by Eric "iggy" Winsor
|
Male Infita by Tysho |
Greetings gentlebeings! Jurak Hangna here, introducing yet another tasty little beast of the universe. This issue's little critter is an amazing comeback story.
When people think of GODCo they mostly think of planetary engineering, the high taxes governments impose on their citizens to pay GODCo to complete the process, cloning extinct yaziriforms, and yazirians in robes. Yazirians praise GODCo for making lask1 available to the common yazirian and bringing back a new extinct yazirian beast each year for the ceremonial exodus hunts of remembrance. Non-yazirians curse GODCo for never turning their resources toward another species' bioforms. Today I am happy to announce that the great GODCo tree has dropped seed and the tree has born its first fruit. A sign that we hope will someday be remembered as the birth of extinct bioform cloning for all species.
During our early expeditions to the Rim Worlds, Dwain gained the acquaintance of a wealthy ifshnit merchant seeking to clone the extinct infita. As a result, the Jurak Hangna Foundation has partnered to establish an open cloning facility on Faire. Dr. Jika Gasar has joined the Jurak Hangna Foundation as director of the new JHF Open Bioform Cloning Laboratory (OBCL). The details of this auspicious meeting and the founding of the OBCL are a long story. Dwain says, “We could tell you, but we would have to kill you.” I'll stick with his human saying. I'll tell you the happy ending and new beginning. Dr Jika and her team have successfully recreated the infita, the first non-yazirian species to be cloned back from extinction.
The infita is native to the ifshnit homeworld. They went extinct as a result of a Sathar biological attack that destroyed the island habitat they lived in. What was a seemingly unimportant and overlooked ifshnit species became the symbol of the ifshnit drive to reach the stars and survive against the Sathar. Every ifshnit felt the loss of the infita and identified it as the inevitable loss they themselves would face if they did not overcome the Sathar. “Fa gi infita!”, “Not like the infita!” became a common phrase among the ifshnit and children were given infita dolls. Fortunately several infita bodies were frozen in nitrogen by our anonymous ifshnit trade house. Dwain and his ifshnit friend realized that the JHF and the Capellan Free Merchants were the two parties with the key pieces to unlock GODCo's cloning to bring back the infita.
Description and Sociology
Infita are small creatures averaging 30cm from nose to the end of the tail. They have three fingers, the fourth (index finger) developed into a sharp, retractable claw close to the pads of the hands and balls of the feet. They use these claws to scale the branches of the trees they live in. They travel in families eating leaves and insects in the trees. They also use these claws to remain suspended from the tree branches while they sleep.
|
Ifshni Infita |
|
|
TYPE: |
Omnivore |
|
SIZE: |
Tiny to Small : 30cm |
|
NUMBER: |
(3 to 9) female / 1 male |
|
MOVE: |
Medium : 55 m/t |
|
IM/RS: |
+6/60 |
|
STAMINA: |
70-120 |
|
ATTACK: |
60 |
|
DAMAGE: |
(1d10)/4 |
|
SPECIAL ATTACK: |
None |
|
SPECIAL DEFENSE: |
None |
|
NATIVE WORLD: |
Homeworld, Capella |
|
COST: |
480 cr |
Squads of infita are matriarchal, with the eldest female choosing the trees that they will forage in. Typically this female leader is the grandmother of the other females in the group. A group will divide when a mother has three or more daughters with children. This division seems to be driven by the need to select a separate feeding tree to support feeding the grandchildren. Males leave the family group when they are old enough to travel alone. Males seldom congregate in groups or pairs and mate with the females in late night encounters with one or two of the females and quickly slip away.
Infita are all light brown in color. Their short fur protects them from the scrapes and rain of life in the trees. The males have dark brown neck and tail manes. The neck mane starts at the base of the skull and extends down the spine to the middle of the back. The tail mane extends from the middle of the tail to the tip. It only grows on the top and bottom creating a vertical fan of stiffer hair.
Threatened squads will screech and shake branches to frighten aggressor. When this doesn't work they retreat swiftly to the tops of the trees, fleeing from tree to tree if necessary. During the night the squad will gather in the treetops for defense while they sleep. They sleep lightly and will easily awaken to slight disturbances that may be a threat. Females without children quietly investigate any disturbances for potential threats, while the others remain alert for their warning cries. The warning cry of the infita is a soft shriek. During the day these same females will forage along the edges of the group as sentinels.
