FORERUNNERS / HOLY ONES / ANCIENTS / CREATORS

Planet of Origin: Ghibalb, a planet  located in the outer edges of the Orion complex. Once a beautiful, verdant paradise of a planet, it was cleansed of all life when an experiment in stellar engineering accidentally caused several nearby stars to supernova. It is now heavily irradiated and uninhabitable.

The Forerunners are a sentient species that developed an advanced FTL interstellar civilisation and praticed world building. They are responsible for construction of the 2 Arks structures that are used to ringworld-type fortress (from 10 000km  to 30 000km in diameters) that formed the Halo array around the galaxy. The Array was designed to kill all sentient life in the galaxy which was not protected inside specially designed Dyson-type shield worlds and therefore rid the Milky Way of the Flood parasitic lifeform.

While not record of the Forerunner's appearance remains, their battle armors show them to have a humanoid shape disturbingly close to the human form.

A very advanced civilization, they came to power after the destruction of another race, known to them as the Precursors. The Forerunner believed that the Precursors were responsible for their creation. Soon after, the Forerunners became the dominant species in the galaxy, their empire spanning over three million fertilized and inhabited worlds. The Forerunners reached their peak before activating the Halo Array around 100,000 years ago in the closing days of the Forerunner-Flood war.

Their civilization was based around the Mantle, a belief they inherited this belief from the Precursors that it was their role to protect all life in the galaxy. They presumably monitored the evolution of other sentient species throughout the galaxy, intervening in ways that ensured their civilizations would follow paths of peace, free of conflict. One such occasion is the devolution of the prehistoric human empire officially to prevent further conflict emanating from what they considered a "violent species" some 110 000 years ago, but officiously to prevent them from taking their rightful place as the Precursor's heirs to the Mantle. After their superiority was insured, the Forerunners reached a point of disarmament, believing they no longer needed weapons in their rule of the galaxy, which ultimately weakened them when the Flood attacked.

When the Forerunners were unable to contain the Flood outbreak, the galaxy entered a state of war.  However, all their tactics, were they to turn star novae to eradicate infected systems, proved only to slow, but never stop the expansion of the Flood. They realized that the only way to stop the Flood was to deprive it of any and all hosts, thus eliminating its potential to grow. Eventually, the Forerunners created the Halo Array, a weapon of last resort designed to starve the Flood to death by killing all sentient life with enough biomass to sustain them. 100 000 years ago, after having exhausted every alternative, they ctivated the Halo array, killing themselves and all sentient life of sufficient biomass in the Milky Way, with the exception of those species safely placed on the Ark. After the Array was fired and the Flood had been eliminated, the Forerunners left behind an automated system of automatons, much like the Sentinels, and AIs to spearhead the reseeding of the galaxy with those data logs, embryos, and specimens contained on the Ark.

The Forerunners are adored like gods by the alien league known as the Covenant. The fact that the Forerunners appeared to be genetically related to the humans explains why the Covenant seeks to exterminate humanity, knowing that they are the Forerunner's designated heirs and would undermine their power.

Source: Halo Universe,
adapted from the Halo Wikia's  Forerunners and other relevant entries.

FIRST ONES: FIRST BORN / SPEAKERS

 

Evolving to sapience billions of years ago, The First Born and Lorien, the first among them, were humanoids born naturally immortal, never aging though still susceptible to death by injury or illness. At first they were kept in balance by the race's relatively low birthrates with less than a handful each year. Over time this changed as the younger generations began to grow old, infirm and died, until eventually only those that came first remained. They developed a peaceful advanced civilisation and eventually left their homeworld to explore the galaxy. In their travels they visited countless worlds and found many infant races. Thye acted as teachers and guardians before eventually stepping aside and allowing them to make their own paths, creating great empires, exploring and founding even younger races to whom they became teachers and guardians.

Gradually, over the course of a million years, the First Born who did not perish through injury or illness and most of their remaining pupils left the galaxy. Of those few who were left behind, Lorien was the only First Born to remain while among the handful of First Ones that did not leave, the Vorlons and Shadows took up the responsibility of the sole guardians and protectors of the younger races. Lorien eventually withdrew and dwelt deep beneath the planet that would become known as Z'ha'dum. He would remain there for a million years, but never forgotten by those he had taught. The Shadows, in their endless series of conflicts would always eventually return to the planet after being driven off, in respect for Lorien. 

In 2261, Lorien left Z'ha'dum and helped bring an end to the Shadow and Vorlon conflict and left the Galaxy with his remaining pupils, mainly the Shadows and Vorlons. 

The First Born are nowadays able to appear in their original humanoid form and in an evolved non-corporeal form which can travel through space at FTL speeds. They possess tremendous psychic powers.

