[Cosmosdex] The Universal Encyclopedia

[Cosmosdex]

Great Filter
     

Aliens / Grey Death

Great Filter
“Space was so quiet, and it baffled us for so long. The math didn't add up. We couldn't have been alone or the first, and yet space was ever so quiet. We always hypothesized that the reason we never obtained contact with aliens was because of some great filter. Perhaps all life out there died early on, the people bickering about politics until it became too late to find an escape from their planet, or maybe the perfect conditions for life were more complicated than we thought.....

We could have never known that not only was this great filter real, it was more physical than we could imagine.” — The opening paragraph for the book "The Grey Death"

Art by, excalibur

  • Strength-7
  • Intelligence-5
  • Charisma-1
  • Endurance-2
  • Agility-6
  • Luck-5

Common Jobs: Murderers, Raiders, Stalkers, Intimidators, Governmental control
Likes: Domination, Control, Space itself
Dislikes: Other space-faring species

Attack Method: Instead of attacking head-on, the great filter would kidnap members of the species they wished to destroy, study their weaknesses, and attack en-mass from all possible directions.

The species aims to ruin their victims' infrastructure, and once sure their target has no chance of recovery, they slow down in their attacks for the worst. Many planets have been found in horrifying states of generations of torture followed by an extinction event. No reason for these catastrophes has ever been found except for a need to "display their power over others."

Attributes
Homeplanet: Redacted for safety concerns
Lifespan: 130 years
Size: 6.7 ft tall
Diet: Meat, Fish

Bodytype: Quadruped
Type: Amphibian
Social Class: Extinct
Rarity: Extinct
Common Traits
[Eavesdropper] Neutral trait
This character is particularly inclined to listen in on conversations that they really aren't supposed to be a part of. This can often impart valuable information, but it can also destroy relationships if they get caught.
[Adaptive] Positive trait
This character is more able to survive in an unfavorable environment, given time. This character is able to handle radical changes without folding under pressure.
[Alpha] Negative trait
This character feels they are the Head of the pack so to speak, even if they aren't. This character feels the need to dominant everyone around them. They may do Power moves to show and scare other people around them into submitting. While this gains them power, everyone around them will quickly be drained emotionally and sometimes physically. Characters may avoid them, leaving them no one left on their side.
Gods

The great filter did not honor any gods, and whenever possible, it would destroy traces of gods created by other species to insult their existence.


Gods: None

Original Creator: Atomic


Physical Description

Artist depictions of the great filter appears all across the universe, with some pieces created at least 100 million years ago. Often simplified into a lanky bipedal grey to green alien with large bulbous eyes and two long antennas, these depictions were not entirely correct. The few images and videos of the species show a quadrupedal slimy flesh alien that, when aggressive, would stand on two legs to give off the appearance of being larger.

The reason so many depictions show them as bipedal is simple. The great filter would always enter a state of hyper aggression when spotting other species. They often sported no clothes as they absorbed oxygen through their skin, and when they wore fabrics, it was either small or loose. Their skin was an uneven grey or green, often blotchy, dipping into whites, blacks, and even hints of a sickly green.

Both their feet and hands are webbed and stick to all except the smoothest surface with ease. Ancient accounts reported them as "faster on wall and water than on foot." Long five-inch claws hid under the flesh, and when their hands were slightly balled up, these nails would extend outwards.

The head of the great filter was a long oval that ended with a blunt point. Two spindly antennas with a sensitive yet firm piece of flesh on the end protruded out of the top of their heads. Their large mouths, which opens wide enough to consume smaller prey whole, have small teeth for hooking into and trapping prey. A long tongue hides within their mouth, believed to be used for sticking into hives of insects and uprooting them from their nests.

Their two natural eyes are large and extend outside of their faces. A bright false eye sits between them, once used to warn predators that they're not a meal to mess with. Great filters are known to press their eyes into their sockets to assist with pushing down meals.

Under their head is a bright orange pouch that they inflate to croak their signature songs when they believe the area of clear of "hostiles."

Members of the species who survived their first planetary invasion were outfitted with a third mechanical eye. This was placed in the center of their head to show authority and assist with their following raids by providing them with heightened senses. Those of their community who did not help with these raids, such as inventors or delegators, were never allowed a third optic.

Noted as their most terrifying feature was their backs adorned with slits. During the reproductive stage, these would open en-masse. The hole clusters would fill with an amber ooze, and soon spawn formed within. As their children developed, these eggs would expand out of the holes to allow more room. At the final stage, members of the great filter would flock to release their children into the waters of their homeworld. The primal need to return to their birthplace was so great that it halted grand wars for the week of spawning.

A single member of the species could have up to 30 children at once, contributing to their mass hunger needs and universal domination.

Personality

One would be hard-pressed to come up with a species that is as merciless as the great filter. Information on their social and personal lives is lacking, but the reports that do exist paint them as a cold and calculating species. Their manipulative nature is heightened by their wide vocal range, allowing them to stalk and attract prey unnoticed.

