Life Has It's Ways: A Speculative Evolution RP(IC)

[UniversalCommons]

California, 90,000 AD, Deep Octlantis

The ocean floor rumbled and quaked, collapsing many of the habitats of the mound octopi. Some fled in random directions. Then fissures and cracks appeared in the ocean floor sending out waves of heat and exposing molten magma. Plumes of black soot shot upward darkening the waters. The octopi fled frantically in random directions. Fishes, shrimps, and other crustaceans boiled in the heat of the sea. The ocean floor shook cracking in a several deep fissures over a mile in length.

The ocean floor finally erupted over a twenty mile wide area, boiling the sea floor, the central breeding grounds of the Mound Octopuss, thousands died in the eruption. Others fled into deeper or shallower waters. Over half of their mounds were wrecked in the eruption. The ocean turned a deep black. Deep Octlantis would become an ancestral myth or image.

The octopi fled out into the ocean seeking new grounds and places to live. They were exposed without their mounds. Sharks, giant squids, and other predators initially got them. The weak and the slow perished. Those who could signal that predators were near were more likely to survive. There were some small areas with mounds that they could go to, but the existing octopi tried to fight off the new comers, signaling disgust, hatred, anger, and driving them away.

Several small communities of octopi where they found warm sea vents were started. There were now many more small communities of octopi, but no longer one giant Deep Octlantis. It was not easy starting over. Many of them died and had their eggs eaten, or could not survive at the new vents.

Objective: Natural disaster, spread of the Mount Octopi, survival of the fittest.

[Exalted Inquellian State]

90,001 AD
West Virginia
It was a warm, sunny day in spring. The snow on the mountains had partially melted, refiling the streams. Life had sprung up again. In the south, lemurs once again swung from branches. In the north, near the swamps and what was known as "the Pillar", bears prowled. And in Virginia, the crows had come back.

Their brains by this point had grown a bit more. Their memories grew clearer and better. Their capabilities to. Of course, it wasn't full on spear making for the most part. Occasional manipulations of objects, however, began to grow in number, from sticks to pelting animals with pebbles. Their legs had also strengthened. But overall, they were the same as they had been 10,000 years ago.

One day, a crow was scurrying in the forest. It was a female, trying to find food for it's chicks. The crow landed on the forest floor, near a large pine tree. Out of the corner of it's eye, she saw a beetle. As she approached, it started hopping away. This was a fast one. She chased it, slowly at first, but picking up speed. Then, she saw a broken branch. With her leg, she grabbed it, and aimed for the bug. But a small opening in the canopy caused something to glisten. For a split second, the crow looked at the shiny thing. It missed the beatle, but it did not care. As the crow got closer, it realized the object was dull. Just a weird circle, with what seemed to be a half naked ape somehow painted on it. The crow pecked the peculiar object. It tasted metallic. And so the crow flew away, once again searching for food.

[Houyhnhnm Cities]

Kazakistan 95.000 AD
The great cold had come and gone, bringing utter destruction with it. But as the snow retired, it also left behind a land of opportunity. And the hyraxes of the middle east were the ones best poised to take advantege of it. While the sudden ice age had a terrible impact on the population of small and medium-sized mammals, the hyraxes had coped with the cold better than most, thanks to their high intelligence and complex social structure. So, when the Earth began to thaw once again and resources became more abundant, their population exploded. Soon, two different, opposite tendencies emerged in the evolution of these little animals. One started to grow bigger and bigger, with long legs and sharp incisor teeth to take the niche previously occupied by the small ungulates, whose populations already depleted by mankind did not recover in time to survive the ice age. The ancient steppes of Kazakistan, where the gazellles once roamed, now were the habitat of the long-legged hyrax, the biggest to ever live. These slender beast were not as efficient as grazers as the ungulates, but their superior intellect and greater adaptability allowed them to exploit every resources in the steppes, and to defend themselves more effectively from predators. The Megalohyrax was here to stay.

Lebanon 95.000
The other branch of the Hyrax family doubled down on what made them most effective. THey became even smaller, only one half of the weight of the rock hyrax, their ancestor. But their brains were bigger, and their paws even more slender. No longer content to hide in the cracks of the rocks, they began to build better shelters, moving the rocks and insulaing them with plant material. They even learned that by chewing the resin of the local conifers they could create a sticky paste to build even better refuges. Combined with their impressive language, that gave the members of the colonies an amazing ability to coordinate, they were able to create truly amazing stuctures, protected by the elements and any kind of predators, similar to gigantic termite mounds. unlike the insects they were not truly eusocial, as the flexibility of every single individual was a boon to big to waste with caste specialization, and the Microhyrax did not need it to become one of the most successful small mammals in the middle east.

