Overview

Whiptails originate from an artificial setting where they were created as small, portable, friendly data managers. Small enough to sit on your shoulder if they are allowed to, they are record keepers and data analyzers meant to out compete protocol droids. Relatively durable for their size, they required far less maintenance than droids, and they didn't require a technician or oil baths for care. Dark colored with striking patterns, they were meant to appeal to the upper echelons of society who could afford the initial purchase price. Like most technology, the price came down with time to make them more common, and unexpected circumstances of their advanced version came to pass.

Common Properties

Classification	Biodroid	Movement modes	Walk, swim, flight (WISP/WARP only)
Height	6-10 inches	Diet	Herbivorous / Nectar feeder. Photosynthetic
Length (Nose to Tail tip)	8-15 inches	Color	Dark gray base, default blue and yellow. Customizable at cost
Weight	2 - 4 pounds	Cybernetics	Cyber ready. Custom Neuromachine interface standard

Movement: All three series of whiptail are aquatic and capable of both swimming and breathing underwater but to different degrees. Whims excel in water with Warps second. The wings of a Wisp can be used for swimming but are less effective.; Wisp and Warp series whiptails are flight capable. Wisp units focus on high agility and maneuvering while Warps are biased more towards speed and endurance flight. Both are capable of moving in small spaces.; Walking is always the slowest movement mode for whiptails due to their small legs. They can keep up with most bipeds walking speed, but they need to be carried or switch to flight for running speeds.

Photosynthesis: All whiptails are photosynthetic. The dark coloration of their skin is due to optimized visible and ultraviolet absorption that drives their photosynthesis. Both carbon and nitrogen are fixable by whiptails. As a result, whiptails can subsist for long periods on light and mineral water. Photosynthesis reduces their maintenance cost and upkeep by offsetting their other dietary needs. Unlike plants that exchange gasses directly from their external environment, the whiptail blood circulation brings carbon dioxide back from tissues and to the skin where it can be consumed by photosynthetic reactions and exchanged for oxygen produced in the skin.

Diet: All whiptails are herbivorous with nectar feeding being their preferred source of nutrition. Sugar water and occasional mineral supplements are enough to sustain whiptails. They can also process even chain alcohols like ethanol and butanol without becoming intoxicated. This lets them consume and subsist on cheap, common liquors, and this makes them easier to take into bar settings or in scenarios when drinking is required as a social or diplomatic action.

Cybernetics: All whiptails have three find on their back: on as a dorsal fin and two near the lower back, tail base, or hips. These serve both to guide them when in water, but each fin is packed with specialized nerve clusters that form their innate neuromachine interface. When paired with a mobile cyber suit, they can operate communication and computer interface tasks by directly linking to the specified computer systems

Bio-Luminescence: All whiptails have luminescent structures meant to make them visible at night or in dark places to better prevent stepping on or otherwise damaging them in the dark. The intensity of the light is determined consciously by the whiptail from nearly dark to bright and visible at range. Antennae, fins, and tail adornments such as finds or spades glow.

Silicone Skin: The outer layer of whiptail skin is made from a siloxane polymer. This makes them very smooth on the outside if faintly rubbery, but it also gives them excellent protection from chemical hazards. Because whiptails do not respire like leaves would, by gas exchange from outside, this later does not impact their photosynthetic ability. It also aids greatly in their ability to retain water.

Eye Color: The eyes of the three species have different structures. WHIM units and WISP units have uncorrected eye sight. This means the base sight of these units are both best in air, and they have minimal adaptations to adjust for being in air and water. WARP units, however, have eyes optimized first on aquatic environments and have a color and focus correcting membrane that covers their eyes when in air. Because of this, a WARP will appear to have more standard blue, green, or gold eyes with white sclera when the nictitating membrane is retracted, and their eyes will appear to be shaded yellow over the whole eye in air. The correction gives them much sharper vision in air, and they have better overall vision than WHIM or WISP units. WARPs will at times forgo using their membranes in air to check their surroundings without color correction. This is a voluntary action that tends to be more for experiencing variable color conditions and less about attaining exceptional clarity.

