Civilian and Soldier : Created by the sorrowful dreams of Jionoia, a virtual Endless whose mind has been broken by the Dust Wars, the Unfallen are fully sentient beings who are subconsciously connected to their creator. As long as they keep their individuality, symbolized by stylized carved masks, the Saplings are incapable of any aggressive action but can appear as manipulative to other races, mostly due to their use of globs of dust and spores to pacify potential foes. Each Sapling is unique and combine the characteristics of several plants (the full moon maple and the lantern berry for this civilian, the ebony tree and the sunflower for this soldier) : as a consequence, other races are usually fascinated by their beauty and their diversity.

When feeling threatened, a Sapling can make the terrible choice of losing its connection to its creator to unleash the full potential of its organism : becoming an actual weapons platform or fusing its soul into a tree-ship, it is thenceforth considered as tragically sacrificed for the sake of its species.

Light ships Achene : Infused with a single soul, they are used en masse and act as protective screens against more powerful ships.

Medium ships Osier : Ships optimized to possess strong armor while using far more reactors and weaponry than other ships of their size, they act as spearheads for the Unfallen fleets.

Large ships Yggdrasil : Infused with dozens of souls, the endurance of these massive tree-ships is unparalleled in the galaxy, allowing them to act as the ultimate support platform for protecting Unfallen worlds.

The author may add other images to their thread or add descriptions if they so wish. Feel free to ask questions!

So here I am (good luck to all participants). I repost the comment I did on the "visual design shameless self-promotion thread", which explains in further details some points about my submission.

My interpretation of the design was based on several problematics :

- Why do the Unfallen have a humanoid form ? =>Answer : because they are the products of the thoughts of a Virtual Endless (which has a humanoid form) trapped in a cube.

- Why did this Virtual Endless create them ? =>Answer : It didn't want to, since it isn't conscious anymore. The Unfallen are a product of the sorrowful dreams it has of its comrades and its implication in the Dust Wars : the Dust around the cube reacted to these dreams and modified the environment around it to the point new beings were created.

- What are the consequences of these "dreams" on the Unfallen society ? => Answer : Because the Unfallen are all subconsciously linked to the cube, they share common points, the most important being that they aren't able to be violent in any way (because the Virtual is a traumatized individual who hates war) : when they are conquered ,they prefer sacrificing themselves or losing their individuality (see below) instead of becoming slaves.

- So, if they aren't able to be violent, how do they protect their system, how can they become soldiers ? =>Answer : Each Unfallen civilian wears a mask (once again, a reminiscence of the Endless masks) which represent its individuality but also its connection to the cube, and as long as it is connected to the cube, it can have complexe thoughts. When an Unfallen feel that its home is in danger, that it MUST protect its companions, it can abandon its mask, its individuality and its connection to the cube to become able of agressive actions : its morphology changes, its appendages dissapear and it can't think by itself anymore. As a consequence, becoming a soldier is, in the Unfallen society, the ultimate sacrifice (but not in a glorious way, more in a tragic way) : a soldier is a non-sentient living weapon whose sole purpose is to protect the others.

- And what about the ships ? => Ships are all obtained through the infusion of several spirits of Unmasked Ones in prepared strucures. Depending of the number of spirits infused, a ship is more or less able of complexe actions (think of a hive mind) : for example, the Achene are infused with only one spirit, so they can only "defend" others because it is the primal goal of all Unfallen soldiers, and the Yggdrasil, infused with dozens of spirits, are able of complexe maneuvers (and so lead other ships). All of this explain why the Unfallen have access to the different types of ships more quickly, but also why they consume  when producing them.

- Who is their leader ? => I think of a counsel of very ancient Unfallen who interprete the Virtual Endless thoughts but can also take proper decisions (think of the College of Pontiffs of the ancient Roman state, who, as their name suggests, "built (mental) bridges" with their creator, but were also the ultimate source of interpretation of the Law).

Concerning the design themselves : 

 - My main idea when I drew all of this was to create a design with symbolism (hence the sunflower head) and which could be the base of a tragic story (imagine a intro cinematic where we see the horrific dreams of the Virtual Endless and then plants growing aroung the cube to form the first Unfallen, hundreds of years ago, and then the present, when an entire society has been built : it could be quite dramatic and impressive, no ?) ;

 - For the soldier, the sunflowers on its body symbolize the fact that it is now a weapons platform (I won't describe how it could shoot things, but it is clear that this thing is dangerous) ;

 - Finally, concerning the heroes, maybe the dust could develop their individuality to a point where they are totally independent beings and as such could go anywhere and act as they want (a militarist Unfallen could be fun to design).

 - Edit : As I said to Frogsquadron, each Sapling is unique and combine different plants. The ones I use for the soldier are the ebony tree and the sunflower (with a little bit of mangrove for the roots) because I thought that it would add interesting colors and clearly show that the soldier doesn't have hands (+ once again it adds some symbolism to the picture : it makes me think of surrealism and impressionism (I love Van Gogh).

Inspirations :

- One Piece Movie 6 - Baron Omatsuri and the secret Island for the idea of creating individuals based of memories (you'll understand if you see the movie : it is by far the most interesting and mature of all One Piece movies)

- Robot Dreams from Isaac Azimov for the idea of an artificial intelligence having subconscious thoughts

- Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind from Hayao Miyazaki for the concept of defensive hive mind (the insects in the movie are pacifist and sentient beings which become very violent when one of them is in danger).

- Shinsekai Yori (From the New World) for its symbolism and its colors.

PS : I imagine the first contact between the Unfallen (created by a Virtual Endless) and the Vodyani (who venerate Virtual Endless) could be quite interesting.

Thank you for reading this much !

Your design holds a special place in my heart because of your boldness to use sunflowers and have giant flying trunks/trees in space.

Truely, you are Divine.

The civillian and light ship designs are conceptiually the best in my opinion, I especially like the glyph plate on the civillians face and the "hand lantern" and the 5 petal sail trailing behind the light ship.

It really is one of my favourite designs. 

Thank you Digitalhawk96 : i hope that more people share you point of view (being at last place after spending so much time drawing and redrawing, because I'm not very good at it, and seeing that not even 200 people are ready to look at the page of the (temporary) least popular submission after 24 hours of contest is hurting me).

Hinin wrote:

Thank you Digitalhawk96 : i hope that more people share you point of view (being at last place after spending so much time drawing and redrawing, because I'm not very good at it, and seeing that not even 200 people are ready to look at the page of the (temporary) least popular submission after 24 hours of contest is hurting me).

Don't beat yourself up over it. Compared to the number of votes the leading three have, there really isn't much of a difference between us two or anyone other than those three, really. I just wish people told me what I could do to make mine better so I won't make the same mistake next time.

EndlessCrashes wrote:

How is this one last place??  I am seeing other people enjoying similar features on other entries (alternate colors/masks/floating things) but not recognizing them here.  I think you have a very well thought out lore and probably the most unique designs.  People just don't seem to enjoy a non-traditional take on things.

He's probably right here to some degree. People like what's familiar and both of our entries are pretty exotic at first glance.

EndlessCrashes wrote:

How is this one last place??  I am seeing other people enjoying similar features on other entries (alternate colors/masks/floating things) but not recognizing them here.  I think you have a very well thought out lore and probably the most unique designs.  People just don't seem to enjoy a non-traditional take on things.

+1 (sorry no English, so I'm not writing much. google translate)