This is a short story I made inspired in a drawing I remade recently (which I'm publishing here soon or later) of my fursona and his boyfriend.

It is my first "boy love" story (and my second one published on social media), so if you want some cozy romance give it a shot!

I hope you enjoy this reading.

PS: this was written originally in Spanish, then translated to English, any translation suggestion is welcomed!

This is something tangential I've developed for my science-fantasy world with intelligent animals. For context: In this world, different taxonomic governments represent groups of related species. You have the Felines, Vulpines, Rodents, Avians, etc. Each of them technically belong to a different State but frequently intermingle and live in the same area, and taxonomic governments tend to also have territory/land associated with them where they primarily control the area, but other animals can and very much do still live there. Taxonomic governments have jurisdiction of the species within their scope no matter where they live, and are the ones responsible for having an ID system that works both within their own taxon and with other taxonomic governments and other official organizations.

Instead of making everyone carry ID cards or passports, which would be cumbersome for four-legged or winged animals to use, I envisioned a DNA-based ID system. The tech for this is definitely in the Star Trek levels of sci-fi, but it's basically a flat surface that you press your paw, wing, or other body part firmly onto, and a mechanism below produces a mild energy beam through your fur and skin which interacts with DNA in your cells and gives returns based on the specific sequence, and it's a safe, non-invasive DNA sequencer that can get a full read of your genetic code in seconds. The DNA scanner also checks for things like active metabolism and DNA synthesis and are generally configured to not even attempt to scan non-living cells, so you can't do something like use someone else's severed paw to make the system think you're them.

But since your full DNA sequences can be, for one, several gigabytes long and not conducive to things like printing onto certificates and migration papers or even just sending over the network to other agencies, and also contain actual information about things like your species, sex, family history and a bunch of sensitive stuff that you wouldn't want just anyone having access to, they typically take a cryptographic hash of the DNA and use that as an identifier for an individual animal. Kind of like how humans might have something like a social security number, animals in this world have a DNA Hash that governments use to identify them. Whenever a government agency in our world asks you to show some kind of ID like a driver's license, passport, health card, etc, they just have to scan their DNA and their information is automatically pulled from the right agency, using the hash to look it up. Even things like crossing international borders (of friendly nations) can be done with just a single biometric scan with no passport or ID card required. Basically, if you're animal in this world, the various government agencies around you refer to you as something like "8ed254569e8ddccea1784f569609aa32ced2691e2d22e99583ebd426cac76bd8" which is derived from your DNA sequence, and since you can't change your DNA, the same hash algorithm will always produce the same identifier, but better for privacy since it's impossible to reverse the algorithm and derive the original DNA sequence from the hash, and in theory only your own taxonomic government would have your full DNA sequence stored away on a server somewhere. Also extremely hard to falsify since it's literally identifying your body and not a card or anything that can be replaced.

What do you think? Does a system like this make sense? Are there glaring logistical or security issues that I'm not seeing? (Beyond just having a non-invasive and rapid DNA sequencing system in the first place, but that's what sci-fi handwaving is for.) Do you think a system like this is actually superior compared to physical ID media?

For context, I have a science-fantasy world with intelligent, non-anthro animals trying to live in peace with each other. A major problem is of course what the carnivores eat, and their solution is something called Dietary Enzyme Supplements, which carnivores take in order to supply artificial, carefully engineered digestive enzymes that allow them to digest plant matter and directly synthesize essential nutrients that would otherwise only be found in meat inside their own digestive tracts. It's something that works really well for its intended purpose and that they're really proud of, and I talk more about their history with solving the predation problem here if you're interested.

For the species, taxa, and factions that have committed to banning predation and having predator and prey live in harmony, dietary enzyme supplements are typically freely available and a guaranteed right under their constitution, along with plant based food in general. Dietary enzymes are ubiquitous and work really well for their intended purpose, and represent the very bleeding edge of their chemistry and nutrition science prowess.

The most advanced dietary enzymes, those intended for obligate carnivores like cats, contain trace amounts of a special quasi-element called Intium as part of how they work, which is also a really powerful substance that power most of their super advanced sci-fi tech. However, due to how versatile and powerful it is, Intium is also extremely dangerous if misused, so it is heavily regulated by the government, and the only real "consumer" product that contains it are those obligate carnivore dietary enzymes. The next most accessible source is hovercraft fuel and the internal components of hovercraft engines, both of which are prohibitively expensive and require an aviation related license to purchase, while dietary enzymes are both free at the point of access and anyone can just go into a grocery store and take them without anyone else batting an eye.

The vast majority of animals that need dietary enzymes do not abuse their free access to them, since there's no benefit in taking more than the required dose and they're just flavourless pills that most animals don't just stuff their faces with. However, this is where amateur chemistry enthusiasts come in, after a post on a science forum showing how to extract Intium from ATDP, which are the dietary enzyme supplements most commonly used by Felines. The process is pretty simple, basically just burn the pills at a very high temperature and in a high oxygen environment to convert the proteins and other support chemicals into carbon dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, etc, and you're left with a solid residue of mostly Intium oxide, which can then be further processed into pure Intium. This is technically legal since the government doesn't regulate what exactly you do with dietary enzymes once you have it, but the problem is that ATDP, while free to use, still has a high production cost, and only contain minuscule amounts of Intium. A domestic cat for example typically takes one pill of ATDP per week, with the enzymes attaching to the lining of their digestive tracts to prevent the still perfectly functional enzymes from being expelled out the other end after one cycle of digestion and being wasted. However, an unlicensed chemist smelting pills to extract Intium can go through literally thousands of pills in a few hours, and those pills are paid for almost entirely by Feline tax revenue so neither the Feline government nor the Feline population in general are happy about this. Of course the safety risks of working with Intium apply as well, including pretty severe explosion risks, but the amounts they extract are so small that it's hardly a public safety hazard so much as a public burden as they destroy tens of thousands dollars worth of dietary enzymes just to extract ten dollars worth of Intium. The Intium is not the expensive part of those pills, the expensive parts are the carefully engineered and synthesized proteins that surround the Intium. After a few incidents of particularly brazen and entitled animals (who notably weren't even carnivores and had no biological need for dietary enzymes, certainly not the super advanced obligate carnivore versions that contain Intium) cleared out multiple grocery store shelves for their Intium extraction hustle and went viral on their internet, attracting intense public shaming with both predator and prey calling them selfish and misusing public resources, they realized that it was a massive problem and a policy change was needed to ensure fair access to this extremely important resource.

The most obvious and immediately effective solution is just to implement some kind of rationing system, where instead of a shelf filled with boxes of dietary enzymes that any animal can take, they move them behind the pharmacy counter and require ID to obtain, where they'll check both whether you're actually a species that requires the enzyme and also use a centralized database that tracks how much you're taking per month. However, again, only a tiny minority of animals abuse the free access to dietary enzymes to do things they really shouldn't be doing anyway, so it would feel like a massive burden for the rest of the carnivore populations who literally depend on access to dietary enzymes to survive in a society where predation is banned. It would also preclude things like animals who don't need dietary enzymes getting them for their carnivore friends since they were going to the store anyway, or even things like losing your box of dietary enzymes and potentially getting denied replacements if they only allow animals to obtain them at the specific dosages they need, nor would they be able to stock up some dietary enzymes in their own nests and dens in case of supply chain issues. Not to mention the costs associated with implementing and maintaining such a rationing system which will also be passed onto the general public, potentially siphoning funds away from other public projects like housing and transportation, or just having less money to make more dietary enzymes. Free and easy access to both plant based food and dietary enzymes have been such staples in their society that they really don't to abandon it just because a few animals don't follow the rules, so they're looking for an alternative that lets them have their dietary enzymes and eat it too.

What do you think? Is their only hope to just start rationing dietary enzymes? If you were a policy maker in this world, how would you address this issue?

The interdimensional Christmas bug is coming to town, and every world needs their own Santa. Doesn't matter if they have no idea what Santa or Christmas is, participation is mandatory and they need to use whatever exist in-universe to replicate Santa's flying sleigh as best as they can.