Source: Babylon 5 universe

FIRST ONES: XU-HA

Somme 2.5 millions years ago, The Xu-Ha were one of the most advanced and respected species in the galaxy. They had been one of the chief architects of their era's galactic peace and  they were beloved by many.

Transcendence drove the race mad. This madness was a slow cultural tide that took millennia to truly manifest but the signs were clear in retrospect. The Xu-Ha had failed as a Third Age race; without no transcended species to guide them, they were adrift.

For no apparent reason, the Xu-Ha began purging the galaxy of lesser races. Their actions were subtle, involving hidden machines that blasted out psychic pulses which only affected pre-Transcendence races. It took centuries for the increasingly isolated elder races to even notice that their lesser counterparts were dying off in droves, and it took even longer to discover the source. The elder races offered the Xu-Ha a chance to stop their campaign of genocide. The Xu-Ha refused this offer so the elder races acted as they saw fit.

The Xu-Ha were annihilated, their existence wiped from the galaxy.

Source: Babylon 5 universe,  Darkness & Light: The Vorlon & Shadow Fact Book, Mongoose Publishing

FIRST ONES / TORVALUS SPECULATORS

The Torvalus speculators are a species of Gamblers and tricksters resembling a meter tall transparent protozoan covered in scillia. Until they left for beyond the galactic rim, they devoted their long existences to endless and sometimes highly abstract bets, wagers and probability tests, most of the time implicating other species. As a result they have brought stealth technology to unequalled levels to give them free reign while observing others.
Source: Babylon 5 universe. Babylon Wars Sourcebook.

FIRST ONES / MINDRIDERS

The Mindriders shed their corporeal bodies over a million years ago. They refer to the moment of ascendance to beings of pure though as "the Great Birth" and consider themselves to be an entirely different species from that which they were before.
After the Great Birth, they quickly reached Hyperspace and the stars beyond their native system, joining the galactic other highly advanced species such as the Speakers, the Walkers, the Torvalus (with who they sometimes clashed), the Vorlons, the Shadows, but mostly the Triad in a form of galactic community. Deeply philosophical, they were anxious to learn all that they could from their more experienced brothers, then, after a while, they seperated into small groups, and investigate throughout the galaxy, joining together again every so often to exchange information, and then moves beyond. Although uncorporeal, they often use large empty spaceship-like structures to travel through space.
Mindriders are known to invade the minds of significant individuals of lesser species to observe and sometimes inlfuence history.
Source: Babylon 5 universe. Babylon Wars Sourcebook.

FIRST ONES / TRIAD

The Triads are noncorporeal conceptual beings born in the vacuum of space millions of years ago. They appeared separately, each with a different ideology (Order, Neutrality, Chaos) and reunited to achieve balance and completeness. They interact with other spacies through a large spaceship. Wehter the ship actually houses them or is only a device for interaction remains unknown.
Source: Babylon 5 universe. Babylon Wars Sourcebook.

FIRST ONES / KIRISHIAC

Planet of Origin: Kirish, a large planetoid, several time the size of a regular tellurian world. It has a solid core, cold temperature, extremely high gravitic constant, and an atmosphere so thick as to be almost liquid.

Kirishiak are an advanced aggressive species that developed into a space faring civilisation over a million years ago. They were the youngest of a group of civilisations that included the Walkers, the Shadows, the Vorlons, the Torvalus, the Triad and the Mindriders. They started as an expansionist power but after defeat at the hands of their elders, turend toward a more humble approach.

Kirishiac are huge bipedal creatures with multiple redundant cardiopulmonary systems and cells arranged in complex lattice structures. They stand over seven meter tall and are almost translucent. They have eight hearts spread throughout their bodies in order to pump blood through limbs on their high gravity homeworld. This redundancy and the necessary strength of their physiological systems made them highly resistant to most kinetic attacks.
Once under a united feudalistic government, they started to wander into space and conquered all nearby systems, using heavily armed spaceship and protecting their physical being in atmosphere suits able to reproduce the gravity and pressure of the home world. For several thousand years, they expanded their empire, sometimes wiping out a young race, but most times forcing them into slavery. When they discovered hyperspace, they wandered in the territories of older species such as the Walkers and the Shadows. This brought them in a direct if short war with much older civilisations and they were beaten back to their homeworlds. They later opened communication channels with those older races to be granted access back into space.
Source: Babylon 5 universe. Babylon Wars Sourcebook.

LEGENDARY SPECIES: THE HAND / THIRDSPACE ALIENS

The Hand are an ancient and powerful race said to have been imprisoned in another dimension over a million years ago by another powerful race.

