That's a pretty big gun for a scout. . .

Venkats like big guns, regardless of what they do ;)

Don't we all. . . *daydreams*

Wow uh.... Thats a big gun you have there..... o.=.o I sure hope you mean scout as in observeing the surroundings and t look for the enemy secretly and not some up front combat scout thing...

They're up front scouts in the combat, that's why they have wings. Pretty much a point-man.

Badass and yet..still very alluring and sexy. Nice grin too! *two thumbs up!*

Thank you dude ^.^

You spelt Magazine wrong

Bugger, I knew I should have looked it up, my spelling is terrible... fixed now

Wow O__o You are incredibly observant. . . Seeing tiny writing, upside down, and then caring enough to see that it was misspelled. . .

I randomly noticed it. And plus, I enjoy teasing Beso. He loves it really :3

i soo want that gun...anyways neat pic. ;]

Thank you ^.^

Very cool indeed! Relaxed, yet powerful!

haha yeah, she's pretty relaxed with a gun like that

Pardon the late reply on a wonderful submission, but I'm catching up now on a close to 3-year backlog of art. Interesting idea and species. The wing system you're mentioning connected to bracings sounds like a flight-capable linear frame, essentially a cybernetic endoskeleton system that increases the person's strength much like a power armor would, but internal. It can, of course, synch up with a true power armor.

Yeah pretty much. I really like the idea of internal cybernetic upgrades to living creature, with small sections visible but the rest hidden granting them things like the ability to fly and have it feel as natural as having real wings.

For me, the point of a proper cybernetic upgrade (as opposed to medical cybernetics) is to enhance functionality while maintaining a smooth integration with one's sense of self and the ability to interpret the new sensations. It is one of the reasons I scoff at the classic images many prefer of HUD-like cyberoptic displays and data scrolling down ones' vision when looking for some piece of information. How much cleaner and seamless it would be if one simply /remembered/ the data or /perceived/ the "feeling" that target x is going to move in what have you direction and to aim there. All proper cybernetics to me should be by definition and nature natural, feeling second-nature in their use, their manner, where one doesn't need to put extra thought into it but merely /does/, and the equipment follows through. The abstraction for using it should be seamlessly tied to ones' sensorium and especially ones' proprioception, ones sense of "body wholeness" and body-sense.

As you might tell, I rather adore discussions on such. I'd also love to know more about the species! You have my attention!

Completely with you on that one. The scrolling text in front of the eyes thing is ridiculous, it really serves no purpose except to illustrate that sci-fi 'stuff' is going on. My interest in it is more from a moral point of view, because they are essentially altering who and what they are (a couple of my other pics in your backlog have that theme a lot stronger than this one).

It is arguable how much of a person's "uniqueness" is actually altered by such things as a neural net or vision augments, enhanced sensory capacity, etc. From what I can surmise, I am of the belief that the further one alters ones' self in a manner that is not an enhancement but a complete add-on of something new (such as the wing pack above, but not the implanted endoskeletal enhancement), the more one must skew ones' viewpoint form that of ones' baseline. Thus, the more alien one makes ones' self, the less "human" if you can use the term) you end up. Enhancements, on the other hand, even fairly radical ones (very wide-spectrum hearing and vision, enhance senses, strength and endurance, even to some degree armoring) call for less of a radical shift in ones' sense of self, as they are more easily integrated into daily life.

At the moral end, I am of a very transhumanistic bent: the ability of changing ones' self by ones' own choice is a right not to be abridged or curtailed, so long as that alteration does not jeopardize ones' mental stability. In this, I feel that as long as you are mentally prepared to deal with the changes you decide to make (up to and including complete discarding of ones' physical body to exist in a digital/infomorph form), or the completer swap-out of a body the way someone might change make and model of car is an acceptable thing morally. On the other hand, without excellent reason elsewise (such as where conventional punishments might completely fail to solve the issue, and therapy will not aid), forcibly changing another, whether physically or mentally via such techniques as memory editing and/or aberration, are tantamount to committing premeditated murder.

On a related note, if you would be so kind, please, tell me more about the species, these Venkat. I have a fascination with alien races, and especially those close to or already in their transhumanist development phase prior to the first major technological singularity.

Well yeah it does mostly come down to a point of view and you could argue the case that alot of bodily enhancements would just be simplifying external enhancements we use now, like cybernetic eyes instead of glasses, nural connections to computers instead of keyboards /mice and mechanical wings instead of cars. But the moral interest I have in it is kind of hard to explain. It is along the lines of 'changing what it means to be human'.

I've started a picture for this idea ages ago but I've yet to be happy with it. I'll try and explain it. I guess at its simplist it would be cheating death and as a consequence transend the natural order. In the picture I had the Venkat being pulled into the ground by tree roots that had pierced its body, to me that symbolises natural death, returning to the earth kinda thing. The tail has no mechanical enhancements. However at the top of the image the Venkats head and upper body has been heavily altered, with tubes and wires plugged into mechanical upgrades half visible below the flesh. The tubes and wires all lead up to a mechanical looking device with the word 'heaven'. This to me represents the transendence from organic (and subsequently naural order) life to an artificial one (I want to use the word spiritual but I don't quite think its right). Sorry for having to explain that as an image, I just find it so much easier to express my ideas as pictures.

As for Venkats themselves, they're quite spiritual creatures, very much aware of there place in the world. They are not above enhancing themselves if that be mechanically or with dark arts. There bodies are like a snakes (except this ones not that well drawn) so they can contort into impossible positions. They all have a Nether Dragon, which is a creature from the abysee. They act as an anchor for when they die so they are not lost in the Abysee and as a trade the Venkat itself acts as a conduit allowing the Nether Dragon a physical form in the mortal world.

Should just say I'm not a religious person but I find stories of other worlds unseen fasinating.

Ahh, I see where you're coming from. I suppose, being rather irreligious myself, I view the idea of ones' uniqueness, the sum functional total of ones' data (ranging from neural patterns, the unique holographic network of quantum connections that define our data and information, etc.) being the equivalent of, pardon the religious term here, ones' soul. Perhaps it is the engineer's mindset, the one that doesn't sit well with mysticism and religion, that leads me to consider immortality a birthright of the technologically-advanced sapient. I see fully where you come from when you say "the natural order", though. I suppose I think of the natural order as ending once one truly gains control of ones' environment and survival (technological developments humanity finally reached around 4,000 or so years ago, with the development of agriculture and the settled life style.) It is at that point where natural selection and thus evolution cease working, and the species becomes removed from the "natural order". From that point on, it is up to the sapient species to advance itself to the point where the last hurdles, disease and death and material scarcity, are conquered. Not necessarily in a destructive manner, said conquest, as there are other routes than the brute-force one, but definitely a conquest. Material scarcity can be ended fairly easily, though the effect on scarcity-style economies is devastating. Disease can also be conquered, though not easily, with a mix of genetic engineering, specialized medicines, and nanotechnology. As for immortality, once one gains the ability to simulate the entirety of the living network that is the mind, replete with the effects of hormones, in a data space (something currently suspected to require a few dozen exabytes of data), the last hurdle falls away.

As to the matter of the Venkat physiology, it seems to me that from your words the skeletal structure is primarily cartilage, with only a few parts truly made out of bone. I do like their flexibility, and by the GODS they're cute! As for the nether dragon link, this touches on things that aren't easily defined (as each person, I have discovered, has a different take on the non-physical / mystical end of things). Nonetheless, intriguing! I should warn you, I'm coming fairly close to asking a series of VERY detailed questions about them, because I'm liking them that much!

Be well, my friend, and I shall speak again soon.