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From The Primordial Soup

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[X] Switch biomes now before the oasis is done for (Flee into Mountains)

Also I'll just say that a bacteria eating iron wouldn't make a world metal poor. Unless there is atomic fission going on the metal is just ending up in the bacteria. It'll end up in layers of dead bacteria like bandes iron in the real world.
 
[X] Switch biomes now before the oasis is done for (Flee into Mountains)

We need to get the hell out of her
 
.Slaking.LV.Max. said:
is the metallic 'exo skeleton' more conductive to electricity?
are any of the poisons flammable?
does our electric sensor detect iron breaking magnetic fields?
can groups of bacteria generate a large cumulative charge?
can they sense the electricity nodes of others of our bacteria?

should we evolve to be like a mycelium network for the plants
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Probably.
Maybe?
Yes.
Probably.
Probably.

I'm taking that as a suggestion..

Arcanestomper said:
a bacteria eating iron wouldn't make a world metal poor.
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Hee hee hee. I have plans for this...
 
IamtooSleepy said:
Also, Aerogel is a gel right? Instead of having that up all the time, can it be adopt it to wash away the toxic? Maybe only exude when being attacked to make us slip out?
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Aerogel is called like that because it's created by making a gel, then replacing the liquid component of the gel with air without collapsing the gel structure.

It's quite solid, but a bit brittle.
Toxic wise it has the problem that it is a strong dessicant. Aka, it will absorb any liquid, including toxics, that come into contact with it, which will unfortunately also collapse the gel structure, and cause it to collapse.
Some are hydrophobic though, so maybe that's a direction to go in.
 
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[X] Attempt one last time to make the aerogel behave. If this fails, you're not getting another shot.

Genetic Marker Suggestion: Overall high energy efficiency (As in we can do more with less energy overall)
 
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    • Our Evolving Creature...
    The bacterium in question is now 11 micrometers long. Dull gray in color, both ends have a trumpet-shaped needle that "breathes" out waste heat while taking in oxygen and nutrients. On what might be considered the head, there is a small node that detects electricity and is a natural compass. On its rear are several structures for electrical energy generation / utilization. Six spider-like legs (two sticky for pulling, two strong for pushing and two wide for stability) allow it to move from place to place. It is coated in a glassy shield almost inpenetrable to other bacteria.
    BenefitsWeaknessesSpecials

    Multiple Legs (Speed, Sticky Grip, Strong Push)
    Silica Crystalline Shell Casing (Tank-like defense)
    Improved UV Shielding (Radiation Resistance)

    Soglik Toxicaii's Antimicrobial Agent
    Great Heat or Cold
    Greater Hunger    		Multilayered Capacitors (High Speed)
    Electrical Node at the "head" (Natural Compass)
    Predators and Prey
    NEUTRAL: Kratholith Microshockii: A rod-shaped bacterium which has a rigid, rust red cell wall that is effectively made of iron atoms. Short hair-like appendages extend from each end that actively convert silica in mountain rock to glass. Its entire body pulses with brief electrical activity that melts sand, leaves trails, stuns prey and deters predators. Its pulsing includes micro-magnetics, allowing it to course along iron-rich rock in order to gain energy from it via acidification of the iron and consuming the resulting mess. It measures 12 micrometers long by 7 micrometers wide.

    NEW THREAT: Lithovorax Noofum: A rod-shaped white bacterium found predominantly in higher mountain alpine environments. It measures about 11 micrometers long by 7 micrometers wide. This bacterium propels itself using a single flagellum which it coils up and launches into the air, coming down and crushing any food it discovers by using its weight. Surrounding it are sensory proteins and receptors that can detect chemicals leaked by other bacteria. Direct hunter of Kratholith and is beginning to evolve its micro-magnetics in order to cruise on metallic sand blown about by mountain winds.

    NEW THREAT: Baldoro Fluvenii: This bacterium is an all-but-invisible ambush predator, mimicing the chemical makeup of the area in which it infests. Slow to move until it senses food, it lashes out with a massive (for bacteria) spine coated in adhesive chemicals. The spine pierces the cell wall, sticks to food, and pulls it back into the bacteria. Can't pierce our bacterium yet, but it won't be long before it can. On one end of its cell, there's a structure that pulls in and intensifies oxygen to lethal levels, farting it out when threatened.

