Felis sapiens (designated
Felix sapiens by
KrytenKryten is a fictional character in the British science fiction situation comedy Red Dwarf. Kryten's registration code on Red Dwarf is "Kryten additional 001". The name Kryten is a reference to the head butler in the J.M...
's replacement Hudzen-10 in the episode
The Last Day"The Last Day" is the sixth, and last, episode of science fiction sit-com Red Dwarf Series III, and the eighteenth in the series run. It premiered on the British television channel BBC2 on 19 December 1989. Written by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, and directed by Ed Bye, the story is about Kryten's...
) is a fictional,
sentientSentience is the ability to feel or perceive subjectively. The term is used in philosophy as well as in science fiction and in the study of artificial intelligence...
,
humanoidA humanoid is a hybrid term from Latin humanus "human" and the Greek -oeides expressing likeness. The term was coined in the year of 1918 to refer to fossils considered close to human but not strictly human, including species now classified as Homo such as the Neanderthals.The term more generally...
species from the
Red DwarfRed Dwarf is a British television situation comedy franchise, primarily comprising eight series of a television sitcom that ran on BBC Two between 1988 and 1999 and gained a cult following. It was created by, and the first six series were written by, Rob Grant and Doug Naylor...
televisionTelevision is a widely used telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images, either monochromatic or color, usually accompanied by sound. "Television" may also refer specifically to a television set, television programming or television transmission...
series. The series generally refers to members of species simply as "cats". They are all originally descended from a single pregnant domestic cat of
TitanTitan most often refers to:*Titan , a class of deities who preceded the Olympians in Greek mythology*Titan , the largest moon of the planet Saturn* Titan -Music:*Symphony No...
origin named Frankenstein, which
Dave ListerDavid "Dave" Lister, commonly referred to simply as Lister, is a fictional character from the British science fiction situation comedy Red Dwarf, portrayed by Craig Charles...
bought on
shore leaveShore leave is the leave that professional sailors get to spend on dry land. It is culturally infamous for its excess.During the Age of Sail, shore leave was often abused by the members of the crew, who took it as a prime opportunity to drink in excess, indulge in other pleasures denied to them...
on a colony on
TitanTitan , or Saturn VI, is the largest moon of Saturn, the only moon known to have a dense atmosphere,
and the only object other than Earth for which clear evidence of stable bodies of surface liquid has been found....
. One cat, simply known as "
The CatThe Cat is a character in the British science fiction sitcom Red Dwarf. He is played by Danny John-Jules.-Character development:According to Danny John-Jules, the character of Cat is based on a combination of Little Richard's look, James Brown's moves and Richard Pryor's facial...
", is a regular character in the show.
Biology
Cats look very much like
humanHumans are bipedal primates belonging to the species Homo sapiens in Hominidae, the great ape family. They are the only surviving member of the genus Homo. Humans have a highly developed brain, capable of abstract reasoning, language, introspection, and problem solving...
s. The most obvious differences are the teeth, which are those of a
carnivoreA carnivore , meaning 'meat eater' , is an animal that derives its energy and nutrient requirements from a diet consisting mainly or exclusively of vertebrate and/or invertebrate animal tissue, whether through predation or scavenging...
rather than an
omnivoreOmnivores are species that eat both plants and animals as their primary food source...
, and the number of nipples (six). 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, as they smell the words in their books, and an interest in cat food.
In the first novel,
Infinity Welcomes Careful DriversRed Dwarf is a book written by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor and published in 1989, and is based on the first two series of the sci-fi comedy television show Red Dwarf...
, Cats have slimmer faces, a narrow, flat nose, larger eyes and ears that are higher on the head. In the third novel,
BackwardsBackwards is the fourth Red Dwarf novel. It is set on the fictional backwards universe version of Earth.The novel was written by Rob Grant on his own. It follows on directly from the second Grant Naylor novel, Better Than Life, ignoring Last Human which was by Doug Naylor...
, we find out that the cat's
penisThe penis is an external sexual organ of certain biologically male organisms, in both vertebrates and invertebrates....
is covered in sharp and painful hooks (as is a real cat's).
According to the unmade episode
Identity WithinIdentity Within is described as a "lost episode" of the British science fiction comedy television series Red Dwarf.-A "lost episode":Identity Within was originally the supposed second episode in the seventh series...
, if cats do not have sex by a certain age, they die.
