Oni2:Slaves of War/Neo-Biology

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Below are some attempts at imagining what sort of plant life and other foreign organisms would be encountered in the Wilderness. First we start with real life forms found on Earth, and then we move to the speculative realm.

Strange life forms

“ On and on it goes. It seems the more you learn, the less and less and less and less and less you know. „

—Apollo Sunshine, "The Egg"


Plants

Let's look at real plants to get some inspiration. It seems that peering into nature closely only demonstrates how incapable we are of imagining anything stranger or more alien than the actual life that exists on this planet — plants that hear, plants that eat meat, plants that don't need soil.... Here's some stand-out examples.

Sensitive plants

  • Mimosa pudica is known by countless names in countless languages because people the world over so enjoy touching it. No, seriously. It's usually referred to in English as touch-me-not, and in most other languages a variant of the word "shy" is used in its name. You can see why in this video.
    • The perfect orderliness of the folding leaves such as at 2:24 seems to belie our ideas about "organics" being "sloppier" than mechanical devices. Although it's been years since I played Myst III, watching this video reminded me of the stairs that can be seen at 1:09 in the game's trailer (see "Fictional plants" below).
    • It seems to be a nearly universal reaction to become irritated at seeing someone messing with the touch-me-not, as you can see from all the comments on touch-me-not videos. One YouTube commenter wryly explains, "Funny how people willingly pick, cut, step on, or otherwise harm plants, but as soon as the plant is capable of noticeable movement, suddenly they decide it has feelings and anyone who bothers it is a bastard." Hmm.
  • The telegraph plant is a biological implementation of a solar tracker system; it uses leaflets to find the angle of the sun and then moves its larger leaves into place, to maximize its energy use vs. intake.

Carnivorous plants

Carnivorous plants?! The very idea of a plant that eats meat is so bizarre that we would refuse to believe in such a thing if we hadn't all seen Venus fly traps on TV. It seems that carnivory is a viable practice in areas that are too nutrient-poor for regular plants to grow. These plants dispel the notion that an organism needs to be motile in order to catch food. (And the section after this dispels the notion that all plants are sessile!)

  • Everyone's seen the Venus fly trap catch a fly. It's actually the most primitive and slowest plant carnivore, as you'll see. But here's some interesting nuances that you probably didn't know:
    • It has a short-term memory. A single stimulus won't close the trap; it has to feel two movements within ~20 seconds with separate hairs in order to close. This seems to border on the whole "domain of the mechanical" thing once again.
    • The fly trap also allows smaller bugs to escape if trapped, and then re-opens early. This is akin to a fisher throwing back a small fish.
    • The other carnivores are extremely widespread, but the Venus is only found natively within a 60 mile radius of Wilmington, North Carolina, USA.
    • Scientists don't know exactly how it works. The theorized details could be instructive for us, though, if I could only understand it. It has something to do with elasticity, ion propagation, and osmosis. Basically, the triggering hairs cause a chemical reaction which causes water to move around in the plant. This is apparently the basic explanation for all plant movement, such as with the telegraph plant above.
  • The most gorgeous meat-eating monster plant ever, the sundew, grabs bugs with sticky dewdrops that it extrudes onto those filaments, and in some cases curls up its tendrils to further trap its prey. Did I mention it's also gorgeous (1, 2, 3, 4)?
  • The waterwheel plant grows in water and uses underwater floating whorls to catch bugs.
    • Its flowers are only seen for a few hours before they are pulled underwater.
    • In the winter, it detaches buds called turions to sit at the bottom of the water. These survive extremely frigid conditions while the main plant dies. Once warmer weather returns, they "reduce their density" and rise to the surface in order to germinate and begin growing.
  • The bladderwort has a complex vacuum-powered flushing trap that catches bugs instantly.

Motile plants

Resurrection plants

  • The waterwheel plant above is also a resurrecting plant, by this same definition of the word. (It might be more accurate to say that they are hibernating plants or sleeping plants rather than "resurrecting plants", but I didn't invent the term.)

Self-planting plants

Some plants, such as the newly discovered Spigelia genuflexa, actually plant their own seeds in the ground.

Exploding plants

Some plants get bored waiting for Mother Nature to send wind or insects to help them spread seeds or pollen, and take matters into their own hands by exploding.

  • The White Mulberry tree spreads pollen by firing shots at half the speed of sound.
  • The fungus Pilobolus grows in cow dung, breaking it down as a decomposer. It fires its spores like a small cannon by building up water pressure in the stalk. It leans towards and fires into the sun for some reason, and the spores can travel several feet. The need to fire the spores comes from the fact that the cows won't eat grass right next to their own waste, and Pilobolus needs to be eaten by the cow in order to end up in a fresh cow patty and grow there.
    • Pilobolus is pretty gorgeous for something that grows in cow dung, isn't it? The bulbs are called sporangiospheres.

