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"Lab Report, Dr. Renat Rodion: Study of Subject 13, 'Echo', and Local Wildlife" by Brian Colfxire.

COORDINATES OF WORLD : Within the NGC 224 (Andromeda Galaxy), SPS 403 (Solar Planetary Systems), name designation of home world, "Kotone".

CLASSIFICATION OF WORLD : Local terrain is a variety of swamplands, grasslands, rain-forests with high PH concentrations due to naturally forming chlorine geysers. High humidity all around. Bodies of water are sparse on land; three large ocean bodies surround three main land-masses. The tectonic plates do not necessarily lie outside these landmasses, which gives rises to steep sheer cliffs or submerged landmasses. Some geologists have considered the possibility of a fourth continent. In the middle of the tree-main land-masses, the ridge-lines of the tectonic plates converge into the deepest measured regions of the ocean floor. Scans have not been made to explore the depths as the high-acidic water would eat away and corrode the strongest of metal.

Indeterminate data to conclude the MOI (Measure of Intelligence) of this world. Vegetation is highly carnivorous, yet there is no display of intelligence on their part. However, one race shows possible higher intelligence, hence why my team's efforts have been sent to this world.

PHYSIOLOGICAL STUDY OF GENUS : This alien species lacks the dental structure of homo sapiens to mimic our speech, even with extensive training pronunciations of L and T Subject 13 prefers to slur those syllables. Fricatives, Ss and Zs, Echo sometimes struggles to keep them short. His nasals always sound somewhat congested, which might be because they have a gag reflex to throw up a sticky, non-poisonous substance of phlegm when they close off their nasal passages. We have, mostly, trained him not to do that anymore as many of our instructors have had to clean up shortly afterwards because Echo would get the stuff in their eyes. Sometimes, I wonder, if he does it on purpose; he always gets Dr. Proctor in the face when he has another cavity examination. Most likely a gag-reflex on his tongue.

COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT OF GENUS : Although these creatures appear to be mammals like ourselves, we have noticed a lack of paternal or even maternal bonds. Similar to our own evolutionary brain development, some have speculated, the brain has fostered self-interested motivations, practical ambitions and self-reliance like the R-Complex/Triune area of the human brain (reptilian complex).

I would like to point out that this species does not share the same archetype of brain-structure as our own, so the association between our R-Complex is not to state that this species is reptilian. This is a common misunderstanding from our security hands.

This species breeds the same like us. fostering offspring similarily; they're warm-blooded; they develop coats due to the environment's seasonal changes; they are sexually dimorphic, where the males have hoarser sounds compared to the females and the males have shorter legs--all terms for our classification label them as mammals. But the brain-structure is completely rewired from our own. This aspect is what we have been focusing on the most from our research.

Neuroscientists have not found any evidence to indicate that the species' brain development is lacking in regards to our own. Pyschologists have proposed that perhaps the lack of bonds between parents and offspring is a learned behavior amongst them. Whether that assessment is true is inconclusive; however, we have noted that this behavior is more likely instinctual and not learned from surroundings.

As we mentioned before, parental and maternal bonds are nonexistent. When we observed Subject 01 returning from isolation from her peers, she displayed no immediate change in being among her colony. Anxiety relieved? Yes. Lack of fear? Certainly. Desiring to become social with her companions and ,what appeared to be, her parents? No; she went off to forage on her own and remain reclusive despite three month's absence. We monitor all returning subjects with surveillance drones and tags.

There doesn't appear to be any sibling rivalry for attention among the offspring as well from what we have monitored from the twins, Subjects 05 and 06. Our caretakers sometimes struggle to understand the subjects' needs; the subjects look at the caretakers and expect something whenever they need it. Whenever one subject receives something, the other holds no expectations that he/she will get one too. We held a twin's meal from the other and the other sat idly by until we brought in the twin's meal hours later.

OVERVIEW OF FIRST ROUND OF SUBJECTS : Our first seven subjects taught us one particular barrier of cognitive development. For example, abstraction is something this species lacks; practicality is something they excel. You could teach Subject 04 to find the missing side of a triangle, but you could not teach him the Pythagorean formula. Subject 03 understood that two different glasses with equal amounts of water were the same when we poured each glass into a new glass in-front of him. When we hid the cups away from him to see and asked him again if one held more than the other, he thought the taller glass held more. Archaeologists also noted how the colonies had similar made shelters. No ornaments, no sculptures, no separation from one shelter to the other besides where they were placed. The more important people were either put up high or at the center to be protected by everyone else.

