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From The Primordial Soup

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Wow, From the Primordial Soup is a huge blast from the past for me! I absolutely loved this game on Reddit back when, and it was actually through @gutza1 making their post on the subreddit that I "discovered" SV years ago. Super excited to read and play!


[X] Suggest Something Else: Improve on our communication abilities to evolve distress calls; other nearby cells will begin producing mines, bacteriophages, and acid in response to nearby threats.

Hopefully this is a valid suggestion. We're already pretty good communicators with a pretty decent ability to produce environmental hazards. With a bit of focus, we can make it very very dangerous to approach a colony of us. Plus, it encourages cooperation!
 
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[X] Focus on learning Kivisii's tricks, sensing life and chilling out.
[X] Suggest Something Else: Improve on our communication abilities to evolve distress calls; other nearby cells will begin producing mines, bacteriophages, and acid in response to nearby threats.
 
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    • Our Evolving Creature...
    The bacterium in question is now thumbnail sized. Dull brown-gray in color. In the center next to the nucleus there is a small node that detects electricity and is a natural compass. On its underside are several structures for electrical energy generation / utilization. Two legs, one at either end of the bacteria (one sticky for pulling, one strong for pushing) allow it to move slowly from place to place. It is coated in an acidic skin to devour and utilize anything we can find.
    BenefitsWeaknessesSpecials

    Acidic Skin (Acid Immunity, Dissolve Bio-Matter on touch)
    Improved UV Shielding (Radiation Resistance)
    Adaptive Bacteriophage Minefields (Chemical Defense)
    Natural Air ConditioningC (Heat Immunity)
    Shared Ribosomes for Information(Specialized Organ)

    Magnetic Distortions
    Low Defense
    High Hunger    		Multilayered Capacitors (High Speed)
    Magnetic Detection (Genetic Marker: Natural Compass, Density Detection)
    Improved Photosynthesis Network (Genetic Marker: Subsist on Sunlight alone)
    Bio-Electric Communications Array (Genetic Marker: Enhanced Communication)
    Highly Mutable to the Situation (Genetic Marker: Mutability)
    Variable Glue (Good movement, good capturing of prey)
    Predators and Prey
    THREAT: Kratholithium Ferroflemii: A rod-shaped bacterium which has a rigid, opaque rust-colored cell wall that is effectively made of iron atoms. Highly acidic in content, wherever it goes it dissolves rock, rusts iron, and converts silica to glass. Now visible to the naked eye, it measures two inches and moves by bending itself back and forth like a hot dog. Anything that attacks it gets a static shock in defense, made worse by the fact that its body conducts electricity. It is magnetic, sticking to metallic surfaces, and sometimes uses its bio-magnetics to "flip" itself like a pancake, landing on predators or prey alike. Favoring metals, it will eat bacteria too. Visible to the naked eye.

    THREAT: Pinbite Slugium: This is a semi-evolved slug-like bacteria which can best be described as the overweight blob of the bacteria world (and not because it looks like a jelly donut). One end has developed a slug-like appearance, with a distinguishable head pointing inward toward the "donut hole", and a tail on the outer end coated in a protein slime that allows it to slide like a snail. Its cell wall has thickened in certain areas to provide a level of armor protection. Chemical sensors in the "head" can detect food sources or evade threats at a distance. Its slime induces paralysis, allowing engulfment and digestion of food. Visible to the naked eye.

    THREAT: Spheria Fibreth: This bacterium has a spherical shape covered in hair-like "fibers" that are both adhesive and acidic, allowing it to eat or crawl at its leisure. Where Pinbite is a flat, fat "slug", Spheria is three dimensional, and can roll along surfaces using its "fibers" to slow or steer, rolling over its prey as it's pushed along by the winds or especially down hills, where it gathers at the base and fills all cracks and crevices. The fibers themselves are hollow and filled with digestive enzymes; it both injects prey and sucks up the resulting ooze through the fibers. Visible to the naked eye.

    PREY: Vraecath Sicknii: This one has a spiral corkscrew shape that provides protection and some motility, allowing it to roll from place to place but as it is a large bacterium it cannot squeeze into tight spaces. The cell wall is coated in some form of adhesive wax that provides a measure of armor, and if something pierces it the wax floods with toxic spores that infest the attacker and cause it to burst from the inside out, containing the DNA of Vraecath. It uses its screw-shape to burrow where it can, colonizing softer rocks such as sandstone.

    PREY: Bovisini Yovanium: Best described as a giant, slime covered sperm cell, its flagella gives it a natural huge burst in speed to escape predators and environmental threats. It is highly evolved for photosynthesis and is taking pages from Glassi Reflectivus, reflecting its stored light to assault predators (to minimal effect but it's the thought that counts). It forms large grazing colonies and communal biofilms when food is abundant, combining efforts to take in what photosynthesis is available. Individuals can detach and swim away rapidly to disperse and colonize new areas.
    Chances of Survival
    622 / 12 = 52% of Survival, +20 for two Criticals, -15 for a Critical Failure = 57%
    (Banked Criticals: Genetic Symbiosis, Inter-Cell Network)


    1.2 Million Years. The speedrunning has finished. Unfortunately Kivisii failed to make their death saving throws and instead of becoming symbiotic, we instead assimilated the best parts of Kivisii since it could not effectively evolve and fight back. Why bother working in tandem with something, when you're so strong you can just absorb all its power instead?