Culture, religion and history
Cat culture is strongly dependent on their religion, believing that a god known as Cloister the Stupid will lead them to the promised land, Fuchal (pronounced "
Fyooshal"), where they would open a Temple of Food. In the novels, the promised land is named "Bearth" for
EarthEarth is the third planet from the Sun. It is the fifth largest of the eight planets in the solar system, and the largest of the terrestrial planets in the Solar System in terms of diameter, mass and density...
, rather than "Fuchal" for
FijiFiji , officially the Republic of the Fiji Islands , is an island nation in the South Pacific Ocean east of Vanuatu, west of Tonga and south of Tuvalu. The country comprises an archipelago of about 322 islands, of which 106 are permanently inhabited, and 522 islets...
. 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 anti-hero
Dave ListerDavid "Dave" Lister, commonly referred to simply as Lister, is a fictional character from the British science fiction situation comedy Red Dwarf, portrayed by Craig Charles...
. A religious conflict erupted due to differing interpretations of dogma; in the novels, this was over the name of God (Cloister/Clister), whereas the television series had the war concerning the colour (red or blue) of the hats that the people who served at the Temple of Food were to wear (according to Lister, the hats were actually supposed to be green). One of the most notorious goofs of the television series is that the painting of the holy war depicts both sides wearing the same color hat.
In both continuities, the war raged for thousands of years and 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. In the television series, the faction who believed the hats should be blue followed a sacred writing of Cloister, that they had interpreted as a star chart (actually Lister's laundry list), and immediately flew into an asteroid. It is not known what became of the second spacecraft, although it may have encountered the
Holoship"Holoship" is the first episode of science fiction sit-com Red Dwarf Series V and the twenty fifth in the series run. It was first broadcast on the British television channel BBC2 on 20 February 1992. Written by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, and directed by Juliet May...
at one point in the past. In either case, only the healthy cats left Red Dwarf; the maimed, deformed and insane were left behind, eventually dying out until only The Cat was left.
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 choosing to emulate Cloister, by "
wearing the holy custard stains and the sacred gravy marks".
The Cat race had Seven Cat Commandments. They are as follows:
- Thou shalt not be cool
- Thou shalt not be in vain
- Thou shalt not have more than ten suits
- Thou shalt not partake of carnal knowledge with more than four members of the opposite sex at any one session
- Thou shalt not slink
- Thou shalt not hog the bathroom
- Thou shalt not steal another's hair gel.
(One discontinuity is that Lister once mentioned he'd have broken all seven, except there were no sheep on board
Red Dwarf.)
Cats found guilty of being vain were forced to wear fashion styles from the previous year.
The Cat maintains that the cat commandments stretch back to a "
Dark Age" of religious fanaticism, which explains why he hardly adheres to them.
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?" It is debatable whether this is a genuine saying, due to the Cat only learning of dogs when Lister shows the Cat a picture of his father; more likely the Cat was calling it an old saying merely for effect. Often, while going against some of the Cat sayings that would involve facing danger, Rimmer would invent a counter-saying: e.g., "There's an old human saying—Whoever heard of a worm-skin rug?"
Food (
fishA fish is any aquatic vertebrate animal that is typically ectothermic , covered with scales, and equipped with two sets of paired fins and several unpaired fins...
and
birdBirds are winged, bipedal, endothermic , vertebrate animals that lay eggs. There are around 10,000 living species, making them the most numerous tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Birds range in size from the Bee Hummingbird to the ...
s in particular) is of central cultural and
economicEconomics is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
importance. A cat with five fish might feel like a millionaire. Appreciation is shown to someone who gives them food by licking the giver. In true feline fashion their food is given a chance to escape, which means they taunt it with a
songA song is a metrical composition intended or adapted for singing, especially one in rhymed stanzas; a lyric; a ballad....
. Whenever an unknown presence (including strange humans and humanoids) is met they make themselves look big by raising their arms above their head and pulling a snarling face, as a defense mechanism. Cats also love what they call "shiny things" and will play with such objects much as would a modern housecat. 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 have to give someone a present, it will 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, preferring to say "Hey you!".
In one
parallel universe"Parallel Universe" is the sixth and last episode of science fiction sitcom Red Dwarf series two, and the twelfth in the series run. It premiered on the British television channel BBC2 on 11 October 1988...
cats do not exist. Rather, a race of creatures evolved from
dogThe dog is a domesticated form of the Gray Wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties. The domestic dog has been one of the most widely kept working and companion animals in human history...
s 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.
