The Science of Atys

[iwojimmy]

Are you claiming Saturn doesn't exist?

Saturn is the Primary with the rings, Atys would be a secondary body, like Titan

[ladattas]

OOC post: Consider the basic argument by the Karavan of a Dragon, a Goddess, and a War between the two. Clearly, it seems allegorical in nature since it seems to me that they provide little tidbits of meaning without giving away the actual events behind them. The Dragon represents some sort of person, that was a traitor to the first homins, and Jena represents some foreign liberator to free the homins. But as the Karavan mythos state, the Dragon's essence some how permeates the whole planet of Atys in such a way that it's ever present.

OOC continued... What could the Ash be? My guess it's a biological agent that possible caused the evolution of hominkind considering the lore suggests that homins had a common ancestor to the primates. Which would mean that maybe the Dragon, if a person, was probably some sort of scientist or group of scientists working in genetics, but that can't be verified yet since that part of the story is still obscured by the Nevrax story team [ please don't spoil it yet, we're having fun speculating... ]. As for Jena, she probably was another person that felt this was wrong [ possibly the original founder of the Karavan itself rather than the Karavan being disciples, they could be her 'descendents...' ] and clearly put a stop to this, but why? And how did the Draconic Ash and Jena's change in the world make it evolve to its current state of a planet permeated and controlled by a giant 'tree' ? That I haven't figured out yet. I swear Nevrax's team watches too many Farscape reruns like me.

-- Bridget

[sidusar]

Okay, enough astronomy. Let's turn our attention to the timari.

The burning forest definitely does not have standing water, but the foot or two of ash that covers the ground is so fine, that it has many characteristics of fluids (as anyone who has walked or run through it can attest).

The fine ash could be described as a 'granular' or 'colloidal' fluid. Large amounts of roughly equal particles behave very much like fluid when it comes to kinetic properties. But not when it comes to electronic properties. Ash with air trapped inbetween wouldn't be a very good conductor. An electric organ designed to work in water wouldn't work very well there.

And anyways, timaris don't live only in Flaming Forest. There's large herds in the regions around Thesos and Dyron too. And the ground there is just sand. Sand's composed of larger particles than ash and behaves less like a fluid to us. The deserts too have standing water though. I'd think it would be even more important for the desert timari to be able to get their food out of the oases.

Another problem, a shark's electrostatic organs pick up the fields created in the muscles of their prey. Would plants even create electric fields? Perhaps the timari are fooling us all and aren't actually herbivores. Anyone who has hunted timari can testify that they fight unusually ferocious for herbivores. They slash their opponent open with their claws rather than butting them with their head or stomping them with their hoofs, like most herbivores do when they defend themself. Maybe the timari are former carnivores who recently decided to become vegatarians?

Can you imagine the dismay of a timari that accidentally grazes on a prodigeous cratcha or slaveni?

Heh, I'd love to see that as part of the AI. Herbivores occasionally munching on the intelligent plants and being forced to fight for their lives. Or just running off in terror as soon as they notice the plant fights back.

Or even more far-fetched, how about a plant that actively kills any carnivore getting near it, so that herbivores can safely munch up any other plants in the area that might otherwise compete for resources with it?

[alurach]

How about my earlier theory that the sun IS a real sun, but not a 'natural' sun? It's a gas giant or a brown dwarf that's artifically being stimulated to maintain hydrogen fusion.

Completely reasonable.

As for the "Draconic Ash", when reading about it, I just feel that it has properties all ecxtremely well-connected to the "nano-seed" and the "sap". Again and again we are told that the Homin are connected to the planet of Atys. That is what allows them to be reconstructed almost no matter how beaten up they are, it makes them telepathic, and gives them half-a-dozen more properties.

[sprite]

The other planets/ moons (If anyone cares, we of the Dragonblades named them for our own use IC. The big one with the rings is Shyl, the medium sized one is Drak, and the small bright one is Lor.)

Sorry to bring up something that noone has commented on from the first post so late in the thread, but I can only count 2 physical bodies other than the sun... one large one with rings, one small one with craters, and a "nebula"-like thing

[jamela]

Sorry to bring up something that noone has commented on from the first post so late in the thread, but I can only count 2 physical bodies other than the sun... one large one with rings, one small one with craters, and a "nebula"-like thing

You're slipping Post #13:

There is no small bright moon, what you're referring to is the sun as it looks at night. Watch the sun through a full night and you'll see it go from a huge bright white flash to a large yellow fiery ball to a small dim blueish one, and back. (Earth's sun is so boring in comparison, always looking the same ) Atys has two moons, the large ringed one and the medium-sized yellowish one, and then that nebula thingy orbiting it too.

About the timari ...

