[Answered]Dionae age and qualifications

[Xelnagahunter]

So, much like our existing IPCs we have creatures here that fall outside of the norm for work experience and the like. A nymph and absorb genetic material to gather knowledge, so several nymphs should be able to come together ready to be a full fledged adult, even after a few weeks/months. Right? So can a Dionae be only 6 months old and still effectively become a member of the crew?

Beyond that, how do qualifications work? I'm sure most Dionae don't go to human schools or learn physics in a classroom, so how do educational requirements work? What makes a Dionae qualified to work aboard the station at all ever? How does a newly grown diona go about becoming a member of the crew? These kinda need good canon answers, please and thank you.

[Killerhurtz]

Yes, Dionaea nymphs can do as described, absorbing information through genetic data - though the role is greatly overstated. While they DO learn a lot faster - the knowledge absorption IS still genetics. Hence why language is so easily to obtain - having been in a species' genes since before writing was a thing. However, the more complex the subject, the longer it has to have been - so for cooking, a chef which is the son of a chef might be able to give a Dionaea a good knowledge of cooking... but engineering would have to go back five generations or more for an "equivalent" knowledge - and so there's basically no one that could teach them how to set up a supermatter engine or a singularity engine. So yes, they can effectively become a member of crew at six months old (in "lesser" roles". However, because the Dionaea aging and genealogy is misunderstood and very complex, NanoTrasen has established a roughshod equivalence guide where Dionaea are evaluated on their "psychological maturity", which also pretty much evaluates how close to a human mindset they seem to be, and their capabilities - and gives them an age equivalent for the records. So an ancient Worker gestalt that has an alien mindset and very few useful qualifications could be evaluated to be 20, while a very recent and very qualified gestalt could get a 40-year equivalence.

For qualifications - the Dionaea are various. Most commonly, they get certifications on knowledge they have - a simple two-weeks seminar to update and clarify subjects that yield a document that approves them as being capable of working in places. Some groups (like, for instance, the Ophion gestalt with Research, or Venter's Satellite with atmospherics) get an "umbrella certification" - which allows every Worker that comes from a preset group to benefit from the certifications. Otherwise - when a Dionae wants to learn a new domain - there is no standard. Some seek digital sources - manuals, booklets, educational documents - on the Extranet, some DO take classes with other organics (mostly Skrell and Human), others seek people of expertise to obtain as many genetic samples as possible - as while an individual sample could only very limited knowledge if the person learned it in their lifetime, it is possible to cover subjects with the "sum knowledge" of a field - for instance, if a Dionae convinced every medical graduate to grant them a sample, the Dionaea would most likely get the sum of knowledge that the students had learned during their studies. Regardless, unless their method of learning comes with a certification, they will need to pass tests to prove their competence.

TL;DR: age approximate through evaluation mandatory for all Dionaea, they can become crew very fast, they're proven to be good at their jobs with certifications just like foreign immigrants.