abstract
| - The Tarkas are a reptilian species, sharing many outward physical characteristics with terrestrial lizards although their internal structures and highly evolved brains are very different from anything seen in the reptile species of Earth. The Tarkasian culture is very ancient and has been remarkably stable in the long term, allowing for hundreds of thousands of years of recorded history and over five hundred years as a space-faring race. Tarkas can live in a variety of gravities and temperature zones, but they seem to prefer warmer worlds for their large colonies. The environment of the Tarkasian homeworld is one of extreme brutality and fierce competitiveness and the early Tarka faced many predators, both massive and small. During the course of their evolution, the Tarka have become a social animal which bands together for mutual protection and defense of the young. The pre-sentient Tarka were an amazingly effective race, and spread swiftly over several continents. However, evolutionary pressure on their homeworld was so intense that sentience was ultimately the one adaptation which made them the top of the planet's food chain. Scientists have speculated that their species must have evolved in a dense arboreal environment. They have retained many features we still associate with tree-dwelling species and they seem to have evolved very much in the pattern that one might expect from an arboreal social primate on our own world. To capture the flavor of Tarka society on their homeworld today you would have to imagine something much older, much more stable and infinitely more ornate—like the Imperial Chinese or the ancient Egyptians. The Tarkasian Warp Drive, however, is a unique technological achievement—no other species has mastered this technique of faster–than–light travel, and the secrets of the Tarkasian warp engine are jealously guarded.
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