Vul

NOTE: This is an older profile which will eventually be rewritten.

     One of the major species inhabiting this region of space, the Vuls are a generally sensible but rather flighty, highly strung race.

Words:

     “Sol” – one year, derives from “solar cycle”. The plural and singular are the same, hence rather than “Sols”, many years would be “many Sol”.
     Female Vuls are usually known as “Vullines”, particularly in their youth – mature Vullines tend to favour the older term of “she-Vul”, as this term has been associated with an older, wiser Vul, almost akin to a Sage.
     Male Vuls are Dar, but in modern times are usually simply referred to by the plain “Vul”.

Naming:
     The typical Vul name has three parts – a two-part first name, which is usually contracted to form their given name, and a descriptive surname, for instance “Ito’rouen Stargazer”, Avocet’s captain – although Vuls rarely actually use their full name, preferring to go by its shortened forms.
     For males, the shortened form is very often merely the first syllable of the name – Anu’risen goes by Anu, Kol’velan goes by Kol. Females often (although not always) contract the whole name down – thus in Vullish, for instance, Ivy’s first name is Ivo’reah (so named as it sounds like her real full name, “Ivory”), and Osa’mae would go by “Sammi” or something similar.
     Even in official business most Vuls go by their short name, except for when it is needed on things such as paperwork. You would thus usually address “Eria’dane Dawnstep” as Eri or Miss Eri, not “Miss Dawnstep”. It is similar in the organisations such as Vista - Ito’rouen would become “Captain Ito”, not “Captain Stargazer”.
     The Ondrai, incidentally, typically use the terminal syllable(s) in the first name as a Vul’s given name; Eria’dane becoming “Daani”, Ivo’reah becoming “Raya”. They are the only people to habitually use a name different to the Vullish (which it must be noted most Vuls do not mind) – all other races just use the name the Vuls would themselves use.

Home:
     Vulpecula Prime is the Vul planet of origin; the fourth planet in a small solar system roughly midway between the galactic core and the outer rim of their galaxy. The star itself is a relatively young yellow dwarf, thus Vulpecula Prime is strongly Earthlike.
     The world has had an active space program for a century or two, now, initially reliant on solid fuel rockets, but now has developed sufficiently that they are a far-reaching species with a so-called "information-age" society.
     After several decades of building and developing satellites and space-travel, the Interplanetary Space-Travel Development Agency – originally ISTDA, but it has been corrupted into “Vista” long since – eventually set up the first non-Prime base on the moon, although it was admittedly small and mostly insignificant at first. After these fairly humble beginnings, Vista has become the primary Coalition Stellar Fleet. (see “the Fleets”)
     Vulpecula Prime is (essentially) a binary planetary system, the two planets orbiting each other around a common centre of gravity, the “Moon” being approximately half the size of the Prime. Vulpecula Beta, as it was originally nicknamed, is a lush, verdant world, covered primarily in forest, a thick band of tropical rainforest at the equator, and vast oceans. There is a third stellar body in the grouping, Vulpecula Trieni, but this is a “true” moon – a dusty airless rock, and uninhabited save for the Pandion “stellar garages” which are housed there.
     The new colonists quickly learned that this world wasn't as pleasant as it at first looked – it was, for one, very wet, something the average Vul dislikes as the fur is sullied easily, and a lot of the eight-winged insects were large, caused painful bites. The first Vuls to set foot on this new soil also discovered no native sapient life, and after one nasty encounter with the large native carnivores, it was decided that only trained technicians should visit this world until it had been sufficiently "tamed". Further exploration discovered the Ervu and the Purpureodon, but neither are considered highly sapient.
     Extensive development of small areas, and some degree of terraforming of one of the mountainous regions on the equator, made the planet more habitable, and yet the total population of Vulpecula Beta is still minuscule compared to that of the Prime.
     The Beta is, however, home to some of the large shipyards, and many of the staff crewing these immense orbiting stations use the planet as a base for their six-months on duty, returning to the Prime when off duty. Many own properties in the mountain capital, although the world's inhospitable wildlife usually deters many tourists, apart from the botanists, who are drawn over in their droves by the plants. Around half of the Beta's plant species have been found to have a beneficial use – the juice pressed from one moss, for instance, has found a use in treating a kind of liver disease in Ondraii - and of course, everyone likes the flowers. "Halcyon", the merchant arm of the interstellar fleet, is also based on the Beta; all ships in the interstellar fleet, as an aside, are named after birds, and both the ship's livery and the crew's uniform reflect the patterning of the bird they are named after. The flagship of Halcyon, naturally, is the Kingfisher, a small, sleek vessel painted in turquoise blues and ambers; in comparison, Avocet, a medium-sized research vessel, is larger and slimmer, and her crew's uniform consists of white, blacks and greys. The police fleet tends to be named for raptors; the smallest frigates are named for corvids as this usually gives them a difficult-to-spot black livery – of course, such ships as Jay and Cissa are the exceptions to the rule.

