Specimen 24: Supox Utricularia
World of Origin: Beta Librae I (Vlik)

Before meeting the Supox, human xenologists had theorized that the development of intelligent, tool-using life among plant-like life forms was highly unlikely. They presumed that it would be much more difficult for plantlike cells, separated by cell walls, to develop the complex specialization needed for a sentient brain, and much less likely for a photosynthetic niche that encouraged a sessile lifestyle to lead to intelligent behavior. Interestingly, in studying their own origins Supox scientists came to very similar conclusions, expressing confusion among themselves as to why Supox should have achieved sentience rather than an animal-like species, and how the complex, incredibly unlikely seeming structures that allowed Supox intelligence and mobility ever evolved. Many Supox saw these factors as a convincing argument that the Supox had been divinely created or at least artificially created.

The Supox are thus aware of their unusual place among sentient species as well as the tendency of most species, descended from animal-like life forms, to see the Supox as descendants of a kind of life they only thought of as background vegetation or food. The Supox generally take derogatory references to their plant nature in good humor, though they do take moral offense at the assumptions of animal-based life forms that sentience, even in its most primitive forms, is something only animals share. They are particularly offended by animal-based sentients that adopt a vegetarian lifestyle for moral reasons, who assume there is a degree of sinfulness in killing even the least intelligent animal but that all plants are free for animals to consume. Given their own long struggles to survive on their planet's surface and their history of constantly attempting to peacefully cooperate with species of all kinds — plant and animal, sentient and nonsentient — they take grave offense at animal sentients who see them as food (even in a vague, indirect sense) simply because they are plants.