Technology
The Cat wears clothes, in a particularly garish style, and it is implied that all other cats dress well. They developed the
trouser pressA trouser press is an electrical appliance used to smooth the wrinkles from a pair of trousers ....
before the wheel. The Cat launders his clothing by licking it, as a house cat would; he merely sprays his tongue with detergent first. They seem to need at least five or six showers daily and nine or ten snooze breaks every day, to save energy for his main evening sleep.
Whenever he enters unfamiliar surroundings, he removes a small spray can 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 unknown.
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
novelisationsA novelization is a novel that is written based on some other media story form rather than as an original work.Novelizations of films usually add background material not found in the original work to flesh out the story, because novels are generally longer than screenplays...
, the first tool discovered by cats is a can opener.
The Cat race learnt English by watching
The FlintstonesThe Flintstones is an animated American television sitcom that ran from 1960 to 1966 on ABC. The series was the first prime-time animated series aimed at adults. Produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions , The Flintstones is about a working class Stone Age man's life with his family and his next door...
. They also have a spoken language: the only word known is jozxyqk, meaning "the sound you make when you get your sexual organs trapped in something" (although it is strongly implied this is merely an attempt to cheat at a game of
ScrabbleScrabble is a word game in which two to four players score points by forming words from individual lettered tiles on a game board marked with a 15-by-15 grid. The words are formed across and down in crossword fashion and must appear in a standard dictionary. Official reference works provide a list...
). They use their scent to read books and have two hundred and forty-six smell symbols in their lexicon which can be broken down into smaller smells to alter the meaning of the smell. Dave Lister's T-shirt contained a sentence about a fearful, very bad estate agent going to a noxious toilet. Lister can read a cat-authored
Dick and JaneDick and Jane were the main characters in popular basal readers written by William S. Gray and published by Scott Foresman, that were used to teach children to read from the 1930s through to the 1970s in the United States...
early primer by strongly sniffing the pages, but relies on Holly to translate more complicated works, like the Cat Bible.
Red Dwarf role playing game
In the Red Dwarf role-playing game,
Felis Sapiens and
Canis Sapiens (better known as Evolved Cats and Evolved Dogs) are races the player can pick for their characters. Also, there are three (technically four) other Evolved Animal Races that the player can choose from: Evolved
RatRats are various medium-sized, long-tailed rodents of the superfamily Muroidea. "True rats" are members of the genus Rattus, the most important of which to humans are the black rat, Rattus rattus, and the brown rat, Rattus norvegicus...
s/
MiceA mouse is a small mammal belonging to the order of rodents. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse . It is also a popular pet. The American white-footed mouse and the deer mouse also sometimes live in houses. In some places, certain kinds of field mice are also common...
, Evolved
RabbitRabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae of the order Lagomorpha, found in several parts of the world. There are seven different genera in the family classified as rabbits, including the European rabbit , Cottontail rabbit , and the Amami rabbit...
s and Evolved
IguanasThe green iguana or common iguana is a large, arboreal herbivorous species of lizard of the genus Iguana native to Central and South America...
.
Evolved Rabbits (Lapis Sapiens) are explained as being the dominant species of their parallel universe, and have evolved into a civilisation that bears strong resemblance to a stereotypical Fascist dictatorship. Humans are regarded in their universe as little better than mindless animals, being used for slaves and
medical experimentationAnimal testing, also known as animal experimentation, animal research, and in vivo testing, is the use of non-human animals in experiments. It is estimated that 50 to 100 million vertebrate animals worldwide — from zebrafish to non-human primates — are used annually...
. In the game, Evolved Rabbits receive a bonus to Awareness (due to their keen senses) and to Aesthetics and Seduction (they are highly sexual beings, who have still perfected the arts of reproduction even if their biological processes have slowed down due to their evolution). However, they are so obnoxious and odious they can't even stand each other; they receive a penalty to all Empathy checks, ranging from -3 (humans) to -1 (Evolved Rabbits). Evolved Rabbits can be told from humans by the shape of their ears (longer, thinner and pointed) and by their buck-teeth. It is implied that the Evolved Rabbits are somehow tied to their universe's equivalent of the S.S. Oregon, a ship mentioned in the Red Dwarf series as having suffered some quarantine-related disaster involving rabbits.
Evolved Rats (Rattus Sapiens) are sneaky, sly and tough, with a fondness for slick hair and 'sharp' clothing. They are very concerned with grooming and hygiene, being known to spend hours preening themselves. They tend to be solitary, but will occasionally group together in small gangs. They tend to be adept at tasks that require dexterity and/or less scupulous skills. Evolved Rats have slightly pointed ears and "Roman" noses.
