NESLife VI

Daedwartin said:
Yea...but remember: the great dying is the perfect example of a positive feedback loop devastating just about everything.

Siberia erupts and Parts of Modern China erupt. They are near the north and south respectfully right now(Pangaea is the only continent ) also, Siberia is in its massive entirety erupting...now realize that means about half of the largest nation on earth used to be basically one giant volcano. The greenhouse gases produced was mammoth. The swamps located in Siberia understandably perished...wait swamps. And where there were swamps there is eventually coal....this will be important later.

Siberia erupts once more(note: each time, it's just spewing a mammoth lava flow. Still, one big ass lava flow.), also igniting the coal. This repeats for the next several million years...so things weren't going to improve anytime soon. Coal, plus millions of years of eruptions by Siberia equals way too much GHG.

Giant desert forms because of temp rise. Start extinction proper, as water disappears accross the continent. Temp rises even quicker....well, still like molasses compared to today.

Temp rises and rises, what small ice caps that did exist to being with long gone. Sea temp rises. Methane hydrate proceeds to be released into the atmosphere as the seas are too warm for them to stay down there. It doesn't take a stellar rise for this to occur. Methane is a extremely potent GHG...anyone noticing Greenhouse gases is the word of the day here.

temp rises more, and the thermocline ciriculation current, widely considered the deadliest current, shows us why it gained this name: it for the most part shuts down, causing anoxic event in the deep seas. This is when the mass extinct goes from killing a large amount of species, to almost all marine life.

this creates the perfect niche for hydrogen sulfide procducing bacteria...which kills off even more marine life, and they even dominate most the shores. Pink water is the norm now near shore. Earth as whole smells like rotten eggs(this is what causes that smell people.) it's a potent GHG.

In the end, world temp went up 8 degrees C.

All because two supervolanic lava flows occurred.

96% of all marine species, 70% of terrestrial vertebrate, 57% of all families, and 83% of all genera died. The main reason it was so severe was the worse event after worse event occurring and it's very drawn out pace, which was still quicker than evovlution could work the majority of life. Kinda hard to work around almost all oxygen gone in the deep seas. Had the eruptions been shorter by magnitudes of degrees, it would have not been so major.

And it took another mass extinction to occur to even put Dinos on the road to dominance. Then a asteroid decided to Interupt the party, allowing us to arise...and potentially cause the biggest mass extinction since the great dying, which had in common GHG. We are no where near what happened then, but we have a guideline to know what can happen
Click to expand...
That's a pretty damn good explanation of the Permian-Triassic Mass Extinction Event! This one was not quite as dramatic as the Great Dying. The climate change was not quite so severe, and ocean chemistry did not get as terribly screwed over. In the case of the Graderian Mass Extinction, the primary waves of extinction were driven by producer-mediated trophic collapse. While multicellular life took quite a hit, single-celled life experienced a lower percentile extinction rate.

I could have probably spent a lot longer going over the full mechanics of the event. I was considering throwing in some details about massive chemical pollution in the Sejessian, due to being right next to the primary volcanic region, but brevity got in the way- I know that my NESes tend to grow until they spiral out of control and fail, so I am often deliberately light on specific details, for the sake of the game's longevity.

J.K. Stockholme said:
one successful evolution and the next day WAM, a mass extinction of your ecosystem.
Click to expand...
Alas, such is nature. All we can do is keep on evolvin'!

Nailix said:
You killed off everything I once made or held dear... :(
Click to expand...
Many lineages have died off, with contributions from many people.

Daft and Stockholme make good points about spreading around your 'evolutionary investments'. Personally, I endeavour to pay minimal attention to whoever's behind an evolution, in case it might bias me. I'll freely admit to not being sure, without checking, which species you have evolved Nailix, beyond the Tonu (because you talked to me about it so much).
 
Sejessian Ocean

Organism: Hobo
Description: A motile, predatory filament of cells with a sac-like gut, slimy skin, a ribbon-like tail for swimming and an olfactory organ.
Niche: Olfactory swimming generalist.

Organism: Tramp
Ancestor: Orator
Selective Pressure: Lack of swimming preadors.
Mutation: The tramp has lost it's slimy skin (evasive selection is gone) and has developed primitive eyes as their population has grown (growing population has led to competition with in the species). The Tramp is a herbivore.
 
Ah man, I just now realised there are no predators in the Sejessian. I could have come up with something beautiful and eccentric. But I'll think I'll stick with the Zebedi.

