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wolven91 · 11 months

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They're Good Boys

“Abigail, get away from it!”

The human made no attempt to move away from the obviously apex predator that they had found evidence of, only days before on the latest planet to be surveyed in the oddly unresearched system. The planet was an iceball relatively close to the canid home system Anul. This system had been largely ignored due to the dangerous gravity wells that peppered the whole system. It was only now that they were investigating due to the unusual amount of stranded ships becoming an issue. Mainly because these ships were beginning to contain humans.

Now the humans were seemingly desperate to get killed as the predator was a gigantic beast, the human barely came up to the top of its leg, its shoulders and back were only just reachable to the shorter human and even to the avian Guelex, they barely reached its head. The poor avian was currently displaying his stress via extending his plumage to its maximum.

“He’s fine, see; he likes me!” The human shouted back, turning her head towards Faa breifly. The giant predator continued to lick and slather over the human’s ear instead of her face directly.

“It. Is. Tasting. You!!” He tried to penetrate the human’s exceptionally thick skull, but to no avail. The human turned back, reengaging her scratches to the sides of the monster’s face while using a strange voice, one reminiscent of the way one would speak to a young hatchling.

“Oooh, you’re just a big ‘ol space puppy aren’t you? Who’s a big space puppy? Who's a big scary six legged space puppy!?”

The creature collapsed to the ground and rolled onto its back partially, the human, not using this opportunity to flee, instead moved to rake her hands through the fluff that made up the creature’s belly. The set of hind legs began to kick in time to her attention.

Faa felt like he was going to moult at this rate.

“Human Abigail?!” Faa no longer cared for the Human Abigail who had the good sense not to climb on top of the predators. Human Max however, had appeared behind where Human Abigail was currently face deep into the belly of the beast, riding atop a different member of the behemoth’s pack.

“It’s like riding a horse! Only not really and completely different!” Human Max shouted from its back, his legs and stomach were completely obscured by the deep pelt of the creature. He reached down to scratch behind a massive ear, causing the creature to tilt its head and take several sideway steps in that direction.

“See! They’re good boys! It’s been years since I rode!”

“They- They’re not ‘good boys’! They’re dangerous!”

A large branch came flying from behind an ancient tree that had been growing on the ice planet for centuries. Moments later two more of the creatures came bursting from the undergrowth before growling and pulling at either end of the tree branch, fighting amongst themselves. Human Sarah appeared, pushing through the snow that reached her chest.

“Guys, they know ‘fetch’!”

“Awesome!” “Cool!” The group shouted.

Faa simply put a taloned hand on his face and shook his head. If Faa got eaten because of these Apes, he’s going to have words with the God of Challenges.

This wasn’t fair.

“Faa, look, we can make it all the way back to the ship before nightfall if we take the Good Boys.”

Faa opened one eye at Human Abigail without removing his hand, Human Abigail was currently laying against the creature’s stomach on her back. She looked cosy and warm, ignoring the giant megafauna that was her ‘bed’.

“By riding them?”

“By riding them. We’ll have to give them treats though...”

The creature she was laying against, flinched, and sent her stumbling. It brought its muzzle all the way round towards Human Abigail and began to press it into her at different locations while the giant bellows of its lungs worked to sniff at her vigorously. The others that were in ear shot also took notice, as if understanding her meaning, if not her words. Human Abigail had the good sense to back up from the trio of predators that approached a few steps before falling over backwards into the snow bank.

Faa looked on in horror as he assumed the creatures began to eat Human Abigail, he didn’t even want to say ‘I told you so’, but before he could shout, run or even grumble, Human Abigail’s laughter broke out from below the muzzles that were pressing him into the snow.

“Stop it! Argh! I don’t have any on me ya daft things! Stop licking me! Let's go back and you can come with us! Pleh! Urgh! It got in my mouth! No!”

She had the decency to sound distressed now, but Faa knew she’d not learn from this experience, none of Faa’s team ever did. No wonder these humans didn’t travel in large groups; they hardly got any work done.

#conservationverse #cuddleverse #human #haso #hfy #humans are space orcs #wolves #wolf pack #feral

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sonicasura · 2 months

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Every time I remember an Autobot or Decepticon bitch about being stuck on Earth, Animated and Prime are the most frequent, it makes me laugh thinking how easy they got it. Imagine any iteration ending up on a version that is much more chaotic than the norm. Especially if the dangers are hidden or completely normal to humans.

We got JoJo's Bizarre Adventure where you literally can't trust even a simple POWER OUTLET. From stone masks that could turn people into eldritch vampire, pieces of Jesus Christ could give people powers, and martial arts which either turn the circulatory system into a sunlight generator (Hamon) or using the Golden Ratio to shred even dimensions (Spin).

I'm not forgetting about Stand Users either. Every sentient creature could become a Stand User, someone who can project a psychic manifestation of their fighting spirits that could look like anything with abilities that range from giving positive encouragement to stopping time. That weird individual on the street could dissect Megatron into pieces with fucking zippers through their Stand.

How about Resident Evil where the constant threat is viral infections? I'm not talking about the standard zombie virus either. We got mutant undead creating ones, parasitic worms/insects, to fucking hivemind mold. All guaranteed to least spawn mutants like giant man eating salamanders, evolving fanged blobs and even an eldritch dinosaur.

They have to constantly decontaminate base than just troops as a simple small strain could turn a rat into a dog sized menace. Plus all those zombies guts and blood they have to clean up if an infected did get inside. I'm pretty damn sure humans are no longer the gross squishies compared to that.

Last best addition to add is the 'Kaiju Series' i.e Kaiju No. 8, Godzilla/King Kong Monsterverse, and Pacific Rim. Normal Earth fauna doesn't cause much compared to this as kaiju practically made themselves home here. The bots aren't exactly prepared for megafauna being a constant presence and frequent threat.

Kaiju are territorial so their respective ships will get attacked if spotted too close to the creatures' home. Some may also feed on metal and think either faction are potential food. The humans here could potentially kick their afts like Kaiju No 8's Defense Force or Pacific Rim's Jaeger Pilots.

Never take what you have for granted. In the Autobots and Decepticons cases, that is a normal simple Earth. The other possibilities could be much worse.

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balkanradfem · 1 year

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I've been reading 'The Climate Book' from Greta Thunberg, and I have to talk about it. I've never seen a book written so brilliantly and desperately, pleading for awareness, for action, for survival. I thought I was aware of the climate change, but there was a vast amount of information I did not know. I'll start from the ones I did.

I knew that the climate has already changed, and will continue to change until a lot of animal species will go extinct, and a big amount of human beings will suffer, end up impoverish, misplaced, in starvation, or dead. I knew the culprits were the companies that refused to stop taking down forests, burning fossil fuels, promoting lifestyles of consumerism, over-consumption, generated the amount of waste that the planet could not safely consume or store. I also knew that one of the biggest pollutants were big oil, animal and plant agriculture, fast fashion industry, travel industry, and the capitalistic system that enabled 1% of humanity to own and over-consume 90% of the resources available to us. Knowing this made me feel powerless, because even as I boycott all of it, I can't do much else, and I'm not enough to stop what is going on. I am merely a drop in the ocean - which is what Greta points out as well. But, Greta doesn't think we're powerless.

This book is incredible in the sense that it goes over and beyond to think practically. It doesn't despair, it doesn't panic, it doesn't think any other way but how to practically and effectively bring change, what are the options and possibilities, what is true and what is propaganda, how to avoid millions of deaths and extinctions that are sure to come, if we do nothing. Greta has analyzed all action that is 'being done', and found out most of it was fraud, cheating, lying. All of the governments and companies who were bragging about reduced emissions, or offsetting emissions, have simply found ways to outsource them and to emit them in another, poorer country. The amount of emissions has actually increased.

She has also interviewed the world leaders, and people responsible and suffering from climate change - and these are the results: Nobody feels responsible, nobody feels as if it's their turn to change, to reduce, to do anything to help it. Even interviewing people whose livelihood was taken away from them due to climate change, who have lost their living environments already, their trees and animals and fields and fertility and soil, when asked if they would be willing to work ecologically from now on, with reduced or low emissions, their answer was 'Why should we? It's not fair, they took from us and enjoyed, while we suffered. We won't stop until we have what they have. We deserve it.'

