| Speculative biology is simultaneously a science and form of art in which one speculates on the possibilities of life and evolution. What could the world look like if dinosaurs had never gone extinct? What could alien lifeforms look like? What kinds of plants and animals might exist in the far future? These questions and more are tackled by speculative biologists, and the Speculative Evolution welcomes all relevant ideas, inquiries, and world-building projects alike. With a member base comprising users from across the world, our community is the largest and longest-running place of gathering for speculative biologists on the web. While unregistered users are able to browse the forum on a basic level, registering an account provides additional forum access not visible to guests as well as the ability to join in discussions and contribute yourself! Registration is free and instantaneous. Join our community today! |
| How to Make a Good Project; No guarantees or refunds. | |
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| Topic Started: Aug 4 2014, 12:47 PM (6,480 Views) | |
| Scrublord | Aug 9 2014, 10:37 AM Post #31 |
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Father Pellegrini
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I'll have to think about that. I might want to do it myself. |
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My Projects: The Neozoic Redux Valhalla--Take Three! The Big One Deviantart Account: http://elsqiubbonator.deviantart.com In the end, the best advice I could give you would be to do your project in a way that feels natural to you, rather than trying to imitate some geek with a laptop in Colorado. --Heteromorph | |
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| Zorcuspine | Aug 9 2014, 12:17 PM Post #32 |
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Enjoying our azure blue world
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Up to you
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| Hananas59 | Aug 9 2014, 01:07 PM Post #33 |
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Traveller of the imagination
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Well DK I do most of the stuff you mentioned, still nothing Though most of what you've said is true |
| Treading the line between imagination and reality | |
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| malicious-monkey | Aug 9 2014, 01:11 PM Post #34 |
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Spec Ops
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Like with any creative activity, maybe you just need some practice. There is no "magic bullet" for spec project quality.
Edited by malicious-monkey, Aug 9 2014, 01:12 PM.
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"My recommendation would be to just draw things now and draw good things later." - Nanotyranus Ilion: an illustrated tour of a tidally locked planet Spoiler: click to toggle malicious-monkey.deviantart.com sunriseonilion.wordpress.com supermalmoworld.tumblr.com Redbubble - Ilion art prints and more Commissions are OPEN | |
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| Myxini | Aug 26 2014, 11:07 AM Post #35 |
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Vermiform
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Inspired by the recent comments in General Discussion, it might be a good idea to put something in the guide along the lines of 'there can be more than one organism in one niche'. |
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An Announcement | Nerites: the descent of life | Buttmunchers (retired) | Antaeus (retired) | Dante (group project; inactive) | | Fakedex V1 | Lobster Pot | Gross People | | |
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| sockmonkey | Sep 18 2014, 12:21 AM Post #36 |
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Infant
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I'd add a clear definition of "niche" as well. It's more than just swimming, flying or running. An explanation of how traits are expressed would be good as well, in that exaggerating or eliminating a particular one can create big changes. |
| My critters http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/topic/5600402/1/?x=0#post1115485 | |
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| Vorsa | Dec 23 2014, 11:48 AM Post #37 |
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Mysterious tundra-dwelling humanoid
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I never understood the issue with double posting anyway. |
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My Deviantart: http://desorages.deviantart.com/ Birbs "you are about to try that on a species that clawed its way to the top of a 4 billion year deep corpse pile of evolution. one that has committed the genocide you are contemplating several times already. they are the pinnacle of intelligence-based survival techniques and outnumber you 7 billion to 1" - humans vs machine | |
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| LittleLazyLass | Dec 23 2014, 04:25 PM Post #38 |
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Proud quilt in a bag
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Prevents thread clogging. |
totally not British, b-baka! You like me (Unlike)I don't even really like this song that much but the title is pretty relatable sometimes, I guess. Me What, you want me to tell you what these mean? Read First Words Maybe | |
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| Zorcuspine | Dec 23 2014, 04:31 PM Post #39 |
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Enjoying our azure blue world
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It's considered bad manners to double post outside your own projects. While it isn't a huge deal, there is a little bit of competition to see who has the highest post count, and people feel double posting in threads that aren't projects are seen as unfairly boosting their post count. Edited by Zorcuspine, Dec 23 2014, 04:32 PM.
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| Empyreon | Dec 23 2014, 06:17 PM Post #40 |
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Are you plausible?