Air plants

Who says that plants need minor things like roots, and soil to put them in? Spanish moss and other epiphytic plants can be found hanging from trees. They aren't parasitic; they absorb all their minerals and water from run-off that rain brings down the tree, as well as from rain itself. They may absorb moisture directly from the air as well. Spanish moss hardly performs any photosynthesis, appearing as a dead gray or pale green mass of hair-like leaves. Somehow this plant can still manage to put out small flowers, and it positively thrives in the southern U.S., where it can weigh down oaks and other trees.

Parasitic plants

Plants are supposed to be autotrophic, meaning that they manufacture their own food (unlike animals). The key to autotrophism is photosynthesis. However, some plants have decided to take a detour off of Photosynthesis Road and into Parasite Alley. They use a special root known as a haustorium. Rather than pulling nutrients from the ground, this root pulls nutrients directly from another plant. It works by winding into the host plant's cellular structure and sucking on cytoplasm. Eventually they can expand from inside of the host, replacing it with the parasite's body. Haustoria are traditionally used by fungi like mildew, putting parasitic plants in a strange middle ground between their autotrophic brethren and the separate Kingdom Fungi.

Miscellaneous plants

Rainbow eucalyptus trees are probably the most colorful trees in the world.

Fictional plants

  • Myst III: Exile. After two games set in mostly lifeless worlds, Myst III (under new developers) moved in a more organic direction. Notice that some puzzles involve divining the workings of plants and the minds of animals. Of course Oni is pretty much on the other side of the action/thinking spectrum from a game like Myst, but there's still food for thought here.
  • Plants with Eyes. Just watch it. As far as I can tell, this was produced for a television show. Apparently they started with live-action footage of real plants, and then dressed them up with CG, but the results are surprisingly effective.

Fungi

The veiled lady is a mushroom with a skirt! In one African tongue, these are called "house of the millipede".

Some mushrooms have caps that break into scales.

Some fungi create light.

The pestalotiopsis microspora eats plastic.

Animals

Aquatic

  • Siphonophorae are beautiful and totally alien-looking. Make sure to look at Praya dubia. Man o' wars are also part of this order.
  • The nototheniod fishes evolved the ability to endure freezing temperatures — hmm!
  • The Eulimnadia texana is literally the "desert shrimp", an aquatic life form in a desert that spends most of its time as an egg waiting for a rainstorm.
  • If you're not going to sleep any time soon, observe the cone snail at work. These predatory snails are toxin specialists, producing scores of "conotoxins" that each target a specific function in an animal. The toxins are so interesting to scientists and the medical profession that a specialized database had to be created to track them.
  • Glaucus atlanticus is a pelagic sea slug that looks like an alien creature and eats man o' wars. Nicknames include "blue angel" and "blue dragon".
  • This sea slug can incorporate stinging cells from its prey into its body as a defense.
  • The giant larvacean Bathochordaeus features in this video which has a bit of ADD and also shows us other weird marine life.
  • Siboglinidae, or beard worms, don't have mouths or stomachs. They rely on bacteria to metabolize methane or hydrogen sulfide for food.
  • Similarly, the zombie worm has no mouth or stomach; it grows roots into whale bones to feed.
  • The knifefish emits an electrical field which it uses for sensing prey, possibly communicating, and for stunning prey (one knifefish is better known as the "electric eel").
  • One ostracod known as the sea-firefly is a tiny organism that lights up when jostled, saving it from being eaten by fish, and turning itself into an incredible blue fireball in the process.
  • Another thing that actually has nothing to do with pigs: the piglet squid.
  • The psychedelic fish has an unbelievably impractical sense of coordination, resembling a drunk driver as it "swims".
  • Males in many oceanic species live only to find a female and supply sperm, sometimes lacking the organs they need to eat — examples include the anglerfish (where the male sometimes fuses with the much larger female to become one entity!) and the blanket octopus are examples, as well as the black dragonfish above.
  • Argonauts are octopuses that make shells for themselves.
  • Life on Earth is already stranger than fiction, so it's not really possible to think of something more alien than what already exists, especially in the oceans.

Mammals

  • Squirrels can scare away snakes with their tail flagging; they also heat up their tail as they face rattlesnakes, giving off infrared light that the snake can see. The flagging may help them evade attacks or create sensory confusion. Remarkably, squirrels' tails do not heat up when facing snakes that can't see infrared.
  • Mammals can live socially like bees — see the naked mole rat, a very unusual mammal.

