving out of spaceship to live on their own while in the middle of six month interplanetary trips, yet can never find a “good enough” place to do so. Their home planet, the only place in the solar system that would easily make room for them, they consider “crummy” and “off limits” for some reason.

Vertex is closed off and uncooperative, which irritates Donelja, and is easily forgiven my Rutan. Ver spends most of their time borrowing Rutan’s tablet, so at least they’re quite and out of the way for the most part.

[selkra-souza]

Selkra is a lifelong critter doodler and chronic daydreamer who's been meticulously worldbuilding alien societies since first playing Spore in 2009. In the meantime, Selkra resides somewhere on Earth doing people activities such as arts and crafts on the floor, hugging plushies, staring at bugs and mustering up the patience to read sci-fi novels.

Broken Yolk Galaxy is a pair of galaxies merged into one within a cosmological void, and the sophant alien cultures that evolved and coexist in it. The main focus is on a trio of roommates who do interplanetary travel within the Spectrum Solar System on spaceship Appex looking for work and learning to get along.

lore tags: #broken yolk galaxy / #spectrum sol system / #aurora nation / #rhodo nation / #igneous nation

species tags: #nedal / #delorix / #masaka / #zrai / #smazel

character tags: #OC Rutan / #OC Donelja / #OC Vertex

Emotionsonas is a personal paracosm that focuses on a group of personified emotions living in an inner world and how they deal with my day-to-day life, as well as exploring the fantastical conscious and subconscious-inspired setting of my mind.

lore tags: #emotionsonas / #star bits

species tag: #OC ear worm / #species introjects / #species forgeters / #species dreamoths

character tags: #OC Joy / #OC Gloom / #OC Fear / #OC Anger / #OC Disgust / #OC Love

other art tags: #selkra scribbles (art tag) / #selkra squalks (talk tag) / #selkra scrumbles (craft tag) / #selkra sounds (music tag) / #fanart / #virtual pets (neopets, subeta, marapets, etc.) / #dream journal / #occult art

sideblogs: inspiration blog / aesthetics & occult blog / parts blog

Elsewhere on the web: (I'm currently most active here on tumblr) / newgrounds / toyhou.se / art fight / pillowfort / bluesky / deviantart (archive/inactive) /

[selkra-souza]

A masaka 'erratic dancer', who specializes in a dramatic art form of body movement characterized by sharp poses, intense stares and well timed screams. It's considered cathartic to do and watch, and popular among those who are stressed out and overworked.

Course, while I was on the go, I also had to finally doodle some of Riley's shiny new emotions (and some of mine).

[selkra-souza]

@austintrashman What do glasses/vision correction look like for the BYG aliens?

Along with laser eye surgery and contact lenses, there's various ways to fit glassware (or otherware) onto an alien's face. Also I included some image examples of non-vision correcting goggles for funsies.

The most accessible glassware option for nedal is to install a ring around the eye stalk and fit a removable lens in front of it. One or both eyes may need a correctional lens. Fancier designs fully enclose the eye in a case that can come in various fashionable colors or shapes.

Glasses for massakas are fit around the head with an elastic strap. They can be made fashionable with jingling and dangling tassels and bells hanging off the sides.

A harness is used to hold up correctional lenses for delorix. The harness pictured above is a basic plant leather strap with metal holding the lenses, but they can come other colors and with decorative elements.

The oldest glasses design for zrai were invented by nedal for the "uplifted" zrai living among them, worn by the female at the bottom of the above image. It stays put while the upper jaw opens and closes for speech or eating. Since zrai have no arms (or much any usable appendages) It's a fairly impractical design since it requires another helper to strap it on and off using the handle on the top of the head. This antique design is really only worn by mature females living closely with their harem of males who are available to assist putting them on and off, considered by them to be fancy vintage items. The male at the top of the image meanwhile, is wearing the more practical and modern design invented by zrai. They're metal glasses that attach via magnetic buttons installed onto the face. Only a flick of the tongue on either handle is needed to put them on or take them off.

Smazels have the most complex compound lenses for their compound eyes. Each glass monocle has over a hundred correctional lenses that are painstakingly fitted for the individual, especially if by hand. Because smazel vision isn't all that advanced to begin with, and because it's enough of a hassle to commission these, that smazels without easy access computers and item printers just go without, relying instead on smell and vibrations to walk and fly around.

[selkra-souza]

There's two variants of zrai recognized by most intragalactic communities. The zrai from this post are a genetically modified variant engineered by nedal as part of the zrai's 'uplifting' and integration into nedal societies (and the larger space community). The main change made was simplifing the chromatophores used to express emotion, and engineering more intricate vocal chords for speech capabilities to match the nedal, all to make communication between the two species easier. GMO zrai also have some modified behaviors, for example, the traditionally territorial females have been mellowed to better corporate with others outside their tribe (to better fit into wider society).

The zrai on the left image are the 'baseline' 'default' morph shared by their ancestors. Zrai traditionally have complex dialogue using more complex chromatophores, as opposed to vocal speech.

Putting a GMO and a baseline in the same room creates a language barrier between the two, since the former relies on vocalizing, and the later relies on color display. To a GMO, the baseline is communicating in an overly ornate and barely recognizable medieval language; while to a baseline, a GMO is speaking in incomprehensibly fragmented LEETspeak.

While GMO zrai are better integrated into nedal society (and as a result other alien societies), the nerf to their traditional communication methods ostracizes them from their heritage and their neighboring baseline zrai. Because baseline zrai are highly tribalistic, most traditional communities are actively hostile to GMO zrai, treating them as a separate species. This is extra belittling to more friendly GMO zrai who seek to form community with them. Baseline zrai mostly live on their homeworld (though some closely knit tribes have formed settlements elsewhere with help of space faring sophants) . Meanwhile GMO zrai are living all across the galaxy, and they live across a wide variety of societies, so whether or not being cutoff from their lineages is a distressing issue will vary across individuals and local populations.

[selkra-souza]

Vertex is one of the three crew members aboard a small spaceship along with Rutan and Donelja. He's the third member on board and he's the lazy bum of the spaceship who doesn't want to contribute to any chores or upkeep, instead preferring to spend all day watching screens and nag at anyone who asks him to help around the ship.

[selkra-souza]

Decided on tube ears for the delorix and related species.

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Spooky Scary Fun Fact: Nedal and their fellow vertebrate friends have hollow skulls and backwards ribs.

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Very old art from 2017 that I dug up that includes outdated fingers but here's a common eating utensil traditionally used by masakas for skewering food. These pikes come in countless qualities and styles, some being more luxurious than others. Historically, they've also been used as combat tools, and despite modern laser guns being more viable weapons, to this day recreational combat lessons for ancient fighting styles are still taught by cultured mentors.

[selkra-souza]

Wanted to prioritize a Spectober/Spectember post before getting to asks.

The masaka share their evolutionary tree with countless species of four-legged (sometimes two legged) small invertebrates, adapted to all sorts of ecological niches. They have their brains and eyes on their posterior side, and the cephalothorax with mouth on their anterior.

Donelja's a big fan. Their career in desert conservation on the terraformed masaka moon largely involves studying how the insects are doing (insect herbivory, population surveys ect.)