With this information, Greta has found a truth of how humans influence each other - we imitate. If we see someone else doing something, or having something we find desirable, we also want it. We look at ourselves in relation to other people that surround us, we take responsibility according to what others around do, and we hold ourselves accountable only as much as others do. And this is why we have a power that goes beyond individual action, beyond simply lowering our own emissions and boycotting companies that are responsible for pollution - we are able to influence others. We're able to influence the media, which forms public opinions, and using the media, force into action those who benefit from polluting the planet.

What I didn't know, and this book taught me, was that from the times humans started to hunt, they didn't only have a great effect on the environment, they were the absolute leading agent on it. Soon after hunting the megafauna into extinction, the environment started to change not just because we affected it, but because we directed it to. We caused the extinction of many species throughout the past, by hunting, taking wild spaces for our own use, polluting water sources, changing the climate, spreading predatory species, like cats and rats, and we didn't stop there. We changed the landscapes of forests and fields, into human-used agricultural land that was effectively deadened for the purpose of wildlife. We domesticated, and then farmed animals, to such extreme degree, that right now what is left of the wildlife, is mere 12-15% of all animals out there. More than 80% of current animals by weight living on earth, are put there by animal agriculture, meant for human consumption. That is absolutely insane. We did the same with the wildlife environment as well – there is now only 3% of the forests on earth, that are still considered intact. We changed the landscape, not only slightly, but by erasing most of it, making it unusable to animals, insects or wild plants, appropriated only for agriculture, grazing, and human-only environments. And, we dug up and released so much carbon into the air, it is coming close to the amount that we had on the earth, at the time of dinosaur extinction, which wiped out a third of the planet's species. And we keep doing it, even knowing what will happen, knowing that every single time this happened in the past, it created mass extinction.

I wasn't aware how serious and extreme the changes we made were. Knowing what is going out, makes it very clear why we have a crisis, it would be crazy to expect not to have one. These changes were not reported, nobody was asked to approve of them, there were no regulations or limits, no environmental studies on consequences, and it keeps going. We keep increasing the demand for agriculture and animal products, increasing our consumption even though we are running out of the natural resources used to create the products. And it is not our fault. Most of the food and meat created by destroying this land, will go to waste, for the profit of the corporations. The world will keep living in starvation, despite so much of natural life getting destroyed for food, despite the climate crisis being caused, partly by our food production.

This doesn't mean we can't sustainably feed ourselves anymore, it just means we can't do it the way we're used to. It just tells us we need to use more resilient and less land and water consuming food. Plant based diets demand less soil and emit less carbon, gardening reduces the amount of agricultural space needed to feed us, supporting and protecting wildlife wherever it's still thriving, will save both soil, animal species, and biodiversity that is very quickly fading from the planet.

I've also learned that even as we're close to the tipping point, but haven't reached it yet. Whatever we do right now that stops us from reaching it, will mean the difference between life and death to the future generations of people, animals, and plants. If we manage to make changes now, to stop the ice from melting past the tipping point, we can save millions of lives, that would end in certain death otherwise. If we can create policies that are not volountary but binding, we have a chance to save livable land, animal and plant species, biodiversity, and human quality of life. It's not too late to act, in fact, this is the vital time to act, and we're the only ones who can do it.

And the way you can act is not just by reducing waste, reducing the amount of energy you consume, reducing animal-products in your food and refusing to waste and throw away usable goods, but by being public about it. By making it clear it's a positive improvement on your life, on your quality of life, that it's both moral and enjoyable, both inspiring and encouraging others to do the same. Some of us have bigger impact on others than we might know, and if we start doing it and visibly enjoying it, there are others who will follow.

This book has taught me immense amount of science behind the climate crisis, and gave me incentive to do more than just live and feel helpless, I need to do more. I recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn more, and wanting to act more. I will be from now on, writing more about ecology and preserving the planet, and how to do it. If we're the directors of where this planet is going, we have to be so intentionally, with knowledge, wisdom and awareness of what we are doing. We can do good, and humans have been doing good, any time there's been wisdom, awareness and intention in how we're shaping the environment. And if anyone wants the book in the audio form, send me a message and I will give it to you.

#Greta Thunberg #The Climate Book #book review #climate crisis #climate change #global warming #actions to stop global warming #impacting others to understand and prevent the worst of the worst #carbon emissions #lying politicians

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a-dinosaur-a-day · 11 months

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Think of Megafauna as the evolutionary equivalent of The Rich

no no no, hold on with me a second

matter and energy are finite. an ecosystem is, essentially, a group of organisms in a particular location balancing each other out in order to allow for matter and energy to flow in a constant cycle

that balance requires each species to reproduce to the best of its ability, and all the species around it to take advantage of that reproduction to the best of their abilities

the larger you are, the more energy and matter you need to survive. yes, if you're bigger, you can have an advantage over other species in getting food (either by being able to reach more of it, or overpower things to get to it, that kind of thing). but you have to make up for it by eating more. a LOT more. it scales up logarithmically.

because bigger species need more resources to exist, they aren't able to spend as many on reproduction, meaning that - as a rule - bigger species have smaller populations. which is an evolutionary disadvantage. but not their only one.

in a way, they are hoarding matter and energy in the bodies of a select few, that gained larger size in order to access more matter and energy. which, yes, every species tries to do, but at smaller sizes, its sustainable.

smaller species have larger populations, which then speciate more so that more offspring can live and occupy new niches, which then leads to more speciation because niches beget niches, and so on

yes, bigger species can also strike that balance, but they sit on the top of a precarious peak. they rely on that entire system to continue to function in order to fuel their large size and successful populations.

so bigger species tend to evolve in systems where there are not selection pressures for them to be economical. and most bigger species do not have much in the way of modern descendants.

because the minute their ecosystem starts to fall apart, they can't get enough food.

and they go extinct.

megafaunalism is just a different kind of specialization, and niche specialists have to be very lucky to survive mass extinctions.

we see this in every extinction. end ordovician, end devonian, end permian, end triassic, end cretaceous, the current one. megafauna go first.

the main difference between megafauna and Human Wealth Hoarders is that megafauna aren't making a conscious choice. Human Wealth Hoarders are.

and, much like megafauna, as the system they rely on collapses, they will be the first to go extinct. there's fewer of them, and they're more vulnerable. poorer people, much like smaller species, will lose many members - but, because there are more of us / smaller species are significantly more diverse, we'll/they'll ultimately get through it a lot easier.

the only reason we think megafauna = good is because *we're* megafauna. not only megafauna, but the highest trophic level (ie "top predators", which, given everything gets decomposed in the end, sure is an extremely revealing way to phrase it in terms of the psyche of the people inventing the term). we've convinced ourselves that being at the "end" (there is no end. we all get decomposed) of the "food chain" (it's a circular web) is best because that's where we are, and it gives us more power and control.

but just as toxins in water concentrate in "top predators", so do the stressors of ecological crises disproportionately affect megafauna. and us.

smaller is more diverse, more speciose, because they can. and evolutionarily speaking, more diverse = winning. because you're more likely to keep playing the game in the future.

so yeah. bigger is worse, actually.

#megafauna #size #animal size #evolution #ecology

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literary-illuminati · 5 months

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2024 Book Review #4 – War in Human Civilization by Azar Gat

This is my first big history book of the year, and one I’ve been rather looking forward to getting to for some time now. Its claimed subject matter – the whole scope of war and violent conflict across the history of humanity – is ambitious enough to be intriguing, and it was cited and recommended by Bret Devereaux, whose writing I’m generally a huge fan of. Of course, he recommended The Bright Ages too, and that was one of my worst reads of last year – apparently something I should have learned my lesson from. This is, bluntly, not a good book – the first half is bad but at least interesting, while the remainder is only really worth reading as a time capsule of early 2000s academic writing and hegemonic politics.

The book purports to be a survey of warfare from the evolution of homo sapiens sapiens through to the (then) present, drawing together studies from several different fields to draw new conclusions and a novel synthesis that none of the authors being drawn from had ever had the context to see – which in retrospect really should have been a big enough collection of dramatically waving red flags to make me put it down then and there. It starts with a lengthy consideration of conflict in humanity’s ‘evolutionary state of nature’ – the long myriads between the evolution of the modern species and the neolithic revolution – which he holds is the environment where the habits, drives and instincts of ‘human nature’ were set and have yet to significantly diverge from. He does this by comparing conflict in other social megafauna (mostly but not entirely primates), archaeology, and analogizing from the anthropological accounts we have of fairly isolated/’untainted’ hunter gatherers in the historical record.