The following are some guidelines for what a prototypical Santa and sleigh would entail, your world needs to try and replicate as many of these elements as possible.

1. A fat bearded man or similar species dressed in all red.

2. A huge sack of toys or whatever the kids in your universe like.

3. A sleigh or another vehicle modified to resemble the classic shape of a sleigh, one that is capable of flight.

4. Eight flying reindeer or similar species strapped to the front of the sleigh.

5. One more flying reindeer or similar species up front with a glowing red nose.

Note that the reindeer don't actually have to be the ones pulling the sleigh through the air, you can choose any propulsion system you want as long as it looks like the reindeer are pulling it.

How does your world pull it off? Who would need to be called in and what kind of equipment acquired to do this? What unique conflicts does Santa face in your world that the "real" Santa wouldn't?

If your world is also conducive to other Christmas characters like Krampus, the Grinch, Frosty, Jesus, etc and you want to replicate them as well, we'd love to hear it!

Context: This is a world inhabited by intelligent, non-anthro animals, some of which have decided to outlaw hunting and eating prey in favour of living in harmony and cooperating.

They have a zero tolerance policy for predation and it is criminalized extremely heavily. Depending on what species or taxon you are (all animals have the right to be tried by members of their own species and taxa, and they are responsible for carrying out sentences of their own kind too), First Degree Predation, where you personally kill then eat an animal, is the only crime that formally carries the death penalty. Regular first degree murder where you "merely" kill an animal without intent to eat them only has a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole. Second Degree Predation (aka Simple Predation) is where you obtain meat with the intention of eating it without personally killing anything, carries only a mandatory fixed term prison sentence in addition to losing certain freedoms post release.

However, their laws on the issue is very much based on intent as that is their philosophy, that because they are all sapient and no longer bound by their natural hunter instincts, they are responsible for their own actions. You don't have to actually eat the prey you killed to have committed First Degree Predation, and the inverse is technically true as well, where if you kill an animal for some other reason and only after they're dead do you decide to eat them, then you're technically only guilty of murder and Second Degree Predation instead of First Degree Predation. There are also legal ways that certain animals can obtain animal tissue, for example, as skin grafts and organ transplants, autopsy and forensic investigations, or for general research. Because animals handling tissue in these cases don't intend to eat it, it does not fall under Second Degree Predation. However, if you buy animal meat and later decide not to eat it, that's still considered predation.

Especially with the nature of eating and digesting food, law enforcement only has a very small time window to order a suspect to undergo lab testing of what's in their belly where it will actually show a positive hit for animal tissue, so my original thought is that the intent clause is meant to make prosecuting predation easier, since they wouldn't need to actually prove that the accused has animal tissue in their digestive tract at any point, just that they wanted at some point for some form of animal tissue to end up inside them.

I know there are many real life laws that use intent in a similar way, but I don't know how courts actually prove intent beyond a reasonable doubt. Can anyone who's delved more into the legal side of worldbuilding comment on how the courts in my world might prove (or disprove) that someone intended to eat another animal when they do not have direct evidence that the animal was indeed eaten?

For context, this takes place in my world with intelligent, non-anthro animals trying to live in harmony. This is part of the backstory of my main character and why she's where she is currently.

The Felines had recently underwent a bloody and violent revolution, replacing their monarchist empire that is very pro-predation (Trophist) with a democratic republic that is very anti-predation (Unitist). Shortly afterward, they signed the Interspecies Peace Agreement and committed to banning predation by all Felines forever, to overwhelming support by the Feline public. Signing of the ISPA not only bans predation but also allows other ISPA members to engage in trade, travel, and exchange of knowledge and technology with the Felines, which is a big deal because the Felines are considered the most technologically advanced taxon, being the first taxon in history to surpass even the humans that lived before all of them millions of years ago.

The Unified Territories, which is an alliance of Unitist small and medium sized animals, including the Felines' former prey like Avians and Rodents and is considered the second most advanced, took the opportunity to call up the Feline government to ask for a favour. Basically, the Unified Territories Ministry of Science called up the Feline Science Institute (both are government research institutions), and asked if they can have Yvonne Dandelionpaw transferred to one of their labs in the UT. Yvonne Dandelionpaw is a domestic cat who played a major role in recent Feline history: She co-developed something called ATDP, a dietary enzyme supplement that allows obligate carnivores like cats to subsist on plant based alternatives (where the "DP" part is named after her); she participated in the Feline revolution fighting for the Unitist side; and perhaps most importantly, she is one of the main scientists working on something called a quantum interface, which is one of the next frontiers of science that the Felines are actively pursuing. They basically wanted her to come over and work with their own scientists that are also trying to develop a quantum interface, and essentially spun it as "hey, let's work on this together since you're an ISPA member now!"

The Feline Science Institute felt rather pressured by the Unified Territories, and responded with something along the lines of "We're just about okay with that, but you need to ask Yvonne directly. We're not going to force a Feline to relocate and take a job outside Feline territory." So they call up Yvonne initially refuses, saying "Well, it's a interesting offer, but I'd rather stay here and work with my own taxon as we rebuild after the war." But then the Unified Territories spun it in a different way to her, trying to convince her that a cat coming over to work in a UT government lab would be a great diplomatic opportunity for the two governments, and controversially, basically told her that there are researchers in the UT who are the Felines' former prey, and "wouldn't you want to be the one to reconcile with them so they realize how nice modern cats are and ditch that old stereotype of cats being pricks?" At which point she finally agreed to the transfer, on the condition that she remains employed by the Feline Science Institute and basically serves as a liason and diplomatic representative in addition to being a researcher, which the FSI was understandably also very adamant about.

She is now working at a lab in the UT capital city, but the decision to have her there is very controversial on both sides. Many Felines accuse the Unified Territories of using their position among ISPA members to basically poach Feline talent, while many UT citizens accuse Yvonne of being a Feline spy, considering that she is a high ranking member of the Feline government who is working in a classified UT lab.

What are your thoughts on this progression? Is it something that can reasonably happen when two governments are first establishing diplomatic ties? Do you think the way they spun it to Yvonne counted as coercion or guilt tripping? Any other opinions you have I would love to hear that as well!

Basically, I have a sci-fi world with intelligent animals. The story is that long after humans disappeared from the Earth, animals eventually become intelligent and made their own society to replace them. One major development in their history is that predators and prey agreed to live in harmony, signing treaties, making laws, and generally working very hard to ensure lasting peace between natural enemies.

One aspect of this is of course prosecuting animals that engage in predation. The way criminal trials work in this world is that every animal has the right to be tried by members of their own species or taxonomic group, who are also responsible for carrying out sentencing. Each animal has a taxonomic government to answer to, so if you're a cat you are under the jurisdiction of the Feline government, mouse, Rodent government, bird, Avian government, etc. Each animal follows the same basic laws and regulations that all taxonomic governments agree on, things like prohibiting predation is one of these, but each government can also pass taxon-specific legislation, and are also able to determine criminal penalties independently.

The Felines only had their revolution a few years ago, when they overthrew their old kingdom which was very pro-predation, and made a republic that has signed the Interspecies Peace Agreement and is therefore very anti-predation. Because it's so recent, the Felines also have the harshest punishments for a predation conviction made after the revolution. One count of first degree predation (when you personally kill then eat an animal) is an automatic life in prison without parole, the same penalty as "regular" murder without eating the victim, two or more counts is life in prison unless the prosecution requests for the death penalty at the start of trial and this is authorized by both the judge and the Feline Ministry of Security. Generally, courts stop at two predation convictions even if it's obvious that the defendant committed more, since that's enough to either put them away forever with no chance of parole, or kill them. Second degree predation, AKA simple predation, where you eat already dead animals that someone else killed, is treated much less harshly and sentencing options only has fixed term imprisonment possibly with parole, though with restrictions afterward like you can't work in the government or security-critical industries unless the court lifts those restrictions on a case by case basis. The ISPA lists execution after being convicted beyond a reasonable doubt of a crime that causes the death of two or more other animals as the only exception to the no killing rule, and it can only be done by members of the same species or taxonomic entity, and is also subject to oversight and can even be blocked outright by other ISPA members through the ISPA Inter-Taxon Court, so they also do not have full autonomy on who they can execute, and taxa that have the death penalty much also must make their execution methods (which are mandated to always prioritize minimizing suffering), judicial procedures, and statistics public.

