Some old work I found in my DeviantArt gallery. Not fully satisfied with the text anymore, and the artwork is honestly kinda crappy, but eh. Reposting it here with only minor edits.
Contact: The Ktykkryt were the first extrasolar civilization to meet mankind, in the late 21st century. Despite the 20 light years that separate Delta Pavonis from the Sun, Ktykkryt have devised a technology to transmit messages faster than the speed of light (though still not at infinite speed), allowing a faster communication, if not travel; currently, human engineers are trying to replicate it from their instructions.
The world: The world of the Ktykkryt is slightly smaller than Earth, and its gravity is little more than half as Earth’s due to a much lower metal content (and thus lower density). Because of this, the tectonic activity is weak, and over 90% of the planet is covered in water; only a few volcanic peaks emerge from the global ocean. The magnetic field is also weak, and the few lifeforms that reached dry land are covered by thick shells or carapaces to protect themselves from dehydration and radiations. These islands, small and far apart, host highly divergent biotas, usually dominated by thin, spiraling trees and invertebrate quadrupeds, some of them giraffe-like with spindly legs and necks.
The species: Body structure: On the whole, Ktykkryt look more like arthropods than any other terran organism. Their back is covered by a flat shell, and the rest of the body is protected by a flexible exoskeleton. Despite having evolved by centipede-like organisms, they have only four walking limbs (each of them ending in a claw and a soft pad); the other limbs either disappeared or clustered on the head. Some of these have been adapted into jaws, other in chelipeds (pincers) and one pair in tactile feelers. Their overall weight ranges between 10 and 20 kg, and even with their neck raised they rarely stand more than 60 cm high. Metabolism: Ktykkryt’s ancestors used to live in large colonies to be protected by predators, reminiscent of bait fish schools, with little cooperative behavior; as a result, cannibalism was common whenever food supply became scarce. Today, the need for cooperation within a society has made it untenable, though ritual cannibalism is still widespread in most Ktykkryt cultures. They prefer hard foods, such as nut-like seedpods and armoured invertebrates, which they crush between multiple jaws and break down with powerful gastric juices. Perception: As they descend from burrowing ancestors (re-adapted to life on the surface in the last 15 million years), Ktykkryt’s main sense is touch, supplied by long whiskers on each major joint and by a pair of feathery appendages on the head; to communicate, two Ktykkryt touch each other’s feelers and transmit slight movements and vibrations. Sight and hearing are less developed (in fact, eyes lack a fovea or pupil and see only blurry shadows), though there is a minor vocal component of communication. The word “Ktykkryt” is a rough human approximation of the chirping sound they make when referring to themselves, overlooking the tactile component. Reproduction: Every Ktykkryt is born as a soft-bodied, barely sentient larva, given birth to through a thoracic cloaca and raised until puberty in a nest of slime (usually synthetical in modern times). At this point, the two sexes diverge: while females grow a strong exoskeleton, a large brain, a refined digestive system, etc., males develop only their sexual organs and reabsorb most other organs. The last act of a female Ktykkryt before leaving the nest is choosing a male sibling to implant in her cloaca, where it will be fed with the lymph of a specialized thoracic patch and continuously fecundating the female’s eggs.
Culture: The approach to the males varies from culture to culture: some peoples treat them as if they were sapient beings capable of communication (there is indeed some limited exchange of chemical signals between the two bodies), while others consider their sight shameful and hide them under elaborate garments. Ktykkryt society is based on strong and fluid hierarchies, being born almost entirely from forced cooperation rather than pro-social instincts, and adults try to spend as much time alone as possible; in recent times, telecommunication have almost entirely replaced personal interactions.
View of humans: The first impression Ktykkryt can have of humans is intimidating: over three times as high and five times as heavy, typical humans tower over them, and could easily kill them with their bare hands. Humans also live in impossibly huge crowds, and appear to have a nearly psychotic obsession with interactions with their kin, most notably sexual relations, whose nature is entirely alien to Ktykkryts. When talking to one, a human should keep distance and communicate obliquely unless explicit permission otherwise is given. Many Ktykkryt also have reported to be deeply unnerved by how human larvae can already think and speak almost like adults; thus, interaction between them and Ktykkryt is discouraged, with case-by-case exceptions.
Contact: Yuulaana were contacted by humans soon after the Ktykkryt, which had already known both species for a few decades, although sharing little information. They were also the first exosolar species to accept the physical presence of humans on their planet.
The world: The planet inhabited by Yuulaana is a lush super-Earth, about twice as massive as the human homeworld. Most of its landmasses are islands ranging in size between Madagascar and Australia, kept warm and humid by a lucky combination of wind and sea currents. Most of these islands, except for rare inland deserts and uplands, are covered by thick rainforests with orange-red plants; the air is dense and rich in carbon dioxide and water vapor, the resulting greenhouse effect more than compensating for a somewhat colder sun. The biomass is astonishingly high, and at least three different phyla represented in the megafauna.