From there, he goes on through the different stages of human development – he takes a bit of pain at one point to disavow believing in ‘stagism’ or modernization theory, but then he discusses things entirely in terms of ‘relative time’ and makes the idea that Haida in 17th century PNW North America are pretty much comparable to pre-agriculture inhabitants of Mesopotamia, so I’m not entirely sure what he’s actually trying to disavow – and how warfare evolved in each. His central thesis is that the fundamental causes of war are essentially the same as they were for hunter-gatherer bands on the savanna, only appearing to have changed because of how they have been warped and filtered by cultural and technological evolution. This is followed with a lengthy discussion of the 19th and 20th centuries that mostly boils down to trying to defend that contention and to argue that, contrary to what the world wars would have you believe, modernity is in fact significantly more peaceful than any epoch to precede it. The book then concludes with a discussion of terrorism and WMDs that mostly serves to remind you it was written right after 9/11.

So, lets start with the good. The book’s discussion of rates of violence in the random grab-bag of premodern societies used as case studies and the archaeological evidence gathered makes a very convincing case that murder and war are hardly specific ills of civilization, and that per capita feuds and raids in non-state societies were as- or more- deadly than interstate warfare averaged out over similar periods of time (though Gat gets clumsy and takes the point rather too far at times). The description of different systems of warfare that ten to reoccur across history in similar social and technological conditions is likewise very interesting and analytically useful, even if you’re skeptical of his causal explanations for why.

If you’re interested in academic inside baseball, a fairly large chunk of the book is also just shadowboxing against unnamed interlocutors and advancing bold positions like ‘engaging in warfare can absolutely be a rational choice that does you and yours significant good, for example Genghis Khan-’, an argument which there are apparently people on the other side of.

Of course all that value requires taking Gat at his word, which leads to the book’s largest and most overwhelming problem – he’s sloppy. Reading through the book, you notice all manner of little incidental facts he’s gotten wrong or oversimplified to the point where it’s basically the same thing – my favourites are listing early modern Poland as a coherent national state, and characterizing US interventions in early 20th century Central America as attempts to impose democracy. To a degree, this is probably inevitable in a book with such a massive subject matter, but the number I (a total amateur with an undergraduate education) noticed on a casual read - and more damningly the fact that every one of them made things easier or simpler for him to fit within his thesis - means that I really can’t be sure how much to trust anything he writes.

I mentioned above that I got this off a recommendation from Bret Devereaux’s blog. Specifically, I got it from his series on the ‘Fremen Mirage’ – his term for the enduring cultural trope about the military supremacy of hard, deprived and abusive societies. Which honestly makes it really funny that this entire book indulges in that very same trope continuously. There are whole chapters devoted to thesis that ‘primitive’ and ‘barbarian’ societies possess superior military ferocity and fighting spirit to more civilized and ‘domesticated’ ones, and how this is one of the great engines of history up to the turn of the modern age. It’s not even argued for, really, just taken as a given and then used to expand on his general theories.

Speaking of – it is absolutely core to the book’s thesis that war (and interpersonal violence generally) are driven by (fundamentally) either material or reproductive concerns. ‘Reproductive’ here meaning ‘allowing men to secure access to women’, with an accompanying chapter-length aside about how war is a (possibly the most) fundamentally male activity, and any female contributions to it across the span of history are so marginal as to not require explanation or analysis in his comprehensive survey. Women thus appear purely as objects – things to be fought over and fucked – with the closest to any individual or collective agency on their part shown is a consideration that maybe the sexual revolution made western society less violent because it gave young men a way to get laid besides marriage or rape.

Speaking of – as the book moves forward in time, it goes from being deeply flawed but interesting to just, total dreck (though this also might just me being a bit more familiar with what Gat’s talking about in these sections). Given the Orientalism that just about suffuses the book it’s not, exactly, surprising that Gat takes so much more care to characterize the Soviet Union as especially brutal and inhumane that he does Nazi Germany but it is, at least, interesting. And even the section of World War 2 is more worthwhile than the chapters on decolonization and democratic peace theory that follow it.

Fundamentally this is just a book better consumed secondhand, I think – there are some interesting points, but they do not come anywhere near justifying slogging through the whole thing.

#book review #history #war in human civilization #azar gat

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marlynnofmany · 1 year

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Going the Extra Mile/s

There wasn’t a spare seat in the cockpit today, but I lingered in the doorway because I wanted to get a look at the giant migrating beasties that made the locals retreat underground for “cave season.” They were just as huge as expected.

“Well, this is definitely the right area,” Kavlae said as she adjusted the magnification on the secondary viewscreen. Gargantuan creatures like rhinos with too many legs ambled across a dusty alien landscape, easily big enough to crush our little courier ship underfoot. Kavlae zoomed in for a close look with her head fins flaring in curiosity.

I watched from the doorway, just as curious. These would make an interesting hazard. If the medicine we were delivering wasn’t so important, the captain might have passed on the job. But those people in the cave system were suffering an outbreak of something, and both their need and their payment were high. Besides, we shouldn’t have to get too close to danger. Someone was going to meet us and take the medicine back to the caves.

“What’s that?” Captain Sunlight said urgently. She pointed with a a yellow-scaled hand. “By the little one that’s bouncing around.”

Kavlae refocused the screen while Wio steered the ship, blue-ringed tentacles growing tense on the controls.

I edged forward for a better view. The remnants of something broken and mechanical filled the screen. When I saw handlebars, I frowned. “Is that a hoverbike?”

At the same time, Captain Sunlight asked, “Where’s the driver?”

Kavlae refocused and searched the area. Wio brought us in to where we could just see the herd on the main screen, but kept a safe distance. Yup, that wreckage was near the landing pad with the ramp down into the canyon. The missing driver was our contact. Not good.

“There! Closer!”

“Looks in rough shape,” Kavlae said. “Wish we had bio-scanners.”

I stood behind the captain’s chair, taking in the sight of the unmoving pile of clothes and fur. “Should I go tell Eggskin to grab a medical kit?”

“I’ll set an alert,” said Captain Sunlight.

Wio passed her the microphone for the comms without a word, already clicking switches anxiously.

I stood there with nothing to do while the captain announced to the whole ship that priorities had changed. The crates in the cargo bay would have to wait while we made an urgent rescue of the person waiting for them.

“…And we’d best be quick, because he may have been kicked by the megafauna, and they’re still in range. Eggskin, meet me at the cargo door.” She clicked off, handed it back, then directed Wio to land but hold the engines ready.

“I’ll keep watch,” Kavlae said. “That baby is probably the one that did it. The adults look too calm.”

“Call if there’s danger,” Captain Sunlight told her, hopping down and trotting toward the door.

I followed on my long human legs. “I’ll get an exo suit and go with Eggskin,” I volunteered. “I don’t know this species, but I might be able to help.” Veterinarian training, I’d learned, was more useful in space than a regular humans-only medical degree. It’s that familiarity with a wide range of body types that does it.

“Good,” said the captain, hurrying along. “Be quick with the suit.”

We arrived at the cargo bay, and I did my best to wriggle into my exo suit before she finished explaining the situation to the many worried faces. They were all wearing suits already.

Not because of environment, but because of contagion. This delivery was risky on more than one level.

“I have scanners and stabilizers,” said Eggskin. “Just say the word.” While there weren’t usually many injuries delivering cargo, and the good doctor spent more time preparing meals as the good cook, they were the acknowledged expert on medical care for sentient species. They were also a Heatseeker like the captain, just with scales colored a pale yellow-green and the full name “Skin of the Egg that is Translucent and Ready to Hatch.”

I’d realized privately that those scales were the color of fresh boogers, but I wasn’t about to say so out loud.

“Everybody suited?” asked Captain Sunlight, her lizardy face looking out of her visor.

“Ready,” I said. The rest of the room agreed.

“Eggskin, Robin, and Blip into the airlock,” the captain directed, hitting the controls. “Take the small sled, and get him back inside quickly. Stay in the airlock while we scan for contagion.”

“Got it.” We did as directed: one human, one small lizardy person, and one big fin-covered sea monster type person ready for action with an empty hoversled. This was not what I expected today’s delivery to involve.

