There is Skia art in Space Gamer...
Message:... thus, arguably, "canon,"
Skia do have claws.
They also have big teeth, but a massive underbite.
They also have horns - useless as weapons, as they are hollow and coiled like sea shells. Yup, the "horns" are their ears. A Skia skill is also covered in bony spikes - still useless as weapons, but do have a complex, fractal "honeycomb" interior structure. Possibly "antennae" which relate to their Funky Powers.
A Skia's "pinky" is rigid and attaches to a solid bone running up the forearm - part of the "anchor" for the gliding membranes. This "pinky" gets broken when the suit gauntlet flexes. Active Cells then repair it, only to snap again. And again. The gliding membranes are surgically removed so the Skia fits in the suit. Again, Active Cells regrow them.
Skia EE Suits have no tail. It, too, is amputated, then grows back from Active Cells. Skia Duro Armor does have a tail. ONLY because Cherub demanded such for Battle Hymn (the only Battle Born squad regularly issued Duro Armor).
Laura posits Skia Battle Born in EE Suits try like hell to obtain Cruz EE Suits lower sections and remove one of the feet. Helps with the tail. This is a brilliant idea, and, when she voiced it, I was utterly pissed off I didn't think of it back in the day. Todd laughed when I told him.
Wearing an EE Suit is painful for any species, but the Skia have it worst - neither the War Cartel, or the Journeyman Cartel (knock off Suits) designers gave a damn about making life easier for the Skia. The Skimerian Cartel DID try to make Suits more suited to Skia anatomy. The penalty awarded during the ensuing lawsuit will be paid off any Era now. Although the War Cartel DID incorporate some of the seized (stolen) design elements for Skia EE suits.
Oddly enough (game/magazine art establishes) there are three different configurations of Cruz suits - "trashcan," where the Cruz eyestalks fold down the torso, forcing the Cruz to look out "Windows" in the abdomen, "pop top," where a small cylinder with a slit serves as the helmet, and the "bay window" where the helmet swells out from the shoulder section providing an unobstructed area for the Cruz eyes. This has nothing to do with comfort. "Trash can" suits block half of the Cruz field of vision, and looking out its "navel" means the Cruz's own arms further block vision. The slit on the "pop top" also obscures vision. The "bay window" is merely to allow the Cruz to utilize its full 360° vision. Of course the "bay window" helmet is much more fragile than the other two configurations, and much more likely to lose integrity at the "neck seal."
Cimmer do not have specific Suit configurations. Much like a topiary, a Cimmer will grow to fill whatever Terran/Cruz/Skia Suit it's placed into. It only takes a few years. The real problem is the intravenous/catheter needles keep reporting failures to the Suit's regulators, and the Suit keeps constantly trying to find veins and genitalia. The only way to prevent this is to bypass diagnostic and repair systems, totally. You can tell the type(s) of Suit a Cimmer has work by where it's bark has formed knot holes. On the positive side a damaged Cimmer can be less picky about what type of salvage it uses to repair a damaged Suit. It's not uncommon to see a Cimmer wearing a Skia helmet, Cruz torso and Terran legs. The Skian helmet is nice and roomy, the Cruz torso lets the Cimmer use an extra weapon (it's really hard for two armed Suits to say, deploy the Entrenching Tool when using the two-handed rifle... Why d'ya think Troopers cut their Gauss accelerators down for Pistol Grip configurations?), while the bipedal legs allow quicker, more dexterous running than the Cruz's lumbering tripod legs.
Yours,
IronMike
21-Nov-2021