dehraduntaxi12

[whatudottu]

Me, remembering that pill bugs can filter heavy metals from soil:

My brain: You know what this means, don’t you?

Me: What-

My brain: You can make talpaedans part pill bug-

Me, working on amperi headcanons: Wait LET ME FINI-

I’ve gone over a few times that I like to think that talpaedans are techno-organic, less so being silicon or silicone based beings but being an integration of organic carbon materials and the more industrialised physiology of being a walking talking construction equipment. I have also previously made use of the whole ‘machine’ aspect of their natural biology to not only consider them as burrowers, but also as ant-like burrowers with haplodiplody, this form of sex-determination system being used to expand the combinations of construction equipment that an individual talpaedan might have, but also as a basis of which I form the sociopolitical building of talpaedan cities, in which case we have large city state colonies of ant inspired pangolins recreating feudalism Europe of the 10th-13th century.

But up - until this point - there was not quite a lot of circumstances that would allow for actual metallic components to not only present itself biologically but also do so naturally, so with the heavy metal eating pill bug there’s a source of extra inspiration. Oniscidae (apparently the more accurate name for pill bugs/rollie pollies and literally any name under the sun) can remove arsenic (which is actually a metalloid), cadmium, lead, and depending on sources also mercury from the soil; additional metals that can be extracted from soil are copper and zinc. The pill bug in question would crystallise these ions in their gut and create spherical deposits within them, but since we are not talking about the isopod alone surely it isn’t too much of a stretch to the idea that perhaps talpaedans can use these deposits within themselves to feed into the development of their most notable features, their built in equipment?

Assuming that Poiana Lüncas has these metals and that talpaedans would in fact filter for them, in real world human employed Earth uses of these metals can indeed be of fine use. Both arsenic and cadmium can be used as alloys and zinc specifically can galvanise other metals such as iron to prevent rusting, very significant indeed in industry, notably especially with large amounts of zinc can be used in hardware industries. Copper has a very notable use in electronics and wiring of which motors are included, let alone more refined wiring in TVs and radio. And argueably the more infamous of these metals (at least to a standard ‘basic’ level of understanding) we have mercury and lead, the former being used in many different industries for it’s ability to measure the change in temperature and pressure, and the latter for some solders, gasoline/petroleum and wonderfully hazardous cosmetic items that uninformed humanity has come to be harmed by.

ngl, spent a bit of time trying to find an oxygen-carrier of these metals that can feasibly make black blood but i literally do not know if the colour of oxides is in any way relevant to how oxygen-carrier bloodcells would actually be coloured as i’m not a chemist

But in highlighting these metals, I am not simply looking to see if a techno-organic talpaedan can have galvanised armour nor if they come built in with blood pressure monitors. No no no, I am saying more than what talpaedans eat but also what metals can talpaedans have easy access to in the development of technology, and how one might say that actually interacts with the ant-psychology of utterly fucking despising other colony.

Well-

Let’s say that google might be a little concerned about me learning about elements used in the construction of ammunition and radiation protection ehek-!

With the earth tilling that many developing talpaedans need to incorporate necessary metals into their diet, depending on the availabilty of said metals they may be an over abundance for food alone; especially with the pressure of competition of resources in combination with a general disdain for anything extracolonial, a factor that may lead to an escalation of tech development. There is an inherent baseline for technology in talpaedans that would already give their industrialisation a boost, in addition to the materials that may vary on quantity based on the region, colony size, and general population needs. Before long there are city states reinforcing their own barriers and expanding their borders for more and more materials - to consume and to create - to in fact increase and increase the tension between colonies so loud to the point pressure spills like a broken thermometer spills mercury and conflicts arise.

And when everything boils over do they realise that many have to balance the act of raising young and building more weapons, the factor that may in fact be the tipping point to realise that the colonies with the most resources are not only a threat but a threat that can overwhelm on the technological scale and the population number. In spite of how many colonies may indeed hate each other, it is more than worth it to them to compromise and in fact LIVE rather than be caught between the suddenly unveiling superpowers of the world that had previously lay unknown thanks to willful ignorance. Decimation of land is significantly reduced from cataclysmic to catastrophic as entire colonies are rased and in fact dug out into craters, many war-era alliances held to the modern day of Poiana Lüncas. A tithing - remnants of the treaties formed at the peak of desperation - of the youngest generation of adult men stands as both tradition and of appeasement, a colony trade and marriage across many different colonial alliances as a symbol of what had to be done before, sharing resources and rearing while the soldiers fought to live.

