Darth Wong wrote:Depends on how you define "superior". We're the only species to kill animals for some reason other than eating them or defending ourselves from them. We're the only species to organize in order to kill vast numbers of each other over lines on maps or ideologies.
These days it's mostly resources like mineral slime and shiny objects.(Mostly mineral slime)
Neanderthals died out because their less nomadic families promoted interbreeding and they were living just where the Cro-Mags wanted to set up a farm or a camp. Though it is reasonably sure that they were probably sentient. Indeed, many higher animals, dolphins, whales, primates, some other mammals and even octopi and squids have very advanced thinking skills but probably less than human abilities when it comes to furthering them. It's not that dolphins don't have sentience, it's that they have little oppertunity to get smarter.
Personally I believe that if you gave trees the ability to think, bioengineer organs and neuro networks into them, then they would be very smart and possibly sentient. If you could find a way to connect them to the internet or a large enough computer directly then they could become smarter than humans. Though unable to do much more than be smart.
Note: I have not simply screamed that Vorlons are a superior race. Why? Vorlons are no longer animals in any connotation, we are beings of psyonic energy, beyond the need for bodies. But do not get snotty about being the leading species on your planet, you've virtually killed off everthing else that wasn't dead already.