Grazerite

A Humanoid species native to the planet Grazer. As their name would suggest, they are strictly herbivorous and descended from plains-living herd animals. Strongly pacifistic and disturbed by the concept of violence, they are members of the United Federation of Planets and noted as peacemakers within its halls of power. Grazerite facial features include a pronounced, deeply furrowed brow and a bovine snout. There are four nostrils, two in the centre of the face and one on the jaw above each cheek. The eyes are deep-set and the brow protected by a bony ridge. A layer of fine, downy fur covers their hide-thick skin. This fur is usually amber in colour, but white, beige, and black Grazerites exist, as do piebald or mottled ones. The fur on the scalp is thicker than elsewhere on the body. Two slightly curving horns, which may reach ten centimeters in length, crown the Grazerite skull. In the early 2370s, fashion called for a tight-fitting cloth cowl to cover the horns. Grazerites ruminate after feeding; this is often a communal activity. The Grazerite equivalent of a shrug is a noise described by Humans as resembling a plasma leak.

The stereotypical Grazerite is cautious yet optimistic, placidly confident with high self-esteem. Grazerites make few snap decisions, being thoughtful and contemplative by nature. They are hard to anger, and seldom show it openly even if furious. Grazerites prefer consensus to conflict, and are distressed by others' unhappiness. Extremely patient and highly resistant to boredom, Grazerites excel at tasks requiring a long attention span and close detail work. Despite their deep-rooted pacifism, they are reasonably well-represented within the Starfleet. Most serving Grazerites are tempted to specialize in engineering, although many also become science officers (specializing in life science or planetology), medics, or even security officers.

Due to a food shortage in their distant past, Grazerite technology has always been driven by agricultural needs. In sharp contrast to most Federation member species, the Grazerites lay no claim to a dramatic, turbulent history soaked in the blood of the fallen. They hide no shameful dark period that nearly threatened them with extinction. Instead, they tell a placid, uneventful tale of slow, steady, reasonable progress, uninterrupted by war, disease, or oppression. All of the great moments in Grazerite history arise from carefully developed thoughts, broached only after long years of cautious contemplation. They were quite shocked, speaking to the humans, Vulcans, and other species aboard the first Starfleet ship to hail one of their crop-seeking vessels, to find out how those peoples had developed.

The basic social unit among the Grazerites is the upsol, a conglomeration of anywhere from a hundred to five hundred individuals who work, relax, eat, and ruminate together. They are often related to one another by blood, but upsols consisting entirely of unrelated individuals also exist, and behave no differently than their more common counterparts. Grazerite life centres on the group, not the individual; privacy, for example, is a concept unknown to them except as a topic in one of Grazer’s prestigious Outworld Cooperation Symposia (the equivalent of academies for Grazerite diplomats, starship crews, and scientists). The upsol plays the primary role in raising, tutoring, and sheltering Grazerite children. Although Grazerites usually retain some affection for their blood parents, all adult members of the upsol share equally in child-raising duties. Herds of adult Grazerites carefully shelter the young from even the minimal dangers of Grazer, and shower them with love, food, and affection. Grazerites grow up emotionally secure and certain of the benign nature of the universe. With the birth of their first child, Grazerite parents attain full citizenship, and can participate in their own upsol's deliberations and in Grazer's consensus democracy. Like all important Grazerite occasions, a communal ritual involving the entire upsol marks first-birth. Grazerites mate for life, and siblings tend to remain close, also. Those observing Grazerite families off-world may be surprised to discover how different the Grazerite social structure actually is. Grazerites enjoy thinking and talking together, as agreement comes easily. Grazerite debates, such as they are, resemble long-winded rodomontades in which each speaker agrees with the last, slightly restating and refining the previous arguments. Most Grazerites can while away endless hours in this fashion, never getting bored, solemnly agreeing with each other while jointly ambling toward a consensus. Their self-image as scintillating conversationalists is not shared by other species, but they prosper in Federation governmental circles. Uncomfortable around bloody corpses due to their strict herbivorous diet and evolutionary history as prey animals, Grazerites dispose of their dead cleanly. In the modern era, a transporter is used to disintegrate the body without mess or fuss. One of the major Grazerite cultures is  semtir , the funerary customs of which call for the body to be destroyed in front of a gathering of friends and family. The body is placed atop a pallet on a stage, with no other ornamentation permitted. The  kelmek - the word translates as “death-helper”- then gives an official signal and the transporter is activated, scattering the body’s molecules to the winds. Following this, those who wish may give a memorial speech in honour of the deceased.

Grazerites have a single name that actually consists of two names joined together. A hyphen signifies the division between crèche-name, which comes first and is shared by siblings, and the individual name. Grazerite individuals include: Amsta-Iber, Ernesh-Flishmo , Jaresh-Inyo , Jaresh-Uryad , Kesh-Mara , Lonam-Arja , Severn-Anyar , Torvis-Urzan , Usbek-Wran. A Grazerite female served as commander of Starbase G-6 in 2360. The Grazerites joined the Federation in 2305. In the late 24th century, Jaresh-Inyo represented the Grazerite people on the Federation Council, before being elected Federation President. His successor was Severn-Anyar.