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Shepbra
Intelligent clade derived from Geckos. |
 Image from Steve Bowers |
Shepbra are a provolve of a splice of several species of Terran geckos. Their genes come from Tokays, New Caledonian crested geckos, synthetic genes and miscellaneous other lifeforms. The splice was created in 112 AT as a pet, and variants of these splices remained popular even through the Technocalypse, in part because of their low maintenance requirements. Varieties of these splices were provolved in 973 AT in the early years of the First Federation in Solsys by the megacorp Biotopia.
Shepbras can stand erect on their hind legs. Their top bipedal running speed is about 51 kilometres per hour at one standard Terragen gravity. Top quadrupedal running speed at one gravity is about 62 kilometres per hour. They can sprint up vertical surfaces at 3 metres per second (nearly 11 kilometres per hour). Average adult height is 95 centimetres. Length of the prehensile tail is around 100 centimetres. The tail ends in a pad whose underside is setae coated lamella scales. They have large eyes with vertical pupils. Being ectothermic they have infra-red vision without the need for chemical reaction cooling of the eyes or technological implants. Their daytime vision is ten or more times as acute as that of a baseline human. They can see all the colors of the visible spectrum and a little of the bottom of ultra-violet. Eye color is bright yellow with small black dots, light to deep brown or a reddish color. Sense of hearing is around five times as sensitive as a baseline humans. Sense of smell is around 10-15 times as sensitive as that of a baseline human. Skin color is variable due to their chromatophores. Scales are small so their skin is soft to the touch.
Shepbras can be found most often in Dyson Trees, on humid forested worlds and artificial structures that have such environments and in zero-gee environments. This clade is well-established in bioist empires such as the Zoeific Biopolity and among the Pan-Sophontists.
A few of the off-shoots of shepbras are the furry, endothermic ottoerots who can live in cold climates and the abras who have webbed hands and feet and who live in swamps and other aquatic environments.
Philosophies, Ideologies, and Religions
75% materialist, 5% Deist, 11% liberal Mother Woodist, 2% fundamentalist Mother Woodist and 7% other.Shepbra are famous for their gengineered 5km high Mother Wood trees, living art, all manner of hand crafted fine art and goods, acrobatics( shepbra circus acts, dance etc.) and the Mother Wood trees that have been elaborately carved with designs. The "baseline" shepbras are ectothermic so they can't live in cold climates without wearing heat suits and devices that warm and add humidity to the air they are to breath. So when they want to go to a cold clime they have themselves changed to have fur, feathers or other insulation, an endothermic biology and being able to handle dry conditions.
Most Shepbra are not phobic of non-living technology, but if they can live in a Mother Wood tree, Dyson Tree etc. over living in an overly "unnatural" setting they will pick the biological setting. This is the "baseline" shepbra norm. There are individuals who chose to have their aesthetic sense changed so they find less organic localities attractive.
They have many languages, the most common being Standard Shepbrese.
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Development Notes
Text by John Edds
Initially published on 11 November 2005.
Initially published on 11 November 2005.
