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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.

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SE Census - Favorite Spec Scenario; IT'S THE BIG ONE-O
Topic Started: May 23 2018, 10:39 PM (976 Views)
LittleLazyLass
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Proud quilt in a bag

So it's officially May 24th here in the Maritimes, and therefore that means I'm late for some of you and at least an hour early for everyone else. This means it's been, counting by days, ten whole years since the forum was created! I've just barely been a part of this place for a third of its lifespan (holy shit, I've been here for a third of the forum's lifespan), and I know a sizeable portion of you readers have been here for even less than that. Despite this, all of us here appreciate the work and creativity many members have put into backing up the name we have for this here message board. Extended introductions about stuff you knew already aside, I'm here to ask you guys a simple question... another one!

What is your favorite speculative evolution scenario you've seen proposed or explored here on the forum? Note I'm talking about the scenario, the premise, not about projects at large. So an entry for a no K-Pg project would be about that and any unique factors about the divergence point, not about the content of the project itself. What's the most creative, the most interesting, the most thought provoking? The aforementioned "premise, not project" stipulation also, of course, means un-explored premises can count - the project ideas thread is open for mining! So, whether it's something that's so unique and unlike anything else, or whether it's the idea that offers the most spec potential of them all, let's here it!

Favorite Creatures Census
Favorite Projects Census
totally not British, b-baka!
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I don't even really like this song that much but the title is pretty relatable sometimes, I guess.
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malicious-monkey
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Spec Ops
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"Man explores another world." Whether that be a portal to an alternate earth or an alien planet, or just an undiscovered island in the Pacific, this is my favorite premise for spec projects.
"My recommendation would be to just draw things now and draw good things later." - Nanotyranus

Ilion: an illustrated tour of a tidally locked planet
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malicious-monkey.deviantart.com
sunriseonilion.wordpress.com
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Archeoraptor
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"A living paradox"
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-I like when you speculate with life on earth showing how truly bizarre is and making it more alien than some xeno, usually using a vergy early POD, stuff liek troll man´s project would be a good example.

-I like most atl evo like Cenozoic POD worlds with the great cooling never happening

-doing lesser K-pgs is basically rewriting the cenozoic but still having a mass extinction

-xeno projects which experiement withg truly alien bauplans

-terraformed worlds with a reduced number of species are a very good premisse, that despite what soem people say sayign they are serina clones, the cocnept has much to explore

-future evo that focuses in ba nearish period of time(less than 60 million years in the future) show what you can do in a small timespam, one of the best ones is the Allocene
Astarte an alt eocene world,now on long hiatus but you never know
Fanauraa; The rebirth of Aotearoa future evo set in new zealand after a mass extinction
coming soon......a world that was seeded with earth´s weridest
and who knows what is coming next...........

" I have to know what the world will be looking throw a future beyond us
I have to know what could have been if fate acted in another way
I have to know what lies on the unknown universe
I have to know that the laws of thee universe can be broken
throw The Spec I gain strength to the inner peace
the is not good of evil only nature and change,the evolution of all livings beings"
"
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Octoaster
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Meanwhile at Customer Support
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I need to agree with Monkey on this one. Something can be totally new and unknown, but that abnormal and alien feeling is magnified so much when presented through something familiar.

The idea of earth life being spread throughout the cosmos is also really neat, and a good total warping of Earth's future is decent every now and then.
"The only thing that would scar me for life would be pics and videos of hetero sex." - Flisch

"Die" - Arachnus

"though critising misseppls is hypcocresi on my part" - Archeoraptor

"You deserve to be abandoned!" - Arachnus

Open at own risk.
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CaledonianWarrior96
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An Awesome Reptile
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I like the scenarios of one Earth species colonising an alien world and evolving into a new phylum essentially. It's an idea that can be well executed and while we aren't allowed to name projects I think we all know which one I'm talking about. But yeah it offers a challenge to someone's creativity and it's fun to see how the idea can evolve itself.

On a broader scale I like future evolution as I'm always fascinated by how life on Earth can develop in new forms with the changing environment. Alien life and alternative evolution is cool too but future evo has always had my attention
Edited by CaledonianWarrior96, May 24 2018, 11:16 AM.
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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Holben
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Rumbo a la Victoria

Either a sudden interaction between two worlds seperated by millions of years/the gulf of space, or else projects about a variety of sapient species.
Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

"It is the old wound my king. It has never healed."
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IIGSY
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A huntsman spider that wastes time on the internet because it has nothing better to do
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I like caves. The isolation makes for good spec
Projects
Punga: A terraformed world with no vertebrates
Last one crawling: The last arthropod

ARTH-6810: A world without vertebrates (It's ded, but you can still read I guess)

Potential ideas-
Swamp world: A world covered in lakes, with the largest being caspian sized.
Nematozoic: After a mass extinction of ultimate proportions, a single species of nematode is the only surviving animal.
Tri-devonian: A devonian like ecosystem with holocene species on three different continents.

