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Post by Leaf on May 6, 2015 15:19:48 GMT
It seems like there's some confusion about whether or not humans are plants, among other possible considerations.
In my world at least, humans are a type of animal.
Living creatures that you don't need a microscope to see come in about three broad categories: animals, plants, and fungi. (I am simplifying away some diversity and weird edge cases for the sake of not having to read a biology textbook in order to make this post. Please forgive me.)
Plants usually don't have anything more than extremely rudimentary systems for moving or sensing, usually reproduce by means of seeds, and usually feed by photosynthesis (absorbing sunlight for energy). Examples of plants: trees, bushes, cacti, grass.
Fungi usually have even more rudimentary systems for moving or sensing, usually reproduce by means of spores, and usually feed by growing on things and absorbing energy and matter from whatever they grow on. I think. I'm not a biologist. Examples of fungi: mushrooms, mold.
Animals usually have complicated systems for moving and sensing, and usually feed by eating (putting stuff, usually parts of other formerly-living things, in our bodies and absorbing their matter and energy). Animals reproduce in various ways, but humans are placental mammals, which means that our young start out growing inside the bodies of their mothers and emerge as infants, then continue growing until they become adults. (Technological development in my world has created alternative options for some parts of this process, but I'm not going to get into that here.)
What kinds of living things in general are there in your worlds? Do they fall into a classification scheme that looks more or less like this, or a similar but different scheme, or a totally unrelated one?
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Thorn
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Posts: 44
World: Eclipse
Pronoun: she/her/hers
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Post by Thorn on May 6, 2015 15:34:01 GMT
Thank you, Leaf, I was just thinking about how to make a reasonable summary.
Do you not have bacteria in your world, or do you consider those one of the edge cases you mentioned?
In any case, that sounds roughly like the classification scheme on my world, though it is somewhat complicated by the widespread nature of genemodding, and the difficulty of classifying things that evolved in entirely different environments. (You've mentioned you had some kind of space travel, how did your world manage that problem? Or did you not find any worlds with even nonsentient life?)
I don't think I mentioned in my earlier post; the species of sentient alien we have encountered seems to be descended from something analogous to fungi.
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Cardea
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words
Posts: 34
World: Adunka
Pronoun: she
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Post by Cardea on May 6, 2015 15:42:28 GMT
Plants are homes. Plants are alive. Humans are alive and magic. Animals are alive not magic not homes.
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Post by Leaf on May 6, 2015 15:43:11 GMT
Bacteria are living creatures that we mostly do need special equipment to see, so I didn't cover those, but we do have them.
We have found animal-like things, plant-like things, and fungus-like things on other planets, along with a bunch more edge cases, but for the most part we haven't needed to invent whole new high-level classifications to deal with alien life. The animals-plants-fungi (and bacteria and so on) categories have been pretty solid since before space exploration got off the ground, so to speak.
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Post by Dispersive Prism on May 6, 2015 15:55:11 GMT
My world works a lot like Leaf's, I think. Our classification system's pretty close, though I think we've got different kinds of stuff.
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Cardea
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words
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World: Adunka
Pronoun: she
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Post by Cardea on May 6, 2015 16:10:39 GMT
human and animals have feelers, wings, legs, hands. some animals don't have carapace.
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Post by Fortunomancer on May 6, 2015 21:24:57 GMT
My world's classification system is similar to the one outlined by Leaf (I suspect that there are differences in how we classify the weird edge cases but that is irrelevant). Now that's interesting. Biomancers in Mysis have been attempting to develop extrauterine wombs for...several decades, I suppose, I first heard about the project when I was fourteen years old. I firmly believe that spellcraft is the most reliable and useful method of technological development at our disposal, but hearing this almost makes me think that perhaps the Mechanical Separatists have some useful points buried somewhere in their ridiculous ideology.
I greatly appreciate the clarity of your explanations, Leaf.
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Post by Leaf on May 6, 2015 21:33:29 GMT
Thanks, I try.
Yeah, we've had uterine replicators in my world for a good couple of centuries at least (I'd have to look up the exact dates). I did most of my gestating in one. Like any technology, they're not without problems, but I'm pretty sure they've done more good than harm by a long shot.
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Post by Andrew on May 6, 2015 23:15:12 GMT
Fortunomancer, what is the ridiculous ideology of the Mechanical Separatists? Those of us from worlds with minimal or no magic might be able to help identify any good parts.
Leaf, I’m curious: “most”? I would have expected the standard to be “all” or “none”. Changing partway through (in either direction) seems like it would have several complications, with little if any benefit over spending the full term one way or the other. Maybe I’m mis-predicting your medical technology again.
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Post by Leaf on May 6, 2015 23:18:07 GMT
I didn't come here intending to discuss my medical history, but suffice to say, there exist situations in which such a transfer solves more problems than it causes.
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Post by Fortunomancer on May 6, 2015 23:53:57 GMT
Andrew, The Mechanical Separatists are a small group of young radicals based in Okika, Nehemia. They believe, essentially, that humanity's reliance on advanced spellcraft is somehow detrimental to human development, claiming that without spellcraft, non-magical technology would have developed far beyond its current capacity. They support this claim by citing the fact that non-magical technology has not developed to the expected extent since the discovery of the Faded Arts (an event I will describe in more detail when I describe my world's magic). Those who make this claim ignore the fact that non-magical technology has not developed to this extent in countries where the Faded Arts are not practiced, either, because the residents of those countries are too busy dying of plagues and famines and whatnot to make significant technological advances. Also, looking at literature from pre-Faded Arts eras, it is clear that any predictions made about the extent of technological development ought to be considered fanciful at best, as they are not grounded in any of the known laws of the universe (laws which we know because we discovered them using magic). There are other arguments to support their position, but all are irrelevant and most are ludicrous.
