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Felis sapiens (rendered "Felix Sapiens" by Kryten's replacement in the episode "The Last Day") 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 inbreeding 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, the ears are higher up on the head (this trait is in the novels only), and the number of nipples (6). Internally a cat is characterised by colour-coordinated organs, a decorated stomach wall, and a heartbeat that sounds "cooler" than a human's. 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.
Cat culture is strongly dependent on their religion, believing that a god known as Cloister will lead them to the promised land, Fuchal (pronounced "Fyooshal"), where they would open a Temple of Food. Cloister is said to be the father of the Cat people. He is reported to have lived years ago, at the Beginning, and was willingly "frozen in time" so the cat race could exist. This religious dogma parallels the true story, and Cloister is in fact the anto-hero Lister. A religious conflict concerning the colour (red or blue) of the hats that the people who served at the Temple of Food were to wear led 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 Fuchal. The faction who believed the hats should be blue followed a sacred writing of Cloister, that they had interpreted as a star chart, and immediately flew into an asteroid. It is not known what became of the second spacecraft.
In the original episodes, the last remaining Cat Priest was able to provide further insight into the nature of the cat religion. He tells Lister that he sublimated his natural instincts to be neat, clean and well groomed, instead chooseing to emulate Cloister, by "wearing the sacred curry stains".
In the novel Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers, the war is over whether the god is called Cloister or Clister, rather than the color of the hats. And the promised land is named "Bearth" for Earth, rather than "Fuchal" for Fiji.
The Cat race apparently had wise old people in its history who formulated several "wise old Cat sayings". These sayings range from the rather intelligent "It's better to live one hour as a tiger than a whole lifetime as a worm" to the not-so-brilliant "What are you talking about, dog-breath?"
Food (fish and birds in particular) is of central cultural and economic importance. Due to voracious consumption of food, five fish is the equivalent of being a millionaire. Appreciation is shown to someone who gives them food by licking that person. In true feline fashion their food is given a chance to escape, which means they taunt it with a song. Whenever an unknown presence (including strange humans and humanoids) is met they make themselves look big by raising their arms above their head and pull a snarling face. This is to prevent getting eaten by the stranger. Cats also love what they call "shiny things" and will play with the object. Any attempt to take the "shiny thing" from a Cat may result in the offender being eaten.
As a whole cats are extremely vain and love mirrors almost as much as their actual selves. In fact, they are so self-centred that if they had to give someone a present, it would most likely be a belonging of their own which they hate and want to get rid of.
A cat relationship lasts for three minutes, and they do not refer to each other by name at any time.
Technology
The Cat wears clothes, in a particularly garish style, and it's implied that all other cats dress well. They developed the trouser press before the wheel. The Cat launders his clothing by licking it, as a house cat would; he merely sprays his tongue with detergent first.
Whenever he enters unfamiliar surroundings, he removes a small spraycan from his lapel and begins spraying objects, reciting all the while, "This is mine, this is mine." This is apparently a technologically-based scent-marking of his territory, the exact contents of the can are uknown.
Most of their other technology, particularly spacecraft, was stolen from the cargo hold of the Red Dwarf. In particular, they depended on canned food for survival. In the novelizations, the first tool discovered by cats is a can opener.
The Cat race learned English by watching The Flintstones. They also have a spoken language: the only word known is Jozxyqk, meaning "the sound you get if you trap your sexual organs in something". They use their scent to read books and the same smell can mean different things. Dave Lister's underwear was a prime example of this case. Lister can read a cat authored Dick-and-Jane early primer by strongly sniffing the pages, but relies on Holly to translate more complicated works, like the Cat Bible.
Parallel universe
In a parallel universe cats do not exist. Rather, a race of creatures evolved from dogs exists instead. Unlike the cats, Dogs are very smelly and dirty and hate baths. They offer their bottoms for strangers to smell and are terrible dancers.
Important cats
- The Cat: this is a main character in the Red Dwarf television series
- Frankenstein: the Holy Mother, Dave's cat that was the mother of the entire race
- 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
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