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A Look Back on Sheatheria, why it's not coming back again, and what it could give rise to.
Topic Started: Jun 3 2018, 10:07 PM (688 Views)
Sheather
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Sheatheria is a project everyone on the forum probably knows. You either really like it, or you don't at all. It's a project for which I feel a lot of mixed feelings. It began as a fantasy almost magical setting when I was seventeen, an excuse to just draw any sort of wacky animal I wanted, stick it in any sort of setting and see what happened, and was from its debut immensely popular on the forum, which I found very exciting as someone who had never before been popular in any way in any circumstance. It was popular enough to spin off many inspired projects, most very short-lived, and it was great fun to make. But as I became more knowledgeable the scientifically impossible premise started to bother me more and more until I felt compelled to began an endless series of revisions, reboots and attempts to configure the very different aspects of hard science and fantasy, as recently as the extremely short-lived reboot this winter, none of which I have ever been happy with - because in the end, those things could not be meshed. Sheatheria's setting had to be fantasy, and it is for this reason - along with the project becoming more and more messy and complicated over time, to the point I'm pretty sure it was totally overwhelming to get into for anyone who wasn't there from the start - I gradually lost all interest in continuing it as I established it so long ago.

But I am left with the issue of that while I've come to dislike the original Sheatheria premise, I am still very fond of the strange animal groups that were made to live there - the theropod rodents, avian frogs and all the other strange and wonderful life that calls the planet home. I often contemplate somehow resetting these many and varied creatures into another world, but struggle to think of anything that works, or the means to transport them in a way that would not be boring to readers wanting new content. And I am certain that some would find the idea of ripping apart a project that, good or bad, has become so well-known and iconic, to be very undesirable.

For Sheatheria from the start centered on how life would evolve on a planet with an equatorial ice cap - and yet nothing discussed whatsoever actually depends on the existence of such a thing. So theoretically, Sheatheria could exist as a much more plausible world. But would there be a following if the project were so dramatically cut up and put together again as something so different?

What should someone do when they simply don't like the foundation they built the project on, when they otherwise put so much effort into the later world-building? Is it better off left as it was and laid to rest - something fun at the time but now complete - or cut apart like Frankenstein's monster, to perhaps begin a new, more promising life on a sturdier base (and most definitely a less conceited title)?

What does the forum want for Sheatheria's future?
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The Gaiaverse

| Eden | Terra Metropolis | Life of the Sylvan Islands |


Other Spec Evo

| Sheatheria | Serina | The Last Dinosaur

A Wholesome and Good Thing

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peashyjah
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It's a shame Sheatheria has to end already...
Discontinued projects:
The New Ostracoderms (i might continue with this project again someday)
The Americas (where in 58 million years from now in the future North and South America has both become isolated island continents)



All Expansions (my attempt at expanding the universe of All Tomorrows by Nemo Ramjet aka C.M. Kosemen, started June 6, 2018)
Anthropozoic (my attempt at expanding the universe of Man After Man and also a re-imagining of it, coming 2019 or 2020)
New Cenozoica (my attempt at expanding the universe of The New Dinosaurs and also a re-imagining of it, also coming 2019 or 2020)
All Alternatives or All Changes (a re-telling of All Tomorrows but with some minor and major "changes", coming June 10, 2018)
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LittleLazyLass
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Proud quilt in a bag

Before I start this post, I should make it clear I've never read Sheatheria. I've read a couple isolated entries, including the one about Maritimus, but nothing extensive. Anyways, in my of opinion, you should leave it as it is. A relict of the forum's past, still there for anyone to enjoy should they wish. It's obvious you're very talented when it comes to writing spec in general; Serina is a fantastic project. You can produce new and original content going forward without needing to re-use the Sheatheria ideas. But, of course, we're not the same people (I'd argue we're not even all that similar); if you personally feel that you're distinctly unhappy just leaving things where they are, then by all means do something else with it.
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Sheather
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There is a lot on Sheatheria I think can be left to go, but a few lineages I am proud enough of to not want to see them go extinct. There are a few groups which I feel have promise to be recycle and further elaborated upon in other settings, either together or apart.

The theropodents - a varied assortment of bipedal rodents of forms as varied as loon-like sea-goers, yi-qi shaped gliders, bunny-faced grazers and fierce tyrannosaurus gerbils.

Ranamonarchians - I still like the idea of frogs or frog-like animals becoming a dominant animal group. On Sheatheria, frogs more or less did what dinosaurs did on Earth.

The manguar - a standalone with no relatives ever discussed, but I do like its design.

The zucchini bear, in its more modern rodent form.

I like the skystrider design, but I never was happy with the way I described their culture.

But I feel all of these animals could work in other settings.

I am conflicted on griffons. Ornithopods evolving a pronated wrist, flight, giant forelimb walkers and so much else now seems less plausible to me, as much as I still love the emperor swiftlet's design. I don't see the griffons coming back as ornithopods and indeed this was an early revision at a time when I first decided quadrupedal birds, as I had originally described them, weren't realistic and stumbled upon an old thread discussing the possibility of ornithiscians evolving flight. It fit my needs well enough, but I don't think it's perfect. Now, though, many of them would fit naturally as evolved from Serina's placental birds.

Grove crabs and the other giant land bugs including the aerwhale are wonderfully aesthetic, but impossible in any real setting unless I were to seriously rethink them and their designs.