The outer door opened to a bright, sunny desert, with giant creatures in the background and an injured local on the dirt ahead of us. Wio had parked close. Good.

Eggskin took the lead, rushing over with scanner in hand to check for life. I followed, moving to the other side while Blip pulled the hoversled into stretcher position. The guy on the ground was curled halfway into the fetal position, covered in red dust like he’d tumbled quite a ways after being kicked. It was hard to make out the species. Kinda mousy, about Heatseeker size.

“He’s alive,” Eggskin reported. “Impact injuries; unconscious; fixable. Be careful of his head.”

Blip and I worked together to lift him onto the hoversled. He didn’t weigh much, but he was limp and barely breathing. I cradled his head carefully.

A growing earthquake made me look up just as the ship’s loudspeaker said, “Incoming! Get onboard now!”

An excitable young rhinocipede the size of a motel was barreling toward us. We pushed the sled and ran.

When the door slammed, I felt the ship take off in a way we were usually insulated from when riding properly inside the ship. It was almost enough inertia to knock me off my feet, but not quite. Eggskin leaned against the wall and Blip took a better stance.

The guy on the sled wheezed.

“Scanning,” said the captain’s voice on the loudspeaker. The ship leveled out abruptly. “Okay, he’s safe; bring him inside.” The inside of the airlock opened up to a double row of concerned crewmates, leaving space for Eggskin to take the guy to our little medbay. I assumed someone had moved the spare chairs out of it already.

While we got him in there and onto the bed, everyone else took turns worrying and cleaning up the trail of dust. Blip put the sled away. I got to be medical assistant.

“It’s mostly broken ribs and a concussion,” Eggskin told me while they moved the various medical machinery into position. “Very lucky he didn’t puncture a lung. See if you can wet-wipe some of that dust off his face, will you? Don’t want him sneezing right now, or getting a scratched cornea.”

I did what I could to help, though the medbay really was top notch, despite being no bigger than the average bathroom. Soon enough the mousy little fellow was stabilized and healing, still unconscious but with less dust in his fur. He looked kind of like a chipmunk, though with long legs like a jackrabbit, or maybe a jerboa. No idea what the species name was.

That didn’t matter. The fact that he and his bike were out of commission did.

“How do we make the delivery?” I asked the captain where she stood outside the medbay, surrounded by others. Eggskin was keeping an eye on the patient behind me.

“That’s the problem for certain,” she said, starting to pace. “I’ve contacted their communications hub, but things are more dire than they let on before. Long story, but they just don’t have another driver they can send.”

Zhee’s opinionated bug eyes appeared over Blip’s shoulder. “So let’s just fly closer,” he said. “Lower it from the cliff edge.”

Captain Sunlight shook her head. Kavlae beat her to the answer. “The animals will swat us out of the sky,” she said. “It’s been tried before. And there are local laws about harassing the things to get them to move. It’ll just end in a panic dance that crushes the canyon wall.”

“And gets us sued,” Captain Sunlight put in.

Paint put up a hand like a child, though a scaly orange one. “Why can’t we send our own vehicle down the canyon? I suppose it’s too narrow for the car, but what about the bike?”

Captain Sunlight turned to the toothpaste-green tentacle alien behind her. “Mimi, do you want to tell us why we can’t use our hoverbike?”

Mimi threw his tentacles in the air. His deep voice was exasperated when he said, “I already apologized for using the parts without asking! The rusted thing is falling apart anyway, and we never use it! The ship needed exactly that part!”

The captain sighed. “Yes, I’m sure it made sense at the time. But that puts us in a bad position now. Someone’s going to have to go on foot.”

Mur wove his own tentacles together at floor level. “Will that be fast enough? This is a rush order.”

Captain Sunlight spread her hands. “It will have to be,” she said. “There are no other options.”

Paint looked around. “So who’s fastest? Trrili?”

The terrifying black-and-red insectlike form standing in the back shook her head. “Short distances yes; long runs no.”

Zhee nodded. “Long runs are for herd animals.”

“Well, we don’t have any of those,” said Captain Sunlight. “Who’s got good endurance?”

At the chorus of nos, I had a dawning realization about my various crewmates. None of their species ran marathons.

“Let me do it,” I said quickly. “I can do the Balto run.”

“Balto run?” asked Captain Sunlight.

“Hero from my planet. One of several, really. But it was even a medicine delivery a lot like this one! But through the snow, not a desert. Anyway.” I stood up straight. “I volunteer.”

“Good enough for me,” said the captain. “Let’s get the crates strapped onto a sled. I had hoped to send two people, since this is too important to risk on a random stumble, but…”

“Someone could ride on the sled,” I said, starting to smile. “It won’t make it any harder to pull. And they can help hit the bumpers so it doesn’t bonk into the canyon walls.”

Paint’s hand shot up. “Ooh! Me!”

Captain Sunlight pointed at her. “You’re it. Both of you get ready in five, with a day’s worth of the food and water of your choice.”

“Will it take that long?” I asked, hoping my shoes were up to the task without any horrible blistering.

“That depends on you,” said the captain. “Scoot.”

I scooted. This was exciting.

In five minutes, I was ready with a bag of supplies to be strapped to the sled in easy reach, and my most comfortable clothes. I’d gone to the bathroom and stretched. Paint was similarly ready, though without the stretching.

“Let’s gooo!” she said from atop the hoversled, where she had a cushion and handholds on the front crate. Also an exo suit.

I wasn’t wild about wearing mine for this whole jaunt, but it was surprisingly flexible as these things go, and it promised to keep my air fresh and oxygenated.

“Is your pocket communicator charged and functioning?” asked Captain Sunlight.

“Yup. Double-checked.”

“Then I wish you the best of luck.” She stood back with a two-handed alien salute, and everyone cheered while we waited for the airlock to cycle.

“Is this just like your hero?” Paint asked me.

“Surprisingly yes,” I said, giving the harness an exploratory tug. “Glad I’ve got real food instead of dog treats, though.”

“Huh?”

“Balto was a dog.”

The airlock opened with a bang — somebody should oil that — and we were off down the ramp at my best pace, with dramatic fanfare behind. The sled was easy to pull, thanks to good ol’ hover tech, and the bumpers would make sure it didn’t glide forward to knock me off my feet. Plus Paint was ready to help steer it as needed.

The sun was bright, but the dusty wind slid right off my suit. The giant stompy beasties were far enough away and not looking. The ramp down into the canyon had a decent grip, and despite the history of water carving the canyon, there was only an easily-avoided stream at the bottom.

“We’re probably lucky this is the dry season,” I called up to Paint, not out of breath yet. “I bet the river gets big when it rains.”

“Save your breath for running!” Paint laughed.

“Yeah, okay,” I said. “But eventually I’ll want to walk for a bit, and then it’s time for space shanties.”

I managed to keep up the pace for longer than I’d expected; yay me; then downgraded to a long-legged stride that I could keep up indefinitely. Well, close enough to indefinitely. My legs were probably going to be sore, but that was nothing to complain about. Blisters were more annoying.

Paint was keeping an eye on the narrow strip of sky far above, to make sure no hazards approached. “Do you think singing will attract their attention?”

“Oh. Good point,” I said. I walked in silence for a moment.

“What if you sing quietly?” Paint asked.

“Yeah, and Kavlae has probably got us in sight anyway. They’ll call us if they see a problem.” I thought for a moment. “I don’t know any songs about delivering medicine, so here’s one about food and drink.” I launched into The Wellerman, appreciating how my voice bounced off the canyon walls.

The trip passed quickly. I alternated between jogging and walking, occasionally taking sips of water and bites of energy bars. Paint made for good company. She had a pretty good singing voice too, and shared some great kids’ songs from her childhood, which I was going to be sure to get written down later. Especially the one about counting scales and losing count.

It had been about three hours when my phone beeped for attention. I slowed my current jog to a walk again and pulled it out. My heart rate kicked a little faster from concern. “Hello?”

“You’re almost there,” said the captain.

“What?? Already?”

“‘Already,’ she says.” Captain Sunlight sounded like she was rolling her eyes to whoever else was listening. “Anyone else would have dropped from exhaustion.”

“After only three hours?” I asked. “I used to go on casual hikes every weekend that were longer than this!”

Indistinct sounds made it through the communicator. “Impressive,” Captain Sunlight said. “At any rate, prepare yourselves to greet the outpost soon. I’ve told them to expect you.”

