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ADVANCED LUTRIC
The short-clawed lutric was the original lutrai, so to speak, shown here with the earliest uplifting nodes. The Creator State wanted an intelligent, energetic, easily socialized animal species to replace the kuil (humans) of its navy, and after the Delphoid Disaster the decision was made to narrow the selection to semi-aquatics.
This is Z33T, the first truly successful advanced lutric experiment. Though only about as smart as a ten-year-old and still shaky on her hind feet, Z33T was able to speak through a modified vocal box and even write simple words on a Shake-a-Spell. More importantly, she was able to steer a little submarine and help people swim, which put her just ahead of the ultra-frog and won viability for her kind. Further refinements would include a more extensive humanization phase in which the legs and arms became longer and sturdier with the contraction of the torso.
Connector: This is the surface contact point of Z33T’s false hyphael, the artificial brain structure made to imitate the true, divine soul container of the sentient humanoid races. The kuil wanted a similar leash to their own inborn hyphael, though with less nuance. The Connector made familiars out of early nilkind.
Parser: This contained a wide variety of useful sentences which the lutric’s primitive mind could deploy in conversation. Though they lacked higher language function, they could at least learn which phrases were appropriate to different situations. Zeet even had a few jokes.
Bipedal Spur: Directed Evolution Devices, or DEDs, were installed in Zeet's joints to guide her up off all fours, and provided a little stimulation every time she walked around on her hind legs. This process had already been accomplished with skoles and ixis, and later with the nils themselves, which used much larger motorized frames.
Tail Charger: Diamond Life had yet to perfect the super-M cell, and so electrical power was still required to maintain internal implants such as these. Zeet could sleep with her tail inside an induction loop to fully charge all of the internal accessories in about an hour. She had to do this every day.
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