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| Atlantis: The Next Union; The weird things of a distant Earth | |
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| Topic Started: Feb 24 2016, 06:47 AM (3,921 Views) | |
| El Dorito | Feb 24 2016, 06:47 AM Post #1 |
chlorinated opthalmic trigonometric shape of conspiracy and dank memes
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For the last 400 million years or so the land has been the domain of the tetrapods, those four legged beasts that range from frogs to dinosaurs, snakes to humans, birds to lizards; you name it, and there's a pretty high chance that it's a tetrapod. But suppose that in the future tetrapods suffered a major event, one that knocks out most of their diversity, something so apocalyptic that even these true survivors are unable to recover completely. Some 104 million years in the future, an enormous outpouring of lava, a flood basalt event, occures in South America, on the eastern edge of what is today the Amazon Basin. This event lasted only about 6 million years, but over that time it created the most extensive large igneous province on earth, even larger than the Siberian traps eruptions 350 million years earlier. This caused the great die off of all life forms, including insects and a bunch of really hardy animals. When it ended there were perhaps only 100 species of tetrapods in existence at all, most of them reptiles and amphibians that were better able to deal with the general lack of food. Fast forward 100 million years or so, and the world looks almost unrecognisable. The continents have all merged to some extent, and the Pacific Ocean is almost completely gone. Life is rich and varied again, but unlike in previous mass extinctions, the tetrapods did not fully recover, and now share the earth with a huge variety of other things. Large marine tetrapods akin to whales are a thing of the past, the only tetrapods that go in water now are things that are akin to otters and small crocodiles, and none are more than 5 metres long. In place of marine tetrapods, other things have taken over. Sharks and bony fish both survived, and have taken up part of the role, but in addition there are a bunch of more exotic organisms. Cephalopods also rose to the challenge, and became the Onychoctopodidae and Carcharoteuthidans, which are probably as close to the mythological kraken as is physically possible. Some crabs also became large benthic predators. But these things all exist today, or are similar to things today. They aren't exactly 'neo-vertebrates' either. But these predators aren't the only denizens of the Global Ocean, and some of their contemporaries are unexpected from a modern point of view. One such thing is the Gamaren. From a distance it looks very similar to a shark, but get closer and it turns out to be another thing entirely. In fact the Gamaren, and any of its 150 relatives, are not actually vertebrates at all, they are echinoderms, sea cucumbers to be exact. Like familiar sea cucumbers, gamarens have a relatively simple body, basically a living tube. They also lack a proper internal skeleton, with most of their muscles being anchored to their tough skin. But that's where the similarities end. Unlike any other echinoderms, gamaren have both a complex brain and eyes, and in fact they actually have more eyes than true vertebrates do, with up to 3 on each side of their head, although their visual receptors actually extend along their flank, meaning they can detect light from almost anywhere on their body, though only their real eyes can detect images and motion. In order to be effective hunters, gamaren have evolved a fluked caudal fin, but in contrast to every other marine creature, they actually have paired caudal fins. This might be expected to be a hinderance, but it actually appears to increase the manoeuvrability. One other important difference to other echinoderms is the preface of 'jaws'. While different to the jaws if vertebrates, the jaws of gamaren function in a similar way. The structure is connected to the front of a block of cartilage surrounding the brain, and open up and down. While perhaps not exactly a true jaw, as it's main function is to make the mouth and head more rigid to increase streamlining, the shape is very similar. Within the jaw structure are very sharp toothlike projections made of silica, essentially glass teeth. Despite having the power to dismember prey, more often the prey is simply swallowed whole.
MAP OF THE WORLD:
Edited by El Dorito, Mar 25 2016, 08:24 AM.
