The Fetoros
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Fetoros are renowned for being the smelliest creatures in the galaxy, a quality of which they are immensely proud.
A Fetoro's body is optimized for scent. It has 36 olfactory sensors, similar to human nostrils but approximately 10,000 times more sensitive. They have nostrils on their hands, nostrils on their feet, nostrils on their bellies, and even their (nearsighted, colorblind) eyes double as nostrils, its outer membrane collecting motes for olfactory analysis. They quite literally see the world through scent.
This ability makes Fetoros invaluable members of spaceship crews, remote settlements, and science expeditions, where the immediate detection of chemical changes in the environment can be crucial. They’re famously handy, able to sense where something has gone wrong in a complex system and fix it.
But Fetoros don’t just smell, they also smell. Their bodies constantly churn out a potent brew of pheromones containing a dense amount of information—they have no spoken language, only an aromatic language. This means that Fetoros are often confined to the mechanical bowels of a spaceship, since if they shared a mess hall with other people, nobody would be able to keep their meal down.
They don’t mind the segregation though, not just because they're agreeable (which they are) but because they experience our impotent scents as a distraction, like a child’s fingerpainting plastered over a masterpiece.
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