Notes on Ship's Cats
13 Jun 2019Ratkatcher
Just some of the stuff I picked up from Pilot Training, the PF lecturer we had in our class was a bit of an oddball...The cats we take with us are actually descended from Old Sol stock. When researching for the ideal companion to accompany long-haul scouts, back in the day, both cats and dogs were tested, dogs didn't like the black, or low-gravity life it seems, or maybe it was just a lack of trees. Cats on the other hand had historically spent thier lives on actual seafaring ships (so much water, all in one place! I've promised myself a holiday on a wet world, one day...) and seemed a logical step from wet ships to dry ones.
A breed called Ragdoll proved suitably laid-back enough for starship life and a breeding program set underway, an orbital station that remains unnamed to this day is responsible for the supply of these spacefaring felines.
Did you know that all of the space cats, even if they are called Tom, Fang, or Hector are female? It seems that no amount of genetic editing could stop male cats spraying urine...
From around the introduction of the Anaconda as a purchaseable ship to PF members the escape pod was modified from the type 4a (remember that one? It had 'interesting' deep-sleep features, some pilots complained of years of nightmares before rescue... even if they had only been days in transit!) to the type 5c, with integrated Remlok Kitty-Krait. The 5c through to the current 7a are all programmed to preserve the feline cargo ahead of the human - a sobering fact!
It was noted by many scout pilots, in the early expansion days, that the ship's cat would be seen to leave the pilot's side to hurry into the Remlok, this behaviour preceding a catastrophic event that would have the pilot (and cat) going back home in an escape pod.
This oddity was investigated by the PF and the military and found to be repeatable, somehow space kitties could predict disaster a few seconds ahead of the event. There is a paragraph buried somewhere in the Pilot's Manual detailing this behaviour and sugesting the pilot follow rapidly - but who reads it anyway?
If you have a Ship's Cat, do you remember the interviews prior to the request to accommodate a cat on your ship? How many stupid questions? Then being told a 7 digit credit cost for the cat and Kitti-Krait registration? Then waiting another 6 months before you could get the darned thing? It seems that the 'interviewer' was a front for brain-wave scanning, from all the tat questions they determined the 'purrfect' companion - it worked - wasn't yours 'exactly what you were looking for?' Kitty had to be genetically edited to be yours, that's why you waited, and why she was so right!
So there you have it, keep an eye on your Co-Pawlot - if she legs it, follow, you'll both be safe
