Species: Draco-fox

Government name: Skulk conglomerate

Social organization: Individual ? Den(family) ? Clan(City/town/village) ? Skulk(nation) ? Conglomerate(council of nations)

Contract and honor based. Completed contracts add honor to the individual and show their trustworthiness to the society at large. Individuals who lead any social organization from den to skulk must have a socially acceptable amount of completed contracts to their name.

Contracts range from simple employment, do x for y pay for z amount of time. To duty contracts in service to Clans and or Skulks.

Completed or failed contracts of an individual draco-fox are a matter of public record, details though can and will be redacted if of sensitive nature, but the status of it being completed or failed must not. Any draco-fox can look up anothers record at any time via their system wide internet.

No male nor female draco-fox may form a den with their significant other if either of them have no contract derived honor. They are viewed as untrustworthy. Thus their clan will not approve the formation of their den. Forming one anyway and procreating will result in the juveniles removed to the Clan’s custody, and the adults having to complete penal contracts consisting of hard labor or other dangerous tasks.

Depending on the Skulk, they may or may not see their offspring again.

Dealing between each social level and units of the same social level are contract based as well. A social organization that has failed more contracts than they have completed successfully are liquidated to the affected parties. A new; Den, Clan, or Skulk will be formed if their duties were vital to the conglomerate, otherwise they’ll let a minor Skulk, or large Clan naturally take their place. If it is a Den, then they are not allowed to reform until their honor’s cleared.

Juveniles aren’t allowed to enter any form of contract, though contracts about their care or guardianship can happen between two or more adult draco-foxes for said juvenile.

The conglomerate has set limits on contracts, they must not violate any listed rights in the conglomerate charter. Further restrictions can be imposed by skulks or clans as long as they do not violate these rules either.

Den’s can form informal contracts between individuals and this is often used as a teaching tool for juveniles. Ex; do chore X for Y months and get Z in allowance. When a juvenile comes of age, part of a rite of passage is the signing of the general social contract of their clan and skulk. Laying out their duties, rights, and behavioral conduct that is expected of them as an upstanding citizen.

Dens are traditionally female led while Clans and Skulks can be led by either male or female, if they’ve gathered enough ‘honor’ to be considered trustworthy and to be eligible to be voted on.

Citizens can vote on anyone with enough honor to lead Clans and Skulks, and while political parties exist, the conglomerate charter states they cannot have a monopoly on the political process.

Biology.

Draco-Foxes are technically hex-peadial proto-mammals. They are also mid to high sexually dimorphic. Known otherwise as physiological and psychological differences between male and female sexes of the species.

Generally overall appearance from head to toe.

Draco-foxes stand 1.2 meters tall(four feet) from their rear most limbs, digitigrade with three toes on the front of the foot, and one similarly large one on the first ankle(males only). Both male and females have fairly muscular legs. Each toe’s caped with a 2.53cm(1 inch) long claw for both sexes. If normally ground against earth and stone, they’d be sharp enough to dig into wood or slice open skin and muscle.

A semi prehensile tail extends from their tail-bone, .9 meters stout and thick at the base on the males, gradually tapering off at the tip. Female’s have tails 1.1 meters long, 1/3rd as thick as a male’s at the base, tapering less than the males, and ends in hardened scale tip that is unique to the female individual. The female tail is slightly more prehensile as the males as well. Mainly a hold over from their earlier ancestors.

Both males and females have a wide hip bone, a developmental vestigial trait as they spend the first one to three years of life on four of their six limbs and the species being formally arboreal hunter/scavengers.

On males the mid shoulder blades and limbs are under-developed. On a human these would be on the back around the kidney’s to lower back. These limbs were wings for gliding in their early ancestors.

Except on the male they withered away as the species moved from an arboreal environment with three meter(9 foot) wide trees to semi forested and empty plains. On the males they don’t grow from birth, so by adult-hood, the shoulder blade bones are smaller than their hands and the wings only about the size of a human pinky.

Generally they don’t stick out from the fur growing between their scales, but some males even have them surgically removed anyway.

