Survival

Time for the Hoto Reference. Ya know I can't believe this stories has gotten over a 1000 hits and the comments tend to be really nice. I thought that when I started writing I would be lucky to get 400 hits and 1 or 2 nice comments. Sometimes it's good to be wrong, just don't tell my wife :)

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Hoto: Origin

The Hoto are one of 7 evolved insectoid races originating from the planet Cassia. The Hoto are a humanoid race resembling Earth butterflies. The Hoto are generally a vain species who value beauty over all things. Their vainity and arrogance had made them hated amongst the other 6 Cassian races.

The Hoto are a non-violent species who feel that dirtying their hands with blood is barbaric. Their vanity, arrogance and lack of weapons had made them the favored prey of the Locust. If it wasn't for their sleep spores and the allied Cassian armies fighting off the Locust the Hoto would have been wiped out very early. There were however no Hoto within the Cassian Allied army, the Hoto instead proved more agricultural support to the army. The Hoto nation, being a veritable garden of Eden, proved most of the vegetables and fruit on Cassia. The Hoto did not build massive sprawling cities but rather prefered the safety of towns built in the trees. These towns were uncharted and hard to find, this bought the Hoto enough time to flee when the Locust began The Feast.

When the Hoto took to the stars in their organic ships they searched for a new home world but they knew they couldn't avoid the Locust forever. All Hoto technology is organic and not designed for warfare so rather then fighting the Locust themselves they sought a species to fight the Locust for them. They came upon many species but none were suitable for their purposes. Until they found Earth.

The natural wildlife on Earth was evolving at an amazing rate and so they left swearing to return one day and hope Earth created a species capable of fighting the Locust. They returned to find that the Apes had evolved into Humans who had created cities of stones and powerful weapons like cannons. Humanities rapid development amazed the Hoto. When the most advanded race on Cassia was at the level of technology of Humanities 21st Century, it took them 56'000 years to create the first spaceship on Cassia. Humanity did it in a few hundred years.

The Hoto thought that they had found their solider species. They began plans to uplift Humanity, train them to fight for, die and serve the Hoto but one of the researchers discovered that there are Humans that eat other Humans. Just like the Locust. The Hoto began to panic, the species they wanted to save them were more like the Locust then they thought. So the Hoto left and began plans to destroy Earth and Humanity however Hoto technology was not meant for war and it took many years till a bomb powerful enough to destroy Earth was created.

When the Hoto returned World War 2 was coming to an end. They paused the destruction when they saw the allied forces had won and world war 2 ended on 2nd of September 1945. The United Nations was created on the 24th of October 1945. The Hoto watched as Humans took the Axis missiles, weapons designed to kill and used them to design and create Apollo 11, the spacecraft that landed on the moon on July 20 1969. The Hoto couldn't believe what they had seen, the Humans had gone from killing eachother to peace and then landing on the moon in under 50 years. To the Hoto with their 3000 years life span 50 years is nothing.

When it was discovered that cannibalism was now illegal on Earth the Hoto relaxed. They still wanted to uplift the Humans but realized that Humans value freedom and are willing to kill and die for it. The Hotos plan to manipulate the Humans into their servents and soliders was halted when they relized that to do so would just make Humanity an enemy. The Hoto agreeded to leave Humanity alone and continue their search for a home. The Hoto found a planet capable of growing their Construct seeds and settled there. The planet Halis is now the new Hoto home world.

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Hoto: The Feast

The Feast is what the Hoto call the time period when the Locust ate all life on Cassia. It is unknown whether any Cassian species other than the Hoto escaped the Feast.

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Hoto: Government

The Hoto government is a Kratocracy, a government by those who are strong enough to seize power through force or cunning. The Hoto being a non-violent race prefer to talk and argue over different matters of state. Hoto leaders or Counselors as they are called are cunning and tend to backstab each other for power. A common saying amongst the Hoto is "Turn your back to a Counselor and he'll steal your wings and convince people it was your fault"

The Counselors are choosen and trained at birth. It is believed by the Hoto that the more beautiful your wings the better you are. Babies born with complex and colouful wings are trained by their parents to become Counselors. There are three Counselors in each town and they rarely agree with eachother. Counselors are constantly being replaced as political backstabbing leads to disgraced Councelors stepping down from power.

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Hoto: Technology

The Hoto technology is interesting in that it isn't technically technology. The Human probes famously described Hoto technology as "Machines that aren't machines". Hoto technology is organic in nature, something rare and thought impossible.

The Hoto grow trees that bare a special and colurful fruit called the Poepon fruit. This multi coloured fruit has special seeds within it the Hoto call Construct seeds. These seeds react to a unique sound frequency given off by the Hoto antenna's. The pitch differs depending on the Hotos intent for the seed. Massive amounts of organic material resembling tree bark come out of the seed. How so much bark can emerge from such a small seed is unknown even to the Hoto.

The bark then reforms into whatever the Hoto had asked it to become. The Hoto, with enough of the seeds, could build an entire artifical planet in months. The planet however would have no atmosphere. The Construct seeds can create an organic spaceship capable of interstellar travel however these ships have little or no weapons and shields. The Hoto ships rely upon their auto repair abilities to prevent destruction. The speed and auto repair ability of Hoto ships make them excellent scout ships.

Hoto technology is completely reliant upon the Construct seeds, if these seeds were to be wiped out the Hoto would be thrust back to the dark ages.

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Hoto: Social structure

The Hoto do not discriminate by gender but rather by beauty.

