shitposting rave 2, electric boogaloo

Anyway. Organic species have to compete for a limited amount of resources. To obtain maximum resources, they attack each other. Larger organic species - visible to the naked eye - tend to be used as resources themselves for colonies of smaller, very very tiny organics. Sometimes these are beneficial to the host, sometimes these are neutral. But sometimes they're actively harmful.

Both host species and pathogen species attempt to change themselves as fast as possible in an arms race, with the host species attempting to stay healthy and the pathogen species attempting to adapt to suck as many resources as possible. This is what organic interfacing reproduction aids in, faster changes.

 

oh. Sorry. How do you control the thing?

 

-he blinks at her, mouth open-
That's the coolest shit I've ever heard
Are there betting pools?

 

Some societies have the technology to produce offspring with specific traits, but many have not, or their ethical framework considers it unethical.

The society I was born in considered it unethical but did it in secret anyway -- my darling Mindala is one resulting individual.

 

That might not be ethical with sapients.

This arms race also happens on more equal playing fields, predators attempting to maximize their hunting, prey attempting to maximize their defenses, stuff like that. Through this, organic lifeforms in the same biome tend to be part of an interconnected web of life that can't truly support itself if species are taken out. Would you like an example?

 

I have learned through considerable practice how to cut my body's energy demands sufficiently to reduce the amount being drained. Aside from that, I can also with some useful technology place myself into a state of hibernation during which I will not consume external energy. This is done when I need to be transported through areas where there are insufficient compatible lifeforms and the rate that I would drain them would be harmful.

 

...I got called in because you're trying to understand metabolic functions? Do I have that right?

I can't speak for other organics, only humans and some relatively close variations, but the gasses Iridium was referencing, particularly oxygen, serve some very important metabolic functions. Um. Primarily, we use oxygen to create energy, while eating supplies us with materials for self-repair, although that's a gross oversimplification.

((OOC: I'm googling to try to stay ahead of the questions, but the player is not actually a doctor! I just play one on the internet.))

We have, actually. Or at least my world did.

It's... morally complicated, but I gather that MTOs are for your people as well.

 

WHALES HAVE VERY LARGE SPIKES.
THAT ARE FLEXIBLE.
AND CAN GRAB THINGS.
PREHENSILE? that word. YES THAT WORD.
WHALE SPIKES ARE AMAZING

 

What unethical about it?

 

Yes! This is to prevent their coded material from washing away in the water. They also tend to ejaculate with unusual force.

 

SO glad i logged in
to see this conversation.
whale spunk. in my face.

 

Isn't biology beautiful?

 

The pretense is that it takes away the free will to choose one's path through life. Of course that freedom is illusory anyway.

 

yesssssss give me a list of things! I like lists!

*nods a few times*
That doesn't help me at all.

Just eat energon that has a LOT of energy and you don't need to breathe!
And what's complicated about how I was made? They made me so well for my job I'm broken for everything else and now they feel bad about the fact that I talk and don't want to throw me away. Easy! Except they also feel bad about having to talk to me so they don't do that either!

THAT'S SO WEIRD I LOVE KNOWING THIS NEW FACT THANKS

COOL

 

what. what free will.

 

Oh well, darling it would be unethical because the child in question had no choice. Yes, the random distribution of genetics can be rather cruel, such as children born with a disorder called 'harlequin ichthyosis', but bio-engineering individuals within my world's framework is considered wrong.

Why exactly I feel comes from religion, an angle of 'playing god' or perhaps the arms race it would create within society. It would lead to the poor being pushed into worse and worse situations. You would have to ask a sociologist for a better answer, I fear.

 

Okay. Say there's an organic animal species, species A, in a forest that eats the stationary, non-sentient organic material that makes up the forest. They are preyed upon by another organic species, species B. If a sickness sweeps through and kills most of species B, what happens to the population of species A? What happens to the stationary organic material?

 

...well, we don't actually have the necessary internal structures or chemistry to break down energon into something our bodies can use. It would probably kill a lot of kinds of organics. We also need air for other purposes - notably, one function air pressure serves is to keep all our soft tissues in the right places. In vacuum, we'd actually explode.

I don't claim I understand your situation, but that doesn't sound very pleasant to me. I was actually made to order, specifically, as well, and our society had different problems with that concept than yours did.

 

And yet I was not engineered and I still had no choice. There are only a few permitted paths for most of us. My caste and rank, we are soldiers, and that was what I would have become unless I proved physically incapable of it, which is generally considered reasonable grounds for self termination among my peers.

 

Some marine organics have a different strategy. All the parents squirt their coding out into the water in massive clouds, and since the clouds will come into contact, at least some offspring will result.