Other land animals

The panther chameleon is one of many examples showing that nature does not have to be conservative with colors.

Birds

  • The Guianan Cock-Of-The-Rock is fairly ordinary besides its crest, but from certain angles it looks unearthly.

Insects

  • The American dagger moth is named for its larval form, which looks dangerous because it is; touching it causes a skin reaction similar to that from a stinging nettle.
  • The dogbane tiger moth or delicate cycnia has learned how to make clicking noises that warn bats not to eat them (they'll taste bad).
  • The milkweed tiger moth acquires a compound called cardiac glycoside from the plants it eats, which is capable of stopping the heart. This, in addition to clicks like the dogbane tiger moth's, protect it from bats.
  • The polka-dot wasp moth looks dangerous as a caterpillar but does no harm. It looks even more dangerous as an adult, appearing to be a wasp (and developing danger markings) in order to fool predators. Like many moths, it only eats one or two plants, mainly oleander, but its native food may be the devil's potato plant, from which it picks up cardiac glycosides for defensive purposes.
  • If there's one thing in nature, above any others, that absolutely screams Do Not Touch Me, it's the saddleback caterpillar. If it looks they have a painful sting, it's because they totally do; read the list of potential effects of touching one here.
  • The stalk-eyed fly alters its body in a particularly unsettling manner using air pressure.
  • Ants in the Amazon use acid to cultivate gardens of their preferred tree species.
  • Queens in the "longhorn crazy ant" species can switch between three methods of reproduction: the typical sexual process, asexual self-cloning, and cloning of males, making her a cloning machine that allows the nest to sustain small populations without suffering from inbreeding.
  • Oriental hornets are apparently partly solar-powered, generating electricity from the sunlight that falls on them, though we still don't know how exactly they use it.
  • In a battle of wasp vs. spider, sometimes the wasp wins. Witness the tarantula hawk.
  • Termites have a complex system of classes and roles. Note the "alates"; this can be the basis for a dramatic revelation that a certain kind of alien animal has a winged caste.

Parasites

Parasitic behavior may be relevant to the workings of the Daodan or some plants in the Wilderness. Let's take a broader look at this mechanism.

Plants

See above.

Fungi

The most frightening fungi are the ones that modify their host's behaviors. For instance, Ophiocordyceps unilateralis causes the infected host ant to clamp to the main vein of a leaf, "about 25cm above the ground, on the northern side of the plant, in an environment with 94-95% humidity and temperatures between 20 and 30°C", where it dies when the fungus emerges from its brain on a stalk and releases its spores.

Insects

  • The emerald cockroach wasp finds a cockroach and stings it in the precise thoracic ganglion which controls the roach's front legs. This allows the wasp to then sting the roach in its brain. The venom it injects disables only the roach's escape reflexes (not altering abilities like flight or flipping over). The wasp then chews off half of each antenna, possibly to allow it to regulate the amount of venom in the roach so it stays alive but under control. The wasp then leads the roach by an antenna to the wasp's burrow, lays an egg on it, and closes the burrow's entrance so nothing can prey on the roach, which is incredibly complacent about all of this thanks to the venom. Over the course of a few days, the wasp larva is born and feasts on the living roach.
  • Glyptapanteles is another amazingly specific wasp parasite. It infects a caterpillar, which hosts its eggs until they are ready to emerge and pupate. The caterpillar then guards the pupae until it starves to death. Don't believe me? (3MB; rename that file to end in .avi after it downloads)
  • The Hymenoepimecis argyraphaga, which infects a specific kind of spider, forcing it to build a stronger-than-normal web, then makes the spider sit at the center of the web until the wasp larva emerges and consumes the spider, then pupates on the web which has been strengthened to support the pupa.
  • Ichneumons, parasitoid wasps, have metal-tipped ovipositors and mandibles for wood-boring.
  • Cuckoo bees are parasitic; some of them only lay eggs in other bees' nests, but some actually kill and replace the nest's queen!
  • There are other forms of parasitism, such as kleptoparasitism; an example would be flies that steal ants' or spiders' food, but this behavior is most well-known in the case of hyenas and jackals. Some species steal only intraspecies, and some steal interspecies.

