Directorate Officer
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To produce a bio-engineered aquatic, combat animal for Lucerne Biological Systems to produce
- Image Credit: "Orthacanthus" by Alain Beneteau
- Canon: N/A
- Permissions: N/A
- Links: Lucerne Biological Systems, Emerald Shark, Svaper
- Name: Emerald Speckled Eel Shark
- Designation: non-sentient
- Origins: Lucerne Biological Systems labs
- Average Lifespan: 21 years
- Estimated Population: Scattered
- Description: After debuting the Hunter Mynock to help protect space-going facilities, Lucerne Biological Systems turned to creating a sea-going guard creature to help protect the ocean-based facilities of the Lucerne consortium. To this end, the LBS team merged and modified the genetic material of Rodia's Svaper and the majestic Emerald Shark to create what they collaquially termed an "eel shark". The Emerald Speckled Eel Shark has traits of both creatures, but does not technically belong to either family. It's long, muscular form and excellent senses clearly are descended from the Emerald Shark, but its needle-like teeth, gills, and some of its rear fins clearly show the ancestry of the Svaper. A vicious beast that is nearly feral, the Emerald Speckled can only just be trained through a combination of flash imprinting and traditional behavior modification. But many find it to be an invaluable sentry because of how quickly it detects and attacks intruders within its territory.
- Breathes: water
- Average Height of Adults: 0.6 meters
- Average Length of Adults: 3 meters
- Skin color: Various shades of green mottled with blue-gray colorations
- Hair color: N/A
- Distinctions: The Emerald Speckled Eel Shark appears to be a cross between a shark and a large eel, with most of its shark-like features found on its front half while the latter half of the body more resembles that of an eel. Most of the creatures have strong green colorations on their dorsal halfs, with speckles or mottling of blue grays throughout before turning to that color permanently on its ventral belly. A single barb set just ahead of its first dorsal fin is often the most salient distinguishing mark of this creature from a distance.
- Races: N/A
- Force Sensitivity: Non-Sensitive
- Fast: The Emerald Speckled Eel Shark has a powerful body and streamlined shape, allowing it to attain high speeds underwater. It can usually catch most prey, and outrun larger creatures that might be able to defeat it in straight up combat.
- Venomous: The Emerald Speckled Eel Shark has three rows of needle-like teeth that have been modified from their svaper heritage to inject poison derived from the Sea serpent. This poison can paralyze most beings in a matter of minutes, which can be fatal underwater.
- Perceptive: The Emerald Speckled has very fine senses of hearing and smell, which often allows it to quickly detect and pinpoint potential prey and intruders within several kilometers.
- Sensitive Senses: The Emerald Speckled Eel Shark's senses are almost too fine - large, sudden sounds like explosions or underwater rockfalls can 'shock' and confuse the creature. Similarly, a large number of different scents or a really overpowering scent (such as the rotting carcass of a large sea creature) can overwhelm its sense of smell.
- Weak Teeth: The Emerald Speckled Eel Shark's teeth keep much of the Svaper's original shape, being long and thin. While this is excellent for creating deep puncture wounds into which to inject poison, they are also relatively fragile. It's not uncommon for an Emerald Speckled to lose or break over a half dozen teeth per bite, which means that an Emerald Speckled can literally become toothless in an extended fight, especially against an armored opponent. Thankfully for the Emerald Speckled, these teeth do fully regenerate after a couple of weeks.
- Weakpoint (Gills): Much like the Svaper from which it is partially engineered, the creature's gills are not only unusually soft compared to the rest of the creature, but an attack at that spot will often rupture its brain, instantly killing it.
CULTURE
- Diet: Carnivore
- Communication: Emerald Speckleds can rudimentarily communicate with each other and their handlers through sound and learned motions. Each shark is slightly different in which each of these actions mean, which frequently means that they work best with those who have completed their training, as even minor differences in gestures can produce vastly different results.
- Technology level: N/A
- Religion/Beliefs: N/A
- General behavior: Emerald Speckleds have aggressive tendencies from both of their genetic components that is only partially mitigated by genetic modification and flash training as they are grown in cloning chambers. They tend to become very territorial once their lair is established, suffering little to no intrusion by those whom they are unacquainted with, especially by other Emerald Speckled Eel Sharks.
The Emerald Speckled Eel Shark is an attempt by Lucerne Biological Systems to create the perfect aquatic "guard dog" for Lucerne consortium facilities, several of which are situated entirely underwater. With the lurrian Wern at the head of this project, the team started with the genomes of the Emerald Shark and the Svaper and merged them together with several artificially formed bridge traits to create their guard creature. Despite the team's best efforts, the first generation was entirely untrainable by conventional means, which led to more splicing and modification - notably including making all Emerald Speckleds sterile, lest some escape captivity and utterly deplete local fauna. The second generation attempted to make the creature more docile by altering some brain structures and neurotransmitters, but were regarded as unsuccessful by the team. The third generation saw modifications which enhanced the creature's ability to learn and recall information. Combined with flash training, this generation of Emerald Speckled was successfully trained to several militaries standards for guard creatures. While only just domesticated, the Emerald Speckled was introduced as a guard animal to Lucerne facilities and offered up for sale via Lucerne Biological Systems to allied governments, groups, and certain individuals. They have since spread across the galaxy in small groups, where their owners frequently establish lairs around things they wish to protect from intruders.
