First Breed

The First Breed are a quadrupedal sentient species native to The Roving, resembling large dogs.

Physical Description
The average First Breed stands about 60 centimetres tall, from the ground to the tip of its ears. The gait of a First Breed is fluid and graceful.

A First Breed's skin is covered with many thousands of what appears to be disintegrating flakes of grey rust, each flake is made of living tissue. In warm conditions, these expand to increase a First Breed's surface area and help to dissipate heat; in cold or wet conditions they contract and interlock to form a waterproof, windproof shell which keeps them warm. These reactions can also be caused by conscious thought, which can be useful in combat, as the flakes provide some limited protection. First Breed have fur, a coat of guard hairs, that they grow over these flakes.

First Breed dislike but tolerate being referred to as dogs, despite resembling Siberian Huskies very closely.

There is a grasping tentacle on either side of a First Breed's jaw at the point where the head meets the neck, and they use these in the same way as humans use their hands: for feeding, for gesturing, for manipulating. The surface of a grasper is ribbed and quite dry, like the belly of a snake. Graspers spend most of their time folded and coiled under the First Breed's jaw, but can extend to their full length of a couple of feet in length at a moment's notice. The graspers are a little weaker than a human's arms at their full range, but as they fold in on themselves their effective strength increases greatly. Each grasper splits into four smaller digits at the end, at right angles to one another, and these tend to twitch when not in use.

Medical Description
The similarities with Terran dogs continue in their anatomy; their bone structure is very similar to that of a dog, as is their organ placement. They have a lot more muscles in the face, which is required for them to speak. Their DNA shows evidence of genetic modification, but the modifications are the same or very similar in all of them, and there is no evidence of genetic tampering any time in the last 150 years or so. The main difference between Terran dogs and the First Breed is their brain; the First Breed brain is no larger, but much more complex than a dog's. This is because they are sapient.

The average First Breed weighs about 24 kilograms.

The First Breed are hermaphroditic, and have no distinctions of gender. When their language is translated the pronoun they use to refer to each other is "it", and many First Breed refer to those with gender the same way, but Federation Universal Translators produce a male voice from the First Breed, so most people think of them as male. The First Breed don't really care how they are referred to, as long as their name is not cut in half. It is not a sign of endearment to use only one word from a First Breed's two word name - it is a terrible insult. The First Breed have a slightly higher internal temperature than humans; whle their homeworld is colder, they have lots of fur. They are omnivores, and will eat almost any non-putrefied biological material(plants, animals, fungi etc, but not anything that's rotten or otherwise unsafe to eat).

The First Breed senses of hearing and smell are very acute. They live about 160 years, a little longer than humans.

History
The First Breed were genetically-modified slaves created by the Ones Who Commanded, who resembled the First Breed. The First Breed, before some of their number being uplifted by genetic modification, were akin to earth's Great Apes; they were the genetic cousins of the Ones Who Commanded who, while somewhat intelligent and arguably sentient, never developed true sapience, nor technology, language or any form of society. The Roving is in an area of space that, a hundred or so years ago, was filled with interstellar conflicts between civilisations who had only just developed warp power. This caused the Ones Who Commanded not to pursue warp research, because they believed that by doing so they would provoke more powerful forces and be destroyed. But a civilisation must expand or it will be destroyed in fights over resources; the same technology used to create the First Breed was used as a biological weapon of war, tuned to harm Ones Who Commanded only. But it spread more than expected; instead of being a weapon of assassination against a hostile leader, it became a civilisation-ending plague. Those the plague did not kill it made sterile. 160 years is a long time for a race to die of old age.

When the final One Who Commanded died, the two hundred and thirty million First Breed held debates to decide what to do now. After seven months they concluded they now owned themselves, and within weeks they had restarted the warp program; they wanted to expand beyond the Roving even if that meant expanding into a warzone.

Instead of a hostile empire, they were greeted by the United Federation of Planets in 2334. As part of the diplomatic process that all hope will lead to the Roving joining the Federation, two prides of First Breed have joined Starfleet. Because of their nature as a pack animal, it is rare for fewer than a dozen of these to be assigned to any ship or facility(though this is no longer always true; a few of the First Breed have been assigned alone, such as Iron Forge Emphatic Coerce Third Lake Northern Islands).

Culture
As a result of being a slave race, First Breed will gladly accept orders from superiors, though they will question them if they appear to be in error, as this is the First Breed way. In contrast with the ways of most other races, when First Breed disagree, they will debate until a middle ground is reached, equitable to all. This usually takes only a few seconds in large groups even with the most difficult of decisions, because First Breed are able to communicate with other First Breed at close ranges in ways that might seem like telepathy to other species in addition to vocal communication, such as by the use of pheromones or very subtle changes in body language or tone of voice. This pseudo-telepathic ability is near-useless with only a couple of First Breed, but it gets exponentially faster at conveying information as the number of First Breed in a place increases. As a result of this mechanism, outsiders find it easier to lead groups of First Breed than lone ones, though a lone First Breed is by no means rebellious(unlike the Ones Who Commanded, who were very stubborn). The First Breed refer to this system of communication as Fulltalk, but they also have Mouthtalk, which is verbal communication, and Bodytalk, which is a sort of sign language. Their writing is pictographic, with each phrase being represented as an ellipse representing a First Breed body, with a number of different squiggles around the edge that qualify the meaning, each referencing different aspects of Bodytalk.

The First Breed have one nation on their world, and this is split into about two dozen clans, which control different geographical areas, e.g. Southern Plains or Northern Islands. The term clan implies animosity, but this is not found among the First Breed. Each clan is divided into thirty-two lodges, and each of those into a number of families, which are called prides, though humanoids usually call prides packs. Cooperation is the modus operandi of the First Breed, and the existence of different clans is for no more than administrative purposes.