Long before the Proteus class ever saw the light of day, the
Alphians did have space ships. I deliberately didn't say starships
because technically this isn't one. Orius was designed as a very
advanced cargo ship designed to travel to the Alphius 5 and 8 space and
mining stations where it would load raw materials such as precious
metals.
When Proteus was rushed in to service, the 10
Orius class ships used by the Alphians were rapidly decomissioned, the
parts transferred to Proteus.
While considered to be semi
organic living ships, they had no brain or nervous system as such, and
as a result were not considered to be alive.The Orius class of ship while never really featuring in Symbiotica and Proteus is constantly referenced and I thought it would only be fair for you to see what I was thinking with it.
You can definately see almost the family resemblence to Proteus, but at the same time these ships are far more primitive.