The species: Body structure: Yuulaana are mid-sized quadrupeds roughly equine in shape, with robust legs apt to run and leap; the body is built around a series of circular ribs connected by two spines. The head is very large and round, with two pair of dark eyes and a short, smooth snout that vaguely recalls a dolphin. A wide, leaf-shaped tail covers the pelvic genital area. A gular pouch stores a large muscular tongue, extremely sensitive to touch, that equals in length the rest of the body when fully extended; this tongue is also the main organ of manipulation, thanks to a hand-shaped structure. Metabolism: Having evolved in a rainforest, Yuulaana are omnivores, with a strong preference for sugar-rich “plant” matter. Fruit-like food is usually swallowed whole, or grossly cut with a knife, and digested in twin stomachs. Alcoholic beverages, prepared with the fermentation of these fruits, are also appreciated. On occasion, Yuulaana consume “animal” tissue, usually enriched with many types of sauces and spices. Several cultures extract undigested seeds from their own waste and grind them into a sort of flour, though this custom is not very widespread. Perception: Yuulaana’s sight is at least on par with humans, thanks to quadricromic eyes with lens and pupil, but they especially excel in hearing; their vocalizations, ranging from infrasonic to ultrasonic and competing in complexity with dolphins and songbirds, are reported to be very pleasant for humans. As with Ktykkryt, “Yuulaana” is an attempt to replicate the word for themselves in the most widespread language. Reproduction: Like humans, Yuulaana are a disexual species, with haploid gametes that are fused in a diploid zygote via internal fecundation; however, the zygote divides through meiosis into several haploid embryos, resulting always in multi-gemellary pregnancies. The embryos are stored in the thorax for roughly a local year, and then given birth through a posterior genital opening. Since haploid organisms cannot carry recessive pathologies, inbreeding poses no danger to Yuulaana lineages, and is in fact common, especially in early years of life.
The culture: As a general rule, Yuulaana appreciate greatly art, music and body ornamentation, taking great pride in their athletic performance and/or in their esthetical appeal. Elaborate sexual intercourse is very frequent in Yuulaana society, as social binding agent, entertainment, or exhibition. As the hand-tongue - along with the sets of actual genitals and various artificial implements - features heavily in their sexual customs, the first Yuulaana ambassadors took great interest in the discovery that a handshake is a common human greeting. Note that specialized contraception has never been developed, as pregnancy and childbirth are part of the sexual experience in all known cultures. As a result, combined with the multi-gemellary nature of all pregnancies, most Yuulaana have several hundreds of children, only about 2% of which reach one local year of age. The rest is usually consumed by parents and older siblings.
View of humans: The reluctance of humans to take part in local sexual customs is often puzzling and distressing to the Yuulaana, which consider it a crucial part of social relations. The extreme attachment of human parents to a very small number of children, despite their ability of producing many more in replacement, can be outright disturbing. However, they appreciate human company, especially sharing their interest for music, visual arts, and athletic competition. Several forms and styles of human music are highly popular.
one can only imagine the religions that octopuses would dream up, intelligent creatures that never meet their own parents, each generation discovering the world anew.
Humans spend many years dependent on their parents or other adults. This has caused us to evolve a mental module specialized to predict the behavior of vastly powerful, vastly knowledgeable entities, who are generally benevolent but sometimes wrathful. This module encourages behaviors of petitioning these entities for boons and propitiating them to turn away wrath. The persistence of this module into adulthood causes the hallucination of gods.
No parents, no religion.
k-strategy religion vs. r-strategy religion
Dogs are superstitious animals. They watch very carefully for one thing to predict another. The sound of the refrigerator opening predicts food. The sound of the car pulling into the driveway predicts the owner entering the house. They learn predictors that we’re not even aware of giving. When I’m getting ready to go out my dog has no obvious way of telling whether I’m planning on taking her with me or not, but if I’m taking her, she’ll be jumping and wagging around the door, and if I’m leaving her behind, she’ll be ready to get in her crate.
-Sue Ailsby
Sue is deliberately anthropomorphizing here to make a point (we probably don’t know enough about dogs’ internal states to definitively describe them as superstitious) but I think it’s still interesting. She’s referring specifically to the way dogs learn via clicker training.
Dogs are notoriously poor at generalizing behaviors to different situations. “I taught my dog to sit for his dinner, why won’t he sit in the living room?”
It’s a very common frustration point for trainers who don’t anticipate it. It’s often perceived as a failure of the intelligence of the dog, but it’s usually more a failure of communication.