I am pretty sure they share a recent common ancestor with lumpers, and perhaps a more distant ancestor with bawaabs. All three have strikingly similar build, gait and posture. Bawaabs have no particular dorsal features, however, suggesting to me that either they lost something or that a branch of bawaabs developed back ridges which eventually became spines on lumpers and plates on timari.

Lumpers and timari also share similar hides, making me think they are particularly close, while bawaab hide appears curiously similar to najab skin and suggestive of an amphibious nature. This makes the puzzle more confused since dorsal plates also suggest aquatic origins, but the timari have those and the bawaab do not

Timari share habitats with both lumpers and bawaab. Perhaps they are closest to the original common ancestor?

There are other clearly very closely related groups too: raspal, messab, capryni and rendor; gnoof and mektoub; wombai and bolobi etc. People may well protest, but I also believe yubo, frippo and yetin are related

[jamela]

Has someone does some serious astronomical observation and concluded that the sun actually does stand still? Maybe it wobbles a little?

It's not advisable to stare at the sun for long periods, you may get marks on your monitor

I have never noticed it wobbling, it throbs. And casts flares into space far too rapidly to be as distant as our own Sun. What I have noticed is that it is always about 30º from the horizon. In Verdant Heights, Witherings and Nexus Minor it is about 100º from North, in Aeden Aqueous and the Burning Desert it is 90º (this is useful to know when playing Xtreme Ryzom because you always cast a shadow). I would suggest that Atys' magnetic field is influenced by the sap, and the forest and the jungle have more sap running close to the surface of the bark than do the desert or the lakes.

[sidusar]

There are other clearly very closely related groups too: raspal, messab, capryni and rendor; gnoof and mektoub; wombai and bolobi etc. People may well protest, but I also believe yubo, frippo and yetin are related

Any who would protest has to be wrong. Yubo, frippo and yetin are obviously related. Just take a look at how their descriptions start:

Yetin: The yetin is a hoofed omnivore with powerful hind legs for very rapid movement, a well developed thorax and a large heavy head....
Yubo: A small, fairly slow moving dog-like omnivore originally bred by Matis manipulators to provide company and entertainment to homins....
Frippo: This small common omnivore, liken to the yubo in size, has powerful front legs supporting a vigorous body, heavy head with a powerful muzzle....

There aren't many omnivorous creatures on Atys, and here we have three of about the same size and build.

It seems obvious to me that the Yetin was the original creature, having evolved in the wild. That's why they're also much more aggresive to homin than the yubo or frippo. The Matis recognised that, after a few modifications to make them less dangerous, a creature as small and quick as the yetin would make an excellent pet. So they started breeding with them until they created the Yubo. The yubo proved such a succes that all the other races soon imported them into their own homelands too.

Now, how did the Frippo come into being then? Let's look at the clues. The only place on Atys that frippo can be found is Fleeting Garden. What's in Fleeting Garden? Kami tribes! Take a look at this piece of history:

2485
Kami intervention in Fleeting Garden to prevent Matis manipulation of nature, great barrier works abandoned.
Sacred Sap, pro-Kami tribe, present in Fleeting garden.

Now, magic was taught by the Kami. And frippo have the unique ability to completely drain a homin of their sap. So I believe that the Matis bred the frippo, out of the yubo, to be used as a weapon against the Kami magicians in Fleeting Garden. Apparently the project wasn't quite succesfull and the frippo were abandoned to their own. But perhaps the Matis are currently experimenting with breeding a sap-stealing cuttler.

[katriell]

gnoof and mektoub;

And gubani.

[sidusar]

Speaking of related creatures... I know this is game mechanics rather than game lore and doesn't really fit in this thread, but I'm sure most players have noticed that many creatures use the same animations. A lot of creatures are just a different skin over the same model, and I was wondering how many unique models there were. I've been able to distinquish eleven:

The bulky herbivores; arma, bodoc, madakam, ploderos, yelk.
The canine predators; cuttler, gingo, ragus, torbak, varynx.
The longlegged creatures; bawaab, bolobi, jugula, lumper, timari, wombai, zerx.
The crustaceans; clopper, cray, goari, horncher, kidinak.
The birds; igara, izam, javing, yber.
The hoofed herbivores; capryni, messab, raspal, rendor.
The cute little creatures; frippo, yetin, yubo.
The huge creatures; arana, najab, shalah, tyrancha, vorax.
The land kitin; kiban, kincher, kinrey, kipee, kipucka, kirosta.
The avian kitin; kipesta, kizoar.
Not sure how to classify the last group; gnoof, gubani, mektoub, ocyx.

The last model includes the mektoub, I wonder if that means those are all creatures we'll be able to use as mounts?