Gopher

“Candy!” -A Gopher excited over having laid eyes on its next treat.

Gophers (known as either Common Gophers or Baby Gophers) are small rodent-like creatures known for being pests throughout Karland. A genetically engineered offshoot of the warrior-like Gorgovsians, they were created by the witch Queen Ashley and brought over from their original homeworld to a new planet called Gophertopia. Queen Ashley desired to make her own personal world of cuddly animals, altering their DNA so that they permanently have an infant-level intelligence and a neverending desire for candy and sweets.

While seemingly harmless, the Gophers’ voracious habits pose a threat to all life in the universe. Gophers have become an invasive species, quickly spreading throughout multiple worlds, heavily upsetting the local ecosystem and causing food shortages. In addition, the government of Gophertopia constantly siphons resources from other worlds to sustain the Gophers’ lifestyle. Anyone who dares to make a Gopher cry, intentionally or otherwise, is subject to persecution by a brutal police state.

Even though Queen Ashley intended them to be little more than mindless cute critters, the Gophers themselves somehow formed their own complex religion and mythology. Unmonitored, the Gophers will sometimes perform ritualistic sacrifice and cannibalism in the name of their deity, the Gopher Mother. This giant Gopher goddess is capable of devouring entire galaxies one planet at a time. According to a prophecy, the Gopher Mother is destined to eat so much that it will explode into a supernova that vaporizes the entire universe, remaking all of existence into an eternal Gopher paradise.

Gophers have no relation to the burrowing animal of the same name native to Karland. It is thought that Gophers are named as such only due to their superficial similarities.

Appearance

Gophers on average are around one foot tall and weigh approximately 4 pounds. They have a slightly larger head than their body – the tops of their heads are shaped similarly to that of a teddy bear. Their eyes make up a significant portion of their skull. They have brown fur and a small rabbit-like brown tail.

Their limbs are short and stubby like an infant’s even into adulthood. At rest, they are bipedal but will go on all fours when walking.

Biology

Gophers retain infantile maturity levels throughout their lifetimes. Even into adulthood, their cognitive development will never advance past that of a two year old human.

Gophers reproduce asexually and are considered genderless. After eating enough nutrients, their tail will form into an egg which will eventually fall off and hatch into another Gopher. While the Gopher may get excited over a having a “new friend”, they do not display any parental instincts towards their young and will not take care of them themselves. It is not uncommon for Gophers to mistake their own young as candy and eat them on the spot.

There is no known maximum height and weight a Gopher may grow to. As long as they maintain a steady consumption of food, they will continue growing. Additionally, they have the ability to unhinge their mouths much like a snake, or perhaps like the infamous mouse Luggsina. They have a preference for sugary treats but will consume flesh – including other Gophers – if they mistake it for candy.

Gophers do not have teeth. Despite this, they will still attempt to chew their food and make audible noises when doing so. If the food they are trying to eat is particularly large, they will instead swallow it in one gulp. They almost always burp every time they eat something.

Gopher blood is thick and yellow, described as caramel. If a Gopher is hit by significant enough impact, it will splatter like an egg, spilling the caramel out. Because this caramel tastes like any other sweets to them, Gophers will often devour any physically injured Gopher they see.

Gophers also have a strong preference for warmer temperatures usually between 70° F to 90° F. It is thought that this helps with their natural biological processes as well as their ability to sleep.

Sleep requirements

Gophers require at least 12 hours of sleep per day. They also periodically take naps throughout the day, usually after rather plentiful meals. After eating, they ask the nearest caretaker for an abdominal massage. The Gopher will find it ticklish, but will soon get drowsy and fall asleep on the spot. The caretaker then wraps them in a blanket and bonnet, followed by giving them a pacifier.

Growth stages

Common Gophers do not have a predetermined lifespan because they grow indefinitely. Their only means of dying of natural causes are through starvation given that their energy requirements exponentially grow as they get larger.

• Hatchling – Newly hatched Gophers are only a few inches tall. They are slow moving as they take the time to process the world around them. They are extremely sensitive to changes in temperatures.
• Juvenile – After about 15 days, a Gopher will reach the juvenile stage. Juvenile Gophers are approximately six inches tall. At this growth stage, they are still kept in the daycare where they learn their routines.
• Adult – Gophers will reach the adult stage after about 30 days. However, as expected for Common Gophers, they still retain their infantile level intelligence and mental maturity. (Thus, they are still referred to as Baby Gophers.) Even so, their caretakers still let them wander around freely. At the adult stage, a Gopher is one foot tall and will be capable of laying eggs. They can only grow further in size if they begin to increase its caloric intake beyond what is necessary to lay eggs.
• Giant Gophers – Giant Gophers (aka Big Gophie) are overgrown variants that have exceeded at least seven feet in height. At this stage, they cannot subsist on sweets alone. Instead, they are opportunistic omnivores that eat anything that moves, including their own kind. Its thick layers of fat provide extra armor resistant to most attacks. When a Giant Gopher gets full from eating, they lay down on their backs and take a lengthy nap. During this time, their belly can serve as a trampoline.
• Colossal Gopher – A Giant Gopher that has grown so large and so morbidly obese that it can no longer walk upright. Its head is now comparatively small relative to its body which now has a similar fluidity to that of a gelatinous mass. Colossal Gophers have to roll around to get by, often squishing anything that it happens to roll over. One of the largest known Colossal Gophers grew to the size of a small two-story building.

