Big/harmless

Orcas and lesser whites, especially the larger species, are usually mortal enemies, apex predators competing endlessly for hunting grounds across Poseidon. Big/harmless (called Ōmugai by the NIS), a large, old, and wide-ranging lesser white in the New Hawaii region, is nothing if not unusual.

Many details are unclear, but surviving records from the Abandonment suggest that Big/harmless was responsible for as many as twelve confirmed human and six dolphin deaths around Kauai and Maui, and possibly others as far away as Leeward. Orca oral histories paint a very different story, claiming the lesser white (named Big/harmless by a transient pod) "liked their size" and only ever injured two orcas, both times in self-defense. Even calves were safe around Big/harmless, who was known for bringing pods food, exhibiting playful behavior, and once defending an orca from an attack by another lesser white.

This unusual behavior, reported by almost every orca pod over a period of decades, eventually evolved into an odd interspecies camaraderie, with the orcas considering him a pet and friend. Since the orcas were unwilling to kill Big/harmless and nobody else was brave enough to try, the peoples of New Hawaii eventually learned to simply stop talking about him.

Recontact changed much, for better and for worse. Pilot whales discovered, to their surprise, that despite being smaller than orcas Big/harmless tolerated them happily. (This does nothing good for relations between pilots and native fins; Big/harmless happily eats both common and bottlenose newcomers, and has never met a beluga to anyone's knowledge.) But the most significant change was, for Big/harmless just like everyone else, tens of thousands of newcomers descending upon New Hawaii with no awareness of its most controversial resident.

Big/harmless's days are numbered. The upper life expectancy of a large lesser white remains unclear, but Big/harmless is thought to be at least sixty. Biogene and the NIS are aware of Big/harmless, and both have access to weaponry the natives never did. Everybody knows New Hawaii would be safer for humans without Big/harmless. Nobody wants to find out what the orcas would do if anything happened to him.