The dog may be lifting the right front paw off the ground (what YOU think you’re clicking), but she’s also breathing out, facing west, 6.2 feet from the south wall, on the 17th tile from the east wall, wagging the tail to the left, looking at your right shoulder, and wondering if you’ll quit training before she wets herself
Dogs don’t normally sit (in the human-desired way) to get the things they want! That is a very unusual circumstance for a dog, so it’s not necessarily going to be the primary thing the dog notices about the situation. They’re going to be looking at any and all cues that might help them get the reward again, and it can be pretty challenging to get them to disregard extraneous information! Our frustrated kitchen trainer above didn’t just teach her dog to sit for his dinner, she taught him to sit in the kitchen, next to the counter, after the bag of kibble’s been opened etc. It’s often necessary to teach a dog a behavior in many different situations before they understand the specific thing being asked of them. It’s not uncommon for dogs to need to be re-taught a behavior with their collar on vs. off, for instance. (Many service dog handlers take advantage of this quirk by using the service vest to signal “work time” and thus a different set of default behaviors from down time).
This kind of thing is the root of superstition. If an action was taken and rewarded, most animals try to repeat it. But when you’re dealing with an incredibly complex world with thousands of possible stimuli, it’s really difficult to determine what elements are actually relevant and what actually caused the thing you want. The more novel the situation, the more superstitions surround it.
I’m willing to argue that in most animals, just about any new, truly adaptive behavior is preceded by a bunch of “superstitious” behaviors, all attempts to recreate the reward-circumstances from something that originally happened by chance (likewise for avoiding aversives). Adaptive behaviors are what come after failed rituals get pruned out. And much like vestigial limbs, insufficiently harmful ritual behaviors can potentially stick around for a very long time, as long as the combination of adaptive and ritual behaviors is still rewarded. (Like that thing where people used to cure a nutrient deficiency with a goat-sacrifice ritual that just so happened to include consuming its liver–the adaptive behavior)
This kind of learning applies across most of the animal kingdom. If it can respond to stimuli and pattern-match, it can be clicker-trained. (clicker here meaning any consistent reward marker. +r trainers also use things like light flashes or vocal cues to similar effect) That means anything from a human to a fish (even fruit flies can be “trained,” albiet in very basic ways, to respond to arbitrary stimuli as rewarding or aversive!). If it can be clicker-trained, it’s able to model the world sufficiently to know that “some combination of actions + stimuli” = “reward” and is able to apply this to new situations by iteratively whittling down all presented information until they have a system that works–whether that system is based on an understanding of the causal chain or not.
The precondition for superstition isn’t parents, it’s a world that’s more complicated than you understand that you have to make do in anyway.
So I think I’m willing say that any sufficiently intelligent animal is probably capable of being at least superstitious, but they are likely to model that in different ways than we do. Full religion, though, I think requires a social element. The most intelligent species are also usually social, and probably not by coincidence. Octopi are kind of a weird outlier. Intelligence is expensive and group membership is one of its biggest benefits, so investing in it without reaping that reward is kind of odd. I think just about any social animal group that gets smart enough to have a “culture” at all probably has a religion to go with it.
Octopi would probably have some kind of superstitious spirituality, but unless (even if) they also evolve in a more social direction (and I feel I should mention they aren’t asocial, they regularly live near each other and appear to be able to communicate with each other, they just don’t form cohesive cooperative units that I know of) it would be as intuitively unrecognizable to us as the rest of their cognition.
“We reward the arm that is doing the behavior we’re looking for,” explains Eve, and suddenly the complexity of this animal hits home. The arms are almost like eight separate animals, all capable of independent activity. Training involves interacting with, and rewarding, just one of those arms so that the octopus—and the session—stay focused.
the octopus version of Kali has 8^8 arms, I know that much.
« For each of you We have made laws, and a structure; and had God willed, He would have made you all one nation, but He tests you with what He has given you; so strive to do good. » – Quran 5:48
« … I think the end result is that the closer you come to true freedom of association, the closer you get to a world where everyone is a member of more or less the community they deserve. That would be a pretty unprecedented bit of progress. » – Scott Alexander, Archipelago and Atomic Communitarianism, 2014
Three hundred years have passed since we’ve last heard of Earth.
We don’t know where to look or listen in the night sky, and all our radiotelescopes haven’t caught so much as a whisper from any direction. As far as we can tell, every single human that lives, lives here on Ea, where the starship brought us so many generations ago. And when one considers the state of our former planet at the time of our departure, this statement is likely to be true in the most literal sense.
We don’t even know how far it traveled, or in what direction. How many centuries did it spend cruising through the void with its irreplaceable cargo, before its thousand sensors told it of the presence of an Earth-like planet in this corner of the galaxy? The navigation centers, consumed by the rigors of space, were of little use; and once the pods descended on the parched surface, quickly sacrificed by the travellers to survive those first terrible years, the starship was a distant concern. For centuries it hovered silently over Ea, burning red at dawn and sunset, shining with reflected light in the night-time, watching over us as it had during our long sleep.
But this is no cause for sadness; as much as our ancestors loved their green world, we have found reason to love our own red one.
