Follow appropriate precautions.
Tg.U.C.: By doing all that was possible within the GUI writ, by bending a few rules and injunctions, and through diligent theoretical work, significant progress has been made in both project Dog and Elephant. Elephant's temper and must (rut) behavior have been further moderated, and mahout deaths from Neo-Elephants have been largely reduced to accidents --which occur frequently. (We lost two technicians last year to Neo-Elephants who scratched itches while being scrubbed.) To reduce accidental worker mortality and morbidity, Neo-Elephants now need to be given a high capacity for attending to detail.
The haut-sentience problem has largely been eliminated in the last decade through the master-stroke of incorporating Humpback DNA into Elephant. Neo-Elephants retain all their practical sapience, but now are eminently capable wonder and of appreciating their own existence. They do not seem to be participating in the Whale Dream to any appreciable degree.
It is worth noting that ensuing problems with Elephants preferring contemplation to work have been overcome. Neo-Elephants take readily to Benedictine, and especially Zen, theologies that integrate work and "prayer." Indeed, our "contemplators" seemed ever-so-relieved to be active once again. Currently, we are trying to get them to STOP over-working themselves. Especially when only lightly supervised, workaholism is now a sizable Neo-Elephant problem. Predictably, Neo-Elephant meditations tend to be a bit maudlin.
Lack of Elephant space-worthiness continues to be a frustration. Resort to fossil DNA has helped by letting us produce a dwarf strain better suited to artificial environments and live transport. However, Elephants still get terribly space-sick. Furthermore, free-fall is only marginally safer for our pachyderms than more mundane kinds of falling. We are now consulting with Thennanin on these problems.
Neo-Elephants, as a population, have what can almost be described as a "crush" (pardon the pun) on the Kanten, that has only gotten more pronounced with the onset of haut-sentience. Nevertheless, for technical and diplomatic reasons, the Thennanin have been asked to be Neo-Elephant's Stage One Uplift Consort, and have unofficially agreed to take on the responsibility. A petition to resume full-scale Uplift activities will be presented to the GUI quite soon. We believe that they are finally likely to grant us significantly more latitude.
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