>>533Very close! They're intelligent little fish that live in murky fresh water rivers in Africa. They developed a small electric organ that allowed them to communicate with others, and have speech patterns similar to actual humans based on the fact that they take pauses when speaking and stop talking when another is talking. Their brains heavily rely on the oxygen concentration of the water, however, which means that they could very easily face extinction if the oxygen levels change at all. That and because their brain-to-body ratio is so that they very likely require a high energy diet, meaning if their food source is disrupted, they could face extinction from that too.
Obviously they're fish, though, so it's not exactly like they could display higher reasoning skills with tool usage. I do wonder what they talk about. "So, whatcha doin'?" "Oh, you know, just swimming" "Oh. Yeah, same here. I found some bugs over here if you're hungry." "Bugs!"
I've mentioned this before to someone, but one of the solutions to the Fermi Paradox are "Great Filters." In my view, I think it's the case that there could be tons of intelligent life, but if they don't have a body capable of manipulating their environment, there's not really any chance of them advancing. Like, crows or octopuses. Sure, they're very smart, but they have considerably limited usage of their environment compared to humans, or even chimps.