And all of this because they got a pill bug diet see this is why ants aren’t allowed to have materials for megaton bombs smh 😞

[miyey]

Metaldrillo is an enhanced and modified sample of a talpaedan, from the planet Poiana Lüncas. Being a species of beings that spend almost their entire lives underground, he has the ability to turn his hands into two powerful drills, excellent for digging, drilling rocks and tearing enemies apart.

Being one of the most resistant aliens on Aristrix, just behind Paralyzer, Metaldrillo is able to survive an explosion from a Fat Boy bomb without major consequences, courtesy of his armor.

CURRENT SKILLS:

Drill hands

Enhanced strength

Improved endurance

Shock wave generation

Night vision

Earthquake generation

[whatudottu]

It's been a bit since I've rambled about xenobiology headcanons, and this time because I've been thinking about Andreas I thought today's edition would be about talpaedans, seeing as how I made a list that I haven't put into a post yet-

Let's go!

Between all members of talpaedan youth and development, there is an innate basic understanding of construction, as comparable to human's ability to recognise patterns and facial language (give or take a few neurodivergencies). And specific construction comprehension is linked to whatever tool talpaedan youth are integrated in, which develops over time based on what materials are consumed (a diet of concrete may make cement mixers, or a diet that requires a lot of digging may develop jackhammers) as well of course the genes of the parent/s.

And on to that 'parent/s' thing, let's bring up haplodiplody again.

On Earth, haplodiplody is the system where one sex is developed from a fertilised egg (which tends to be the females) and thus are diploid with DNA of the mother and father, while the other sex is from an unfertilised egg (males would technically be the result of asexual reproduction) and thus is only haploid with only the mother providing DNA. Talpaedans are not an Earth species, but functionally that is the basis of their sex-determination, where females would be best translated as architects and males best translated as tradies, which in of itself is rather contextually slang in English.

And even with haplodiplody, talpaedans still have a bimodal sex distribution, though tradies are neither part of the equation. Instead, fertilised eggs though typically expected to produce architects also just as often produce workers, non-reproducing talpaedan youths that are born an raised to be the most common labourers of the colony they were born under and never leave the hive, as opposed to architects who work higher profile jobs and are in line to be promoted to site queens, and tradies who pre-war were lower rung workers who took to training younglings for work as well as in general raising them. Being bimodal it's not a perfect list of traits to be considered as either an architect or a worker, though there is a bias towards architects being able to reproduce as that would be the key factor needed in promotion. Tradies that are infertile or more characteristically architects would be considered workers and are more of a consequence of asexual reproduction and the lack of genetic diversity.

Talpaedan gender has been typically correlated with sex throughout most Poiana Lüncas colonies, with the architects being the talpaedan equivalent for women and tradies as the talpaedan equivalent for men, but workers have a more diverse gender identity even in more conservative colonies, either being a third gender or having men and women and in between identities being formally acknowledged as such in worker populations. There might be a few general issues about identity especially among architects and tradies, but colonies are less focused on the individual and most of their aggression is directed to other colonies rather than it's own population.

It is this tension towards other colonies that had eventually and near inevitably sent Poiana Lüncas into many wars, though the most recent one had been the worst and the last in many years, a war that fundamentally changed how intercolonial relationships worked. A very large colony had been expanding it's borders to accrue even more resources for it's ever growing population, in turn threatening the smaller colonies on it's outer borders, elevating tensions to an all time high. The whole shtick lasted for years until a few colonies realised that alone no one could stop this large megacolony from wiping out each of them one by one, but through an alliance they could stand together and beat the ever loving crap out of the aggressor.

And how their alliance worked was through the sharing of resources and ensuring the protection of youths especially, and so began the first war-era runs of arranged 'marriages' as tradies live up to their name in a more eh... dubious sense. By sending in tradies (who's lower rung work was mining for resources and food) from colonies not on the front line, the colonies along the border had assurances that their home had well fed and well protected populations - as well as a general diverting of power - to beat back the aggressor colony and in fact not only raze it to the ground, but dug it completely out and functionally turned it into a mass grave reeking of death; No Queen's Land it would later be named, for no surviving members of the colony were left alive to name it after themselves.

