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Description
No longer canon to the Vathyzoic project. It'll soon be replaced by a far cooler sapient with a well-developed history and culture.
A better drawing of it can be found here.

500 million years in the future, a new civilization emerges from the Tower Forests, a civilization created by creatures unlike any before them. The T'sirp-kritzak, as they call themselves, are an echinoderm descendant that lives on land, and are remarkably intelligent. Being around 1.5 times more intelligent than humans are today, this species created a civilization that came to develop much faster than humanity. This species is around 25 cm tall, using their feathery appendages to parachute or even fly when necessary. With a 5-rayed symmetry, they can only fly by moving their arms like a swimming jellyfish. This type of symmetry is rare among terrestrial echinoderms, showing that they diverged from other species after first arriving on land. The one shown in this picture is from around a level of advancement similar to the Middle Ages, characterized by its clothing and weapons. Its clothing includes 2 necklace-like fasteners for its "shirt", which is made from echinoderm "wool" derived from brittlestar's spines. The "wool" is taken from furry, bilateral echinoderms that live on the forest floor and are farmed in large cages. The weapon it is carrying has a cutting edge on one side of a blade, and many sharp spikes on the other. A short, stabbing dagger is on the other side of the handle. The mouth is located between the 5 legs, with a beak similar to that of a sea urchin. The eyes, derived from tube feet, are located on the ends of 5 arms, each with six fingers. These hands with eyes in the middle allow the T'sirp-kritzak to do fine work quite well, as they can look closely at the thing they are making while having 6 claw-tipped fingers that can individually grab objects. They are supported by an internal skeleton in some areas and an external skeleton in others, all of the bones derived from skeletal ossicles in their brittlestar ancestors. A single nostril is located on top of their head, attached to one central lung. Short arms surrounding this nostril allow them to carry large objects on top of their head.

Their feathery arms are useful in space travel, allowing them to fly around like a jellyfish in zero-gravity environments. When they became quite advanced, they made contact with humans, which gave information about technology even more advanced than what they already knew about. The two races went on to become some of the Milky Way's most advanced species, completely different from their original forms once technology started replacing biological components in them. Early space suits had an interesting design, and were more like small space ships. They had 5 portholes for the eyes to see out of, sleeves for the legs that had a robotic claw on the end, and a large bulb containing air on their head. The feathery appendages were folded up at first, like they are on the ground. Later designs had sleeves for all appendages, with rocket engines on the tips of the feather-holding ones that allowed flight. This species became a spacefaring species fairly quickly, actually building cities in space when they ran out of room on Earth. Along with humans, this species established colonies on 2 of TRAPPIST-1's planets, and made many deep-space missions outside of the galaxy using wormholes. Neither humans nor T'sirp-kritzak really died off, always finding ways to avoid the end of the universe. There were many other civilizations that were contacted throughout the universe, all as different or more different as the T'sirp-kritzak are from humans. Around 5,000 advanced civilizations were counted when all of its planets were completely surveyed, mostly being as advanced as the humans were when that was done. The incredible diversity of species was shown in this survey, quadrillions of non-advanced species also found.

Description
No longer canon to the Vathyzoic project. It'll soon be replaced by a far cooler sapient with a well-developed history and culture.
A better drawing of it can be found here.

500 million years in the future, a new civilization emerges from the Tower Forests, a civilization created by creatures unlike any before them. The T'sirp-kritzak, as they call themselves, are an echinoderm descendant that lives on land, and are remarkably intelligent. Being around 1.5 times more intelligent than humans are today, this species created a civilization that came to develop much faster than humanity. This species is around 25 cm tall, using their feathery appendages to parachute or even fly when necessary. With a 5-rayed symmetry, they can only fly by moving their arms like a swimming jellyfish. This type of symmetry is rare among terrestrial echinoderms, showing that they diverged from other species after first arriving on land. The one shown in this picture is from around a level of advancement similar to the Middle Ages, characterized by its clothing and weapons. Its clothing includes 2 necklace-like fasteners for its "shirt", which is made from echinoderm "wool" derived from brittlestar's spines. The "wool" is taken from furry, bilateral echinoderms that live on the forest floor and are farmed in large cages. The weapon it is carrying has a cutting edge on one side of a blade, and many sharp spikes on the other. A short, stabbing dagger is on the other side of the handle. The mouth is located between the 5 legs, with a beak similar to that of a sea urchin. The eyes, derived from tube feet, are located on the ends of 5 arms, each with six fingers. These hands with eyes in the middle allow the T'sirp-kritzak to do fine work quite well, as they can look closely at the thing they are making while having 6 claw-tipped fingers that can individually grab objects. They are supported by an internal skeleton in some areas and an external skeleton in others, all of the bones derived from skeletal ossicles in their brittlestar ancestors. A single nostril is located on top of their head, attached to one central lung. Short arms surrounding this nostril allow them to carry large objects on top of their head.

Their feathery arms are useful in space travel, allowing them to fly around like a jellyfish in zero-gravity environments. When they became quite advanced, they made contact with humans, which gave information about technology even more advanced than what they already knew about. The two races went on to become some of the Milky Way's most advanced species, completely different from their original forms once technology started replacing biological components in them. Early space suits had an interesting design, and were more like small space ships. They had 5 portholes for the eyes to see out of, sleeves for the legs that had a robotic claw on the end, and a large bulb containing air on their head. The feathery appendages were folded up at first, like they are on the ground. Later designs had sleeves for all appendages, with rocket engines on the tips of the feather-holding ones that allowed flight. This species became a spacefaring species fairly quickly, actually building cities in space when they ran out of room on Earth. Along with humans, this species established colonies on 2 of TRAPPIST-1's planets, and made many deep-space missions outside of the galaxy using wormholes. Neither humans nor T'sirp-kritzak really died off, always finding ways to avoid the end of the universe. There were many other civilizations that were contacted throughout the universe, all as different or more different as the T'sirp-kritzak are from humans. Around 5,000 advanced civilizations were counted when all of its planets were completely surveyed, mostly being as advanced as the humans were when that was done. The incredible diversity of species was shown in this survey, quadrillions of non-advanced species also found.