@Iggy, is there the equivalent of a fresh water / sea water divide in this world, IE some adaptation needed to survive in rivers and lakes, or are we not getting into that level of detail?

@Daedwartin, I also enjoyed your description of the Great Dying :) I'd read about it on wikipedia before but I think you explained it very well there.
 
Well, half of the creatures of my original Spinelo lineage are gone, only the Hobo's and Stabby's live on. Also my shooteroids seemed to be barely effected, which is great! :D With the exception of the mass extinction, all of my evolutions have been a success so far! :p

I'll post an evolution later.
 
Organism: Devourer
Ancestor: Sejessian Curatol
Selective Pressure: Competition for food from other curatols due to the lack of other scavengers in the Sejessian leads to a population explosion, too many curatols and the Devourer must compete.
Mutation: The Devourer develops a much larger jaw, full of rudimentary calcite 'teeth.' There are two sets of these teeth - the first set are sharp and curved, and allow it to slice off organic matter, while the second set (situated behind the first at the back of the mouth) are flat and are made to grind against each other, reducing organic matter to a mush. These teeth allow it to bite organic matter out of dead or ground-based organisms and grind it to a paste, facilitating digestion and allowing the Devourer to gain more nutrients from its food, thus making it more efficient at gaining energy. The Devourer also grows larger to accommodate the larger jaw.
 
Spoiler :
Organism: Shooteroid
Description: A photosynthetic mass with specialized reproductive cells, roots, primitive lobe-leaves, floating young and limited desiccation resistance.
Niche: Intertidal primary producer.


Organism: Roototil
Ancestor: Shooteriod
Selective Pressure: The massive devastation of species on Lambda and the close-call of its own species during the Epoch has brought forth a survivalist instinct in the Roototil.
Mutation: The Roototil has developed a much more extensive root system to search for and obtain ammonia and other nutrients. In addition to these new roots systems, the Roototil has grown a sac of sorts underneath the main plant body where all the roots come together and drain excess nutrients for storage incase of another event like the Masada. This storage sac is capable of holding many months of nutrients in its expanding sac if the plant has to operate at the lowest level of activity to survive. Because of the much longer growing systems of the plants, the roots above ground grow along with the underground roots, acting like a massive solar array spanning several feet in diameter at times of excellent growth.
 
Spoiler :
Organism: Shooteroid
Description: A photosynthetic mass with specialized reproductive cells, roots, primitive lobe-leaves, floating young and limited desiccation resistance.
Niche: Intertidal primary producer.


Organism: Disc
Selective Pressure: Diminishing sunlight, predation by Arigogues near the coastal areas.
Mutation: As the shooteroids began to flourish on the land they began to change to better suit their environment. From their primitive lobe-leaves came a single unified disc of photosynthetic cells that were much more efficient at catching the sun's rays. With their root systems gathering ammonia and nutrients and the disc gathering the light for photosynthesis they slowly began to creep closer inland.
 
Hey Iggy, would it be possible to post a pic of Lambda with the location of where the supervolcanoes arose?
 
Spoiler :
Organism: Hobo
Description: A motile, predatory filament of cells with a sac-like gut, slimy skin, a ribbon-like tail for swimming and an olfactory organ.
Niche: Olfactory swimming generalist.


Organism: Parah (Sejessian Sea)
Ancestor: Hobo
Selective Pressure: Diminishing food supply and danger from predators.
Mutation: Because of the lack of other organisms to eat, the Parah have adapted to eating the most common food supply: Growers. The Parah have completely abandoned meat-eating and have become herbivores. They have specially designed suction mouths that help them remove the Growers from the seabed and eat them. The Parah have also developed a cartilage bone structure to help them fight off potential predators.
 
Organism: Curatol
Description: An armoured motile scavenging organism with 10 spines for locomotion and defense, 2 of which are adapted for olfaction.
Niche: Olfactory armoured, benthic scavenger.
Click to expand...

