The Cyber-Toothed Tiger
Posted By BrokenClaw on January 1, 2008
The cyber-toothed tiger, Smilodon cyberis, was the last surviving species of the genus Smilodon: Class Mammalia » Order Carnivora » Suborder Feliformia » Family Felidae – prehistoric saber-toothed cats easily identified by the extreme size of their maxillary canine teeth, that roamed North and South America for millions of years.
Most of the smilodons became extinct shortly after the first native Americans migrated across the continent about 10,000 years ago. Their extinction may have been indirectly facilitated by the influx of humans and the extinction of other large fauna. Many skeletal specimens have been recovered from the La Brea tar pits in Los Angeles County, California.
Smilodon cyberis was able to survive by retreating to the protection of the high Sierra1. In constant search of food, the cyber-toothed tigers found passage2 through the mountains and onto the grassy plains. There they found vast herds of bison and were able to adapt to new quests3 as the king4 of their eco-space5 for thousands of years. When Europeans began to populate the continent, unfounded stories of Smilodon put it somewhere between fairy tale6 and legend7 as a manhunter8, which was diametrically opposed to its leisurely9 existence.
During the gold rush10 of 1849 and beyond, adventurers traversing the plains continued to report sightings of the cyber-toothed tiger as a living species of the frontier11, although none were ever taken into captivity. The earliest known publication of real evidence of the cyber-tooth was printed in the Lawrence Kansas Daily Tribune in February 1856. A retired Army officer, Colonel Gabriel12, displayed a cyber-toothed tiger hide, complete with skull and one broken tooth, that he had acquired several years earlier from an Indian at an outpost13 in the Nebraska Territory.
Soon thereafter the railroads brought swarms of men with firearms, a lethal improvement over the native Americans’ bow14, and the bison were an easy target. Within a few decades the herds of bison were hunted to near-extinction. Without their primary source of food, Smilodon cyberis could not survive.
This fictitious account is a tribute to Sierra adventure games:
- Sierra On-Line was the software company, founded in 1979 as On-Line Systems, which published these games. As of 2008, the company was known as Sierra Entertainment, Inc.
- Torin’s Passage
- The series of Quest games, including:
- King’s Quest series
- EcoQuest and Space Quest series
- Mixed-Up Fairy Tales
- Conquests series: Legend of Robin Hood
- Manhunter series
- Leisure Suit Larry series
- Gold Rush!
- Freddy Pharkas, Frontier Pharmacist
- Gabriel Knight series
- Outpost
- Laura Bow series
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