Ok, so this is something that has been kinda bothering me for a bit. Do real animals exist in the Subeta world? The SubetaPedia seems to imply that the pet species are the only sorts of animals that exist, but then there are tons of items that reference real-world animals. Another, slightly related question I have concerns the NPC who are pet species. Is there something special about the characters, or are all of the pets intelligent beings who us users just keep as slaves for our amusement? If the answer is just "screw it, we don't care," I'm totally fine with that; I'm just curious if there is an official explanation.

1. yes, real animals exist

2. yes, it's totally slavery

one of the ways you know that NPC Drunk Carl is really really drunk is that he tries to be a pirate even though he's (probably) a human and every single one of the pirate NPCs are subetapets.

Humans and most of the goddesses (I think Merana may be native) are the aliens on Subeta come from elsewhere in the galaxy. Most of subeta's humanoid natives have long ears or horns or both. Therefore when the Subetapedia talks about pets as the only kinds of animals my own guess is that it's talking about the native species and not the invasive species that humans have brought along with them. Rosemary Kelly has us looking for earthlike birds, but real Subeta birds are Festers Lains Cybills Mallarchies Fuyaira, Decidiwi, Vultis, Buttwings Slavams Punches etc.

If you look at pet spotlights, some pets are pretty autonomous and intelligent, and some are well...just pets. Maybe us pet owners just can't tell. I view my own pets as friendly but not-always-good-company co-habitors of my underground mad science laboratory deep in the Omen Islands rainforest. They each have their own personal reasons for hanging around with me deep underground plotting trajectories for our missiles hanging around the pad watching reality TV cover Saggitarius' latest foibles.