Specific Lineages

	Whiptail Information Manager (WHIM) are the origin of the series. Generally on the smallest end of the size spectrum, these units are known for being exceptionally polite, honest, and punctual. Their primary purpose is to manage data for their owner much in the way a personal data assistant or droid might. They also served as status symbols, and almost anyone who had money needed to at least have one somewhere just to show off their wealth. Whims are extremely gregarious, and they were engineered with the need to be helpful so that they would remain in the company of others. The threat of isolation or being discarded was more than sufficient to keep these early units obedient. While not common, some particularly sensitive whims could detect aggressors or toxin well before their owner and thus provide alerts and protection. When paired with the right accessories, whims could interface with computers and machines to operate them and this greatly expand their usefulness.
	Whiptail Advanced Research Prototypes This project began with initiation of several custom requests from high profile clients. The official series runs from warp 1 to warp 8 with small iterations between some of these versions. The end goal was a flight capable unit to address issues of mobility on land, and a major processing and personality shift that would be needed for some specialist tasks. While records of series 1 thru 7 exist, there are no extant specimens from these experiments both due to failures in viability or when their usefulness was no more. Warp 8 would later become the WISP series, but it was not the end of the WARP series. Starting as an advanced medical and repair test, warp 9 could create multi-purpose seeds in their nano repair bay, and these could be applied as a medical bandage to aid wound healing in others or themselves. However, they soon learned to 'heal' themselves in such a manner that they produced offspring. These were dubbed warp 10, and combined with the WISP confidence and instincts to survive, a number of these units and their progenitors succeeded in escaping. Because they should not exist, no external warnings or police alerts were made, and these units and their lone shuttle headed far from their origin to start their own colony.
	Whiptail Independent Special Product Wisps, 1 and 13 shown at left, are extremely rare units made for special deployments. Only thirteen units exist, and each one was sent to a different hi-profile client or diplomatic target to serve as a peace offering as well as a spy for the company. Wisps are the most confident unit able to operate for long periods alone. This makes them more prone to defection at baseline, but their formal education and training compensate for this. They still possess the whim need for acceptance and approval, but they can tolerate isolation for extended periods without permanent damage. This makes them easier for the company and the end user to deploy them. In two cases, 1 and 13, the units possess supernatural abilities, and they have been placed in special positions where the end user can take advantage of this trait. In all cases, Wisps will readily tell you what they think of you regardless of it being crass or negative. They are brutally honest in most cases, but they will observe some degree of restraint if they must. Their confidence makes them fiercely loyal to their owners to the point of risking their lives for them. Only Warp 10x series units are known to show this degree ferocity. Note the tail has large, flat fins instead of heavier finds uses in the whim series. These feather like fins help provide steering when in flight. Both also have the dark photosynthetic skin, but they have different patterns and colors that show up these units can be customized and identified by their markings. They still posses the trio of aquatic style fins that form the basis for their cybernetic interfaces. Like in other whiptails, the fins and antennae are bio-luminescent but with different colors in this case.

Vocalizations and Languages

Because they were made to interface with many species, all whiptails tend to learn languages quickly. It is rare to find a whiptail that doesn't know at least a dozen languages if not more. However, there are specific vocal patterns that these species sometimes use that are very particular to their subspecies.

'Sonar' clicks

These are used only by Whim and Wisp subspecies with the former using them in water and the latter in air. They will also use these click trains to communicate more privately with each other. It is much easier to catch a whim using this method of communication both because they are much more common, and they are less restrained about using them around those who will not be able to understand it. They have also been known to use a special variant of this language with droids to facilitate communication with them.

When calm and pleased, both subspecies are known to click softly, and they both use a similar whitling alarm signal despite one being water bound and the other air bound.

Chirps and Birdsong

Because wasp subspecies whiptails evolved on their own after their emancipation and the replicant war, warps have an incredibly large and complex language made up of cheetah like chirps, trills, and rich birdsong like tones. Most conversations fall into chords, and because of this, a massive conversation can be held with data filtered out based on the notes used. Warps are not only at least as numerous as human in the galaxy, they are far more social and talkative than humans. They even have songs meant for use in other mediums such as water. This is not surprising because warp units are an intermediate species with whim and wisp traits including a high affinity for and ability to live in water.

A pleased warp is not hard to identify. Their soft, rumbling churrs and trills have a soothing character to them. Alarm cries are often sharp and sweep rapidly up in pitch. An alarm cry can readily be heard over distance, and it is often repeated. this results in a high alarm going on in a very short period of time. The time to be most concerned about warps is when a large number are gathered and none are making a sound. This silence is the flock focusing on a threat, and it is when they are most likely to attack. This makes it hard to sneak up on a flock. However, perhaps counterintuitive, the best way to get around a flock is just to make yourself known with a call out to them. You'll lose your position and a chance at surprise, but it is far less likely they will take an aggressive posture against a target that openly announces itself.\

Society Structure

Social Spheres

Whiptails are considered to be a hypersocial species. Even the nearly solitary Wisp subspecies still finds itself subjected to the strains of spheres one and two.

