This would not make sense though seeing as it would be just plane better to produce seeds that could travel long distances and find fertile soil. If plantlife were to become mobile this would not be the reason for it.
I’m going to go and talk a bit about this example because it needs a bit of explaining. Just what was given here doesn’t really tell the full story.
Orks, by the nature, were created for warfare. Created. They are an artificially created lifeform, made by what are called The Old Ones, either through direct manipulation or some other method. The lore does not give a definitive answer.
Thus, given their purpose, their reproductive processes were made so that wherever the Orks went, they’d be almost impossible to exterminate. They’d be almost impossible to recreate naturally through Thrive’s proposed gameplay regarding plants.
Here are a few bullet points to consider about the Orks reproductive cycle:
1. Orks produce spores. They spread them throughout their lives through shed skin and even more upon their death.
2. These spores require shade to grow, precipitation not apparently a factor in it.
3. These spores produce more than just more Orks, depending on the conditions they are in they also produce regular mushrooms as well as other creatures that are collectively referred to as “Orkoids”, of which there are 4 types (These also produce spores):
Squigs, which are typically represented as spheroid creatures about the size of a house cat with 2 legs and a giant gaping mouth about the whole width of the creature, though this can vary depending on select breeds. They are a dangerous creature, usually cultivated by the Orkoids as livestock and other purposes.
Snotlings, or “Snots”, which are a diminutive creature with an intelligence level comparable to a toddler. They are usually the first to arrive along with the squigs and prepare an area for proper Orks to show up, usually by making more space for the spores to grow in.
Gretchin, or “Grots” are a bit of a step-up from Snots, with a bigger level of intelligence (Though still nowhere close to an adult human). They will be the ones usually relegated to building stuff, usually under the (Occasionally very real) heel of an Ork master.
Orks, the subject of this discussion. Ork physiology is actually the complex interweaving of two symbiotic organisms that have been genetically linked by the greenskins’ original creators: one strain is comparable to a terrestrial animal and the other to an algae or fungus living within the former’s bloodstream and skin. They are omnivorous, but it is speculated that their skin contain some sort of algae that might allow them to photosynthesize when food is scarce. This would also explain their green skin which would be impossible to explain through just their partly fungal nature (It’s described as a symbiotic physiological and genetic relationship as a result of their creation) as fungi do not have chlorophyll.
I suggest that anyone interested in these creatures check out this video: Orks: War Is Life - Luetin09
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I know this post is old, but what if a plant was basically just WING and could glide all the time, it could use a tiny bit of energy for staying in the air, and the rest for being big brain.
I still don’t see how you are going to power a brain with that. There’s a reason a thread saying that plant civs is a worse idea than underwater civilizations exists.
I mean W I N G when I say that, it would have a ton of surface area, enough to power a brain.
Here’s a quick calculation showing how it is problematic:
Sunlight reaching Earth surface = 340 W (Climate and Earth’s Energy Budget)
Photosynthesis efficiency = 3-6% (Photosynthetic efficiency - Wikipedia)
Human energy consumption = 100 W, brain is already 20 W (Power of a Human Brain - The Physics Factbook)
So we have plants energy per square meter = 340 * 0.06 = 20.4
And from that we get the surface area = \frac{100}{20.4} = 4.9019...
So to power a human you need 5 square meters of photosynthesis surface in sunlight. Compare that to the total area of a human that is 1.9 m^2 (https://www.medicinenet.com/body_surface_area/definition.htm) and you should see the problem.
This has been the point the entire time, you need a ton of surface area just dedicated to be in direct sunlight all the time to get enough energy. And you need some structure to support that surface area so you end up with a problem where you need to constantly increase your size to increase the fraction of your body you can use for photosynthesis for sentient plants to be possible.
I don’t know why I went through the effort to calculate this…
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Yes, i know, but the creature could have so much surface area from being basically a giant wing that it could do this
Show me. Show the math that you can make something like that fly on an Earth like planet and with enough structural integrity to work. This is literally as bad as the underwater stuff where someone suggests stuff like thermite, when we have had to develop industrial processes for a long time to be able to make that.
Once there is late multicellular i will prove to you that it will work
You need to prove it outside the game. If it turns accidentally possible (also the case for underwater civs), we’ll tweak the game to make sure we follow how things would really work and prevent it from happening in the game.
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I don’t see how you think a human brain with >5 square meters worth of wing surface area isn’t possible.
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You need additional structure to support the surface area. Then you need it to move somehow because otherwise it can’t drift in the wind. And if it can’t drift in the wind it needs big muscles to be able to move like an animal.
I’m done debating this topic as well. I’ll only return when someone does what I said in the underwater thread: makes a full explanation from start to finish with actual math showing that the species they envision is actually possible.
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All im saying is keep chloroplasts in the later stages, and I WILL make something that works.
you wont, because like hhyyry said, photosynthesis is just a bad idea for a sentient creature
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Personally, I think that having a 5 square meter leaf for a body and being able to fly both defeat the purpose of evolving high intelligence. A lot of human (and non-human, e. g, New Caledonian crow) innovations were made in order to gather and process food and resources. If you can simply make your own food, there’s little need for problem-solving.
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Outside factors can contribute to the intelligence. I’ve been reading up on potential plant sentience/sapience, and there is evidence that plants are currently sentient, on earth.
For the problem solving, as an example there is a plant that to survive cold nights, it photosynthesizes and then does complex arithmetic to determine how much starch to store in different areas of itself so it can survive the night. By the morning, 95% of it’s starch has been consumed
So just because you can make your own energy doesn’t mean you have no need for problem solving, as outside dangers can contribute to the need for problem solving
Division doesn’t require a conscious brain to calculate. Very complex mathematical systems can be found throughout nature, and even inanimate objects like rocks or sand can “solve” mathematical problems without actually thinking (for example, crack propagation in stone tends to follow the most energy-efficient pattern, which is why basalt pillars are hexagonal in shape).
You make a good point that plants react to their environment very readily, though. I have no doubts about that. Plants on earth are able to do amazing things, such as communicating and sharing nutrients via fungi, mimicking their environment, and even detecting sound from flying insects via their flowers. Slime molds are probably good to mention here too, they can perform remarkable tasks for an organism without differentiated tissues/organs. I’m just not sure what the selective pressure for such an organism to invent spears or axes would be, though.
Regarding non-sophont organisms, though, I think mixotrophy is very viable and am surprised there aren’t more examples of photosynthetic animals (besides corals and that one chloroplast-stealing sea slug).
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Actually, many species of salamander do photosynthesis (kleptoplasty), and one species of wasp can convert sunlight into electricity
Oh, right. I did actually remember those, I’m not sure why I didn’t mention them.
I’m not really sure if the oriental hornet counts as photosynthetic, though, because I didn’t see anything about it using the energy to make food (and if we’re stretching the definition past that it sort of starts to fall apart, since plenty of animals need the sun to warm themselves and there are other compounds that are synthesized using sunlight, like vitamin D).
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