With females, the mid set of limbs gets developmental focus over the other two sets as they grow. Muscles in these limbs gain mass and power to the point the average female can lift heavier objects if one attached a harness for such to the main joint compared to their hands or feet.

Giving the female draco-fox an average wingspan .9 to 1.1 meters from wing shoulder joint to wing tip on each wing. Not enough to allow full self powered flight on their standard 1.2 earth standard gravity of their home world. Yet enough for gliding. Females generally put great pride in their wings.

Females after all were the primary food hunters in a den, after the internal phase of gestation finished, and they laid soft shell, semi placental eggs. The male kept the nest warm, moist and defended as they hunted.

Male’s favor their uppermost set of limbs. In the transition from arboreal to terrestrial, in the male of the species. They evolved from digging out hollows or weak parts in a tree-trunk or limb for a den. To digging into the ground itself to make them. Thus upper arm power became favored in males by females, along with hard claws on the ends of their four fingers. This along with their stout tail allowed deep and complex tunnel systems to be dug out providing protection for the young.

Males now typically file down the 6.3cm(2 ½ inch) long claws down to as much that is comfortable for the male, and allows them fine dexterity. Traditionally though, throughout history they would only file down the claws on their dominant hand, leaving the other to grow to their full length for personal and defense of their den.

For females, males with thick upper arms and large claws are desirable, so males have to do a balancing act of dexterity vs attractiveness to the opposite sex.

Due to females favoring the middle set of limb development over the other two sets. Their upper set of arms appear rather thin and child-like to outside observers(ie humans) but are muscular in proportion to the rest of their body and able to hold up their own body weight in a fit specimen. This pettiness is a desirable physical trait for males when looking for females, thus female draco-foxes will use harnesses and other means of using their wing-arms to do heavy lifting. To avoid making their upper arms looking more muscular, thus unattractve.

Male draco-fox shoulders are broader than the females to support the powerful upper limb muscles too.

Neck wise Draco-foxes appear remarkably humanoid rather than lizard-like and its theorized to be an example of convergent evolution. Their ancestral species were very vocal, which later became full on complex language, so similar structures would develop for making similar noises in the same range and pitches. Outside of that, they have two extra vertebrae in their necks giving them the ability to turn their head and look down their back at their middle set of limbs.

Both male and female draco-fox have a similar tone of voice, but females can physically hold their breath and talk longer between breaths than males. A hold over from their gliding days.

The widest gulf between male and female draco-fox is their head.

Males have a large, triangular shape one, in what looks like if someone crossed a vulpes-vulpes with velociraptor skull. Yet giving it at least a couple sets of plant matter grinding teeth. In males their head looks only a slight bit large compared to their body. But that’s because of the two thick fluffy ears that stick out 13.97cm(5 ½ inches) from the top of their head. Combined with back sweeping horns 15.24cm (6 inches) long, starting from the sides of their head where human ears would be.

Though like their claws, males file these down due to social customs as much as they can tolerate. Long horns are attractive to females, even if they can get in the way like hitting door frames.

Female draco-fox heads are on average 5% to 8% smaller, this not due an overall shrinkage of the entire head. The muzzle is shorter, rounder, less pointed. Ears are half the size, and their horns are a third of the size of males. In general the shape is less aggressive despite their ancestral role and more inline with just being streamlined for gliding. Internally their mouths are structured the same as the male, but they, by the same quirk of evolution with their necks compared with humans. Have a similar dental issue to all humans.

Some females may have jaws too small for their full set of teeth, thus a dentist must pull a back set of grinding teeth to allow for proper dental development of the rest.

This typically has to happen about the age of puberty, thus it has become tradition for females to make ear rings, or wing-claw rings of these teeth to wear and thus attract males. A signal they are of age and are ‘ready’. They may also trim their fur to further shape their head in this blunted and rounded shape that males find attractive.

