Calorlux Strain

The Calorlux Strain are a viwodian race particularly well suited to the demands of exploration and colonisation of warmer and lower pressure waters than those typically encountered on their home world. Their genetic variation combines two different adaptations which were only very rarely found together when they were confined to the seas below the icy roof of the moon where their species first evolved.   Firstly, the "calor" part of their race name (which is only a human translation) reflects their ability to withstand higher temperatures than normal. This once allowed them to gain access to the rich regions around dark thermal vents in the depths where food was plentiful. On the other hand, since this ability to tolerate warmer waters came with a corresponding and dangerous vulnerability to cold it made free travel in the oceans away from the vents a hazardous venture for those individuals carrying the calor mutation and it inhibited its spread. Many geneticists think that the calor genes are closer to ancestral forms and their expression in modern viwodia is a kind of throw back to the very early ages when tiny ancestral viwodia lived only around the vents. According to this theory, it was the cold adaptation that evolved later rather than the calor form, but in any case, the calor form had become rare at the time the viwodia emerged into the galactic stage.   The lux mutation allows viwodia to operate at lower pressures, with the implication that they can rise towards the places where light may break through the surface of even an ice encrusted moon. It comes at a price. Operating in the deeps is more difficult for those with the lux mutation as they struggle with higher pressure.   Traditionally, calor and lux mutations, whilst individually within the range of acceptable forms were a deadly combination. The higher regions of the viwodian native oceans are usually much colder than the depths, especially the regions around the thermal vents. Thus to be born as a Calorlux was considered almost a death sentence and a state to be pitied.   All of this changed with the development of interstellar travel. Now the Calorlux were suddenly advantaged, being able to go to warmer worlds, even to the extent of surviving in terrestrial oceans. On worlds like Earth, the viwodian ambassadors are all from the Calorlux race and their numbers have grown enormously.   Some have speculated that the Calorlux might one day become a new species, but they retain the ability to interbreed with more traditional individuals and so cannot (currently at least) be classified as such.