Thalassopocalypse
It’s exactly 252 million years ago, in your timeline the world would be covered in a red inferno of lava and grey smoke. Causing the end of the therapsid dynasty and the rise of the dinosaurs. The Great Dying was the greatest mass extinction in earth’s history.
But here, something far stranger has happened. Instead a strange object sent by a strange visitor many lightyears away had touched down. The Obelisk was nearly the size of the empire state building, it slammed into the ocean floor and began to expel copies of the matter around it… Water.
The oceans rose almost instantly and floods many hundreds of metres high encroached on Pangea. Nearly every terrestrial vertebrate species living on the coast was utterly annihilated. Plants were uprooted from the ground and spread far and wide. In the ocean, much worse things were happening. The ocean currents were disrupted and entire ecosystems were brought to the surface along with the gargantuan waves.
Surviving Species:
Lingula - A brachiopod genus not too unfamiliar from oysters
Radiolarians - Shelled Plankton
Methanogens - Archaea that can produce methane in anaerobic conditions
Conodonts - Tiny, eel-like vertebrates that feed upon plankton, they are the last vertebrates. A relic of a bygone era hundreds of millions of years in the making. In an alternate reality, our reality the vertebrates are some of the greatest beasts to ever exist. But here the Conodonts are a living relic.
Ferns - The recolonizers of the last remaining islands
Mosses - Hardy and well adapted to wet environments.
Springtails - Hardy scavengers and dominate the wet uplands
Blattopterans - Roaches that serve as the dominant grazers on land Post-Bathycrash
Nematodes - Microscopic worms that live in soil and water, extremely adaptable
Trigonotarbids - Spider-like arachnids that serve as the apex predator of this strange flooded world.
Earth has been killed in a sense, the great beasts of yonder have been drowned and the ancestors of the archosaurs, mammalians and all great groups have been extinguished. Permanently changed beyond recognition is the biosphere, geosphere and climate.
But here’s where you come in, you will choose to guide a genus to guide throughout the eons and help them through this warped world.
Will your lineage survive this Thalassopocalypse?
Distinct biomes
Rules
- - Rules - -
Everyone gets one turn to do things, whether it be to adapt and evolve their genus, move them around the 6 islands with various success (if terrestrial). Moving between islands will be a game of chance, although some islands will be closer together than others and have a higher chance of succeeding, what genus you’re playing as will also be a factor. But that’s for you to figure out. Each turn you will type “Action -” and then your move.
Each time skip will take 500k years. But as a general principle; microbial life, insects and plants will evolve faster.
There will be a total of 30 turns before I collect everyone’s turns and come to the conclusion of who’s the winner of the Thalassopocalypse.
Genus Stats
Genus stats:
FA/Food Availability - (1-10)
Pop/Population - (1-10)
Pop: Pop dictates how much of your genus there is, 1 is Critically Endangered and 10 is Overpopulated. If your Genus is Overpopulated they will expend the available food each turn until it hits zero. If you are a carnivorous species, your food will depend on the prey items in your environment. If there is a prey animal with 7 population, you will have 7 FA.
FA: FA dictates how much food there is within the environment for your genus to access. If your genus is CE (Critically Endangered) then there will be an Overabundance(10), but if your species is at 10 pop (Overpopulated) then there will be a Critical Shortage(1). If you are a photosynthetic species then you will always be at FA10 regardless of your population.
You can control your population by introducing predators, which can be done by having players playing a predatory species moving into your environment and taking 1 of your population per turn or evolving a species within your genus that hunts the other species within it. This should be a last resort though.
If your population reaches zero, your game will end and your genus will go extinct and be unplayable. But you can choose to take control of one of the NPC genus’ within the game. If there aren’t any NPC genus’ available, you’ll spectate on the forums. Although I will notify you when the game ends to measure up your points against other players.
Points
Points will be gained from your genus surviving each round. You will get one point each round, making a mutation costs one point so make sure to stay on budget. If you are a photosynthetic organism or an animal smaller than a hamster, then you will get 2 points per round. At the start most if not all playable organisms will get 2 points per round as they all meet this requirement.
Biopoints
Biopoints are earned from your genus surviving a round, if your genus goes extinct you go back to 0 biopoints. The player with the most biopoints at the end wins.
