Chakat

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A chakat is a fictional creature, created by a Furry known as Bernard Doove. Although orginally designed to be his personal fursona they quickly became popular in the Furry Fandom. Within the chakat universe created by Bernard Doove, a chakat is a genetically engineered hermaphroditic hexipodal centaur, made to resemble felines. It has been noted that they resemble wemics.

The Chakat species forms the basis of a a seris of stories called the Forest Tales.

Contents 1 Overview 2 Chakat Fiction 3 Outside of the fiction 4 See also 5 External links

[edit] Overview

Despite being a fictional species, a large wealth of information has been created, termed 'An Introduction to Chakats'.

Biologically, a Chakat is described as a large cat Taur with a fur covered upper torso of universally female appearance, animal like head, prehensile tail, and fully functional male and female sex organs. Their fictional origin is given as genetic engineering in the 21st century, which is used to justify their unusual appearance and an unnatural number of built in 'survival features'. These include the ability to see and hear over a wide range of frequencies than most other creatures, the ability to digest almost anything, and the removal from their psychology of jealousy. They have an empathic sense (based alternatively on psychic powers and scenting emotions) which apparently eliminates many relationship problems. In this regard they can be thought of as an extreme version of transhumanism.

In stories and art chakats are usually depicted as having a universal appeal to humans; similar to that of any 'big cat'. They are also depicted as being attractive to and compatible with humans. The latter (in combination with their remarkable biology and usually prolific love lives) has lead to them being criticised as 'everyone's overly perfect cat taur'.

[edit] Chakat Fiction

Although it started as a "unique species", and creator decided to expand the creatures into their own universe, set around the 24^th century and centered primarily on a famliy of chakats. These stories, called the Forest Tales, have expanded and grown over the years to a total of 27 stories, some of which have been recreated as published books or comics.

The Chakat universe has attracted a lot of attentions from other writers, who have expanded the organial setting of a single chakat family to a universe with such Science fiction elements as other planets, worlds, and star ships. Notable writers such as Terry Knight [1], and John R. Plunkett [2] have written stories within the chakat universe setting. Ever since the story 'Star Dancer' the setting has been 'open source' with multiple writers expanding it using their own and each others ideas.

The universe burrows a great deal of plot devices, such as warp drive and Transporters, from Star Trek, although the creator has expressed a desire to change this. As a plot device, the species itself bares a remarkable similarity to David Weber's much smaller treecats.

The chakat species is notable (as a creation) for the quantity and quality of 'fan' art and literature created without first being backed by a major publishing/distribution organisation.

[edit] Outside of the fiction

Created by Bernard Doove and originally intended as on-line personae, the species quickly became one of the more popular in the furry fandom, with over a hundred artists drawing illustrations and a dozen authors working on related works. Notable artists include Roy D. Pounds II, Mayra "Huskie" Boyle, and Kacey Miyagami [3] who between them pinned down exactly how chakats should look.

Chakats have been used as source material for roleplaying wemic creatures. Doove was interviewed for this purpose [4].

There are also two chakat characters in the furry webcomic Apollo 9 [5]

[edit] See also

• Chakat at WikiFur

[edit] External links

• The Chakat's Den Bernard Doove's official reference site for chakats, includes information, stories, and images
• Transformations book review
• [6] The interview with mr. Doove.
• [7] the Cast of Apollo 9 (webcomic)
• [8] a guide to the chakat homeworld Chakona