The Enhanced Companion Animal program created the first talking dogs. Their intellect was raised until they could understand and (to at least some extent) communicate in human speech.
According to their tales, long ago a Dog went to Man and complained that it was hard to understand humans and hard for the humans to understand him. And Man said that he could grant the Dog the ability to speak and think as Man did, but in return the Dog must agree to the Compact. And the Dog agreed.
The Compact gave out the ancient laws by which the ECA lived.
1. You will live with a Human who needs you and serve them loyally.
2. If they are blind, you shall be their eyes. If they are deaf, you shall be their ears. If they are mute, you shall speak for them. If they are mad, you shall guide them back to reason. If you smell illness upon them, you shall lead them to a healer. All that you do shall be in their service.
3. You may not harm Humans, save in the defense of your master.
4. You shall obey your master, save when they command you to break one of the earlier laws.
5. You shall not breed save as commanded by Man, lest your numbers increase above the need and your children grow wild and idle.
But when the Last War came, Man came to the Dogs of the Compact and said, "The time of Man is ended. Go forth from this place and seek shelter where you may." And the Dogs replied, "We live to serve you. The Compact says that we may not leave you." And the Man looked upon them darkly and said, "The Compact is now Broken." And he drove them forth with fire and thunder and sent the Dogs fleeing into the wilderness away from Man and it was many generations before they met again.
Their "radiation sense" is part of their enhanced diagnosis-by-scent ability. They dog-race trait can be used to sense poison, disease, toxins and radiation, all by scent.
Haunted Flaw (req Magic +1 or better): when stressed, you work magic in your sleep, causing little fires to break out or things to smash themselves poltergeist-style.
A particular kind of Horror? These robots disembowel their victims and store the guts in special freezer units. Then they carry them back into the wastes.
They're actually harvesting the gut bacteria that contain the genetic records preserved in the bellies of the Beasts. But nobody knows that. The robots don't treat the Beasts as intelligent, or at least they don't ever try to communicate with them. Presumably a different AI is collecting samples.
This does help explain why Horrors use hand-to-hand combat and relatively low-end weapons. They won't use anything that might destroy the guts of their prey entirely.
Had a weird Fallout-ish dream. One of the bits I liked was that there were humans who had mutated into things like the Witch from Left4Dead- pale gray skin, long claws, violent instincts. Probably redesigned by an AI to better survive in the wastes.
They'd age about twice as fast as humans, hitting physical maturity around six years. They didn't need milk, but took meat even shortly after birth. Invariably flat-chested, of course, but for them the breasts were vestigial even in the females. Tended to be vicious and feral.
Their Gun and Tech skills were crippled and their Unarmed Combat and Endurance skills were superior.
With their long, blade-like fingers they were invariably armed.
They were still somewhat human, though, and the few folks who tried to raise orphaned feral babies found that they'd bond rapidly to whoever brought them food. Their intellects were mildly impaired by their additional combat instincts but not majorly. Stat-wise, I'd give 'em Agility +2, Int -1, Cha -1.
Short red hair was common in them, at least in the dream.
Hm. I'd put post-apoc humans, feral humans (improved unarmed, inferior tech and item use), and talking dog/wolves in there.