Behaviors

Despite their ability to speak, Gophers are incredibly dull-witted with infantile tendencies. Gophers display very minimal brain activity, far lower than most animals. They lack the ability of object permanence, the ability to learn complex tasks as well as any significant semblance of long-term memory. It is believed their speaking and emotional abilities are preprogrammed, instinctual responses meaning they may be completely mindless and incapable of conscious thought.

Gopher speech is very basic, roughly equivalent to that of a child no older than three years old. They do not seem to outwardly demonstrate malice or mean-spirited behaviors. Common Gophers lack the ability to display complex emotions beyond being happy, sad or scared. Despite this, they do display selfish, disdainful tendencies towards other species. They express this by crying whenever they witness a non-Gopher receiving a gift or food as they have a hardwired belief that everything is meant to be for the Gophers.

A Gopher is very easily distracted by sweets or candy. Upon seeing food, they will often call out “Candy!” and begin approaching it. They will blindly follow food into dangerous areas such as off the sides of cliffs or into striking range of a predator. If they are unable to reach their candy or if it is stolen from them, they will begin to cry loudly and whine.

Creativity

Gophers are capable of reading, but they can only process entire words and phrases, not individual letters or syllables. No Gopher has ever been observed writing, drawing or doing anything creative, leading many to believe such a task is impossible for them.

Their lack of their inherent creativity can also explain their general disinterest in playing with toys. However, if they see one, they will still try to take it, often out from another child’s hands. When approaching a toy or another unidentified object, a Gopher’s first instinct is to give it a hug before suckling on it. Shortly after, the Gopher is likely to swallow it. Given a Gopher’s ability to unhinge its jaw, the likeliness of it choking is low.

Dreams

Additionally, Gophers are capable of dreaming although the subject matter of their dreams can be quite limited. Most of what they dream about is no different than their day to day experiences which include eating candy and playing in the daycare or in the fields. However, the manner in which they go about it can be very surreal. For example, one sort of dream that has been observed is a pink void filled with floating milk, cookies and candy alongside Gophers peacefully floating across the sky.

Gophers have been known to exhibit nightmares if they had a particularly stressful day or if they cried an unusual number of times. The subjects of these nightmares are usually the same as their normal dreams although something will go wrong. For example, when going to get candy in a dream, they might be told “No candy for you, forever!”. The Gopher will proceed to wake up screaming and crying running as fast as they can to the nearest caretaker. However, in their sense of panic, they are very likely to accidentally fall off a ledge and splatter onto the ground.

Behavior around other species

Gophers react very differently to the presence of other species. Gophers have never been observed getting along with others outside of their own kind. Experiments were done to test their social behavior with other small, cute rodents such as mice, squirrels, rabbits and even gophers of the lower case variety. In 100% of all cases, while the other animals were able to cooperate with one another and live together, the Gophers would upset the balance and steal food from the others, sometimes even preying on the other animals. This suggests that Gophers have a total lack of empathy and compassion for non-Gophers.

While Common Gophers do not outright attack others that view as threats, they display distressed behaviors and usually start crying. The exception to this is if the other individual or animal is a reliable source of candy. Whether it’s because that other individual gives candy or they themselves are prey.

Variants

There are many variants of Gophers. Gorgovsians, while they look similar, are considered a completely separate species given how much Gophers have been modified.

Specialized breeds

These Gophers were bred to fulfill certain roles within the society of Gophertopia. While they are more intelligent than Common Gophers, they have an extremely specialized skillset and cannot learn anything else that is beyond the scope of their societal role.

