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.
myrmepropagandist
Rev. GothAlice
Lawler Hix 