Subject: Only if the cats are members of a Cat society.
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Posted on: 2016-03-29 18:04:00 UTC

Species names are typically not capitalized, but names of distinct societies are. Thus, we speak of humans, and also Americans, Latinos, Muslims, etc; and we speak of cats, but never Cats. At least on this planet.

Similarly, in the Tolkienverse, we may speak of elves or Elves, hobbits or Hobbits, men or Men. Or Noldor, or Númenóreans, or Shirefolk, etc.

Sci-fi does tend to default to capitalization, and in the case of would-be utopian futures like Star Trek, that's because there's this conceit that in the far future each world learns to live and function together as one whole society, so there's an excuse for Terrans always being Terrans and Klingons always being Klingons. There may be divisions within each society, but when you're discussing Terran dealings with Klingons, the broadest categories tend to be the most important. It doesn't matter to the Klingons that Captain Kirk is an Iowan; it matters that he's a member of Starfleet and a Terran. Hence, caps.

However, as far as I know, cats are still just cats.

~Neshomeh

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