Ghians are a bipedal, lizard-like alien species hailing from the planet Ghi existing approximately five light years away from Earth’s sun. While within their star’s Goldilocks Zone, Ghi is still notably closer to its star than Earth is to the sun; as a result, Ghi is an arid, dry world largely covered in desert, with its equator being uninhabitable by humans. Its oceans and freshwater lakes are small, but dotting the surface of the planet are oases where the local Ghians thrive.
To help deal with the intense heat, Ghians were evolved to have scales instead of skin; as humans have a common, ape-like ancestor, so too do Ghians have a common ancestor more closely resembling an alligator. Ghians are ovoviviparous: their children hatch from eggs while still in the womb and are born live.
Modern-day Ghians do not typically grow hair upon their heads, but since their meeting with the humans, it’s not unusual for a Ghian to take specially-designed supplements that promote hair growth for stylistic reasons – or to help them maintain their warmth when on Earth, a planet that’s markedly colder than Ghi.
Like Earth, Ghi is home to many different languages and geographic cultures, each with their own beliefs, forms of government, and methodologies. They have unique approaches to religion; to facts of life, such as death and processing their dead; to dress and fashion; and to agriculture, a difficult topic for them, given the inhospitality of their own planet.
And like Earth, Ghians had spent many of their generations pondering the stars and whether they were truly alone within the universe. On one fateful day, their finest cosmologists and engineers sent off a satellite, pointed towards a hospitable planet they had discovered that was relatively nearby.
While it was a hopeful gesture, it was intended to be performative, and nobody truly believed it would yield any results….