“Well all right, then,” I said. “Thanks.”

The captain clicked off, and I put away the phone. I heard Paint rustling snack bags as she tidied up.

The canyon ahead was a long straight patch, with a corner at the end that I suspected would put us into view of the outpost.

“Ready to run?” I asked Paint.

A container snapped shut. “Ready!”

“Onward!” I charged ahead, pulling a sled full of life-saving medicine on the easiest death-defying run I’d ever been on.

~~~

The ongoing backstory adventures of the main character from this book.

More to come!

#my writing #the Token Human #humans are weird #humans are space orcs #haso #humans are space australians #humans are space oddities #hfy #eiad #science fiction #Aliens #short stories #I'll put these tags near the end so it's more of a surprise:#humans are persistence predators #endurance #Balto

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pushing500 · 2 months

Text

✨Gracie's Rimworld Modlist✨

(For the Mechanitor's Message run)

Here are all my current mods in order. Once again it’s all hand-typed because I am a bit rubbish at computer stuff and don’t know how to export modlists. Enjoy!! xoxo

Prepatcher (required for one or more of the other mods to work)

Harmony (I think this is just for performance)

Vanilla Backgrounds Expanded (this is just cool for loading screens etc.)

[CAT] Show Hair With Hats or Hide All Hats (so my colonists can show off their beautiful hair)

HugsLib (I think this is just for performance)

Camera + (better for taking screenshots)

Character Editor (so I can start with customised colonists)

Vanilla Expanded Framework (so all the Vanilla Expanded mods work)

Vanilla Furniture Expanded - Props and Decor (adds fancy props and decor)

Geological Landforms (for fun map generation)

Pathfinding Framework (a framework for pathfinding)

ANDH - Animal Nuzzling Detects Horrors (animals can detect metalhorrors when they nuzzle your colonists)

[GMT] Trading Spot (those darn traders always track dirt on my floors)

[KV] Impassable Map Maker (in case I feel like settling on an impassable tile)

[NL] Facial Animation - WIP (they look so cute with their lil’ faces!!)

[SBV] Recreational Drum Use (drum go bang boom, brain get happy)

[T] Moor Floors 1.4 (more floors)

[XND] Proper Shotguns (Continued) (makes shotguns work better so Security Chief Ratchet and Deputy Rocket the militors can be extra kickass)

Llama's Proper Shotgun Patches (some patches for the previous mod)

Adjustable Archonexus Quest Continued (no way Mechi is losing all his research!)

A Dog Said… Animal Prosthetics (animal bionics wooo)

Dubs Bad Hygiene (bathrooms cool)

Allow Tool (makes life so much easier)

Biomes! Core (framework for Biomes! mods)

Biomes! Fossils (dinosaur museum go brrrr)

Biomes! Islands (tropical paradise, here we come!)

Allies are Helpful (so that our friends, few as they may be, will actually be useful)

Alpha Biomes (adds cool new biomes)

Alpha Memes (new ideology memes)

Alpha Mythology (adds cool new mythological animals)

Alpha Prefabs (cool prefabricated buildings)

Alpha Props - Parks and Gardens (adds props for parks and gardens)

Anima Animals Combined (Continued) (cool anima animals)

Animal Controls (animals can have food restrictions, etc.)

Better Mods Mismatch Window (to see which of my mods is fucked up THIS time 🙄)

Biome Transitions (so your biomes transition)

Childhood Backstories (so your children can have backstories)

Clocks (every house needs a grandfather clock)

Colors (personally I prefer “colours”, but we can’t all be right)

Det’s Xenotypes - Avaloi (colourful drunk coral-people!!)

Det’s Xenotypes - Bogleg (alien mafia)

Doors Expanded (expands on the doors)

Dormitories (Not Barracks) (they shouldn’t be that upset about sharing a room)

Dress Patients (Continued) (put clothes on the patients)

Enhanced Beliefs (expands on the ideology system a bit)

Erin’s Baldur’s Gate 3 Hairs (need more hair)

Erin’s Cottage Collection (cutesy furniture)

Erin’s Decorations (cute decorations)

Erin’s Hairstyles - Redux (mmmmmore hair!!)

Extra Alerts (handy-dandy extra popups)

Floordrawings (those kids are so artistic)

GloomyFurniture (cutsey furniture)

Gloomy Furniture Fix (fixes something idk)

Gradient Hair (gradient hair)

Hard Times: Hair and Beards (more hair and beard styles)

Haul to Stack (you think they could figure that out themselves, but no. They need a mod)

Hospitality (warcrime-themed hotel chain let’s goooo)

Human Butchery 2.0 (just in case)

Human Leather Floor (👀)

Interaction Bubbles (to see what dey sayin’)

Kinky Bodystrap (I will not elaborate)

Lights Out (conserve electricity, save the planet)

Megafauna (biiiig pets)

Minify Everything (if I wanna carry a whole wall I damn well will)

More Descriptive Words and Names (exactly what it says on the tin)

More Faction Interaction (Continued) (more faction interaction)

More Persona Traits (to make Persona Weapons more interesting)

More Religious Origins (adds some more religious origins for ideology)

More Thrumbos (Continued) (mmmmore thrumbos)

More Vanilla Biomes (more vanilla biomes)

negative traits (they can’t all be good)

Non-Binary Gender (adds a non-binary option)

Offworlders - The Biliog (swamp people)

Optimization: Meats - C# Edition (all meat is raw meat)

Pawn Name Variety (variety in pawn names)

Pick Up and Haul (pick it up and haul it)

Prisoners Don’t Have Keys (why would they??)

Random Research (it looked amusing)

Reel’s Facial Animation Textures (face stuff)

Replace Stuff (to build walls on top of other walls etc.)

RimPy Mod Manager Database (just for insurance)

Rimsenal - Hair pack (hair)

Rimsenal Hair Retextured (more hair stuff)

RimTraits - General Traits (more traits)

River’s Tribal Shoes (tribal shoes)

Romance on the Rim (awww, so romantic <3)

Roo’s HD Dreadlock Hairstyles (dreads)

Roo’s HD Glasses Hairstyles (glasses)

Roo’s HD Hairstyles (hairy)

Roo’s HD Royalty Hairstyles (fancy hair)

RPG Style Inventory Revamped (inventory is easier to use)

RT Fuse (I don’t like zzzt events)

Sand Castles (for funsies)

Simple sidearms (always be prepared!)

Smutty Fanfiction (👀)

Snap Out! (for mental breaks)

Standalone Hot Spring (why have geothermal power when you can have a nice hot bath instead?)

Stylized Slave Collars and Headgear (to fit the theme)

The Vanity Project - Beards (more beards)

The Vanity Project - Female Hair (for the gals)

The Vanity Project - Male Hair (for the guys)

Trait and Backstory Icons (icons for traits and backstories)

Toddlers (smol bean people)

Upscaled - Won hair_men (hair)

Upscaled - Won hair_women (hair)

Vanilla Achievements Expanded (makes me feel successful)

Vanilla Animals Expanded (adds fun new animals)

Vanilla Animals Expanded - Endangered (adds endangered animals)

Vanilla Animals Expanded - Royal Animals (adds fancy animals)

Vanilla Animals Expanded - Waste Animals (edgy dystopian animals)

Vanilla Apparel Expanded (new clothes)

Vanilla Apparel Expanded - Accessories (new accessories)

Vanilla Armour Expanded (more armour)

Vanilla Backstories Expanded (more backstories)

Vanilla Brewing Expanded (alcohol woooo)

Vanilla Base Generation Expanded (generates cool bases)

Vanilla Brewing Expanded - Coffee and Tea (to feed our caffeine addiction)

Vanilla Cooking Expanded (fun food)

Vanilla Cooking Expanded - Stews (everybody loves a good stew)

Vanilla Fishing Expanded (such a relaxing pastime)

Vanilla Fishing Expanded - Fishing Treasures AddOn (you can fish up cool stuff, like wood)

Vanilla Cooking Expanded - Sushi (we have to do something with all those fish)

Vanilla Events Expanded (can never have too many events)

Vanilla Factions Expanded - Ancients (scary ancient people)

Vanilla Factions Expanded - Empire (makes the empire more interesting)

Vanilla Factions Expanded - Mechanoids (we couldn’t have a mechanitor run without them)

Vanilla Factions Expanded - Settlers (yeehaw)

Vanilla Factions Expanded - Tribal (I like having tribal friends)

Vanilla Furniture Expanded (more furniture)

Vanilla Furniture Expanded - Architect Module (new structure stuff)

Vanilla Furniture Expanded - Art Module (fancy art and decorations to make)

Vanilla Furniture Expanded - Farming (we love growing food)

Vanilla Furniture Expanded - Medical Module (to make the most kickass hospital)

Vanilla Furniture Expanded - Power (mechanitor has to power their mechs somehow)

Vanilla Furniture Expanded - Production (cool manufacturing stuff)

Vanilla Furniture Expanded - Security (you can never be too careful)

Vanilla Furniture Expanded - Spacer Module (a mechanitor’s dream)

Vanilla Hair Expanded (always need more hair)

Vanilla Hair Retextured (make it look snazzy)

Vanilla Ideology Expanded - Dryads (for sprucing up gauranlen tree stuff)

Vanilla Ideology Expanded - Hats and Rags (to dress properly)

Vanilla Ideology Expanded - Icons and Symbols (to customise ideologies as much as possible)

Vanilla Ideology Expanded - Relics and Artifacts (cube…?)

Vanilla Ideology Expanded - Sophian Style (fancy~)

Vanilla Ideology Expanded - Splits and Schisms (reminds me of Wookshys)

Vanilla Nutrient Paste Expanded (hell yeah nutrient paste)

Vanilla Outposts Expanded (we can form outposts if we like)

Vanilla Races Expanded - Android (it would be cool to have androids hanging out with our mechanitor…)