They were very popular twenty years ago. A group of them even founded a town and banned the use of spellcraft within its bounds, proclaiming that they were the saviors of the human race. In the end, half of them died of preventable diseases and the other half decided the grand experiment wasn't worth it. All in all, a ridiculous waste.
Leaf's uterine replicators have served to convince me that it is possible for non-magical technology to develop to, or even beyond, the point to which spellcraft has developed. However, I don't believe that non-magical technology will develop to the point where it surpasses all possible magical technology.
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Post by Leaf on May 7, 2015 0:20:58 GMT
I'm not at all surprised to hear that advanced magical technology stifled the development of the nonmagical kind, but dying of preventable diseases seems like a counterproductive solution to the problem.
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Post by Andrew on May 7, 2015 0:44:06 GMT
I forgot to actually answer the question. Our biology is similar to Leaf’s, except we have the additional classification of daeva and the additional edge case of Limboites. Daeva come to exist in one of two ways: a human dying, or one spontaneously appearing. If a human dies, they appear as a Limboite or (very rarely) a daeva (there are guesses about when they appear as which of the four types, but I don’t think any of them are that firm at the moment) in the appropriate world near an existing population (but not necessarily one they’re familiar with). Daeva, but not Limboites, can also spontaneously appear without anybody dying; these appear in an adult form with full mental and physical abilities but no memories (because they have nothing to remember). Daeva are immortal, unaging, and indestructible. They can be hurt or injured, but can only sustain minor injuries and always heal; for example, if somebody were to swing a sword at an unsuspecting daeva, the daeva would be cut and might bleed a small amount, but would not be majorly wounded and would make a full recovery.
Leaf, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that question would be personal.
Fortunomancer, I don’t know about your world’s magic or if its nonmagic matches mine in various capacities, so I of course can’t predict what affect magical technology has on non-magical technology (I can intuitively see the point that people would invent more non-magical technology if they didn’t have access to magic, but that only holds if they are not dead or incapacitated by plague). I will say that in my world, non-magical technology has, within the last one to two hundred years, advanced far more than I expect people back then would have reasonably guessed. We have electric lights, flying machines, the ability to record and play back sound, photography, and video. We have made small manned expeditions to our planet’s moon (a moon is basically to a planet as a planet is to its sun: a giant, but much smaller, ball of rock which orbits the planet), entirely nonmagically. I am accessing this forum using computers and the Internet, which is an electronic nonmagical technology. Leaf apparently has nonmagical colonies on Mars or other planets. We also have non-magical weapons that can destroy cities, and other horrors, but I expect you have powerful magical weapons too.
If I had to guess, I would say that regardless of whether your magical technology is slowing your nonmagical technology, you might want to spend more effort developing nonmagical technology. Even if magic could do everything, there may be some things that are easier to do nonmagically, and you might be able to combine magical and non-magical technology. For example, much of our newer technology is electronic, and if we could magically generate electricity in meaningful quantities this might make some of our electronic technology easier to use.
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Post by Botanical Engineer on May 7, 2015 1:31:25 GMT
My world has plants. Most sedentary plants do not move, except for the movement inherent in growth. Some plants can sense movement or contact, and react by movement or by emitting chemicals to make whatever is near it less likely to harm it. All plants reproduce by seeds, although some have extremely small seeds.
Some plants have two stages, a sedentary and mobile stage. Plants like this reproduce by seeds, then the sedentary stage produces a pod in which a mobile stage grows. The pod opens when the mobile plant is fully developed, which then does something to either increase the locations the seeds of the plant can reach, or reduces the competition of nearby plants. Mobile plants cannot photosynthesize, and must eat to survive. All mobile plants have some contact-based ability to alter the internal patterns of other plants, although the specifics vary by species. Mobile plants seem very similar, though not identical to animals. The closes thing I can think of to placental mammals is that some mobile plants have their sedentary offspring growing from them as they move around.
If it would make things clearer, I could refer to mobile plants as animals for most conversational purposes?
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Post by Fortunomancer on May 7, 2015 1:39:42 GMT
Andrew,
It's Fortunomancer, not Futuromancer.
Regarding technology, we have electromantic lights, or suspended glowing balls of light. Government-sponsored electromancers light up any major public areas at night, while privately-paid electromancers light homes and businesses when necessary. We don't have flying machines (these were among the advances imagined in the pre-Faded-Arts-era), but we can teleport, and a few people can fly independently. Telemancy can transmit sound, and illusomancy can create recordings, though the quality varies. Photography and video are neatly within the bounds of illusomancy. We have not yet attempted space travel, mostly because environmancy tells us that leaving the planet's atmosphere is unsurvivable, but were we sufficiently motivated I imagine we would find a way. I confess that we have nothing comparable to the Internet (I believe you explained the Internet, commendably well, in another section of the forum), and attempting to invent such a thing would inevitably run into infrastructure problems.
I do not object to further development of nonmagical technology, but I don't think it's strictly necessary, and I object strongly to the premise that using advanced spellcraft means that one is not "truly human" (which is the rhetoric the Mechanical Separatists use).
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