#vulps

[a-beneficial-union]

Unfinished, but this is how I get images across devices. Midland Vulps are about four to five generations into the loss of their homelands.

Again, I wanted to keep Earth unique, so only with us is it so easy to adapt one's environment to their means or craft tools for themselves. Most of Vulpin has no hardwood equivalent, meaning using fire for heat isn’t a reliable option. The intense magnetic field make the invention of electricity impossible, so instead they developed genetic engineering of both theirselves and of the flora/fauna around them.

Regarding their selves, in order to stabilize their populations, those who went north (or who left the ‘Midland’ country) are often derided as being hybrids or wholly new species, having borrowed genetic materials from other clades to adapt theirselves to the new environments.

Something I'm now realizing is that the advent of these particular adaptions renders them more likely to cross each other territories, meaning they might very well have invented war (or are on their way to do so).

(Note: sunlight almost never penetrates the dense layers of atmosphere, meaning most of the heat comes from borderline-magic vents from underground. Or something. ANYWAY it means a local climate is very small, with it being rather easy to accidentally walk from a mercilessly scorching savannah and into a subzero tundra. This is part of the reason for why the clades were so isolated up until the last hundred years.

Other species have not similarly altered themselves and are still living largely in their ancestral homes. There will come a day when they need more space to account for population size, but that has yet to come.)

[a-beneficial-union]

One of the fun things to play with on cross-species mutations (transfers) and the impact on identity or community is… what would the characters even know? If they have access to the original species, what would that access be limited to? How much effort would this or that character put into learning about their transfer species, be it physically or otherwise?

In A Beneficial Union, the main transfer is from the Vulpin sophont species (whom are referred to as “Vulps” and whose languages don't have a verbal or auditory equivalent, adding an extra barrier). Vulps have five main species with some crossbreeding. I wanted to stick to some of Ben 10 wonk logic and to keep Earth distinctly unique (Earthlings can adapt and travel with accommodations), so species are largely geographically based. The practice of memory transfers and intercity pheromone usage ensures a sense of global community, they do not war with one another.

^^These are Vulp workers, the counterparts being drones and matriarchs. It's a bit out of date, but workers look very nearly related, you can tell they're all from the same genus.

This is an unfinished Midlander drone, whom I designed to try and make it more realistic for a human with additive features to pass for. (Translation: Slap a tail on Ben and he looks like a deformed, bald drone with chronic bipedalism).

Suffice it to say, what a character will perceive of their transfer species will vary greatly on their exposure. Most would never meet or hear about the fifth species per the greater distance and overall lack of traveling, the other four all have booming trade systems and some nomadic cultures within them.

So the thing I was wondering is would a character even realize that Vulps have ethnicities rather than just species? Would they spot a Midlander with maybe a more curved barb and sharper stripes and think them, not a different phenotype as we see in cat litters, but a people all of their own?

(I kinda hope not because I am not ready to design and write all those different cultures. /j)