They do also use the threat of execution as a way of getting information about a predation case though. If they catch a Feline who is apart of a predation ring, it's better than nothing but they'd obviously much rather take down the leader and the entire organization. The Feline Ministry of Security can basically tell the accused "Look, your trial date has been set, the prosecution has requested authorization to use the death penalty from us, and you know what evidence they have on you. We're still trying to decide if we want to grant that request. It's up to you and we can't force you to give us any information, but is there anything you want to tell us about your organization or do you want to gamble with whether you'll be found guilty or not?" Funnily enough most of these cats don't care that they're killing sapient prey animals that have lives and families and stories, but break real fast when it's their own life on the line.

The Felines (and any ISPA member for that matter) can also arrest other species if they commit a crime on their territory or against a their own animals, but within the Interspecies Peace Agreement member species, animals have the right to stand trial and receive sentencing by their own species or taxon, so most they can do is investigate the crime, form a case with evidence, and then extradite the defendant back and forward their findings to the government that actually has jurisdiction. Most they can do to a non-Feline is detain them, extradite, and then ban them from Feline territory. However, any ISPA non-signatories, AKA predators that are actually predators and eat prey, who engage in predation, either against any ISPA member species anywhere in the world, or on ISPA territory against any animal; are not granted this right (obviously, since if you extradited them back to their own territory they'd be home free). So if you eat a cat or eat a mouse or bird or any other animal on Feline territory, you are dealt with just like any predatory cat by the Feline government regardless of what the laws by your own taxonomic government is.

I should also add that every animal is intelligent/sapient in this world. So predation really would be like murder. No copouts like eating fish or whatever.

Even in universe this is quite controversial even among prey species so I'm not trying to claim that this is the ideal state of the law, but I'm more trying to make sure if this makes sense or not. I also know that they will almost certainly have very different morals and ethics for humans, but then again I'm writing this story for humans so not sure how relevant that actually is. Is the motivation of having a death penalty despite not even allowing animals to eat meat a realistic one?

So basically, this is a sci-fi fantasy world with intelligent/sapient animals. Not anthros like in Zootopia, just regular animals that can all talk to each other, form societies, and develop science and technology. Obviously, predation is a massive, central issue to this world, being that it was the primary driving force of all animals for most of their history. However, they have now progressed enough technologically where even obligate carnivores like cats can get all their required nutrients without needing to eat other animals, with sufficient help from their biochemistry and chemical manufacturing prowess. Obviously, this does not mean every single species who historically did eat meat stop overnight. Actually, some would argue that the journey toward abolishing predation, a journey marked by revolution, war, and death for both sides, is almost as bloody and violent as predation itself (this is a massive logical fallacy yes, but it is an opinion held by many in-universe and I explore that in my plot).

First, some context: I will be using the terms Carnivore and Herbivore, to refer to the biochemical characteristics of animals. In their universe, those designations, when capitalized as proper nouns, have fairly straight forward definitions: A carnivore is any animal that, without access to science or technology, is incapable of deriving their complete nutritional requirements without eating meat, they cannot subsist on raw plants alone without processing and/or taking synthetic supplements. A cat is a carnivore, so is a dog, so is a ferret, so is a fox, so are humans technically but they disappeared from the planet millions of years ago. By contrast, a herbivore is any animal that can subsist on raw plants alone, like mice, rabbits, horses, and deer. This definition is purely biochemical, as in do you have the enzymes and gut structure to do it, and by design does not take into account things like preference, behaviour, culture/religion, or how practical it would be (if there was only plant that can sustain you and literally nothing else other than meat, it still counts), because, again, they have the technology to allow basically every animal to subsist on plants, comfortably at that, minus it not tasting the same. You're either one or the other, if you're not sure, then Carnivore is the catch-all term unless your ability to subsist on raw plants is verifiable. Omnivore isn't really as a term in this world since pretty much every animal is technically an omnivore, as in they can eat and digest both meat and plants, including nearly every "Herbivore." Likewise, terms like predator and prey imply behaviour and ecology, not biochemistry, and most animals fell into both categories historically, but with their technology those terms have become so fluid as to be essentially meaningless.

Which brings me to the in-universe opinions that I have come up with, they relate to both predation and interspecies coexistence in general, since those kind of go paw to paw. Note that these are super generalized and are in no particular order.

Carnivores:

• "It's my right to eat my prey, no matter how much suffering it causes! I don't care what technologies are available, predation is the natural order of things and should never be challenged! The role of a predator is to dominate and rule their prey. Maybe the prey would suffer less if they just accepted and made peace with their place on the food chain!" (This is called Trophism.)

• "Predation is both barbaric and totally obsolete in our current technological landscape. It is unbecoming of an intelligent, sapient species with complete control over our primitive instincts. Every species is equal, we should all live in peace as comrades and work together to take care of and benefit everyone!" (This is called Unitism.)

• "Look, I'll concede that we shouldn't be eating other animals and actively making them suffer. But I just can't agree to this interspecies cooperation nonsense. My only responsibility to my own species (or taxon, which is a group of related species), no one else. I won't hunt my prey but I won't be helping them without benefit to myself either."

Herbivores

• "Even though I'm low on the food chain, it is still my place. I don't want to be eaten and will try to avoid it to the best of my ability, but if that's what it comes to, then so be it." (Trophism)

• "I don't want you to eat me, in fact I want to be your friend and ally! I think every species is equal and that your evolutionary history does not define an intelligent animal, and as long as we all commit to being nice to each other, there is no reason every species can't live in harmony!" (Unitism)

• "Those savages hunted us for generations! I don't care if they don't do that anymore, I don't care how long not a single member of their species has even so much as mildly hurt another animal! Not only do I not want to ally with them, I think it's the duty of my species or taxon, as the prey, to rise up and destroy my predators! No amount of peacemaking now can undo nature and I'd turn the tables and kill every single one of them if I could!"

• "Hey, it's nice that you're not eating prey anymore and all, and though I don't harbour any active ill will toward you, I still don't trust you and just want to be left alone with my own species or taxon. You don't interact with me if you don't need to and I don't interact with you if I don't need to, cool?"

What are your thoughts? Are there any more sides to this issue that you can come up with? And personally, which one would you most agree with if you were in this world?

Most fursonas do wear clothes. But putting aside the aesthetics factor and focusing more on the practicality-- would a furry anthro in an anthro society wear clothes?

Focusing solely on mammalian anthros with fur. Well, they have fur, so temperature regulation and the elements aren't really reasons to wear clothes given that they have natural, furry clothes already. Wearing clothes on top of that might be too warm, especially in the summer.

The thing I'm wondering is, would anthros figure out to make clothings themselves? And if they do, how would they look? Having their body completely covered in fur might make shirts and pants irrelevant, which means they might never develop them in the first place. I suppose other articles of clothings like armbands, headbands, etc would still exist, and so would practical items like glasses or watches.

Of course, clothing serves more purpose than just covering bare skins. They serve aesthetic purposes and shows our identity. For example, police anthros might wear some sort of stuff to distinguish themselves. And much like humans, anthros would probably have a culture around clothing, but how their clothing would look and how much it'll cover is the question.

Would most anthros only wear head and armbands? Maybe just something to cover their bottoms and nothing else? Or would they wear clothes similar to us?

Furthermore, different animals have different fur with different thickness, length, shapes, forms, etc. These different furs require different clothing. Anthros with thicker fur may wear less clothing than ones with thinner fur. Even more, different anthros will have different body shape and size. Clothing for rabbit sonas may not fit bear sonas.

Anthros might have different size standards for different species to account their differences. Imagine how hard it'd be to manufacture all the different variations, though. Any clothes store would have to take into account multiple species and multiple sizes for that species.

Well, I think that's interesting to think about.

