As I have said before, one of Oscar quirks is than every time the waves a plant, he keeps getting the galactic little cousins of Audrey; the Black Forest in Marduk is (in)famous befause it is full of moving, carnivorous trees, and if you wander off the path, you will never leave.
Since Mardukans are well known drama queens, this may be taken with a grain or salt... so, how salty should I make this?
On one hand, biomoded people do get lethal mods, like claws, and at least one of Noah's AI duaghters awakened and ran away to start a life of crime. But those are people; on the other hand, handwaviums wil not create lethal, mechanical weapons.
Should you be able to biomod an animal or plant so it can, and will, kill a human? Predators are perfectly natural; and let's remember than handwavium loves plotlines, and the traditional end for an evil Mad Biologist is to be killed by their aberrant creations.
Back to the Black Forest example, the trees do eat squirrels and rabbits. Where should I place the line: If some backpacker decides to sleep under that tree, will he awaken humorously covered in vines... or will he end inside the hollow trunk, Ucorn style, never to awaken until the (ridicously armed) Park Rangers find his bones?
My current, personal guidelines (pending the results of this thread) are than if you wave a "natural" critter, to cover some ecological niche -even if it is a weird critter, like a Owlbear or a sentient plant- it will be as dangerous as any normal animal -so your cool T-Rex can, and will, eat the tourists if it gets loose.
But if you purposely try to wave a living weapon -say, a Zerg swarm- you will, at best, get the disney version, wich will eat lettuce and play with cute little rabbits and birdies (and how they arrived to the Oort Cloud is a mistery never to be solved.
Oh, and the trees? They will eat the camper. Fortunately, they aren't that fast, and their pheromones are more approptiate for mammals weighting a few pounds, so you will probably be safe unless you go to sleep under the tree. Thoug you should avoid the center of the forest were the Old Trees live...
(that last part may be more Mardukan exageration. Almost certainly, in fact. You should avoid it anyway, just in case)
According to the wiki, Handwavium can make perfectly lethal bladed weapons. It's just that anything more complex than a piece of sharp metal that you hit someone with gets hit with the Slapstick Effect. I'm not sure what happens to a bladed weapon that's part of a more complex device, though, like a robot with buzzsaws for hands that gets handwaved as a whole, or, like you mentioned, one of the melee-based Zerg.
Quote:Since Mardukans are well known drama queens, this may be taken with a grain or salt... so, how salty should I make this?
I think your personal guidelines are pretty reasonable, tbh. I
might suggest dialing back the trees a little, maybe make them more passively carnivorous like pitcher plants instead of active hunters, but that may be more my tastes than yours. Also, owlbears rock.
Mr. Fnord
interdimensional man of mystery
FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information
"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"
There could be one tree that was actually capable of killing people - the one created by the aforementioned mad that fell victim to his own creation. It could be kept in an enclosed area with warning signs about the lethal nature of the tree... which is regularly pruned by arborists wearing tactical armor. :p
Otherwise, the rest of the forest can have a smattering of the lesser cousins of this tree. They eat birds, squirrels, and other smaller woodland creatures... but never anything larger than a good sized rabbit.
Bonus points for quoting the Westley in the Princess Bride: "Well, I'm not saying I want to build a summer home here, but the trees are quite lovely."
Although that's just my thoughts on the matter.
blackaeronaut Wrote:There could be one tree that was actually capable of killing people - the one created by the aforementioned mad that fell victim to his own creation. It could be kept in an enclosed area with warning signs about the lethal nature of the tree... which is regularly pruned by arborists wearing tactical armor. :p
Otherwise, the rest of the forest can have a smattering of the lesser cousins of this tree. They eat birds, squirrels, and other smaller woodland creatures... but never anything larger than a good sized rabbit.
Bonus points for quoting the Westley in the Princess Bride: "Well, I'm not saying I want to build a summer home here, but the trees are quite lovely."
Although that's just my thoughts on the matter.
That sounds very reasonable.
Yeah, full-on Blood-Oaks (active hunters of human-sized prey) should be kept rare and unusual, but critter-devouring (active hunters of small prey) and pitcher-plant types (happily consuming anything dumb enough to climb into its central cavity) can be quite common.
If you want an interesting variation, why not have trees that use humans as some sort of energy supply, like the Matrix?
The human needs to be kept intact and healthy for this, just imprissoned Merlin-like within the tree.
For extra extra fun, the tree that bears one fruit at a time, which takes the form of a dryad, based on the person within the tree, but symbiotically tied to that tree. If you extract the human, do you kill the dryad? Makes for fun issues.
If you want a 'blood' theme, some dryads might come with the pointy teeth...
Dangerous forests...
