Sad/shame. Killthought doublebad, thought you were parasites.
–excerpt from Protheon translation of Ubraxas Contact

As little as we understand the Knosis today, the species was entirely unknown when it emerged from the Cleft in 5298. It is understandable, then, that the Vermailian armada would mistake the approaching spaceborne hyperfauna for a fleet of hostile carrier vessels and open fire. Finding his targets unfazed, it was natural, albeit regrettable, for Ratan Dutrilik to order the redeployment of the Cleft; upon witnessing a second pod of Knosis appear from the newly-opened Cleft, it was likewise natural, albeit regrettable, for the crew of the flagship Murder Princess to fall into uncontrollable bouts of hysteria, epilepsy and cannibalism.

As for the Knosis themselves, it must be stressed that they appear to have intended humanity no actual harm. Adapted to deep space and dependent on highly-developed psi-sense organs, the Knosis had taken little notice of the smaller species, whose individual minds registered as background noise against the bright, powerful thought patterns of the Nova Entity and the White Flower Dreaming. It was these that likely attracted the Knosis to the Viridia system, where the exhaustion of superluminal flight would unfortunately compel them to feed.

The resulting catastrophe can be largely described as a failure to communicate: what Viridians had assumed to be a massive organic death ray was in fact the Knosis’ telepathic voice, well-suited for communicating between stray pods at interstellar distances but capable of reducing smaller minds to pulp. Were it not for the unconventional methods of the Protheon Institute, the Ubraxas Contact might never have been established, and standard human life might have been driven from the system entirely. As it was, the Knosis’ pledge to restrict their grazing to uninhabited worlds only came after Viridia had endured significant casualties.

The species has been sighted twice since the end of the Parallax Urgency; no attempt at contact was made in either case.

—Recorder 3000-21