Kryptonians are an alien humanoid race of being who originate on the planet Krypton.
History[]
Kryptonians are basically humans in their structure and appearance, they're just a different branch of the family tree that's been separated from the main stock for around fifty-three thousand years.
The time of Atlantis was a renaissance period that briefly seemed to offer the potential of restoring humanity to the empire of glory that once was. They were an advanced technological civilization that mastered the harnessing of elemental forces through the use of specialized crystals...but then they grew strange and perverse in their ideals, abusing their vast powers to begin enslaving worlds, and to that end they created a special genetically enhanced breed of warrior to form their shock-troop elite. These were beings whose physical and mental attributes were enhanced to the degree of true superhumans...a warrior race unlike any other, so perfect in every way that they eventually started to wonder about the very people whom they were working for, which lead to a period of unrest that ancient records refer to as, 'The Ironstar Rebellion.'
Ironstar was supposed to be some kind of Spartacus-like character in Kryptonian legends. Supposedly he fought and lost a bid for freedom for his people, and as punishment the Atlanteans exiled the surviving Supermen on several heavy-gravity worlds in three radically different star systems, colony worlds where normal humans could hardly survive like Krypton, Daxam and some barren hunk of rock used as a mining facility called Wolframa. Anyway, these three branches of humanity grew up and evolved under the harsh conditions that their masters thought would eventually destroy them...imagine how surprised they'd be to know how their Uber-races would thrive in their new environs.
Culture[]
Kryptonians are a highly technologically advanced people. Their technology seems to be based on self-grown crystals which made up the vast majority of their planet's surface. Vast amounts of data and information could be stored on relatively small crystals. The Fortress of Solitude is a recreation of Krypton's surface, and also serves as a storehouse for all the knowledge obtained by the Kryptonian race from the 28 known galaxies.
Each Kryptonian family, or what is called a "House," is represented by a crest or symbol, often worn by the head of the house. The House of El, for example, is represented by an "S"-like shape. Coincidentally, Superman wears this same symbol on his costume that serves for dual meanings: his Kryptonian heritage and the "S" for Superman.
Survivors[]
There are about a couple million surviving Kryptonian’s, but most of those are shrunk down to the size a Nanobot, and they all live in an ant-colony sized bottled city in the Fortress of Solitude. The ones who walk around in our world are just a handful, mostly the immediate family of House El and a couple of close attachments.
Powers and Weaknesses[]
Kryptonians evolved on a tectonically unstable world that had been terraformed to accommodate their form of life, and every type of creature upon that world had been adapted with their genetic advantage...the ability to absorb the biosolar energy of cosmic radiation. They are literally walking solar batteries whose cellular structure is charged and fortified with tremendous reserves of the life energy that we call Mana, the same raw element that goes into the formation of Chi attacks or magic. A Kryptonian is charged full of this energy by the nearest available source of intense Biosolar radiation...star energy, if you will...and this energy has been adapted to suit the needs of their bodies so that they can call upon it to achieve things that the rest of us mere mortals describe as Superhuman. In other words they evolved drawing upon the energy of the Red Sun Rao, which dominated the Kryptonian star system on a dwarf star, subjected to tremendous forces of gravity.
Earth's sun is about ten thousand times more intense than Rao was in its Biosolar output levels, which means Superman grew up absorbing about a million times the life energy dosage that he would have gotten back on Krypton. Every cell in his body is just plain saturated with the stuff, and even when he exhausts himself by using it, he's adapted so much to Earth conditions that he can replenish his reserves within seconds. Of course he didn't gain that ability all at once as a Kryptonian grows in power over the years and they won’t reach maximum levels until they turn the equivalent of thirty-five. Their unique genetic structure combined with such excess energy grants them anumber of unique abilities while under the Earth’s sun. Their body generates a kinetic force field that absorbs and deflects excess energies while allowing their cells to literally roll with the punches. Their Pineal organs are also much larger allowing for heat-generating pyrokinesis ability and Clairvoyance as well as flight.
Kryptonians have two great weaknesses, Kryptonite and Magic. Kryptonite cancels out their ability to absorb this Solar Chi force, while because their body absorbs various ranges of Bio-energy and stores them within their cells, including magical energies, it leaves them with no natural defenses.