Evolved Mice (Mus Sapiens) are shorter than humans and tend to be spry in their youth, becoming more rotund as they age. They are much more social and gregarious than their Rat cousins and tend to be attracted to group settings, inevitably developing a tightly-knit social hierarchy. Mice are as meticulous about grooming as Rats but are generally less fashion-conscious, favouring overalls and sturdy toolbelts to
zoot suitA zoot suit is a suit with high-waisted, wide-legged, tight-cuffed, pegged trousers, and a long coat with wide lapels and wide padded shoulders...
s. Both Evolved Rats and Evolved Mice are attracted to shiny objects and sweets, and will never be truly happy unless they have a 'nest'; a personal and private hidey-hole with comfortable bedding and places to hide their various treasures.
Evolved Iguanas (Iguana Sapiens) originate from a parallel universe where domestic reptiles are not extinct (as evidenced by Lister's question "What's an Iguana?", though this may simply have been ignorance as Rimmer brought up the subject). Slow, methodical and relaxed by nature, most other races find Iguanas to be inscrutable slobs. Iguanas never give any indication of their feelings, and will remain tight-lipped and enigmatic until and unless they feel the situation warrants sharing personal information. Iguanas are economical when it comes to using words, and yes or no questions are the best to ask for in hopes of receiving an instant reply (and it will almost always be punctuated with "mon" in a
West Indies accentCaribbean English is a broad term for the dialects of the English language spoken in the Caribbean, most countries on the Caribbean coast of Central America, and Guyana. Caribbean English is influenced by the English-based Creole varieties spoken, but they are not the same. In the Caribbean, there...
). Evolved Iguanas have lanky body-builds and large (bulging) eyes, which often have the tendency to look in different directions. They are naturally skilled climbers and are actually very fond of exploring the unknown, though they never seem surprised by what they find. Some believe the race's slow manner and relaxed attitude is a by-product of their culture's fondness for
wacky weedCannabisalso known as marijuana or marihuana, and ganja , among many other namesrefers to any number of preparations of the Cannabis plant intended for use as a psychoactive drug...
and
reggaeReggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s.While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady. Reggae is based...
- though no-one has ever proven this (or attempted to).
Notable cats
- The Cat
The Cat is a character in the British science fiction sitcom Red Dwarf. He is played by Danny John-Jules.-Character development:According to Danny John-Jules, the character of Cat is based on a combination of Little Richard's look, James Brown's moves and Richard Pryor's facial...
is a main character in the Red Dwarf television series
- Frankenstein is known as the Holy Mother in the religion of the Felix Sapiens race; she was Dave Lister
David "Dave" Lister, commonly referred to simply as Lister, is a fictional character from the British science fiction situation comedy Red Dwarf, portrayed by Craig Charles...
's domestic cat who became the evolutionIn biology, evolution is change in the genetic material of a population of organisms from one generation to the next. Though changes produced in any one generation are normally small, differences accumulate with each generation and can, over time, cause substantial changes in the population, a...
ary mother of the entire Felix Sapiens species. Frankenstein was seen in the first ever Red Dwarf episode, The End"The End" is the pilot episode of science fiction sitcom Red Dwarf, which was first broadcast on the British television channel BBC2 on 15 February 1988. The episode introduces the main characters and sets up the story backbone of the series. On the mining ship Red Dwarf, Dave Lister is placed in...
, and in a flashback in Ouroboros"Ouroboros" is the third episode of science fiction sitcom Red Dwarf Series VII and the 39th in the series run. It was first broadcast on the British television channel BBC2 on 31 January 1997. Written by Doug Naylor and directed by Ed Bye...
.
- Old blind priest was the only living Felix Sapiens seen in the television series besides The Cat
- Aura (or Ora) is a female Felix Sapiens featured in the "lost episode" of the seventh series, Identity Within
Identity Within is described as a "lost episode" of the British science fiction comedy television series Red Dwarf.-A "lost episode":Identity Within was originally the supposed second episode in the seventh series...
- Zural (or Zooral) is a male Felix Sapiens featured in the "lost episode" of the seventh series, Identity Within
Identity Within is described as a "lost episode" of the British science fiction comedy television series Red Dwarf.-A "lost episode":Identity Within was originally the supposed second episode in the seventh series...
.