Draco-foxes grow a protective layer of scales and fur. The latter of which grows out of follicles located in between their scales in a thick enough coat for the majority of their scales to be hidden under it. Both males and females commonly have fur and scales in various shades of red. Scales are at their smallest on their heads and limbs, except for the female tail tip. Then go larger to their core body along with thicker fur to cover them.

Over time Males developed mutations that made their fur and scales more earthen toned reds, then browns, blacks and grays. Females on the other hand went into lighter reds, then bluish white to match the color of the sky considering their home star is a type-F yellow-white main line.

Eye colors are equally possible between sexes, with the common colors being; Yellow, green, orange, red, and white. Blue only appears in albino mutations and black with melanistic mutations.

Reproduction.

Males and females pair bond and imprint for life even if they may not stay and live together in the same den until young come into the equation. It is needed for adults to supervise adolescent activity between non-family individuals of opposite sex if they are familiar to each other. Pre-adult imprinting’s considered taboo.

Being proto-mammal’s they are not fully live birth, nor are they egg layers. Half of the ten-month gestation happens inside the female, at which point she will seek out a warm, humid portion of the den, or structure that is the den’s home. To lay placenta like soft shell eggs. Tough but see-through, they then must be kept warm and moist for the following five months, at which point they’ll dry out and crack, letting the newborn out.

Females normally have litter sizes of two to three, with four rare, one in every hundred thousand pregnancies. With five happening in one and every half a million.

Technology level: dependent on the story, but in general this is what they will be. Other stories may have them higher or lower on the tree.

Draco-foxes are an ‘exotic-sacristy’ species, otherwise known mistakenly as ‘post’-scarcity. Meaning their civilization’s run on the manufacture and flow of exotic material such as anti-mater, helium-3, etc. Rather than ‘common’ elements due to having multiple star-systems under their control.

Their FTL method is space-folding/fold-gate. Where they warp space, and distort it in the direction they want to go to the point a wormhole forms allowing instant travel between the two points. 

The main drawback is the large charge time for the drive. Depending on the power of the drive and the distance in light years between them and their destination. This could take anywhere from weeks and months between close systems, or even years if wanting to try to make a trip to unknown parts of the galaxy. The main advantage being, going anywhere in the galaxy is possible with enough math to calculate jump points and enough time to charge the drive.

As long as the drive can take the charge that is. Also, as long as their destination is outside a star’s sphere of influence, gravity wise. They then use impulse like engines for the several months long trip to their destination planet while charging their ftl drives for the next jump.

Their technology favors cybernetics over cloning and genetic manipulation except for extreme medical cases. It is not uncommon for a draco-fox serving a long military or police contract to have their brain, or what’s left of their body from injury, illness, or age. Dropped into a robotic body to complete their contract as agreed upon.

Nor is it uncommon for richer individuals to have the same procedure done to prolong their life.

Home system.

Their home system is in the outer Scuturm-Centaurus arm of the Milky Way galaxy. The forth planet orbiting their type F- yellow-white star is their cradle world. The first two planets are airless rocks. Their third planet is a proto Venus, in the middle of a run-away greenhouse event.

The cradle world’s an earth like planet, but 20% bigger, thus the earlier mentioned higher gravity. A large asteroid belt’s next in their system followed by two gas giants orbiting around each other while they both orbit around their star.

Empire

The conglomerate in total has seven hundred worlds to its name, divided up among multiple ‘skulks’. Each skulk has a formal contract that they’ll focus on certain aspects of the empire, and not step on the toes of another Skulk. So other than some overlapping duties like internal policing and politicking. Each skulk exclusively specializes in one thing.

For example Skulk Reynard(loosely translated), is their military and expansionist arm. Settling newly found systems and dealing with locals. While Skulk Tree-bark, loosely translated and reference to the ‘wood age’ before stone tools. Is their science arm. Skulk Mud-claw, a reference to the stone aged practice of digging out dens from the earth. Are the mining, construction, and fabrication specialists.

Of which the conglomerate has run into five other civilizations ranging from pre-agriculture to steam age, all being uplifted in one form or another. None yet are allowed on conglomerate ships. And all are heavily policed by Skulk Reynard.