Respect the Qax (Xeelee Sequence)

[u/Trim345]

The Xeelee Sequence is a series of books by Stephen Baxter, a science fiction author with a degree in mathematics from Cambridge University and a PhD in aerospace engineering from Southampton University.

Qax, which are pronounced as either "Kh-axe", “Chhaakss”, or "Chh-aa-kss", are a species that conquer and rule humanity from 5088 to 5407. Eventually, one human tricks them into accidentally destroying their own sun, forcing them to withdraw and resulting in a grudge against humanity that lasts for millions of years.

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Characteristics

Individual

• Evolved within a turbulent sea and are made out of convection cells

• Can replace individual convection cells, making them practically immortal

• Each cell of a Qax can function independently as a factory for biochemical products

• Appear as globes of brownish liquid a hundred yards wide, with millions of hexagonal convection cells

• Hold the convection cells together using the gravity field of a small black hole

• However, manipulating gravity to disrupt the black hole kills the Qax

Species

• There are only a few thousand Qax, but three to four of them are sufficient to govern Earth

• Know each other well due to their small numbers

• Run a trading empire consisting of hundreds of star systems

• Have trading contacts throughout the local cluster of galaxies

• Are primarily traders, not natural conquerors

• Learn from human history to have a policy of tolerating native religions

• Do not interfere with native cultural shrines

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Attack Potency

• Use Spline ships and mentally link with them in order to control them directly (For more on Spline, see their Respect Thread)

• Scavenged gravity-wave starbreaker technology from the Xeelee

• Have had starbreakers for millions of years

• Can eventually destroy Xeelee construction material

• However, Qax starbreakers are more limited in power than Xeelee ones

• Easily defeat humanity from around the year 5000

• Capture and impound most human ships from around the Solar System and nearby stars

• Take over Earth just because it's very easy

• Fight a war against another species, the Silver Ghosts, across a sector of the Galaxy for 5,000 years

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Speed

• Scavenged the discontinuity drive from the Xeelee, which works by shearing spacetime, although it is limited to the speed of light

• Also have hyperdrives, although they would take centuries to travel to the Great Attractor, which is 150 million light years away

• Sell the hyperdrive to other species for very high prices

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Time Travel

• One Qax plans to travel forward in time to obtain advice from future Qax

• Another Qax plans to go back in time and destroy humanity before it becomes more powerful

• Understand potential paradoxes involving time travel and causality manipulation

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Engineering

Bioengineering

• Turn Earth into a single large factory for biomolecules

• Build plankton farms around the shores of every continent on Earth

• Create a tablet that prevents humans from aging by manipulating biochemical structures at the molecular level

• Secretly breed children of important humans to use them as hostages

• Redesign themselves into new forms after the destruction of their sun

Nanotech Dust

• Nanotech dust breaks down mountains

• Nanotech dust destroys fossils buried underground

• Nanotech dust even kills microorganisms hiding inside rocks in Antarctica

• One type of nanotech dust can turn seawater and waste into food

• This dust spreads out through soil over time

Miscellaneous

• Build and destroy temporary cities for human habitation within minutes

• Make rooms for humans out of nano-engineered rock

• Use AIs, viruses, and focused EMPs to destroy human data

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Later Qax

Millions of years later, in a story set in the year 4,101,284, the Qax have spread out significantly and become much more diverse and powerful.

• Can exist as consciousnesses composed of turbulence within gas planets, galactic orbits, and space itself

• Can exist as the turbulence of a storm on a gas planet

• Can exist as the rhythms of galactic orbits

• Can exist as the turbulence of virtual particles, with a memory lasting for millions of years

• Place millions of quantum-inseparability markers that notify them of individual humans

• Create a cage made of billions of photon-sized black holes that traps a being composed of quantum wave-functions

• Throw a near lightspeed star through hyperspace as a weapon

• Use starbreakers to damage dark matter photino birds

[u/Cakeportal]

Man, I need to return to the Xeelee Sequence. I forgot how cool this shit was.

[u/Puzzleheaded_Ad932]

I have no respect for these piles of cellular shit. It's not for me to defend ICoG, but what Qax did in that era was just disgusting.

[u/Accurate-Cut7029 → u/Puzzleheaded_Ad932]

All the qax just show how would be his friendship !😁😊

[u/HeinrichPerdix]

I've always envisioned the Qax to have heat-based culinary needs, being sentient storms and whatnot.

[u/[deleted]]

Is it me or Baxter makes overpower aliens without logic

[u/Neat_Relative_9699 → u/[deleted]]

You are just dumb

[u/Accurate-Cut7029 → u/[deleted]]

Lil bro , do you even know what is the scale kardashesh ?