Unsettlingly, the great filter is infamous for their "torture drive." Often they will impale or incapacitate other living organisms and let their cries attract new prey towards their location to avoid having to hunt. Artist renditions of these events show any spikes, natural or not, being used as "meathooks" for the living.

Their hatred of other species is not only towards the intelligent but all things which move and breath. The skin of the great filter is both absorbent and easily damaged. As such, allowing others outside their species near them can lead to death. For them, killing all around them is a defensive move. Due to this, their greatest weakness was chemical-based weaponry, but even in these cases, so many great filters would swarm in at once that species would have to salt the land itself to survive an invasion. These "wins" would be bitter-sweet, as all cases lead to the death of the entire species and often most of the animals that lived on the planet within 1000 years.

Art by Lammar
The remains of something lost forevermore.

With little care about their own well-being, invasions would lead to significant causalities for the great filter, but their frequent successes provided more than enough food to not only survive, but thrive. A member of the species only takes one year to reach adulthood, and every subsequent year, it can produce up to 30 children, quickly rebounding any losses they gained.

With extreme tolerance of overcrowding on their planet and ships, the filter was akin to giant locusts, covering landscapes like blankets. They did not have a formal style of government. Instead, they were team players of a massive anarchy system. Those who survived would write books detailing step by step the best way to invade a planet, and those who came after would expand upon it. While all of these books burned down with their planet, it is said they were simple enough for any member to follow and that a surprising amount of subjects were covered to allow members to specialize in specific jobs.

The speed at which information traveled is considered baffling, and the mechanisms behind it are still being studied to this day. To quote a member of a species long dead.

"Yesterday, the aliens discovered us. Today their swarm is here. Tomorrow I shall be dead. I hope the birds fly faster than they move so that my letter gets to you. I am sorry, my dear, Jonual, that I could not tell you in person that I loved you one last time." - Letter found inside a bunker. While the area was untouched by the great filter, signs of their existence laid only outside of it. The group hiding was forced to starve inside, to avoid being consumed.

History

Due to how much history has been erased and destroyed by the great filter, all info below is pieced together with what little remains. As such, some of it may be inaccurate, if not outright lies or fabrications. The only things that can be confirmed is the great number of murders they committed and how they were defeated.

Over one hundred million years ago, during the first age of space, a species had one minor issue. They had acquired a new planet and wished to empty it of most of the fauna to allow it to become a lush plant paradise. Invasive species had been well known to decimate populations before collapsing in on themselves and going extinct. Unwilling to use chemical means which might have made the planet unsuitable for plants, the species brought over a few invasive faunas to populate, kill, and collapse. One of which was the great filter, an amphibian that would help kill swamp and lake life.

The population of this fauna boomed, and unexpectedly they were intelligent enough for simple tool use. This was not considered much of an issue, and the plan was allowed to continue. All was well until the food outside the walls of the cities ran dry, and instead of collapsing, the great filter climbed up and feasted upon the residents of the world.

A great horror was unleashed.

The species had very little allies, and no massive federation networks existed in the first era. They packed up what they could and left the planet to rot. What they did not expect is how quickly the great filter would learn to use their technology.

It only took the once "simple-minded fauna" a thousand years to learn the art of space flight and look for new food sources. They listened to signals in space and silently stalked their prey to their homeworlds.

For millions of years, "The Grey" was a common topic spoken about on planets. Each description unsettlingly similar to the last. A tall grey alien with two antennas that would kidnap livestock and citizens in the dead of night. Often brushed aside as the rambling of a "mad man and his dreams," the truth was much darker.

When a species began to attempt to speak into the great emptiness of space in hopes of communicating with those above, the filter would hear their call. Like the ramblings that were laughed at, they stole fauna and residents alike. Sometimes returning them later, stark naked or dead from unknown causes. Requests to the governments for help would be denied no matter how much evidence was brought forth. All of it would be tossed away, or the reporter would disappear just like the livestock. The great filter had their claws into the planet.

The kidnappings and experiments were not random events. They were learning from their excursions, studying the best way to eliminate the species' food supply. While the people of the planet fought over meals, the filter would use their gained knowledge to kill the species in the most efficient way possible.

Art by Lammar
The species was poorly adapted to extremely dry conditions, but that doesn't mean they were useless. Should a dry season roll in mid-invasion, they will dig into the ground and hibernate until the next time it rains. These hibernations can last up to two years causing those who thought they survived to be feasted on during a storm.

When the dry season is longer than two years, the species dies within the soil, eventually forming unwitting mass burial sites.

Denying the existence of these vile aliens was the only way the governments of the world could hope to protect their people. The great filter made sure the highest officials knew their power. They displayed their genocides in video and stated that if their movements were not covered up and waved away, their next major feeding ground would be here.