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I REGRET NOTHING What if denizens of the United States call themselves 'Americans' so as to avoid being called USAliens? DeviantArt: EL-D0rito My Projects: Atlantis: The Next Union On hold until I regain interest. Argus: The Cyber-Planet Will be rewritten and redone almost completely | |
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| El Dorito | Feb 28 2016, 05:43 AM Post #16 |
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chlorinated opthalmic trigonometric shape of conspiracy and dank memes
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Got some good ideas coming, I kind of want to see other peoples opinion on the pacific 'hell basin'. I guess il have to get the map going first. I get a computer this coming week so the map will hopefully be up by next weekend. Il include a numbering system of all the significant areas. |
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I REGRET NOTHING What if denizens of the United States call themselves 'Americans' so as to avoid being called USAliens? DeviantArt: EL-D0rito My Projects: Atlantis: The Next Union On hold until I regain interest. Argus: The Cyber-Planet Will be rewritten and redone almost completely | |
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| Nyarlathotep | Feb 28 2016, 05:48 AM Post #17 |
The Creeping Chaos
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Sounds good. Shame projects like this are ignored so often, often simply because of the people doing them. |
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| Rodlox | Feb 28 2016, 06:32 AM Post #18 |
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Superhuman
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Island biogeography is always fun. !do it! |
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.---------------------------------------------. Parts of the Cluster Worlds: "Marsupialless Australia" (what-if) & "Out on a Branch" (future evolution) & "The Earth under a still sun" (WIP) | |
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| El Dorito | Feb 28 2016, 03:54 PM Post #19 |
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chlorinated opthalmic trigonometric shape of conspiracy and dank memes
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Il be able to post more after Wednesday because il have a computer by then. I'm still planning the biology section of Olympus island so it might not be out until tomorrow. Its a bit complicated to make trees which fit all the requirements I set myself. One question, would it be at all likely that birds would exist still? |
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I REGRET NOTHING What if denizens of the United States call themselves 'Americans' so as to avoid being called USAliens? DeviantArt: EL-D0rito My Projects: Atlantis: The Next Union On hold until I regain interest. Argus: The Cyber-Planet Will be rewritten and redone almost completely | |
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| Rodlox | Feb 28 2016, 06:01 PM Post #20 |
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Superhuman
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100 million years ago, mammals existed, just like now; though their appearance was different. ditto birds. so yes, I think birds may well still exist...the question is "what diversity?" its your call. |
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.---------------------------------------------. Parts of the Cluster Worlds: "Marsupialless Australia" (what-if) & "Out on a Branch" (future evolution) & "The Earth under a still sun" (WIP) | |
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| CaledonianWarrior96 | Feb 28 2016, 06:43 PM Post #21 |
An Awesome Reptile
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I think it's likely that a lot of modern animal groups (birds, mammals, reptiles, molluscs, nematodes and so on) can live that far in the future. And I'm sure birds could still be present and diverse |
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Come check out and subscribe to my projects on the following subforums; Future Planet (V.2): the Future Evolution of Life on Earth (Evolutionary Continuum) The Meuse Legacy: An Alternative Outcome of the Mosasaur (Alternative Evolution) Terra Cascus: The Last Refuge of the Dinosaurs (Alternative Evolution) - Official Project - Foundation The Beryoni Galaxy: The Biologically Rich and Politically Complex State of our Galaxy (Habitational Zone) - Beryoni Critique Thread (formerly: Aliens of Beryoni) The Ecology of Skull Island: An Open Project for the Home of King Kong (Alternative Universe) The Ecology of Wakanda: An Open Project for the Home of Marvel's Black Panther (Alternative Universe) (Click bold titles to go to page. To subscribe click on a project, scroll to the bottom of the page and click "track topic" on the bottom right corner) And now, for something completely different
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| El Dorito | Feb 28 2016, 08:52 PM Post #22 |
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chlorinated opthalmic trigonometric shape of conspiracy and dank memes
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That might be possible in a world where life goes on as normal, but in order to have things like the gamaren evolve at all, you need to get rid of the competition. And the only way I could think if where that is possible is for a mass extinction to occur. In all probably less than 100 species of tetrapods were around afterwards. Most of them were reptiles and amphibians, which as mostly ectotherms were better able to deal with the lack of food and general higher temperatures that existed during the extinction event. Birds and mammals both got hit really hard by the event, with probably only 10 or so species of mammalsin general making it through, and possibly as little as 3 species of birds. The reason I say this is because birds are biologically not very diverse (they are very ECOLOGICALLY diverse). If you look at a birds skeleton the actual differences between species aren't that different. Some people might argue that this means they are just better at existing than most other things, but I see it as more of a flaw. I might mean that an event that would have limited impact on mammals could have a widespread impact on birds. In general I think predominantly flying animals don't do well in extinctions anyway. |