Other animals

  • This one is pretty gross but very fascinating. The Lancet liver fluke grows inside cattle, until it eventually leaves the cattle in "pie" form. Apparently snails enjoy cow pies, and end up ingesting the tiny flukes. Snails then expel these flukes inside slime balls (kind of like how your nose deals with unwelcome dust). Ants then eat the slime balls, which are like a moist treat. The flukes grow inside the ant's haemocoel, except for one little fluke, which travels up to the ant's brain. This ant continues to behave normally, except for one odd quirk: every night, he climbs grass. He waits on the grass stalk until morning, at which point he descends to avoid the sunlight (which would kill it) and rejoins his ant buddies; he's become a vampire ant!. Finally, one night a cow or other grazing animal eats the grass that the ant is on. The flukes are now in the cow. Lather, rinse, repeat.
  • Toxoplasma is a famous protozoan which likes to live inside cats. How does it get inside the cat? Often by infecting rats. The infected rat is suddenly drawn to the scent of cats rather than repelled by it. This is intriguing because the rat has not become fearless or danger-seeking in general; it just acquires a sudden urge to befriend a cat, who finds it to be a nice snack. Toxoplasma then reproduces harmlessly inside the cat, and its ovocytes end up in the litter box.
Because many people own cats, scientists estimate that up to a third of the world's people may be infected with toxoplasma. This is rather interesting, as toxoplasmosis is linked to auto accidents (through slowed reflexes), and miscarriages. It may be partially responsible for differing social psychologies around the world. It also may or may not be a cause of brain cancer and schizophrenia. Don't panic, it's not too hard to avoid infection; just clean the litter box every day, wash your hands after, and keep your cat inside so it can't eat rats! This public service announcement brought to you by your friendly neighborhood wiki.

Animal minds

Strange behaviors

  • Animals riding other animals: crow on eagle, meerkat on rhino....

Animal intelligence

  • Elephants can vocalize human words by placing their trunks in their mouths; they show self-awareness, capacity for cooperative problem-solving, and can understand human speech; they also have death rituals, a practice only previously observed in Homo sapiens; their brains may work similarly to ours, and yet theirs have more convolutions; they may be better at counting than us, they have far better memories, and like humans, they're born with brains much heavier than most animals and yet as a lower-than-normal percentage of their adult brain size (in other words, the brain will grow significantly after birth). They also show compassion towards strange elephants, humans and other animals as small as mice.
  • At least one whale has attempted to vocalize human speech as well.
  • "One thing that remains is our language. But amazingly complex behaviours — culture, tool use, social interaction — we see all of this in the animal kingdom." (BBC)
  • "Both types of fish, grouper and coral trout, are known for hunting cooperatively with other kinds of animals. Whereas the grouper hunts with giant moray eels and a fish called the Napoleon wrasse, coral trout partner up with octopuses to snag prey. A study published last week in the journal Nature Communications found that the fish are able to "point" their heads toward prey, to help out their hunting buddies." (Yahoo! News)
  • Dolphins play by making bubble rings, and whales can hunt using bubble nets. Green Herons use bait to catch fish.
  • How much do animals really understand? This (baby?) shark grabs a morsel from a girl's fingers without even scratching her. Dolphins understand mirrors at least as early as human children. This cow knows how to unlock a gate and this one knows how to use a water pump.
  • Lionesses sometimes kidnap baby versions of their prey. It's probably not an example of interspecies compassion, but rather a baiting tactic to draw in one of the parents, or maybe just an animal's version of keeping extra meat in the freezer.
  • Scientific American: Crows Show Off Social Skills — A general review of bird intelligence, though it conspicuously leaves out New Caledonian crows.

Daodan enhancements

Senses

  • Various animals have senses that humans do not, such as infrared/heat perception (vampire bats), magnetoception (squids, birds?), sonar MRIs (dolphins)....
  • It's been well established by scientists that we do in fact have more than five physical senses, but they're still discovering new ones. Now it looks like we can smell personality and emotions.

Intelligence

If the Daodan organism infects all life on Earth, and it auto-evolves its hosts mentally and not just physically, what effect would this have on animals as they try to out-evolve competitors? A few thoughts:

  • These factors have been suggested in the evolution of human intelligence: climate change (forests turning into more complex and dangerous savannahs), sociality (leading to complex group dynamics), the EDSC hypothesis (once mastery of environment is mostly achieved, a species begins competing with itself, leading to an IQ arms race), increased consumption of dopamine from meat/shellfish (leading to the development of reward pathways that fueled greater intellectual experimentation).
  • Could a dinosaur species have become the world's intelligence specialist instead of humans, if they were not replaced by mammals — Dino sapiens? There were two-legged dinosaurs with workable arms like Deinocheirus mirificus.
  • See Extinction events — these may accelerate or aid evolution. Could there have been another "human" race if we didn't evolve from primates? Perhaps bears, raccoons, octopuses, elephants or dinosaurs could have led to something equally intelligent. Consider crurotarsans vs. dinosaurs vs. mammals, and this Cracked article.
  • Candidates for human-level intelligence: A social oceanic life form like dolphins might be a great candidate, but they cannot master their environment without tools, and tools require manipulators. Squid and octopuses have ten and eight tentacles, but most are not social. Humboldt squid are social hunters, however they only live one year, so they have little time to learn from life or from family. Humboldts are strangely aggressive towards humans and unknown objects; when fighting with Mexican fishers, they flash red and white, giving them the name diablos rojos; they are also cannibalistic. Over the next century, ocean acidification will force Humboldts to live in shallower waters.... Octopuses are noted to have distinct personalities, and live in coral reefs, which are complex environments. They are also smart enough to exhibit play behavior and use complex camouflaging techniques. Squids and cuttlefish, with their signaling, have far superior communication abilities which could support complex language. But cuttlefish live 1 year, squid and octopuses live 2-4 years, and they do not get to learn from their parents. What if the Daodan extended their lifespans? Also important to note that recently the gloomy octopus has been discovered to live in small colonies that are built up over successive generations. Can tools be passed on in this environment? On land, bears and raccoons are very intelligent and might develop better manipulation over time. They learn from their parents and may even have self-awareness. Rats are surprisingly smart and have tiny fingers. Perhaps two species can learn to cooperate to overcome their individual shortcomings, and then evolve together.

Daodan organism

Relevant biology

Short thoughts and ideas that can be built on.

  • Allelopathy is a biological phenomenon by which an organism produces one or more biochemicals that influence the germination, growth, survival, and reproduction of other organisms.
  • Prions are a likely candidate for how the Daodan works.
  • Bacteria can communicate and collaborate using electricity!
  • Remember, forests have layers.
  • STAP cells would have been maybe the most important genetic discovery ever if it weren't a hoax! The suggestion that cells could become totipotent by simply being immersed in weak acid was eerily reminiscent of this.
  • Tobacco mosaic virus: "Due to its cylindrical high aspect ratio, self-assembling nature, and ability to incorporate metal coatings (nickel and cobalt) into its shell, TMV is an ideal candidate to be incorporated into battery electrodes."

Nature and origin

  • Could the Daodan be like mitochondria?
  • Does the Daodan really mean "sped-up evolution" as a whole, or just improved defenses? Can it activate junk DNA to restore lost features from progenitor life forms?
  • Could the Daodan be from a rogue planet (which are said to outnumber orbiting planets), or a round-trip comet?
  • I used to believe that the brain could not be overtaken by the Chrysalis because new neurons are not developed, but apparently "researchers have observed adult neurogenesis in avians, Old World primates, and humans. Adults of these species retain multipotent neural stem cells in the subventricular zone of the lateral ventricles and subgranular zone of the dentate gyrus. The newborn neurons generated in these areas migrate to the olfactory bulb and the dentate gyrus, respectively, and are believed to integrate into existing neural circuits. The function and physiological significance of adult-born neurons remains unclear. Some studies have suggested that post-natal neurogenesis also occurs in the neocortex, an idea that is disputed." (source)
  • The Wilderness might spread using fungi as the pioneer organism, as apparently happened with land life on Earth. See mycorrhizal networks (which would also allow me to work in something of Paradox's ideas).
  • Is the Wilderness creeping in by not just trophic level but by the ecological concept of succession?
  • What will happen to upper trophic levels if the lowest trophic level is being replaced? Is it the opposite of a trophic cascade?
  • Competition in the Wilderness might lead to weird patterns of life like fairy circles.
  • The initial influx of Daodan-boosted life into a region might result in strange temporary anomalies, e.g. super-termites which can easily consume live trees might totally denude a forest, only for Daodan-powered plants or fungi to spring up haphazardly in larger than usual numbers before they can be replaced by other parts of the Daodan ecosystem. These unsettled local regions could make more interesting settings.

Neo-Agriculture

Neo-Agriculture is a placeholder term for the act of adapting the Wilderness to the world of humans. The working assumption is that the Wilderness is primarily composed of plants, both extraterrestrial (from across the "phase veil") and perhaps mutated Earth plants. Some time after the events of Oni, some scientists are working at finding a way to live alongside the hostile life of the Wilderness, akin to Princess Nausicaa. This is as opposed to the slash-and-burn approach that some are taking towards the encroaching wildlife, and also opposed to the idea of giving everyone Chrysalises so they can adapt to the Wilderness.

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