Loooooooooooooooooooong island: evolve as a single row/collum of organelles (Loooooooooooooong boy)
The host within: starts a civi as fungi-zombie using other almost aware creater.
Unfortunately, Loki had an idea: your civilization created a mythology around a mischievous god.
Dark Spore: Your species created genetically engineered creatures as a standard tool of warfare.
C.I.@: The iron economy is out of control, now they’re eating it too (create a species that depends only on iron and you’ll manage to create an economy around iron only)
Heartless: You will be able to reach the aware stage without developing a heart.
Deja vu: Your species has ascended twice in exactly the same way, in the same history and look.
Beta tester: finish the game before ver 1.0
You mean you have to reach multicellular with such an organism to get the achievement? Or a stage further down the road?
Yes, that’s a great response!
Daedalus: As a terrestrial creature, invent means of flight in society stage
I’m not certain if “sentient parasite fungus” civs ended up being ever approved as plausible…
Honestly balloons aren’t complex. I’d amend that to “powered flight” instead of just flight in general.
I guess this works well to make the achievement harder.
powered flight using only muscle power?
I guess that would do the job.
it would actually be a challenge, aircraft like that work mostly because of incredible modern materials science. If you can design an aircraft weight efficient enough to work with only human power without a modern society, I commend you.
Forbidden Knowledge: After ascending, make it impossible to ascend
birds have, holllow bones. if there was a sapient chicken, they could gain the ability to fly during the middle ages? or during the paleolithic?
if they have the muscles and weight to fly, would they already do so evolutionarily?
would they repurpose their wings as grabby limbs because they have to throw stones? like humans? and can undo that technologically?
does the achievement spesify they should’ve never had flight and gained it for the first time
maybe they can only “glide” and not “fly”. what they discover technologically can be blowing air into the air with fans so that they can refuel height and stay in the air indefinately
or they could have heavy bones. and what they do is, surgically remove them and replace them with something lighter.
or, maybe they can fly but they get tired. they can fly for short distances, but they can’t take off. lets say that if they can’t take off, it doesn’t count as flying. what they discover might be instead, liquid oxygen. they distill it. and then drink/inhale it. it helps them get rid of tiredness as if they have better lungs. this fills the requirements, they still use their own muscles to fly.
if there was a species that could “almost” fly, and primitive technology can give it even a “little” boost, then it can work
but you’d still need to explain if they can fly why haven’t they already
here is another idea. they have… um… flying horses. they ride flying horses. but they replace the dna of the flying horses with their own dna, which means, technically, they are carrying themselves as they fly. their reproduction method is replacing the dna in a tissue and then directly adding it to their own tissue to grow rather than eating it. and what they do in the awakening stage is domesticating more animals to be compatible. and there would be a window of time when the horses are still horse shaped but their dna is changed. which can be infinite if they don’t have regeneration. actually this doesn’t make that much sense because they’d have prion issues and more stuff like that
what if they eat… spinach
what if they discover meth? for legal reasons, thats short for methane. i heard the germans were using it on the western front to march day and night. but that raises the question if a chemical can increase performance, why hasn’t evolution discovered it already. why should the chemicals of another species help you, if you weren’t in a mutualistic relationship and evolved together, offshoring that process. i mean, you can find antibiotics but they are poison. and drugs cure only very spesific diseases. by drugs i mean medicinal drugs. they have the same word.
what if they discover planes. is rotating a propeller better than flapping a wing?
if they are, um… very strong then maybe what they need is just better wings. which they can do after discovering the glue. what if they are very strong because they’re like ants? 95% of insect species can fly, according to a google search. the other 5% can gain it? but can they gain sentience if they’re so small…
get this… this is the final, ultimate, undeniable solution. extremely correct. what if they… reduce the gravity?
what if they have a close moon nearby, that also has a thick atmosphere. and in the middle ages, they build a giant trebuchet, launching themselves to the moon. there, they can wear wings and fly, despite not being able to fly in their own planet, not having evolved that ability.
i don’t have an engineering solution. why haven’t light materials discovered in the middle ages? can they be discovered without discovering the steam engine? why not? rubber is used for tires, but according to a google search, mesoamericans used it to build balls and for making waterproof textiles and containers. the point is, material science is independant of the other technologies. maybe not computer chips before you have microscopes and widespread electricity, but, there are lots of polymers and ceramics used in modern technology and there is no reason they couldn’t have been discovered earlier.
Planes are an industrial stage tech. We were talking about flying in the society stage as a “flight incapable” creature.
industrial stage = anything after discovering fossil fuels and fuel powered machines, isn’t it? propeller isn’t industrial, just like how the wheel isn’t industrial
And how are you supposed to power a plane in society stage?
yes, it wouldn’t make much economic sense. even when it can fly, it would hardly fly. i guess.
Whale’s return: After going on a whale-like evolutionary trajectory, evolve to live on land again.
You could use leg power, all it needs is a 1:10 gear ratio and you can even pedal at a reasonable speed
It’s a Plane… Wait what?: Have an airborne species with “biological jet engines” evolve on your planet (with you not being this species).
The Death of Icarus: Fly so high you die of overheating.
(A challenge because it requires an environment where higher altitudes are hotter.)
How Did We Get Here?: Go to space without having invented electricity.
Burning Dusk: Run out the clock on your planet’s lifetime.
(Easiest in unicellular stage.)
Adeptus Mechanicus: Go to space without having invented space travel.
(You’d have to get into a situation where you have access to space tech but don’t know how to make more. Most likely, this would be post-Ascension or after a previous fall from Space stage.)
Pern: Restart pre-industrial civilisation on a planet that isn’t your homeworld.
(This depends on how Space-stage regression, if it were implemented, would work. Presumably, you’d be forced to only be on one planet. The challenge of this achievement would depend on how that planet is picked.)
The Spark of Madness: Create a species with such high intelligence they go insane.
(Would probably require a special feature being added in to facilitate the achievement.)
Blue Blooded: Create a species with an abnormal blood color.
(Not too difficult.)
Concerning Political Implications: Reach the society stage with a species divided into highly-differentiated castes.
(The implications in question are whether casteism is justified if it’s a biological fact.)