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I didn't see this mentioned anywhere else (admittedly, I didn't read too closely) but I would also suggest having some sort of theme for the project too. It helps your thoughts and efforts scope. Try not to do anything too broad or too narrow, or you end up either aimless or limited. For Nereus, the whole thing started when I wanted to design a dragon that didn't have traditional tetrapod biometrics. I designed a skeletal frame to fill the shape I had in mind, then I thought, "How in the world could something like that evolve?" After seeing documentaries like The Future is Wild I was inspired to make things as scientifically plausible as possible, so from there it was an easy step then to determine that a creature of that size would need to be on a planet with lighter gravity, and my research into the project eventually led me here. That was... five years ago! From those early steps blossomed new insights into biology and ecology and the tetrabrach bauplan, something of which I'm particularly proud. Charybdis came about because I was reading Extraterrestrials: A Field Guide for Earthlings, and the part about planets in the range between terrestrial and jovian sizes sparked my imagination. Personal desire led me to build the planet on more of the terrestrial side, but I think it still retains some of that original seed. That conceptual theme was mixed with the other I put into Charybdis because around the same time I was musing up the Charybdans the humanesque test was the hot topic in the forum. I decided to put the humanesque test to the test by making the native sapients have as high a humanesque score while still not seeming too humanesque. Additionally, I had been considering several interesting ideas for ontogeny and systems of sexual reproduction, and a few ideas from those thoughts found their way into the project as well. So I hope that shows how I've found focusing on a theme can be helpful in finding success with a project. Almost all of the successful projects I've seen have some overarching theme to help focus their products. |
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Take a look at my exobiology subforum of the planet Nereus! COM Contributions food for thought
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| LittleLazyLass | Aug 5 2015, 12:41 PM Post #41 |
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Proud quilt in a bag
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Ok, yes this a necropost, but this topic seems timeless enough and important enough to bring this up. But anyway, I think give considerations of recent events the tone of the writer outside update posts within the thread should also have more mention here. Tone of voice and being nice and accepting, even outside criticism, constructive or otherwise, is extremely important in having readers want to see more. |
totally not British, b-baka! You like me (Unlike)I don't even really like this song that much but the title is pretty relatable sometimes, I guess. Me What, you want me to tell you what these mean? Read First Words Maybe | |
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| malicious-monkey | Aug 5 2015, 01:51 PM Post #42 |
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Spec Ops
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Agreed, a project will never reach its full potential without participation from the forum community (I can personally vouch for this), and your attitude and presentation has a big influence on how much participation you'll get. In general, demanding feedback is not an effective way to get feedback. Be open to feedback, but don't think you're entitled to it.
Edited by malicious-monkey, Aug 5 2015, 01:52 PM.
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"My recommendation would be to just draw things now and draw good things later." - Nanotyranus Ilion: an illustrated tour of a tidally locked planet Spoiler: click to toggle malicious-monkey.deviantart.com sunriseonilion.wordpress.com supermalmoworld.tumblr.com Redbubble - Ilion art prints and more Commissions are OPEN | |
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| Monster | Aug 5 2015, 03:05 PM Post #43 |
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Space Oddity
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I addition to not demanding feedback, try to be clear what kind of feedback you would like. If you are trying to construct a completely plausible scenario you'll probably be alright since that flavour of project is the favourite and people will just assume that is what you are going for. However! If there are one or more aspects you don't really wish to discuss in depth and/or your premise itself is implausible and you know this and do not wish to alter it, then please try to make that clear in your opening posts. Otherwise people will fixate on some of the clearly implausible stuff. For example you specifically want to explore a scenario in which say, bats, are extinct or achieve gigantism or replace birds; this is one where you really should make it very clear that bats being extinct/huge/replacing birds is central to your project and is a non-negotiable aspect regardless of plausibilty. If you don't you will get a bunch of people telling you that they don't think those things are plausible rather than trying to work within the framework you want to set up. Of course if you try to make an entire project full of stuff that clearly cannot work/doesn't make sense and attempt to present that as plausible while ignoring feedback then you probably won't get the community participation you'd like. It is certainly possible for predominantly 'This happened'-type rather than 'Can this happen?'-type projects/concepts to be very enjoyable and good but you need to be clear about them and present them well or people will think you haven't put thought into it. If you are going to have hand-waved, controversial or cliched things in the project then you need to do them really, really well to keep people engaged. Don't just type out any old thing because you think it is cool and want to pad your project out as fast as possible, really put some thought and time into making it interesting to read, try to make it your own. |
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Flashlights, nightmares, sudden explosions. 'active' {tumblr} {Veles} {10 Million Years of Rain] Commissions: Open. | |
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| Paleo_Specs | Apr 17 2016, 05:25 PM Post #44 |
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Professor
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My projects lose posters about a day after they're started. I tried to get people to come back by updating World of Dragons, but no one really pays attention to my projects. Any help? |
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| Dragonthunders | Apr 17 2016, 08:47 PM Post #45 |
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The ethereal archosaur in blue
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Just adding two tips
For other things be patient, you create a project and wait for a day to be full of messages is really a bad idea, people will be attentive to answer if you can publish full and good quality content, not just type 3 paragraphs of something that seems made for no effort. |
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Projects "Active" projects The Future is Far Welcome to the next chapters of the evolution of life on earth, travel the across the earth on a journey that goes beyond the limits, a billion years of future history in the making. The SE giants project Wonder what is the big of the big on speculative evolution? no problem, here is the answer Coming one day Age of Mankind Humanity fate and its possible finals. The Long Cosmic Journey The history outside our world. The alternative paths The multiverse, the final frontier... Holocene park: Welcome to the biggest adventure of the last 215 million years, where the age of mammals comes to life again! Cambrian mars: An interesting experiment on an unprecedented scale, the life of a particular and important period in the history of our planet, the cambric life, has been transported to a terraformed and habitable mars in an alternative past. Two different paths, two different worlds, but same life and same weirdness. My deviantart | |
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