DITL Species 5- Type of Lifespan

[Mikey]

I chose "D," because I also like the idea of very long-lived individuals, able to amass great knowledge and accomplishments over their lifespan. Witht he lowered complexity of a fungoid physiology, one may assume that there are less "natrual causes" for death (disease, catastrophic accidental injury, etc.)

However, as to the discussion of generational knowledge transmission: there is precedent for some such in sci-fi. WH40k has the Orks, which are semi-fungoid, and generally pretty stupid; but their engineers ("mekboyz") are genetically able to build and repair all sorts of equipment, as well as even innovate a bit. The average Ork could never explain the workings of a firearm, but is innately able to field maintain his gun ("shoota.")

[Monroe]

Yeah. There are reasons why Type A and B could work. They would work if they win, we'd just have to decide how in another thread.

Type A- is like a rat. A female rat can be responsible for a 100,000 other rats given enough food and room in its life time I've heard. (Cause they can get pregnant at like a month old or some silly shit like that)

Type B- is like a cat. You guys know that female wild cats can be responsible for a lot.

Type C- is like a person or a horse. Big families are considered 7 or so.

And Type D- well there's no real terrestrial counter part that I can think of. But I think one child every twenty or thirty years is a fair guestimate. Maybe less common than that.

[Lt. Staplic]

I know, that's why I picked it...

I was just using the analogy of cavemen existing as a true type C to now where we're still type C however live 80-90 years on average.

[Mikey]

I even think 60 years is a HUGE overestimate of a Cro-Magnon lifespan.

[Monroe]

I even think 60 years is a HUGE overestimate of a Cro-Magnon lifespan.

They could live that old. Just they would have been very venerable and respected. 40 though is probably when most died I would think.

[Lt. Staplic]

I did say that they didn't live past 60, not to 60

I wasn't exactly sure so I decided to go with a rather generous estimate.

[Reliant121]

I see option D sorta like a tree. With less seedlings.

[Tsukiyumi]

There is a terrestrial example of such a long-lived fungus - this thing.

[Grundig]

I see it like an ent, or like the trees in the last book of the Ender Wiggin series (not the parallel Bean series).

Did we talk about the mobility of a fungus or tree? I came into this process a bit late, but if there's any sort of intelligence, there has to be motility, IMO. This reminds me of the villain "Morning-Light-Mountain, from a book trilogy I was reading, Pandora's Star, by Peter F. Hamilton.

This doesn't have to do with the lifespan, but I loved the idea of the species, and wanted to share. Hope you guys don't mind. If you want to read the books - and they're definitely worth reading - this will spoil a bit. Below is an excerpt from the wiki with MINOR SPOILERS about Morning-Light-Mountain's species.

Dyson Aliens exist in two separate forms - motiles and immotiles. The motile form performs physical tasks - labor, construction, and warfare. Immotiles are clusters of fused motiles with greatly improved brain power. Immotiles are immobile and are responsible for controlling motiles.
Individually, motiles are capable of only limited autonomous function, and are only really capable of obeying the orders of the immotile that produced it. Immotiles are created when, given appropriate conditions - usually a shallow pool of water - four motiles combine into a single immotile, expanding their collective capacity for thought to the point that a new intelligent being is created. Immotiles control motiles to build, cultivate and exploit the land around them. They are, in essence, the immobile brains of a single large entity capable of spanning over miles. Immotiles are also responsible for the reproduction of the species, as they produce "base cells" - single-celled organisms that are the basis of Prime life. Base cells are both food to the Primes, and also the source of primes - when certain chemicals and hormones are excreted into water containing a culture of base cells, the cells will react by coalescing and forming, over the course of a few days, a functioning Prime motile.

The motile form can take many forms that have been specifically constructed to perform certain tasks. One of the more basic and versatile varieties appears as having a pear-shaped torso approximately a meter wide at the base, with four vertical tapering ridges of hardened skin running up the flanks, each of which terminates in one of the motile's four legs, which are flexible, strong and hooved. Motiles of this type sport four arms, which sprout from the body some sixty centimetres above the leg joints. The arms are similar to the legs, differing only in that they terminate in a neat quad pincer arrangement. The form is topped by a cluster of four sensor stalks, each of which incorporates a nerve receptor - a thin impulse-permeable membrane over raw ganglions that allow motiles to communicate directly with another motile's brain by touching these receptor pads together. The brains are stored deep within the body.
Immotiles are only capable of handling the organisation of a certain number of motiles at any given moment. Past a certain point, the entity will be forced to grow a new immotile unit, which permanently attaches to the first, increasing its capacity for thought and multi-tasking. Extremely old Primes may consist of many hundreds, or even thousands of immotiles, controlling vast armies of motiles. If an immotile loses contact with the motiles under its command they will resort to a primitive animal like mode

[Sionnach Glic]

In terms of how they appear, I'm imagining something similar to the Elder Things, which are somewhat fungal-like.

[Monroe]

I like Rochey's pic.
But we can do a image submission later.. once we have things a little more narrowed I'll put up a second thread in addition to whatever week we're on to collect images. Then Once we have a bunch the next week the weekly thread will be to decide the winner.

[Deepcrush]

For their life span I picked option D. However when it comes to how many baby spores they drop maybe it should be dependent on how many others of its kind are around to help with seeding. If they are alone then they should be limited to the numbers they produce. If there are a lot of them around then they should be able to turn out as many babies as they want.

[Teaos]

The problem with a Fungus with life span D is there is no reason why they couldnt produce shit loads of off spring. We have gone with spores so that means lots of kids usually.

Back when they were primitive this can be explained away by only one in a million making it to adulthood.

But it modern times that rate would be much higher and thus vast over population.

They would have to have massive laws to stop reproduction ect.

[Deepcrush]

That or they use it to their advantage. Part of expanding.

[Sionnach Glic]

Yeah, Teaos is correct. The dilema posed by the OP is a very artificial question. I think it would have been better if this had been split into two polls; one dealing purely with lifespan, a second dealing with the amount of kids they have over a certain period.

Such a species should be churning out kids. We can deal with over-population thruogh various means. Maybe they do can conciously choose how many spores to release? That would allow them to deal with over-population problems when they get to the level of advancement that their tech allows most of their race to survive into adulthood. Or maybe they have some dangerous "coming of age" rites that cause most of the young to die? Or maybe they're a very aggresive race, getting into numerous wars that cause serious dents in the population?