Future Timeline

It took me a while to figure out how I wanted to present this information, so I decided the best method would be to just tell AI (in the case, Microsoft Copilot) everything I've thought up for the species to date and have it handle presentation and organization. Despite using AI for helping in post creation and some research, all the ideas are mine.

Introducing the Feren: An Intelligent Aquatic Species

Design and Physical Characteristics
The Feren are an intelligent aquatic species with a unique body plan that combines traits from manatees and plesiosaurs. They have four flippers, a broad crocodilian tail that moves side to side, and a neck and head proportionately long like a horse’s. Their most distinctive feature is their arms with webbed hands, which they keep drawn up close under their bodies when not in use. This gives them six limbs, a common trait among many animals on their planet. The Feren come in varying shades of gray and blue, with darker swirling patterns unique to each individual. They are omnivorous, with teeth designed to handle both plants and meat.

Subspecies of Feren
1. Freshwater Feren:

• Reproductive Method: Freshwater Feren climb onto land to lay eggs, similar to sea turtles. They check on the eggs until they hatch and then watch over and raise their young. Despite being egg layers, they also produce milk to feed their young, similar to monotremes.
  
  Habitat: Found in rivers, swamps, and mangroves, these Feren are smaller and more agile to navigate through dense vegetation and shallow waters.
  
  Tool Use: They use natural materials like kelp, seaweed, shells, and roots to create tools for hunting and farming.

2. Oceanic Feren:

• Reproductive Method: Due to their larger and heavier size, oceanic Feren have evolved to give live births. This adaptation allows them to remain in the water and avoid the challenges of climbing onto land. They also produce milk to nourish their young.
  
  Habitat: Found in deeper ocean waters, these Feren are larger and more streamlined for efficient swimming.
  
  Adaptations: They have specialized adaptations for deep diving and pressure resistance.

Biology and Adaptations

• Respiratory System: The Feren are air breathers with a bird-like respiratory system, allowing them to efficiently extract oxygen.
  
  Rete Mirabile System: They possess a unique vascular system known as rete mirabile, which helps them regulate their body temperature through counter-current heat exchange.
  
  Sensory Adaptations: The Feren have excellent underwater vision, echolocation abilities, and electroreception, allowing them to detect electrical signals and communicate intimately.

History and Evolution
The Feren were once a land-dwelling species with a megalithic culture. Climate change and food scarcity forced them to adapt to an aquatic lifestyle over 2 to 3 million years. This transition led to the development of their unique traits and adaptations. Despite their tribal lifestyle, the Feren are highly intelligent, with advanced mathematical abilities and a deep understanding of geometry, navigation, and resource management.

Culture and Social Structure

• Oral Traditions: The Feren retain knowledge of their land-dwelling origins through oral traditions, mythology, and origin stories.
  
  Community Living: The Feren live in tight-knit communities, similar to human tribal societies, with a strong sense of cooperation and respect for nature.
  
  Art and Music: They create underwater sculptures and communicate through whale-like songs, adding depth to their social interactions and cultural practices.

Pet Species
The Feren have a domesticated pet species, similar to how humans have dogs. These pets are a mix of otters and neotenous salamanders like axolotls and mudpuppies. They have external gills, smooth skin, catfish-like barbels for detecting vibrations, and a three-heart system similar to squids and octopi, ensuring they have the stamina and energy for active behaviors. These pets assist the Feren in hunting and protect their eggs and young from wild versions of their species. They share electroreception with the Feren, allowing for simple communication and coordination.

Planet and Ecosystem
The Feren’s planet is home to a diverse range of flora and fauna, with unique adaptations to various aquatic and terrestrial environments. The ecosystem includes kelp forests, bioluminescent algae, floating islands, and mangrove trees. The Feren have symbiotic relationships with certain species and face environmental challenges such as predators and climate changes.

Potential Alien Encounters
If an alien species were to land on the Feren’s homeworld, they might initially overlook the presence of intelligent life due to the Feren’s aquatic nature and unique communication methods. Over time, the aliens might develop technology to understand and communicate with the Feren, leading to potential cultural exchanges and collaborations.

Very interesting. What sort of planet do they live on? (super earth? small planet? a moon? is it a full ocean world, or just a terrestrial world with oceans?) Have they interacted with other intelligent life?

Oh I forgot: where does "Feren" come from?

Jakob wrote: ↑Mon Sep 16, 2024 5:20 pm Very interesting. What sort of planet do they live on? (super earth? small planet? a moon? is it a full ocean world, or just a terrestrial world with oceans?) Have they interacted with other intelligent life?

Oh I forgot: where does "Feren" come from?

I've mostly been working more on thinking up the biology, culture, and evolutionary history so haven't gotten as far yet into the actual planet making yet, but I've mainly been considering either a planet orbiting a dual red star system or a moon of a gas giant. The main problem I have with the moon idea is I'm not sure if such a world would be stable enough for such complex life or not. But either way it is intended to be a terrestrial world with oceans.

At this point they have not interacted with any other intelligent life yet, but I'm open to thinking about what it would be like and what would happen under different scenarios where they are discovered by other intelligent life.

