Gephqua
From Gephqua
| [GEF•kwå] | ||
|---|---|---|
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| Scientific Classification | ||
| Kingdom: Phylum: Class: Order: Family: Genus: Species: | Animalia Unichordata Anuraforma Primatoadae Gephuanae Gephquanus Gephquanus sapienus | |
| General Information | ||
| Adjective Form: | Gephquanese | |
| Planet of Origin: | The Planet Eirh | |
| Envrionment: | Varied | |
| Ancestral Form: | Anuran (Frog-like) | |
| Type: | Bipedal Humanoid | |
| Lifestyle: | Social Omnivore | |
| Thermal Type: | Endothermic | |
| Average Height: Males: Females: | 5'6" (1.8 Meters) 5'2" (1.5 Meters) | |
| Average Weight: Males: Females: | 140 lb. (63.5 kg) 110 lb. (49.9 kg) | |
| Average Lifespan: | 125 Eirhan Years 435 Terran Years | |
| Kardashev Scale: | Type I | |
| Sexual Maturity: | ≈20 Years | |
| Reproduction: | Sexual Lays Eggs | |
| Gestation: | 3 Runya 11 Terran Months | |
| Incubation: | 5 Runya 1.4 Terran Years | |
| Political Entitie(s): | The Gephquanese Imperial Republic | |
Contents |
Evolutionary History
See Geological Time Scale of Eirh
The evolutionary history of the Gephqua must begin near the beginning of Eirh's history. Originally, about five billions years ago, Eirh was a hot, molten rocky world, which required millions of years to cool, comets packed with ice collided into the planet as it cooled, the water from the ice of the comets, over millions of years, formed the primitive oceans. At around 3.5 billion years ago the first forms of proto-life appeared, self-replicating chains of DNA molecules. The organic compounds which make up DNA are believed to have came to Eirh from space, in the process known as panspermia.
The First Life
3,500 - 700 Mya
Over the eons the simple DNA chains formed more complex forms, eventually giving rise to the first cell. Originally these cells were primarily chemotrophs, feeding upon simple chemical compounds, the first divergence from these ancient chemotrophs were the first phototrophic cells, which took their chemotrophic evolution and used it to feed off sunlight directly. Along the way these early phototrophs divided into two plant superfamilies, those that fed on red-blue light and those that fed only on ultraviolet.
The side effect of these phototrophs was that in addition to feeding on light, they also required carbon from the atmosphere in the production of simple sugars, absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere they took the carbon they needed and the leftover waste was oxygen. This oxygen filled the atmosphere over millions of years, causing the extinction of billions of the primitive chemotrophic cells which found oxygen toxic.
As a result heterotrophic cells evolved from the slowly dying chemotrophs, which rather than feeding upon simple chemical compounds in the water, developed the ability to feed upon the phototrophic cells, they evolved the ability to absorbe oxygen and gain the other nutrients needed to survive by taking them from the phototrophs. The first animals were born.
The first fungi evolved similarly as the original animal cells, also heterotrophic, leeching nutrients from the phototrophs. Thus on Eirh, fungi and animals share a very distant, but similar ancestry.
The first multi-cellular organisms were most likely simple cellular masses, working together as a microscopic colony, eventually, by about a billion years ago, they evolved into more complex sponge-like organisms. Algae, water-born molds, and simple sponges began to fill the ancient seas, and they diversified.
Shalinian Era
700 - 650 Mya
Around 700 million years ago some of the earliest forms of multicellular forms of life began to develop and diversify, life in the Shalinian seas is not well documented in the fossil record, however organism's resembling Earth's Ediacaran biota seem to have lived in this era, including round disk-shaped creatures. At around 650 million years ago the planet experienced a severe ice age, it's believed most of the planet became covered in glaciers, as a result most of the life in the Shalinian Era went extinct. The last remaining Shalinian Era life forms died out, due probably to the growth of Henarian Era life, in the early quarter of the Henarian Era.
Henarian Era
650 - 550 Mya
As the Shalinian ice age came to a close at the beginning of the Henarian era, virtually everything in the oceans had died out, but as the planet warmed up it gave opportunity for newer forms of life to evolve. The Henarian seas came to be ruled by large predatory starfish-like animals, while the base-forms for virtually all organisms evolved in this period, virtually everything was subservient to these hungry predatory echinoderms. Among the most vicious was probably the star-swimmer, a fully mobile starfish that swam through the oceans with its five arms much like a squid or an octopus, it would latch onto its prey with its arms and using a beak-like protrusion tear its prey apart devouring almost every last morsel. The earliest vertebrates evolved at the end of this era, among them the unichordates (what we might call "true" vertebrates, in that they had only one vertebrae) and the polychordates, a wide collection of fauna which had several vertebrae, including various starfish-shaped organisms. At the end of the Henarian a gigantic cosmic body, either a small moon or large asteroid, collided with the planet, radically shifting the planet's axial tilt. The result was the extinction of 99% of all life, only some of the most adaptable and smallest creatures survived. The giant predatory starfish died out, as did virtually all of the polychordates, but one significant group did survive--the unichordates.