ReGrowth: Core (I like the retextures)

ReGrowth: Tropical (more fun stuff)

Vanilla Plants Expanded (yummy foodstuffs)

Tilled Soil (heehoo farm)

Vanilla Persona Weapons Expanded (make the persona weapons more personable)

Vanilla Plants Expanded - More Plants (even MORE farm)

Vanilla Plants Expanded - Mushrooms (I should do a dirtmole colony someday)

Vanilla Plants Expanded - Succulents (they’re cute)

Vanilla Psycasts Expanded (I love ‘em)

Alpha Animals (one of my favourite mods)

Vanilla Genetics Expanded (genetics stuff)

Vanilla Genetics Expanded - More Lab Stuff (more lab stuff)

Vanilla Ideology Expanded - Memes and Structures (more customisation)

Alpha Genes (Makes for fun people to draw)

Alpha Mechs (Mechs for the Mechanitor!! Skulls for the- oh, wait, no)

Vanilla Races Expanded - Archon (basically githyanki)

Vanilla Races Expanded - Custom Icons (to make your own xenotypes that much more distinct)

Vanilla Races Expanded - Fungoid (zombies go brrrr)

Vanilla Races Expanded - Genie (how many wishes do I get?)

Vanilla Races Expanded - Highmate (the perfect partner!)

Vanilla Races Expanded - Hussar (nobody will ever be as good as Henry…)

Vanilla Races Expanded - Lycanthrope (do we need a werewolf boyfriend?🍍)

Vanilla Races Expanded - Phytokin (tree people my beloved)

Vanilla Races Expanded - Pigskin (is there a teacup pig variant?)

Vanilla Races Expanded - Sanguophage (vampires go brrrr)

Vanilla Races Expanded - Saurid (lizard people to control the government)

Vanilla Factions Expanded - Waster (pollution people)

Facial Animations Xenotype Compatibility (to help smooth out the face stuff)

Vanilla Skills Expanded (makes learning more interesting)

Vanilla Skin Tone Genes (inheritable skin tones)

Vanilla Social Interactions Expanded (more interactions to draw)

Vanilla Textures Expanded (expands the vanilla textures)

Vanilla Textures Expanded - [NL] Facial Animation (makes the facial animation more vanilla and less anime)

Vanilla Textures Expanded - Variations (so things don’t look too same-y)

Vanilla Ideology Expanded - Anima Theme (for funsies)

Vanilla Trading Expanded (expands the trading)

Vanilla Traits Expanded (more traits!)

[DN] Bundle of Traits (one of my favourite trait mods <3)

Vehicle Framework (a framework for vehicles)

Vanilla Vehicles Expanded (more vehicles)

Vanilla Vehicles Expanded - Tier 3 (even MORE vehicles)

Vanilla Weapons Expanded (to spice up the combat)

Vanilla Weapons Expanded - Coilguns (adds coilguns)

Vanilla Weapons Expanded - Grenades (expands on grenades)

Vanilla Weapons Expanded - Heavy Weapons (more heavy weapons)

Vanilla Weapons Expanded - Laser (laser weapons)

Vanilla Weapons Expanded - Makeshift (for when you gotta make do)

Vanilla Weapons Expanded - Non-Lethal (for interrogations and organ harvesting)

Vanilla Weapons Expanded - Quickdraw (to draw quickly)

Vanilla Weapons Expanded - Frontier (yeehaw)

Vanilla Weapons Expanded - Tribal (they deserve some variety too)

Vanilla Factions Expanded - Pirates (arrr me hearties!)

VPG Garden Resources (if I wanna grow uranium I will)

Vanilla Psycasts Expanded - Puppeteer (mind control, oooh!)

VVE - Deconstructable Vehicle Junk (so we can make old cars new!)

War Crimes Expanded 2 Core (Updated) (just in case)

What's That Mod (so I know what the mod is)

While You’re Up (PUAH) (more hauling revamps)

Won Hair Men Retextured (hairy hairy)

Won Hair Women Retextured (more hairy hairy)

Xeva’s Rimhair (hair)

Xeva’s Rimhair Retextured (hair)

Yet Another Hair Mod (I don't have too many, shhhh!)

ATH ‘s Retexture Female Apparel (looks like fun to draw!)

ATH’s Style Female Dresses (fun to draw)

HousekeeperAssistanceCat (the best mod)

[FSF] Complex Jobs (Legacy Version) (makes job prioritizing easier)

#rimworld #gracie plays #rim #rimworld mods #gracie's #gracie's rimworld modlist #A Mechanitor's Message #Feel free to ask any questions!!#I'm always happy to tell you what mod stuff is from <3 #have an awesome day!!

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shoezuki · 1 month

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Why is Seele's hair glowing? Moss dye

Why are the silver maine guards in blue when it was a rich person color? Moss dye

Why is blue and purple a very common color? Moss dye

Moss rock gardens, with ponds of axolotls, rock crabs, olms and other creatures, a small national park of a large cave system kept to keep the moss breeds healthy

im insane about this and this is your fault <3

FUCK..... THATS SO GOOD???? sshit.

one lore thing i remember reading Long ago is that like. the animals on jarilo before the freeze were massive. okok i found it on the wiki idk where its mentioned in game or the source but

im jus sayin im just saying. some of the former megafauna went subterranean and adapted quickly/mutated from the fragmentum and exposure to geomarrow. massive salamanders and frogs and bio luminescent creatures

#hhnggnhn

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naavispider · 15 days

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opposite AU? The Na’vi are a hyper-intelligent species hundreds of years ahead of humans in terms of development. They thrive of renewable and clean energy, coming to Earth to rid the planet of the humans that are destroying it. Na’vi jake sully uses his human avatar - maybe they managed to figure out semi-permanent transfer - to attempt to reason with the owner of an incredibly large agricultural megacompany in Brazil (and South America in general) that contributes to deforestation to increase their farmland. He meets his daughter (human Neytiri). Na’vi quaritch destroys Neytiris home city, killing her father. And the rest is history.

the Na’vi’s technology utilises their queue in some way - maybe as a power source? Or their machines are just some really advanced biotechnology influenced by the plants in their homeworld. I was just picturing a smooth, beautiful Na’vi cruiser with no steering wheel. Just a mass of electrical wires looking like vines on a dashboard or a chair with a na’vi plugged into it.

Na’vi spider grew up on Earth after the na’vi fled back to their home system (multiple planets colonised). He is shorter - stunted growth due to increased gravity - and always slumped to appear smaller, and still outcast. His greater strength means he hurts people on accident some times. He lives in a megacity with the Sully’s in South America. When Quaritch finds him - maybe he has a human body, maybe another Na’vi one - he thinks of him as incredibly primitive in his views. When Spider is kidnapped (Jake sully leads a rebellion against the increasing colonisation of Earth - more navi are coming planetside after striking deals with multiple countries - Spider has info on the human resistance) he has no clue how to use anything on the ship he is being kept on which is very funny to quaritch.

so I guess this would be still an evil human AU - people like Neytiri, Jake and the kids don’t really give a fuck about the planet. Jake’s reasoning for turning to their side is basically human life is beautiful in its own fleeting way and deserves to be preserved. Tons of hisotry shouldn’t be erased. The planet can be saved while still preserving humanity.

But this doesn’t mean Na’vi are good guys. They are colonising the planet. In areas they set up camp they tear down infrastructure and attempt to restore the local ecosystem - maybe using humans as fertiliser could be a little fucked up plot twist. Any human that draws too near would die. As the “rejuvenation” of Earth begins, population of humans dwindle and are pushed from their homes. I don’t see a reason why Na’vi would use human avatars as their isn’t really an advantage other than being able to breathe 100% of the time - as well as not feeling the effects of increased gravity.

I think at this point - Na’vi have colonised most of their home system - with successful colonies on other planets. So some na’vi may have evolved to withstand higher gravity. the concoction the Na’vi use in order to speed up plant growth creates dangerous megafauna. Na’vi do experiments on earth animals to cross-hybrid them with their strange funky biotech. Meaning Na’vi can pilot them likes mechs. This could help with the increased gravity thing.

Na’vi intererence using powerful gravitational waves to destroy infrastructure could creat similar phenomena as the flux vortexes. These areas could provide na’vi relief from the increased gravity - which is why they erect their encampments are puns the graveyards of cities.

this desperately needs a way to nerf the Na’vi. In the original series - it’s their primitivity and morals that nerf them a lil. They can’t stand up against the absolutely giant machinery and guns the humans use - and they also wont resort to the same tactics. I don’t think there could be an issue with teh Na’vi tech not being compatible with earths gravity - as they would have colonised Alpha Centari already - which is a huge gas giant. The only think I can think of is seasons and irregular weather patterns - Pandora is tidally locked so it doesn’t experience seasons. They may not be prepared for winter - or might freak out once the plants they have just regrown start dying in winter.

