Cielcin [DRAFT]
🌀 Ongoing Project: This wiki is a living archive that’s always growing! Some pages may still be incomplete or in progress. If you’d like to help expand and improve the wiki, we’d love to have you join the discussion on the Red Company Discord.
Should I chronicle the war, then? Start with the alien Cielcin howling out of space in ships like castles of ice? You can find the war stories, read the death counts. The statistics. No context can make you understand the cost. Cities razed, planets burned. Countless billions of our people ripped from their worlds to serve as meat and slaves for those Pale monsters.
— Hadrian Marlowe [1]
The Cielcin are a spacefaring, humanoid, and carnivorous alien species featured in the Sun Eater, a science fantasy series authored by Christopher Ruocchio. The first novel, Empire of Silence, opens with protagonist Hadrian Marlowe's proclamation that he is the man despised and revered for ending the crusade against the Cielcin, the destruction of a star system's sun, the annihilation of billions of lives, and the extinction of humanity's greatest enemy [1].
Anatomy and Physiology
Physical Attributes
“They have six fingers!” I remember saying, reaching up to transfix the holograph with a finger. “Why do they look like us?” — Hadrian Marlowe [2]
The Cielcin are a tall, pale, bipedal species whose bodies look eerily similar to humans but are unmistakably alien. At full maturity, a Cielcin stands between seven and nine feet tall, though their rapid development means that even the children stand taller than most adult humans. They are long-limbed, with narrow bodies and arms that reach almost to the knees when standing upright [3]. As the human slur "the Pale" suggests, their skin is milk-white, smooth and hairless, except for the back of the head. There, thick, white hair grows beneath an epoccipital crest of bone, often referred to as a "crown", that rises from the forehead, sweeps backward at a steep angle, and terminates just past the ear holes. Scale-like lumps of skin are present where the forehead transitions from smooth, white skin to the bony ridge of the crown and horns. Some captives have been seen with their horns sanded or cut off, leaving rounded nubs at the brow [2][4][5].
Cielcin eyes are black, unfeeling, and the size of tangerines, set in a smooth facial structure that lacks an external nose or ears [6]. Instead, they breathe through four narrow slits where a nose should be, and sound travels through small holes behind the horns [4]. When bared, their too-many teeth appear sharp and clear as glass, set in black gums, and their long tongues are a dark blue-black color [5]. Similarly, Cielcin tissue has a bluish hue, with dark blue-black, ink-like blood. Glassy too are the nails on Cielcin hands, each with six fingers, thin and many-jointed [2].
Their physiology appears adapted to darkness. Scholiasts correctly theorize they are a subterranean people, a view supported by their cavernous, unlit oscianduru (worldships) and their ability to see well in low light [5].
Reproduction
Within their species there is little sexual dimorphism; the Cielcin are hermaphroditic and display no cultural modesty or division of gender [3]. Cielcin are mono-sexed but with twin roles: akaranta (active) and ietumna (passive). They reproduce parthenogenetically, able to conceive without fertilization. The embryo is initially a genetic duplicate of the parent. This embryo can then be implanted in another Cielcin, whose biology alters it through a process called conjugation, which combines traits from both parents. The host may then transfer the embryo again, producing offspring with genetic material from multiple parents. Throughout the Cielcin Wars, it was also proven that humans can serve as viable hosts for Cielcin embryos, though such pregnancies are fatal [7][8].
Culture and Society
Describe the culture and society of the xenobite. This could include religion, rituals, belief systems, customs, art, language, relationships with other species, habitation, technology, and more. Divide into appropriate subheaders like below.
[e.g. Language]
[e.g. Religion]
Full series spoliers below, proceed with caution.
History
Preceding the Books
This section should describe the known history of the xenobite, as it happened before any of the books, often divided into subheaders like below. You can remove this header if it is unused.
[e.g. Early History]
In Empire of Silence
This section should describe the known history of the xenobite, often divided into subheaders like below.
[e.g. Invasion of Emesh]
In The Lesser Devil (Novella)
In Howling Dark
In Queen Amid Ashes (Novella)
In Ashes of Man
In The Dregs of Empire (Novella)
In Tales of the Sun Eater & Other Stories
This section should describe the known life of the xenobite, divided by short stories into subheaders like below.
The Demons of Arae
Divide information by story; one header for every short story.
Prominent Figures and Factions
Characters
| Character | Description |
|---|---|
| [e.g. Syriani Dorayaica] | [e.g. The Shiomu (prophet) of the Cielcin and Aeta ba-Aetane (Prince of Princes).] |
Factions
| Faction | Description |
|---|---|
| [e.g. Line of Zahaka] | [e.g. Descendants of Zahaka, follower of Elu.] |
Trivia
- Out-of-universe facts, in a list.
- Remember to cite sources.
See Also
- Links to other articles that relate to the xenobite, in a list.
- Only link pages that don't appear frequently in the text above.