Quotes


Phylogeny of the arthropods and some related groups


In honor of the greatest clade of all time


More pictures


Other cool things


All African countries can fit into Brazil
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Scrublord
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Father Pellegrini
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Future evolution, first and foremost. Either that, or alternative evolution with a point of divergence in the very distant past (i.e. the Cambrian instead of the Cretaceous).
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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ZoologicalBotanist
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Mixotrophic Sea Slug
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One scenario I like is taking real world organisms and placing them in alternate dimensions that have some kind of "theme", and the creatures introduced also match the theme. There is one well known example of this.


My Projects
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On Hold

Coming Soon


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Random Quotes and Stuff


--Windblown--
I do not know where I will go.
I travel where the breeze will blow.
For I know, deep in my soul,
I am windblown.
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GlarnBoudin
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Disgusting Skin Fetishist
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Hmm, this is a difficult one. Well, here goes:

- The notion of 'lost worlds' - places on this Earth that are still full of mystery and wonder. (Ex: JohnFaa's Lemuria, Troll Man's Diyu, Flashman's Kumari Kandam).
- Subset of the above, but 'pulp' themed projects are always a delight; entire worlds all set up for the theme of oldschool stuff. (Ex: TyrantisTerror's retrosaurs, Flashman's AMYBC and Manga Mundi, The Xenologist's Hollow Earth)
- Spec for fictional creatures; not redesigning them, but coming up with evolutionary histories for them and for the world that they live in. (Ex: Flashman's Miskatonic University, much of Den Valdron's work)
- Genetically-modified animals and their survival into the future. It's always awesome to see people really get going and making a huge array of animals that would never exist in nature, then releasing them out into the world and going from there.
Quotes
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Co-creator/corporate minion for the Pop Culture Monster Apocalypse!

My Projects
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My dA page.
My Fanfiction.net page.
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PortentosaMan
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Adolescent
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How different lifeforms would evolve in very difficult and dangerous surroundings.
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My first xenobiology project named Hodea
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IIGSY
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A huntsman spider that wastes time on the internet because it has nothing better to do
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I like also when organisms are pushed into anatomical extremes or take on niches very, very different from their ancestors. (I.e. terrestrial hagfish for example)
Projects
Punga: A terraformed world with no vertebrates
Last one crawling: The last arthropod

ARTH-6810: A world without vertebrates (It's ded, but you can still read I guess)

Potential ideas-
Swamp world: A world covered in lakes, with the largest being caspian sized.
Nematozoic: After a mass extinction of ultimate proportions, a single species of nematode is the only surviving animal.
Tri-devonian: A devonian like ecosystem with holocene species on three different continents.

Quotes


Phylogeny of the arthropods and some related groups


In honor of the greatest clade of all time


More pictures


Other cool things


All African countries can fit into Brazil
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suchipithecus
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Newborn
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I'd have to say terraformed worlds.
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Dromaeosaurus
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Haemothermic orthostatic matrotrophic lexiphanic deuterostome
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I've a soft spot for projects as Serina that cover a long timespan in many brief intervals, starting from modest changes to familiar species and gradually warping them into something strange and alien.

Also anything about the deep future of Earth, at least 200 million years from today and further; or intelligence before humans and cyclical civilizations.
My deviantART page - My other extra-project work - Natural History of Horus and its flora and fauna - A graphic history of life (also here) - AuxLang Project: a worldwide language - Behold THE MEGACLADOGRAM - World Without West: an alternate history

SpecEvo Tutorials: Habitable Solar Systems (galaxies, stars and moons); Planets (geology, oceans and atmosphere); Ecology (energy, biomes and relationships); Alternative Biochemistry (basic elements, solvents, pigments); Biomechanics (body structure, skeletons, locomotion); Bioenergetics (photosynthesis, digestion, respiration); Perception (sense organs and nervous system); Reproduction (from genetics to childbirth); Offense and Defense (camouflage, poisons and weapons); Intelligence (EQ, consciousness and smartest animals); Civilizations (technology, domestication and culture); Exotic Life (living crystals, nuclear life, 2D biology); Evolution (genetics, selection and speed); Phylogeny (trees of life); Guide to Naming (how to name your creations) (and more!)

My projects here:

Natural History of Horus (19th century naturalists... in space)
Galactic Anthropology (intelligence takes many forms around the Milky Way)
Settlers from the Deep (a tour in a blind and slimy future)
Coming soon: A Matter of Time (a history of the future... all of it)
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Tartarus
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Prime Specimen
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-Future evolution scenarios that dare to venture really far into the future, like several hundred million years or so.
-Alternative evolution scenarios based on divergence points not so often explored. Say, for example, a no Eocene-Oligocene extinction timeline, or perhaps a timeline where the K-Pg extinction was actually more severe so even more things were wiped out by it.
-All manner of scenarios about the wildlife of alien worlds. How differing conditions from Earth can influence evolution of life on these worlds is interesting, as is the concept of how a world could be extremely similar to Earth in its conditions yet still get radically different life evolving there.
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