With a combination of a clearly war-created desert and the whole 'ant death smell' thing that exists in ants aka the big inspiration for my talpaedan headcanons, makes No Queen's Land an omen that trade routes never cross, instead creating what would be a ring road surrounding the outer reaches of the ex-colony that would direct trade routes through the border colonies one by one. Direct trade or travel between the colonies on complete opposite sides of the pock marked, crater desert is both impossible and otherwise detested by Queens and the architects responsible for trade routes, instead being a multicolonial multigenerational process that circles the border colonies until reaching the 'opposite side of the world'.

To this day (or at least to the day that exists universally in the moment that Andreas would consider a 'this day') the trade routes affect the lives of tradies post-war. Instead of being completely locked to the hive like workers and architects, tradies at a certain age are sent to travel in as both tradesmen and concubines to whatever colony they have been raised for, a fact that had been determined early on at the development of their tools and the needs of the recipient colony. The host colony would arrange their young to be raised by tradies that once came from their own host colony, determined by their last name of [birth colony-trade colony] (as opposed to architects and workers whose last names are simply [birth colony]) in order to be raised as bilingual to understand the majority language of their trade colony and to be an example of the future youth they would need to raise speaking their birth colony's language.

Andreas was on one such trade route when Aggregor snatched the talpaedan for materials in functionally a fusion experiment, being part of a group about to be married off to a queen, an architect or as a working tradie, technically 'divorcing' the deal when Andreas was stolen away. Considering that Poiana Lüncas isn't the most peaceful environmentally, the trade routes also serve as a double use, a sharing of resources and a preventative measure for overpopulation. I mean, a colony would be pissed if absolutely none of their trade gets to them - probably spark a conflict that may get hairy - but losing numbers is an expected consequence. Andreas doesn't expect anyone to particularly care that they're missing the one or few talpaedans that disappeared in the night, especially with the generally large number a trade route sends, and Aggregor isn't going to take out a whole line of talpaedans just to get to one; a simple 'cutting off from the group' works fine enough.

And one final thing to note, now more focused on Andreas as an individual rather than talpaedans as a species. I've mentioned death smell and thought to bring it up here since, if you've seen my stuff before or straight up follow me (for my rambling or long enough to see my rambling), I love stealing @kariachi's necromancer Argit and the whole idea of him killing, healing, and reviving Andreas in the titular episode Andreas' Fault. I looked up how ant death smell works and apparently it's a constant thing that's only combated by a constant flow of life smell, so with a brief touch of death even if Andreas doesn't REEK of death, a talpaedan would probably suspect Andreas stepped into No Queen's Land and got cursed by something. But for those of y'all buried deep enough in my rambling would be confused; 'if one can smell actual literal death and associate it as actual literal death why doesn't Andreas at least even slightly suspect the idea of being briefly dead when the castle crashed?'

Well babes, you know what's an easy simple solution for this? Andreas is anosmic :D! Of course Andreas would be the last to know, Andreas' would have no frame of reference for what a 'death smell' is. Could even be how Aggregor got Andreas separated, if everyone else can smell death smell they might notice the fact that No Queen's Land reeks of the stuff. Not a great way to find out that one is anosmic admittedly, but I mean if Ra'ad is finding out that among the many neurodivergencies he does have much of his overstimulated suffering is magic and mutation that he thought every other amperi had to deal with because you find out your husband died and now has a magical mind barrier well...

Okay okay, one more final note. Given that Andreas is a tradie, Andreas's full name would be [birth colony]-Andromeda after the name Andreas actually gets married into because Earth and especially English dominated areas of Earth like last names. And I guess if Andreas gets adopted into any Earth-based packs thanks to being attached to Argit like a puppy you can shove in another last name like [birth colony]-[pack]-Andromeda.

This has been in my notes since August woops-

[whatudottu]

I love having a job that doesn’t require thought, it let’s me think about aliens as I go about cleaning other people’s messes (and getting a good grade in floor cleaning that is both normal and possible to achieve)-

On tonight’s agenda, let’s talk talpeadans and Poiana Lüncas, this time a little bit on worldbuilding and sociology!