Dajarian Era
550 - 450 Mya
The end of the Henarian Era marked an intense shift in Eirh's axial shift, leading to extreme weather and the extinction of almost everything on the planet. Fortunately some life did survive and adapted to the changes, in fact many scientists believe that this shift of the planet's axis facilitated the much more temperate world which Eirh has become in the eons since. Among a very successful group of animals were the unichordates. By the middle of the Dajarian Era the unichordates had evolved into two fairly distinct groups, the slugfishes and the hexapods; the former bearing a striking similarity to to Earth's fishes and the latter bearing a somewhat similar appearance to arthropods. Arthropod-like animals had also evolved on their own as well.
Kamalic Era
450 - 410 Mya
The slugfishes in the Kamalic Era evolved several important innovations which helped them eventually colonize the land. Early on the slugfishes evolved kidney-like organs which allowed them live in the largely uninhabited freshwater habitats, free to spawn away from predators. Eventually the slugfishes would occupy only freshwater habitats as the hexapods began to dominate the oceans. Primitive plants began to colonize the land, and with them several small arthropod-like animals such as the peculiar (and long now extinct) globomorphs--strange insect-like animals which would inflate their abdomens with hydrogen to make them airborn. By the end of this era the slugfishes had evolved special limbs to allow them to stand in shallow murky water to snag prey on the shore, and crawl across land to reach other small pools of water. Ribs were another innovation which the slugfishes evolved to help support their weight on land.
Daionian Era
410 - 360 Mya
The Daionian Era saw the first true tetrapods. Marine slugfishes were slowly dying out, being replaced by hexapods; some hexapods had also attempted to move on land, but would eventually lose out to the already more diversified amphibious tetrapods. It seems the hexapods would rule the oceans, but the slugfishes won the war on land. Primitive tree-like plants began creating the earliest forests, though these were hardly the kinds of forests one imagines today. Thick woody grasses, about four feet all, were all a forest was in the Daionian Era.
Qorbonian
360 - 300 Mya
Icthyostega amphibians were on top on the land, and the world was very wet. Most of the continents were covered in thick swampland, which would aid in the moving inland for many creatures. Here too the icthyostegs found new evolutionary innovations, including the first amniotic egg and a more advanced skin; to prevent their eggs and their skin from drying out on land respectively. These reptile-like traits allowed for the first so-called "frog-lizards" to evolve. Though scales would only come to evolve later in the "true" reptiles, the saurioforms, these two innovations made sure life on land belonged to this group of animals.
Zulistic
300 - 250 Mya
Hafaric
250 - 150 Mya
Voqtinian
150 - 85 Mya
Yolocene
85 - 60 Mya
Ulicocene
60 - 20 Mya
Trinian
20 - 5 Mya
Neo-Trinian
5 - 0 Mya
Physiology and Development
The Gephqua are bipedal, humanoidal people descended from a frog-like ancestor. Endothermic, smooth blue-green skin, large eyes. Omnivorous. While generally shorter than the average human, and physically weaker, Gephqua are much more agile and generally more energetic than humans, with a slightly higher metabolism, thus Gephqua on average must consume more food and water than the average human..
Gephqua females most often only bear one young from one eggs, but occasionally identical twins (from the same egg) or fraternal twins (two fertilized eggs) are born. After copulation the female gestates the egg for about three months, after which she lays the egg which she keeps it incubated. Special clothing and a specially made artificial pouch has allowed Gephqua females (and males) to move about with the egg safely nestled against the mother’s (or father’s) belly; though often while in the home the mother will sleep with the egg, incubating it, usually in a special nesting-room; while traditionally the role of incubator has fallen to the mother, it has been common for the eldest daughter to help in the incubation process; more recently fathers and older sons have been encouraged to take part in the incubation process as part of the growing sense of sexual equality in Gephqua society. In modern times specially constructed incubating units are available to help monitor and babysit the egg at home, more expensive units are linked to a cell network which call a portable communication device (like a cell phone) indicating to the parent that the egg is hatching should they be away from home at thetime of hatching. It takes approximately five months between egg-laying and hatching, for a total gestation of approximately eight months.