    NEW PREY: Ferroflem Snyii: As the first word in its name may suggest, this is a bacteria which is consuming trace elements of bacteria that cover iron, "purifying" it, leaving little nodes of pure metal wherever it goes. It follows in Kratholith's wake, but is also hunted by Kratholith as a source of protein. It's super fast, tough to catch by anything including you.

    NEW PREY: Nitrospora Sylenii: Nitrospora is a tiny bacterium that is sucking up chemicals like nitrates, ammonia and methane, locking them into the rock of the mountains. Plants adapted to this unusual mix of chemicals are beginning to sprout up, covering the land in a bold new spray of color (and rather toxic pollen). It has no defenses to speak of -- its claim to fame is its massive population. You won't kill it all.

    NEW PREY: Lasho Valrunum: Lasho has taken a unique chemical from chalk-like deposits in the higher mountains and converted it directly to alternating layers of keratin and enamel (?!), forming layers of itself like tiny stalactites that have extended tendrils for food collection. It can barely move, but it's taken over most of the local cave systems and is almost impossible to pierce. Its weakness? Oxygen (causing it to burst). Baldoro doesn't come near the caves, however.
    Chances of Survival
    I'm tallying the rolls and using an average. When we hit 3.5 million years (because I ain't doing evolution through billions of years, no) I'll roll on Random.org and see what we get.

    99+70+11+93+26+55 = 354 / 6 = 59% of Survival, +10 for one Critical, -15 for a Critical Failure = 54%
    (mistakes aren't tolerated in nature, which is why a failure is a bigger hit than a critical gain)





    600,000 years, over in an eyeblink.

    Our bacterium has evolved "mitocondria capacitors" by combining its mitocondria with all the electrical energy we've been getting. At the base of our cell is a series of three spheres connected by proteins in a triangle shape, where the power surges along these pathways into the spheres and then is "ejected" out of the holes. The powerhouse of the cell got a massive speed increase out of it (at the cost of hunger) and when we get a case of the zoomies we end up strafing everywhere we move with electricity from the holes.

    In order to survive, we are forced to change biomes and escape from the oasis before we are overrun and exterminated. To escape, we will have to give up the plant toxins in favor of the fast movement and electricity, and thus have lost our own toxicity as well as the bacteriophages that were specialized in hunting our enemies at the oasis.

    We escape from Soglik and Rorjak, and run into two new predator cells as we head into a new biome. The unanimous suggestion was the mountains, a colder climate but a resource-rich one. Iron isn't the only thing to be found up here (and what iron there is, is claimed mostly by Kratholith). Fortunately Kratholith didn't go back to hunting other microbes or we'd *really* be in trouble. It's now a strict metallivore, evolving alongside us rather than against us.

    The mountains are a colder, chilly place. Not completely snow-covered like in an ice age, nor a glacier that would freeze us solid, but it's a far cry from the warmth of the oasis and savanna. The storms that laid the area to waste lose much of their punch up here, but that doesn't mean we didn't have to do some fancy-schmancy quick evolutions in order to exist in our new environment. In the darker cracks and crevices of the mountains, we lost our bright coloration and have become a dull gray -- bright colors no longer serve a purpose up here.

    Fortunately, coming to the mountains is probably the best idea we could have done. Due to the altitude and exposure to sunlight, our UV shielding has improved, and we're utilizing the sun as a strong source of food as a result. Our back legs for pushing have become jacked and our front legs for sticking are bigger and stronger -- once we anchor to a position we're not being pulled off. Our middle stability legs are likely to be rotated out.

    Working with the aerogel to "wash away the toxic", while not an exercise in futility, lacked promising results because while in the short term it worked wonders preventing us from being poisoned, the cooler mountain environment eventually chilled the aerogel, preventing it from being effective and turning it into a sort of dead weight. Stepping up to recover in place of this is our desert-night-chill "spore" we have to survive the desert winter... it has become a second layer of defense on top of the existing aerogel, causing it to compact and harden as its internal structure collapses.

    The end result is that the two combine chemically to produce a glass-like substance stronger than what Glassi had. This "crystalline shell casing" is next to bulletproof (for a bacteria) and can't be pierced by the local microbes... yet... and on top of that it took about half of Soglik's proteins and gave it a halfway decent antimicrobial coating, further boosting our defense.

    All this adaptation into a tank on equal ground with Kratholith has come at a severe cost to our other resistances. We're weak to the elements, and cannot tolerate great heat such as direct sunlight, nor any deeper chill greater than a light snow. We can handle toxins better, but focused, direct physical damage will shatter the micro-glass casing, splattering our protein brains into a billion pieces all over the mountainside.

