Kintsugi: The Breakening! (ooc Chat thread)

I disagree, you absolutely need to pet dogs.
For instance:

 

But that dog is a fire type so if cedar is on fire it won't hurt the dog

 

yes, that was rather my intention.

 

maybe I do need to pet dogs but I need to be on fire more than I need to pet dogs

 

Here's a thought:
if you want to be on fire, the heated parts of the planet are pretty close by
you could ride one of the ribbons of ocean down to the mantle/core
you'd die from the pressure but hey you'd be on fire

 

About the high-altitude air: At least one person has become a flyer with avian wings. Birds have ridiculous lungs that let them fly comfortably well over Mt Everest, at airline cruising altitudes. They don't normally do it, because getting up there is effort, but even a sparrow can fly in air pressures that will leave mice unconscious. Bird lungs also require air sacs to work, and those air sacs extend into the wing bones (one bird was found alive with a completely blocked airway, breathing through a hole in its wing), so someone mutated to have birdy wings would probably also have birdy lungs.

Side effect of birdy lungs: they'd very likely be unable to successfully give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a baseline human, as they'd exhale a higher percentage of carbon dioxide.

Anyway: people with birdy wings could likely fly between at least some shards and be able to breathe at lower air pressures than baseline humans. However, they'd also have a faster metabolism and need to eat more, and they'd also have to deal with wing care, like having to preen all their feathers-depending on how flexible they are, that could require help.

EDIT: Also, moulting, aka shedding feathers everywhere and then growing in pinfeathers, which when they are fully grown become itchy to prompt the bird/winged guy to scratch the waxy coating off to make them be normal feathers instead of pinfeathers.

 

@Wingyl I was thinking that people with wings are the main people traveling between faraway shards, unless someone manages to create a device to travel between them. I may at some point try to do that but it would take a while.
Wings are probably among the most useful powers on a fractured planet so there would have to be some serious drawbacks. Like a high metabolism and wing care. Maybe something even stronger as well.

 

Don't forget fragile bones...

 

Well, from what I know of bird physiology, the highly efficient lungs come with the drawback of increased sensitivity to airborne toxins.

Like, nonstick coatings on pans are fine for us, even if they overheat, but the fumes from an overheated nonstick coating is toxic to birds.
They're also vulnerable to smoke inhalation, and can't breathe if they're being held too tightly because they have no diaphragm, so they can only inhale by increasing chest volume.

EDIT: Also, yeah, fragile bones-but not fragile wing bones, those have honeycomb strengthening and are actually a little tougher than the equivalent bones in mammals.

Also, birds usually have atrocious night vision.

 

Oh, a quick thought. If we assume that there is no gravity off of the shards, then a zeppelin style ship becomes the most viable transport - its enclosed to protect from the elements, you don't have to worry about any pesky hydrogen or other gasses, so you have tons of storage space, and its fairly easy to swap out modules/transport systems. Also, a more efficient shape for them in this type of travel would be to add large wings to them, I'm imagining a large delta v shape to it, with the center being the part that would hold cargo/crew and the wings would slim down. I'm imagining the whole craft made of treated canvas cloth stretched over a wood frame, at least early on. Later you'd start seeing metals and other more expensive, difficult to obtain materials.

 

Ah. So inheriting bird physiology is both a power and its drawback. Great. Solves several problems.

 

I WANT TO CAPTAIN A ZEPPELIN.
This is basically the reason that I wanted an engineering power, so I could build things like zeppelins and radios and such

 

Can I do that? Turn my house and shard into a zeppelin? Because I really want to do that. I'll think of a way in which I could balance that out, like I have to build it somewhere else, and get the resources, and fuel and stuff. I don't know.
but I really want to do that it seems so cool

 

And also, I found this gif. Seems appropriate.

 

So this has me thinking a lot about Fallout and when I say zeppelin I'm thinking closer to the Prydwen from Fallout 4. Also thinking: do different factions develop in the aftermath of this event? Like, do some people just want to continue on as is, and see this as "humanity's next step"? Do some others want to try to glue the planet back together? And do others yet want to take advantage of this event for their own gain?
(If they did, I'd want to be part of the 1st group. With my massive ship.)

 

....so I know me inheriting bird physiology has drawbacks and all but I'm just laughing quietly to myself picturing someone hugging me too tightly and me going "CAN'T BREATHE! CAN'T BREATHE!" and actually meaning it.

 

If I get wings, they're gonna be dragon wings, so idk what the drawbacks would be.

 

@palindromordnilap hmm, maybe something with your vision going weird? IDK

 

Increased hoarding instincts, sneezes catch things on fire, scales need something to be not itchy...?

 

I do like the idea that when people get animal traits, they get both the pluses and the minuses, because for the most part, they balance each other out.
Now let's just hope no one tries to become a mantis shrimp because that animal is overpowered