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I REGRET NOTHING What if denizens of the United States call themselves 'Americans' so as to avoid being called USAliens? DeviantArt: EL-D0rito My Projects: Atlantis: The Next Union On hold until I regain interest. Argus: The Cyber-Planet Will be rewritten and redone almost completely | |
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| El Dorito | Feb 28 2016, 09:00 PM Post #23 |
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chlorinated opthalmic trigonometric shape of conspiracy and dank memes
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I can't wait to write about the pacific basin/closest-thing-to-hell-I-could-think-of and it's sea of what is basically boiling drain cleaner... |
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I REGRET NOTHING What if denizens of the United States call themselves 'Americans' so as to avoid being called USAliens? DeviantArt: EL-D0rito My Projects: Atlantis: The Next Union On hold until I regain interest. Argus: The Cyber-Planet Will be rewritten and redone almost completely | |
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| CaledonianWarrior96 | Feb 29 2016, 05:46 AM Post #24 |
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An Awesome Reptile
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Hold on, you just said yourself that birds are ecologically diverse. Birds are the most abundant terrestrial vertebrate animal group and thrive all across the world, from the equator to the poles, in forests, deserts, tundra, shallow seas, mountains, open oceans, jungles, grasslands and other biomes and occupy hundreds of different niches from small seed eaters and insectivores to giant running herbivores and apex predators. I'm not saying a mass extinction event wouldn't have any affect on the diversity of birds, far from it. But I do think in the event you described more than 3 species could survive, especially considering this is hundreds of millions of years in the future and they could have new forms (like giant browsing birds, terror bird-like forms, new aquatic birds (not whale-bird!) and so on). Same goes for mammals, which are actually much more biological diverse and cover most environmental niches from giant filter feeding whales to small flying bats. |
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Come check out and subscribe to my projects on the following subforums; Future Planet (V.2): the Future Evolution of Life on Earth (Evolutionary Continuum) The Meuse Legacy: An Alternative Outcome of the Mosasaur (Alternative Evolution) Terra Cascus: The Last Refuge of the Dinosaurs (Alternative Evolution) - Official Project - Foundation The Beryoni Galaxy: The Biologically Rich and Politically Complex State of our Galaxy (Habitational Zone) - Beryoni Critique Thread (formerly: Aliens of Beryoni) The Ecology of Skull Island: An Open Project for the Home of King Kong (Alternative Universe) The Ecology of Wakanda: An Open Project for the Home of Marvel's Black Panther (Alternative Universe) (Click bold titles to go to page. To subscribe click on a project, scroll to the bottom of the page and click "track topic" on the bottom right corner) And now, for something completely different
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| El Dorito | Feb 29 2016, 09:05 PM Post #25 |
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chlorinated opthalmic trigonometric shape of conspiracy and dank memes
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Truth is that I don't think anything that exists now will still exist in 100 million years, and if there are a few exceptions they would be reptiles and amphibians. Birds can grow another feather on their head or change colour and become a new species, hence the fact that there are 10000 species of birds doesn't mean they are necessarily covering every niche available. The main reason birds are even diverse at all is because they are better at flying than bats are (probably). And because there aren't really any large flying things around aside from birds, they had no competition. If you take flight out of the equation there are at best a few hundred species of flightless birds and most of them live on islands. Birds are also very susceptible to poisoning by airborne toxins like SO2, H2S and hydrogen halides. Most of these are very toxic to most things in general, but birds seem to be the first things to die when a volcano starts to make its presence known. Compared to other forms of volcanism, flood basalt events produce a lot more of these gases than anything else. It's hard to comprehend how big it is because nothing on that scale has happened since about 13 million years ago, but considering what similar events in Iceland in recent times have done, it's really not hard at all to imagine how apocalyptic a full sized Siberian Traps style event would be. On an unrelated note, part 2 of Olympus island should be coming out tomorrow. Edited by El Dorito, Feb 29 2016, 09:09 PM.
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I REGRET NOTHING What if denizens of the United States call themselves 'Americans' so as to avoid being called USAliens? DeviantArt: EL-D0rito My Projects: Atlantis: The Next Union On hold until I regain interest. Argus: The Cyber-Planet Will be rewritten and redone almost completely | |
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| CaledonianWarrior96 | Mar 1 2016, 09:41 AM Post #26 |
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An Awesome Reptile
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Okay fair enough flying birds could take a heavy toll, but flightless formes could still exist. If the number of bird species remains the same during this event and 99% die of, that still leaves 100 species and most of those could be flightless species.They won't be anything like today's birds I'll state that because I don't think I'm saying these birds aren't the same as today's species. I know it's kinda hard to imagine them from being different given they're as you put it, "biologically not very diverse" but that doesn't mean they can't survive that far. Hell, sharks have been on Earth for some 400 million years and structually they haven't changed their base form that much in that time (you could describe the differences between a hammerhead and whale shark, but both have an long slim body, large dorsal fins and that signature tail). Edit: Okay, whale sharks may not have a slim body, but it's still pretty damn long like in most sharks Edited by CaledonianWarrior96, Mar 1 2016, 11:15 AM.