We know much about Earth, of course – we saved the records, the documents, the encyclopedias, the art catalogues. We know about the Sun, the Moon, and Mars. We know about the Sahara, the Amazon, and the Great Barrier Reef. We know about elephants, whale sharks, and hummingbirds. We know about Jesus, Buddha, and Muhammad. We know about Napoleon, Hitler, and Genghis Khan. But few of us know Earth, the world that was. Very few, those ten thousand who first stumbled out on the yellow sands of Ea, still dazed from cryopreservation – or the even fewer who remain, some living quietly in unknown corners of the planet, some guiding our societies with their peerless wisdom.
We had hoped that none of the tragedies of Earth would repeat. Yet before the pod shields had cooled we began to argue about the best way to live, and words quickly gave way to weapons. The most honorable solution we found was to part ways with each other: there was a whole planet to fill, beautiful and untouched, and we were few, then. People were allowed to pick what sort of society they would rather join, and eventually great nations formed. Some built themselves a paradise of earthly pleasures, others find fulfillment in industry and creation; some placed their trust in the Creator of all worlds, others sharpen their minds to carve truth out of confusion; some find comfort in the protection of a wise leader or in the provisions of bountiful nature, others take pride in tracing their own path in the world.
Most of us, sitting here, remember well the horrors of the Planetary War. But a greater number of us, I hope, remember the promise we’ve all made afterward. Seven powers shall share this world as equals, each managing its domain after its own conscience, each agreeing to let the others do the same.
We may not know Earth anymore, but we have begun knowing Ea. Much of it we have lost, replaced with what we remember of Earth. This was a cold and arid place, we were told; so we blasted apart the polar caps, drilled boreholes through the crust, and scattered to the wind all sorts of seeds, spores, and eggs, to make it more like the world that was. We were anxious to overcome the new challenges, from the ruthless global winter to the marine eruptions that troubled our fleets. We were adrift and alone, and we clung to whatever reminded us most of home. Only recently we’ve started truly to appreciate the world that is. The world of red forests and blue flesh, the world of floating jungles and living stones that once baffled us so much. This too was a mistake of our forefathers; this too is a pledge to do better.
Here we are on Ea, second planet from Utu, our second chance, perhaps not yet definitively wasted. We have all made a leap of faith through the unknown, searching for the deepest unity of our species, for a responsible place in the universe, for a deeper understanding of the cosmos we share, to pursue growth and excellence, to experience happiness without compromise, to exercise our capacity to live and create, to honor the memory of our ancestors; any of these things, and all together, depending on what is in our heart and our mind.
Let us toast these three centuries of life, then, and let the next ones be better still.
– First Speaker Irene Järvinen, address to the Planetary Assembly, Landing Point; opening toast for the Third Centenary (300 AL)
I recently fell down the rabbit hole of “redesigning Star Trek’s Cardassians to look more like aliens and less like guys in makeup”, looked up to see how far down I was, and realized I liked what I’d made too much to let them be copyrighted space fascists.
These are some of the drawings I did before I got to that point.
I floop-floopian LOVE this guy’s stuff, so much…His designs give me chills in a way I’ve felt on only a handful of occasions since first reading EXPEDITION over 25 years ago.The most abstracted of his creations approach the level of otherworldliness I associate with true “aliens”–organisms generated independently by biotic processes occurring on a remote world in total isolation from terrestrial evolution. Look upon his works, ye mighty, and despair!
A basic shape Axehound, testing the shapes out. It is, for me, a hard creature to map out, while trying to strike a balance between cuddle and pet-able, and spiky hard crab and shrimp feel.
Ever since that post about Cybertronian proboscises by… @thunderpounce-inc was the right blog yes? I haven’t been able to stop thinking about buggy biology for bots. And that, combined with @emperor-kumquat ‘s recent video about Cybertronians being real bad aliens on purpose- I’ve gone ahead and turned them far more butterfly than I expected and so-
Have some thoughts about funky Cybertronian communication methods and also some ideas about a two-stage development cycle.
Going in order of topic, let’s talk about the sounds a bot can make. This is less about actual comms - which may or may not be a separate language to ‘vocal’ communication - and more so about the types of noises a Cybertronian can make that correlate to language spoken between two bots facing one another.
I’m not so sure if it’s actually canonical or not, a lot of the Transformers content I’ve consumed don’t particularly focus on that, but it’s become a widely accepted consensus that Cybertronians have a rather open ‘respiratory’ system with many vent openings that cycle air mostly to cool their engines and less for breathing. A form of communication that occurs in caterpillars (see where I’m getting butterfly?) is essentially whistling; they have 8 pairs of openings called spiracles and, noticed through experimenting, the 8th pair is responsible for the whistling noise.
Cybertronians are rather more uh… in control of most of their body, a consequence of being able to transform and needing to get the parts to move right even if it’s more instinctual, so I believe that a need little thing they can do is control individual vents to open and/or close to expel air through and make certain notes. Smaller bots will always whistle at a higher pitch than a larger bot, who plays a deeper melody, but that does not indicate the sound, pitch or tone of their greater ‘voice’. I’m of the opinion that - regardless of frame type - there is an equivalent number of vent openings across most mecha, and even the bots that have a differing number would only have a pair or two more or less than average. I also think that it’d be funny if their intake (mouth) isn’t connected to the vent system, but that’s just a sneak peak to what happens later.
