Progenitor Species Theory

The Progenitor Species Theory was a xenosociocultural evolutionary theory put forward by the scientist Dorrus Arjefine. Arjefine spent some three years on Xyvax, home of the reclusive and deadly Zorphax, researching the planet's culture and its native sentients. Despite multiple close calls with death (both from the planet's wildlife and aggressive Zorphax), Arjefine broadly surveyed Zorphax the planet over to gain insights into their cultural practices.

Arjefine concluded that Xyvax had once hosted not one but two sentient species, the other being a race which had enslaved or otherwise controlled the Zorphax. Arjefine postulated that, at some point, the Zorphax had risen up against their controllers and massacred them. As evidence, she cited the single language which was common to all Zorphax the planet over (with dialectic variations) despite their isolationism and the paucity of settled civilizations.

The Progenitor Species Theory was immensely controversial; many xenosociologists believed Arjefine was making a wholly unsubstantiated leap of logic, and pointed out the lack of biological remains of the alleged Progenitors. Arjefine responded that the necrocannibalism of the Zorphax and Xyvax's bacteria and scavengers, which reclaimed most corpses the Zorphax missed, would have accounted for the missing remains.