The Jophur are the most fanatically driven races in modern times. Or very nearly so. Originally the mild Traeki, the master gene-crafters Oailie were brought in by the frustrated Poa and they transformed the passive Traeki into the Jophur, religious fanatics of the Obeyer creed, and quite probably the most ambitious race seen since "the Lions."

Born on the world Jophekka, the pre-Jophur were small invertebrates that lived in the muck of primevil swamps. Occasionally these organisms would group together and form one mutually symbiotic organism. The Poa saw hidden Potential in these organisms, especially in their communal form. They decided to try to Uplift them as Traeki.

Each individual Traeki is a small and relatively unintelligent ring. Each ring can do nothing but basic life functions on is own, but group it together with any number of others and they form a sort of communal intelligence. Most Traeki (and later Jophur) are made up of about twelve rings, with as few as five and as many as fifty rings making one organism. They are frequently described as "stacks of greasy doghnuts." All rings have different functions: eyes, olfactory organs, speech organs, legs, chemical synthesis, cognition. Each Traeki functioned as a loosely associated tribunal of individual rings. Hard decisions may have taken days to argue between rings.

Reproducing was originally performed through "vlenning." During this process the fabric of the Traeki is altered while new rings are quickly produced inside the stack. The new stacks are expelled though the lining of the ring. This is repeated with different rings, and once expelled the new rings clamber upon each other to form a new Treaki.

For a few moments after the vlenning is finished, the Treaki is considerably disoriented as it tries to reestablish lost connections between rings. With the onset of Jophurness, rings were bred for specific purposes and vlenning has become unused, as it is much easier to gene-engineer and build a new stack out of individually customized rings.

The Poa bored of this Traeki indecisiveness and for the third stage of Uplift, brought in the trained Oailie to breed a new strain of rings. They bred master rings. With the introduction of these oily jet black rings, the mild Traeki stacks were each unified under one voice as Jophur. At this point the Poa realized what they had done, but could do nothing. The Traeki were systematically "upgraded" to Jophur status and destroyed.

The master rings have relatively complete authority over the rest of the stack. The ring actually inserts innervating tendrils into the central core and routes all neural activity through the ring.

Jophur and Traeki long term memory is completely photographic. It is formed from chemically coated wax drippings lining the inner core. It is actually quite a good storage storage device; much better than the electro-neural technique used by most other oxygen breathers in terms of stability and retention.

Since then the Jophur have started a vast and strong legacy, stopping at nothing to get the ends they wish (the Jophur are quite fond of using attrition to get the attention of warm-bodied organisms). They are currently one of teh most tireless and violent enemies of Earthclan in its search for the Streaker.