Before we get to that, however, let’s get to the next noise they can make- buzzing. Bumblebee is a very prevalent example of this, but how do I explain it for Cybertronian biology across the board? Well-
The buzzing - inspired by cicadas in biology specifically, who use a specialised organ - actually occurs with the revving of an engine or the spooling of a turbine (and which other vehicle specific engine for other less common frames) as well as being the controlled vibration of transformation seams. A bot without an alt-mode or without the ability to transform relies simply on the voicebox as a last resort, which occurs in all frame-types naturally.
This is typically more a tone-indicator to match with the tonal whistling of a mecha, but it holds more meaning than a contemplative hum or an exasperated sigh might in a more human language. For example, a harsher rev may genuinely and directly translate to ‘go away’ and a whining spool could literally mean ‘get this over with’ in actual dictionary terms. It also a language method that is really insightful to reading someone’s character as a whole as, in general, one does not come into existence with the base knowledge to hide their intentions; a lot of mecha in the war have trained themselves not to give themselves away by controlling a lot of their natural reactions.
Between the main frame-types, of grounders and fliers, there is also a language difference in buzzing. Flight-frames - in addition to their turbines and seams - also buzz with their flight muscles and wings, where fixed-wings (referred to as Seekers as their frames are best suited to the position), rotaries and shuttles are akin to flies and bees alongside a cicada influence. Grounders with kibble or door-wings can also buzz with their ‘wings’, but they do not have any flight muscles to further speak flight-frame languages, and fliers without wing-kibble are able to still buzz with their flight muscles, but cannot convey any specific wing buzzing.
This is the origin of ‘Seeker Cant’, where flight-frames communicate in flight muscle and wing buzzing only between each other on mission or about specifics beholden to only one another, and though it’s specifically named after the fixed-wing framed Seeker division and classification within the Decepticon forces, all flight-frames with corresponding wing-kibble and flight-muscles can learn to speak this cant.
But pre-war days, this difference between buzzing types was mainly specific to regions with more or less grounders or fliers. Flier majority cities spoke in flight-frame specific languages - like Vosian to Vos - where a lot of buzzing cannot be translated into grounder language and tonal complexity is spread out between the body and the wings. Grounder majority cities spoke in ground-frame friendly languages - like Iaconian to Iacon - where though there is less physical tools to convey language, there are more grammatical tonal changes than any flier language. Praxus, with a lot of door-winged grounders, speaks a peculiar combination between grounder languages and wing specific buzzing. Cities with wingless fliers would speak in another differing combination, and cities with a balance of flight-frames and ground-frames would have both languages, which types depending on which city the mecha are a majority of.
However, a lot of these languages are inaccessible to monoformers and Cybertronians unable to or actively prevented from transformers, mecha that specifically do not have any feasible way to change form even to the basics such as servos to tools or weapons. They rely on their own voicebox, an organ that all mecha have, and many of the natural language carries over from stridulation, a language that mimics the sounds produced by carer mecha and sparklings without a voicebox. Cybertronian language, through only a voicebox, is filled with clicks and plosives (/t/, /d/, /k/, /g/ and even perhaps the odd /q/ and /G/) but not much in the way of retroflexes (the Hindustani / ʈ / and / ɖ /) or any particular Earth sounds that rely heavily on the flexibility of the tongue, as Cybertronians do not have a tongue but rather a proboscis. There’s not a whole lot else to say other than they echo that noise through their intakes and modify the sound of the voicebox much in the same way that they manipulate their vents to control their whistling.
And speaking of, Cybertronian language as a whole is a compilation of all of these specifics into one communication method. The language of most mecha is a combination of all three of these noises, from whistling to buzzing to even their use of voiceboxes. It’s a VERY overwhelming sounding language to those who cannot understand it, but it’s also unwelcoming (unfortunately) to monoformers and mecha unable to transform because of how they can only really express themselves two thirds of the way to other mecha. But, in a rather particular case, some mature mecha actually have a fourth part to the Cybertronian language, and it relates to the brief glimpse of a certain detail in the previous paragraph.
You may have caught the mention of sparklings and a thing called ‘carer mecha’, and how voicebox communications is meant to be a replacement for stridulation. This here is where the butterfly comparison pulls to ahead and how sparklings are very different to an mature Cybertronian.
Sparklings, unlike a fully upgraded bot, have an intake designed for the consumption of metals, minerals and solid energon crystals, and have pedipalps around an open intake to help break it’s food down into easily digestible parts. I am not fully sure of their physical description beyond the fact that they have essentially more limbs in this ‘larval’ state than a full formed ‘adult’, but alongside eating they are one of two forms of communication that sparklings possess. A lot of these limbs - regardless if they are also used to eat - are indeed capable of stridulating and are responsible for creating chirps, pops and whirrs indicative of Earth insects. Alongside this, they can also whistle with the prototype vent openings, the number of which remains consistent before and after upgrading.
