Codex: Sydians/zh-hans

通用名称： 赛迪安人（单数）；赛迪安人（复数）

Sexes: Male and female.

Height: 4’ 6” to 5’ 6” for females and 6’ 3” to 7’ 1” for males.

Weight: 90 to 160 lbs for females and 200 to 320 lbs for males.

Limbs: Two arms bearing hands with two thick fingers and a thumb. Two legs with two large toes each. An armored tail branching into four protrusions covered with downy fuzz. Two 1’ to 2’ long prehensile antennae, also covered in downy fuzz.

Skin: Pale white or beige in color, covered in drab black or brown chitin.

Hair: Soft and feathery, found only atop the head. Generally earth-toned but rarely green or shades of red-orange. Orange hair in females usually indicates a seasonal change in hormones.

Tongue: Extends up to six inches. Fully prehensile.

Eyes: Insectoid and multi-faceted. Typically black, but rarely found with greenish sheen.

耳朵： 内耳。位于头部几丁质小孔下方、颌关节上方。

解剖学

赛迪安人全身覆有几丁质甲片，只有脸部，以及雌性的躯干前侧与腹股沟裸露。多孔几丁质下方有会分泌腐蚀性酶的腺体；此酶在触角和尾部绒毛中最集中，但全身都有。它会催化多数金属元素氧化（即生锈）。接触活体组织时，酶会刺激神经中的低水平离子交换，产生快感；对非金属物质或无神经系统的生物则无效或被无害吸收。赛迪安分泌物略带柑橘味与香气。

栖息地与饮食

赛迪安人为温血（内温）生物，几乎只生活在塔库斯的废料场荒原；其氧化多数金属的能力正适应这种环境。偶尔也会在定居区发现个体，但难以与其他文明种族共处。

赛迪安饮食除水与有机养分外还需要重金属，三者相近时便会形成聚居地；有鱼和微量金属的淡水水域很常见。觅食无法再支撑人口增长时，孤立聚居地会利用拾荒或石制工具发展初步农场。独居者、无定居点的社会群体与频繁冲突者则以游牧狩猎采集为生，有时在建立聚居地前持续数代。

性别二态性

雄性赛迪安人比雌性高大粗壮，尾巴更大、更敦实，触角通常更小且不长于 1 英尺 4 英寸。其几丁质甲更明显，除眼睛和嘴外覆盖全身；柔性甲片保护生殖器，并会在性交时略微张开。雌性仅在手臂、腿、尾巴、背部，以及从后侧头部延至触角根部的位置有几丁质；前躯干大面积裸露，包括喉咙、乳房、腹部和腹股沟。雌性以金属氧化物、黏土和体油混成的层叠包浆遮蔽并保护这些部位；凝固的体绘通常设计、装饰得像雄性甲片。高阶雌性会以更抽象、鲜艳图案象征地位。雌性现有甲片中的产酶细胞浓度高得多，头发、触角与尾部绒毛也更长。

繁殖

赛迪安人有性繁殖。雄性在兴奋和性交时露出的阴茎略大于基因改造前的普通人类，目击报告估为 9 至 13 英寸。其阴茎呈橙色，覆有接触时会颤动以刺激伴侣的微小刷毛。精液为银色，可能含金属成分；初步测试显示，对至少 85% 已知智慧生命无毒。

雌性阴道看似简单裂缝或唇状开口，据报告会在兴奋时绽开、便利插入，露出橙色内部。外阴上缘有一颗阴蒂。

雌性没有固定繁殖季，一年中会多次排卵。大约每 240 天一次、持续最多 30 天，不论动情阶段，她们会开始渴求其他赛迪安人的氧化酶；此状态下的雌雄互动几乎必然导致性交。头发变成火焰橙色、受影响雌性更积极寻找同族，是这种类似发情状态的标志。雄性偏好处于可交配状态的雌性，却也会引诱非发情雌性或用武力繁殖。

无论双方同意或强制交配，雄性均以阴茎插入、射精，并可能使雌性受孕；雌性每周期排出两到三颗卵。胚胎通过血绒膜胎盘附着子宫壁；妊娠六个月后雌性活产。

Sydian children are born with scaly, soft gray chitin that persists until puberty. Puberty occurs between the ages of eleven and thirteen, whereupon the chitin scales thicken into the sex-appropriate adult configuration, darken, and join together.

Behavior and Society

Sydian society is patriarchal, with groups of ten to one hundred led by a dominant male. Larger size, thicker armor, and weaker corrosives cause male sydians to rely on and respect brute strength, giving rise to a culture underlaid with terrible violence. Most do not hesitate to resort to force to obtain food, breeding rights, and positions of power, resulting in a semi-stable group dynamic frequently interrupted by internal and external challenges. The leading sydian has absolute primacy in matters of females, food, and, when found in settlements, housing and governance. Some subject males willingly take positions of servitude, looking after children or performing manual labor; other males are forced into such positions. Younger sydians, especially powerful males, may eschew the group, striking out to join or attract a new clan. All males court mates from among the group’s females and establish relationships, though the leader’s ability to claim rights on any female at any time usually prevents monogamous coupling. Cuckolding is commonplace, especially toward subject males who have challenged the dominant male and lost. Vengeful leaders sometimes assign a rival as the personal slave of a favored female; while intended as humiliation, this has lead to the clandestine rape or seduction of the female in many observed cases.

Female society is shaped by the parallel male society, with females favored by the dominant male assuming positions of dominance themselves. The highest-ranking female has access to the best housing and finest goods as well as many social liberties; such females can be distinguished by the breathtaking detail on their body paintings, made from the most colorful metal oxides and applied by subordinates. Correspondingly, lower females shoulder more of the work and employ lower-value materials for their coverings. Lower-caste females not currently pregnant are expected and often forced to aid in hunting and gathering, accomplishing the task with exceptional reflexes and higher chemical load. Dressing accessories, usually made from scavenged non-metallic materials, are used to highlight or conceal body features. Such possessions are one of the few items sydian females prize enough to hand down to their offspring, and being offered one as an outsider can be considered a sign of ultimate trust.

Female sydians regard being without their body paint as an extremely vulnerable position, both mentally and physically, and such ‘naked’ females are scorned in public; this has been exploited to humiliate social adversaries and captives. Non-consensual couplings often involve intentional damage to the paint as a display of power by the transgressing male.

Though extremely unpopular among other Tarkus races and held in a literal stone age by their diets and tempers, observation suggests sydians are no less intelligent than the galactic average. Their culture is tribal and traditionalist, with little room for scholarship or what would be seen in higher societies as a progressive attitude toward sex and gender. Most sydians have accepted the limitations of their biology; some prominent individuals publically express quasi-neo-Luddite, anti-technology opinions. Conversely, a few have left their colonies, using specially-tailored clothing to study machinery in detail.