First Breed

## Name

First Breed (This name, unlike most others for species, actually has a meaning in the First Breed native languages other than "our species." Thus, the Universal Translators can translate it. The same is true for the names of the First Breed themselves.)

## Homeworld

The Roving (As with the name of the species)

## Natural Habitat

The Roving is similar in climate to the Earth, though it is on average about five degrees Kelvin colder than Terra is. The gravitational field strength of the Roving is 13.403 m/s^2. The First Breed have always called their sun The Sun, but it is called Lupus Minor by other species, as a reference to the First Breed appearance. Lupus Minor is an M3V type Main Sequence Star located in the Beta Quadrant, between Federation and Tholian space, with a mass of about 0.3 solar masses, meaning it is classed as a Red Dwarf star. It rotates more slowly than most M-type stars, which helps to prevent the changes in luminosity that make it difficult for life to evolve around other M-type stars. The Roving's semi-major axis is 35,000,000 km and its orbital eccentricity is 0.005465. This puts it in the outer third of the habitable zone of its star, and far enough away not to be tidally locked. Its terrain is widely varied, from mountain ranges to lowlying plains hundreds of kilometers wide. The atmosphere consists of 64% nitrogen, 18% oxygen, 17% Argon and 1% trace elements including water vapour and carbon dioxide. The air pressure at sea level is 83 KPa; Earth's is 101KPa. Only 45% of the Roving's surface is water, as opposed to 70% on Earth.

## Longevity

120 years (compared to human 140 years in this time period)

## History and Culture

The First Breed were genetically-modified slaves created by the Creators, who resembled the First Breed (this name is the name used by the First Breed to refer to the Creators, alongside the antiquated term Ones Who Command/ed; they called themselves the Rover). 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 Creators who, while somewhat intelligent and arguably sentient, never developed true sapience, nor technology, language or any form of society. The Roving is in the former Delphic Expanse, an area of space that, a few hundred years ago, was both incredibly hostile and filled with interstellar conflicts between civilisations who had only just developed warp power. A particular pitched battle happened in the Roving system, which caused the Rover not to pursue warp research, and to expend immense resources to try to remain hidden, because they believed that by doing so they would provoke more powerful forces and be destroyed. This happened in 2102.

As time passed, the Rover never invented faster than light travel or communication, because they'd discovered subspace relatively early and understood that disturbing it would be visible far away. The Roving became a veritable utopia for the rich, and then when genetic engineering became sufficiently advanced, the First Breed were invented, and it became a utopia for all. All the Creators, that is. As personal First Breed became more and more affordable, and the First Breed took over more and more jobs, quality of life skyrocketed for the Creators.

But a non-post-scarcity civilisation must expand or it will be destroyed in fights over resources; by the late 22nd century everything was running out, and the Roving was in full ecological collapse and continual conflict; after decades of war the same technology used to create the First Breed was used as a biological weapon of war, tuned to harm a specific Creator only. But it spread more than expected; instead of being a weapon of assassination against a leader hostile to the nation that created it, it became a civilisation-ending plague. Those the plague did not kill it made sterile. 160 years is a long time for a species to die of old age.

When the final Creator died, the six billion, 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 were reversing the ecological damage to the Roving, had started a campaign of gene therapy to try to remove the innate First Breed compulsion to serve the Creators (just in case) and were restarting 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 2354, and friendly diplomatic relations began as soon as the Federation demonstrated their opposition to slavery. Cultural exchanges and humanitarian support began in earnest by 2355.

As part of the diplomatic process that all hope will lead to the Roving joining the Federation, two prides of First Breed joined Starfleet in 2405. Three First Breed entered the Academy - the rest enlisted in the Fleet. Because of their nature as a pack creature, the enlisted First Breed are usually assigned to any ship or facility in groups, though this is not true for the three First Breed officers.

First Breed are too varied to summarise their temperament, except to say that most are reasonable and polite, a genetic holdover from their servitude they saw as helpful rather than a hindrance.

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. Likewise, a First Breed's name beyond the second-name of the pride is a geographical marker rather than a familial one. It exists to provide a unique identifier for each First Breed, a function of convenience as the First Breed had an enviable chance to construct much of their own culture and tradition. There might be hundreds of Iron Forges, or even thousands as the First Breed population increases in the future, but with the proper systems for registration of names there will never be multiple Iron Forge Emphatic Coerce Third Lake Northern Islandses.

## Physical and Medical Description

The First Breed are quadrupedal, resembling dogs. The average First Breed (insofar as such a thing exists) stands about 60 centimetres tall, from the ground to the tip of its ears. The gait of a First Breed is fluid and graceful.

Many dozens of distinct "brands" of First Breed existed, each created by their respective companies for a specific purpose. For example, Iron Engineer Forge of the USS Odyssey is genetically mostly *Geneticorp Medium-Load Manual Worker Mk.3 First Breed.* Nowadays almost every First Breed is a mix of many brands.