I'm trying to write a dark twist on a classic princess story for this world. Their monarchy is modeled after my best interpretation of and assumptions about royalty in Medieval/Renaissance Western Europe (it doesn't actually take place there, but I wanted that general aesthetic), but that's not something I've done a lot of research on and would like people more knowledgeable to weigh in. Is there anything in the character profile I have for her that would absolutely not happen in a Western European style monarchy?

Context for this world is that it is inhabited by intelligent animals, think Zootopia but more sci-fi, and with quite a bit more political and societal turmoil during the time period this post focuses on. Also, these are normal, animal shaped animals, not anthros. They do have human scale lifespans though, if only because a 15-20 year lifespan for a cat is not conducive to detailed character development.

Princess Iliana the Second (her mom is the first), later known as Nikita Almondtail, was the crown princess and heir to the throne of the former Feline Empire. She is a domestic cat with a coat of brown and cream patches. One might even go as far to say that the brown tones on her fur, which extends to her tail, resembles the colour of an almond.

Predictably, she was born to a life of the highest luxury, at least materially. As a kitten, her father, the king, would beat her mercilessly for any perceived transgression, while her mother mostly ignored her. She was born into a time of great unrest in the empire. The Unitist movement was picking up speed, which is an ideology that involves making peace and cooperation between predator and prey animals, collective ownership of property and resources, basically vegan socialism. The king was trying to quell the dissident voices in his typical brutal way, but was failing slowly but surely. This was endlessly enraging and terrifying for the king, and he took it out on his helpless daughter. This caused her to both fear and resent her father from a young age. Even at this early age she could recognize the irony in being taught that royalty must be graceful and elegant in everything they do, that they cannot so much as slam a door or make a thud when setting something down on a table or the floor, yet the king beats her whenever he sees fit.

At some point in her childhood, she asked her mother for a mouse toy, as in, a plushie that she can cuddle when alone in her chambers. Her mother, not really paying attention to what she was actually asking for, went and got a live mouse from the kitchen and gave it to her to basically be her personal slave. However, she quickly grew attached to the mouse, which she considered her only friend. The mouse would often be the one tending to her bruises and scratches after her father beats her senseless.

At the same time, she was being taught how to hunt. But, due to her emotional attachment to her own mouse, she couldn't reconcile whether mice were friends or food. What made that one so special? And what makes these mice so worthless that they are fit to be eaten alive? Combined with the fact that her father, whom she already hated, was pushing her to learn to hunt, she despised every moment of it. Some cats greatly enjoy the screams and pleas of their prey, her father sure did, but she was not one of those cats.

In her teenage years, as she secretly worked to gain precious few morsels of knowledge of the outside world that her parents had tried to keep from her, about the nature of being a cat, and hints of the disparity and oppression that the working class beyond her castle wall faced. She became obsessed with the idea of being an obligate carnivore and the idea of biological dependence on prey. Specifically, why? Why couldn't she eat plants like her prey did? What about her body was preventing her from not having to kill to live?

When she became an adult, her parents wanted her to begin her training as the successor to the throne immediately, all in the palace of course, she can count on her paws the number of times she was allowed off its grounds. But, she somehow managed to convince them to let her go to university first, arguing that an educated ruler would be taken more seriously by the other powers in diplomacy. She was enrolled in the Royal Feline Science Institute's Moonpeak campus (Moonpeak is their capital city so it was literally within walking distance) and began studying biochemistry, following what she had been curious about for a big part of her life. This is when she also adopted the name Nikita Almondtail to hide her real identity. As a side note, the last name scheme of something in nature plus a cat body part is squarely a working class name. Her calling herself Almondtail would have been extremely scandalous should the aristocracy or god forbid her dad finds out.

She learned about the biochemical mechanisms of her own nutritional requirements, and also learned about the work that other predator animals have done toward making peace with their prey, the cutting edge of which was the dietary enzyme supplement, a pill that is swallowed to give predator animals the ability to subsist on plant-based food. This greatly intrigued her, but unfortunately, the only products available are for omnivores, not carnivores, so she could not take advantage of it.

It's also during this time that she met Yvonne Dandelionpaw (Old Reddit link, actually it's a little out of date with my developments for Yvonne, but she's my main character so I'm spending more time editing and adding to her profile before I post a proper updated version on Lemmy) who was studying quantum chemistry, but who was also a vocal Unitist. They formed a connection and became friends, with Yvonne even taking Nikita to general meetings of the underground Unitist cell that Yvonne was apart of. They even worked on a joint thesis project for their degrees, developing an enzyme supplement for obligate carnivores, which they would later perfect and turn into the product now known as ATDP, which is the first and still only dietary enzyme supplement capable of providing complete nutrition to felines from plant-based sources.

It is unclear exactly when Nikita revealed her real identity, but we do know that she revealed it in her final year of university, first to Yvonne, then to the rest of the Unitist group, denouncing her father and his empire and vowing to join them in their revolution. First there was a great amount of friction and distrust toward the princess, but it was quite quickly worked out, many members saying afterward that they could somehow just tell that she was sincere. After some brainstorming, it was decided that she would go back to the royal palace, while keeping in secret communications with the Unitists and acting as a double agent. The aristocracy was beginning to take her more seriously now that she was an adult, and because the king was aging fast and rumored to already be in poor health. She misdirected and deceived them prior to and during the outbreak of the revolution. As her involvement was becoming more clear, she officially defected to the side of the revolution, re-joining Yvonne as they once again worked together, this time to develop a covert, nearly untraceable neurotoxin that was used to carry out highly targeted assassinations on key members of the aristocracy and military. At this point she had fully changed her name to Nikita Almondtail, casting away her royal past and resolving to make a new life for herself as a unitist worker.

As the revolution drew to a close and the trials against the monarchy began, Nikita was the only member of the royal family who did not so much as see the inside of a courtroom, she was seen as a comrade at that point. The rest of her family was sentenced to death. Nikita attended the execution of her father. Standing in the first row, making sure his father could see her in the crowd. As the firing squad took aim, it's said that Nikita's eyes burned with satisfaction and triumph.

Does this progression make sense? What are your thoughts on her backstory?

So the aviation industry in my science-fantasy world with intelligent animals is dominated by hovercrafts. They levitate and move by manipulating gravitational fields, and can move freely in any direction, are very quick to respond to control inputs, can hover in place or go as slow as they want since they don't have a stall speed. Basically, if regular planes are like an eagle soaring in the clouds, a hovercraft is like a hummingbird darting around with absolute precision. However, hovercrafts can also be very fast, with the ones used in commercial aviation having a similar top speed as today's airliners, with the benefit of course that they can slow way down on takeoff and landing (both of which are done vertically onto a landing pad) and only hit their top speed in cruise.

But, they also have birds and other flying animals in this world, and obviously safety is extremely important. The gravitational slipstream engines of hovercraft are considered safe for flying animals to approach at low speeds, as they do not have spinning blades or create strong air currents, that's why they are the norm for aircraft and the only type allowed in populated areas. So really the only real thing to worry about is a collision.

For the brunt of collision avoidance, my solution is to have to stratified airspaces: Animal-prioritized airspace starts from the ground and extends to some predetermined level above either the average tree line in a forest, or above an absolute altitude value, depending on jurisdiction, it would be set based on how high birds and other animals can actually fly on their wings (which according to this is apparently about 5500 m being the highest typical altitude, but some of the highest recorded being over 7000 m. For reference a 737 has a max altitude of 41000 ft, or about 12500 m), above which the airspace is designated for aircraft. Basically, in airspace where you'd expect to run into flying animals, they get absolute priority because they are extremely vulnerable in a collision. Their cruising altitudes are similar to our planes, because they absolutely need to be well above any animal when traveling at high speeds. To quote one of my avian characters: "Back when cats still ate prey, if you got caught your death rate was, what? 50 percent? 60? And that's pretty bad. An animal on aircraft collision is more like a 99.9% death rate."

