I still cannot get over the wonder and mystery of what gall wasps can do to plants. This is bio-engineering! The wasp lays her egg and somehow the plant makes a structure that is not a fruit, it is not a seed, it is not a leaf or stem. It's a wholly recombinant architecture customized to the needs of the growing young larva. The plant provides food and shelter-- It's like a cancer, but with a purpose.
How did it evolve? How is it done!?
(Photo by Timothy Boomer, https://wildmacro.com/)
@futurebird The science fiction species I'm writing are plant-people. Their "technology" is largely biohacking of their (and other plant) physiology.
A backpack? It's a living plant grafted to the host. A space ship? One of the People sacrificed themselves to be mutated into that vessel. Communication and transportation? "World trees" link colonies whose space-born seeds offer zero-risk expansion. #peirspapre #spapre
The complexity of life and its interactions will never cease to amaze.
@lawlznet @futurebird Well, and key point: consciously derived. The Zerg weren't really given a choice in the matter.
But don't worry, the evil snuck in with the #spapre goddess during the formation of the universe. But its goal is survival; hard to call that truly evil—except to the exclusion of all life which it sees as antithetical in the long-term. Parasitic, almost. But parasitic to universes.
(Life speeds up the "heat-death" of the universe… that evil sure takes a long view of things!)
@lawlznet @futurebird (with some internal knowledge not as yet shared)
👹 And wave functions… collapse.
@yewscion @futurebird I’m planning on swapping my instance over to something more conducive to long-form posting, to better share what I’ve got. Short answer: both.
I have a #Stellaris species collection + series of event chains (my favourite chain: archaeologists excavating an archaeologist excavation… yo dawg) as well as at least two novels planned. “Children of the People” (the term for orphans of war) and one covering the Awakening (to being a sentient species) and the first #spapre Avatar.
myrmepropagandist
Rev. GothAlice
Ginnikin
Lawler Hix 
Claire Rodriguez
Floaty Birb