Male infita travel constantly following food sources. Their courses typically loop back upon themselves every few days. This is thought to be an effort to find female groups that may be behind them. The overall path meanders for kilometers with these sporadic loopbacks before taking another direction at random. The effect is that they tend to crisscross a single large area throughout their life. When male infita happen upon each other they stand each other off for days until one succumbs to hunger and forages in a different direction than the other. This has led to the ifshnit saying that a person is “as stubborn as an infita.”
Infita live for about 7 galactic standard (GST) years. They reach adulthood in about 250 GST days. The gestation period is about 23 GST days with a birth of one pup. It is unknown if infita have ever given birth to twins but the OBCL biologists have determined it is genetically and biologically possible in extremely rare cases. A single female infita may have as many of 27 offspring if she mates during every breeding cycle. In the wild before their extinction, they averaged about 13 births per female on average. The prolific nature of the infita in safe, healthly, controlled conditions has been a key element to rebuilding the species and their biodiversity. Dr Jika also capitalized on techniques gained from the yazirian exodus to use fragments of DNA obtained from many samples of infita hair to augment the biodiversity of the species.
Reintroduction & Future
Since the successful reintroduction of the infita to their native island habitat, they have become a symbol of pride to the ifshnit. Due to the success of the infita population growth, the CFM now markets male infita as The Ifshnit Pet. Infita have become the gift of choice to adolescent ifshnit. The CFM marketing department has tied the infita to every ifshnit holiday and life event from primary school graduation and merchant school admittance, to the solstice of the new year, to launching day when ifshnit traditionally launch all sea and space vessels. There are CFM plans to market infita outside of the CFM worlds to the Rim and the Frontier when ifshnit demand is satisfied. Currently, there is a one year waiting list to purchase an infita pet, which cost 480cr. The JHF is proud to host a breeding pair of infita at our preserve on Hakosoar. These are the only infita on display outside of the ifshnit worlds and our star attraction at the JHF preserve park. The CFM marketing campaign has been so successful that Dr Jika's lab is on a firm financial foundation.
GM Adventure Material
Jika Gasar was dishonored by her employers at GODCo when they formally reprimanded her for supporting her brother Hako Gasar's2 pursuit of their common life enemy, the murderer of Lucco Gasar. The quest for Lucco's murderer made Hako a clanless fugitive wanted by the UPF and various world governments. GODCo's executive management was embarrassed by the media attention following Hako's successful defeat of their life enemy. Some non-yazirians viewed Hako's quest as vigilante justice and some of the tabloid media fabricated stories of GODCo's support through Hako's sister Jika. GODCo executives took their worries out on Jika.
Fortunately for Jika an obscure line of the CFM loan contract that helped fund the initial start up of GODCo was still in effect and overlooked by the GODCo legal department. This clause allowed the CFM to secure Jika and a select few of her staff to work free from GODCo influence or control as long as they are under the umbrella of a yazirain company without CFM ties. Thus the JHF was provided a generous no-strings-attached grant by the CFM to fund Jika's Open Bioform Cloning Laboratory. The JHF OCBL is on Faire to keep it safely secured against GODCo espionage and interference.
The GODCo executives are furious that they may have just lost their monopoly on yaziriform cloning. They do, however, still retain control of the yazirian gene banks through the Family of One. Jika was not allowed to bring any samples, files, or equipment from the GODCo labs. Rumor has it that Hako has embarked on a new quest to find a lost yazirian exodus ship that contains a gene bank. He is rumored to have a team of other renowned clanless yazirians working with him.
The CFM is rigidly controlling the breeding of infita. Only male infita are available to the public. Female infita at kept as breeding stock at CFM nurseries. The infita island preserve on Homeworld is guarded to keep the wild female infita from being captured and used for breeding on the black market.
1 See Star Frontiersman issue 18, “The Yazirian Files: Legend of The First Clan”.
2 See Frontier Explorer issue 3, “For Lucco's Honor”.
