The Us or Thus is a species of hivemind aliens striving for cultural experiences in the universe. Their goal is to outstretch across the universe and integrate with culture-rich intelligent lifeforms. Braxton is a member of Thus who arrived to Earth under this purpose.
Hivemind Mindspace
Thus exists in a state similar to that of a hivemind in that they naturally and unstoppably share their conceptual experiences and candid thoughts with one another. It’s not instantaneous, but it is very close, albeit the thought or experience is much more muted than one's own.
This creates a society unable to lie to one another, and unable to betray one another. Yet they all have different personal tastes, quirks, and interests; one may like the color blue while another personally doesn't, but the other would be able to conceptually understand at a intimate level to as why this one individual likes blue, along with personally know the feelings and thoughts said individual has in regard to it.
Superimposing onto this idea is desensitization. Rather than an individual being constantly overwhelmed and distracted by the sensations and experiences of the others in the hivemind, they are desensitized to the ongoing flow, and can quite easily tune it out. Similarly to how humans aren’t consciously focusing on their breathing unless they think about it, or that they have the constant physical sensation of clothes on their skin but don’t focus on it.
Color System
In writing, members in the mindspace all communicate in colored italicized font. Each member's dialogue text is colored differently depending on who is speaking.
Due to their communication to other creatures also being telepathic thoughts, members will "speak" in colored italicized text to subjects they have a telepathic link with.
Please see picture example aside; these are the most commonly vocal members in writing.
History
An individual is the same one from the initial emergence of their species; they can die, and the day they all die will be the day they go extinct.
There are currently 65 members in their species, originally 67. They have existed for around ~1,112,000 years. Whilst being highly resilient and resistant to death, to date two members of their species have died. One from spagettification into a black hole (around the 1,100,000 mark), and a second from suicide (also via black hole, the only currently known way to kill them) shortly after the loss of the first member.
The first death made every other member feel for the first time what death is like. The terror and emptiness of these feelings was what compelled the second to perish as well. This caused the species to return to their home planet to reconnect and heal for 10,000 years.
Around 1,110,000 years from emergence some of the members began exploring the universe again, and around 1,111,500 years the main character Braxton began searching for a new planet to acclimate to (after his original one before the reconnection had been destroyed). To date, six remaining members of the species have yet to leave the home world, still not yet ready to explore the universe again.
Biology
All members appear to be physically identical to one another, despite their differing personalities.
Compare to humans, Thus are all unnaturally slender and vaguely masculine in appearance. Their skin is a saturated raspberry red, and flush magenta. Eyes are bright gold and lack pupils. Towering above humans, their height stands close to seven feet.
They possess no naturally open orifice into their body, save for lubricate tear glands at their eyes. They have no nostrils (no olfactory senses), ears (although they can hear), mouth, sweat glands, anus, urethra, or genitalia of any kind. In addition, they lack many human physical features, having no hair, finger or toenails, freckles, birthmarks, or even natural odor. They entirely lack a digestive system or the need for external sustenance. They have no pulse or heart-like organ. Despite this, they indeed have magenta blood-like fluid within them, functionally similar to human blood in that it serves as a regeneration fluid that coagulates and aids in healing.
Similar to poikilotherm or "cold-blooded" creatures on Earth, Thus have no internal temperature regulation, and will gravitate to the ambient temperature around them.
Other than the forces of a black hole, nothing in the universe can kill a member of Thus, each one has a nearly indestructible core deep within their chest.
Despite their virtual immortality, they are still a lifeform that can be hurt just as easily as humans, and can bruise, bleed, and break bones. The only difference is they are remarkably regenerative, and can’t scar; given enough time, their body will heal back to its original condition, no matter how severe the injury. This makes piercings and tattooing impossible, as any foreign body can be efficiently rejected from the body and healed over.
