The Apex: A Cultural, Physiological, and Historical Suggestion

The following is my suggestion for the general lore of the Apex, who are somewhat neglected in representation in Antares:

History and the Miniknog
There are few specifics to be gleaned from study of Apex history, as the vast majority of historical records were destroyed about a century ago in a series of suspicious "accidents." What is known, however, is that the Apex were very similar in appearance and mannerism to humans for the majority of their history, due to similarities in the environment and evolutionary pressures of their homeworld. The Apex proceeded through the normal hallmarks of sapience, first developing rudimentary tools and then progressing through stone, bronze and iron ages, a medieval era, a colonial era, and finally established relatively modern nation-states.

The Apex, then and now, do differ substantially from humans in one way -- the species is very collectivist, able to see past immediate issues and act for the good of the community as a whole. Growing globalization, then, resulted in the Apex being able to notice a number of long-term issues that might soon befall them if they continued on their current path -- climate change, extinction of native flora and fauna, mass desertification, rise in sea levels. On an entirely different note, thousands still died daily from lack of food or potable water or sufficient shelter.

To remedy this issue, the Apex species as a whole adopted a radically different form of government: a single worldwide nation under the rule of an egalitarian, democratic Ministry of Knowledge. By shifting the entire species' focus to rapid technological development, the Apex were able to slow and even reverse the calamities looming in the future. For over a century, the Apex celebrated a golden age of culture and scientific advancement.

Not all was well, however. Technological progress began to slow as the universe's most pressing questions were studied and answered, and the Ministry of Knowledge began to become bloated by its own bureaucracy as population grew. Gradually, the high standard of living that the Apex had known for so long began to slip.

A number of ambitious individuals in the Ministry of Knowledge blamed this sudden decline on the inefficiency of the democratic process. With the support of a large minority of the collectivist Apex population, they staged a bloody coup that raged across the planet for years before the usurpers emerged victorious. The newly-rebranded Miniknog immediately established a brutal military regime in an effort to crush the remaining republican holdouts. Even more insidiously, a nationwide effort began with the goal of erasing or rewriting Apex history so as to deny the existence of a government before the Miniknog.

There were many vocal opponents of these policies, of course, but with the liberal use of deadly force and the imprisonment of thousands in reeducation camps -- as well as a complete overhaul of the Apex educational system, and the institution of the VEP -- these tendencies were curbed. The Apex, already willing to work towards the greater good, had been for the most part made into slaves of the Miniknog -- and of its enigmatic representative, Big Ape.

In the modern day the Miniknog is largely corrupt, with party officials languishing in lives of luxury while the average Apex population is crushed under the heel of the secret police. Apex worlds are vast hives of crumbling apartments and leaning highrises punctuated on occasion by the gleaming glass-and-metal pyramids of the Miniknog.

The Resistance
Attempts at resistance against the Miniknog are widely regarded by the general population as futile (and by the more fanatic as treasonous), but resistance cells are still scattered throughout almost every major Apex city. In most cases these cells are isolated, working independently, but on occasion coordinated resistance efforts between dozens or hundreds of cells have been established. Usual Resistance operations include the destruction of prominent statues and landmarks, the bombings of government offices, and assassination attempts against Miniknog officials.

The Miniknog, less than considerate of the lives of its citizenry, takes a callous and indiscriminate approach to the destruction of Resistance cells. When a new cell is located, the city's secret police usually attempt to infiltrate and destroy it from the inside, with Resistance operatives executed or sent to reeducation camps. If an infiltration is unsuccessful or a Resistance cell particularly annoying, more drastic measures such as indiscriminate bombings or poisoning of water supplies are taken. These are almost always successful, at the cost of an incredible number of civilian deaths.

The VEP
One interesting side effect of the despotic Miniknog's takeover is the dismantling of all ethical barriers on technological development. With scientific progress slowing, the Miniknog assumed that the true limitation lay in the finite amount of processing power present in the Apex mind. Huge swathes of land were transformed into genetics laboratories, with volunteers (or "volunteers") subjected to genetic manipulation in an effort to improve the Apex brain.

Eventually the Apex stumbled upon the correct genetic sequences to cause a far greater production and higher density of neurons in the brain. This had the incredible result of significantly augmenting Apex brainpower, but the sheer amount of energy needed to maintain such an elaborate mind resulted in the decay of the physical body -- there simply was not enough of a metabolic rate to provide energy to both an augmented brain and the Apex's body.

The Miniknog, then, were forced to reach a compromise. Through uncountable rounds of testing, they were able to regress the Apex to a physical form that was much less specialized and energy-demanding -- namely, one caught halfway between human and ape. Through this de-evolution of the body, they were able to vastly improve the brain.

The Miniknog immediately rounded up the Apex populace and administered the VEP to them, resulting in the most sudden and drastic change in a species in the known history of the universe. Many older Apex view themselves as aberrations and long for the simpler days of the past, but the new generations are perfectly comfortable in their ape-like form.

