Simply put, a Feral Acaean is any Acaean not under the control of a sapient mind, either its own, or that of another Acaean. Ferals occupy the lowest Acaean social strata and live in a wild state that in many ways mirrors the existence of non-human animals native to Earth.
Because of the incredible genetic mutability shared by all Acaeans, Ferals can be found in innumerable forms, thriving in any conceivable environment. A Feral might be a hovering leviathan drifting through the stratosphere of a gas giant thanks to gossamer wings that catch updrafts from the planet’s powerful weather patterns, or it might be a Lilliputian creature that resembles a cetacean and makes its home in a volcanic crevasse at the bottom of some alien ocean. It might be a voracious arboreal predator or a microscopic parasite, a burrowing reptilian worm or an undulating deep-sea eel, a gentle, grazing behemoth roaming vast, sun-drenched plains, or an enormous, bug-like scavenger intent on pilfering the pre-packaged rations found in human Survivor storehouses. In fact, Feral Acaeans pose one of the greatest threats to the survival of isolated humans at the fringes of known space, simply because they represent their single greatest competitor with regard to the consumption of resources.
Over time, many of the human Pirates known as Beast Masters have become fond of capturing Feral Acaeans and training them to perform a number of hazardous tasks. Most notably, many humans have taken to purchasing Ferals from these Beast Masters for use as war animals. Because there are Acaeans engineered to travel through the void of space, to withstand staggering extremes of heat and cold, and to thrive in other uninhabited and seemingly inhospitable environments, these organisms can be adapted to operate in any combat theater imaginable, and usually for much less money than it would cost to purchase state of the art drone technology and other automated weapon systems.
