Polydactyls were one of the more common subjects of the Machine Empire. They were the focal point of a machine religion, bred to praise their tormentors. They were fully sapient, made to be given their rights granted to them by the **Mechlesiarchy**, before desperately trying and failing to reproduce with an Alter Priestess Subject. After this, they were slaughtered. [1](https://www.reddit.com/r/AllTomorrows/comments/1lczi60/faces_of_tomorrows_history_neftem_the_priestess/)

And not just simply beheaded— that came first— but what followed was their bodies being utterly destroyed, thrown into giant blenders and reduced to nutrient rich sludge. Often in front of an audience.

The Qu, those old gods, could afford to be wasteful. They had been creating art, designing overdone ecosystems to fulfill their religious mission. So what if you spent energy to create the creatures, when they gave you nothing back? The act itself was worth it, for in their eyes it was Just. 

The Gravitals, however, were running a society. A complex system where energy was used frugally— at least, the energy going to the despised remnant organics. Indeed, the Subject lifeforms were all part of a controlled system of resource distribution.

But occasionally, something slipped through the cracks…

A subject could escape. It was rare, but in this terrible Empire of vast time and space, improbibilites occurred. Late in the Machine Empire, after the Civil War, and after the Asteromorph-Machine War had kicked off, is where this story starts.

A container ship carrying three thousand Polydactyls— a remnant ceremony in a failing religion holding together a failing system— crashed down on an unimportant planet. A sparsely settled world in an out of the way star system. 

No one even noticed the ship had disappeared.

And from the ruin, the survivors crept. The ship had been controlled by a sub-sapient AI, who would have sent out a reconnaissance beacon when the ship fell, had that system not failed. 

The world was not barren. It had at atmosphere, if only to house a more developed mechanosystem. Time and time again, these places, these forests of steel, had proven themselves as the last bastions of free organic life. [2](https://www.reddit.com/r/AllTomorrows/comments/qnjfs4/ironic_theory_the_subjects_of_the_machine_empire/)

Of course it should be mentioned that the ship also housed two Alter Priestess Subjects, the only two females aboard. It was through them that this otherwise male colony was able to survive, albeit at the cost of a severe period of initial inbreeding. But for whatever reason, the genome of the alter ladies were particularly resilient. Perhaps, due to their pristine nature in machine religion, they has been made into a more genetically fit organism than otherwise needed. 

There, too, was a very small, isolationist Gravital population on this world, but they were on a completely different continent, and they would eventually vacate, conscripted to fight in the so called War to end all Wars.

And so it was. For hundreds of years, this unwitting Polydactyl colony, through sickness and health, would remain, never knowing a day where the dark sky wasn’t punctuated with a bright light of silent pain. 

Until at last the heavens had settled.

No one knew what this meant. Even the original meaning of the glowing sky had been unknown to them, being kept in the dark for their entire, short lives. This absence of light, they thought, surely could not spell anything good.

One day, reports rang out of a ship spotted flying down towards the planet. 

This terrified them, for a similar event a couple hundred years ago had almost spelled extinction: a Gravital fleet, in poor condition, landed here, and mowed down a huge portion of the Mechaphyte forest, using its material to reconstruct ship hulls and convert the local organisms into fuel. 

The majority of the Polydactyls were not in harms way, but those out foraging had been caught in the crossfire. Some has been unceremoniously chopped down by the automated mowers, while a few had become exposed to the Gravitals aboard. Of course, the machines didn’t have enough time to weed out this colony—having been on the run from an Asteromorph ship— but they purposely killed all the organics within their sights. Even as their empire fell, they could still make themselves feel superior to these humble beings.

What’s worse, the enemy ships arrived just as the first fleet was beginning to depart. Giant attacks had rung out, blasting the planet’s surface, forests alight with burning oil. The ships soon departed from the atmosphere, but a third of a continent had been rendered unlivable.

…And so, peering out from the remnant forest, **this** was the type of mortal fear that filled them. An existential horror, that, once again, everything could be taken from them in an instant.

For three days they sat paralyzed. 

Unbeknownst to them, the ship had landed, settling on top of the abandoned Gravital colony a continent away. Probes had been sent out to explore the surface, and eventually the resident Polydactyls had been detected. 