The species refered to as the Thirdspace aliens was encountered by the Vorlons species a a million years ago, when they decided to build a gate to open a doorway to what they believed was the Well of Souls, the source of life. What they reaches was the Thirdspace aliens' dimension. During the ensuing battle, ehe aliens took telepathic control of many Vorlons and forced them to fight each other. They were finally forced to their own dimension. A group of Vorlons, still under the control of the Thirdspace aliens, captured the artifact and jettisoned it into hyperspace, hoping to recover it later.
Shrowded in mystery nad lgends, the Hand and the Thirdspace aliens may or may not be the same. Both legends talk about a very powerful and evil species that was locked in another dimension circa a million years ago by another one. Their appearance remains a mystery. During an encounter with an invading Thirdspace armada, a large, octopoid-like creatures was seen but it may also have been one of the degenerated vorlon under thirdspace control as this other secretive species, for what has been glimpsed of it might be vaguely octopoid.
Source: Babylon 5 universe.

SELECTORANS

Planet of Origin: Selectoru in the Andromeda Galaxy (now destroyed).

No Selectorans was ever observed as is. Only Sosai X, who might only be an organic artificial intelligence of selectoran origin rather than a true selectoran (it remains unclear), was ever known to come to the Milky Way galaxy. It crashed on Earth three millions years ago and stayed dormant for thousands of years. The original plan it was to carry out was to take over the planet for its species by using local lifeforms to do its bidding, but when it discovered that his world had been destroyed, it decided to destroy the Earth instead, by planting a black hole at its core.
Its true form remains a mystery. But after its destruction and the failure of tis plan, it regenerated into a new form dubbed Sosai Z. Despite his phenomenal intellect, he has the emotional maturity of a child. It is not known if this is a trait of the species, of the individual or a state of mind brought by its despair.
Selectorans possessed highly advanced technology allowing them to achieve an intergalactic journey (although under unknown conditions), manipulate advanced lifeforms, created complex technological constructs such as gigantic robotic monsters and even create a black hole.
Source: Tatsunoko's Gatchaman series. In alternate version of the series it is also referred to as: "The Great Spirit"/"The Luminous One" (Battle of the Planet), Computor (G-Force), Cybercon (Eagle Riders), Lord Zortek (dubbed Gatchaman OAV)

SHI'AR

The Shi'ar are oviparous humanoids of avian descent; resembling humans with feathered crests atop their heads in lieu of hair.They have light hollow bones, and some vestigial feathers on their forearms, left of wings that were lost over evolution. Through freak genetic throwbacks, some individuals still possess wings which allow them to fly. The average Shi'ar can lift 1 ton in earth-like gravity and has far greater stamina.

With a monarchic society, they are expansionnist and aggressively absorb new cultures.While the empire has grown to include hundreds of thousands of different sentient species and worlds, the Shi'ar race controls and governs the empire. Its central base of power is located on the "throneworld" Chandilar, while the Shi’ar homeworld is called Aerie. Leadership of the empire is am hereditary position, occupied by members of the royal family.The Shi'ar Empire is one of the most advanced and expansive civilizations in the universe, spanning an entire galaxy and spawning into others. It is mainly an economic co-operative, where trade is the driving force. Though having warlike and militaristic ancestry, the Shi'ar Empire has largely occupied the role of peacekeepers in many interstellar affairs.
In 1992, the Shi'ar annexed the Kree Empire at the end of the Kree-Shi'ar but internal affairs made the Shi’ar abandon their dominion soon after. Most recently, The Shi'ar have had contact with the Spartoi, described as an equally advanced distant race.
The Shi'ar possess faster than light starships, force fields, faster than light communication, teleportation technology, advanced holographic technology and Cloaking technology, Stargates network system used for travel to faraway distances, both planet-based used for personal travel and space-based versions used for starships to travel through, Starcracker technology that can cause stars to go supernova. Most of their technology is sentient.Source: X-Men vol. 1 #97 (February 1976) by Chris Claremont & Dave Cockrum. Marvel Universe