A newborn Gephqu is known as a hatchling, the hatchling is born fully formed, but is half-blind and completely dependant upon its parents to survive. Like mammals Gephqua females produce a nutrient rich substance similar to milk to feed their young. At about a year old the hatchling is weened off its mother’s milk and begins eating solid foods, but meat is usually avoided until the hatchling matures to about 2 ½ to 3 years of age, as its body’s digestive system is usually not ready to handle the more complex structure of most meats.
At around three years of age the hatchling has begun to take its first steps, also by law if the hatchling has not been given a name by its third birthday it must have is name registered then, though most hatchlings are given their name well before then.
At around five years the hatchling is no longer in its infant stage but has reached childhood, the child should, by this time, be able to speak simple sentences, and early childhood education is encouraged to prepare the child for school.
By the age of eight or nine the child is enrolled, by law, into a primary school, which lasts approximately five years, at around the age of thirteen or fourteen the child is taken to a secondary schooling for another four years, the child is brought into its tertiary schooling at around the age of seventeen, which lasts for another five years. At the age of twenty-two the adolescent is not yet considered a legal adult (twenty-five is the legal age). A quaternary school is often encouraged, both three-year and five-year quaternary schools (similar to college or university) are available for tertiary school graduates. For high level technical vocations such as medicine, law, science or scholarship a quinternary school is available for quaternary school graduates (comparable to graduate schools), the time spent at a quinternary school can vary from as short as two years to as long as seven years, depending on the graduate course being pursued.
At around the age of fourteen the child is enters into the first state of pubescence, its sexual organs begin to develop, there are actually three stages of pubescence for Gephqua. The first stage is where the sexual organs begin to develop, this happens around the age of thirteen, the second stage, in males, involves a radical shift in hormone levels, at around the age of sixteen, during this time the male adolescent is unruly and prone to violence, and the third stage, at around the age of nineteen, sees the balancing out of homone levels and at around the age of twenty the adolescent is generally considered sexually mature--though in modern Gephqua society one is not legally an adult until the age of twenty-five.
At around the age of thirty Gephqua are usually expected to seriously look for a mate, however since Gephqua often have a life-expectancy of around 120 years, the pressure of finding a mate is more lax now than in the past.
While courtship and mating rituals differ depending upon cultural variations and religion (or lack thereof), the most common mating-age is between thirty and forty with an average mating-age being about thirty-six.
Long courtships are generally encouraged, and a usual betrothal period of about two years prior to the Ceremony of Union (marriage). Conservative members of society generally frown upon sexual contact prior to Union, but is more lax among the younger, more liberal, generations.
A Gephqua couple may spawn many children over the course of their life, however at the age of eighty the male undergoes a phase of life known as “kaqoda” translated roughly as “burning” where a chemical change in the body renders the male infertile, the phase is usually considered quite painful and can last for as little as a week to as long as a month. Modern medicine has helped give treatment for males undergoing kaqoda, to help ease the pain and some hormonal treatments even are able to suppress kaqoda for longer or enable the male to continue to enjoy a happy sex life after kaqoda (as quite often kaqoda leaves the male’s sexual organs inoperative. The female, at around the age of a hundred, enters into her own phase of infertility, however little happens to her physiologically other than she no longer produces eggs.
At about a hundred and ten years old Gephqua enter their senior years, no longer fertile. The average lifespan of the Gephqua is about a hundred and twenty years old, though it’s not uncommon, especially with modern medicine, to see a Gephqua live up to a hundred and fifty years. The oldest known Gephqua lived to be the age of 203, Gephqua rarely live longer than 130 years.
History
The Gephqu generally use the Ashkenzi (see below) calendar system, which begins with the beginning of creation YW (Year of the World) and BW (Before the World).
1.5 Million BW - About when the first modern Gephqu appeared.
4,000 BW - The earliest signs of aggriculture among the Gephqua.
2,000 BW - The earliest archeological finds for Gephqua civilization.
YW 1 - In Ashkenzaism, traditionally thought to be the beginning of creation.
YW 1000 - Gephqua enter the Bronze Age.
YW 3500 - Gephqua enter the Iron Age.
YW 5000 - Gephqua enter the Middle Ages.
YW 6500 - Gephqua enter the Early Modern Age.
YW 6700 - Gephqua enter the Modern Era.
YW 6800 - Birth of the United Gephquanese Empire
YW 6930 - The United Gephquanese Empire experiences reform, the emperor no longer absolute monarch.
YW 7001 - First successful space flight.
YW 7045 - First successful manned landing on an extraterrestrial solar body.
YW 7070 - First Contact with an alien race, Space Age officially begun.
YW 8000 - Gephqua enter the Neo-Modern Age.
YW 8500 - Gephqua enter the Galactic Age, exploring large portions of the known galaxy.
YW 8900 - The United Gephquanese Imperial Republic folded into the Galactic Union of Worlds. Gephquanese is the lingua franca of the Union.