[Zjaum]

95,002 AD
Bay of Biscay

The Children of Fweowek surfaced onto the shoreline. They were a great order of adventurers among their kind, leading to great expeditions and sharing their stories with the world, following in the tradition that their ancestors taught them. The beach was at this point child's play, quite literally. They watched as their young flopped along the surface. It was easier for them when they didn't have to carry such weight, but building muscles early on made it easier to phlump on land as an adult. Now that their abdomens were well and truly capable, they had called out to each other, using noises that called for a hunt. In the water, this would have led the order to a school of fish, or a group of seals, and a feeding frenzy following. Now the calls meant much the same: They were going for a hunt on land.

Their primary target was a timid, horned creature in the distance. For most, this was a daunting task. The Children of Fweowek could not be daunted. They formed a line, and then an arc. Two-dimensions were more restricting than three, but so much simpler. The skittish deer, well aware of this, took a moment to prance away, but only slightly. Evolution had not been kind to it, though the ice age had graciously rid it of competition. No matter what tactics the orcas used, the prey was far too nimble for the predators. Squeals of doubt sounded through the party.

One inside the group, however, made it through. He didn't have a name himself; his mother looked at the lower ribs that grow not inwards but out of his sides and promptly abandoned him. He found a place in this new pack, especially since the saltwater was painful for his natural, permanent wounds. He had gradually learned to wiggle the bones around. They hardly supported him, but they held him in place while he moved. To most, he was a freak, but this freak was the only one that could lurch forward and catch the deer. Squeals of celebration erupted, and the unnamed orca waddled around to return to the sea. He wondered just how good this creature would taste.

Developments: A genetic mutation is introduced that makes the bottom two ribs of the rib cage to protrude outwards outside the skin. Muscles of those genetically infected learn to work with and move the bones. In addition, the hind legs begin to grow again, and fins are strengthened.

[Zedeshia]

98,500 AD
British Columbia

The ice age that had once stretched across the world was a brief one, disappearing as the great sheets of ice slowly retreated from whence they came, and the time of vast tundra and wintry cold in much of North America was brought to an end with it. In many places the world had returned to its proper place, albeit drastically changed geographically by what had occurred. But as the vast realms of ice and snow slowly shifted many creatures that had thrived only a few millennia before followed suit, gradually moving more and more north as time passed. In the lands of what was once known as British Columbia the bitter northern winds continued to rush through the air, and the northern coyote still lived on.

A coyote with a brilliant white coat dug through the thick winter snow relentlessly, its head burrowing through the frigid ice. The nose of the beast twitched violently as it searched for whatever laid beneath it, carefully waiting for the slightest smell or sign of what it hunted. Suddenly there was a swift burst of snow and movement between the beast's paws. A large snowshoe hare, fur blending into the snowy cover it had just been concealed under, flew away from its hunter with a sudden speed, attempting desperately to flee. However, the poor creature would not be so fortunate, as the coyote's companions, noticing the animal as it moved with swift speed soon surrounded it, closing in on all sides. The hare with a panicked desperation attempted to break through this unexpected wall of fur and flesh, quickly weaving past one of the members of the coyote pack. But this was in vain, as with a swift strike to the throat yet another of the many beasts slayed its prey. The pack formed a circle around the fresh corpse, barking and crying out wildly. Elsewhere, the coyote of the north was no longer the force it once was, but here they remained, as deadly as ever.

Developments: Northern coyote populations decline as their territory is reduced over time, and begin to shift northwards away from Southern coyotes. Coyotes begin to slowly change, adapting to a smaller amount of available prey.

[Kasa Tkoth Sphere]

100,006 AD
East Pacific, near California

With the melting of the Earth's glaciers came the opening of rivers even far from where the ice had been. Down in the east Pacific, there were only little trickles at first, but soon enough any event of this global scale would undoubtedly trigger flooding and open more and more mouths and deltas to the sea. Runoff from inland kicked up massive amounts of sediments, mixing them into the ocean water and triggering blooms of algae, shocks to the food chain, and undoubtedly new opportunities for species that could use their evolutionary tempo to fill new niches.

It didn't quite seem like the Pacific pink shrimp, Pandalus borealis eous, was getting used to these changes at first. What few of their subclades remained (and hadn't been outcompeted by their evolutionary relatives — the massive swarms of shrimp that box jellyfish and octopi were eating had to come from somewhere) kept swimming their old migratory routes, getting eaten or lost or yanked away by tides and gradually dying off, one group at a time. Of course, it wasn't like their predators would notice — it was exactly because there were fewer pink shrimp along these paths that related species had just filled their niche. Evolution was not exactly the sort of concept to care what happened.

But every once in a while, evolution found a loophole and did something very different.

