Uaquuo

The Uaquuo are a spacegoing amphibian race that holds a fairly expansive territory rimwards of the Federation including several major worlds, with their capital at Ihoaoaiqwaa. Their ruling body is known as the Grand Host, while their military is organized under the aegis of the Hwaarrowa. Uaquuo society is more decentralized than most powers, with jurisdiction fragmented between various colonies and the Combines (which fill a roll roughly comparable to common megacorps, though with several key distinctions).

A typical Uaquuo individual is shy of two meters tall with dark gray skin and might appear from a distance to be humanoid, however their form is of distinctly aquatic origin. Two large wide eyes set low on either side of the head provide excellent vision, and their powerful jaws are well-suited for breaking the shells of hardy crustacean-likes and mulluskoids. On land, ropy tentacles knot together to form sturdy, capable limbs. The species is sexually dimorphic, with males generally being larger than females unless that female has entered a state of hro, a temporary morph that radically increases their physical state that evolved for the purposes of protecting young against roving predators. Male Uaquuo, conversely, secrete a form of biological concrete that has historically been used for underwater construction but has more recently been adopted as an essential ingredient by Uaquuo shipwrights in orbit.

Early Uaquuo history is somewhat obscured, even to the Uaquuo themselves, but we know that they were initially identified by the Orion Empire as a labor source for exploitation, and that they were then dispersed to several nearby water-dominated worlds. After that polity's sudden implosion, the Uaquuo made use of captured Orion technology to reach the stars themselves, soon reconnecting their diaspora and, eventually, founding a collective polity to unify their species under a single banner.