However, hovercrafts still need to descend into the forest canopy to land and drop off/pick up passengers. I envision landing pads both on the ground, inside tree cover, and on the roofs of buildings providing last-mile transportation in a city. They don't have to deal with bumper to bumper traffic like we do with private cars because they only have essentially aerial busses and public transit, but that only means a hovercraft would only come every few minutes, and the rest of the time its path would be invisible. We have a static safety measure in road vehicles or trains because the infrastructure is clearly visible and you know if you see a part of the ground that looks like that, there will be cars or trains coming. But in the sky, the aircraft corridors and approach areas for landing pads are on maps only. The hovercrafts will have navigation and automatic flight path following capabilities, but if you're a bird flying through the forest, there is nothing to hint that you're in the path of a busy flight corridor unless you actually see a hovercraft, and even then it could turn and change directions, you'd have no way of knowing what their path will be unless you've memorized the charts and have really good spatial awareness and ability to translate a set of coordinates denoting waypoints into where around you that actually would be. If they were unfamiliar with the part of the city they're in, they would disrupt hovercraft traffic by blocking their path at best, or end up in an instantly fatal collision at worst.

Birds in this world would definitely be smart enough to actively avoid hovercrafts and wouldn't place themselves in the path of one if they can help it, but the issue is having the information to do that in advance, and I really don't want to make this world cyberpunk and have glowing holographic tubes denoting every flight corridor and animal-restricted airspace. Actually, in-universe they really prefer to have cities, which are mostly inside forests, look as natural as possible even with their very advanced technology.

Does anyone have any ideas how I might be able to rectify this? Anyone else have naturally flying members of their society flying next to powered aircraft? How do you deal with it? Have you come up with any other aviation safety mechanisms that I might not have thought of? I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Finally putting this part of my world to text after holding off for so long trying to think it through. I'm very much looking for feedback on this whole idea and progression in my world. Please let me know what you think!

I should also mention that this is in no way in reference to or inspired by any human events or atrocities. That was not my intention, I did not go out and try to find for human tragedies that I could use for my own writing, and this is entirely a figment of my imagination, inspired mostly by other fiction and not real events.

Context for this world is that it is inhabited by intelligent animals, think Zootopia but more sci-fi, and with quite a bit more political and societal turmoil during the time period this post focuses on. Also, these are normal, animal shaped animals, not anthros. They do have human scale lifespans though, if only because a 15-20 year lifespan for a cat is not conducive to detailed character development.

I really need to start with some background information beforehand, otherwise the story feels incomplete.

A pervasive and central part of this world is the problem of predator and prey. But being intelligent animals with their own hopes and stories, it becomes very morally problematic very quickly to hunt and eat your prey, at least for some predators. This brings us to the Feline empire. Some cats came to really enjoy the screams and pleads of their prey and really put effort into making them suffer while eating them, in that way your cat at home plays with its prey and bats it around, letting it go and catching it again till it gives out. Other cats, the vast majority in fact, did not like hunting and eating other animals, but either had no accessible alternatives or the alternatives were prohibitively expensive, it's extremely hard to convert an obligate carnivore to eating plants, at least physiologically. Still others were completely opposed to eating prey and saw eating prey as eating their comrades and made every possible effort to avoid it.

But as you may imagine, the meat-free alternatives for obligate carnivores were quite limited. Omnivores like most canids had enjoyed something called a Dietary Enzyme Supplement for quite a while now, which is a pill that is taken either with every meal or at regular intervals, that arms the digestive system with artificial digestive enzymes, that can more efficiently break down plant matter, including cellulose, and use those breakdown products to synthesize nutrients in vivo. Nutritional supplements and synthetic meat substitutes had existed for even longer, but they were mainly compatible with omnivores, not carnivores. So Felines that wanted to stop eating prey and stay healthy were forced to mix and match various expensive enzyme supplements for omnivores (they were hard to get in Feline territory) with expensive "special" nutritional supplements, pay close attention to what plant based foods they're eating to get enough base nutrients like protein, and monitor very closely for the earliest symptoms of malnutrition. And if they were nursing kittens, they would be producing much less milk and less concentrated milk, leading to malnutrition in their kittens. Not to mention even weaned kittens are voracious little things and would be very expensive to feed without prey.

Collectively among the general public, issues with eating prey were weighing on their conscience, and there was a dream of a dietary enzyme supplement for obligate carnivores. A cheap and convenient thing for Felines to essentially go vegan. But their government was Trophist (pro-predation) and gave no funding to these silly ideas of cats not eating meat, and other carnivore groups didn't seem to care.

That was, until there was. Biochemist Nikita Almondtail and quantum chemist Yvonne Dandelionpaw (note that these are Reddit links while I'm editing those character profiles for posting on Lemmy) had developed ATDP, the first ever nutritionally complete dietary enzyme supplement for obligate carnivores. A pill that only had to be taken once a week, and which will not only allow Felines to digest and more importantly derive all their nutrients from plant based food, but to digest cellulose, and a range a food wide enough to include the softer raw plants. And critically, initial tests on Felines showed that it was safe for use when pregnant, and when nursing, could satisfy kittens' nutritional demands if done right, and could allow mother cats to produce just as much and just as high quality milk as pure meat eating cats. But, plant based food was more stable and reliable, higher output, and in a time when food insecurity and hunger was rampant among Felines just as it had been the nature of being a hunter, they could have a safe and reliable source of food that they controlled, no cat should go hungry again, all while making peace and even making friends with prey animals! Two cats developed ATDP no less, and it was tailored specifically for Felines! It used brand new technologies that the Felines had recently pioneered, including a newly discovered super-element called Intium. It was a triumph of Feline technology and science, and was poised to rid Felines of the need to kill and eat prey forever. That was, until the king of the Feline empire personally banned its production or further development, first stating that it unpatriotic and "against nature", though changed his narrative to saying that it wasn't safe for Feline to use after strong public pushback.

This triggered a series of events that would lead to the outbreak of the Feline revolution, quickly escalating into the Feline civil war. Unitist (essentially, vegan socialist) movements among Felines had been growing steadily for a long time, and this is not the first time Unitists engaged in civil disobediece and even attempted insurgency, but the banning of ATDP pushed the Feline population over the edge and support for a Unitist revolution skyrocketed. The public had had it with their Empire and was determined to dismantle it in favour of a Unitist republic, just like the Unified Territories next doors. The empire responded with violence and terror against these Unitist cells, determined to silence them. This was when Yvonne Dandelionpaw and Nikita Amondtail came back together, using the knowledge they learned from developing ATDP, namely protein science and Intium, to develop a weapon to turn the tides in favour of the Unitist revolutionaries.

They came up with something they called Catsbane, a neurotoxin developed by the Feline Unity Army and was used to assassinate numerous key figures of the Feline Empire they were trying to overthrow. Basically, they would find a way to tamper with the supply chain of mouse and bird meat, lacing the meals of the royal elite with the poison in highly targeted assassinations. There were even cases of captured prey animals slated to be eaten by high profile individuals who willingly took the poison in order to pass it on to the cats, with the long delay to symptom onset allowed them to not experience the effects until, you know. Being a pro-drug, the chemical would be absorbed through the intestines and slowly processed by the liver into its physiologically active, toxic form. It would then travel into the brain where it interferes with the surface proteins of neurons such as ion pumps and neurotransmitter receptors.

It was engineered to kill as silently and non-dramatically as possible. Victims would not feel symptoms for anywhere between days to over a week, at which point they will experience insomnia, disorientation and disassociation, memory loss, escalating into unresponsiveness and coma, before death comes about two to three weeks later. The "Catsbane stare" was coined to describe the blank expression late stage sufferers would develop as their brain shut down. The chemical is very difficult to detect before symptoms set in, and there is no antidote. Catsbane was also nicknamed "peaceful rabies", due to the fact that it has a period of no symptoms post exposure, is hard to detect until it's too late, and it targets the brain.

A total of 120 assassinations were carried out with Catsbane, all in the Feline Empire's military or royalty, and it was a major contributor to the success of the revolution, with most agreeing that cats would be still eating prey if it wasn't invented. Obviously, this was extremely controversial. Many supporters of the revolution argued that this poison was much more merciful than the cats who ate prey gave their victims (getting eaten would also be up there in horrible ways to die, but that's not a medical condition), while many others questioned the integrity of a movement by cats who claim to want to live in harmony with their former prey animals engaged in killing other cats.

