Qogant
Alien even by Sealed Kingdoms standards, qogant are a species of skate-like, trilaterally-symmetrical sentient lifeforms that 'swim' through the cool, dense atmosphere of Qogantia in the Gantium System.
Basic Information
Anatomy
A unique qogant individual is formed of three previously indepentant creatures known as 'gant.' A single gant is a skate-like creature with a flat, teardrop-shaped body terminating in a long, sinuous tail. Two long tentacles covered in suckers extend outward from a gant's central body, providing manipulators as well as leading-edge support for the large pectoral fins that run nearly the whole length of the creature's body. A single large eye, typically a deep red or gold in color and posessing a w-shaped iris, sits atop the creature's skull in a forward-facing socket. A gant's mouth-parts consist of a series of specially-adapted suckers filled with lamprey-like teeth, allowing the creature to hold a morsel and gnaw at it from several directions at once; smaller 'moustache' feelers extend forward from either side of the rostrum to provide enhanced bioelectric and olfactory senses for detecting prey (see Perception & Sensory Capabilities). The body of a gant varies in color from dark purple to pinkish-red, may be mottled with darker spots, and is typically lighter along the ventral surfaces.
Gant come in three sexes (see Genetics & Reproduction) and are about as smart as a terran dog in their solitary state (see Behavior & Psychology). When three gants of complementary genders come together and decide to form a qogant, they fuse their tentacle-arms and tails together along the lateral surfaces except at the very tips, forming a trilaterally-symmetric composite organism with a shared interior 'mantle,' three-jawed composite mouth. The tentacle-arms are bifurcated at the distal extents and gain improved dexterity with their suckers, allowing the qogant to manipulate objercts. From this point forward, locomotion is accomplished through a combination of jetting via the compression of the inner mantle like a squid, winding through the air like a sea serpent, or 'walking' along a surface with one or more tentacle arms.
From rostrum to tail fins, a gant or qogant measures an average of four feet in length.
Genetics and Reproduction
Gant have at triploid genome. As mentioned in Anatomy & Morphology, gant have three complementary sexes - broadly known as male, female, and synmale. Soon after joinging together, the bodies of three gant of complementary sexes become fused together, joining the creatures' circulatory and neurological systems together in a bond that can generally only be severed by the catastrophic injury or death of one of the gant. Separated gant can become adopted by other groups of gant and, so long as at least two gant of a given qogant remain in a union, that qogant's individual personality and memories are mostly preserved (see Behavior & Psychology).
The male portion of a qogant produces motile gametes carrying one set of chromosomes that travel to the gonads of the female portion, where they join with an egg with a second set of chromosomes. This partially fertilized egg then attracts the motile gametes of the synmale which provide the final set of chromosomes. Inactivation of duplicate choromosomes takes place, and the cell begins to gestate nto a new gant within the protection of the qogant's mantle.
Qogant are ovoviviparous and expel between three and nine hatchlings from the caudal openings in their mantle at the end of a six month gestation. Qogant do not directly control their reproductive cycle, which takes place on a five year schedule that can be extended by stress, a lack of food, or the cumulative effects of certain pheremones produced by large crowds of qogant.
Ecology and Habitats
Gant originate from the planet Qogantia, a cool, halogen-rich world orbiting a cool red-orange star. The atmosphere of Qogantia is dense enough that many species evolved directly from aquatic environments to exhibit neutral buoyancy in the air above the seas. Gant cells have large vacuoles full of buoyant gasses. Gant bodies contain large methane bladders that can be manipulated through muscular contraction to aid in maneuvering through the air.
Naturally attuned to a lifestyle that rejects the call of gravity, qogant make for excellent spacers and are thought to have made the leap to interplanetary, and later interstellar, travel before even the arcopel. Qogant have a number of biological features, including a low radiation cross-section, multible genetic redundancy, and multiple anatomical redundancy, that make them exceptionally resistant to certain rigors of space travel.
Biological Cycle
Schools of young gant follow their parent until they reach maturity and are able to separate in search of new qogant unions to join. Family ties in qogant culture are extremely important but can become byzantine in long-lasting settlements, making their genealogy extremely difficult for outsiders to study.
Behaviour
The process of union (see Genetics & Reproduction) also integrates the nervous systems of the gants that comprise a qogant. The triune mind of a new qogant is higly plastic and quickly expands from animal-level intelligence to beyond human-level, subsuming the traits of the individial gant into a new self-aware collective. At the same time, a qogant retains the ability to split its focus among its constituents, and it is not uncommon for a qogant to be able to take several sides in a debate simultaneously without losing track of its own thesis. Qogant are exceptional problem-solvers, tool-makers, and diplomats as a result of their unique cognitive set.
After a year or so of union, a qogant's memories and behaviors become shared across overlapping parts of their gants' neurological structures, meaning that these gant are likely to retain them if one is somehow separated or killed. A common trope in qogant theatre is a mystery that starts when a stricken qogant takes on a new gant only to thereby absorb fragments of memories that reveal an unexpected, frigteneing, or damning truth about its previous qogant. The malleability and multifaceted nature of qogant identity is a source of complications for those wishing to study or conduct diplomacy with them.
Additional Information
Perception and Sensory Capabilities
Qogant have several unique sensory modes that differentiate them from other major species in the Sealed Kingdoms region. Qogant have trinocular vision that gives them excellent depth perception and peripheral vision; it is functionally impossible to sneak up on a qogant except from a narrow cone in the direction of its tail. Qogant can also detect the polarization of light, an adaptation that helps them gauge the effect of different chemical streams in the air. In conductive media, such as a body of salt water, qogants can detect bioelectricity, a hold-over from when their ancestors were semi-aquatic hunters. Qogant can hear, but the ears on either sides of their skulls have little to no exterior structure and, along with certain neurophysiological features, this means that their hearing is less directionally acute than that of humans.
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