This has been in my notes for ages - I remember trying to think of an actual plot point that’d turn this AU into a story but I couldn’t think of anything 🤷‍♀️ any ideas?

Sorry it’s taken me so long to reply! I’ve been terrible at updating tumblr recently ✨ This is really well thought out already! You’ve done 90% of the hard work , which is figuring out the premise in the first place!

Since it’s an opposite au you could focus on any part of the original A2 plot in this setting. I love the idea of Jake having a human avatar, after living his whole life as a Na’vi 😯 I think there’s a lot to explore there but aLso the humans-being-used-as-fertiliser side plot is too juicy to ignore… the only question is who is going to get trapped in the process and need rescuing? 🤨🤨

#opposite au #avatar the way of water #miles quaritch #miles spider socorro #jake sully #neytiri sully #avatar 2

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satancopilotsmytardis · 2 months

Note

For your AU question. Space travel fic where one is an alien. Set in the future.

Astronaut Dabi who managed to make it even though his father said it was a stupid dream that he would never achieve Not only does he make it as an astronaut, he ends up on a team that goes on brief missions from their space station to survey different planets for useful resources and to better document everything they can find.

Everything is going fine for about three years until one day Dabi ends up on a planet alone for a very brief scouting mission. He's just popping down to get air, water, and soil samples for this region because it was too dense with jungle foliage for their rovers to get through it. It literally was supposed to take 20 minutes and they followed all the proper procedures. He lands, chit-chatting to the others back at base while he's collecting the samples and being, as Magne says, 'a fucking nerd' about all of the interesting vegetation on the planet. Compress warns him a cloud front is rapidly coming in and he'll need to be back up at base before it hits, so he goes back to his pod. It's literally just bad luck, a freak accident that one of the alien megafauna straight up steps on his pod and strands him there in its own haste to find shelter against the oncoming storm. He's still got communication to the base for a could of days, and based on what he's collected so far, this planet does seem to be habitable to humans if he needs to be here for a little while, and the others should be able to come back down and get him as soon as it stops storming. Okay, this is also not that big of a deal, this is something that happens. He uses his scanners to find a cave system to wait out the storm and turns off his communication device to save power, knowing the others are just a button away if he needs them.

Uh, turns out that cave belonged to a native humanoid species that was previously unregistered. Dabi apologizes to the tall muscular... reptilian?? alien. He looks human in most of his anatomy save for the thick muscular prehensile tail that's twice as long as he is tall, the four fingers and toes on each limb, and the fact that when he opens his mouth it's much larger than it seems with two rows of insanely sharp teeth, extra skin flaps inside and a long forked tongue like a snake. His pale skin also has scales littered across it in patches, and he's nearly eight feet tall. Dabi turns on his universal translator and apologizes for intruding and Shigaraki is amused enough by this little creature that he puts p with him squatting as the tide comes in.

Dabi learns that the storm comes every month on this planet, having to do with the rotation, gravity, and other factors, and usually lasts until the tri-moon comes. He calculates that based on when they know the three moons should be in sight on the surface of this planet and determines that isn't going to be for another three to four weeks. Shigaraki is willing to let him stay and Dabi calls back up to the ship to tell them the situation. It would be very risky to send a pod down through the lightning, so they agree to just keep in touch every two days for timed check-ins to ensure he's alright. And then Dabi gets to spend a month getting to know Shigaraki.

They have a nice time together because Dabi is excited about anything he can learn about and Shigaraki likes having the company he really likes the way Dabi smells. They've been sleeping together (like for warmth and because Shigaraki can't make him a bed of his own while everything is soaked) and Dabi isn't thinking anything of that until during one of his check-ins he is informed by Compress this is a registered species-- it's considered extremely hostile and any planet it's found on is not fit for humans to inhabit because they have a habit of eating them and their skin is weapon-proof (or at least the weapons the scouts are likely to have). Dabi is of course terrified now that he knows and thinks he's being saved until his food runs out. And one night Shigaraki cages him under his bulk and Dabi is certain he's going to die and then nope, oops, turns out Shigaraki thinks that because Dabi smells so good, it must mean that he's a compatible mate and they smash (snake-like biology on that front too 🍆🍆👀)

(bonus) Dabi does get off the planet at the end of the storm, though Shigaraki is very sad to see him go, but Dabi just goes back up to renegotiate his contract, he will become an expert on Shigaraki's species if he's allowed to stay with him for 2-3 months at a time and then come back to base to report his findings afterward. His research ends up getting published and he earns enough to buy out the last of his contract so he can stay with Shig

#tanco speaks #ask #asks #shigadabi #5 fact au

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xamiipholia · 5 months

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okay y'all seemed to like the last one so here's a few more Horizon 3 thoughts:

Aloy won’t die. It would completely upend the series’ themes and just be really nihilistic.

Since Nemesis is a gestalt entity I think it’s a safe bet that we’ll see Sam Witwer, Carrie-Anne Moss, etc again. I’m curious how they’re going to do it because at least structurally, it’s basically a reaper. Maybe it’ll use different Avatars when communicating like the Leviathan in ME3.

It's gonna take some work to make a flashback/dream/vision not contrived but I would love to see Varl and Rost again. I think we deserve that.

Minerva is gonna have its work cut out for it blocking access to both the dormant Faro Swarm and the ZD terraforming system.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Nemesis has some sort of corruption function that becomes the equivalent of the corruption in HZD. It would be a really fun tech showcase if GG uses Zenith nanotech for machine corruption and leans into mechanical body horror.

If we’re going to Ban-Ur I really really hope they do the work to make the Banuk less problematic and more fleshed out as a culture. A quasi-Spartan society absolutely would not survive in an extreme environment, *especially* without megafauna to hunt. The Banuk characters are lovely and well-written; they deserve a society as well thought out as the Utaru or Carja. I’m honestly fine if there’s retcons or revamps to the cultural lore because the whole “outsider barges in and becomes chief” is rooted in racist, colonial tropes and we just don’t really need that imo.

The most recent footage of Death Stranding 2 (also running on Decima) has me SO excited for the visuals. GG’s gonna knock it out. The facial rendering and animation that Kojima Productions are doing looks industry-peak and I’m sure GG’s gonna match that. Aloy’s Gay Panic™️ scene on the beach in HBS is already top-tier nonverbal storytelling through animation. Digital Foundry actually just posted a really cool tech breakdown of the current Decima engine. I’m especially excited about the environmental stuff. The ocean simulations in HFW are already incredible and I hope they increase verticality in the world. I can’t wait to see the Sacred Lands in current gen graphics.

I really love Kotallo’s DIY arm and it’s so so important to his development but Beta and Gaia now have access to Zenith nanotech, maybe give your buddy a sick upgrade hmm?

Speaking of, I can’t wait to see Beta come into her own. She’s one of the best parts of HFW and Aloy’s character absolutely shines in a sibling dynamic.

I wouldn’t get your hopes up for a romance mechanic. Everyone’s feelings on that aside, it would be really odd from a game development perspective to just overhaul part of how the narrative develops Aloy’s character in the last act of the story. Yeah, there are flashpoints but I would argue that the presence of choice in Horizon is smoke and mirrors- cosmetic at best. Kentucky Route Zero (which you should play) does something similar where the player is given a certain amount of control over the substance of individual conversations and scenarios and it does absolutely nothing to alter the plot, by design. I think it’s the same here - this isn’t really a choice-based RPG, the flashpoints don’t really affect anything plot-wise or for Aloy’s character development. Olin is still out of the story, Nil lives, Regalla still dies one way or another. Aloy’s character development is pretty firmly on rails (think Jin Sakai, not Shepard - you get to guide some momentary character reactions but that’s it). I don’t think HBS is a testing ground either - If they were gonna introduce a romance mechanic I think they’d just do it, and not spend two years making a direct continuation of HFW’s main quest and establishing a specific romance hard-baked into the plot, complete with multiple leitmotifs for the character relationship (which is something they haven’t done before afaik) just to introduce a side quest mechanic coming in 5 years. I genuinely can’t think of any game or dev that has beta tested a major alteration to upcoming game mechanics that way - it doesn’t really make any sense in terms of developer resources, and these games are extremely time-consuming to make. I know this is a thing a bunch of people want and I can totally empathize with that! I just think it’s probably not on the table.