     The Vuls have since spread a considerable way through their part of the galaxy, forging alliances with friendly species and keeping hostiles at arms reach where possible. The Ondraii were the first species they encountered, in a neighbouring solar system – the reptilian deer had recently developed a space program of their own, and while they hadn't yet reached so far they were happy to join the Vuls and add their own special skills to the mix.
     The two species formed the intra-planetary alliance dubbed the “Interstellar Coalition of Planets”, or ICP, shortly thereafter, and Coalition space in the modern day covers a large portion of the known galaxy. Coalition Headquarters are in the capital city on Vulpecula Prime, although a secondary HQ is on the Ondraii homeworld – this is mainly because the Ondraii homeworld still has thousands of ancient artefacts on most of their available landspace, having terraformed the rest. Vul Prime, however, has been extensively terraformed all over, after the nuclear war of a few hundred Sol in their past that all but destroyed the land, giving ample space for the sprawling spaceport and university associated with the HQ.
     The prime enemies of the Coalition are currently the Kiravai; a rather warlike, empire-building species, they control an area of space nearer to the planetary core, which almost rivals the size of Coalition territory. Recently they have been encroaching out of their space, however, seeking to enlarge their empire, seeing themselves as the self-proclaimed “chosen ones”, and the Coalition as somehow an alliance of "baser" creatures.

Home

     The Vulpeculan year is slightly shorter than the Earthly year, being 0.85 EEs, and is 266.25 days and eleven (and a bit) lunar months long. Since the early modern Vuls considered it bad form for the year to end “mid-month” they re-divided it into eleven calendar months, each of which is three weeks of eight days long. The leftover days usually just get plugged onto the end of the year, which occurs midwinter, and are used as an excuse to celebrate. The Midwinter Triad Festival usually occurs on the first of these days.
Appearance and evolutionary history:
     The Vuls are one of the many canoid (ie “like a canid”, or “doglike”) species in the large interstellar trading alliance, with a graceful digitigrade build (leading to their nickname "toe-runners"), sharp noses, pointed ears and long, elegant tails. They also however share some characteristics with those species of feline origin, most notably semi-retractable claws on their feet and a more supple, athletic build. Some reckon they are a link between canine and feline, although the Vuls themselves dismiss it as nonsense, as there’s no way they could be, having evolved on different planets.

     The first in the Vul “line” that have been found in the fossil record resemble a wild earthly dog. A simple quadruped, built to run, but also sharing some catlike features, like their soft, sound-muffling feet and eyes with slit pupils.
     Early Vuls looked somewhat like an “ape-dog”; their build was primarily quadruped, with neat hind-paws for walking on, and yet rather obscurely they had “hands” – rudimentary, but armed with opposable thumbs and able to grasp with some degree of dexterity. It seems that somewhere in Vul history a new predator evolved, and to avoid predation and competition the Vuls retired to a more forested environment.
     Pickings on the forest floor were slim, though, and gradually they made their way higher into the trees. Branches appear to have been broad and easy to walk on, as they did not evolve chimp-like plantigrade feet able to grasp them; their soft feet and retractile claws provided all the traction they needed. Their hands let them pick off fruits and lichens, and collect eggs and honey and other inaccessible treats to supplement their usual diet of meat.
     Gradually they returned to the forest floor, their hands now allowing tool use; returning also to the plains, they found that standing on their hind legs allowed a good view of their surroundings, and they could retire to the trees should the bigger predators show up. Eventually they developed weapons they could use against the predators, if need arose – short spears crafted of sharp stones or teeth embedded in green wood, then dried to hold the tip in place.
     And the rest, as they say, is history.

     Vuls tend to be what a human would consider tall, around six foot being average; their legs are comparatively long, however, with what is effectively an “extra portion” of lower leg.

     In the transition from quadruped to biped, they kept their digitigrade legs, rather than become plantigrade as some would predict. Unlike chimps, the “ape-dog” form of their ancestors did not evolve a gripping foot, as it was not absolutely necessary to survival, hence the biped form didn’t “de-evolve” to become plant-footed either. Instead, the “foot” became more splayed, wider-toed for better balance, and more load-bearing; the tail remained for a similar reason, to maintain balance.
     Vuls prefer to walk barefoot on their toes; mainly because they have retained the thickened fleshy pads on the underside of each digit, to cushion and protect the bones when bearing weight. Their toes are rather larger and more splayed than a quadruped canid’s mostly by merit of the fact they carry more weight per digit than a four-legged creature would. This, in combination with the claw on each toe, makes it difficult and usually uncomfortable to wear shoes, but similarly means shoes are unnecessary. “Toe-runner”, a common mild insult in the Coalition, stems from this detail of their biology.
     Their legs are a lot straighter and more humanlike than one would expect in a digitigrade species – trying to balance a humanoid weight straight down on permanently bent legs would put quite considerable strain onto the joints and muscles.

     Unlike some of their canoid "cousins", for instance the Usurians, Vuls have lost the thickened fleshy pads on their hands (corresponding to the pads on their feet) – belonging to an upright, biped species that no longer walked on its hands, these pads now had no purpose. Such pads on the palms of the hands also would lead to a loss of dexterity, so over the course of Vul evolution they gradually shrank and vanished, leaving a hand rather reminiscent of those belonging to humans, albeit thinly furred on the topside. The claws on the hand have shrunken and become more like nails, again for improved dexterity; they still emerge from the front of the finger, like any claw being part bone itself, but are short enough that they don’t get in the way in everyday tasks.

