03-26-2016, 06:37 PM
(03-26-2016, 04:35 PM)Lost Rinoah Wrote: I've actually been speaking under the assertion that finding an edible thing eventually leads to the accidental discovery of how to gain or grow it in larger amounts. That's why I said that saying they never would was insulting even to us. They would, eventually, discover how to grow such fungi. By accident. In the same way they would accidentally discover what other methodologies of subsistance they'd be able to create. I've already given you examples. Plus bone tools and weapons.I'm having some difficulty following this post, but I think I get the gist. Though I can't make sense of "You cannot say they never would have discovered the cultivation of fungi. Otherwise you are saying we haven't discovered what farming is or even the idea of it yet" and it doesn't seem to follow that saying they would never have discovered agriculture is like saying "they like the death of their own people on wide scale. And that they enjoy the possibility of starvation."
You cannot say they never would have discovered the cultivation of fungi. Otherwise you are saying we haven't discovered what farming is or even the idea of it yet. Such a thing is obviously not true, especially considering the eventuality. You can only think in methods of what we've done, That is a mistake. You have to be able to look at what we haven't, and what we have, done.
The fact of the matter is that they may have never discovered how to leave their world on their own. But thriving, and eventual agriculture was a definitive and absolute future for them. To say otherwise is to say they like the death of their own people on wide scale. And that they enjoy the possibility of starvation.
You may be correct that I'm focusing too much on how we developed farming (or rather, the theory I am familiar with about how we developed farming), but given that's the only way we know of that farming has come about and it happened multiple times, I think it's the best approach I can take. I can't evaluate the likelihood of other ways of developing farming because we don't know what those ways are, assuming they exist.
Similarly, avali couldn't consciously tackle the barriers separating them from setting up agriculture for the first time. They didn't know the end goal, and they didn't know what stood in the way, so the only way for them to reach they point where they could farm would be to stumble through those barriers by accident. You know, like we did. Once you get there, it's much easier to look at farming and say "Oh, this makes so much sense. Hey, I wonder if I could make it even better by doing [X]?" Once you know it's possible, it's easier to cast a critical eye and figure out how it works, and how to overcome the associated problems.
Farming isn't hard, but making the necessary observations to do it is. It took us aeons to make the leap of logic from seeds in the ground to new plants, and we were exposed to the process constantly because we were always looking for and gathering edible plants. The avali, as far as I know, were not hunter-gatherers, but hunters, so while they might occasionally munch on some fungus, they weren't out looking for them, and would have had only a small fraction of the exposure that we had. Mind you, it doesn't really make sense to me that if they could eat fungus that they wouldn't be hunter-gatherers, but it's the impression I get from the lore. I could be incorrect.
If they were hunter-gatherers, their chances of discovering farming shoot way up. As hunter-gatherers, they could easily have followed the same pattern we did.
Further complicating the matter is that fungi reproduce differently than plants do. The plants we are familiar with make seeds which you can pick up, hold, and eat. Fungi favor reproduction via spores, which look like dust. How would a stone age culture make the connection between a grain of dust landing somewhere and the growth of a new fungi? It's possible, but hard. Some fungi use other methods like budding, which would be easier to observe and understand, so if those fungi happened to be edible, maybe the avali could learn to cultivate them.
Of course, actually having fungi on Avalon is unlikely. Fungi evolved on Earth from our unique circumstances. Avalon might have fungus-like organisms, but not true fungus, and consequently they could conceivably use practically any reproductive strategy, including seeds. However, all the lore uses the term fungus, not fungus-like species.
Of course, even more unlikely is the planet's sentient species evolving to resemble a feathered dromeosaur. Avali occupy a weird niche where they're sort of different from Earthly life, but not really. They're basically earth creatures with a few twists that make them a pain to write. Drives me nuts sometimes--if you want an alien alien, write an alien alien. If you want an alien that's similar to Earth creatures (like everything in Starbound), write one of those. An alien alien that is also Earthlike is both unlikely and impractical.