their client races broke from their indenture on the battlefield of
Paklatuthl. They own two terraformed planets astride the route to
Omnivarium and often demanded a toll of 40
whale songs from Human ships passing
through. Their Patrons are extinct.
Stack of sap-rings, with each ring performing a different function. Religious militants and
fanatic members of the Obeyer Alliance.
Their ships have been described as "fighting planetoids." Jophur
possess a singular personality. (That is to say, they have an ego, as
opposed to the proto-Jophur --who were the Poa's ambitionless, late stage-two Traeki clients.)
The most fanatically driven races in modern times --or very nearly so.
Originally the mild Traeki , the master gene-crafters, the Oailie were brought in by the frustrated Poa and the Oailie transformed the passive Traeki into the Jophur, religious fanatics of the Obeyer creed, and quite probably the most ambitious race seen since "the Lions."
Born on the world Jophekka, the proto-Jophur were small invertebrates that lived in the muck of primeval swamps. Occasionally, these organisms would group together and form one mutually symbiotic organism. The Poa saw hidden Potential in these organisms, especially in their communal form. They decided to try to Uplift them as Traeki.
Each individual Traeki is a small and relatively unintelligent ring. Each ring can do nothing but perform basic life functions on is own. But, group it together with any number of others and they form a sort of communal intelligence. Most Traeki (and later Jophur) are made up of about twelve rings, with as few as five and as many as fifty rings making one organism. They are frequently described as "stacks of greasy doughnuts." All rings have different functions: eyes, olfactory organs, speech organs, legs, chemical synthesis, cognition. Each Traeki functioned as a loosely associated tribunal of individual rings. Hard decisions may have taken days to argue between rings.
Reproducing was originally performed through "vlenning." During this process the fabric
of the Traeki is altered while new rings are quickly produced inside the
stack. The new stacks are expelled though the lining of the ring. This is repeated with different
rings, and once expelled the new rings clamber upon each other to form a new Traeki. For a few moments
after the vlenning is finished, the Traeki is considerably disoriented as it tries to reestablish lost
connections between rings.
With the onset of Jophurness, rings were bred for specific purposes, and vlenning has become unused, as it is much easier to gene-engineer and build a new stack.
The Poa became 'bored' of Traeki indecisiveness, and for the third stage of Uplift, brought in the talented Oailie to breed a new strain of rings. They bred master rings. [Kanten Ministry for Inter-Sentient Relations and Understanding: An old Earth saying begins, "be careful what you wish for. . ."]
With the introduction of these jet black rings (they have a high, oily luster, so they are also called "silvery"), the mild Traeki stacks were each unified under one voice as Jophur.
At this point the Poa realized what they had done, but could do nothing. [(Tg.I.P.S.) for the Oailie had done what they promised to do very well indeed --the ego-unified and eminently ambitious Jophur understandably refused to go back their dreadful existence as apathetic Traeki.] The Traeki were systematically "upgraded" to Jophur status and destroyed. The master rings have (relatively) complete authority over the rest of the stack. The master ring actually inserts innervating tendrils into the central core and routes all neural activity through itself.
Jophur and Traeki long term memory is completely photographic [(Tg.I.P.S.) but formation and access is very slow by norms for O-2 sapients. A species with the reaction time of the Traeki can hardly be considered candidates for full participation in the Galactic body politic.] It is formed from chemically coated wax drippings lining the inner core. It is actually quite a good storage device; much better than the electro-neural technique used by most other oxygen breathers [in terms of stability and retention].
Since then, the Jophur have started a vast and strong legacy, stopping at nothing to get the ends they
wish (the Jophur are quite fond of using attrition of their own forces to get the attention of warm-bodied
organisms). They are currently one of the most tireless and violent enemies of
Earthclan in the search for the
Streaker, and in most other matters as well.
Kanten Ministry for Inter-Sentient Relations and Understanding: Might not the sympathy for the decision by the Poa to bring in the Oailie on the part of the Tg. Institute for the Promotion of Sapience and the Tg. Uplift Council be --in the final analysis --a form of "ego-centrism?" Being is, in fact, much more a mark of sapience than doing. Even the smallest microbes do. Only sapients can appreciate that they (and others) are. Were not the Traeki terribly unique, special . . . precious? Clan Terragen ceaselessly preaches the values of destiny and respecting the fundamentals of pre-sapient personality during Uplift. Kanten ab-Linten ab-Siqul ul-Nish wholly concur. We believe --that with the best of intentions --the Poa violated, betrayed Traeki destiny.
Tg. U.C. rejoinder:
e3v5r1
Joint note of Tg.M.A.A. and Tg.I.P.S.: Vlenning was, in fact, only the most impressive form of reproduction practiced by the Traeki. Rings in a stack always traded genetic material among themselves. The most common form of reproduction was off-budding immature rings that would have the form of the parent ring. Wild rings might spontaneously form a stack. An existent stack might decide to add or emancipate one or more rings, or two or more stacks might opt to swap rings. Also, Traeki would frequently simply build new children from rings raised by professional breeders. Furthermore, any Traeki could vlenn individual rings up to complete --if juvenile --stacks.(1)
Traeki enjoyed considerable genetic and developmental control over vlenned offspring. They could also donate memories (and hence skills) to vlenned offspring, albeit at the risk of losing non-redundant memories. More amazing still, waxen memory cores of deceased Traeki rings could sometimes be surgically transferred to young rings which had yet to participate in a stack (this procedure is still practiced by the Jophur). Traeki rings could also "flower" and reproduce sexually. Any number of adult rings from one (yes, one) up to sixty-four could participate because Traeki could control the fraction of the genome they would contribute to the child. Any Traeki (not only those participating in the "orgy") could encyst the embryo and bear the resulting ring live, through a process similar to budding. The "mother" enjoyed tremendous conscious, hormonal latitude in influencing the embryo's gestational development (including transfer of memory wax). In addition, one Traeki could transfer an embryo to any other Traeki prior to maturation and parturition of the fetus. Of course, these basic forms of reproduction could be combined, and recombined, to produce an essentially infinite number of possible reproductive strategies.
Rings of command are somewhat more limited in their reproductive repertoire, but are still very flexible. In theory, other modern Jophur rings still retain complete access to all these reproductive options, except those which involve whole or partial dissolution of colonial stacks. (Strategies of dissolution are precluded due to hierarchical ego innervation by rings of command. Dissolution would destroy a Jophur ego-identity. Obviously, this was not a concern of the more primitive Traeki.)