     They usually take a great pride in their appearance, as do earthly cats and foxes – scrupulously clean and lavishing many hours on personal grooming; matted fur is usually seen as the hallmark of a sick or lazy Vul, one who cannot take care of his or her self properly. Sick Vuls are usually given some degree of (often grudging) respect, as it usually isn’t their fault they are sick – it is usually obvious who is unwell, as the fur becomes brittle and dry as well as matted. Lazy Vuls are a different matter; if you can’t be bothered to take a little pride in your appearance, then you don’t deserve much in the way of respect.
     The fur consists of two layers, as in most earthly mammals – the longer, stiffer guard hairs providing most of the colour, and some degree of waterproofing, channelling water off, and the very soft insulating undercoat providing warmth.
     The fur itself may be almost any colour (within reason – there are no purples, bright blues or greens, for instance!), although there tends to be a similarity in each family, as with human hair colour; the commonest variants are shades of rufous orange. There is a wide variation in shade, however – it is not uncommon to see individuals with fur such a pale hue it is almost white, with grey or fawn points, or so dark it is almost black. There are also plenty of “blonde” Vuls, with rich gold-coloured fur, a “burnt caramel” hue on the points, and white, grey or black Vuls, also, or dark browns or pale fawns. The white Vuls do not look like Arctic foxes, as they still have the long noses and large ears; many have a dark frosting on their fur, as well – pure white Vuls are very rare (not including albinos, although they are similarly rare). Black outlining to the ears and nose is most common, and a light “feathering” of black on the cheek ruffs similarly so; a black line will often be found down the spine, the tail more often than not tipped in black. The gene causing this black feathering also leads to a rather exotic mottling of the coat in a few Vuls – usually the pale-furred ones – with patches of pale tawny or amber fur occurring almost anywhere on the body, although usually on the shoulders and back. (There is a tendency to pale grey markings on the feet, hands and faces in these individuals.)

     Back in their history, a few Vuls (particularly those living in temperate areas) had far longer fur around the head and shoulders; it was uncommon, certainly, and a number of “pockets” of cultures saw it as a mark of the gods. Some of the earliest depictions of Alopeia, for instance, were found to have this longer ruff of fur, some even going so far as to show her with a far more humanlike appearance.
     In their early modern history the medical sciences started experimenting with “gene therapy” for genetic diseases; while they had some success with some diseases, it also brought this “fault” out into their gene pool, leading to longer fur on the head and neck of around fifty percent of the population. The fur may be longer on any part of the head; aside from all over, which is commonest, it is usually longer between the ears and then either forwards from there or backwards – again this is genetically determined. The longer fur is not an exclusively female trait; males do tend to clip it, however, so it’s less obvious, favouring letting it grow to no longer than just below their shoulders, making more of a “ruff” than a mane. Females seem to like to grow it longer; in some cases this confers a humanlike appearance, being long all over the head, but on others it grows longer on the back of the head, forming a mane down the back. While some Vuls get jealous of the longer-furred ones, some of the ‘other’ Vuls seem to prefer the “clean-shaven” look as it is. They keep their fur an even, “natural” length all over – thicker on the cheeks, where there is a natural ruff, on the brush and shoulders, and on the “trousers” (the rear edges of the thighs).
     The longer “headfur” is usually the same colour as the rest of the “base shade”, as it’s basically exactly the same as their normal fur just longer, but seeing as Vuls tend to be rather vain most dye it to something more interesting. The rare melanistic (wholly black-furred) Vuls usually are the most outrageous, going for something as striking as white, or purples and greens.
     One thing most Vuls share is their patterning; a plain “base” or “primary shade,” darker gloves and boots and a pale underside, a sprinkling of paler hairs over the rump, and "tear marks". This latter is dark lines running from the inner corner of the eye down and around the muzzle, usually to either the corners of the mouth or the midpoint of the jaw, often spreading lengthways to the tip of the nose also. The more poetic Vuls say these are “marks of the sorrow of our ancestors’ mistakes”, meant to remind them of the troubles in their people's history and ensure they don’t repeat it. Only usually the melanistic Vuls usually have no patterning, being a single black hue all over (although a lot have a white patch somewhere on them, like the inside of a wrist or on the throat). The thick tail takes a lot of grooming, with longer, more easily matted fur; it often bears a white tip, although it isn't true that this signifies a male, or the lack of it a she-Vul. A small proportion (roughly 3%) have the so-called “cross” markings; the fur is actually darker on the underside, an almost-black grey, coming up and blackening the muzzle, and forming a “mask” around the eyes. The “cross” in the name stems from the interlocking lines of darker fur across the shoulders and down the spine, forming a cross-shape. Similarly, a small percentage (5%) have the “star” gene in their makeup – this leads to usually-symmetrical white patches in the fur. These white patches may be small, for instance no larger than the thumbprint, or larger, like wholly white shoulders or muzzle. Unfortunately, the star gene and the cross gene together tend to lead to emotional or psychological instability – leading to the colloquialism “starcrossed” or “starry”, although this usually means “a little daft”, as in the Vulline obsessed with an older Vul, rather than outright raging bonkers.

