Genus Sourcia

An evolutionary path with no relation to humans or conventional genetic life, Sourcia are instead composed of a subtype of XNA or xeno-nucleic acids - a variant with zero sugars and instead, biopolymers.

The primary form of life is partially uni and multicellular, a classification called protocellular - in that it is not a living colony, nor is it a single cell but some blurred mixture of the two that is difficult to define using conventional biological techniques.

Many Sourcia derived organisms are comparable amoeba, molluscs, micillium and sea-anemone like creatures. They typically have a hardened central brain and their amorphorous organs are created adhoc to perform a task then disregarded when no longer needed. To this end, Sourcia are typically shape-changing and while they can differ enormously in size, those which exist on dry land are typically around double the mass of a human being.

Often, Sourcia are able to self-edit their own genome to recover from radiation damage or make stark changes to their biological or chemical processes - and can learn to respire with oxygen, methane, ammonia, alcohol or other chemically viable solvents or skip the process almost entirely and radically simplify their biological systems to function in a vacuum in a matter of hours.

To this end, the specific materials Sourcia use to actually create their bodies differ enormously: Some taking up residence in other animals which they genetically engineer to become their new environment, some in complex hydrocarbons and others even converting large lakes into exterior bodies for themselves almost indistinguishable from conventional water until they move.

Species derived from genus Sourcia include…

• Cruda (“crude”)
• Sourciana (“Sourcian” – sometimes 'flan' in the derogatory)
• Aquana (“common slime”)

With no exception, all Genus Sourcia are hermaphradites; one is typically the donor and the other serves as a carrier. With being the carrier having the hardest workload and lowest reproduction rate (a donor able to donate many times in the time it takes for a carrier to produce one offspring) it is generally preferable to be the donor rather than the carrier. As such, it is common for their to be competition, with the loser becoming the mother.

Replication takes place via a process very similar to cellular division, though once division is complete, a carrier can choose to carry the offspring for an extended period of time - as so both may recover their mass and so the offspring is more fully developed.

As such, extended carriage results in a better rounded offspring whereas rapid division halves the size of both the parent and child.

Being able to formshift and dynamically alter their genome to a limited degree, many Sourcia only reproduce for the purpose of improving their odds of genetic survival rather than for the sake of genetic diversity or the gain or loss of traits – though the library of 'learned' traits is exchanged at the point of reproduction.

It is fairly common for a mother once an offspring is fully developed, to cannibalize with it and merge with it as a kind of 'genetic software update', the resulting organism becoming a product of both the mother and the child together as a sort of third offspring.

Sourcia almost exclusively require a medium to place their core maesus brain and organs inside, which in almost all cases is a liquid. This can as stated, be a specially created liquid, a cultured organism, complex hydrocarbons or even adapted water.

Some are known to deliberately use food-stuffs as they are an excellent way of attracting what classically would be considered predators, which then they may absorb or deliberately allow themselves to be eaten, then infest and cultivate the body of their predator as their new environment. This is however a great risk and a grave undertaking and under no circumstances should it ever be taken lightly.

While it seems infestation would be an excellent method of transmission making Sourcia parasites, the technique only works when the subject is not under diuress and infestation itself is a very technical skill that a majority of Sourcia do not know and only functions if the subject is voluntary.