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Come check out and subscribe to my projects on the following subforums; Future Planet (V.2): the Future Evolution of Life on Earth (Evolutionary Continuum) The Meuse Legacy: An Alternative Outcome of the Mosasaur (Alternative Evolution) Terra Cascus: The Last Refuge of the Dinosaurs (Alternative Evolution) - Official Project - Foundation The Beryoni Galaxy: The Biologically Rich and Politically Complex State of our Galaxy (Habitational Zone) - Beryoni Critique Thread (formerly: Aliens of Beryoni) The Ecology of Skull Island: An Open Project for the Home of King Kong (Alternative Universe) The Ecology of Wakanda: An Open Project for the Home of Marvel's Black Panther (Alternative Universe) (Click bold titles to go to page. To subscribe click on a project, scroll to the bottom of the page and click "track topic" on the bottom right corner) And now, for something completely different
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| Dragonthunders | Mar 1 2016, 10:59 AM Post #27 |
The ethereal archosaur in blue
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That really depends, both for the group of organisms that are talking (families, orders, clades) and the events that will happen. It is likely that large amount of current families become extinct at one point, but orders could remain because they could bring certain species that could adapt and evolve in new forms that will occupy the niches available. Is really wrong just conditioning the existence of organisms without a timeline or events, nothing is programmed to exist to some extent.
But, they do, in every corner of this planet there are countless number of niches taken by birds, and I speak of niches in the context of taking advantage of the food, not to occupy or acquire a specific morphology as a whale, a buffalo, or a tiger.
That really is not a big thing, competition is more for food sources instead of locomotion, if that were the case, many species of bats may had not evolved because the "competition" against birds. |
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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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| Beetleboy | Mar 1 2016, 11:09 AM Post #28 |
neither lizard nor boy nor beetle . . . but a little of all three
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Mammals have been around for more than 205 million years. Rodents have been around for about 56 million years (or something like that - I couldn't find exactly when, only the 'late Paleocene'). Odd-toed ungulates also evolved around 56 million years ago. Birds have been around for about 150 million years. I think it is fairly likely that both mammals and birds will still be around in 100 million years time, as long as no really big mass extinction event occurs. And when you say 'anything that exists now will still exist', I sincerely hope you aren't including invertebrates and fish. |
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| CaledonianWarrior96 | Mar 1 2016, 12:26 PM Post #29 |
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An Awesome Reptile
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I'd also like to point out the fact you said being biologically non-diverse is a flaw for them. Yes, all birds have roughly the same skeletal structure so there isn't much diversity but surely because there's so many of them that isn't a flaw. Like we both said there's some 10,000 species of bird known which make up one of the largest vertebrate groups on the planet. If all birds share the same design then that just shows how adaptive and successful it is. If something has managed to survive for that long then that should mean there's a high chance it will continue to survive in the future. |
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Come check out and subscribe to my projects on the following subforums; Future Planet (V.2): the Future Evolution of Life on Earth (Evolutionary Continuum) The Meuse Legacy: An Alternative Outcome of the Mosasaur (Alternative Evolution) Terra Cascus: The Last Refuge of the Dinosaurs (Alternative Evolution) - Official Project - Foundation The Beryoni Galaxy: The Biologically Rich and Politically Complex State of our Galaxy (Habitational Zone) - Beryoni Critique Thread (formerly: Aliens of Beryoni) The Ecology of Skull Island: An Open Project for the Home of King Kong (Alternative Universe) The Ecology of Wakanda: An Open Project for the Home of Marvel's Black Panther (Alternative Universe) (Click bold titles to go to page. To subscribe click on a project, scroll to the bottom of the page and click "track topic" on the bottom right corner) And now, for something completely different
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| El Dorito | Mar 2 2016, 03:51 AM Post #30 |
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chlorinated opthalmic trigonometric shape of conspiracy and dank memes
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If the world were populated by the same things alive today even 100 million years in the future, it would be bordering on the unlikely side, double that distance and it would be pretty much impossible, not to mention boring. There's no point in speculating on this subject if everyone's idea is that the world will basically look the same as it does now. Plus getting rid of (the majority of) tetrapods is pretty much the whole point of this project. And before the inevitable quote regarding classification, the concept of cladistics is flawed in an important way compared to linneaen classification in one important way, it basically says nothing really evolves. You could make an entire super order of fish descended from guppies for example, but no matter how derived it is from the original, the theory says it is still a guppy. While it might be more favourable in most situations, it pretty much renders the whole point of the entire concept of Speculative Evolution obsolete. |
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I REGRET NOTHING What if denizens of the United States call themselves 'Americans' so as to avoid being called USAliens? DeviantArt: EL-D0rito My Projects: Atlantis: The Next Union On hold until I regain interest. Argus: The Cyber-Planet Will be rewritten and redone almost completely | |
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