Overall, I'd suggest the trees aren't a 100% successful at snaring even small animals, mainly getting the injured or old ones. Some animals might even be cooperating with the trees, if they protect them from their predators.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind
Well, actually I did not plan to have the trees walk (they do suffle something and change places, but only when no one is looking), they "hunt" moving their branches, so are easy to avoid. They could eat humas or deer, but are unlikely to actually catch then. The vines and the "pretty flowers" of the forest are more dangerous, but to small to really hurt humans
But on second though... I so am adding Old Man Tree somewere lost in the middle, movile (and fast), huge, dark-barked, full of thorns, dripping blood red sap, with fruits than look like human skulls. It may also be the only vegetarian blood tree in the entire forest, not than any of the Park Rangers Heavy Armor division will ever tell the tourists, of course.
No Ent Park Rangers, then? [grin]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ent
I suppose becoming an Ent would be a pretty drastic biomod...
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind
Ace Dreamer Wrote:No Ent Park Rangers, then? [grin]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ent
I suppose becoming an Ent would be a pretty drastic biomod...
*LOL* yes, especially considered that most space stations would be too small for Ents. ^^
Ace Dreamer Wrote:I suppose becoming an Ent would be a pretty drastic biomod...
Should I? Because I have suddenly become very tempted... Marduk is not a station, after all, but a domed city, it has plenty of space for ents...
So you now, the current Black Forest rangers are mostly "werewolves" (aka several different canine biomods), with a few "druids" (aka botanics from the Mardukan branch of the Wizards). The weres are ovbiously modded, but most of the druids should be still vanilla human... and being druids, are very likely to mess on their free time with handwavium
and horticulture tools... Accidents do happen.
Quote:How dangerous should waved creatures be?
It's my opinion that the most dangerous life forms in Fenspace should be the ones that walk around on two legs without the benefit of handwavium. But that's my opinion.
Quote:Should I? Because I have suddenly become very tempted...
Sure, why not?
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
An Ent biomod? I've a feeling the result would be a rather wooden character.
.... I'll get my coat.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
Dartz Wrote:An Ent biomod? I've a feeling the result would be a rather wooden character.
.... I'll get my coat.
You really went out on a limb there, Dartz.
... getting my coat, too.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
What... YOu guys are just gonna twig and Leaf?
... roit. where's my coat? I'm comming too
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by
Echo's Children
If we're all grabbing our coats, we may as well go see a play. I hear there might be another revival of
Ent Misbehavin'...
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
They just don't want to set roots around here.
No, No, they're waiting to get me!
That wasn't a Bacon Tree!
That was a Lamb Bush!
(Me? Officer? Blatent Punning? Never! [grin])
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind
Nah, I don't need a coat. I brought my towel instead.
It's hard to beleaf that this thread degenerated into tree puns already.
I wood like to know who started this grove of puns.
--
"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor
Well, somebody starts punning, and the jokes just grow on us...
(We just need Mal to chime in. Fenspace grew from his plot seed, after all.)
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
I have to vote in favor of the Dryad idea. with a change being is that there severle Dryad bodies existing and are a hive-mind that can talk with their Template (human stuck in the tree).
SilverSun17 Wrote:I have to vote in favor of the Dryad idea. with a change being is that there severle Dryad bodies existing and are a hive-mind that can talk with their Template (human stuck in the tree).
Wouldn't the Fen do EVERYTHING to get the people out of the trees (unless they agreed to stay there before 'being captured')? This would make all dryads living on 'borrowed time'.
HRogge Wrote:SilverSun17 Wrote:I have to vote in favor of the Dryad idea. with a change being is that there severle Dryad bodies existing and are a hive-mind that can talk with their Template (human stuck in the tree).
Wouldn't the Fen do EVERYTHING to get the people out of the trees (unless they agreed to stay there before 'being captured')? This would make all dryads living on 'borrowed time'.
I certainly would -up to and including burning down the entire forest. It is one thing to know than your trees may eat anyone stupid enough to wander inside the forest anf fall asleep -that's what the walls around the forrest are for. If someone goes in anyway and dies, well, so sad, circle of life, etc, etc.
But allowing someone to remain prisioner in one of your creations is an order of magnitude worse. The driad idea souds cool, but only as something a fen would be willing to do.
An idea: Druid A, some girl obsessed with trees/flowers/whatever, gets accidentally biomoded into a driad. Scientists in Marduk try to get herout, but have no luck (eventually they manage to turn the tree and the soil were it grows into a miniature Unreal State than moves floating).
Meanwhile, Druid B, her boyfriend/husband, decides to join her, and tries to biomod himself into another driad. The end result is the Ent.