Characters

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	The Emperor of Bleen is the undisputed ruler of the Mighty Bleen Empire. His power extends to a full quarter of the Milky Way galaxy. As one might imagine, maintaining such a vast conquest as the Bleen Empire creates somewhat of an employment shortage. This has opened a number of Employment Opportunities for some of Bleen's more modestly gifted citizens.
The Acolytes are the loyal courtiers of the Bleen Emperor. Privy to every critical decision made by the Emperor himself, they ensure that he is kept up to date with all matters of Empire, War and the annual bonus situation. While theoretically a source of detailed information spanning all the Empire's official business, they also have a disturbing awareness of fares and schedules for all flights leaving Bleen to parts afar.
	Initially only a modest functionary within the Bleen Empire, Vexxarr has been offered an opportunity to prove himself to crown and country. By conquering Earth, a distasteful brackish world at the outer rim of the Milky Way galaxy, Vexxarr can win a top position within the Bleen army. Unfortunately, both the Emperor and Vexxarr have underestimated the mammalian infestation of this damp, little world. This oversight will eventually spell disaster for Bleen while perhaps offering Vexxarr an opportunity he would otherwise have never been given.
An indispensable adjunct to every marauding overlord, Minionbot 107 is Vexxarr's right - er - tentacle man - er - robot. Whatever. The Minionbot series is programmed with an apparently endless database of alien worlds, cultures, military history and sage advice. Unfortunately, due to the nature of its imprinted behavior and survival subroutines, Minionbot is just as likely to use this data against its master as not. As a result, the Minionbot series has the dubious distinction of being the "most often ejected into space by way of open airlock" of any of the autonomous servantbots produced by the cybernetic industries of Bleen.
	While not a true character per se, the American Military and armies of the world prove to be an unexpected variable in the Bleen equation for global conquest. It seems that when a culture spends the balance of its history advancing the art of self-extermination, that culture tends to look dimly upon uninvited outsiders. Bottom line: in a fight between two different cultures - even ones with wildly divergent technological sophistication - victory always favors the side with the most practice.
A highly advanced (if not evolved) race of galactic conquerors, THE BLEEN are extremely territorial and highly aggressive. Hybridized cnidaria, the Bleen are soft bodied, partially symmetrical and exhibit an odd cake fixation. They reproduce asexually by budding. The podlings, which eventually drop off the parent, differentiate and grow to adulthood (assuming they are not punitively re-ingested) through three, general stages - podling, immature and adult. The Bleen are masters and engineers of a millennia-old empire that continues to expand across the middle bands of the Milky Way galaxy. The Bleen bow to an hereditary Emperor who acts as the center of all military activity throughout the Empire. Their technology, while interesting and formidable, lacks any sort of subtlety. They like things that lumber and generally make loud noises.
	The dominant species of Epsilon Beta Shlumpy, Shlumpoids are an extremely artistically and technologically advanced species. They are the architects of an impressively advanced, planet-wide civilization on their sole home world (despite having no observable manipulating appendages of any description). Governed by a benign matriarch, the whole of Shlumpoid society seems to cooperate for the collective good, differentiating themselves by class and specialization only as the need arises. Shlumpoid biology seems to be subtle if not entirely vague. While some form of sexual congress is used to reduce genetic homogeny, the Shlumpoids seem to lack a clear definition of male and female. It is possible that they may develop as one of several genders, some or all of them necessary to pass the genome along to successive Shlumpoid generations. The Shlumpoids themselves seem confused by the issue of gender and would rather discuss how your turtleneck makes them feel about their chosen career path. While Shlumpoids can exhibit nearly paralyzing emotional psychosis themselves, their chief means of defense seems to be their ability to project such psychosis on would-be invaders. This attack is capable of rendering whole armies ineffective. While not psionic in the strictest sense, victims of this attack seem to succumb to a crushing sense of ennui.
Sid - short for Silicon Dioxide - is a member of a silicon based prey species inhabiting an asteroid drift deep within the Horse Head Nebula. The sole food source of the silicoid predators that also inhabit the drift, Sid's species exists in a fragile balance between extinction and a near-constant state of terror. The life cycle of the rock crabs (as Sid's species has come to be known) progresses from a rock-like egg, to a fully functional hatchling adult to a moon-sized matriarch that presumably lays the rock-like eggs. Exactly how the adults become moon-sized adults or which are chosen to become matriarchs is unknown. The life cycle is so similar to that of the competing predator species that is must be assumed that both share a common ancestor or one evolved from the other. The rock crabs derive life-sustaining energy from differentials of available energy such as sunlight, heat or electricity. The rock crab's anatomy (if it can be called that) is a layered stratum of polarized silicon dioxides separated by an ion permeable boundary. In their native environment, the rock crabs seek shadow and place themselves half in and half out to feed. Bridging the boundary between light and dark creates a cross current within their bodies. This process works with differentials in air temperature and surface static. It is possible that they are able to convert kinetic energy into food but this has yet to be observed. Due to this peculiar feeding process it is possible for the rock crabs to starve in any environment in absolute equilibrium. They would starve in a space uniformly hot just as easily as they might a space uniformly cold. Photonic feeding is less of a problem as rock crabs can cast shadows on themselves using their own anatomy if the need arises. Because the rock crabs do not themselves eat, they fear any species that does. Further because they believed themselves to be the only prey in the universe, they have a hard time coming to terms with other food sources that do not feel fear or pain. In short, they try to make friends with anything in the pantry.
	Sharing the same drift as the rock crabs is a species of silicoid predator. Possibly an evolutionary cousin of the rock crabs themselves, the silicoid predators are singularly adapted to rending and digesting the rock crabs mineral bodies. So efficient is the silicoid predator that it does not excrete physical waste. For this reason, when offered a far more energetic source of food - refined sugar for example - the end result is biologically disastrous and literally explosive. The life cycle of the silicoid predator is not fully understood. Only the predator moon 'mother' and the motile predatory offspring have so far been observed. The predator moon is capable of independent motion, using stored energy to create electromagnetic thrust. The predator moon carries her young around in her cavernous maw seeking out the far less mobile mother rock of the rock crabs. It should be noted that unlike the rock crab 'mother rock', the predator moon is incapable of feeding on her own. Instead, she sends her offspring off to hunt then eats select individuals upon their return. It is presumed that a high birth rate refreshes the supply of immature hunters. Caesium, which is found in trace amounts in the rock crab's biology, builds up to abundance in the outer shell of the mature predator moon. The corpses of predator moons are a rich source of caesium as well as many other minerals that accumulate over aeons of feeding on the helpless silicoid crabs. Of course, before attempting to land one should be quite sure the moon is - in fact - dead.