They lack the ability to fall asleep, or fall unconscious. However, sufficient damage to their head or decapitation will remove their ability to perceive their environment, save for any tactile sensations in the remaining body still attached to their core. In this situation, their consciousness gets stuck in the hivemind mindspace. Due to this, they are naturally very protective of their heads.
One of their few most prominent physical features is their eyes, and they possess the ability to cry. In addition, they have lash-like fibers to aid in clearing their eyes. The vast majority of their facial expressions are through their eyes alone, such as smiling or scowling.
Core
They have a core piece within them that fuels the regeneration keeping them virtually immortal; if decapitated or torn to pieces, most of their remains will eventually molder or crumble to dust, while a new body or body part will grow or regenerate in its place from the core piece. If they were to be split in two, whichever side has the core piece will regenerate, while the other side will wither and eventually turn to putrefied goop and dust. The core piece is not known to be able to split or be destroyed, except by the forces of a black hole.
The core is bright white, softly glowing, and only around 2 millimeters in diameter. It sits deep in their chest, directly behind the sternum.
The only member known to survive direct damage to their core is Braxton, as he purposely fractured a chip off his core in attempt to make a child. Using the forces of a micro black hole he created with this intention, he succeeded in breaking a fragment off before the black hole evaporated, resulting in an independent piece. His core never grew back nor recovered, and the damaged nature resulted in a weak point on his chest, rendering him in sever pain if he sustains a blow or shove into his sternum.
Empath-Telepath abilities
Thus is both telepathic and empathic, though only through touch.
They have no verbal communication since they’ve never needed to verbally communicate before, rather they can establish weak telepathic communications upon skin-to-skin contact with another sentient creature.
They can get the impression of raw feelings and sensations this way, and can direct their thoughts to the subject to communicate with them telepathically. This empathic connection improves based on both the mental clarity of the subject, the subject’s intelligence level, and the duration of the subject’s empathetic link with the member of Thus (the longer the link the more clear and vivid).
The subject’s thoughts can not be transmitted telepathically to the member, and the member’s emotions can not be transmitted empathically to the subject. This meaning that the subject is fully capable of lying to a member of Thus they are linked with, as only their emotions and physical feelings will be read, provided they have no telling emotions while they lie, such as guilt.
Physical feelings and sensations can be felt by the member as if they were their own, no matter if the sensations extend past the constraints of their own biology. Any limbs or organs the member does not have would be perceived on levels similar to a phantom limb. For example, a subject with a stomachache will give the member the same phantom sensations in their body, despite the lack of a stomach.
Sexuality
All members of Thus are asexual, as their species has no form of reproduction. However, due to their empathic abilities, it is possible to experience sexual arousal, and even orgasm, from skin-to-skin contact with a capable subject.
The only member know to engage in sexuality with their empathy is Braxton. Due to the hivemind nature of his species, the entire species also experiences his sexuality vicariously in their shared mindspace.
Gender, Pronouns, & Names
The Us knows no gender within their own culture. Most adopted randomized pronouns upon learning about Earth gender constructs, but in their actual thoughts to one another, no technical gender is assigned.
Same with names, the names referenced by the main character Braxton are only English approximations of what his kins’ actual name is; many have conceptual names, or names that don’t translate over to English in a meaningful way. Braxton adopted his name upon arriving to Earth.
Reproduction
Members of Thus can not naturally reproduce. The only incident of reproduction was Braxton, who successfully shattered a chip off his core in order to make a child with Garmr, imitating how Earthlings have offspring. The resulting child, Gnípa, harbors many traits from their extraterrestrial side. Namely, they inherited their immortal regenerative nature around their core chip, and ability to heal back to their "original" body when injured, meaning they also can't be tattooed, pierced with jewellery, or otherwise scarred.
On the flip side, their body has more human physical features than the Thus possess, such as hair, a mouth, a semi-functional digestive system, and genitalia.
They are unable to transmit telepathic thoughts through a skin-to-skin link; however, they retained the ability to experience empathy through their skin-to-skin link. This makes Gnípa an empath, but not a telepath.