The Yachachiyruna (Quechua for engineer or technician), also known as The Engineers were a sub-species of Humans that lived on the planet Nest. The singular term for the Yachachiyruna was a Yachachi.[1]
Biology[]
The Yachachiyruna were both male and female. They looked like humans, except they were covered in hair, hand-like appendages instead of feet, and arms twice as long as their legs. During spring, summer, and autumn, they lived on the surface. In winter, they would go underground with the Runa. They wore no clothes, as there was no clothing that gave them the freedom of movement that they needed.[1]
Due to their genetic alterations, the Yachachiyruna were not exactly human anymore. They had the minds of humans, the desires, the memories, the lore of humans, but they could not interbreed without losing the improvements they had been given.[1]
History[]
Origin[]
In 87 BX when the Formics invaded the Sol System, the Quispe crew of the Ark witnessed the defeat of the onslaught of the Formic Scout Ship, but also saw a larger fleet amassing outside of the system, and decided that they could not help humanity in the Second Formic War. The Mother of the crew assembled the crew in the cargo bay and asked the crew if they would go with her to find another world and save humanity from extinction. The Ark was capable of this voyage, especially after they took possession of a habitat module from an abandoned trading post in The Belt. It was already growing enough food crops to sustain ten times their population, and it had plenty of room for the birds free to soar and fly, to nest and breed.[1]
Within the first ten years of the flight, a certain group of people called themselves the Engineers, because they were the ones who made repairs and invented new machinery on the inside and outside of the ship. They were constantly leaving the parts of the ship that rotated to create gravity, and spent most of their time in weightless space. The engineers saw how dangerous it was to have regular human shape, so they asked Mother if they could explore ways to modify their genes so that their children would be better suited to the labor. Mother said yes, and the Engineers joined with the scientists of the crew, and while they could still access communications with Earth, they learned all they could about genes and how to modify them. As they were in contact with Earth, they knew of the miraculous victory of Mazer Rackham, but also had friends in the International Fleet to know that the public story was a lie, and that Mazer Rackham had figured out that all the Formic ships acted from one point of view, and which ship contained that point of view. He violated his orders and launched a missile and it destroyed the Hive Queen ship. Mother gave the crew a choice to return to Earth, but because they knew the Formics would return to avenge their Queen they decided to continue their voyage.[1]
When the children of the Engineers were born, they had the modifications to work better with four hands. The normal people, known as Runa or the Folk, had to watch their children to try to keep them from imitating the Engineers, because they could get injured or die imitating them. These modified humans were called Yachachiyruna, or individuals a Yachachi. They hardly used Quechua anymore, except in holy ceremonies, but in those days it was simply the Quechua word for engineer or technician.[1]
After around two centuries of voyaging, the Ark arrived on a habitable world, and it was named Nest and settled by the Runa, the Yachachiyruna, the Keas and the Ravens. They encountered the Recorder virus but did not think much of it.[1]
In the second century of the colony around 313 AX, some humans were so furious with the mischief of the Keas that they started making traps and caging them where they could do no harm to humans' projects. When the Ravens saw it, they declared a relentless guerrilla war against the village of humans. The humans could do nothing without constant bombardment and tearing. Everything they built the bids broke or weakened, and the birds pecked at their faces, tearing their ears. The birds never blinded any of them, as they wanted it to be a war whose scars might heal. To avoid them, many of the villagers took refuge underground. The Ravens opened the cages and set the Keas free, forging an alliance between the birds. Thus, the Folk of Nest retreated fully underground and decided to live separately from the birds. However, they bore a deep resentment against the birds. The Yachachiyruna lived among the birds and the humans during different times of the year.[1]
Children of the Mind[]
In 3180 AX, an unidentified spacecraft entered orbit around Nest, and could teleport instantly. The Yachachiyruna and the Runa sent a transmission of the Recorder virus to the craft as a way to ask them if they were the ones who sent the virus to them. Soon after they sent a ship into orbit to intercept the Box, but the Box teleported away.[2]
The Last Shadow[]
A few days after the Lusitanians made contact with the Keas, Ravens, and Yachachi, the Folk invited the Lusitanians to a banquet underground. However, when they arrived, the Folk used a biological weapon and attempted to kill the Lusitanians. When they escaped, they turned against the other species of Nest with an ultrasound and infrasound riot control weapon that the Yachachi Ruqyaq had created 20 years ago, killing hundreds of Ravens and Keas. The Lusitanians returned with a Box that could take the Ravens, Keas, and Yachachiyruna to Lusitania and they swarmed in. Jane sent the Box full with birds back and forth dozens of times. Eventually there was no birds left except for a few that hovered off in the distance, apparently with no wish to go even under threat of death. Knowing that the Folk would kill them too, some of the Yachachi emerged from the trees, and Jane teleported them away.[1]
The humans then went to the meadow on Lusitania to sort the birds. The Yachachi sat on the edge as the birds were sent to the colonies, and Ruqyaq asked Jane if they could stay on Lusitania, but she said no as the only trees on Lusitania were the sacred Pequenino Fathertrees. Jane also instructed them to make clothes for themselves, so they asked to stay for a few more days.[1]
Eventually, the Yachachi were sent to a colony, where they lived on two different continents, and used boats to pass between them. One of the continents was dominated by the fast-growing human colony and the Formics and Pequeninos who dwelt alongside them. Another continent was given to Ravens, whom the Yachichiyruna sometimes visited. The third continent was where the Yachachiyruna mined for metals and coal, and made their factories on the leeward coast, where the prevailing winds would carry away the smoke of manufacture. Ruqyaq expressed that Nest was merely a training ground, where they learned their science and engineering and languages, but on the colony they could become one nation and later many nations, with languages developing freely.[1]