Sphere 1: Self; Society begins with the individual, and this is no different for whiptails than it is for other species. This sphere reflects self care, sense of purpose, and the worth of the individual that justifies its protection in society. However, left with only this sphere of influence wears on the psyche of the individual. At one extreme, Wisps can wander for years alone with minimal contact while most Warps crave interaction so badly that being left along with only their self reflection can drive them to madness or destruction. Whims fall somewhere in the middle between these two extremes as they, more so than any other, define self based on their duties and bonds to those they serve. Their strongly logical nature buffers them against wild emotion that comes from isolation, but they can still lose purpose if left isolated for too long, usually on the order of months.

Sphere 2: Mates; While limited due to the rarity of Wisps and the ability of only hybrid Whim-Warp units, the bonds formed to their mates are the most powerful they possess. Whiptail families often have a core of three to four individuals that remain with an outer orbit of more loosely associated individuals. Relationships can be fluid, but those that begin to form a core often endure the test of time. The primary reason for a core of more than two individuals lies in the consequences of when a mate is lost. In warps, when a mate dies in a binary relationship, the surviving member often perishes soon after. The larger core of the Warp family allows them to share the pain of loss as well as reinforce the positive aspects of the group so that they can move on.

In Whim and Wisps, it is common for the whiptail to take a non-whiptail mate. These are often closely bound individuals that may have been owners or allies. These are often binary relationships, and they come with all the risks to the whiptail that a binary relationship imposes on them. These relationships tend to be platonic, and they can expand to encompass a whole family over time. Whim are best known to being associated with a family line, and their extremely long lifetimes mean they have been a part of the family for generations. The mental and emotional durability of Wisps gives them time to move from one relationship to another, and their aggressive nature tends toward them becoming violent and dangerous when forced out on their own.

Sphere 3: Greater Society; All whiptails, even Wisp and Whims, are heavy users of technology in communication. Whiptails are almost always in contact with someone if not many of them. Wisps are often chatty with their partner, but they are keen on connecting and interacting with almost anyone that gets in range. Warps are the absolute extreme in communications. They leverage their ability to interface with electronics to project themselves over electronic media. This behavior allows most of their governments to operate as true democracies with everyone having a say if only by doing so at extremely high speed. Most whiptails believe in the need of the many outweighing the few, but they balance this with the conflicting right of the individual to happiness. It leads to some very intense debates.

Sphere 4: Outside; Because Warps dominate sphere 3 by sheer numbers, they also tend to set the conditions of outside interactions. Their origin as medical products comes through in that they see the galaxy outside their colonies to be under the sort of protection a patient should receive. Much to the consternation, whiptails of the post Replicant War galaxy offer medical aid at a rather small price of social interaction and societal inclusion. They have literally created a case of Healthcare for Hugs in some locations. They are, however, wary of some groups because they are friendly but not fools. Having spread across the galaxy after the war, distant worlds are becoming second homes, and the sea of different species and cultures plays to their curiosity so much that there seems to be no hope of ever getting them bottled up in their own territory again. The outside galaxy is a new adventure taken up with cautious optimism.

Dying Light

No society is all sparkles and rainbows. Those that have come to bear supernatural powers or have been exposed to them have greater doubts that the galaxy will every hold together. Even more so, they don't believe their optimistic kin will ever be able to safely return to better times after having brought the galaxy to its knees. Dying Light, named for the fading of a whiptail's bioluminescence as it dies, formed around a group of supernatural practitioners of several types that included one wisp and a pair of whim units who could be argued would never be able to live such a pleasant life knowing what they did. Around them are a number of wasps that survived the latter parts of the Replicant War, and these combined forces while small compared to their conventional kin still numbered in the thousands. The location of their operations and their agenda remain a mystery, but they are known for surgical precision in their attacks and for appearing seemingly from nowhere. Communications with the group have never succeeded, and there is a rumor that they are not just making strikes at random but are defending something terrible. Most would agree that it would be most likely that Dying Light has determined that that its kind and the galaxy are better off if they strike down any target that meets unknown criteria, and that casualties on all sides are just a price to pay.

Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of Dying Light is that there is no indication that they have accepted the post-war conditions of restricting self replication.

Notable Whiptails

Relic Whim An old series Whim that survived through the Replicator Wars only to end up entangled in an eldritch plot far older. Bears a number of power he would rather not have. Often accompanied by the Darkness entity (K)Night
Pepper Wisp Wisp used in a Star Wars game setting. An emerging force user a dangerously strong need to belong. Partner to Jack, a Wildkin collie from Protein Solutions
Ryvyx Warp A class 10x Warp from long after the Replicator Wars. His shuttle vanished after entering light speed, and he has been lost since.

WHIMs WISPs and WARPs

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