     On the whole, Vuls do not see a huge need for clothing, although bright jewellery is a different matter; their fur provides for most of the modesty they need, and clothing would simply make them unbearably hot. Simple “loincloths” are all most wear – loose garments, resembling very simple underwear (almost a thong. ;) ) with loose, sheer fabric drapes and embellished with jewellery. Clothing also tends to mat fur up into unmanageable clumps; Vista uniforms are examples of some exceptions to the general trends. Interstellar vessels are invariably air-conditioned, which makes fur very dry and poor quality; wearing a uniform can protect the fur from the worst of it, even if subsequent grooming does take up considerable portions of the average officer's time in the evening.
     Clothing tends to ride up on the fur anyway, against the lay of the hairs, making things uncomfortable for the wearer. As stated before, jewellery is another matter; heavy enough not to ride up against the grain of the fur, but light enough not to mat the fur into unmanageable lumps. With Vullines it’s the sparklier the better, light collars with fine meshworks of tiny lead crystals being one fashion, and filigree arm-cuffs with sheer fabric drapes being another. Even the tail doesn’t go without the occasional bit of jewellery – although the fur is usually too thick for much. A cuff placed very low on the tail, almost right at the root, with covering fabric and fine metallic chain drapes is something usually worn by recently-mated vullines (mating in this case referring to the act of deciding to live together, not the act of having sex! Promiscuity is something usually frowned on, particularly by the elders, usually as it’s considered to indicate a distinct lack of self-control.). Rings are something common to Vul society as well as in human ones, although they wear their “wedding band” (usually called a “confirmatory band”, or similar) on a middle toe rather than a finger.
     Delicate cuffs above the hock with wider but more delicate rings falling below the joint is another style common to young females; elder ladies go for simpler styles, usually looping the joint rather than the loose circlets. Copper jewellery is also favoured in the elders, with the hock-cuffs being thicker (and so looking more like the torques favoured by some ancient Earth societies) – these are used to help in arthritic conditions, as much as they are used for their decorative purposes.
     As one would expect in a species with fur, moulting can prove something of a hindrance, and with no set moulting season, it has become a year-round problem. Most modern Vuls get round it by obsessive grooming; “stripping” the fur with coarse brushes to get rid of loose hairs, and brushing while in the shower (usually specially built to deal with copious amounts of hair in the drains) usually gets round the problem. It’s probably partly due to this obsession with grooming that Vuls ended up as such a vain species.