After the revolution, the new Feline Democratic Republic, the Unitist republic, banned the poison as a Schedule 1 chemical weapon. The state-run Feline Science Institute is usually very open about providing anyone with their research and papers for free, but the synthesis of Catsbane is a notable exception. Some believe not even they have the synthesis procedure anymore and that all documents related to how to manufacture it was destroyed (they definitely still have it, though, in secret). Interestingly, the general Feline public had nearly complete support of these assassinations, but many prey animals (generally prey animals who lived in the nearby Unified Territories which was already Unitist for a long time) criticized it as even Unitist Felines were still killing animals, and highly polarized opinions among prey animals living within Feline territory (called the prey diaspora, long story). Many ended up trusting the Felines enough to stay and the Feline government post revolution is committed to making sure they are safe and can lead good lives alongside Felines.

For Felines themselves (all animals in Feline territory actually), the Feline government is constitutionally required to ensure both plant based food and dietary enzyme supplements will always be freely and readily available to all animals in Feline territory, as that was a massive part of the revolution. The signing and near unilateral support of the Interspecies Peace Agreement banned predation, for all Felines anywhere in the world, from the cheetah to the domestic cat, in theory forever.

There are rumours that the Unified Territories, which included the native territories and governments of their regular prey animals like rodents and birds, as wells as small to medium omnivores like dogs and foxes, aided the Feline Unitist side. But no they definitely did.

So this topic seems to be on the brain lately, actually been meaning to do a prompt like this for a while because I’m very much a stupid name enjoyer, but this seems like the right time. What are some organization names, or names in general, in your world that your characters think is stupid? Do people still actually use the name or do they have an informal substitute?

When it comes to anthropomorphic animals, designs tend to go in one of these directions:

• Embrace animal design and differences in anatomy
• Mostly human design with animal aesthetic

What I'm trying to envision is a world where furries evolved closer to the human design, but not completely.

What I would like to discuss is, how do you think bats would have developed, particularly their wings?

The "easiest" implementation is give them back wings. But that doesn't make sense evolutionarily. Bat wings are formed from their arms and "hands". Having an extra set of limbs emerge that replicates their "arm wings" they lost seems unlikely.

Ok, so how about leaving the wings on their arms? Sure. But now I want to toss another problem in this world. Hands gave us the ability to manipulate our environment and make tools. I feel that would have been a necessary step towards human-like intelligence.

Let's say their phalanges shrunk to be more finger like. This along with being human-sized should make their wings useless, right? Even if they kept long phalanges like they do now, would they still be able to have true flight?

If I assume the ability to fly is highly diminished, then the conclusion I'm making is that bats would prefer to maximize the ability to use their hands. In this world, bats would surgically remove the wing skin between their fingers to give them proper hands. Some may even remove all of it (and some fringe would keep it) allowing their arms to fit in standard clothing.

So, what do you think? Does this design make sense for this type of world? How would you design a bat?

Kind of a weird question I know, but let me explain. I'm not talking about your themes or messages, but the general feeling someone looking into your world or imagining themselves in it might get about the situation, when the world is not in conflict. Basically, you know how when you watch a franchise like Star Trek, it has certain recurrent moods and feelings, like the tranquility of flying through space, the bittersweet isolation of being on a ship in deep space, where you are close to your crewmates but far from everything else you know, and the general professional but still sufficiently jovial atmosphere that they seem to go for? Or with Pokemon when it's very adventure driven and based around meeting everyone you come across and making friends both with other humans and also with these magical creatures! I'm sure you can think of descriptions like these for your favourite franchises. We've all imagined ourselves in these worlds or imagined ourselves as characters in these worlds right? What were some of the vibes or feelings you imagined when you imagined your world? Or I guess another way of putting it is what would a slice of life exploration of your world be like?

This is a world I have created for roleplaying and storywriting. The formal description is still a work in progress. I would love some feedback on this long writeup!

Millions of years after humanity disappeared from Earth, animals have evolved to take their place. Technology is rediscovered from the ruins of the former human civilization, societies form and fall. There is chaos at first as different species fight for the dominance over the natural world that humans once enjoyed, but also because it was in the law of nature. The closest to achieve this was not a single species however, but the Unified Territories, an alliance of many member species from across the food web. Charters were established to abandon the barbaric rules of nature, allowing once natural enemies to live in peace.

Basic Information

The Unified Territories covers just under half of the Earth's land area, and controls at least one major splotch of land on every continent, and in every major biome. As the name suggests, it consists of land jointly owned by seven member taxonomic groups, which are in the order of joining, the vulpines (foxes), avians, rodents, dogs, mustelids (weasels, badgers, etc), leporids (rabbits). Feline territory is next door and is allied with the UT, but not formally apart of it.

Each taxonomic group has its own government, but must abide by two main treaties: the Interspecies Peace Agreement (ISPA), whose most famous term is the agreement to not eat or kill any other animal, UT citizens or otherwise, intelligent or otherwise; and the Unified Territories Charter (UTC), which is the actual treaty that signifies membership in the Unified Territories. Non-UT territories must sign the ISPA to engage in trade and formal relations with the Unified Territories, and the terms of the UTC require that joining territories sign and fully implement the ISPA before a request to join the UT is even considered.

Historical & Ideological Context

As animal societies evolved, different intelligent species began dividing up land area, forming boundaries and pushing out animals that were not allied with them. This resulted in areas ruled by animals belonging only one or two taxonomic groups. Alliances and rivalries quickly formed, followed by conflict, invasion, betrayal, annexation, and all the other trappings of emerging societies, rinsed and repeated for many a generation. All the while, technology and science is both being independently developed by the animals and unearthed from the ruins that the humans left behind.

This cascade of events arguably started when some groups of predator animals started to make alliances with what would have been their natural prey for their mutual benefit, which was often cooperation in battle, exchange of technology, or even trading of resources. While massively unpopular at first among both predators and prey, with time, the benefits of cooperation in a world with rapidly advancing technology would become more and more apparent, leading to wider acceptance of the practice. These alliances almost always included the stipulation that the predator animal would at least not eat the members the territory that allied with them, but sometimes the stipulation would extend to entire species or groups of species. In extraordionarily rare circumstances, predator animals would even agree to abandon eating animals altogether, in what can be thought of as a precursor to the Interspecies Peace Agreement. In these types of societies, predator animals gradually grew more accustomed to eating less meat, or even eating no meat at all, and began to see what once were prey species as allies that benefited them in ways other than being prey, maybe even collegues or friends. Some of these alliances became so strong that eventually borders between territories blurred and dissolved, and other species joined in the alliance, meaning even less animals that the predators were allowed to eat, but this supposed drawback faded in importance as the broader quality of life improved through the cooperative advancement of technology.

However, relationships between predators and prey at this point were such that if your species were in a formal alliance, they can't eat you. If you weren't, it was fair game. The threat of eating a prey species was often used as leverage by predators, basically comply with our demands or we'll start hunting you again.

This hypocracy was pointed out by scholars and philosophers on both the predator and prey sides, but for a long time not much changed because of the mostly monarchist empires that dotted the world that left no room for questioning the king's decisions. And even if there were, technology that can allow predator animals to subsist entirely on plant-based food simply did not exist yet. Some predator animals tried to get around the moral issues by eating only prey that have died of an unrelated cause, and this was quite controversial among prey species, with some figuring that it was better than living members of their species getting eaten, but others objected to the idea of the tomb of their beloved relatives being the belly of a predator (not the best material to make a casket with if you want to memorialize and preserve the departed). Nevertheless, access to freshly dead prey was mixed at best, and even if you swallowed the prey moments after they drew their last breath, the risk of food-borne infection was still much higher than live prey because most un-eaten prey animals died of disease, and this was still a pre-antibiotic era.

