#bifurcators

Soooo... Bifurcators are sort of simple looking critters with a variable amount of arms radiating out of a central chassis. The chassis is rigid and probably the only bone they have, and it contains their important internal organs. The arms, meanwhile, are entirely muscle. They can stiffen for gross motor functions like walking, or relax and split apart for fine motor functions like manipulating objects.

What's new is that they've now got little sensory pores all over their chassis which serve a variety of functions. I imagine that, like their arms, a bifurcator can have a variable amount of them. Pores can be eyes, ears, olfactory organs, airways, mouths or pit organs.

Not too dissimilar to earthling starfish, they have an eversible stomach they can throw up. I'm thinking their insides are hot pink. For funsies. (What makes it that color? I'm still working on that.) Unlike starfish, however, they don't have a through gut. They just absorb whatever nutrients they can get their Goofy Pink Feeding Appendages on and then spit out the excess later. Generally, a bifurcator will only have one of these, but it's not unheard of to have multiple. It's usually seen as rude to have your feeding appendage out for no reason, since those digestive enzymes can seriously burn...

Their visual acuity is generally poor, having very small eyes, and in recent times many have lenses fitted onto their pores for better focus. 360 vision is easy for a bifurcator to achieve, provided they have more than one eye.

As for their pit organs... bifurcators can see both visible and infrared. (Hence their translated morph names of "cold" colors) This helped them maintain spatial awareness in pre-industrial times when many bifurcators lived in sheltered (and thus dark) cities or caves to escape from the harsh radiation of their star.

Pit organs and eyes aren't always near each other. Oftentimes a bifurcator will have enough pits and eyepores to see in both visible and infrared all around them, but other times a bifurcator may only have eyes on one side and pit organs on the other, giving them rather strange vision.

a question for not me

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Some chimeric bifurcators...

Bifurcators are not immune to the craze of designer babies. Historically quite rare, chimerism has become immensely popular since the release of genetically modified bifurcators who are chimeric on purpose.

The majority of them are random patchy/blocky chimeras, but some more intensive (and exclusive) technologies can create bifurcators with one genotype entirely limited to a specific pattern or even a single limb. These days, most artificially chimeric bifurcators are made into such a way with cloned genes donated from existing bifurcators. This draws some controversy.

An updated height chart! Featuring the majority of my confibulans.

"Human Guy" is a stranded human survey pilot residing on Confibula Ba-III/d, an abandoned human colony and homeworld of the palindromes. He was discovered by Patrick and now travels with him. He was born on Earth, briefly worked on the Earth's moon, then Confibula Ba-IV/e's moon named Adam, and finally crashlanded where he is now. He's currently wearing an experimental suit he found in some old wreckage which manages most of his bodily functions and prevents him from getting poisoned.

"Patrick" is a central woodlands palindrome residing in the confibulan plains. He was booted out from his social group and now travels with Human Guy.

"Skunk" is a saltpan phony, an aberrant mutant version of a palindrome that looks like a cartoon pony.

"Snowdrift" is a mixed woodland/tundra palindrome who looks just like a grassland palindrome and lives in the prairies as well, so might as well be one. They're one of Patrick's kids that he abandoned. They now live in a grassland city around a tent.

"Fallstreak" is Snowdrift's sibling. They have a mutation that reduces the amount of stretchy skin they have, so they look distinctly "shrinkwrapped" and have translucent patagia.

"Tear" is a grassland tent with an enormous hole in their side (not pictured). They have difficulty feeding normally but are often fed by passing travelers, especially Human Guy and Patrick who use their body cavity as a shelter.

"Porcelain" is an off-white coralline bifurcator with three base limbs. They are a software developer who lives on a station off-planet.

"Eigengrau" is a cold-black stellate bifurcator with seven base limbs. They work with Porcelain and also live on a station off-planet.

"Tuxedo" is a chimeric vivid-black/cold-white coralline/stellate bifurcator with five base limbs. Unsure what they do for a living, but they probably live on-planet on Confibula Bb-II/b.

"Cloth" is a sophont AI developed by bifurcators who ended up in the hands of Porcelain and Eigengrau and made to mine cryptocurrency for them. It has since escaped and drifted around from station to station, ended up on the human terrestrial base on Adam, and wound up on Confibula Ba-III/d where it can be found aimlessly floating across the landscapes or attempting to possess defunct human vehicles. Pictured is its naked brain, a white sheet of nanotubules finely woven together.

"Hare" is a sophont AI developed by humans, stationed on the Adam base. She has a number of ambulatory "doggy" bodies, one of which is pictured, numerous mobile arms inside nearly each building, and partial control over most vehicles.