#certhians

Tai is siegemaker class nobody can tell me otherwise

New certhian thing I keep thinking about: Size classes. Certhians can be categorized by size, along with a few other defining characteristics. While their wildly variable genetics (mostly polymorphism in the skin and scales) consistently smashes all possibility for race or breed identification based on scaly hide and sharpened horn alone, one factor remains consistent even amidts thousands of years of disorganized propogation: their size. In their condensed humanoid (or least native) state, these size differences can be negligible, possibly only varying by a few inches to maybe one or two feet taller or shorter depending on. However, when at full native form and proper size, these differences can be much more dramatic. Here are the currently recognized size classes, from smallest to largest: Class A: Docillite — These individuals are somewhat uncommon, and can be fairly small in humanoid form, usually within the high 3' to 4' range. In proper native form, they might reach 9' to 12' tops. Their horns are usually thick and short, and their spines are less numerous, accompanied by thick, raised plating along the back. Class B: Ambassorial — Ambassorials are a very average height, and make up most of the Certhian population. They usually stand between 4' and 6' when humanoid, and 14' to 21' when non. Their horns can be thinner, but also more numerous, and their spine rows tend to have a wavelike progression and regression of height down the body. Class C: Siegemaker — These individuals are on the rare side, as their size is unusually large, ranging from 5' to even 7' on occasion in humanoid form. In full native form, these beasts can reach up to 33' on the high end. They also tend to have larger, fuller horns, and more consistent rows of spines and larger tail clubs.

forgive me for i have sinned in the 99th mass effect furry fan dimension using my own characters and its so worse than run of the mill self-insert fanfics I keep fantasizing about commander Tai getting to romance garrus and after the fucking "red" ending of me3, they find eachother again and settle down on palaven because Tai fits in way better with a bunch of burd aliens than she does with the humans she grew up with. Garrus, being the bombastic hotass fathery bird alien that he has expressed in the games, starts a wonderful family of little hybrid spawn with her, and sometimes they go to the citadel on holiday or round up the gang for some good ole missions on the Normandy. They are just so happy together, they teach all of their wonderful hybrid kids about their alien heritages and teach them how to be just as badass as mom & dad. Lots of the kids join the ranks of N7, probably two of them have the privilege of becomin spectres. And then people start disappearing. Their own kids, being the heroes they are and wanting to make their legendary family proud, start disappearing on investigative missions. Garrus is aging and Tai is a long way from old age, but she has to take care of him. She cant afford to leave his side to get to the bottom of the disappearances. Then it's finally discovered that hostile Certhian forces are jumping into citadel space from Andromeda to hunt down any stray prodigal Certhians who never came back home to their planet. God just rip my heart out i hate having headcanons for my species.

Now i'm imagining my personal Certhian Mass Effect AU where Tai is commander shepard, shes gone through most of her life around the aliens of the ME universe in her ultrahumanoid form, she maintained it throughout all her years of training and when she became n7 and them a commander. She probably winced when she heard the council call her the first "human" spectre, knowing shed have a lot of trouble on her hands if she was ever caught in her native form, and she probably did a great job, probably kept it up until the Normandy was destroyed in the collector attack. She rescued joker with the last of her strength, and floated out from the wreckage back in her native form, while her crew looked on in horror of what the hell just happened to their beloved commander. Hitting the planets surface and becoming roadkill probably condensed her back down into a humanoid corpse before cerberus scraped her off the ground and put her back together, but they found out what she was. There could have been more blackmail involved with cerberus for commander Tai. More on the line. Her crew would certainly ask a lot of questions, too. And she would probably be too afraid to tell anyone but Garrus.

I accidentally thought of a new Certhian biological mechanic that i might keep. It takes energy for Certhians to assume and maintain their more humanoid forms, especially so for their *most* humanoid form ((which leaves them almost completely indistinguishable from a human aside from their natural blood and eye colors that show through in many places where humans are notmally pink or red.)) Their mass also increases bit by bit as they condense down through the stages of their humanoid forms, making them quite dense in their most humanoid form. To help reduce the amount of energy it takes to maintain their alternate forms, they might rely on atmospheric pressure and natural gravity of their environment to help keep their bodies condensed into a moderately dense mass. They do better wherever the pressure or gravity is higher, and they begin to have to work harder as the gravity decreases. Ne'daan already has fairly high gravity, so homeworld born certhians are probably not at all used to having to expend their energy holding onto their different forms like exo-born or prodigal certhians. If you launched a certhian out into a low- or no-gravity environment like Space, say, like, the intro to ME2 (yes i have to get me2 involved) they might lose their stronghold over their form and be forced to turn back into their natural form, much to the horror and confusion of whoever happens to be watching. Certhians are rather large and pretty scary to most individuals who havent seen them before. Well-traveled certhians probably try to avoid low gravity and many more might get visibly anxious about it if it ever happened to them.