However, one particular thing we made of note from Subject 07 is an instinctual fascination with sound among this species. Creativity is something they do not outright have thrown away. We observed few rituals other than their community feasts; they eat and hold "discussions" in separated groups, irregularly, which to our findings always sounds like chatter, and they follow up these meetings in some sort of singing event.

Perhaps singing isn't the best word to describe it; there is no order of who goes first, but each one will start to emit a sound that sounds all nasally and chalked up with phlegm, and then another one will join with another tune until the nasally noises are buffered out with some sort of song. Some will dance, some will remain completely still, others will continue to eat or to sleep despite the possibility of attracting predators. The songs never sound alike to one-another, and we remain confused what purpose would such a ritual serve for them. We have noted that in all the observed instances of this ritual, no predatory animals have intruded on our subjects. Is the ritual a lullaby for security? Or is it something more primal, something of a genealogical baggage (like the human coccyx for our tails)? We are keeping our focus elsewhere for the time being.

However, one particular last mention of this information is important. Even bred into captivity, Subjects 10 - 13 will sometimes start up a song on their own. Whenever we have pressed Echo to explain why he wants to make that noise or to say where he heard the song, he claims to be ignorant as for his reasons to both questions. Subject 13, Echo, is the first to be taught our language through a steady regiment of educational programs. We hope to accomplish great things with him in due time.

MAIN SUBJECT 013 : ECHO [?ek?, but with a glottal stop pronunciation. EH-'OH]

AGE : 10 years, mostly matured within the confines of the program.

LIFE EXPECTANCY : Possibly fifty to sixty years on home-world. Unknown in better conditions. Need more subjects for possible answer.

SUBJECT'S HEIGHT : 3' 6"

WEIGHT : 61.235 kilograms [120 lbs for you Americans]

PHYSIOLOGICAL ABNORMALITIES OF ECHO : Normally we would incubate specimens like our human embryos to save time; however, in order to best understand the formative capabilities of Subject 13, we thought it best to monitor its normal development. During the in-vitro fertilization process, some complications provided an abnormal coloring pattern to Subject 13. We could remedy the problem, but Echo refuses to stay still for the process. We tried explaining to him the process wouldn't take long or be too troublesome, but always he would reply, "No-'o! Me-'ike. 'od-off."

We don't know where his dialect came from, specifically, but he has intimated our common vernacular in his own way. Subject 13 took his name after his glottal matured enough to let him speak. When he asked who was that other sound in the other room, the responder said it was his echo. In the process, Echo took this to mean, "Me Eh-'oh?"

SUBJECT 13 : Echo has proven to us that this species is either the most poetical of all races or the most blunt for they utter sentences entirely in glottal-stops. Everything is a spoken as a command or a question; everything is a clear statement, whether factual or opinion; and the longest debate in their history only lasted about five minutes from what we have gathered from on-site subjects. When trying to communicate with the subject, sometimes his short-attention span is hard to rework to be able to handle our questions; when presented with doubt, the subject stubbornly refuses to answer or, at the very least, he'll respond with "Me-'ot know. 'ah-yet."

Echo's education has been steady in making him excel in communication skills. Subjects 10, 11 and 12 have, with time, proved promising... But we will be looking into reassigning them different roles for future endeavors. Or maybe we'll scrap them entirely; we only need one donor to keep the project going, and Subject 13 looks to be the best investment we have had so far.

RECOMMENDATION FOR APPROVAL : Our latest batch of subjects are raised within our enclosure from birth. These subjects are too far removed from the surroundings to thrive in the natural environment. Although we have not observed mental trauma amongst the group, we decided to not risk the chance and to forward the motion as humanely as possible.

MOI status is still indeterminable, but we can safely conclude so far from our cognitive studies that this species has not fully developed within the guidelines for Higher Intelligence immunity (selflessness, abstractness, etc.) to let their progress be unaltered by us. Though speech is the one thing that includes them in the HI range category; they have a system of language, thought and a sense of preserving history. This much is well understood; however, we believe the process of planetary domestication is the best decision to preserve the species and the limited resources on Kotone.

I am requesting the motion to begin phase two of the Planetary Domestication procedure. The catalyst for our assimilation, Subject 13, into Kotone's native population has been voted on unanimously by our scientific committee, as well as with my own approval. We believe Subject 13 will prove to be a reliable asset.

END OF REPORT.