A convoy was sent out. At first, probes, to make sure they didn’t have any weapons. This is where the illustration pictured above comes from, being an attempt at drawing the actual photo that was taken. The terrified old hermit brandishes a spear made from the body of a mechanical plant; a hard outer husk, like bamboo, gives it rigidity, while the fractal patterns towards the tip evolved to deter herbivores. Not that any of that matters to the man holding it. 

He stares down death, for in his heart he knows that he stands no chance if this enemy opens fire. 

But this didn’t happen. The probe, flying in the air, scanned the individuals present, emitted a flashing light and a faint spray of dust, before suddenly landing itself and letting the dust float back into its body, seemingly satisfied. They didn’t know anything about the device, but in a couple seconds it already knew them down to a molecular level.

And so the Terrestrials arrived. 

Two beings unlike anything the colony had ever seen. Giant, spidery things, with an otherworldly aura around them. Their fractaling pupils, possessing the secrets of the stars, were far more alien than any of the cameras slotted in the skulls of native beasts.

But they also evoked a sense of kindredness in the Polydactyls. The colony saw their skin, their faces, and felt a reflection of themselves… This was soon overcome by another instinctual reaction: the Mechanosystem let them be due to their organic nature— they didn’t slot into the food web. Would these organic creatures attack them for that same reasons? 

But the violence never came. 

While one could go on about the intricacies of first contact, one moment stood out. The Terrestrials, gaining their trust, sought out their sick and injured, and brought them back to health. It seemed like they really did care. 

**This isn’t the end of the story**, however; The Terrestrials had come to this world with a goal. They were to create and raise a new race. This meager settlement was an unexpected occurrence. 

Already terraforming had started, in that same dizzying week of contact. The Mechanosystem was being torn down to birth a world of bionts. The Terrestrials had a conundrum of just what to do with these people, and how to mesh it with their own, personal vision… 

Terrestrials often made races that did not look human. Some Subjects claimed it was because the most human-looking race of the long-past Second Empire Era, the Ruin Haunters, had come to use that fact as a valid reason to kill the others. Of course, most of the time, the real reason for the varied forms was to gain recognition amongst the other Demigods; to see who could make the oddest entries (while still being moral and allowing their races to live functional lives.)

Ish-Zy and Su-Xer-Ba, the head Terrestrials assigned here, cooperated with the colony. The colony had stayed small throughout the centuries, although they had spread out into multiple colonies. The Ship Incident had diminished their numbers. The original group, around 3000, was enough to have a stable population, but, having no knowledge of genetics, many cases of inbreeding followed the initial, severe bout, leading to a smaller and weaker population than what it would have otherwise became.

Ish-Zy noticed some interesting traits, such as the trademark Polydatyl phallus pointing backwards, and the skin becoming a dark blue color, seemingly to blend in with the many blue-paneled mechaphytes. 

Both terrestrials had decided (with undoubtably more than a little bias) that the Polydactyls would not inherit the world… at least not as they were. The Terrestrials justified the choice, observing that the population’s genetics were stable, but in the long term they were at risk of several genetic disorders. 

Su-Xer-Ba was the one to tell them. To break the bad news, but also to offer the grand option: “What do you want the inheritors of this world to look like?”

The answer soon came.

The mightiest beast to roam the Mechanosystem, and a being of holy power, was the predatory Mechalania, a huge stout quadruped with a lizard-like body and pincer-like beak, which it used to ram into the bodies of other robots.

And so it was. The DNA of the Polydactyls, alongside a mix of Rot Eater DNA, was used to create a stable base. From there, the backwards phallus mutation was used to create a tail, the dark blueish skin was raised in hue and made a permanent feature, and the hands and feet retained seven small fingers. Thus was the origin of the Bluetooths. [3](https://old.reddit.com/r/AllTomorrows/comments/pkxkk5/the_various_races_of_the_third_empire_picture/)

But, as always seems to be the case, **This isn’t the end of the story**.One could go on about the individual stories to follow; Of the reverent Polydactyl advocates who successfully managed to convince Ish-Zy to preserve some of the Mechanosystem amongst the encroaching new biosphere. Of the first generation of Bluetooths, being taught of the plight of their ancestors, and their willing sacrifice of physical form to help their offspring have a better future. Of the last living Polydacyls, getting to watch these children grow up. And of course, the new race itself, inexplicably rising to the top faster than almost any other Subject Race.

But for now, enough has been said. This tale truly serves as a miracle, a story of survival in the bleakest of circumstances. May the story of the Blue Polydactyls, the Accidental Colony, forever be told!


The Accidental Colony (A Story + Lore)