Vaiartu

The Vaiartu body plan is that of a flat, many-limbed crustacean, depicted in friezes as roughly four feet in length. They were not bipedal; their architecture -- featuring branching tunnels without stairs and hexagonal living cells -- confirms they were adapted to crawling or climbing rather than upright locomotion. They were significantly smaller than humans. Their physical form is depicted wielding tools and weapons. They are described as little things so like the crabs of Earth, indicating a resemblance to terrestrial crustaceans.

The Vaiartu possessed a sineoform syllabary script found inscribed on ruins, tablets, and columns across multiple worlds. The writing has been partially deciphered through scholarly study, with Valka Onderra making notable contributions. They engaged in stellography -- the mapping and study of stars -- and marking the stars appears to have been central to their intended purpose or destiny as a civilization. Their cities were built into cliff faces, with only a single settlement established per world. Their ruins include hexagonal living cells, branching tunnel networks without stairs, cylindrical stone structures with flat tops, and a central citadel called the kasr -- a vast circular rotunda approximately a thousand feet in diameter with columns carved with their script. Their architecture used a polymerized marble-like stone that required heating to extreme temperatures. Their society was divided into multiple named factions: the Vaiartu, the Sujaru, the Sibaru, and the Onharru, though whether these represent castes, nations, or subspecies remains unknown. Their city extended deep underground. Geometric carvings are a recurring decorative element in their ruins. The Vaiartu left a mural of Miudanar at Akterumu, carved in jadeite within the crystal skull of one of Miudanar's prior incarnations.

HAPSIS classifies the Vaiartu as one of several great ancient civilizations. Their true name was recovered through human study of inscribed records on Sabratha. The Cielcin knew them only as the Enar, meaning the Wise. Human scholars call them the Stonebuilders. Their ruins and script have been found on multiple worlds, confirming interstellar travel capability. The major known site is Phanamhara on Sabratha, a complex buried beneath a plateau with multi-level tunnel networks and a central citadel, the kasr. The Vaiartu had knowledge of -- and possibly direct interaction with -- the Quiet: a large Quiet artifact, a tall black slab, was found embedded in the deepest level of the Vaiartu kasr, suggesting contact between the two civilizations that predates any human knowledge of either species. Quiet artifacts, including their characteristic geometric black structures, have been found within multiple Vaiartu sites. An excavation connected to a Vaiartu site was undertaken at the direction of the Emperor, though it was interrupted by a Cielcin attack before completion. The entity known as Miudanar is identified as originally made to guide and shepherd the Vaiartu, with their destiny described as being to grow, rise up, and mark the stars. Miudanar reflected that the Vaiartu were meant to die when time broke at the moment the other Watchers spoke their descent, and he eventually destroyed them himself rather than watch them live and die.