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The Gaiaverse

| Eden | Terra Metropolis | Life of the Sylvan Islands |


Other Spec Evo

| Sheatheria | Serina | The Last Dinosaur

A Wholesome and Good Thing

| Sam |
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Scrublord
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I think a differentiation needs to be made between "hard" and "soft" spec. "Hard" works, like the Neocene Project or C. M. Kosemen's Snaiad exobiology site, obey real-world laws of evolution rigorously and essentially represent real-life principles applied to fictional scenarios.
"Soft" works, like Sheatheria and Wayne Barlowe's Expedition, maintain some grounding in real science but mostly use it as a springboard to envision species and scenarios that defy the laws of nature as we understand them. Many of us here on the forum tend to regard "soft" speculative biology unfavorably unless it is done exceptionally well.
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beingsneaky
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well then Sheatheria looks like it has finally came to an end but i have these 2 questions

1. where did you get the name "Sheatheria" from

2. would you consider serina a "soft" project or a "hard" project or somewhere in between
Edited by beingsneaky, Jun 3 2018, 11:09 PM.
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Ivan_The_Inedible
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beingsneaky
Jun 3 2018, 11:08 PM
well then Sheatheria looks like it has finally came to an end but i have these 2 questions
1. where did you get the name "Sheatheria" from
2. would you consider serina a "soft" project or a "hard" project or somewhere in between
1. It's basically just his forum name as a planet name.
2. Save for how the project is set up(that being terraforming and panspermia by what amounts to renamed Alien Space Bats), Serina is most definitely hard spec, despite how outlandish some of the concepts may seem at first.
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Archeoraptor
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"A living paradox"
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I feel Sheather should do whatever he wants, for me as long as the old threads are kept is good
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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Rest in peace gibbon spiders, you will be missed.
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Open at own risk.
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Zoologist
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Personally, I really enjoyed Sheatheria even with its impossible setting. However, I think it would be pretty cool to see some of the creatures reused or redesigned in future projects. I don’t think there is anything wrong with taking ideas from your own older projects and putting them in new projects, even if the setting is totally different
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GlarnBoudin
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Scrublord
Jun 3 2018, 10:40 PM
I think a differentiation needs to be made between "hard" and "soft" spec. "Hard" works, like the Neocene Project or C. M. Kosemen's Snaiad exobiology site, obey real-world laws of evolution rigorously and essentially represent real-life principles applied to fictional scenarios.
"Soft" works, like Sheatheria and Wayne Barlowe's Expedition, maintain some grounding in real science but mostly use it as a springboard to envision species and scenarios that defy the laws of nature as we understand them. Many of us here on the forum tend to regard "soft" speculative biology unfavorably unless it is done exceptionally well.
Exactly.

I'll be honest, I never really got why people on this forum snub soft spec so much. The metric by how 'possible' something is shouldn't matter - what matters is the work that the creator put into their organisms and the resulting quality. Regardless of how 'hard' or 'soft' a spec scenario is, it's still by its very nature fictional. Dividing by zero is still zero and all that.

I'm going to be honest - the attitude towards softer spec and more implausible works of fiction worries me. Dismissing something as impossible or implausible never sat well with me; it just feels hypocritical. If you consider some types of scenario (For example, kaiju) to be totally impossible and so refuse to touch them because, well, they can't exist, could easily extend that to all spec. Why bother wasting our time with alternative evolution? Non-avian dinosaurs went extinct, so pondering what they may be like is just a stupid waste of time. Same goes for future evolution: we can't predict what life forms will be alive when we finally go extinct, and humans will be extinct anyways, so who cares? Hell, let's take it another step further - why care about stuff like superheroes or even fiction in general? Why care about the lessons that they can teach? They aren't real, after all; just silly stories. When you snub these sorts of scenarios, you're essentially telling people "You aren't imagining in the right way. Stop it and imagine things my way, the right way."

I can't help but see parallels to how the movie industry refused to take superhero movies seriously, refusing to step outside of a very limited genre and thereby similarly limiting what. (May or may not have been inspired by this)


Gah, this was a lot of rambling about stuff that doesn't really matter for this. Anyways, here's what I think, Sheather.

Did you enjoy working on Sheatheria? Did you have fun working on the creatures, on the world? If yes, then continue working on it. Salvage what you loved about it and make it better than ever before. If you didn't enjoy it, then it's time to move on.
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IIGSY
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Well, I don't have much in the way of suggestions for Sheatheria as a whole. But, I do know how endosseans can be a little more realistic. Make them descended from opilliones rather than crustaceans, as opilliones have internal structures made of stuff very similar to cartilage. This could eventually turn into an endoskeleton under the right conditions.

There's also horseshoe crabs which have cartilage plates supporting their book gills but megafaunal horseshoe crabs is MY idea which I'm gonna use in MY project so donut steel >:(
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ARTH-6810: A world without vertebrates (It's ded, but you can still read I guess)

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Dr Nitwhite
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Sheather this is your content and your creations. It's a blessing and a curse, never being quite satisfied with your art, but it's something everyone goes through and is necessary for self improvement. If you want to rework your setting, don't let anyone stop you. If you want to leave it as it is, we can't make you start up again. No projects here are really expected to be a finished product. You aren't writing a book. You're working on a project. Do as you please with it.
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SpeculativeNebula
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What you said touched upon what I think a lot of people authors and artists especially have felt. An inevitable natural consequence of personal growth.

I would not be surprised if you find old favourite ideas worming their way into new works in ways that you might not have forseen initially, and in a greatly improved form.
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