This is also when many species and taxonomic groups became one government, as it was advantageous to have a united, consistent front when negotiating or generally interacting with other species. Say you're a mouse. You see a cat, you know what to expect because who they can and can't hunt is strictly enforced by their empire, so if the empire promises they won't eat you then you can be reasonably sure every cat won't eat you. This makes you more likely to engage in trade with cats and generally benefit both parties. This idea of species and taxonomic governments survive to their modern age, but now serve the purpose of better representing common interests, needs, and opinions of similar animals, though even this is challenged and many believe that it's better in the long term to change to a single government for all Unitist animals, and abandon drawn borders and territories as well. Debates about this in modern times is as spicy as back then when they were discussing the idea of "If you ally with us we won't eat you," with most believing that while a full dissolution of territories and separate taxonomic governments is inevitable as animals commingle more and more, but their society of predator and prey is simply not mature enough for this to happen tomorrow.

Meanwhile, technology for processing plant matter to be more compatible with carnivores, as well as attempts to synthesize nutrients only found in meat were happening at a breakneck pace. Starting with various methods of cooking and fermentation, but slowly progressing to proper bio- and organic chemistry as the field became ever more advanced. At a certain inflection point, when technology for this had advanced far enough to completely replace animal meat for some predator species (omnivores first, the tech to convert an obligate carnivore to plant based food came much later), a new ideology began to crop up: Unitism, based on the word unity, specifically the motto "Unity Among Animals." The idea was that if your species was able to subsist entirely on plants, the eating your fellow animals was obsolete. That if, instead of worrying oneself with hunting or avoiding being hunted, if we all just came together and pooled our resources and knowledge, everyone taking care of everyone else and operating as a collective where things were jointly owned and animals' needs were provided for, we can all but eliminate suffering and make life better for every animal: big or small, predator or prey, furred, scaled, or feathered. The flagship treaty developed under this new ideology is called the Interspecies Peace Agreement, which, among many other protections and rights granted, forbids any animal, species, taxon, or other entity signatory to it from eating prey, with no distinction between if you have an alliance with them or not, and the treaty explicitly states that you cannot rescind it once signed. This is the founding document for two of the three major world powers in the modern day.

This is contrasted with Trophism, which says to eat prey and take care of no one but yourself. Based on the word... trophism, which is a biology word that refers to the process of organisms deriving energy and nutrients. The super technical way of saying eating food basically.

History of the Unified Territories

Arguably the first organized movement to abandon the food chain was jumpstarted by a red fox by the name of Akko. He lived in a territory with multiple predator-prey alliances, and one of the more powerful territories at the time. In his young adult life, he studied politics in hopes of becoming a general for the territory leader, but in doing so, he began to see the political dynamic as one that was, quote, "built on hypocrisy, unfair distribution of power, and injustice". He took exception to the notion of predator-prey alliances often being decided by heriditary territory leaders, sometimes "based on nothing but their personal preference". He thought it hypocritical for predator animals to decide who to eat and not eat based purely on their territory's political alignment, where were often unstable, and despised the fact that not preying upon a particular group was being used as a political bargaining tool. Furthermore, Akko saw a major problem in the ways that societies where very different animals coexist are set up. Smaller animals would often have an easier time affording living expenses, simply because the prices of food and other resources were consistent for everyone, but physically smaller animals required less resources. In response, tensions would still be present between even allied species, and descrimination would result. He also noted the inequalities stemming from class and lineage. In his many writings, speeches, and public demostrations, he advocated for a society where all intelligent animals had the same opportunities, and could live without fear that shifting politics would suddenly cause them to fall prey to their former allies. Akko referred his idea of animals living in harmony as "unity", and reasoned that the only way to achieve this would be to unite all territories, pooling their resources and providing to individual animals not equally in amount, but equally in the sense of satisfying their needs and giving them the same opportunity to thrive. He also believed that animals should not only refrain from killing or eating allied animals, but all animals, as the endgame of his ideology is to create a world where every animal lives in unity with one another.

The Unity Revolution was the period of time between the rise in popularity of the ideas presented by Akko and the formation of the Unified Territories. It consisted of many species and territory specific revolutions of varying degrees of peacefulness. Of note is the fact that the felines played an especially antagonistic role in many of the revolutions as they resisted the movement. The times where it seemed that the Unity Revolution would fail were almost all caused or contributed to by the felines, so needless to say, it would have come as a great surprise to anyone living at the time if they learned that the felines are now also Unitist and allied with the UT. Despite pushback from multiple fronts, the Unity Revolution eventually succeeded, forming the Unified Territories first between the vulpines, avians and rodents, and eventually more taxonomic groups, comprising just over a majority of the worlds's intelligent animal population.

Political Structure

As mentioned, each taxonomic group has its own separate government, which has the authority to make some taxonomy specific civil laws and regulations and provide taxonomy specific services with the most important one being healthcare. There are also regional governments for each geographic location that work with the taxonomic governments. However, most of the power is held by the UT central government that is comprised of all the taxonomic and regional governments collaborating with each other. The UT government, among other roles, owns all the land, controls most of the resources, and handles all taxonomy agnostic legislation, including criminal law and foreign policy. It also has the authority to overrule any taxonomic or regional government. Any citizens of species not apart of the seven taxonomies has no taxonomic government and only falls under the authority of the UT government and their regional government, but due to the UT's heavy emphasis on equality, their lives are not much different than those who also have a taxonomic government. The purpose for the taxonomic governments are to efficiently address the needs of individual species, which can vary greatly due to their physiological differences. With the amount of diversity in the UT, it would simply be too much for a monolithic government to manage effectively. However, most of this occurs in the background, and most services are provided simply under the name of the Unified Territories itself.

The UT government's main branch consists of the Unity Council, which consists of seats allocated both for each taxonomic group and by region, as well as representatives of non-native citizens. By design, every citizen receives equal representation through voting for council members as well as frequent referendoms and opinion polls.

Various ministries, such as the Ministry of Security, the Ministry of Resources and the Ministry of Housing exist as part of the UT government, and are the entities that allow UT society to function.

Society

UT citizens have public ownership of everything in their lives as it is all government run, and there are no private companies. Again, this is in order to ensure equality between animals and to place the citizens first. Essential aspects of life like food, housing and healthcare are rationed to each animal based on their needs both as a memebr of a species and as an individual, while credits are given in exchange for working in a job, which can be exchanged for luxury or otherwise non-essential items. Healthcare is always free, as is education as long as the animal meets the admission requirements. This also means that animals can study to work in a field that they have a genuine interest for instead of simply working to cover their living expenses. Science and technology are very popular fields for this reason, allowing for rapid technological advancement.

The Unified Territories recently reached a milestone where they, by some metrics, surpassed the technological prowess of humanity during their golden age, but one wouldn't be able to tell by looking at the surface of their society. There is a great emphasis on not making cities look too artificial, instead relying heavily on natural elements and the landscape itself, and even Central Valley, the capital city, looks more like a forest with technology and infrastructure peppered about as opposed to a human metropolis.

Of course it'd be pretty horrific to see a stuffed deer head mounted on the wall -- amongst a group of anthro deer especially, but amongst ANY anthro character too, I'd imagine.

But of course it all depends. Whenever we consider such things in an anthro universe, it inevitably comes back to this question of which creatures are "people" and which ones are "actually" animals. Feral versus anthro, I suppose.

My favorite example of this is: consider how the wildebeest in The Lion King aren't people -- they are just a mindless herd of animals into which Mufasa falls and then he's stampeded to death.

I don't really have a point here. I just wanted to share a thought that I had while writing my story, which is a setting where birds and fish are NOT anthro, and that's why it's "okay" for the seafood restaurant to have a giant swordfish mounted on the wall.

Felt this fit here since my settings are all quite furry

Skyshard has been my long term pet project since the start of early 2020. It's a universe to tell stories in, inspired by the media and stories I loved growing up. I'm proud to share it with folks here.

On my stories page in the link above, you can find my currently available lore docs and the short stories I've written to help expand the universe and flesh it out. Still working on my next work, just got a little hectic with my work schedule, but it's coming!!