• Cast Gopher – Cast Gophers are the staff that operate the facilities throughout Gophertopia such as running shops, hosting festivals and playing the role of performers and crew members in various shows. Their name comes from the fact that they are like “cast members” in a show. Cast Gophers can be easily distinguished for having a goofy sounding voice and for always speaking in a way that an adult talks to young child. They are often seen wearing party hats and brightly colored, circus-style clothing. They also sometimes wear mascot costumes.
• Caretaker Gopher – These Gophers are almost completely identical to Cast Gophers in terms of their voice and demeanor, but they specialize in providing emotional support to Gophers if they start to cry. They also provide basic medical care such as treating indigestion. Caretaker Gophers usually wear white gowns or hospital scrubs.
• Teacher Gopher – Teacher Gophers are a specialized Caretaker Gophers that focus on educating the Common Gophers at school. They tend to have the voice of a middle-aged human woman.
• Knight Gophers – These Gophers share more traits with their Gorgovsian origins. They were genetically engineered as defenders of Gophertopia, patrolling the streets and guarding strongholds and defense outposts. They wear metal medieval armor and wield a sword and a shield.
• Police Gopher – These brutal Gophers operate the helicopters that patrol Gophertopia and the other Resource Worlds to keep law and order. On the ground, they operate in teams, carrying automatic weapons, tasers, riot shields and body armor.
• Wizard Gopher – These are powerful Gophers that enchant their less intelligent relatives with a spell that makes them invulnerable while they sleep. They can also shoot energy beams of magic.
• Engineer Gopher – Engineer Gophers are the ones that construct and install the facilities throughout Gophertopia as well as the machines that siphon from the Resource Worlds. Engineer Gophers wear hardhats and carry an assortment of power tools. To travel between worlds, they burrow into the ground and create portals through the tunnels they dig.
• Stone Gopher – These Gophers are essentially living statues, serving as guardians of various Gopher strongholds. They can spit stone projectiles from their mouths to deter enemies.

Subspecies

Sometimes through random chance, a different sort of Gopher may hatch from an egg. These are uncommon variations that may occur due to the diversity of Gopher DNA.

• Silver Gopher – The most common subspecies Gopher. They are identical to Common Gophers in all ways except for their thick skin which cannot be penetrated by most weapons. These varieties do not inherently regulate hunger so they are prone to overeating, causing their stomachs to swell to at least double the size of their head. When bloated, they roll around, and they can crush others with their sheer body weight. However, they usually just explode instead into a mess of caramel.
• Heretic Gopher – They are identical to Common Gophers in every way except for the fact that they have the original intelligence of the Gorgovsians. They are fully self-aware, emotionally complex and are most of the time horrified about the existential threat of how intellectually devolved their species has become. Unfortunately, they have a low survival rate. When the Common Gophers discover the identity of a Heretic Gopher to be one, they are quickly branded as “meanies” and start crying. Heretic Gophers are usually devoured on the spot by other Gophers or offered as a sacrifice to the Gopher Mother. The ones that do escape will often try to do their best to integrate into normal society.

Mutated variants

Mutated variants are usually genetic experiments and anomalies created accidentally or otherwise. Many of them are far more monstrous and are usually not allowed to roam Gophertopia freely. They are, however, sometimes used as bioweapons.

• Fire Gopher – An experimental Gopher type that was created to inhabit lava. They tend to jump around and burn anything that touches them.
• Bounce Gopher – A Gopher that consists of just the head with no body. It bounces around like a light balloon. Without limbs, it goes after prey by inhaling it into its mouth.
• Blob Gopher – A mutated giant Gopher that moves like a gelatinous blob. Only its face and the upper part of its head are recognizably Gopher-like. Blob Gophers will absorb smaller Gophers into itself, adding to its mass. They are a thought to be botched genetic experiments when Queen Ashely was trying to make new types of Gophers. Blob Gophers reproduce through budding. They can break off into smaller blobs.
• Snake Gopher – A Gopher born without any limbs but with an elongated body like a serpent or a worm. However, they still possess the same head of a normal Gopher and are still covered in fur. They have all the same mannerisms as a Common Gopher, just with a snake-like body. Snake Gophers can lay eggs, although they vomit them out from their mouths.
• Caterpillar Gopher – Very similar to the Worm Gopher but much plumper in appearance. They two antennae on top of their heads and twelve limbs to move around.
• Bomber Gopher – A normal-looking Gopher that has white fut. What makes it stand out is its sensitive digestive system. It is far more likely to explode from eating too much candy. Sometimes, it does this on purpose to use itself as an explosive against threats. Bomber Gophers were thought to have been created using White Mouse DNA.
• Virus Gopher – A large Gopher where two separate bodies share the same head.
• Cyclops Gopher – A Gopher that has a large eye on its abdomen and head oriented upside down from normal. It has no eyes on its head and sees through its cylcoptic eye.
• Undead Gopher – A Gopher whose corpse has reanimated back to life through black magic. They have exposed bone and caramel drips out from them. They are carnivorous and bite through flesh.
• Spider Gopher – Similar to the Bounce Gopher, it only appears as the head of a normal Gopher. However, this time, spider legs protrude out from the sides.
• Scythe Gopher – Perhaps one of the scariest looking Gophers, Scythe Gophers are tall and spindly with chitinous joins and scythes for arms. Their eyes are pure white with no pupils and their lower jaw is dislocated, hanging much lower than normal. It violently rips apart prey with its scythes before consuming them.

Other

• Gopher Mother – The mythological, legendary giant Gopher in space that intends to devour the universe. Some believe the Gopher Mother is just a normal Gopher that has grown to enormous size. Regardless, it poses a threat to all existence if identified.

Quotes

Gophers

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