---

Subclade 332-465001962954 had a mutation — a newly-active dominant gene somewhere in chromosome seventy-three triggered a cascade of expression changes that bleached their common ancestor's carapace a gritty grey-white, which they had passed down through the line for a hundred generations now. They moved through the sediment-rich water quite spread out, the group-minded ones having been culled off by jellyfish nets long ago. With marine snow tumbling down and fresh and salty water mixing here to create all sorts of strange currents, it was important to stay low to the seabed, moving erratically to throw off tracking predators and blending in against the silt to hide from anything that relied on its color sensitivity to detect prey.

332-465001962954-6800 was lagging behind the bulk of the group, but not by much, and she was on track to reach the egg-laying sites even if she was not fully aware of it. What bothered her now was hunger: moving to avoid predators cost energy, and there was little in the way of free-floating invertebrates here to eat. But she moved along the seabed regardless, trailing her legs along a patch of sand to feel for anything of interest.

Something bumped a leg. She tilted her head to get a look, though her eyesight was poor. A triangle-shaped piece of something fleshy lay half-buried here, probably the remnant of a dead fish or a large plankton. She put no further thought into lunging down, digging it out of the sand, and swallowing it whole.

One could say that others would follow in her subclade's wake — but, as usual with biology, it was more fair to say that they were the pioneers of a biological strategy that their descendants would adopt as well. Either way, she would not be alone.

---

North Pacific, near Alaska

The western branch found themselves at an impasse. A scant thousand years ago, the pink shrimp coming up the coast from the East Pacific were little different, and the two groups sought refuge in each other, mating whenever they could to ensure their lines continued. But the pink ones had stopped coming; their children were strange, grey, elusive, preferring to root around in the mud and dodge out of the way of anything that moved. In a blink, evolutionarily speaking, the free-floating pink eous had all but vanished, replaced by a far more competitive branch that could outcompete their predator-attracting relatives.

There would be no mating this season; the Asiatic line could find no way to mingle with them. And so the tree split a little more.

---

East Pacific population has diverged into a new species, Pandalus gris, the "silty shrimp", characterized by opportunistic bottom-feeding and greyish hue for seabed camouflage.
Little net effect on northern/western P. borealis eous population this turn.
Little net effect on Atlantic P. borealis borealis population this turn.

[Exalted Inquellian State]

100,010 AD
District of Columbia

For years, crows were smart. They learned simple tool use, from the occasional stabbing to the usage of sticks to catch ants. They had made large families, capable of feeding themselves, organizing pack hunts, and so on. They had managed to make flocks big enough to take down capybara. And they outcompeted the ravens. But the crows, like many animals, remained non-sentient. They did not understand the concept of the individual, did not understand themselves, and could not look into a lake and realize the crow staring down on them was their own.

But not I.

I am not sure if this has always been the case, or if I learned it, but regardless, I came to realize that I was a singular being. The day before, I was chasing a mice around. Through the forest I went, chasing after it. Finally, we came to a swamp. The mouse went into it barely, but stopped, and as it tried to run back, so I grabbed it. But as I looked down into the water, the mouth writhing in my hand, I noticed something. The crow in the lake, the reflection, held the mouse still in it's hand. It looked directly at me. I moved, and it moved. And I never saw the thing blink. And so, I realized, that the thing in the lake was me.

I stumbled on my feet, letting the mouse go. I was a individual. The scope of the idea twisted itself in my head. I could feel, think, by myself. I could experience memories of myself. I did no longer have to rely on pure instinct, but I could think of what I wanted to do, I could think of how I wanted to catch the mouse, and relate it to myself personally because I was I. The sheer scale was starting to unravel. I could talk about myself and my experiences. I could recall memories. I could meet other crows just like me, and we could share our stories of life. And then I realized something.

There were no crows like me yet.

As I finally came to terms with my knowledge of the self, a shadow crept over. But a literal one. I looked up. Thousands of crows flying above me, touching on the ground. As they came down, I saw they looked different. Smaller, more agile. They were from someplace else. And something drove them out of their home.

[UniversalCommons]

100,100 AD California Scattered Mound Octopi Groups

It had been a battle for survival. Many mound octopi died being eaten by sharks, giant eels, predatory fish, and deep whales. It was their camouflage, ability to hide in their mounds, and ability to spot predators quickly which kept them alive. They were no match for the larger sharks which ate them. They could survive against smaller sharks with the mound octopi's poisonous bite as well as some of the fish.

The mound octopi had found new communities with new mounds. The mounds were more carefully arranged, they had smaller openings which the octopi could squeeze through, as well as escape exits. The octopi had a few more years to live, they had time to add color to their mounds, there were different colored rocks, shells, and detritus from crabs, lobsters, and fish. Some had even added bones from whales and other creatures that had fallen to the sea floor. The shape of the mounds were more even as well. The communities looked like rolling hills. Many were not far from deep sea vents.