The Hoto wings vary from Hoto to Hoto and the more beautiful your wings, the more important and better you are. Hoto beauty is decided by the amount of colours and the complex design on the wings. The more colours a Hoto wings have and the more complex design on the wings decides a Hotos beauty. Only the most beautiful are choosen to become Counselors or Gardeners. The closest thing to royality within the Hoto are the Grace families. These families are special in that a great number of their children are the most beautiful amongst the Hoto. Marriage contracts with these families are highly sought, some are even willing to give up political power for a chance to have children with the Grace families. This has led the Grace families to produce most of the Counselors.

The ugly Hoto or 'Dirt Hoto' as they are insultingly called, are the lowest on the social scale. Dirt Hoto lead horrible and hated lives. They are constantly looked down upon, mistreated, beaten and sometimes killed. The Grace families will secretly kill any of their children born as Dirt Hoto.

Most Dirt Hoto die alone and unloved.

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Hoto: Religion

The Hoto, while vain, do agree that there is something more beautiful then themselves. Nature.

The Hoto worship of nature began when they first discovered the Construct seeds. They believed that these seeds were gifts from nature itself. The Hoto diety is a massive yellow tree they call the Origin tree. It is said that all life was once a fruit on the wise Origin tree. Some beautiful fruit, the Hoto and some rotten fruit, the Locust. The Origin tree created the planets, the stars and all the nature upon those planets from its roots. When Cassia was finished the Origin tree let the Hoto fruit fall upon the planet and grow. But the force taken to dislodge the Hoto fruit loosened some of the other fruit as well.

And so the Hoto believe themselves to be the choosen people of the Origin tree and all other life an accident made by their creation. This has led to the Hotos arrogance as the Hoto sometimes say to other species "If it wasn't for us you wouldn't exist, be grateful I let you stand in my presence"

The Hoto created the Gardeners, a holy order who's doctrine is to spread the word of the Origin tree and to tend to the Poepon fruit from which Construct seeds come from. The Gardeners are the ones who created the Hotos standards of beauty. One day the Gardeners looked at the multi coloured, complex patterned Poepon fruit and proclaimed "Look at the Holy fruit. Do you see its colours, the twists and turns of the patterns upon it? What, I ask you, is more beautiful then that?. Now look at your wings! See the colours, the patterns? Can anyone say they have wings such as this?"

A Hoto woman stepped forward. Her wing colours were varied and the pattern complex. The Gardener pointed to the woman and said "See this one? Look at her wings! A sign that she is a favored of the Origin tree. Compare your wings to the Poepon fruit and know your beauty!"

The Hoto that do not measure up to the beauty of the Poepon fruit are therefore treated as rotten or dirty fruit from the Origin tree, a mistake created when the beautiful fruit fell from the Origin tree.

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Hoto: Relationships

The Hoto value beauty above all else including in relationships. The Hoto are polygamists. This means that men and women can have more then one husband or wife. The Hoto do not treat gender as a part of the descision when choosing a spouse. They care about, you guessed it, beauty.

A beautiful Hoto will have other families begging them to marry their son or daughter and will offer them anything in return. The Hoto generally do not have long lasting relationships, most Hoto relationships are simply aimed at producing beautiful children. The Grace families, in a sense, whore off their beautiful children to other families for power. It is believed that spending time and having sex with a beautiful Hoto increases your chance of one day having beautiful children. This mostly occurs in same sex relationships. Example: A beautiful Hoto males family have agreed to temporarily marry their son to another uglier male. When the marriage has ended that uglier male will be more desireable as it is believed his chances of creating a more beautiful child has increased.

The most beautiful Hoto in the relationship is considered in charge of the other spouses.

The Dirt Hoto have little to no prospects of marriage. Most are simply sold off by their families as servants to another family. Most Dirt Hoto have never had sex as it is believed that sex with a Dirt Hoto decreases your chance to create a beautiful child. Love is rare amongst the Hoto especially amongst a Grace and a Dirt Hoto.

Hoto history records that once a Grace and a Dirt Hoto did fall in love. The Dirt Hoto, a male with green wings and no patterns was sold to another family as a servant where he met a Grace Hoto woman with 7 colours on her wings and swirl patterns. At first they hated each other, she treated him like dirt and he put mud in her sheets. But as the years went by hatred turned to love and they both started looking forward to the arguments. It was not long till they agreed to marry and so they found an open minded Gardener and were married under the trees. They enjoyed a few bliss filled years until eventually the Grace womans parents signed a marriage agreement.

The Dirt and Grace couple were devastated. When the day for the marriage came the Grace family discovered their daughter was gone and the Dirt Hoto servant was gone as well. They were eventually found and the Dirt Hoto was killed. The Grace woman was brought back home and drugged. She spent the next week in a drugged daze as her new husband fulfilled his side of the marriage contract. When it was discovered she was pregnant the marriage was ended and the temporary husband left.

When she emerged from her drugged state the woman wept uncontrollably and refused to leave her room. Eventually the time came for the child to be born. The child was a girl and to the horror of the Grace family and the joy of the Grace woman, the girl had solid, no patterned blue wings. The childs father was the Dirt Hoto, the man she loved. When the Grace family tried to take the child and kill her the childs mother attacked anyone who tried. The Grace family exiled the mother and child and it is unknown what has happened to them.

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There ya go, thats the Hoto. I liked writing the little Romeo and Juliet story at the end and I hoped you liked it too. A cookie for anyone who figures out who the child is. Its not that hard.

This finishes the References for now and I'll be getting back to the story next chapter. By the way I've decided not to make new stories every time I introduce a new species. There would be too many stories and it would get confusing.