Elephants are some of the smartest animals around, so I'd figure that someone [i]somewhere[/i] would have tried to uplift them at some point. The possibilities of uplifted elephants are somewhat interesting in themselves too, so I thought I'd jot down some ideas. (Also, someone mentioned it yesterday, and I haven't given anyone here a Christmas gift, now have I?) [b]Sapient Elephant[/b] (with corrections from CodeBreaker) (Uplift) The sapient elephant is a morph that is simple in its execution. It takes the already gigantic brain of the elephant and enhances it with the wonders of transhumanity, uplifting it to transhuman cognition. It further augments the Indian Elephant's genetic template by cleaning up the genome much like splicers are to flats, and supplementing it with traits from the African elephants, such as an extra finger on the trunk. [b]Implants:[/b] Basic Biomods, Basic Mesh Inserts, Bioweave Armor (Heavy), Clean Metabolism, Cortical Stack [b]Aptitude Maximum:[/b] 40 (SOM), 30 (all else) [b]Durability:[/b] 60 [b]Wound Threshold:[/b] 12 [b]Advantages:[/b] +10 SOM, +5 COG, -5 COO, +5 one other aptitude of the player's choice, 1 prehensile trunk, 4 legs, Trunk Attack (1d10 DV+2, has Long Reach, may be used for Knockback, use Unarmed Combat skill) Tusk/Head Attack (1d10+3 DV, used Unarmed Combat skill), Water Attack (possibly distracting, use Exotic Ranged: Ink Attack skill), [b]Disadvantages:[/b] Elephants counts as a medium-large target (+20 modifier to hit in combat), -20 Freefall skill, Social Stigma (Uplift), Social Stigma (drain on resources), for jumping purposes Sapient Elephants have a SOM of 5 [b]CP Cost:[/b] 40 [b]Credits Cost:[/b] Expensive (100,000 Rare) [collapse title=Old version][b]Sapient Elephant[/b] The sapient elephant is a morph that is simple in its execution. It takes the already gigantic brain of the elephant and enhances it with the wonders of transhumanity, uplifting it to transhuman cognition. It further augments the Indian Elephant's genetic template by cleaning up the genome much like splicers are to flats, and supplementing it with traits from the African elephants, such as an extra finger on the trunk. [b]Implants:[/b] Basic Biomods, Basic Mesh Inserts, Bioweave Armor (Heavy), Clean Metabolism, Cortical Stack [b]Aptitude Maximum:[/b] 40 (SOM), 30 (all else) [b]Durability:[/b] 60 [b]Wound Threshold:[/b] 12 [b]Advantages:[/b] +10 SOM, +5 COG, +5 one other aptitude of the player's choice, 1 prehensile trunk, 4 legs, Trunk Attack (1d10/2 DV, use Unarmed Combat skill) Tusk/Head Attack (1d10 DV, used Unarmed Combat skill), Water Attack (possibly distracting, use Exotic Ranged: Ink Attack skill), [b]Disadvantages:[/b] Elephants counts as a medium-large target (+20 modifier to hit in combat), -20 Freefall skill, Social Stigma (Uplift), Social Stigma (drain on resources), for jumping purposes Sapient Elephants have a SOM of 5 [b]CP Cost:[/b] 40 [b]Credits Cost:[/b] Expensive (100,000 Rare)[/collapse] The Sapient Elephant has Bioweave Armor (Heavy) to represent that is has an extremely tough skin and that supplementing it with biowave armour would have little effect. It has Clean Metabolism because Indian Elephants expunge a lot, and it would be in the best interests of everyone in the habitat if it didn't expunge immense amounts of bacteria-filled matter everywhere. It is however, quite large, so I gave it a +15 hit bonus, which is greater than the +10 the book gives for a car, and I linearily interpolate it to 15 with basis in the +30 given for a side of a barn. Because elephants are quadropheds with a small trunk, they are atrocious at navigating in zero-g or low-g environments, and their immense mass and the square-cube law means they can't really jump at all, so for jumping-purposes they have a SOM of 5. The size also means elephant-morphs are ostracized because they require a [i]lot[/i] of resources, hence the second Social Stigma, which should also count towards other Uplifts and pro-Uplift Rights activists in relevant cases. The cost is a reflection of the resources an Elephant would require, not derived from CodeBreaker's formula. Which was pretty good to use, actually, although I feel it is difficult to accurately reflect the Sapient Elephant-morph with his system, because it is so unusual; its disadvantages are largely outside of the mechanics of the game, such as its complete inability to handle small places, or outside the scope of CodeBreaker's system, such as being not being able to jump properly, being large or having only one arm-like limb. CodeBreaker advised to give +/- 5 to 10 CP to the cost, but I'm afraid that might make the morph too cheap and/or too expensive; its disadvantages and advantages are very dependent on the situation, leaving much up to the GM. A more practical but less fun morph would be a baby-elephant or neotenic elephant, which would be capped at 30 in aptitudes, no size-modifier, about 40 DUR and a more reasonable credits cost. It could probably also be vat-grown in considerably less time than a full-sized Indian elephant, which weights at a lower bound 2.7 tons. If it takes a year to two to grow a humanoid biomorph, the Sapient Elephant would probably take quite a few more. Thoughts?