I’ve been here screaming at the top of my hill that among the obvious reference to armadillos and pangolin that talpeadans would take after (and the somewhat excuse of techno organic construction lads), I have made myself clear that I like my aliens weird and given some ant bullshit to work with. Originally the whole idea of talpaedans with ant biology was to source in extra different construction machine types and spread them all out in one megacity of a union, literally a colony of workers all under the family name.

What I kind of forgot after making those ideas is the evolutionary reason for it in ants both socially and biologically... and given how real world ants are territorial and absolutely vitriolic towards another colony...

Hmm, I shan’t say it, but I did not like the implications.

But, this was not a dead end; let’s work on the overall culture of Poiana Lüncas before moving into the why because that will set the context for my idea.

Poiana Lüncas, a planet of deserts, rocky plains and a terrible terrible problem with tectonic activity, houses the many families of talpaedans, who live in united megacity sized colonies named after their matriarch/boss/leader. When young talpaedans are given their name, they are also given the name of their city - of their people’s queen - as their family name. And with that family name came with it a deep ingrained sense of ‘us vs them’ amongst the colonies where loyalties lie only in the blood of another’s veins. With cities expanding across larger and larger regions, there was eventually no more room to simply ignore the other colonies and their queens buried deep within, stepping on other’s toes became inevitable.

Taken from how ants hate the utter fucking shit out of each other, I think that a full colony of ant armadillos with built in mechanics would absolutely go apeshit with an almost literal arms race of (what was at first) construction technology to full blown ‘i can no longer stand the sight of you’ weapons technology (and testing) warfare. Perhaps indeed to the point where some aspects of the land have forever been changed (big fucking trench equivalents for a burrowing species, war scarred plains now turned artificial desert) which leads to this;

i’ll get to that when i get to that, but galapagus saying ‘by addwaitya’ means something and i have thoughts

But eventually, wars do end- even if the tensions on Poiana Lüncas are so fucking thick it serves as bullet proof glass. And with that ending of at least one major fucking war between the family colonies (even humans couldn’t stick to one world war, let alone the many had before and after), arrangements had to be made to keep the peace.

Let’s bring in the biology, boys; this is where I add lions to my talpaedan headcanons.

Because of the haplodiploidy of ants being built to increase genetic diversity (and operate on the point that they will not be seen with another colony alive), there is a little bit of built in self sustaining in colonies, because lads born and assigned males do not have any genetic sons nor fathers due to being born without fertilsation. Since ladies are born through a mother and father, where guys still have genetic connection with their mother even if they have half the DNA the ladies get, there’s bound to be something happening that can be interesting for an alien but also I don’t particularly want to think about- I’ve come too far to take back my ant headcanons though so-

What if because of that already baseline male/female unrelatedness of 50%, the major trade off for times of peace - no matter how temporary or tense the peace may be - would be to further increase that diversity by sending off their youngest but otherwise mature generation of sons off to another colony and then getting some new lads of their own. It’s a little less than a natural social behaviour that lions would follow - given that they’re regular mammals who don’t do it like colony insects and have a very clear relation to mother and father - perhaps it’s also a little sleazy too. But, much like ants, female talpaedans were already predisposed to do tons of work for the queen and the colony, to the point to being built to do those jobs the best (perhaps more construction vehicle mechanics rather than tools like jackhammers), while males were left to do other stuff more routed in the city.

With the trade of fresh blood with new little quirks that the colony didn’t have before, newly mature talpaedan blokes are sent to rough and tumble it across the quite literal dead man zones between the megacities, traveling together as a group to cover their bases. Originally, all talpaedans followed the tradition of [given name] [family name], but it was with these new trade trails that a new one had come into development. The queens of each colony named the city and named all those that are born under or even by her, but talpaedans assigned female at birth retained the same [given name] [family name] tradition, and for those assigned male at birth would instead have a trio of names; [given name] [family name] and now [trade name], where they upon arrival to their new colony are given their last name to now swear allegiance to.

And with these headcanons, I believe I have found a very ample opening for Aggregor to snipe out a talpaedan sample for his little treasure hunt. Instead of going toe to toe with a megacity of family members - those who are staunchly against outsiders of other talpaedans let alone a full on alien - and coming away successful with a lad to absorb, a very convenient troop of young men on a trade trail, across lands scarred with warfare and full of creatures predator or prey, surely no one truly expects every tradesman to make home safely to their new home.

I mean, if the deal is already sealed, why doesn’t Andreas have his third name?