Falashai

Basic Information

Anatomy

The falashai are a species that resemble the vulpes genus of animals found on Earth, more commonly known as foxes. Despite being a part of the canidae biological family, they are not genetically compatible with the lupari. Falashai have a four genetically compatible subspecies, with hybrids able to entail a mix of traits from any one of them.
The enatashah are relatable to the traditional red fox. They are typically covered in red fur with, black ‘socks’ and ‘gloves’ on their hands and paws. White fur stretches from their groins to the underside of their muzzles, and dots the inside of their ears and the tips of their tails. Their eye colors range from dark brown to a golden hue, with green being a recessive trait. Another recessive trait is a black coat of fur. Any falashai with primarily black fur is likely a pure enatashah.
The sintel are close in appearance to the gray fox or kit fox, seeming to be a combination of the two. Typically, sintel have grey fur on their backs and heads, with red and white mixing on their fronts and looping up to the backs of their ears. White tufts exist within those ears, though they are not particularly large like a kit fox’s would be. Their eyes can be brown, gold, green, and blue. Sintel are often taller than those of other subspecies by approximately a meter. Unlike actual gray foxes, sintel do not have retractable claws.
The yinish can be recognized as arctic foxes, sharing their thick, pure white fur. Variation from his hardly exists for pure yinish, so extravagant dye patterns are common. Of the four subspecies, the yinish have the thickest fur year round. Their eyes are often yellow, brown, or blue, with silver being a recessive trait.
The onaten are akin to the fennec foxes. They are normally white on their fronts with a tan to red fur tone on their backs and their ears, with little variation from this. Their eyes range from brown to near black, with no recessive eye colors. These falashai have the thinnest fur, meant for a desert environment, and are about two meters shorter than the yinish and enatashah. Onaten have very large ears, which grant them superior hearing to the already fantastic aural senses of the species.
The vensen are the hybrids. Vensen is a blanket term. Every trait from each subspecies can be visible on a hybrid, and thus every combination would be impossible to name. For example: a white falashai with black paws and socks with a fennec’s ears is a very possible combination. A vensen that breeds with a non-hybrid will have a kit that more heavily resembles their partner.
The falashai are the smallest of any known predator species. They are often lithe in build, though are perfectly capable of powerful strength with ample training. None of the subspecies are capable of retracting the claws on the ends of their fingers and toes. Their long snouts contain jaws filled with sharp, powerful teeth. They have five fingers on their hands, and their legs are digitigrade with four toed paws. Like the lupari, their pointed ears are a very important part of emotional expression. They have tails, as most other species do. Though falashai tails are renowned for being particularly large and thick with fur.

Genetics and Reproduction

Males and females are the only healthy genders that occur naturally. Though in-utero therapy allows otherwise underdeveloped intersex fetuses to become a fully functional hermaphrodites. Approximately twelve percent of falashai are hermaphroditic. The species has a gestation period of about two terran months, but usually only birth one kit. Two can be born, though this remains rare. They do not follow any kind of mating cycle. The females, however, go into heat once every several years with no real predictability. This heat is easily and regularly suppressed with drugs.

Additional Information

Perception and Sensory Capabilities

Their hearing and their sense of smell is outstanding, typical of canids. Their ears easily pivot, turn, and fold to pick up specific sounds. Their noses are also capable of assessing individual scents when confronted with a multitude of them. Their eyesight, unlike Terran canids, perceives the full color spectrum. Falashai do have low light vision, but struggle in absolute darkness.

Civilization and Culture

History

Much like the lupari, the falashai have a fondness for physical touch. Though often, falashai can be oblivious to subtle feelings. The average falashai will have the usual range of emotions for a sapient, but will simply be less aware of discrete emotions such as someone being silently nervous. As a result, it’s normal for a falashai to clearly express vocally when they may not be enjoying an activity, and expect the same from others.
Many of them, however, can have a frightening willing detachment from their emotions, comparable to absolute sociopathy. Typically, this would lead to a degrading mental state that could border on insanity with prolonged use. While the ability to block emotions isn’t uncommon, properly picking and choosing which emotions one wants to feel requires years of very rare, intense, and heavily regulated mental training.
Historically, elite soldiers and others in fields where fear or regret are a detriment have received training to hone these skills. Falashai have a reputation for being a cunning species, as their larger numbers in military intelligence and reconnaissance units may suggest. But this trait is often not evident in general interaction with them, and it is in fact considered a stereotype.
Much like humanity, the falashai had many internal conflicts and massive wars before they advanced to the stars. Racism was common not only between falashai subspecies, but within them as well. The enatashah were even mistakenly thought extinct at one point, as their kits were thought to be omens of pestilence, and thus slaughtered en masse.
About 300 years before their contact with the Katians, the falashai had a global war that devastated their homeworld of Trinnin and killed almost 20% of the population. A powerful seismic weapon called the ‘sifter’ caused extensive damage to the planet's ecosystem, near depleting resources worldwide and leaving the continent of Jasha in tectonic turmoil and unable to support life ever since. The impact of this weapon has upset Trinnin’s tectonic stability to this day. All major governments collapsed and left the survivors to pick up the pieces for half a century. Most internal hatred petered out henceforth, and when the Katians arrived they found a race united together in common cause: Survival. This vulpine species was the first that the Katians met in the stars, and together they formed the original United Treaty Organization and squashed fears on both sides that space was an unwelcoming place.
However, a worrying two percent of the population is estimated to still follow the old ways of racism and bigotry. Having these beliefs is not illegal, but these believers receive much scrutiny, as some are not averse to acting on their hatred. Their voices were amongst the loudest that spoke against human equality.
Once recovery from their global war was underway, violence against other falashai was heavily punished. Arbitration and the code of law was the way to solve issues. This lead to extensive use of politics and language to win, and the species’ subsequent excellence in data gathering and interpretation. There are some unpleasant sayings that derive from this such as “Getting a commitment from a falashai” which eludes to someone being evasive or non-committal, or ‘Honest as a falashai’ which implies a lie or mistruth.

Home System: Benetien
Homeworld: Tinnin

Origin/Ancestry

Vulpines

Lifespan

124 years (earth)

Average Height

1.6 valen (19.74m) (64.76 ft)

Average Weight

59.656 kilofaarir (111.82 metric tons) (123.26 tons)