As the octopi saw their children hatch from eggs, there came a realization that life came from eggs. The males sought out the eggs of fish, shrimp and other creatures gathering them to put near their mounds. Most of the creatures died at first, but a few survived and fluorished near the mounds. With eggs, came more anemones and other creatures. It was a garden of deep sea creatures presided over by the mound octopi. At first, they did not watch the eggs closely like their own eggs.

Objective: Survival of the fittest, new mounds, gathering eggs.

[Exalted Inquellian State]

Earth Report 1.0

Report 1.1

Ice Age ended. Mean Temperature at 7.8 C. Day ~1.4 seconds longer than 0 AE. Mount Tambora eruption occurred.

Report 1.2

Asiatic lion crossed Europe over Bosporus. Mediterranean gone.

Report 1.3

Orangutan mastered fire before Tambora event. Population reduced to 1,000. Asian Steppes dominated by giant rodents.

Report 1.4

Africa retains composure. Chimpanzees developing limited tools and longer memory. Elephants North Africa and the Middle East.

Report 1.5

Crows show signs of self awareness. Coyote populations diverge. Lemur population in Southern Carolina near extinction, may diversify.

Report 1.6

Nothing happened in South America.

Report 1.7

Nothing here either.

Report 1.8

Penguins explode in population.

Report 1.9

Orcas master land movement, use fins to move themselves. Freak mutation of ribs explodes in population and allows greater land mobility.

[Amos-Nuraka]

101,000 AD
Ohio

Worms had long been the prey of other species. Before the smart ones, they were hunted viciously. However, in the later years of the smart ones, their population began to rebound, but after their disappearance they soon returned to be nothing but prey. Due to the rising populations of crows in the region, earthworms had almost been hunted down to extinction in the Ohio River Valley.

One day, however, an earthworm stumbled upon a deer carcass and started eating away at it. Little did it know, it had ingested a parasite. This parasite infected the worm and caused it to secrete lubrication fluid from a part of its body that it shouldn't be secreting it. But this fluid hardened around the worm, restricting it's locomotion. However, the next day, when a crow almost captured it and killed it for her young, the worm was too tough to easily gnaw on, and so it was dropped from the sky. Eventually, the parasite grew into a symbiotic relationship with the worm, where it would provide it protection in exchange for nutrients.

As this worm reproduced, the parasitic bacteria was spread across many of the regional worms, and allowed the worms greater protection at the cost of locomotion. The worm population expanded once again, and the main predator of it determined it to be too much work for such a small meal.

[UniversalCommons]

102,000 AD, Deep Sea Vents

The Octopi would occasionally nudge their fish pushing them forward. Out would go a tentacle to smack the fish. A bad fish who did not find food would be food. When the fish found a crustacean, it would wiggle above where the crustacean was and the octopuss would go down and grab the crustacean, breaking its shell and eating the meat inside. The octopuss had taken to dragging eggs near their lairs. The fish would stay near the mounds eating the little bits of leftovers still in the shells of crustaceans, clams, or fish skeletons from the mound octopi meals.

The fish did not seem to mind the octopi. They did not mind even when a mound Octopuss would grab a fish bite it with its poisonous bite and go into its mound to eat the fish at its leisure. Some fishes became more docile over time. They adapted by scavenging the mound octopi's kills.

Other creatures came out of the eggs, crustaceans and eels. The eels had a bounty of fish to eat. The eels would often stay around the mounds of the octopi. The eels would keep the smaller sharks away attacking and eating them.

This provided both more food for the mound octopi and some protection from the sharks.

Objective: Semi-domestication of eels and fish.

[Exalted Inquellian State]

102,000 AD
Maryland

With the Ice Sheets gone, the crows returned to their old northern habitats. Their migrations stopped for the time being, and they had begun using the intellect which the ice age gave them for other uses. Crows now could use it to build better nests. With their newfound self awareness, they managed to teach their children, passing on information. Of course, this was it-their intellect in the ice age was only a growth spur, triggered by change in climate, and they wouldn't get one for a long time. The crows also began using their wings for various things. They hovered above prey slowly, stalking it before the attack. Their slow movement allowed children to better observe how to fly.

As for the mysterious arrivals that came 2,000 years ago, those were the crows of New Caledonia, and other islands near Indonesia. They came after a huge fire, what humans knew as volcanoes, had erupted, consuming their home with ash. Some reached self-awareness before the disaster. They told stories of great, hairy beasts, with fiery fur, who made fire itself. They watched slowly as the crows escaped while the ash engulfed the islands and plunged them into Nuclear winter. What happened to them was unknown.