[Accepted] Dionae Aging and Society

[Chada1]

Type (e.g. Planet, Faction, System): Diona Aging/Community/Biology Lore expansion

Describe this proposal in a single sentence (12 word maximum):Further Depth to Dionaes idea of society and aging as beings.

How will this be reflected on-station?:Diona Gestalts who are older would have more thorns covering their Nymphs, which is already a customization option for them ?

Does this faction/etc do anything not achieved by what already exists?: Absolutely, it gives a lot of cool new elements to Dionae and interactions they'd have when living in close proximity with other species, and more reasons for them to cooperate with other sapient species, help to keep their elders alive.

Why should this be given to lore developers rather than remain player created lore?: It adds a whole lot of a dynamic to Diona gestalts as a whole, so it wouldn't fit at all to remain as a player thing.

Do you understand that if this is submitted, you are signing it away to the lore team, and that it's possible that it will change over time in ways that you may not forsee?: Absolutely

Long Description: Block inc, new stuff will be bolded, old stuff will be normal.

New Metabolism Section:
Metabolism and Aging
Dionae are capable of taking just about any matter from their surroundings and are able to metabolize it into nutrition for themselves, being opportunistic feeders. Soil, fluids, biological matter, even particles from the air- biomatter being the most beneficial in the form of matter-to-energy conversion. If something is consumed and cannot be digested, the material is ejected through the process of regurgitation as the species appear to only have one orifice, their rather effective digestive system not producing waste, unlike most other organics. However, their main source of energy comes from the electromagnetic spectrum in the form of radiation, the most common being ultraviolet. While they can go without nutritious matter, being in the presence of radiation- ultraviolet being the minimum tolerated- is a necessity at all times. Without it, Dionae are soon to wither, enter a comatose state, and shortly die within the span of a few hours. A powerful source of radiation is highly beneficial to the species, and when provided biomatter can heal themselves at an accelerated rate; reproduction and growth is also done in exponentially short periods of time in such perfect conditions.

This comes at a great cost -- Their metabolism while an absolutely incredible feat of Biology is coupled with the Nymph undergoing an extreme amount of growth over a longer period of time. As Nymphs grow in age year by year, within decades, they find their skin hardening, thorns continue to cover them, they begin to be weighted down to extreme levels, often slowing in the speed of their movement, and within enough lengths of time, they find their joints hardened to the point that they can no longer move. They are often forced to root into a greater gestalt at this point, or risk slowing the younger Nymphs that they're merged with to a halt and in the worst cases being left to die.

Means of neutralizing energy found on the electromagnetic spectrum would be disorienting to Dionae, but because they have evolved with radiation as their primary form of sustenance and must be exposed to the energy source at all times, substances that neutralize it, in particular, are toxic to the species.

There has been research into a means of reducing the metabolism of individual Nymphs using doses of these substances by suppressing their metabolism in a non-lethal way, to prevent the hardening of their joints, but there has been no breakthrough yet towards this goal.
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As a bonus, tho I don't know where to put this part since it may not fit on the core Dionae page, this could lead into some very good plothooks, and it changes the Dionae immortality to be a theoretical dionae immortality, they can survive so long as they have younger Nymphs and/or other Species to take care of their immobile bodies once they reach the worst case of hardening.

Dionae as of now, since they have a general age range they are forced to become rooted into a gestalt, within like... 100's of years at least, could send these new Dionae mobile space gestalts made out of younger nymphs they have, out into space in order to gather resources for the older Nymphs in their greater gestalts survival. This creates a sort of Nymph scavenging society out in space, and could lead to resource conflicts between other species scavenging within debris fields and derelicts, where these mobile Space gestalts may break apart to search for uranium, biomass, and other materials capable of being used to keep the older, more knowledgeable Nymphs alive and prevent the collapse of their insulated society.

^ I'm hoping help could be given on where to slot that bit of lore in or where to change it, and I think it'd add a lot to the worldbuilding for Dionae.