    We've instead absorbed the best bits of the bacteria. Its primitive cytoskeleton has given us a more rigid form, allowing us to wiggle and move back and forth instead of ooze forward like an amoeba (and thus we need to pick a shape to stick with; comment in your comments what kind of basic shape you want to adopt). We're too heavy to be pushed about by the wind, but we're able to move in any direction we please just fine.

    The biofilm used for adherence by Kivisii has merged with our acid to become a Variable Glue; we can control the chemical makeup to stick, acid-ize or move as needed. We also gained the quick reproduction it possessed, so we're now outpacing Kratholithium regardless of its predatory nature.

    Wherever we go and consume the darkness in the manner Kivisii did, things seem to die. It is an "atrocity against physics" when we devour the shadow of a living thing, be it bacterium or plant or whatever, and without a shadow, that thing dies and other bacteria claim it (which we then feast on). The waste products of this shadow-devouring leave a trail of where we've been, which is clearly visible on the ground as a dark black streak and seam in the rocks that could be followed. The first tracks of the fossil record later, perhaps?

    Vraecath and Bovisini seem to have hit stumbling blocks. Vraecath is encountering harder stone than it can penetrate and on top of that the other microbes are adapting to their toxic spores and bacteriophages. Kratholithium, too, seems to be focusing on it next as a food source as the area is turning metal poor. Bovisini meanwhile has come across some kind of other disease microbe that is feeding on it like we did the watery glue. Whatever this disease microbe is, it's inert if it comes into contact with us.

    The energy we get from devouring what we can catch of Bovisini has allowed us to evolve one last piece -- a "spike" in the cytoskeleton we've adapted from Kivisii has become covered in photosynthetic cells, and sticks up out of the nucleus of our bacterium like an antenna. As things are settled from the extinction event, it just functions as a new and improved collector for our improved photosynthesis network for right now.

    Finally, "chilling out" has had the opposite effect. Rather than cool down the environment, we've cooled ourselves down to the point where we have Natural Air Conditioning going on in our cells. Great heat will never be a problem to us again as long as we can consume shadow.

     
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    • [X] Now that we've killed Kivisii, it's time to kill Kratholithium once and for all.

    If uts getting less metal dense hopefully our acid will be more effective
     
    [X] Focus on consuming more shadow, dropping our temperature further.

    [X] Lets be Kirby shaped
     
    [X] Cilia "Legs": grow new cilia, largely on our underside, to aid in movement. This also increases our external surface area, allowing for more production of variable glue/acid.

    This one seems like a good gimme to make our skin-based abilities a bit stronger


    Also, I think adding a few more tags might make it easier for people to find this quest. I've got a few suggestions: "sandbox", "alien", "world building", "riot", "riot quest", and whatever else you can think of
     
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    [X] Now that we've killed Kivisii, it's time to kill Kratholithium once and for all.

    When in doubt, murder.
     
    [X] Externalized photosynthesis : Emit, from the spike, a long strand of lose chromophores, held together with variable glue. These will be able to absorb radiation unhindered by our skeleton or uv protection, and might serve as a trep and lure for unwary prey.

    [] Electro-Chemical Memory: the bacterium develops the ability to encode simple 'memories' using its bio-electrical organelles. These encoded 'memories' can be shared with other members of the species, leading to a collective 'memory pool' to help it respond to and remember changes in its environment.

    [] Electromagnetic Propulsion: Building on its existing biology, the bacterium evolves enhanced locomotion by creating minute electromagnetic 'corridors' that it can travel through with surprising speed. Allows for quick escapes and ambush tactics.

    That's right, I'm pitching a Bacterial Rail Gun

    [X] Round Shaped
     
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    Those are good ideas. I'd save both of those ideas as genetic markers or even a specialized organ instead (another marker is coming up soon at 1.5M, and at 2M, another organ).

    Also I'm not seeing people suggest shapes for the bacteria, based on the cytoskeleton giving us a more rigid form. Two people have suggested a Kirby-like shape; if no one else suggests others then that's what we'll go with.

    @GildedSergeant -- where would I put said keywords?
     
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    Waters-The-Water said:
    @GildedSergeant -- where would I put said keywords
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    I'm actually not certain on how to add tags as I've never made a quest before 😅, but you already have one tag that says "evolution" so you can probably use the same process you used add that one

    As for shapes, we could go for something like a rhombus with our arms on the far sides and vital organelles in the middle. The space in between could be emptier, with the "wasted" space being there to increase our size and thus ability to photosynthesize, produce glue/acid, and avoid being gobbled
    [X] Arm Rhombus
     
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