ZYNEMIA

Rally floated over to the fogged window and shot a knowing glance back at Rourke. "You're not gonna believe this!"

Rourke couldn't imagine what he thought she would find so impressive beyond the window. It looked like the same impenetrable, featureless fog that choked the maze of causeways they'd taken to get there. But then Rally fished a dry towel from his mouth and wiped the condensation away.

It looked like a burning landscape-- purple, green and orange vortices of dust and fire, each seeming to circle, collide, and compete for dominance-- gaining temporary control before fading to allow another color to emerge. A pallor of fog hung over the scene, glowing sympathetically with the hue of the momentarily dominant color. The horizon, crowded with the silhouettes of reef shapes (like gorgonians, acropora, plerogyra, spirobranchus) stood a stark, unilluminated black against the rainbow of disarray. Small, dark things, fish-like, bird-like, insect-like, flitted and darted, firing chromatic beams that sparked against the ever-shifting backdrop, which, as her eyes adjusted, Rourke could now discern was not an open sky but a vast cavernous space with seemingly infinite similar animated landscapes stretching both beyond and above.

"A...are they fighting?" Rourke asked.

"Ha! No, no! Nothing like that-- they're thinking."

(sorry lol the article really needs to be cleaned up to the standard of the vibe intro)

Zynemia refers to a domain of life originating independently in electrozyne realitites, therefore completely unrelated to the six primary kingdoms under which all terrestrial life is classified. That they arose through completely different processes and posess an entirely alien biochemistry is unquestionable, though many of their more advanced forms have come to resemble terrestrial life. The domain Zynemia is host to a wealth of examples of convergent evolution when compared to our own Terrestrial domain.

The biology of Zynemia is entirely different from the Terrestrial's-- based on a highly caustic chemistry, comparitively abundant metals and other heavy elements and scarce of lighter ones, powerful molecular acids, covalent silicone complexes and utilization of electrical for energy transfer in addition to signaling. At their most basic level, all organisms of domain zynemia are made up of long chains of individual functional units known as monocels. These monocels, roughly equivalent in scale and genetic identity to animal cells, are able to rearrange the electrostatic charges on their surface in a highly specific way. These charges can be manipulated by the monocels to form filaments between each other, sharing energy, nutrients and forming signalling pathways where necessary to create linked networks of monocels. The most primitive zynemians (or, more colloquially, electroscum) never become more complex than this, equivalent to terrestrial algae. Some, however, are able to further organize themselves into structures called polycel complexes. Made up primarily tightly packed bundles of filamnets, these polycel complexes are almost one-to-one analogous to animal tissues, creating analogous organs and biological transit networks in the organism, all the way up to animal- and plant-like forms.

While it is silicon-based, it uses the properties of the element in ways we never would have predicted. At each end, these filaments aggregate a biofilm of silicone, forming into an elastic "clasp" or "latch" that they use to connect to other nearby filaments within a gelatinous matrix made up of intensively cross-linked polymer chains.

Though they resemble synthetic machines in our reality, Zynemian organisms evolved organically (metaphorically, not in the sense of chemistry-- their base chemistry is largely inorganic though many lineages that have a long selective history in terrestrial realities can make use of carbon-based fats and sugars they encounter in the environment) from base materials. They are exclusively massively colonial and eusocial, their primarily metallic biochemistry allowing individual units to engage and disengage at will, forming coherent tissues, organs, and full body structures.

Zynemians typically emerge only in electrozyne realities--vast regions composed primarily of dense metals such as iron, cobalt, and nickel, yet lacking gravitational forces strong enough to cause significant timespace distortion. It is believed that such regions are instead held together by electrostatic cohesion. For Zynemian life to arise, moderate amounts of organic compounds--and the lighter elements necessary to form them, such as hydrogen and oxygen--must also be present. Most discovered electrozyne realities contain these elements in sufficient abundance to allow this form of life to evolve over time spans comparable to stellar main sequence development.

Periods during which major interstices between realities remain open for extended durations have allowed small populations of this domain to adapt to terrestrial environments. In some cases, they have integrated into local ecosystems--occupying both competitive and symbiotic niches.

The most familiar Zynemians to most readers would be the electrodwarfs and electronymphs (Zynemia sapiens sapiens, collectively electromen), as this species is the most likely to be seen outside of zynemian home spaces. From their hidden aquatic creches in the deeamalgams of metalspaces they come, some seeking goods to exchange for their own wares, some seeking political conquest, some looking for loot to plunder, some seeking nothing more than to satisfy their own curiosity.

Siol exist among electromen at a similar rate to humans.