     Vul hearing is relatively good; they have a comparable hearing range to Earthly dogs, although not quite as acute. While they do have mobile ears, this is mostly by merit of the fact that a pointed face isn’t so specialised as a flatter, humanoid face for conveying emotion – ear mobility has given them another small added improvement in hearing, but only marginally better than a creature with non-directional hearing. The position of the ears is as good an indicator of the mood as anything; pointing backwards usually indicates uncertainty, or surprise, extremes of confusing emotions – even the height of a sexual moment will tend to perk the ears back. Flattened flush with the skull is obviously anger, but also excitement – children home from their first day at school, for instance, will dance around their parents with their ears flat and their jaws agape, ‘laughing’ with delight.
     The teeth are also used in expression; Vul teeth are small, and fine, needle-like - more closely resembling a cat’s teeth than a wolf’s, for instance, evolved more for social purposes than killing. This change occurred many thousand Sol ago in their ancestry, when maintaining social harmony became more important than just food gathering. With the ears they are an important indicator of mood - bared teeth can indicate anger, of course, but only usually if the lips are pulled back and the ears flattened. Showing the teeth can indicate uncertainty, or excitement, and ‘laughing’ – the silly, typically canine open-mouthed tooth-baring ‘grin’ – is usually as clear an expression of delight as any.
     The lips, by contrast, aren’t particularly useful in regard to conveying emotion – they can’t be brought forwards and pursed at the front of the snout as human lips can, for instance. They are mobile and tactile, to a certain degree, certainly enough for modulating sound into words and some emotions, but a “kiss” as a human would know it is very different to a Vul kiss, which involves the teeth more than the lips (more below). The tail has more of a role in expression than the lips, for that matter; although usually not so overt as wagging, like a dog, there are plenty of subtleties that it will betray. A Vul may be able to hide most of his feelings by keeping his face neutral, but the tail usually betrays it, fluffing out and twitching if concerned or grumpy, or curling at the tip and held high if cheerful, for instance.
     The eyes, tending toward yellow and brown in colour, are relatively acute, by daylight, but it is at night their visual acuity is best; they do have colour vision, to a certain degree, but colour-blindness is common. They rely instead on the “tonal” cells, the rods, to see by, hence why their world is less colourful than the human equivalent, and also explaining their night-vision. Slit-pupilled like their ancestors to control the amount of light entering the eye, they have a reflective tapetum in the back of the eye to improve their sight at night, but this has gradually grown more and more rudimentary as the species has less use for it. They see mostly in the green/blue end of the spectrum; reds are seen as greys by a large proportion of the population, hence for instance warning lights tend to be an odd, bright yellow-green instead of red, and “all-okay” signs are calming blues rather than greens. The eyes themselves are rather less involved in expression than one would expect, as the muscles are poorly able to change the shape of the face around the eyes and brows as on a human, but as with the colour vision this is changing slowly over the millennia.
     The sense of smell is relatively acute, but no longer a vital sense – territoriality still exists to a certain degree, but not so much as in their past. (There are laws regarding protecting the home and property as the owner sees fit (within limits) – burglars, for example, are considered to leave their civil rights outside the property they break into; compensation for injuries gained thereby is unheard of.) One part of their anatomy almost all Vuls loathe is the ‘violet gland’; this is a small gland a third of the way down the tail, originally used for signalling and scent marking by their ancestors. It doesn’t give off the most pleasant scent, pungent and rather musky, and most Vuls have it surgically removed.
     While a tactile species, the vibrissae (the whiskers) have grown underdeveloped as they find less and less use on a biped species. On a “primitive” quadruped they would be used for sensing distances in the dark; as an intelligent biped, this function is suddenly unneeded – hence only a few whiskers remain. Those on the eyebrows and under the jaw, on the throat, were lost a long time ago, and those on the snout are underdeveloped in comparison.
     There are few obvious external differences between the sexes – females do have breasts, but they are small (further detail below), and males have a rudimentary “sheath” of furred skin protecting their genitalia, but as most wear at least the basic loincloth this is covered. Similarly, it is not true that a Vul with a white tip to its tail is male, or one without is a female. Aside from the fact males tend to be slightly taller and more heavy-set, Vullines tend, on the whole, to have narrower features, the ears forming a “vee” shape with the top of the head; on their male counterparts, with their slightly broader muzzles, this forms more of a “W”.
     Vul females, like humans, often have visible breasts even when not lactating, although they are invariably small – usually barely noticeable – and any clothing they may wear tends to make them even less visible. Unlike the early canids, and indeed their more primitive ancestors, they have only two breasts – more would be redundant, as they’re not feeding six cubs at a time!
     They enlarge to a small degree during pregnancy; the nipples remain hidden under the fur until the female becomes pregnant, when she will pluck the fur away just before the birth, as it would only get in the way (it’ll grow back quickly enough). It is usually only now a female will wear clothing over the torso, the naked flesh around a nipple seen as vulgar. Vullines usually wear no more than they need to, as ever, not wanting to muss the fur more than necessary; sheer, flowing, light fabrics are the norm, as they don’t press on the fur and mat it, with small sections for covering the nipple and preserving the modesty.
     No Vuls seem to attach a great attractiveness to the breasts, certainly no sexuality, and otherwise see no reason to cover them, normally – larger breasts tend to merely cause discomfort to the slight females. Neither is attractiveness considered of great importance when choosing a partner; Vuls tend to be relatively handsome for their kind, and as indicated before are tend to be insufferably vain, usually correcting physical “defects” with cosmetics or by surgery, so ugly Vuls are something of a rarity. It is however thought by most that the better groomed an individual is, the more spare time they have to devote to it and the more patience they have to spend time on their grooming, and thus the more likely they will have the time and patience to spend on children and a mate.
     Vuls of both sexes do, however, find certain features physically attractive – usually the feet, as through a lot of their history the comparatively small Vul feet have been prone to arthritis and other joint disorders, so healthy and well-formed feet are a much-desired feature. There are obviously additional features - males are usually attracted to a Vulline with a slim, narrow face, for instance. Otherwise the manner and personality is an important deciding factor – although being vain and a little self-absorbed is not thought to be too much of a fault, purely because it’s so common.

     Vuls are a pretty tactile species. Affection tends to be shown by way of teeth and tongue; nibbling at the fur is a classic sign of mild affection between mates. Such nibbling and licking at the lips, mouth and tongue of a partner is the Vul version of a passionate kiss – perhaps overly ferocious by human standards, but then a Vul would likely not understand the reason for pressing lips and sharing saliva…! The lips could not come together to form a kiss in the human sense, anyway, however. Bites are rarely hard enough to hurt; cheeks together, “biting” gently at each others mouths and licking noses is a typical mild kiss, like between long term partners out of whose mating the passion has gradually faded, but the love is still there.

Going forth and multiplying

     There is no defined “mating season” as in primitive canines; as with almost all the rest of Vul society, the Vullines are typically in control of the bedroom.

     Vullines usually come into oestrus around six times each Sol, when they can conceive, a period termed as being “with the moon” or having “the moon in her blood” as it was originally believed that the moon controlled a female’s fertility. This time usually lasts around two weeks, during which time the vulline will be receptive to a male’s advances – and will of course make her own! (Being “moony” is the Vul colloquial.) Outside her heat, particularly the week on either side, the vulline’s physiology usually makes sex rather painful – any male hoping to get his end away at this time of the month would likely get bitten where it hurts, to “share the discomfort”. So naturally females get grumpy and reluctant around this time, knowing the males have no such compunctions, which has been dubbed “being jergy” by the disgruntled males. This term probably derived from the behaviour of the domestic jerga, which are docile and gentle but near on impossible to breed, coming into oestrus for only a few days each Sol and getting flighty and hard to catch during this period.