These disappear and rearrange to the more closed intake of an ‘adult’ Cybertronian’s through the process of upgrading (which can very well be directly a metamorphosis or simply a procedure transition determined based on a certain age), but in certain mecha, the remnants of those pedipalps form a retractable mask. However, a very specific type of bot maintains the primary communication pedipalps (where feeding specific pedipalps form a closed intake), and they are considered ‘carer mecha’, the type of bot to look after newly forged from the Well or recently sparked protoform sparklings.
Carer mecha have extra limbs that frame their helm and rest beside their intake, perhaps act in place of an intake, and are assigned upon upgrade to teach and care for other new sparks with the knowledge that the carer mecha before them had done so. But- as I consider the details of these mecha, I begin to realise that this is reminding me of the TFP Insecticons and even Sunder’s whole ‘opening face’ gimmick, but since I know nothing about Sunder outside of Kumquat’s Mercy project, I will say that Insecticons (even if they hold more individuality than whatever TFP had going for them) have a majority of their own specific frame-type as carer mecha and are known to take care of Insecticon newsparks in whichever hotspot they gather around.
And with that… I think I’ve gotten through a whole lot of headcanons. This is probably equally as overwhelming as I see raw Cybertronian to Cybertronian language to be, and that’s just with the noises that they make, not even what rules of linguistics they may follow or break.
I’m going to take a rest after this- this is now actually beginning to hurt my head and I don’t think it’s the noodle’s that are rapidly cooling next to me to blame.
Random thought (when are they planned?), but a hybrid of a Galvanic Mechamorph and a Cybertronian would probably be immensely powerful, at least in terms of tech. You know what? Let’s talk about it a bit more than I think I would’ve.
Think about it, Mechamorphs are a solid collective of nanites that can shift and flow like liquid, can upgrade and essentially manipulate any tech they touch and not looking at the times that ben grabbed hold of a non-electrical machine and upgraded it and are already so advanced as a species that has only been around for like maybe a thousand at most but probably only a few hundred years.
Combine that with Cybertronians, who’s protoforms begin as liquid metal (in certain continuities) which make them able to accept and receive data or CNA to mold into, walk around with electro-mechanical limbs and technological minds and are inherently made to transform! Give a Mechamorph some free natural tech to shape in whatever damn way they please and give a Cybertronian no limits to their form and frame, you get one-mech warmachine. Give the lad tech of any kind and, for example, thanks to that extra natural armour there’s a little boost to the upgrade.
I mean, at this point (from this unplanned thought that had no more research put into it other than my second-hand knowledge of Galavanic Mechamorph and Cybertronian biology), they only particularly get nerfed by probably needing a whole lot more energon need and also by proxy of having a spark that really would not like to get zapped in the freeform solid nanites it’s protected in. And probably a whole lot of other organs too, even if they can shift around a whole lot (doctors hate them).
Cybertronian Anodites though… magic and tech notoriously don’t get along-
I will say though, the funniest thing about Cybertronians is that they literally have an actual, literal, physical soul, and it’s partly the reason why I didn’t say ‘mana’ as part of the tech issues. Now imagine that you - an energy being - so deeply bonded with mana that it is in it’s entirety your body, your existence, find out there in the grand cosmos a machine, a technological being, that produces it’s own well of mana - one that they may not be aware of IS mana, but is very much the most solid evidence for what they constitute as life - after living eras of no such thing before.
Wouldn’t you too be suddenly so smitten with the idea, I know a lot of folk in the TF Fandom don’t need to be an energy being to thirst over them, or linger over the fact that ‘yep, these bots are alive’.
An Anodite Cybertronian hybrid however would be extremely disadvantaged, their existence only possible because of those faint shreds of mana in a technological spark. Unlike a Cybertronian Mechamorph (which ironically would fit as a hybrid name, no thanks in part because Galvanic in Ben 10 context is just ‘something of Galvan make’) who could in fact be a perfect fusion of two biomechanical beings, magic - an inherent subsection of mana and further mana manipulation as is common with Anodites - is nerfed severely in the presence of inorganic life, whilst technology and mechanisms have taken a number of debilitating hits from the magic in Ben 10 (maybe if there’s magic in Transformers it works a little different).
In both cases, the protoform is replaced by the hybrid species, the Cybertronian Mechamorph having that nanite rich body and the Anodite Cybertronian replacing the metals with solidified, sturdy mana. For Transformers fans and Ben 10 fans not in the know, there have been Anodite headcanons spiraling around that say that they CAN shapeshift, but unlike Galvanic Mechamorphs who can do as they wish with technology (and Celestialsapiens who are mortal Gods and can just look like literally anything) the caveat for Anodite shapeshifting is that they must take the form of a living species. This would in fact mean that - most likely - they will be a monoformer instead, the ace to the Cybertronian Mechamorph’s pan they should make a show about that :).
