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| Tweet Topic Started: Oct 6 2013, 06:12 PM (881 Views) | |
| Admantus | Oct 6 2013, 06:12 PM Post #1 |
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A warm breeze blows through the grassland. The rains have already fallen, and the underbrush is green and lush. Here, massive herds of steppe gorsia, saiga-like herbivores graze on the brush. Although the gorsia look like antelopes, they are actually more closely related to hyraxes. There are many species of gorsia, with some species being forest dwellers, and others being plains dwellers. As opposed to the hooves that antelopes have, gorsia have canine-like feet. These peculiar herbivores range from the northern continent to the Midwestern portion of the eastern continent, where they are the principal small to medium sized herbivores in their habitats. Stalking the gorsia is an even more interesting creature. A pack of leapers has just picked up the scent of the herd, and is silently flanking the herd. Leapers are an interesting order of predators that are descended from the elephant shrew. After millions of years of fine tuning, the ancestors of the leapers evolved bipedal movement. The ancestors then evolved into fast, cursorial forms, as well as a couple of large scavengers. Leapers kill, as their name suggests, by jumping onto the backs of their prey and inflicting as many slash wounds as possible. When a leaper is dealing with smaller prey, like a juvenile gorsia, it bites the back of the neck and snaps it. Leapers are very successful, living on all 5 continents of Afroterra. As we move closer to the coast, we see gigantic forests of redwoods and arucariad trees. In these forests, giants are stirring. Oliphants, so named because of their tusks and enormous size, feed on the giant trees of this forests. Descended from the African bush elephant, oliphants make their home in cool temperate forests, open woodland, and savannah. The biggest species, the Goliath Oliphant, makes its home in the cool coastal forests that harbor giant trees. An adult oliphant has no predators, but a juvenile is vulnerable to attacks by leapers. More on the way. Edited by Admantus, Oct 6 2013, 06:16 PM.
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| Affexian | Oct 6 2013, 06:56 PM Post #2 |
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Wait, shouldn't this go under alternative evolution? I mean, if it's dealing with species descended from animals from Earth...? |
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| Olympianmaster | Oct 6 2013, 07:01 PM Post #3 |
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But it's on another planet, so it is extraterrestrial. |
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| Zirojtan | Oct 6 2013, 09:02 PM Post #4 |
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Maybe a subforum, I suppose that's what I meant. But I do agree that generally speaking these projects serve exactly the purpose you just specified. Although, when approached the right way, I think that they can be quite interesting. I think that exactly those details about the planet's orbit, its axial tilt, and its star as well as its atmospheric composition and density are necessary factors to be considered, because, as I said in my thread about constructive criticism, I don't think its possible to produce a copy of Earth. The aforementioned factors will determine how "Earth-like" a planet may be, but I really don't mind, as long as the author makes it detailed enough to be interesting. For example, during the terraforming process of a planet, tell us HOW the planet was terraformed, and why certain groups of plants were more successful than others during the process and on this planet. I'm absolutely positive that the environments that would result would be non-analogous to anything we find on Earth, just composed of certain familiar groups. So I guess what I'm saying is for me, it's about the level of detail. It can be interesting to read about if done properly, but if, as you said, the author just produces a carbon copy of Earth for the sake of putting some of their favorite animals on there and watch them evolve... well, yeah, it wouldn't be as good. We'll see where Admantus takes this though. |
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| Admantus | Oct 6 2013, 09:47 PM Post #5 |
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This material was just some warm up stuff. I plan on starting from when the planet has its first plants and microorginisms all the way to the "Present". This will span 100 million years. Expect the first 5-20 million years to be weird and alien. Also why do you want to know about the terraforming process? Or the planet's position in it's orbital system? Hell, i should just give you the direct coordinates to the planet so you can find it easily, right? Edited by Admantus, Oct 7 2013, 10:43 AM.
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| martiitram | Oct 7 2013, 02:49 PM Post #6 |
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This seems like quite a nice project! |
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| Zirojtan | Oct 7 2013, 04:53 PM Post #7 |
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Alright, that makes sense. I look forward to it. Armaknee and I were talking last night about how we liked the idea for an "ungulate" that you had there.
Because the terraforming process can tell you a lot about how the planet ends up. Myself, I'm not really sure how you go about terraforming other than say, introducing Terran bacteria and plankton and then waiting several hundred years before you start introducing plants, which itself is just a way that I had a friend explain to me once. I'm not really sure how plausible that is... But how it's done would determine quite a bit about habitat distribution and the like. It's a common misconception for example of people when they think that the only difference between the environment 20,000 years ago was the fact that there were still massive ice sheets and Pleistocene megafauna. The plant distribution was also very different, and so certain kinds of habitats that provide for certain kinds of fauna today may have been drastically reduced or not even present at all. The Eastern Woodlands of the United States are a great example of this. Prior to the end of the last ice age, the Eastern Woodlands were actually composed much less of deciduous broad-leaf forests and instead were dominated primarily by boreal conifer forests, something like you'd find today much further north in Quebec and Labrador. The modern composition of the forests is not the result of a gradual displacement of the conifers by deciduous broad-leafs that has tailored them uniquely over many thousands or millions of years to the animals that live in them now, nor are the animals that inhabit them really uniquely tailored to them. The whole thing has happened pretty rapidly and randomly in about 12,000 years, completely altering the biome of an entire region overnight, at least geologically speaking. North America's habitats have also changed drastically with the Columbian Exchange, which has not only brought numerous species of animals, but also of plants to the biomes that have in some places fundamentally altered them. Kudzu vine is a good example of such a planet, as it grows and chokes and smothers trees and crushes them under its weight, it produces a completely new kind of habitat that none of the large animals around here adapted to known as a "vine barren". Tumbleweed, something I grew up around out here in the deserts of Southeastern Washington also fundamentally alters habitats where it grows. One time, in Wilderness Quest in Utah, we saw an entire canyon choked up with dry, thorny tumbleweeds. Not ideal habitat for deer, or goats, or really anything very big... Come to think of it though, the desert that I currently live in has also changed at its most basic level due to the introduction of Eurasian grasses (cheat grass) and sage. Once upon a time, the desert was dominated by bunch grass, and now, it's ALL sage and cheat grass. So yeah, the different kinds of plants that are introduced and how they behave in the virgin ecosystem will tell you quite a bit about how your animals evolve. I imagine at least for the first 20 million or so years, plants will be in violent competition with one another, and as different species and groups expand and contract, and others disappear, your animals will be affected. Telling us what kind of star the planet orbits and where it lies within the Goldilocks Zone can also tell us quite a bit not only about weather, but also about what kinds of plants are successful and what kinds won't be, and the axial tilt tells us about how the seasons work, and therefore, how everything being introduced has to adapt to work with that. Affexian is very good with plants, much more so than me, so I think it would be a waste to brush that stuff off when we have such a knowledgeable member on the forum who is so willing to contribute
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| martiitram | Oct 8 2013, 12:47 PM Post #8 |
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How big is the goliath oliphant? |
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| Admantus | Oct 8 2013, 06:49 PM Post #9 |
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The Goliath oliphant is about as big as a brachiosaurus. |
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| martiitram | Oct 9 2013, 12:46 PM Post #10 |
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Well since mammals don't have air sacks inside their bones (like birds and sauropods have) I don't they could grow that large , but they could be quite large too thought (about 20-35 tons).Also , how do they look like , cause the only way I picture them is as giant , olive elephants. |
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