Argon Bird

Intelligent Life in Anthropian Space 

The discovery of intelligent life by humans is not a clear-cut one. Not only do lightspeed limitations mean there were multiple instances of what, to a specific colony, was the first discovery of such life, but sapience is also difficult to define. As humans spread through space during the 38th and 39th Centuries, after rebuilding society only a few centuries before, multi-celled life proved to be abundant. While planets with biospheres similar to Earth's could only be found around one in ten stars, the number became much higher when accounting for other modes of life - namely those that used ammonia, methane, or sulfuric acid as a solvent in place of water. 

So there were no shortage of biospheres to study. It took a while longer for signs of intelligence to be found, although there were initially a lot of false positives. It has historically been common for humans to misinterpret certain traits as signs of intelligence; for example, on Xenosulia, many species within the order Dromeiformes have been known to construct spears. This behaviour is purely instinctive, and they show very little ability to adapt, or to apply their tool-use in new situations, in spite of the initial excitement this garnered. They are far from the only example, and at the extreme end, there have been eusocial organisms found to construct what can only be described as cities - further study indicates their behaviour is no more complex than that of ants or bees, just physically on a larger scale. 

Arguably, the first real signs of sapient life to withstand scrutiny can be found in archaeology. There are a few instances of colonists stumbling across structures that could only have been built by spacefaring civilisations. And while more primitive artefacts are far more common, finding something seemingly artificial on an uninhabitable body is harder to explain as just animal behaviour. But this only served to verify that other advanced civilisations must have existed in the past - very little was left of them, revealing few details. 

Extant sapient life took a while longer to not just find, but identify. Anthropocentric standards meant that in addition to the false positives, actual intelligence often went right under people's radar, at least if it wasn't made obvious with extensive tool-use. As mentioned, there were multiple instances of human colonies coming across intelligent life before knowledge of other similar discoveries reached them. No species found so far was in possession of any technology more advanced than stone tools, and none have developed anything comparable to agriculture. This is hardly surprising, given that only a handful of sapient species have been discovered so far. 

Argon Birds and Humans

Argon birds, as they are commonly known, were far from the earliest species to be identified as having human intelligence. But they do stand out in being the first that can inhabit a similar environments as humans. While their planet of origin, Argon, has oceans of an ammonia-water mix, the temperatures and pressures of the planet are comparable to Earth's, and the atmosphere is high in oxygen. Small amounts of nitrous oxide can cause problems for unaltered humans, but this is easily overcome by biomodifications, and Argon birds can easily survive without the gas. 

They were one of the first species found on the planet, running in herds through the open plains. The sounds they made wasn't identifiable as language to the first humans who encountered them, and most didn't wear clothing, so it wasn't until research into their cognition was done that people realised they were as intelligent as humans. It was clear they were smart quite quickly though, with Argon birds showing a lot of interest in early colonists, often entering settlements and interacting with them out of curiosity. Neither species made any attempt to learn the other's language this early on - most didn't consider it a possibility. 

Nowadays, communication between humans and Argon birds is a frequent affair. Humans avoid settling too extensively on Argon, leaving plenty of space for the "birds" to roam the open fields, with most human inhabitation within the system constrained to Neon. Some on the planet have readily integrated human technology into their lives, while other, more traditionalist groups prefer to avoid any human influence. There are also a large number of Argon birds living off-world, freely intermingling with human society, their ability to tolerate human-inhabitable environments greatly facilitating this. With Argon fairly close to the active region (the area of space with frequent interstellar trade via laser propulsion relays) they have been able to spread very quickly. 

As both species got better at communicating with one another, Argon birds were found to be incredibly friendly by human standards. It's uncertain whether this is cultural, or if sociability is psychologically hardwired into them as a herd species, although this trait is shared among individuals originating from culturally disparate parts of the planet. They also tend to be very curious, and are quick to learn human science and technology. They're known for having an unusual sense of humour, often difficult for humans to understand - this can manifest in bizarre, confusing comments or actions, but sometimes they will engage in somewhat easier to comprehend trickery or mischief. According to many Argon birds, befuddlement only makes the former funnier, so humans are preferred targets.  

Anatomy and Biology

At least superficially, Argon birds resemble flightless cursorial birds like emus and ostriches (their legs being especially bird-like), something that was noted by the early colonists who named them. While this is in large part an example of convergent evolution, since they don't have flying ancestors the comparison isn't exact. And while I have used the term "species" to refer to Argon birds as a whole for convenience, it's worth mentioning that the term "Argon bird" refers to the numerous members of the genus Ornithodromus as a whole, all of which are equally intelligent. Pictured is the most widespread species, O. argensis, but others, such as O. oxyrhamphus, are almost as common both on the planet and offworld. 

Argon birds are bipedal - in fact, no large land animals on the planet have more than two limbs. Instead of using separate limbs for tool-use, they use their feet, each of which has three fingers and two opposable thumbs. The middle toe bears most of their weight as they run, sacrificing dexterity for sturdiness, with the two on each side playing some role in locomotion without being too specialised. The thumbs are lifted off the ground entirely, freeing them up to be dedicated to tool use. When manipulating objects these thumbs do most of the work, assisted by the outermost fingers, and they look remarkably like human thumbs.

The neck is long, not only so the head can be lifted high to spot predators, but also for easier grazing and sifting in the "grass" for "bugs". They have six eyes, although the image formed by the frontmost and rearmost pair is very blurry. When looking at someone, they will point one of the middle eyes towards them, turning their head to the side. The eyes individually have a limited field of view, with the middle eyes especially sacrificing that for resolution. They're unable to turn their eyes in their sockets, which, internally, have a cylindrical structure, resembling the eyes of spiders, and the lens covers the entire eye. 

Their beaks consist of four parts, with two upper jaws and two lower jaws. Inside the mouth itself are a number of other feeding parts, including finger-like "tongues" - each with jointed bones - and an inner beak at the back of the throat. There are also sacs able to draw in a limited amount of air, used to facilitate sucking liquids into the mouth - as their lungs aren't connected to the digestive system, they can't take on this role. While this is common on Argon, these sacs are especially developed in Argon birds themselves, who use them to vocalise in addition to their breathing tubes, allowing for the production of a more complex set of sounds. They're able to learn to speak the human languages that exist post 39th Century, like Gontanic and Ekuanese, using their anatomy to produce rough approximations of the phonemes. Although their speech sounds unusual, it's surprisingly understandable, especially by those used to hearing them speak. This is far from universal among sapient species, and may play as much a role in the degree of interaction between humans and Argon birds as their environmental preferences. 

As mentioned, the oceans of Argon contain a mixture of ammonia and water, and Argon birds need both to survive. The mixture serves the same purpose as water does for life on Earth, making up a large portion of the cytoplasm of their cells and acting as a medium for most biochemical reactions. Pure water is actually dangerous for them to consume, which is too acidic, and drinking water too poor or too high in ammonia can interfere with their pH over time. Interestingly, they report pure water as having a distinct, sharp smell, while ammonia solution is odourless to them.