But, not being completely tech, a lot of tech in turn doesn’t do a whole lot against them, if anything at all. An EMP will not shut them down, a shock of an electric prod between seams may instead empower them, and rust - though an inconvenience to replace plating - will not reach their spark stored away and hidden within pure mana. And with that, though they cannot cast magic or manipulate mana when they are covered helm to pede in tech, one must simply shed that armour and allow themselves the freedom of an Anodite, seams glowing and magic pouring out like a supernova, the act in of itself causing an EMP with themselves fairly immune.
There are limitations of course, inherently by their nature and the technological spark in their chest weakens the dexterity and gentle control of more experienced magic users - to the point where there is a cap on their skills - having what is essentially a personal pocket of energy inside more energy, they can really pack a punch. Just like your standard Human Anodite hybrid - or an Anodite shedding a disguise - remnants of the physical body lay discarded on the floor, which unfortunately falls into pieces without a skin to hold the amour together. A hybrid walks around like a protoform stripped naked and bare of armour, of hydraulics and joints on full display and on vent openings clear and unbidden with armour, of a spark shining an entirely visible through the suddenly not quite as opaque mana body, a mane of vibrant glowing mana trailing from their head like hair seeming to be out of place on such a bare mechnical frame. An Anodite in disguise would simply appear as a shadow of a Cybertronian, perhaps keeping the structural form of the armour or otherwise forming an outline of what they assume a protoform looks like, spark non-existant.
An Anodite Cybertronian now has access to all their magic and mana abilities, but now lacks the endurance to take a hit and even last against fighting, their one way of fueling their spark now taken away and every moment of mana manipulations eating at the energy of their Cybertronian half’s soul. And if they were to ever try and go beyond their life as a Cybertronian, to perhaps hide away and fall in love with another species, their spark is still very much their own and cannot be tossed aside like a rusted panel, and it’s size limits how much smaller they could become to be this other species.
I feel like this has run away from me or has to abruptly come to a stop that I can’t further add onto other than ‘wow! i talked more about anodite cybertronians than i talked about cybertronian mechamorphs’ and I can’t really help that. Both are - talking about this from a Ben 10 perspective - now hindered by the Cybertronian need and requirement to refuel, recharge and otherwise ‘not overheat your systems’, but a Cybetronian Mechamorph hybrid in general has greatly taken the strength of both Cybertronians and Galvanic Mechamorphs and combined them, where the weaknesses of Anodites and Cybertronians conflate with one another and can’t even get together long enough for those weaknesses to work out in an Anodite Cybertronian’s favour.
Essentially what brought this up was just thinking about two characters in my brain which don’t go much further than ‘Cybertronian Mechamorph who freaks out Cybertronians because of that one time they ate a nest of scraplets and now has easy access scraplet buzzsaws’ and ‘yeah, my parent is a Cybertonian silhouette, what about it?’ and I suppose I just needed to put these thoughts of the general headcanon down.
even if i don’t actually do anything with those characters and just rotate them in my microwave (brain)
TW for weird alien biology and fake biological terminology and canon typical misogyny.
Okay, dipping into the biological aspect:
Yoom-Lox is not the same as going into heat. Rather, the Ferengi going through Yoom-lox sends a biological signal to all the Ferengi around them to start ovulating.
Consequently it tends to make the Ferengi around uncomfortable, off-balance, and a little horny. Which is why it’s preferred a Ferengi in Yoom-lox sequester themselves.
As discussed previously, all Ferengi have the same genitalia. It changes internally based on hormone levels. When no yoom-lox are taking place they’re effectively infertile because all the relevant parts are closed off.
In a Ferengi going through Yoom-lox, an opening to a chamber not dissimilar to a uterus opens. In Ferengi affected by the Yoom-lox, a penile shaped ovipositor engorges in preparation for depositing the egg.
You can likely deduce what goes on from there.
It is biologically possible for a Ferengi to carry four children at a time.
Social implications:
It used to be that someone in charge of a Ferengi female could contract their wombs out to multiple partners at a time. But back in the days before they were advanced enough to have paternity testing, there was no way to determine which child belonged to which father. So depending on the type of contract it was easy to say that the strongest belonged to the one most willing to pay the most for a strong baby, or if one died early on they could ditch the cheapest contract.
It was quite common to accept one very expensive contract and a couple of lousy ones so that you had a couple of babies in reserve just to beat the infant mortality rates.
But eventually enough people got mad about the broken contracts that it had to be regulated.
So now they’re only allowed to take one contract per yoom-lox.
They have the technology to do paternity testing nowadays, but these regulations are more effective in keeping the poor people poor. Limited contracts means a more competitive market.
OKAY I SAW THIS PAGE AND THOUGHT OF ONE OF MY HEADACNONS AND IT FITS.
So, we know that in Hueco Mundo, there is nothing nice or good ever. Everything is suffering and misery and pain. All hollows do is fight and eat each other and try to stay alive just a little bit longer. That attitude, of anyone being an enemy, of the only interaction being to fight or form come kind of unsteady alliance, and even more so, that the only kind of touch they’d get is in battle, when something is literally trying to kill them and doing nothing but causing hurt, leads up to this weird, but accepted idea that contact is only bad.