Different - cheesy I know, but I couldn't resist.

Something I've been thinking about is most worlds are unlike ours - they don't have seasons. We have seasons because of the tilt of our planet, a tilt caused by a huge impact which likely also gave us our moon. Most cultures marked time, the months and the years by the seasons and the waxing and waning of the moon. The absence of this would definitely have an impact, so the question then is how would they look upon time and mark or celebrate it? Even though I'm not very good at astronomy and cosmology, I'm trying to think up a way of having their solar system offer something visual of importance that could work in place of seasons, equinoxes, and lunar events.

I'm currently considering that their world is a moon of a "warm" Jupiter orbiting two red dwarf stars, and depending on the distance of these stars, perhaps they could noticeably orbit each other? And the switch of these two suns in the sky could offer them that cyclical event. I'll need to find someone more informed than me or run it past AI to see how plausible this would be and if it could work out well as a system capable of supporting life like I'm envisioning.

I'm also considering the nature of the calamity that drove their megalithic terrestrial ancestors to become dependent on an aquatic livelihood and started their evolution towards their current forms. The most obvious of course would be a cosmic impact like a meteor or asteroid, but it would be nice if I can find another event to be more unexpected, but ultimately the goal is something that would make sense and is possible. I want the species and planet to all be something that could actually exist somewhere in our universe.


Outside of these more difficult areas that will require more research on my part, I'm also slowly trying to flesh out their culture. How do they pick mates, are they monogamous, how do they express their grief and dispose of their dead, that sort of thing. I also imagine there will be cultural differences as the species is widely spaced out.

Something I have come to the conclusion to is that there are crab-like creatures that are a part of the Feren diet - thanks carcinisation!

So I've done a lot of research and thinking, with a lot of help from AI, and I've come up with some more on the species and their world.

Physical characteristics of their world
The Feren's home world is an exomoon of a warm Jupiter in a system with two red dwarf stars. I'm not sure on the orbit, if the warm Jupiter orbits one or both of the stars, the science and physics of this is something I'm not good with so will keep conversing with AI or maybe seek human help to shore this up. The exomoon is lucky in that it's under the right conditions that it has not become tidally locked, though this is highly probable to be the world's far distant fate. It is roughly 1.5 times the size of earth, and is moderately active (volcanic and seismic) - a bit more compared to earth but not so much as to poison the atmosphere for the life that lives there, and has a thicker atmosphere then our own as a result of both its gravity and moderate volcanism. Because it's days are much dimmer than our own (because red dwarves give off less light and because of a thicker atmosphere) the plant life there evolved to use light in the infrared band of the light spectrum for photosynthesis. Most animals on land indeed also see in heat and infrared. As a final note for this exomoon world, it's global temperature is cooler than our own, on average between 20 and 40 degrees (Fahrenheit) cooler.

Early evolution
Onto the evolution, to help explain some of the features of the species and try to unify things more logically - the vertebrate life on this exomoon share a common distant ancestor, a fish-like species with a triple-heart system like our world's squids, and an extra pair of fins. When this common ancestor evolved into a terrestrial animal, it's fins evolved into six legs, which was useful to help stabilize it in this world's higher gravity. Some species today still have six limbs, although for some specialization has transformed the extra two limbs more into arms or wings or something else. And in some species the limbs have atrophied into nothing, like the legs of snakes. This fish-like ancestor also heavily relied on electroreception, something which has mostly atrophied in the fully terrestrial animals, but a few still use it to some extent. Considering the greater gravity, cooler temperatures, and dimmer lighting conditions on this world compared to ours, these adaptations so early in the history of vertebrate life on this exomoon shouldn't seem as unlikely.

I'm still working out a fuller picture of the evolutionary history of the Feren and other creatures. I'm thinking of giving their megalithic terrestrial ancestors some hippo-like traits - the idea being that despite making stone and clay structures like how our hunter/gatherer ancestors made Stonehenge and Göbekli Tepe, they were still already a semi-aquatic species, relying on rivers to help them migrate. Not 100% sure on this yet, but still working on it.

Predators
While there's certainly many water predators, due to their intelligence, strength of social numbers, and tool use, the numbers and effectiveness has gone down. Kind of like how wild tigers can still be dangerous man-eaters there's just not that many left to be a real threat to the population of African trubes here on earth. But there is still at least one dangerous predator that they fear above others - and this one is fully terrestrial.

Based on the climbing, gliding, (probably) venomous dinosaur Sinornithosaurus, this predator mostly poses a threat to the Feren when they come on land to lay or guard their eggs. Although I've based them on the Sinornithosaurus this creature is different. It has heat pits under its eyes like a snake, hunts in small packs, and I'm considering having them be furred instead of feathered. Many of the structures the Feren build around the shores and nests of their territories are to guard and protect against this predator. Still working on the name.

Also of note, while they rarely pose a threat to full grown Feren, the still wild version of their pet species are a threat to the eggs and hatchlings. I'm considering naming the domestic pets Lirren, and am undecided still on the wild members.


There's still more I've developed and added or changed, but I don't want to type out too much at once. So probably I'll make another update in a week or so.