Tyralpho



Tyralpho are strange, slightly mutated carnivorous animals that have the most IQ out of any nondomestic animal in the galaxy. They live in mass numbers on a planet consisting of all carnivorous animals (like Antarctica), so competition and survivability is low unless the planet is high-populated. They have three main legendary named individuals (described in the history) - Ventus, A'ris, and Ai. They are famous for building the universe's first animal-made ship that actually flies.

Description
Tyralpho seem to be quadropedal, purple, yellow-spotted doglike reptiles with narrow, long heads with hundreds of sharp, tiny teeth and long bonelike ears. Their eyes are a golden hue, and their tail is stiff and tough with a spurlike weapon at the end. They can use their tail to rip apart soft or medium-hard materials, such as their prey or wood from the gigantic trees on their planet. Their hind legs seem to be bare to the bone from the knee down.

History
Tyralpho are quite interesting animals, since their development of brain mass lead to their huge success on their planet. They aren't sentient and don't think quite like humans, but they can think instinctually, but not consciously aware that they are taking upon instinct. They are, however, capable of having basic independant thoughts and planning. They consider what to do at the time given, where to go, what to eat, and what is "good" or "bad". It is not known if they can go further than their limit of independant thinking by talking to themselves in their heads, fighting against two conflicted options, thinking like a human being, and so on. They do have some emotions, like happiness, sadness, anger, and curiosity.

When they evolved (a very slow process that took billions of years) to the form they have now, their IQ was almost the same as an average person. One particular day, a lone Tyralpho child was wandering around his father's territory and saw the glimmer of metal. He looked closer, and on further inspection, it turned out to be a spaceship. The Tyralpho, however, had no knowledge of spaceships and categorized it by 'flying beasts'. But rather than running away, he stood there, amazed at how such a dead-looking thing could fly. He immediatly wanted to fly with the Flying Beast, wanted to be the Flying Beast. He chased it around while all the other predators on the planet near the spaceship fled and squealed. Some were abducted, to the Tyralpho's amazement. He wanted to suck animals up in light. He wanted to be the smartest and best Tyralpho there ever was.

After a few long years of (not very complex) planning, he decided to take the wood from the trees and make a spaceship, then rub them with silverberries (a poisonous organ in one of the predators that was weaker than Tyralpho; they looked like berries) to make them have the same shiny appearance as the one ship before. It took that Tyralpho tens of years before it was finished; though it looked nothing like the first ship, he saw it as a great achievement.

He wasn't as concerned as how it could fly, but more if it worked. It was made entirely out of wood and animal leather. A piece of glass (from a chunk that fell from the first ship) was stuck on a piece of smaller wood near the front that reflected the light off their twin suns and glowed. The cockpit was basic and controlled the one wing that was loosely attatched to the ship, while the windmill-like propeller spun on its own from wind. The whole thing was very lightweight and the Tyralpho was hoping that it would fly the same way as the ship he once saw. Though gravity was unknown to him, the gravity of the planet was rather light and would help him to fly.

However, there was a problem; the Tyralpho just wasn't strong enough to propell the wing to make the ship fly. In frustration, he tried remodelling the ship but it was impossible. He abandoned the ship and left it in the mud to rot.

Though, the ship did not rot. It simply stayed, not getting any older. Several years later at a windy night, the Tyralpho found it and drug it out, cleaned it of the mud, and entered the cockpit. He started to propell the wing when the wind reached a strong gust...

And his ship flew.

It wasn't exactly flying, since he was only about a yard above the ground. In his excitement, he stopped propelling the wing and the ship hit the ground. Startled, he started to propell it more, and it slowly but surely lifted above the ground, inch by inch. Since the wind was strong, it made the windmill on the ship twirl fast enough to get it to accumulate some force to help lift it in the air.

Despite the poor design, the Tyralpho was able to get his creation airborne. He named himself The Air Master, or 'Ai' for short. He wasn't able to accumulate enough force to escape the pull of gravity and go to space, but he was proud to be able to soar above the trees, even though he was soaring rather low. His ship only worked when it was windy, so he had to do something else and hide his ship when it was a still day. But Ai took every chance he could get to fly it, since the feel of himself above everything else was more than what he could ever hope for. He was inspired simply by a visiting ship of another empire - in which nobody knew could be good or bad. Ai was never able to truly abduct an object, but abducting was no longer a concern of his since he was glad to be able to fly at all.

Ai, however, was rather aged when he was spending his days flying the ship, and he died about a month after the discovery of his ship's flying capabilities. His love for flying was passed down to his daughters, whom found the ship hidden in a cave and quickly learned how to fly it. They had also had some memories and insights of the ship passed down to them, and slightly modified the ship to where it was a bit more light, and soon they were soaring about a few hundred feet below the clouds - which is particularly far up.

Tyralpho have no need of breathing air. Why is not known, but the sisters were actually able to get above the clouds, where the gravity got weaker and weaker for the ship as it flew easier and easier, yet slowly and wobbly. They got to a point where they were past their planet's atmosphere and into space, though not very far.

However, they found it very difficult to fly the ship in space. It got barely any distance when an alien fleet of ships spotted them by the glass on the ship reflecting the twin sunlight. They flew over and tried making communication with them, but quickly realized that it was not a ship from any empire - it was a ship made by animals that somehow flew.

"How the heck did nonsentient creatures make such a bizarre and working ship?" One of the alienoid ship-drivers questioned (and is now quotted as an insult) then took Ai's ship to their planet, while bringing the sisters with them. They did scans of their brain mass and observed that they were not ordinary animals, and were some of the smartest they've ever seen. The sisters were smarter than to let them poke around their ship, so when nobody was looking, they fled, took Ai's ship, and flew away. Their escape plan was flawed but otherwise successful. They found it a little easier to fly in space though it still went slowly, and the alien's planet had a windy day but stronger gravity. They had no food or water tanks to weigh them down - but it was also a disadvantage since they had nothing to feed on or drink to survive.

Some people rumor that the sisters are still in space, flying their ship. The alien empire named the sisters Ventus and A'ris, which is Latin for Wind and Air. But nobody has ever seen their ship again, so people assume that they crash-landed on a planet from the pull of its gravity. But nowadays, people use the phrase "As bent as an Ai Ship" as an insult for calling a spaceship badly/poorly designed. We may never know where Ventus and A'ris are...or if they are alive.