    Two new predator bacteria and a new set of prey are native to the area. Their writeups are above in the usual spot.

    We are now struggling to survive. Not on death's door yet but getting rather close to critical.

     
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    • [X] Speedrun resource gathering and territory-expanding. There's multiple prey and food sources up here.
     
    Waters-The-Water said:
    Every 500,000 years you will receive one biological "Genetic Marker" that will grant a special ability to the final animal we end up generating, along with an additional marker for any "criticals" that are rolled. It's time to suggest one, so as to make the organism be unique and distinct from everything else. I'll roll for them all and the highest roll wins. Every million-year mark, all markers will evolve further. If we have 15 constant voters by the one million mark, I'll throw in another genetic marker for free, so get advertising :p Please suggest a genetic marker, something distinct that defines our incoming species.
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    What kind of marker are you looking for?

    Let me just come up with a few examples, to see if I got the gist right

    [] Slippery DNA : Self correcting sequences ensure that even in cases of severy mutation, the resulting gene sequences will still endure. This means that mutations are frequent and rarely fatal, resulting in widely divering morphology within the same species
    [] De-activating sequences : Traits are never lost, just de-activated. With every generation, a few members of the species are born as evolutionary throwbacks, expressing morphologies that were not common in centuries or millenia.
    [] Perpetual regeneration : When environmental stress is low, limitations on cellular regeneration are eliminated
    [] Trauma Induced Neoteny : By reverting to a younger state, immense regeneration of damaged portions is possible
    [] Shock induced parthogenesis : When mortally wounded, the creature's cells will ditch ship, reverting to pluripotent cells to create larval animal that can still live and escape
    [] Environmental gigantism : When the environmental conditions are right, the creature can grow to otherwise unseen sizes
    [] Genetic symbiosis : The creature can partially assimilate genetic material from it's food or prey, allowing it to (for example) express a predators own anti-toxins
    [] Viral symbiosis : The creature carries within it's DNA a viral disease, harmless to itself, but detrimental to it's predators and prey
     
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    [X] Speedrun resource gathering and territory-expanding. There's multiple prey and food sources up here.
    [X] Shock induced parthogenesis : When mortally wounded, the creature's cells will ditch ship, reverting to pluripotent cells to create larval animal that can still live and escape
     
    Waters-The-Water said:
    Let's try this again, since only two people suggested a genetic marker in the last post's responses and I want more suggestions.
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    I think part of the issue, at least for me, is it's hard to think of markers that make sense for a single-celled life?
    I have some ideas, but I have no clue if they're viable.

    Are eye spots or other sensory organelles possible at this size?
    A mouth? New form of Reproduction?
    The ability to join together into Mircobacterial Mats and share resources between individual bacterium?
    Chloroplasts, maybe since we seem to be a bit of a plant?
     
    [X] Speedrun resource gathering and territory-expanding. There's multiple prey and food sources up here.
    [X] static gathering/charging micro hairs
     
    [X] Focus on the photosynthesis our exposure to UV has given us. We'll make our own food.
    @Waters-The-Water
    So did we get the electricity field working? I really can't tell if we did.
     
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    [X] Speedrun resource gathering and territory-expanding. There's multiple prey and food sources up here.

    Er, wait, does this option still have us evolve in order to survive the environment? Because that should probably be our number one priority.
     
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    The electric field kinda got overwritten by the bulletproof tank casing. It's still there, and you still spark electricity out the holes in the shell, it's just in the background for now.

    You'll evolve to survive regardless of choice. How well that survival ends up will be halfway RNG, halfway other choices. I wouldn't worry. (I've got some of the next post already written, so spoiler:
    you'll be fine for a while.
     
    [X] Speedrun resource gathering and territory-expanding. There's multiple prey and food sources up here.

    [X] Genetic symbiosis: The creature can partially assimilate genetic material from it's food or prey, allowing it to (for example) express a predators own anti-toxins

    as for my own ideas!

    [] Thermal Regulation Spines: The Creature has evolved specialized spines that can expand or contract, regulating the amount of heat they absorb or dissipate to maintain their body temperature within a comfortable range.
    [] Camouflage: This Species develops the ability to manipulate its pigmentation at a cellular level, allowing them to blend seamlessly into their surroundings by mimicking the colors and patterns of the environment.
    [] Electroreceptiors: Specialized cells that detect electrical signals emitted by other organisms, aiding in navigation, communication, and hunting.

    These good?
     
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