The First Breeds’ skin is covered with many thousands of what appears to be disintegrating flakes of rust, the colour of which varies with the individual; in fact, each flake is made of living tissue and pulling one out would almost certainly draw blood. 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 physical combat, as the flakes provide some limited protection. First Breed have fur that grows over these flakes. This makes them mostly vestigial, but in times of stress the flakes stand up and so do the hairs.

Most First Breed dislike but tolerate being referred to as doglike by other species, despite their various clans resembling different breeds of dog 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, in furry pouches not unlike those of marsupials, but can extend to their full length of 18 inches or so in length at a moment's notice. The graspers are significantly weaker than a human's arms at their full range, but as they contract 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.

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 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 have no distinctions of sex or gender, being entirely biologically, psychologically and culturally androgynous. When their language is translated the pronoun they use to refer to each other is "it", and many First Breed, especially those unaccustomed to dealing with gendered species, refer to those with gender the same way, but Federation Universal Translators produce a male voice from the First Breed by default, so some people think of them as male, despite Federation citizens’ openness to non-binary persons. 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 personal name - it is a terrible insult. First Breed who live among other species often grow more tolerant of this, of course.

Many, though not all First Breed clans place someone's title in the middle of its personal name; for example, "Variety Nurse Optimal" or "Iron Engineer Forge". Sometimes this will be translated rearranged, but sometimes it will not.

The First Breed have a slightly higher internal temperature than humans; while their homeworld is colder, they all have 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).

## Procreation

When First Breed reproduce, they do so in pairs, one producing a structure with the half-genes of a gamete but the structure of an embryo, and the other fertilising this embryo and gestating it. The former is called the "provider" or "initiator", and the latter the "carrier" or "quickener" (the latter being old-fashioned medical terms).

## First Breed History, in their own terms

"The homeworld of my people was not always ours; until around one hundred years ago, it was ruled by its indigenous people, our creators. They were a technologically advanced species, with such things as genetic engineering and local terraforming being commercial industries available to most people. My ancestors were a result of said genetic engineering, designed as servants. Yet with all their drive for scientific and technological research, the Ones who Commanded never developed warp travel. And that’s because they were scared.

You see, our homeworld is in sector 322/65, and two hundred and fifty years ago that sector was part of the former Delphic Expanse, a sector filled with several inhabited worlds that had only just discovered warp, in an extremely hostile region of space. And, for whatever reason, none of these species seemed to like one another. When the Ones who Commanded developed sensors good enough to observe the goings-on in surrounding space, they found themselves in the middle of a nigh-uninhabitable warzone that extended as far as they could see. They didn’t want to draw any attention to themselves, they were afraid of provoking some other power and being destroyed; as far as they could tell, the entire galaxy was like this. It didn’t help, of course, that this was back when the Federation did not yet exist, before it was even a dream. All research into faster-than-light travel was officially banned in what I believe would have been the year two thousand, one hundred and two, Earth calendar. Fifty-one years later, the Expanse began to dissipate after an Earth vessel destroyed the Tuterian spheres that maintained it, but the inhabitants of the Roving were so isolationist by this point that they did not notice.

But the Ones who Commanded were too greedy at heart to survive on one world. As the planet’s resources began to run dry, the world collapsed into infighting, culminating in the usage of biological weapons created with the same technology as my forebears; these weapons killed most of our creators, and rendered the remainder infertile, too genetically damaged even for cloning, dooming their species to extinction. It took one hundred and sixty Terran years for the last of them to succumb to age. And then several months more before my people were able to do anything more than sit around wondering what to do now their masters were gone. Back then we still retained our creators’ fear of everything that wasn’t our homeworld, but we recognised that we had to expand, or our world would not be able to support us in anything more than a basic agricultural society. So we restarted the warp program. After all, nothing out there could be worse than the imminent apocalypse, or what my people had already lived through under the Ones who Commanded.

[chuckle]

Of course, we didn’t have any idea of where to start. We understood the principles of the Lorentz Invariance, we had an idea of the existence of subspace and the basic principles of how it might be used in a warp drive. But we were decades, if not more, away from a working prototype, and we did not have decades. Even with our population, smaller than that of our creators prior to the wars, there was little left for us to salvage from the world of our masters, torn apart by centuries of exploitation, stagnation and brutal conflict. But what else could we do, but research?

What we could do was attempt to recover the lost knowledge of our creators, the records of the cancelled warp program. It was very difficult; the Ones who Commanded had been very determined to make sure no-one developed warp travel, so that the Roving could remain hidden. But governments are very reticent to destroy information, lest it become useful, and so the knowledge we needed was probably out there somewhere. The question was, where?

It was a First Breed of the Great Atoll clan, with the forename Aspect Internal, that struck gold, who found full blueprints and specifications for a warp ship, hidden in a secret government archive from before the wars. Aspect Internal is still a celebrity figure on the Roving, more so than the builders or the pilots of the first warp ship, more than the ambassadors that greeted the first Federation visitors to the homeworld; it is something of an… Indiana Jones, I believe the name is. A person who fought its way through a centuries-old crypt, who did battle against ancient automated defenses, to recover the secret of a technology that saved a civilisation. I feel our adulation is justified."

-Iron Forge Emphatic Coerce Third Lake Northern Islands