Ship crashes would be covered up as weather balloons or military experiments. Countries whose governments decided the silent abuse was worth fighting against would be silenced themselves in wars springing up for foolish reasons. This all occurred while the world's governments would neglect millions of missing person and livestock cases, knowing it was the feedings of "The Greys."

When scientists came close to finding a way to transport people past their solar system, programs would be defunded, scientists removed, and often found dead in "unfortunate circumstances." The government knew that if the species attempted to leave their solar system, they would be "invading" the territory of the great filter and be struck down in their genocidal rage.

Staying silent was all they could do.

Those who did not bow would be exterminated. Even those who did would at times find themselves cornered should their oppressors become hungry enough.

All the species who had reached the age of space before the great filter rose forth were systematically murdered into extinction. At best, a few members would escape into the dark corners of the universe, abandoning their advanced tech as not to announce their location to the monsters they hid from.

A notable species the great filter attacked was the grol. With their vast empire, yet space travel technology that could take them millions of years to get to another planet, the filter had met their match. Hunting down the grols and killing them off was no easy feat. The advanced race was more intelligent than them, and their lack of faster than light travel did not hinder their defenses.

Still, like all other empires, they too fell.

The age of terror, and the end of the first space era, was only 15,000 years ago. It is believed that on that day, the great filter was spawning on their planet when something they did not expect arrived.

A bomb shot out deliberately by the grols over fifty million years ago.

It is on that day that the great filter was killed by a species they did not even remember.

It would take over 10,000 years for the notails, who had not been affected by the terror that killed the first era, to speak out and fly across the stars. Those who hid for so long finally knew that the great filter, their oppressors, were dead, and they could reach back into space.

Unfortunately, some species still lay in hiding to this day, believing that all communications from outsiders are a trap. They shoot down space ships they know do not belong to the great filter and tell the public it was an asteroid or aircraft. They corrupt the sounds of incoming messages into static and audio nonsense. Scared of what will happen, they campaign aggressively against those curious about the worlds outside their own.

They believe it to be a trap the filter set out to test them. The damage and scars done make them unable or unwilling to taste the freedom of space.

It is predicted that many of these species will run out of resources on their planet-

-and die in fear of a threat long gone.

Home Planet

Few accounts of the homeworld exist. Most come from the grol, one of the only species who fought against the great filter, and the only ones able to hold up against them for many years. While they eventually succumb to the swarm, their notes still survive. The planet was said to be highly moist, and most of it stuck in an eternal spring.

Currently, however, the planet is nothing but rubble. Before the grol died, they launched an assault that took over 50 million years to reach its destination. The great filter could do nothing when it arrived but be annihilated. Their planet was cracked open and blown up by a species that they could not remember the name of. Worse for them, the grol had accounted for how long their weapon would take, and carefully calculated it to arrive during a prime spawning period.

Unable to stop their instinctual wiring, members of the species still attempted to head back to their homeworld, and when unable to complete their task, would die of complications, starvation, or drifted into the endless abyss.

Today the location is a graveyard of old technology, most of it rendered to scrap by the explosion.

Subspecies

Small Grey: These smaller versions of the great filters were used for scouting. They were less threatening looking, less prone to a desire to consume, and overall more intelligent. Their taller brethren often listened to the orders of small greys and followed them to invade new locations. As small greys were not fighters, they would take notes before and during invasions and were the primary writers of the species. Great filters would happily feed their smaller counterparts when the info they delivered proved useful.

Filter Feeders: Though little solidified evidence exists for this subtype, there are many records of "giant great filters being used as beasts of war." No two depictions of the beasts are the same. Unsettlingly all accounts show what can only be described as a twisted, mangled version of the original.

Possible others: It has been hypothesized that due to the wide-spreading travel of the species and their high reproductive rate, there is a chance that the members of the great filter could have become stuck on other planets, and, unable to escape the location, would evolve to fit the situation over time. Some logs found that a few willingly escaped from their species, though most of these were hunted down and eliminated. Most scientists say that despite all of these factors, the reign of the great filter lasted at least 100 million years and the chances that there isn't at least one living species who descends from them out in the universe is slim to none.

Special

High Reproductive Cycle: Great filters are monosexed and, if needed, do not need other members of their species to create offspring. Members of the species spawn within the same month every year. This high rate of reproduction combined with their ability to have up to 30 young simultaneously means that the species can rebound from extreme losses.

Trivia

• Some believe that the great filter is a lie told by the governments of the universe in an attempt to control the population.

• The species never gave themselves a name after they stopped being categorized as a fauna. Due to their highly genocidal nature, others would often relate them to the concept known as a "great filter" in which the reason why a species could not come in contact with aliens was because something killed them off before contact could be made.

• The original fauna name of the great filter was "Turtyrlq'zterxomp iump detlr'zkogglr", which when translated from common first era language, is "Tortured starving long water skipper" in limbolish. Humorously and yet darkly named after their nature of seemingly always be starving for a meal.

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