The world is recovering.
One million years ago, the greatest challenge that oxygen-breathing life ever faced had finally been conquered. The Gelidian era ('frozen') has finally ended. The glaciers, after 400 million years of grinding the newly-born continents into rubble and dirt, have joined with the sea, and their cargoes of minerals have arrived in the waters. Trillions of photosynthesizing cells are pumping billions of tons of breathable gas into the air and ocean. Oxygen and nutrients are available in vast quantities, and multicellular life has begun. Most are simple creatures, focusing only on taking what they need from the blue-green liquid soup that surrounds them. One of the most prolific of these is the seafloor blob, a tiny organism that feasts off of the organic matter in the ocean's waters. They cover the floors of the ocean. For now, life is good, but competition is starting. One of them is destined to become great, though. And its form of life will survive, no matter what.
This one reproduces, and then dies, like the many other blobs of the reef. But its descendants are evolving. How, though? Will it evolve muscle and dig, or feast on fellow members of its species? Will it let itself free from the ocean floor? If there are a million different choices it could take, which is the choice that it will follow in the end?
That choice is up to you.
Hello, and welcome to Competition Adaptation! This game is about our little... organism. I'm really not sure how it will turn out, though knowing you lot, it will be twisted.
Our organism is living in its habitat. Because it's a single species, it won't really know much beyond its neighboring biomes (unless it's managed to get worldwide, one way or another). World events will happen, and it'll evolve. You guys are going to direct where it goes with its life. Depending on which rolls we get, it'll either go how you want or it'll do it its way. But, most likely, if you want a bird it'll fly and if you want a fish it'll swim.
Feel free to go wild, as long as you don't delve too far into the realms of the magical. If you suggest something wild, and I can see a way to get it done, I will do it. Although maybe over multiple turns.
GENERATION 1:
Seafloor blob
A yellowish blob of jelly that builds reefs. Their upper surfaces take food from the water. It's about a centimetre or so wide.
REPRODUCTION: It lets out male cells in the current, and growths grow on other blobs when they land. These growths fall off and become another blob.
MOVEMENT: Completely immobile.
EATING: It absorbs cells that are drifting on the current.
PREDATION: No predators or meaningful prey.
COMPETITION: Our blobs are the only ones that live on the bottom, but competition for space is fierce. Most only live for a short time before they are covered by the next generation.
ENVIRONMENT: A shallow sub-tropical sea. Layers upon layers of seafloor blobs have built massive networks of reefs. Fronds grow above the rest, filtering food from the open water. They grow from their stalks so that they don't get covered by the bottom layer. Their underground sections form a complex root system that feeds off of the corpses of blobs that were buried.
Following on from a suggestion in the brilliant
Competition thread (if you don't read it already, do so!), this is a parallel game aimed at seeing another route we could have taken. For the sake of fairness and as an obvious homage to the original game, we begin at the same point - the Gelidian has just ended and we begin as the humble 'seafloor blob'. Let's see if we can't end up taking this in a very different direction indeed.
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Topic: Adaptation - Another Evolutionary Suggestion Game (Read 17053 times)