The only time its safe to or makes sense to even get that close to another hollow is when they’re trying to hurt them. There’s that whole idea imprinted in their heads, and even now that they have human forms and are sort of expected to act like people or Shinigami or something, they still have that idea that touch is threatening, a way of showing intent to harm.
In this panel, Aaroniero getting so close, and acting so unworried, and putting his hand on her head like he isn’t afraid at all that she could lash out at him or use the chance to hurt him, that’s him saying that he’s already won, that she’s in his trap and there’s nothing she can do now. In the panels leading up to this, Rukia had just started to resist him, and when she tried to disobey, he comes over and puts his hand on her head. Rukia has no idea that that’s what that means to him, and to her it’s essentially a comforting gesture. Of course she doesn’t fight back. She’s still shocked and confused, but the touch is not a threat to her in itself. But Aaroniero doesn’t see that. In his mind, he’s saying that he’s stronger and he has already won and she’s completely trapped. And her lack of resistance is saying to him that she gives up, she knows she can’t fight him off, and shes submitting to him.
Taking this idea into account, a lotof the other Arrancar’s actions and behavior become very different.
To start, Szayel’s flirtatiousness. He makes a lot of vaguely sexual comments, particularly to opponents or those in a position he might challenge. Now if we think of touch as equaling aggression in his mind, that turns into him making subtle threats at those people, nasty little comments about how he intends to make them suffer. His interest in Gin makes sense, too. Gin is one of Aizen’s direct subordinates, he’s a person in a position of power, but not so much so that contesting him would be considered direct mutiny. Szayel is basically telling Gin that he as it out for his power, and intends to maybe do something to him so that Szayel could be the one with authority instead.
Nnoitra’snastiercomments become him being as aggressively intimidating as he can. He’s not just being disgusting, he’s making blatant, outrageous threats. In the scene below, it’s obvious he’s being threatening. To him, touching Orihime at all is saying that he wants to hurt her. He’s holding her so she can’t fight back and basically saying that he can do anything he wants to her, he can hurt her and make her suffer and there’s nothing she can do about it. He’s so strong and she’s so weak that he doesn’t have to be afraid of her resistance. He’s getting closeto her, with no fear of being attacked for it. That’s a threat.
Again with Orihime, there was a scene in the anime, where Loly and Menoly were preparing to torture her. Loly has already been extremely threatening. She has verbally and physically attacked Orihime, and is making it very clear that her intent is to do harm. She gently (or as gently as it gets for her) touches Orihime’s face, going on about how she’s going to tear her to pieces. The contact, which seems gentle and harmless to humans, is clearly meant to be a threat. Loly is asserting dominance and making it very clear that she’s the one with the power, she’s not afraid of Orihime in the slightest.
All in all, there are numerouscanon moments that support touch equaling a threat to Hollows. And wow this got long. （⌒▽⌒ゞ
Cerebrum nasus is a medium sized quadruped with a unique adaptation to navigate a world that seldom has light. While equipped with eyes that can pick up ultraviolet light, the Cerebrum Nasus “sees” it’s world through it’s large multifaceted nose. This large fleshy organ holds multiple nostrils to pick up the slightest of shifts in scent. It also can emit and register as an electroreceptor. Communication between individuals is also processed through the organ via electric fields.
This melon will become vibrant during mating season as a way to attract and will accompany a unique electo-song as a way to entice females. Each song is unique to the individual and is entirely inaudible.
Flying pseudoarthropods come in many shapes,the countless micro-habitats and biomes of the Mundodendralis are a great canvas for mother nature. The C-fan, Aemulopterus flabellifera, is one of these creatures. It belongs to a group that lost its middle pair of wings and is more build for mobility than speed. They are also characterized by their modified tails that are used to distract and scare of predators but also to impress the opposite sex in skillful “scarf dances”. Both lateral and the dorsal jaw work together as a sucking pipe while the ventral jaw is actually used as a weapon. The animal feeds in the juice of the largest trees, it is however not powerful enough to pierce the bark of the gigantic lifeforms. Instead they live in symbiosis with a family of cuspipods that usually lives under large branches where they glue themselves to the bark once they reach maturity. At that point both animals depend very much on each other, the Aemulopterusget the surplus of juice from the cuspipods, which even offer places to rest by stretching out some of their legs so that the pseudoarthropods can grab them with their anal trunks. On the other hand the Aemulopterus protect the cuspipods and take care of the reproduction of the immobile creatures by carrying spermatophores between the individuals of their colony.
Different species of these pseudoarthropods and cuspipods have evolved to coexist together, they differ in form of their “beaks”, colors of their tails and the preferred location of their feeding grounds. Some cuspipods even offer a second tread to their protectors by producing a venomous cocktail that the Aemulopteruscan carry and inject with their lower jaw.
