Physical Characteristics and Evolution of the Ionians

Life evolved on the planet Ionus more or less in parallel to the way it evolved on Earth. For more than a billion years after the evolution of the first cells, quasi-prokaryotic (non-nucleated) single cell organisms were the only form of life, just as on Earth. Approximately 2 billion years b.p., microorganisms formed colony cells comparable in many respects to the eukaryotes that evolved on Earth, which, in turn, evolved into various complex macroscopic life forms. The planet itself and its star system is actually just a little bit younger (4.7 billion years as opposed to around 5 for Earth), but the evolution of life followed a similar course. What could be described as phyla of complexly structured marine animals and plants had emerged by about 600 m.y.b.p. Among these phyla were wormlike organisms that were segmented in a manner somewhat comparable to the arthropods of Earth, and others that were more or less similar to the chordates, which became the ancestors of fishlike creatures and subsequently most land animals, including the xenosophonts.

Unlike on Earth, the dominant body plan of the appendaged land animals and some of their marine ancestors featured six limbs rather than four, although in many lines the uppermost limbs evolved into feeding apparatus and communication appendages. Evolution happened to favor not vocalization, but the production of sound from friction with stretched membranes or cords, as the dominant means of animal communication. In arboreal animals somewhat comparable to Earth’s primates, the uppermost limbs became adapted to serving this purpose, with the evolution of complex ability to produce and recognize sound patterns used for rudimentary communication, but in parallel, the uppermost limbs served as grasping and manipulating appendages, while the middle limbs were used for brachiation and to assist four-limbed walking. Thus, Ionian "monkeys" and "apes" were radically different in appearance and many functions from Earth’s analogues, but nonetheless can be seen to be an example, to some degree, of convergent evolution.

The line of these quasi-primates that led to the Ionian sophonts had a highly developed capability to produce complex harmonic sounds, and eventually emerged from forests and became adaptive enough to live in many different environments on the planet. At the same time, much like the emergence of apes and humans on Earth, they became erect in posture, using the lowest pair of appendages as legs, the middle appendages as “arms,” with strength and grasping ability, as well as sometimes for balance or four-footed walking, and the uppermost appendages for fine motor activities and feeding. Both upper and middle appendages have four-digit hands, with opposing digits (“thumbs”), although the detailed architecture is quite different from what emerged on Earth.

Similarly, the head of an Ionian is quite different. They have binaural hearing, from bony “ears,” which is extremely acute. Their vision is binocular, from recessed eye sockets, and they have a comparable degree of expressiveness associated with eye movement and position. They have chemoreceptors (comparable to a “nose”), but these are located in vents in the neck area, not where the mammalian nostrils would be. The mouth is more radially symmetrical than in Earth mammals, and has “teeth” on the sides as well as top and bottom. The muscular and bony structures involved in “chewing” are complex and precisely coordinated; the upper appendages also participate in breaking food into small bits and inserting it into the orifice. Communication is not vocal, but by the production of musical tones from twin membranes on either side of the mouth, held taut or allowed to slacken differentially, to produce complex harmonic variations and timbral changes of sound over time with extreme precision and neural control, by a neuromuscular structure with bony supports. The sound is partly produced by scraping with a unique structure on one of the digits of the upper “arm.” Both sides of the head can produce intelligible “language,” although greater fluency is attained through using both, so when conversing or delivering formal or detailed communication, an Ionian will use both “hands” and both “cords” to “speak.” The language itself is “musical.” There are timbre and “attack” features which might be compared to consonants and vowels, but the language does not divide only horizontally, as time and rhythm, into words and sentences, but also vertically, through use of simultaneous tones to create harmonic information, which amounts to the ability to speak simultaneous “words.” The syntactic structure of the language is extremely complex; so much so that it is generally considered effectively impossible for any human being to master Ionian language, even to simply understand it. There was developed, in early days of the human/Ionian interaction, a simplified set of signals (“words”) that Ionians could use to communicate to humans. Ionians' artificial mental and cybernetic enhancements discussed below have become universal; un-augmented (or "species") Ionians continue to exist only in a few remote habitats where cultural peculiarities or extraordinary historical circumstances have occurre). Thus, Ionians typically are able to learn, and quite accurately mimic, human language, and most interspecies communication, from the earliest times, has been conducted in human languages. The now-unified common written language of Ionians is also fiercely complicated, although here there have been a select few human beings who have gained some technical proficiency in communicating with it.

Ionians’ skulls call to mind the head of a praying mantis: they are broadly triangular in form, with a large cranial bulge in the frontal area. The skeletal system is both internal and external, so the natural head surface is hardened and less vulnerable to injury than is true of humans. Moreover, for the past 100,000 years or so, modifications in the form of artificial helmet-like cranial cases, closely fitting to the skull and providing cybernetic enhancement and electronic communication directly to the brain, have become universal. With this enhancement, the typical Ionian is undeniably substantially more intelligent than a typical un-augmented human being; as well as being capable of accessing a vast amount of information accurately (in lieu of “memory”); and capable of advanced powers of deduction and real-time calculation. The skull, and, in simulacrum, the artificial prosthesis, as well as the entire body, are typically covered with extremely fine feather-like structures, which are often jet black, but sometimes complex patterns resembling some terrestrial birds, usually in shades of white, tan, brown, and black. Ionians’ eyes are invariably brown, with no whites.

Ionian medical technology and enhancements, including connectivity to cybernetic systems, have been advanced for so long a time that the lifespan of an Ionian, (despite the fact that the pre-technological or un-augmented species was actually slightly shorter-lived than humans), has gradually been extended to the point that Ionians can, if they choose to, live essentially indefinitely. As a practical matter, individuals older than about 500 years are exceedingly rare.

Reproduction in the pre-technological un-augmented species was sexual, and remains so, although the emphasis on sexuality in culture was and remains less prominent than among humans. Sexual activity is pleasurable, and is very common, but does not have quite the central social and pyschological role in the life of Ionian civilization as it does among humans. The birth of young is never, in modern times, accidental, but is a relatively rare event planned purposefully. "Children" are pampered and treasured, but it also a generally accepted truism that Ionians have developed over a very long history a thoroughly efficient and accurate science of Ionian psychology, which makes the rearing of young with generally few mental and emotional problems much more a matter of routine than has apparently ever been the general case among humans.