Organism: Placebol
Ancestor: Curatol
Selective Pressure: Competition over large numbers of dead matter led to a boom that is now busting, loss of security in Tower-Forests, growing fields of Svi and Svi-descendents
Mutation: Resistance to Svi's noxious toxicity, as well as development of a sucker-mouth

During the Masada, large amounts of plants and animals died, and the Curatol lived in an amish paradise reproducing and eating its fill. As life hung on the balance in the edge of the Graderian Epoch, the Warden went extinct and the Curatol barely held on itself. It is during this hard times that the Placebol begun developing. The Svi's themselves are undergoing hard times but survived filtering decomposer bacteria, often cutting off regions of the sea bed from Curatol scavanging. Several who survived entering their toxic range reproduced, and soon resistant proto-Placebols begun scavenging within the purview of the Svi-fields. It took but an accidental chew to discover that some are resistant enough to eat upon this unpredated food sources. And so these proto-Placebols multiplied rapidly on this new food source.

To best utilize this food source, their digestive glands begun to recede into their armor and sucking glands developed. A Placebol would near a Svi, fill their sucking glands with ammonia drawing the flesh of the Svi into it's shell. Then, the digestion of the floater begins.
 
Daftpanzer said:
Ah man, I just now realised there are no predators in the Sejessian. I could have come up with something beautiful and eccentric. But I'll think I'll stick with the Zebedi.

@Iggy, is there the equivalent of a fresh water / sea water divide in this world, IE some adaptation needed to survive in rivers and lakes, or are we not getting into that level of detail?

@Daedwartin, I also enjoyed your description of the Great Dying :) I'd read about it on wikipedia before but I think you explained it very well there.
Click to expand...
Yes Daftpanzer, oceans of ammonia possess a fairly large amount of dissolved metals, salts and various other ions, while ammonia which has precipitated and flows off of the continents is relatively more pure. As it stands, an oceanic organism which moved into fresh ammonia have to constantly expel ammonia from its body, at a rate equal to the rate that ammonia entered its cells through osmosis. Otherwise it would suffer lethal cell lysis and die.

Lord_Herobrine said:
Hey Iggy, would it be possible to post a pic of Lambda with the location of where the supervolcanoes arose?
Click to expand...
As a matter of fact, I'm working on a map right now. To work off of the last map, however, the general area of the eruptions is on the western end of the Sejessian Ocean. The continent that stretches between Okianus and Plassidia in that area is Graderia. The volcanic hotspot is just in from the coast, near the area where a divergent plate boundary crosses land.
 
Well time to try something somewhat different:

Organism: Hunter
Ancestor: Arigogue
Selective Pressure: Competition for plant life and the abundance of Arigogue to prey on
Mutation: Large jaws capable of tearing through Arigogue skin. Hunters typically wait around the sea's edge waiting for other amphibious organisms to be heading back after extended periods of time ashore. When an organism approached the shore the Hunter will lunge at it and use its jaws to tear it apart.
 
Organism: Swarmer
Ancestor: Ith
Selective Pressure: Easier prey, one that would require less energy then jumping out of the ocean to bring down.
Mutation: The Swarmer has evolved to be able to swim deeper into the ammonia oceans. They work together in pacts to hunt down larger prey, packs of about 5-6, as they prey on other feaster type creatures primarily.
 


The map's somewhat crude, but it shows the layout of the continents. Redrawing the whole map to any degree of quality at all at this size is quite frustrating. In the future, I think I'll either just say what continents are connected to each other, or draw the map much smaller. Red areas indicate the areas where the basalt remnants of the lava flows from the Graderian Traps can be found.
 
There are functions in GIMP which allow you to manipulate images in ways which can simulate tectonic movement, even for larger images. In any case, I recommend only providing a map every 5 updates or so.
 
Good functions for simulating continental drift in GIMP? As that is the program I use, and I struggled for some time trying to get continent layers to distort and collide properly, I'd very much like to hear what methods you're suggesting. :D
 
Organism: Notra
Ancestor: Ariagogue (Arisian)
Selective Pressure: Environmental destruction drastically limiting food supply.
Mutation: Hibernation mode. When the food supply in any given region has depleted, and thus unable to sustain a Notra, They will "power down" for a number of years, relying on their shell and dead appearance to protect them. This state consumes next to no energy, and allows the Notra to live much longer than otherwise. When the energy level hits a point where they absolutely must feed, or die, the Notra will awaken. Theoretically, this will give time to other organism to grow, thus allowing the Notra a greater food supply.
 
J.K. Stockholme said:
There are functions in GIMP which allow you to manipulate images in ways which can simulate tectonic movement, even for larger images. In any case, I recommend only providing a map every 5 updates or so.
Click to expand...

ahahah... nevermind... I gave what I was thinking a go, and effectively using the scale, rotate, shear and perspective tools in combination with distortion is tougher than I thought.
 
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