The Miniknog are always searching for ways to increase the efficiency of the VEP, and so new "volunteers" are constantly chosen from Apex cities. It was initially protested that these so-called volunteers tended to be picked from the poor (and never from the Miniknog themselves), but this criticism came to a sudden halt when the protesters themselves were volunteered for VEP testing.

Big Ape
Big Ape is one of the greatest engimas of the Miniknog. According to the Miniknog themselves, Big Ape is a real individual, immortal and eternal -- the Miniknog's brain as well as its figurehead. Hundred-foot-tall banners hang from almost every building, displaying his visage along with the phrase "Big Ape is watching." This serves the remarkable effect of both conditioning the population to be more submissive and of normalizing the drastic physical effects of the VEP, as Big Ape is generally depicted as a humanoid gorilla.

Whether Big Ape himself actually exists is a matter hotly debated outside of the Apex core sectors. The Ape himself often appears in diplomatic conferences with representatives of other species, but always through an electronic transmission rather than in person. Many thus conclude that Big Ape is merely a puppet created by the Miniknog to instill fear in their people, but the Apex themselves will insist otherwise.

Technology
The Apex are the most advanced of spacefaring species, with major developments such as fusion power and lifespan enhancement technologies a staple of the Apex core worlds. Such technology, however, is jealously guarded by the Miniknog, and anyone who attempts to probe too closely into the workings of such wondrous inventions often find themselves volunteered to test the VEP. Spaceships that find themselves in the frontier, then, tend to run on technologies equivalent to those of humans and Avians and Hylotl (but decades outdated to the Apex themselves).

Similarly, the most advanced Apex weapons technology tend to be entirely energy-based, able to fire lethal plasma or electricity in concentrated form and over long distances. These developments, however, are also restricted to the upper echelon of the Miniknog, and most Apex lower on the totem pole make do with projectile-based weaponry.

Apex Physiology
Apex post-VEP tend to be both taller and heavier than the average human, and have slightly larger heads relative to the rest of their bodies. Their most defining feature, of course, is hair, of which they have plenty -- both males and females tend to sport beards as well as full body fur. An Apex commoner will tend to have longer and more unwieldy hair than the elite, who tend to groom their own fur down to more manageable lengths.

The Apex also possess a slightly enhanced level of physical strength as a result of their apelike transformation, with a corresponding loss of finesse. Most Apex, however, will never train for close combat, as firearms have been ubiquitous and highly deadly in the Apex military for centuries.

Society and Culture
Apex culture is downtrodden and solitary, with large gatherings and organizations strictly prohibited by the Miniknog. Most social interactions revolve around one's workplace -- where an Apex will spend about ten to twelve hours of the day, or the well-known banana bars -- where an Apex will spend any remaining leisure time. The latter tend to be breeding grounds for dissatisfaction and dissent, and are usually the first institutions shut down by the Miniknog upon the establishment of Resistance cells in a city. As a result, many Apex simply trying to get by will resent the Resistance for removing their only source of recreation.

The Apex are generally monogamous, though the cultural precedents that this results from are being slowly eroded away by the Miniknog (who would prefer as high a rate of population growth as possible). Grooming is a near-ubiquitous social gesture -- family members will groom one another as a sign of familial affection, friends and acquaintances will groom one another for favors, and the more romantically-inclined will groom one another as an expression of love. For the elite, professional groomers exist solely for the purpose of ensuring that a Miniknog official's fur is utterly pristine.

Apex can vary as widely as a human in personality, but are almost always held together by the common thread of collectivism. Apex are more able to see the "greater good," and as a result are more willing to sacrifice their convenience or their time for the sake of their families or the world as a whole. It was this drive that resulted in the creation of the Ministry of Knowledge, and this drive that is exploited by the Miniknog to keep the population oppressed.

Apex Economy
The Apex economy is nationalized and state-driven, with everything from factories to office buildings under the direct jurisdiction of the Miniknog. As a result, all products go through the Miniknog before they reach the general population, leading to inconvenient "shortages" of luxury items. Actual shortages are also commonplace, with production inhibited by Resistance sabotage, "Resistance sabotage," or the mass-volunteering of unskilled workers for the VEP.

Occasionally the Miniknog contract private companies (usually owned by relatives of Miniknog officials) to conduct business for them.

Galactic Politics
The Miniknog are largely isolationist, with no major rivalries. They tend to look down upon the other races of the galaxy as technologically inferior, and in turn the other races of the galaxy tend to look down upon the Miniknog as a ruthless and genocidal dictatorship (but are unable to do anything about it as a result of being technologically inferior). One interesting alliance that the Miniknog have cultivated is with Greenfinger of the Floran, with whom they have established a close partnership (primarily for the purpose of studying the curious genetics of the Floran species).

The vast majority of Apex encountered on the frontier are former Resistance members or at least disgruntled with the Miniknog, and usually arrive as a result of some sort of spaceship theft or escape from testing facilities. There is no established Miniknog presence in Council Space.

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That's all I can come up with right now. Tell me if there's something glaring that I've missed.