     Pregnancy lasts just over seven months; cubs are born in a size a human baby would be considered premature, requiring very close attention from their mothers (and usually the father also). This is mainly because a Vulline’s body is smaller and slighter than a human female of comparable height, due to the increased proportion of leg, and carrying large cubs would put an unnecessary strain on her physiology. The typically large canine litters of their ancestors have been reduced to single cubs now, although non-identical twins are more common than in some species, and large multiple births, not aided by infertility treatment as often the case in human society, of up to five cubs are on record.
     When approaching term, a vulline will become very “nesty” – shopkeepers, for instance, will lose interest in their property and instead want to find a quiet place in their home, away from prying eyes. The male (or whoever, although single pregnancies are relatively rare) usually takes over temporarily until the vulline has given birth, although she’ll usually regain command a month or two afterward.
     Cubs are born toothless and mostly naked, covered only in a fine fluffy “puppy-coat” of thin, downy underfur. Blunt nosed, their ears small and folded over the ear canal on the sides of the head, their eyes virtually closed, and with only thin, raggy ratlike tails, so unlike the commonly bushy examples of their parents, they barely look like Vuls at this age. If it wasn’t for their size and the ubiquitous presence of their mothers, they would frequently be mistaken for young Usurians.
     Their sight is very limited for at least the first six months of their lives, but is usually as good as an adult’s by the time a child reaches its first birthday. Their noses and ears gradually elongate, the ears “migrating” higher on the head, over their first three Sol, by which time they should be also showing their adult colours, their tails filling out. Walking is another difficult matter; with their small, delicate feet and comparatively awkward double-knees, most cubs don’t manage to walk unaided and biped until at least two, and more commonly three Sol, although they can get around in a pseudo-crawl manner on hands and very bent legs from their early-infancy. Their teeth, however, start to grow at a very early age – possibly a hangover from their predatory ancestry, possibly because of their cultural uses – and they’re usually “speaking” (although it’s usually only a few real words and mostly childish garble) by a year old.
     Cubs tend to be as curious and nosey as a human child, into anything and everything they can lay their hands on. From this age they behave in a very “human” manner,

     Sexual maturity is reached rather late – around 23 to 24 Sol, in most cases (18 or 19 human years). As the species lives for longer than they used to it’s not considered a great problem – besides, most Vullines don’t want to get pregnant until at least then anyway, when they’d feel more capable of child-care. Like humans a lot of youngsters seem to enjoy being promiscuous – presumably so they can boast they’re “adult”, now, by the number of their sexual conquests. This is naturally frowned on by their elders. Something like forty or fifty percent of youngsters have indulged in some sort of sexual activity at only 18 or 19 Sol (although younger than this is very rare).
     Recognising that no amount of grumbling and preaching is going to stop them (it will probably make them more likely to do it, as with anything, just to be “rebellious”) most towns and cities are willing to provide free barrier contraception to anyone that wants it. A case of “well, they’re going to do it whether we teach them it’s wrong/dangerous or not, so we may as well try and make them safe at the same time.”
     As stated before, promiscuity is usually frowned on by the older Vuls. While mature Vuls (by this meaning around 25 Sol and older) don’t lose their interest in sex, there’s a tendency to believe it should be done more for love than purely the physical aspect of it, hence reserved usually for partners rather than the next individual to wander along. (This is of course excluding the vulline’s natural reluctance to have sex outside her heat anyway.) This is partly through social and religious teachings, but also partly a desire to dissociate themselves from what they consider “the errors of their childish ways”. Brief flings are rare in the adults, purely as they’re seen as dull – they still happen, of course, and relationships don’t invariably last a long time. Mental stimulation is a as much of a necessity as physical stimulation for most Vuls, and to have a night in bed with someone you love far more appreciated than doing it for the hell of it with someone you barely know but that looked pretty.

     Hence Vuls are a mostly monogamous species, sharing their lives with only one partner at a time, unlike the giant tribelike groups some of the canoid species are known to form. (Some of these species are indeed highly polygamous, to such an extent a female may not know the identity of the father of her child but not even care.)

     Until they choose to Confirm, pairs are said to “run together”. This isn’t actually running, of course, but akin to the way human society says “going out with”.

     Each individual in a pair calls the other simply a “mate” – there is no special terminology like “wife” or “husband”. The Confirmed pairs (further details below – need a better name for this, mind you) call each other “lifemate” if needed on official or formal occasions, to indicate their relationship. There was a tendency for such pairs to call each other “soulmate,” until the more excitable adolescents decided they liked it, grabbed it and overused it on any pairing (even “two-week specials”) until it became a fad to be ashamed of, so now it has fallen out of use.
     While it’s far from uncommon for pairs to split up, longstanding mated pairs are very common as well. “Confirming the pairing” (legally equivalent to the average marriage in human society, but spiritually often different) is the ceremony performed to indicate the intention of a pair to remain together for the rest of their natural lives. Carried out by a Priestess of Fenya (Fenya rarely has priests, being a mother goddess), the ceremony is usually performed at night under a full moon. Tradition states it should be done nude, to “show there is nothing between us, nothing to hide under unneeded layers”, but seeing as most Vuls go about in not much more than the fur anyway this isn’t seen as important.

     Advances in medical science had considerably lengthened the Vul lifespan, and made the general population healthier. The average Vul will live to around 130 Sol, with she-Vuls living slightly longer on average.