KREE

Planet of Origin: Hala, Pama System (Norhtwestern lobe of the Greater Magellanic Cloud)
The Kree are an humanoid species originating from planet Hala that developed an advanced interstellar civilisation. They resemble humans almost exactly but with blue skin and higher physical strength, due to their homeworld’s gravity, and require more nitrogen to breathe comfortably.
A million years ago the Skrulls came upon prehistoric Hala and they set about to educate the natives so they could join their trading empire. However, Hala was home to two equally intelligent races, the mammal Kree and the vegetal Cotati. The Skrulls proposed a test to determine the worthier race. Taking members of both races to a distant planetoid in the Milky Way, Earth's moon, the Skrulls created an arena and bid the two races to use the resources they had to create something of worth within one year’s time. The Kree constructed a magnificent city, while the Cotati created a beautiful garden. When the Skrulls returned, they found the Cotati's accomplishment the worthier. The Kree killed the Skrulls and the Cotati and seized the Skrulls' starship. They used it to return to their native planet, then set about deciphering its technology. Within a hundred years, the Kree empire began to spread throughout the Greater Magellanic Cloud. They launched an attack upon the Skrull empire.The Kree-Skrull War would continue for hundreds of thousands of years. At the same time the Cotati were driven to extinction. However, a small handful of Kree hid and kept safe a group of Cotati. Eventually they began worshipping them. To keep them safe, they relocated them throughout the universe. About 250 years later, aware that the Skrulls had once created an incredibly powerful artefact called the Cosmic Cube, the Kree designed a cybernetic/organic supercomputer called the Supreme Intelligence to help them in creating a Cube. When it became functional, it determined that a Cosmic Cube would be too dangerous to construct. The computer was then used simply in an advisory capacity. Over time, as the war with the Skrull dragged on, the Supreme Intelligence gradually accrued more and more political power and responsibility until finally it was elected as absolute ruler of the Kree. Eventually, the Supreme Intelligence came to be worshipped and an organized religion built up around it. Under its reign, The Kree Empire extended throughout nearly a thousand worlds in the northwestern lobe of the Greater Magellanic Cloud with outposts in other galaxies.
Since their unlikely accession to the status of interstellar civilisaiton, the Kree have become an evolutionarily stagnant race. In an attempt to further their development, some Kree bred with other species, producing the 'pink-skinned' Kree. These pinks eventually outnumbered the blue-skin but due to what they consider to be their genetic purity, remained second class citizens.
In 1992, not long after the conflicts with the Skrull ended, the Kree again found themselves embroiled in a war with the Shi'ar Empire. During the war, a powerful weapon known as the Nega-Bomb was detonated in Kree space. Negative energy was released into space causing an extremely powerful explosive and radioactive reaction, which devastated the Kree empire, killing over 90% of its 30 billion population, and led to its surrender to the Sh'iar. It was eventually revealed that the Supreme Intelligence was ultimately responsible for the bomb's detonation in a bid to kick-start the Kree race's genetic development. Kree territory was then annexed by the Sh'iar for a short while until internal problems made them abandon this dominion.
In 2007, the Kree Empire was subject to the attacks of the Annihilation Wave, which was halted on Hala.
The Kree are known to have come to Earth and experimented on humans to investigate possible ways of circumventing their evolutionary stagnation, and to create a powerful mutant race of soldiers for use against the Skrulls. However, although their experiments were successful in creating a strain of humanity with extraordinary and diverse abilities, the Kree abandoned their experiments.
Source: Fantastic Four #65 (August 1967), created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, Marvel Universe Wikipedia

EDDORIANS

The Eddorians are a psychic dictatorial, power-hungry shapeless species from the planet Eddore in another universe where the laws of physics are different. They were attracted to this universe by the observation that the Milky Way and a sister galaxy, the Wolf-Lundmark-Melotte galaxy might be passing through each other. The Eddorians believed that this would result in the formation of billions of planets and the development of life upon them. Dominance over these life forms seemed to the Eddorians the logical course of action. This dominance isexercised on their behalf by a hierarchy of underling races. The Eddorians themselves are physically similar to various lower Earthly life-forms, reproducing by fission but by a process more similar to budding than to cell division, except that each being's memories are preserved. They are highly competitive, extremely long-lived, and almost impossible to kill

Source: E.E. "Doc" Smith, Triplanetary

ARISIANS

Peaceful humanoid species that have developed what could be among the first sentient civilisation in our universe. They have forgone physical and developed tremendous mental power. Foreseeing the invasion of our universe by the Eddorians, a species from another universe, they began, over 2 billion years ago, a covert breeding program on every world that can produce intelligent life, with the aim of producing a means to eventually destroy the Eddorian race. Their work done, their plans are to remove themselves from the universe.
Source: E.E. "Doc" Smith, Triplanetary

THE PEOPLE / THE ALSO PEOPLE

Planet of origin: Worldsphere
The People are an ancient highly advanced utopian society probably born of several alien species, living in a Dyson Sphere called the Worldsphere.
They appear to be a combination of biological and artificial beings; having integrating their technology into their very essence, being able to switch their gender, forms or their minds at will, being able to become a humanoid lifeform or part of a spaceship. They do not appear to have developped time travel yet.
Source: Doctor Who "The Also People" novel by Ben Aaronovitch