I would bet money the series will bookend itself and the epilogue will involve a) the naming of Zo and Varl’s kid and b) Lis’ pendant.

Mostly I'm just looking forward to being surprised. One of my favorite things that Horizon does is use carefully established elements in the world to pull the plot in unexpected directions and keeping the world grounded while they lean into speculative science fiction. I can't wait to see what Guerrilla is cooking up

#horizon 3 #horizon zero dawn #horizon forbidden west #horizon #hfw #aloy #guerrilla games #hzd #horizon burning shores #horizon theories #well not so much theories as observation and vague speculation #and some zesty takes #I love this world though #erend #sylens #varl #kotallo #beta #alva

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dragonthunders01 · 9 months

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Spectember D15: Posthumans

5 million years has been since the last human being die on earth, but is a world still ruled by humans, or what descended from them.

All started for the struggle for a civilization that collapsed in a cataclysmic event of interplanetary scale that annihilated the biosphere and a good chunk of the human population, for sure it was not pollution or the man’s hand, or even something like an asteroid, maybe was an extraterrestrial invasion? A supernova? Whatever was this event, it was strong enough it pulled out a civilization that was already on their early steps on traveling to star systems and already was settled across the solar system, it was the endgame for all of them.

The last remaining survivors did the best to stand and find ways to perpetuate the species, but when options at short term turned useless there was a last hope to humanity to survive until the world they live on would recover, they focused the last resources on build a vault designed to last until the habitable conditions of earth returned and repopulate the planet thanks to thousands of human specimens samples that could be born and reclaim the world in the future helped by the synthetic hands of long term lasting artificial intelligences.

Though whatever happened in the planning, something went wrong, something caused to make those restored humans to be shaped into what was sort of similar to them but more ape like, was this deliberated or if it was an inconvenient? if it was ideal for mankind to rise like their ancestors or if this “devolution” was something sketched for the artificial systems as a way to secure their offspring for a systematic failure? Is another question which will likely have no proper answer, but the result of this turned at the end successful for the survival of the biological lineage of humans.

When that humanity arose of the ruins of the again habitable earth, they sort of resembled lanky shorter versions of a chimp, brownish, with a more developed diet thanks to a modification in their digestive system and dentition allowed them to exploit every resource available as generalist omnivores. These creatures which could be called the "woodland dwellers" conquered most of the continent in matter of centuries, they did not need transport or technology to do it, they just traveled, wandered like their ancestors although they no longer were bipedal.

They started somewhere in Eurasia, eventually crossing to new regions and in a thousand years the majority of the world that was easy to access through routes was filled with these, all of them started to establish wherever food was easy to find, then came those that started to venture in new environments, new climates, migrated across continents.

In 50 thousand years, there were new populations that isolated themselves and became adapted to their respective environments: Tundra, Grasslands, canopies, the deserts, the coasts and seas, rivers, etc., all product of constant migration and colonization of new terrains.

100 thousand years, few ice ages went and came, they have turned the balance of diversity further towards speciation at a rhythm that only will benefit those species that can be flexible to change, they manage to colonize America, as well expand towards Africa and many of the island regions across the pacific ocean somehow reaching up to Australia, and so conquered most of the planet with exception of Antarctica.

1 million years, many of those ecologically adapted or regionally isolated populations have turned into different species, they still resemble the woodland dweller to a degree but they have changed considerable depending of their environment, with new behaviors, sizes and faces.

3 million years, the world was starting to see the new men shapes, some robust, some more slendy than their ancestors, some agile, some slow walkers, bipedal, facultative bipedal, quadrupeds, a lot of them took advantage of being the only dominant megafauna to reign as only a handful of small surviving mammals, resilient birds and many reptiles and amphibians represent competition, some have started to take over but it will be a long time until the posthumanity is dethroned from their state, meanwhile the oceans and rivers are dominated by shark and fishes, though there were already the start of a branch of the human dwelling species that became semiaquatic, their evolutionary path is increasingly fast.

And now 5 million years hence, a lot of these new posthuman species have specialized and turned even more different of their ancestral form, many look like an amalgamation between different animals with features of many of their gone monkeys and ape relatives. For things of natural selection and that speciation the new species that evolved of the isolation for the last 2 million years have migrated and now claimed another place on other continents, especially in America which in these million years saw a wave of posthuman species that replaced many of the endemic species, and some of those moved towards Asia. These ecosystems have one of everything, browsing or grazing herbivores, specialized prey eaters (insectivores, mollusk eaters, scavengers), varied lineages of omnivores, and full carnivores.

Specifically one of the carnivore lineage that evolved of the original "Woodland dweller" came from a specialized form reduced in size, adapted on hunting small animals and after millions of years these started to increasingly expand their prey range, growing in size as they replaced previous predatory forms that became stagnated. With the new diversity of the posthuman formed ecosystem growing in complexity, the new predatory forms could rise to hunt these down. Some are fast small prey hunters, some became more arboreal, some are more prominent on the grassland or mountains, all of them came in a considerable range of sizes from the extinct domestic cat to a panthers, but upon the appearance of large herbivores, a new more formidable and heavier predator evolved, this was the Spiketooth.

Spiketooths are among the largest terrestrial carnivores of earth, with a height of 2.3 meters tall and weight some 300 kg, their range extend across Eurasia, coming on the most temperate regions, they are heavy predators adapted for ambush and wrestling their prey into submission rather than fast hunt and kill. They hunt down large posthumans like the Eurasian slothmen, heavy descendants an arboreal heavy species from Africa that resemble a ground sloth, though formidable fighters with their long hand claws, or the armored species like the Temperate Lockskin, fatty and hairless posthumans that are semi bipedal, descendants of the tundra species that moved to the tropics and lost their fur due to the climate they live on, turning their skin very robust made against medium size predators, they often hold a handful of small sized gibbon like posthumans that feast on parasites and live in sort of symbiosis with their host Lockskin, often even being able to warn these of the incoming attack of a spiketooth.

This large carnivore evolved specifically to deal with the thought skin of these animals, with hypertrophied conical incisive that often pressure and cut through the hardest epidermis and are capable to pierce any defense of the large forms, with their carnassial teeth they are capable of tear down and cut with quite efficacy the meat of their prey, often taking also chunks of bones if they are capable off.

#speculative evolution #spectember #future evolution #posthuman #man after man

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