Social history

     {Race riots, near total annihilation, nuclear winter. Caused a rethink, step back and assess the situation; repair their world, and learn to live with it rather than fight each other over territory and resources. Technology advances as ever: medical improvements, health of the society improves through genetic therapies to cure genetic diseases, plastics and energy from renewable sources etc. A desire to meet and befriend the neighbours in the galaxy after that.}

     Put plainly, the Vuls effectively are the species in place of the humans in your average science fiction story. They aren't all particularly stunning examples of their species; some are clever, some aren't. Some are nice, chivalrous creatures, and some aren't. Simple.

     Descended from a very nervy, highly-strung creature, they themselves have similarly flighty tendencies; they are startled easily, and (especially the cubs) have a tendency to be distracted equally so.

     Although descended from carnivores, they now consider their species sufficiently "enlightened" as not to need to eat “real” meat, and have since developed an effective means by which to culture muscle tissue or to synthesise proteins containing the essential amino acids in their diet. The eating of meat from real, dead animals is only usually resorted to in extreme conditions, such as a forced planetary landing, as in the case of the Avocet – most consider it rather vulgar, for that matter. Some of the extensively over-bred livestock intended for food has died out, but a lot is still kept as pets – Venca-fowl, for instance, are still kept, as Vuls see nothing wrong with eating eggs. (See below for further information on these creatures.)

     Early Vuls lived in settled family groups; the vulline and her mate, and a number of helper females (usually daughters) to assist with bringing up the cubs, although it was commonplace for a daughter to offer her home to her parents should they become too old to look after themselves. Each family had a small territory, akin to a farm, which they would tend, gather crops from, and defend from itinerant males looking to steal food. They would stockpile any surplus stock, and use it for trade in the market at the centre of their home district; trades were usually of food for rarer items they would be unable to gather, like salt and spices, or for trinkets, pottery, tools and so on. Most families had a “sideline” in crafts, as well – spinning and weaving, and pottery were common examples.
     It was soon realised, however, that those providing a service, like doctors, herbalists and builders, usually had a rather different life to the average Vul. Their jobs would not allow much time for tending of their land, and so they would often sell up the farm and then take up residence in small, often-terraced, buildings at (or near) the marketplace. They usually lived above their shop (or whatever their profession was), with seng (see below) to guard the property by night. Villages rapidly sprang up, after that, around the marketplace – the Hubstone, the very centre of the market where an auctioneer often worked, was a place for major disputes to be settled when the market was packed up for the day.

     Vul society was originally highly matriarchal. The Vulline was usually the major breadwinner of the family, with the males working at the providing of food.

     Families usually consisted of the Matriarch, her mate, and a few of her daughters;
     Lone males were usually wanderers, not prone to settling down in one area for many Sol unless they paired. In their early history they often proved to be troublemakers – enjoying their lives and unwilling to settle down, and so stealing most of their food.

     Young families, of one female and her mate, occasionally found it difficult to get by, particularly in the far-flung reaches of the Northern Continents in centuries gone by. Most Vullines, however, provided they were sufficiently near to their parents, could get free handouts, as such, until they had proved their competency in raising a family.

     Until even comparatively recent times in their society only females were allowed in positions of power; males were considered to be too often too driven by their hormones, and thus unstable and prone to rash decisions. Even after the Race Riots this persisted to a large degree – it is only very recently, for instance, that the adult males have proven sufficiently competent as to pilot large space-craft or intercontinental aircraft on Vulpecula Prime.

Religion

     The Vuls have a rather loose system of religion, mostly nature- and spirit-based – a little like shamanism. Astral projection was extensively practised only a few hundred Sol ago, although it has fallen out of favour in recent times, merely because since the Nuclear holocaust after the Race Riots people were far more heavily involved in rebuilding, and had little time for it. It was thought to “bring an individual into contact with their true self” and allow messages from “beyond” to be relayed, by not only departed loved ones but higher spiritual beings and messengers from the deities. While science could neither prove nor disprove it, any such “messages from the Goddess” were rarely taken with more than a pinch of salt unless repeated by more than one unrelated Vul – and naturally these occurrences are rare.
     There were three main deities, or “Primes”, in the original belief system, with a number of lesser creatures – only the Triad are worshipped to any degree now, with the lesser creatures relegated to an equivalent status as an Earthly fairy or elf has.

"Alopeia" (Or "Alo")
     Alopeia is by far the most important of the three Primes - a cold, apparently rather heartless creature, she personifies not only universal truth and justice, but also the harsh excesses of snow and winter. Depictions usually involve night-time and the stars (mostly part of her "justice" aspect) - not because space is cold (as thousands of years ago it was naturally not known what space was like) but because open skies bring cold nights and frosts.
     Alo is also the one on who's name most Vuls swear, mainly because she's the most likely to deal out divine retribution if a Vul breaks his or her word. While there are no recorded incidences of lightning hitting an individual the instant a promise was broken, for instance, on the whole Vuls do believe in a sort of punishment beyond the grave. Any such punishment invariably follows the crime, though – there is on such thing as eternal damnation, for instance. Alo is harsh but just, and once punishment is meted out a Vul is effectively forgiven then allowed on into the next plane, whatever they believe that might be (ideas are very varied – paradise or reincarnation, or becoming a slightly higher, spiritual being, are common ones).
     Similarly Alo isn’t thought of as “jealous” – worship something other to her and she won’t condemn you to an after-life of torture, for instance; besides, that’s not thought to be a very just thing to do, and Alo won’t break her own rules when it suits her! Universal justice is not something one can change at the drop of a hat. Other deities worshipped by other races are looked on with a little disdain, but then not everyone’s enlightened, so the Vuls usually just smile and nod and put it down to otherworldly ignorance… Most Vuls simply take other deities to be other “aspects” of the same being, so where’s the problem?
     As well as symbolising truth and justice, Alo is an important death goddess – death is, after all, a near-universal truth, and as harsh as the snow of her other aspect. Vuls have no other deity symbolising death partly for this reason.
     Depicted as a pure white vulline with black eyes full of stars, Alo is usually shown wearing a dark cloak (symbolic of the dark blanket of the night sky) in addition to the usual jewellery and clothing.