Edited October 21, 2020 by Zundy

[Lmwevil]

relaying from lore discord:

TheDilShawnToday at 03:17

Just wanted to say two things. The thorns need to be fixed to overlay the gestalt's head (for some reason their neck covers like half the chest. Also it might be forgotten that Dionae can turn off their metabolism at will which could impact the rate that a gestalt hardens and grows.

TheDilShawnToday at 03:24

Also I don't very much agree on the notion that dionae would be forced to stop moving over time. For a species that are immortal, that seems like a huge evolutional oversight coupled with the fact of how adaptive they are, how they can split, how their biomass can grow new nymphs which could bring in some sort of cycling factor to prevent such hardening.. Like a snake shedding skin? Furthermore, with dionae now feeling pain and all, it doesn't exactly make sense that they could harden to the point it stops moving since that would probably make them just as hard as an actual tree but feel a bit less pain than a human, which means they are quite sensitive for their species. These are just my opinions however.

----

My thoughts:
 

Personally I'd like to see something akin to aging but with potential to be reversed if in the void, like diving close to stars to burn off the built up layers, or some that have symbiotic relationships with creatures that help crack the hardening and eat it themselves on some planets. 

Largely I do really like the concept though, and it makes Diona actually have something that we sorely lack, unity 

Edited August 20, 2020 by Lmwevil
format

[Chada1]

2 hours ago, Lmwevil said:

relaying from lore discord:

TheDilShawnToday at 03:17

Just wanted to say two things. The thorns need to be fixed to overlay the gestalt's head (for some reason their neck covers like half the chest. Also it might be forgotten that Dionae can turn off their metabolism at will which could impact the rate that a gestalt hardens and grows.

TheDilShawnToday at 03:24

Also I don't very much agree on the notion that dionae would be forced to stop moving over time. For a species that are immortal, that seems like a huge evolutional oversight coupled with the fact of how adaptive they are, how they can split, how their biomass can grow new nymphs which could bring in some sort of cycling factor to prevent such hardening.. Like a snake shedding skin? Furthermore, with dionae now feeling pain and all, it doesn't exactly make sense that they could harden to the point it stops moving since that would probably make them just as hard as an actual tree but feel a bit less pain than a human, which means they are quite sensitive for their species. These are just my opinions however.

----

My thoughts:
 

Personally I'd like to see something akin to aging but with potential to be reversed if in the void, like diving close to stars to burn off the built up layers, or some that have symbiotic relationships with creatures that help crack the hardening and eat it themselves on some planets. 

Largely I do really like the concept though, and it makes Diona actually have something that we sorely lack, unity 

Hello, tyvm and the initial two things > Dionae have never really followed the rules of evolution, since if they did they'd already be the Apex of space rn, meaning they sort of completely defy the whole 'circle of life', I believe this is why Dionae have always been called enigmatic-- noone actually knows how they came to exist, since they defy the whole evolution thing already. In that sense, this makes as much sense and adds roleplay/narrative than everything else too.

AFAIK Dionae cant fully disable their metabolism at all, only reduce it, they can just stop eating air/gas and regrowing limbs/etc. If their metabolism completely halted, they'd just sorta die in broad daylight, like being injected with anti-rad medicine. This is why those drugs are being researched into suppressing their metabolism in a non-lethal way even beyond what they can do rn.

O also yup I agree, we could have the eternal who throw themselves into stars on average cure/massively reduce this condition, which could be seen as a v. large draw especially to Diona near the final stage of the hardening.

As for the unity, yup absolutely this creates an actual Dionae society a little bit, the young go out on the search for resources, the old are stuck in large colonies kinda, depending on their young and other species to remain alive. So this definitely creates a whole lot of dynamics between Dionae as a species and non-dionae for sure.

Edited August 21, 2020 by Chada1

[Chada1]

This can be locked and archived, since as of now it's been added to the lore

Edited September 5, 2020 by Chada1