Skrellian Herbivores?

[Jakers457]

This puzzles me somewhat, Skrell would need a decent source of protein for the mental capacity in which they hold, if my basic understanding is correct.... which it probably won't be. But surely they'd be insectivore at the very least? To a decent amount of protein their body unless they devour large amounts of space spinach and kale? Just curious as all.

[jackfractal]

They could have evolved from a species that has complete protein manufacturing capabilities.

We need to eat protein because we can't produce the eight essential amino acids, and we're either bad at, or unable, to produce most vitamins as well. If the skrell biosphere evolved from creatures who had cell architecture capable of producing the protein building blocks that they needed entirely from simple components (common sugars for example) then the entire biosphere would be able to eat... pretty much anything. I haven't really thought through all the implications of that, but it would make their biosphere very unusual to human eyes as extreme specialization would not be an advantage in most cases.

An alternative, if we wanted to go with the bio-luminescence idea, the skrell could host beneficial bacterial colonies throughout their body (which is where the bio-luminescence would come from) and those bacteria colonies could be the ones that balance their nutrition. Like human gut fauna, but more distributed throughout their body.

They could even have a sort of paired cell structure. Skrell cells and bacteria cells could be linked in some way, much like how our mitochondria are single-celled organisms that were either eaten by or invaded our ancient single-celled ancestors and just stuck around in a symbiotic relationship. We keep them safe and provide them a home, and they produce ATP which we need to power our chemical factories.

[SgtSammac]

Different Flora on their planet might provide differing levels of nutrition?

I dunno, I'll wait and let the Skrell lore dev get here first before I say anything else, was just a thought.

[mrimatool]

Jack was right on his first assumption, I'm barely even needed here xD.