"Fenya" (the maiden)
     Fenya, another Prime, is the patron goddess of young vullines and mothers, mystics and herbalists (and others in caring professions – doctors, most notably – in modern times). Thought to personify spring, and (in the "mother" aspect) the beginning of new life, she is also the guardian of wild places and the “lower” animals. Where Alo is harsh and unyielding, she is flexible and accommodating, although miscarriages of justice (particularly sexual ones) are thought to anger her, and her bad-tempered aspect is seen as the righteous anger of a mother in protection of her offspring.
     As Alopeia was linked to winter, Fenya was intrinsically linked with the warmer months, particularly spring and the beginning of new life. In many depictions she was shown as pregnant, in a partly-snowy partly-verdant landscape, with the new spring “following” her, tiny plants springing up in her footsteps. New mothers in particular tend to have a small shrine of a sort dedicated to her, just to guard against illness, which the tiny infants are prone to.
     Normally depicted as a Vulline, (although a few early images showed her as a crone, with a bent back and withered ears), she has very pale, sandy-brown fur, with the associated points also being pale (a chocolatey brown rather than black); modern imagery shows her with long, flowing pale hair. Depictions usually include plants and flowers, and often small animals mantled under her protective aura; she is often depicted as pregnant when in her mother aspect. Depictions of her when angry are rare, particularly in old works that survived the disasters, but aside from shorter hair and longer claws she looks mostly unchanged from her normal aspect.

"Gavos" (the hunter)
     Gavos is the only male deity in the Triad; he was originally guardian and patron of hunters, warriors, and protector of travellers and riders. Current thinking still favours him as protector of travellers, and most spacegoing vessels are blessed in his name before launch, but most males also consider him their personal guardian (or at least think that he gives one of his underlings such a role, like a guardian angel). The ICP Police and Defensive fleets also invoke his protection on a regular basis; it was thought a little of his skills at evading danger may be passed on to ships heading into trouble zones.
     Usually depicted as a tall, rather long-boned male with dark brown fur, Gavos is still shown wearing at least the archer's getup, with perhaps a little supplementary armour depending on which "aspect" is being portrayed.

     There were other minor deities, of course, but these were variable and changed slightly depending on what district you lived in. Gen-Far, for instance, was an almost exclusively northern god, and while Rella controlled the flooding of rivers in Southern desert countries, she instead triggered the spawning of fish in the rivers of the North. Most of these deities have fallen out of favour now, becoming either aspects of the Primes, or else considered to be fairy-like beings.
     One constant in all Vul cultures is the reference to “Ger” – usually as a curse, used like “what the hell?” in English. Its origins were lost a long time ago, but Ger was likely an associate of Alopeia, like the Devourer in Ancient Egyptian mythology was linked to Anubis and the other deities governing death. Ger was probably in charge of enacting the justice decided by Alo – for this reason he was likely to have been portrayed as an Ervu, the small now-extinct reptile-birds of the Southern forests, which usually hung around Vul settlements although they were too proud to defer to anyone unless asked nicely. Cursing on his name would originally have alerted him to the fact an individual thought a miscarriage of justice was being perpetrated, but now it’s just a mild expletive.

Note:
     All right, so Vuls are your basic anthropomorphic spacegoing foxes, seemingly ubiquitous to any "furry" sci-fi series… *sigh*. I have to apologise for re-using a very common idea, but since Vuls have been part of my fiction since I was about eleven, I'm not going to give the idea up just like that. If I'd realised just how common they were before I started writing, maybe I'd have changed my mind, but I didn't have net access until I was eighteen and so…
     In my defence, foxes weren’t a very common species when I was in School, when I was starting to develop my species. I'm trying to make them just that little bit different to the humanoid foxes you see everywhere, but I don’t know if it’s working so well. I don’t want everything to be a horrible stereotype, although I can tell I’m probably failing dismally.
Other leettle facts:
     For a long time, I used to call male Vuls "Tods", as it’s “fox” in a Northern English dialect; the fox in the book "the Plague Dogs" called himself Tod, and one of my old teachers had the surname "Todhunter", meaning "fox-hunter". Since seeing just how popular the word was online, however, I ditched it – but older pieces may still use it.
     “Vulpecula” is the name of a small, little known constellation; it was originally called “Vulpecula et Anser” (I think that’s spelt right) – the fox and goose. Anser, the goose, was a star in the constellation rather than a stellar group; it has since vanished from the sky – maybe the fox finally ate it. Now the constellation is just “Vulpecula” – the little fox.