Fistulovivens civilis, Stalwart

Domain: Archaea

Superkingdom: Crenarchaeota

Kingdom: Thermoprotei

Phylum: Salamandra

Class: Ileuforma

Order: Cochleocallosus

Family: Hepatheioensis

Genus: Fistulovivens

Species: F. civilis

Length: 200 - 300 cm

Phenotype Mass: 1760 - 3100 kg

Resonance: Soprano

Conservation status: Vulnerable

A relatively young species found scattered in a few polity in the Hekora reaches F. civilis is the largest and most intelligent discovered species in the Salamandra phylum. Incredibly their exact polity of origin is known! A reef fissure locally named “hearth deep” where near, middle and deep abyssal ecosystems have been exposed and mixed by a pressure imbalance between stellar envelopes.

These environmental conditions create an extremely rare turbulent mixing of molten metals, volatile chemistry and intense vapors and subsequent freezing, leading to both the energies needed to grow large, and an even more intense selection pressure to do so to reap economies of scale.

The extremely chaotic environmental conditions and readily available direct chemosynthesis food sources prevalent have created an ecosystem favoring symbiosis and mutualism within the fissure. Predation is extremely costly and only occurs very sparingly, with a favoring for non-lethal parasitism or near total mutualism in all fissure local species as a whole. While this also lead to less selection for intelligence, the need to predict the interaction between fissure weather temperature fluctuations and large scale social dynamics eventually lead to this one species scraping past the barrier of memetic generality sufficient for tool use.

The species is characterized by an extensive shell of deposited minerals extruded by living tissues externally from the core mass. During maturation and growth extreme temperature differentials are needed to re-break the shell to allow expansion.

This requires that F. Civilis children to consistently move between extremely differing environments to avoid lethal deformities from overly rigid shell structures. This trait is most pronounced in F. Civilis although it exists to some degree in most other Hepatheioensis, especially within hearth deep.

Feeding behavior of F. Civilis can only occur under extreme pressures and in the presence of molten metals. Their chemosynthetic cultures do not activate or metabolize without the presence of several heavy metals and elements that are considered toxic to Eukaryote domain bionts. Outside of their ancestral environments F. Civilis either construct canner habitats for feeding purposes or undergo extensive surgical modification to allow for their metabolisms to function under different conditions.

Due to their ancestral environment F. Civilis are characterized by a distinct tendency towards universal mutualism, prior to major encounters with ecosystems outside of their origin polity they were only theoretically aware of the existence of obligate predation as an ecological possibility. As such while intelligent enough to adapt and adopt new behaviors, technologies and memeplexes (especially in the canner philosophies which compliments their environmental needs well) they still as individuals and societies over all tend towards focusing on mutual benefit and shaping of environmental factors and conditions in their perspective and approach.

This works well when a sufficient population of F. Civilis are present, or embedded within a military chain of command far from actual combat zones, but it tends to make individuals or small communities in foreign polity less successful than comparable species unless protections are put in place.

Nevertheless their ability to cooperate readily with each other and any other species and expertise in large scale system interactions serve them very well in many niches and roles, particularly metallurgy, meteorology, urban planning, and architecture.

Culturally F. Civilis is a decent fit for many polity niches and it is believed that they may also be able to be integrated into Urban ecosystems in time. However due to the relatively recent occurance of the species and its minimal spread outside of its ancestral environment little adaptation or modification has yet occurred. Military applications have also been proposed.

Their distribution and range is completely endemic to the Hekora reaches and it is currently unknown whether any of the populations in the scattered polity that host them (or the origin polity within the fissure) will survive any major extinction bubble events or economic strains.

Conservation organizations are in ongoing discussion on what actions may be needed to preserve the species and several groups have called for the intervention of empires local and bordering the Hekora reaches to intervene on behalf of conserving F. Civilis for future polities and research efforts. Rumors say clan Courtesan recently sent one of their scions in person to acquire samples, but these have yet to be confirmed by any official channels.