Felis sapiens
Felis sapiens is a fictional intelligent humanoid species from the Red Dwarf television series. The series generally refers to them simply as cats. Cats are the product of 3 million years of interbreeding with heavy radiation, all descended from a single pregnant earth cat, named Frankenstein.
Biology
Cats look very much like humans. The most obvious differences are the teeth, which are those of a carnivore rather than an omnivore, and the number of nipples (6). Internaly a cat is characterised by colour coordinated organs, a decorated stomach wall, and a hartbeat that sounds "cooler". Cats come in at least two races; they are capable of speech, and have a level of intelligence comparable with that of a human. The most important difference between cats and humans is an advanced sense of smell (they smell the words in their books) and an interest in cat food.
Culture, Religion, & History
Cat culture is strongly dependent on their religion, believing that a god known as Cloister will lead them to the promised land Fyushal. Cloister is said to be the father of the Cat people. He is reported to have lived years ago, at the Beginning. A religious conflict concerning the color (red or blue) of Cloisters hat lead to a Holy War between the two factions that lasted thousands of years. Most of the Felis sapiens population was killed in the fighting. A truce was called, and each faction built a spacecraft and left Red Dwarf in search of Fyushal. Each faction followed a sacred writing of Cloister, that they had interpreted as a star chart. The craft that left Red Dwarf first immediately flew into an asteroid.
Parallel universe
In the parallel universe cats do not exist. Rather, a race of creatures evolved from dogs exists instead.
Important cats
- The Cat : this is a main character in the Red Dwarf television series
- Old blind priest: this was the only living cat seen in the series except for the cat
- Dave Lister: this is not a cat, it is a human on which the mythical figure of Cloister was based