When it comes to designing a fursona, most people focus on appearances, which makes sense. But, as with any character design, fursonas can have a surprisingly deep world behind them. Afterall, your fursona has to live in a world somewhere and their life would tell a story. But how was their story?

A story does not have to be written. A picture can tell a thousand words, after all. If you have made or commisioned multiple arts of your fursona, how did each of them relate? Were all the arts of your sona related to each other? Did they overall tell a continous story?

Your fursona may have a well-developed story overall, just a simple backstory, or not at all. That's fine, but even then, there are still a lot more things to consider with the world your fursona live in. The world your fursona live in should theoretically have a rule; some elements of worldbuilding.

And every fursona have a different world behind them: some people make every species in their sona's universe match the size of their wild counterpart, meaning that bear anthros are much larger there than rabbit anthros, while others make every species much more similar. So while a rabbit is smaller than a bear, the difference isn't as big (perhaps the size differences are closer to human vs another human, instead of irl bear vs rabbit). Another element is smell: some give their sona, especially dog fursonas, better sense of smell, while others never mention about this detail.

So what about your fursona? What other notable worldbuilding details did you put in your fursona's world?

> For me at least, my raccoon fursona doesn't really have a rich backstory or a story in general. She is a transgender raccoon girl who is socially awkward, always curious but also anxious. She is mostly left alone by everyone around her as nobody understands her and she doesn't understand anyone. > > Aside from that, she also lives in a wold where everyone is plantigrade. There are no digitigrade anthros even for digitigrade species like dogs, mainly out of preferences and a lack of drawing skill. Everyone also has similar sizes. While bears are bigger than rabbits, the differences aren't significant. > > One interesting thing is that regular, feral animals are also present in my sona's universe. They are indistinguishable from real life animals and mostly coexist with anthros. Anthros and ferals are completely different species, even if they're based on the same species. > > Overall, I think my worldbuilding looks generically similar to your average anthro universe worldbuilding. What do you think?

This is a follow-up of my previous post.

I've also had a few more question about tail furgonomics. Where would the tail go when sleeping or sitting?

I suppose chairs could be built with holes in them for tails to go through, but that would bring a problem especially for animals with larger and thicker tail. When sitting on a bus, for example, animals with larger tail might have their tail be in the way of someone behind them. Or if a chair were located close to a wall, there might not be enough space for larger tails to go through.

And when sleeping, would animals with thicker tail struggle to lay in their bed? Since their tail would get in their way, would they be forced to lay on their side? Would sleeping in a position where your tail is crushed under your body painful?

And what other problems would having a tail bring? It seemed like having a tail as an anthro animal could be a hassle.

But let's be honest, we view everything about anthro worldbuilding within the lens of a human, because obviously. But an actual anthro society would probably have figured out how to deal and manage with their tail problems the same way we did with our human problems. Their society might not even look like ours, so many problems they would've faced in our human society, whether caused by their tail or not, wouldn't apply. They would probably design their society around the fact that they have tails.

Though a bit of a struggle, we can find products for humans of all shapes and sizes. Shirts, pants, clothings are available of all sizes, even if some sizes are harder to find; left handed scissors exist; and more. So it would be possible for anthros to deal with the hassle of tails. But, it would still be a struggle, just like how much it is a struggle for us to buy shirts with unusual sizing.

But the last two paragraph might not always apply. I am interested in writing a story about a child who suddenly turned into an anthro while others still remain human, so they didn't have the luxury of anthro-animal-centric societies catering them. Since they were the only anthro, they would have trouble fitting in many ways due to their different, furry body. They had to figure out how to deal with their tail, fur, etc in a society not built for anthro.

With that I wondered, what other struggles would they have? What could potentially be a source of struggle or conflict for an anthro in a society of humans-- aside from discrimination, which would be the main focus of my story. And for more fun, what other adaptations or differences would a society of anthros have over human ones?

I'm interested in writing anthro stories, however, one problem I often worry is how I can imply that my character is anthro.

I can state the species of the character I'm writing, but I'm afraid that the reader will think the character is an actual animal instead of an anthrophomorphic one.

If I mention that the character is a dog, for example, the reader may think that they're an actual dog instead of an anthro one. While I can explicitly mention that the character is an anthro, whether at the beginning of the story or inside it, that does feel a little clunky. Writing "as the anthro dog walked around" feels forced.

I guess I can use descriptions to imply the character walks upright or is anthrophomorphic in some way, but that might cause exposition dump, and if I spread the description over the course of the story, it may cause the reader to lose context for too long. After all, it'd be bad if the reader doesn't realize the character is anthro until halfway through the story.

So, how should I approach this?

I hope it's OK if I use this space for a little bit of self-promotion. I'm self-publishing my debut novel and I'm just about finished with the plot summary blurb for the back cover. Take a look!

If everything goes According To Plan then the book will be available (ebook and paperback) in December!

> THE WOLFSKULL STANDARD > > By the abyss! Swashbuckling adventure, slice-of-life drama and furry tails come together in Charlotte Koch’s debut novel. > > Fenicia, the veteran golden retriever piratess, aims to become First Mate of the infamous band of buccaneers and their ship, Starry Vine. But when the unexpected loss of the Captain thrusts her into becoming Captain herself, she must quickly adjust to her new position while staving off the mutinous calls of Nimbus — a newcomer ram, and the former Captain’s own nephew. > > Nimbus' promises of wealth and glory are hard to ignore: his knowledge of the outside world and his connections to the wealthiest businessbeasts of Port Sokuit could help Starry Vine in their time of greatest need. All Fenicia has to do is abdicate the helm… > > Set in Azuaveria, an archipelago situated in the eye of a giant, endless hurricane, The Wolfskull Standard will take you on a voyage through uncharted territory in the realm of anthropomorphic fiction.

In a world full of anthrophomorphic animals, furries if you will, most species would have an additional appendages to humans: a tail. These tails can probably be used for ergonomics.

I was inspired to make this post when I remembered a picture of an otter with a tail bag- a bag attached to his tail- from reddit long ago.

I was thinking that many anthros would probably do the same thing or find other uses with their tail. Maybe they can use their tail to control stuff or operate vehicles, to show their emotions, or even as a third hand. But if their world was built around these uses for tails, how would they accomodate for different shapes of tails and species that lack one? Some tails are more flexible, others larger, others thin and small, and others are so small they barely exist (like the tail of a bear).

Their tails would also be used for aesthetic purposes. They would probably decorate them with items similar to how humans decorate their hair with hairpins and the like. Some may even wear covering for their tail. But with every species having different tail shapes, this would mean some tail garment may have to be tailored to specific species, especially tail covering.

So, would it cause jealousy when one species wanted to wear a tail covering that's only available to another species? Maybe Otis the Otter wanted to wear that beautiful tail covering, but it's only made for cats and his tail is too thick to fit. Also, some animals lack tail, so they won't be able to decorate their nonexistent tail at all. Some bears are probably jealous that their tail is too short to decorate with anything.

And finally, tail modification. Would some anthros snip their tail similar to how we do with cats? Would their people consider it body mutilation or just regular body modification like having a tattoo? Would it be treated as tradition, where in some cultures, some species (or even some gender of the species) have to cut their tail? How about tails that are too thick to snip without causing damage, like the tail of an otter?

There's a lot of possibilities on what having a tail can entail, so there is a lot of questions. Do you have anything more to add?

For your consideration, here's a novel I wrote a year ago. I'm almost done with the sequel. This book features a dragon TF and a few other TFs.

>Dragons Deep delivers a chaotic ride filled with romance and transformation. In a reality-shattered urban fantasy world, the barista James has a personal secret as to why he is alone. He tries to maintain his sanity while navigating a world littered with pocket dimensions filled with satyrs, werewolves, fairies, and other magical beings. One day a powerful sorcerer/bartender gives James the love lock ring, a magical artifact to attract true love. Only three different suitors appear— a rich lion daddy, a sloppy bear, and a literal knight in shining armor. Who will get the reserved James to crack? Can he overcome his secret to find true love? And what does this all have to do with his lifelong obsession with dragons?