One of the more interesting intelligent species mankind has encountered while exploring the Galaxy are the Shuskianti. Despite having reached their evolutionary pinnacle several million years ago, they are little more advanced technologically than mankind, perhaps in part due to their unique life cycle.

In appearance they look like octopi or squid, with a central column about six meters tall and one meter around. Four long tentacles extrude from the middle of the column, and they move using jets of fluid funnelled through gill-like organs at the top and bottom of the central section. Their preferred environment is liquid methane or hydrocarbons at extremely cold temperatures, so their interations with humans are mostly from inside steaming environmental walker suits.

Without their suits they are a reddish-silver colour and use a form of microwave radiation to sense their surroundings and to communicate with one another.

They reproduce both asexually and sexually - when sexual reproduction is initiated, two or more (up to four Shuskianti can contribute genetic material to a new youngling), a large egg sac develops in the midsection of their "torso", bursting free after a year's gestation with little harm to the parent.

More interestingly, their asexual reproduction cycle involves their neural clusters, or brain, migrating to the same region of their body. It then undergoes a series of changes leading to the development of a rigid cocoon around the whole. After six months, the cocoon bursts, and a juvenile form of the original Shuskianti emerges, with all adult memories and personality intact.

The greatest elders of the Shuskianti are well over a hundred thousand years old and were designing vast subsurface ice-engines long before mankind had domesticated animals. Perhaps as a result of this essentially eternal lifespan, they are generally slow to take collective action and their culture remains largely a mystery. Few violent conflicts have arisen between themselves and other species since they don't have much in common, but their weapons technology is rumoured to be fearsome.

Individually they are noted for their somewhat acrid sense of humour and unwillingness to part with currency, but are quick enough to move when the need arises.