Hey there, it's Sayu. Unfortunately I had a day yesterday, so I don't have the next chapter ready, and I'm not in the headspace to get it finished in reasonable time this morning. While I could probably force it, it would be both late and lower quality. My muse, such as it is, is well suited to just sit down and churn things out... but only when I'm in the right mindset. Right now, I'm tired and have a headache, so I don't think it'd go well.
To fill space and as an apology, here are my notes on the Ri'lef species:
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The Ri'lef are a semi-humanoid species with which the Crestan Empire shares no natural borders. A Founder's child race, the Ri'lef descend from aquatic mammals. Like many Founder's child races, they show unnatural leaps in evolution; their skin has more in common with the skins of fully aquatic mammals than with reptiles or other amphibious species, requiring constant moisture and responding poorly to heat. Their long torsos and weak spines cause them trouble standing upright for long periods. Nevertheless, according to their own history, the Ri'lef thrived on their own planet prior to time when the Founders intervened to grant aether access to their society, despite the needs of technological progress.
The Ri'lef are an old race, and have ascended beyond participating in the Founders' wargames and established themselves as an independent interstellar society, although they are not able to fully extricate themselves from Founders politics. They are known to be watchers over several dozen star systems harboring nascent Founders child races, and their military power is audited by the Founders. They have a native water aether ability, focusing on manipulation with minimal creation, at a Founders' Scale power rating of .3, a finesse rating of .5, and a domain rating of .85; their domain rating puts them high in the heirarchy of Founders' Children and is singularly responsible for their ascendance. Ri'lef military starships use personal aether domain-centric defense systems but technological weapons, and are generally considered formidable in individual battles against ships of similar tonnage, but poor in formation warfare. They have chosen not to share the Founders' ratings of their capital-class ships, but the Ri'lef 'Serrated' class frigate was publicly acknowledged to be rated .7 during a demonstration, among the highest known ratings in that tonnage range. Serrated-class frigates are known to have a small crew and few creature comforts, with the vast majority of the ship's tonnage dedicated to weapons and engines. It is intended for targeted missions and has little capacity to stay on station for long periods of time.
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The Ri'lef are known to be used directly by the Founders for several functions, especially the deployment and maintenance of Founder aether technology. The most common vessel used for these functions is the Ri'lef 'Tidal' class medium Cruiser, or sometimes an adapted civilian version of the same. Although little is known about this class of cruiser outside of the Ri'lef military, it is known that these cruisers use a main drive technology adapted from Founder technology, and can travel through certain regions generally restricted to Founders ships. It is assumed by some that this relates to interstellar aether disruptions, the details of which the Founders do not share; the public Founders navigational databases do not differentiate between military-restricted areas and navigational hazards.