Animal Kingdom FFA

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KraytKing
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Animal Kingdom FFA

Post by KraytKing »

As the title might suggest, this scenario is a bloody free-for-all between all animals on the planet. Every animal, including humans, is united with others of it's species in the desire to kill everything else. Two similar animals of different species will still kill each other, and two animals of the same species from different continents will team up to kill everything else.

For the sake of the battle, Q waves away all issues regarding environmental destruction. The death of all bees will not result in the death of all flowering plants.

Domesticated animals turn on their owners.

There are no behavioral modifications other than the desire to kill everything of a different species and all that that entails. Wolves won't know to avoid airstrikes, but will still avoid bears and the like.

Thoughts?
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phred
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Re: Animal Kingdom FFA

Post by phred »

My money is on some rainforest ant species... or deep sea fish. Something we can't easily get at. When the bugs come after us, we have problems.
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Tvpnbb
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Re: Animal Kingdom FFA

Post by Tvpnbb »

I'm assuming that outside of humans (at the beginning until communications infrastructure decays) species won't be able to coordinate large-scale maneuvers, e.g. all the ants within 10km attacking an isolated group of humans to strategically wipe the species out of the area, as such coordination is not natural to them. If they can coordinate however things might turn very differently, would definitely be easier for insects to swarm all opposition.

Unless humans win, there's not going to be a single winner. Land or air-based species, even amphibious ones, can't reach the deepest sea, and the deep sea creatures won't be able to reach the surface.

I'm not even sure will there be a single winner on land. There might be different winners on different continents and island, unable to cross any of them (again, unless humans win). Furthermore some of the larger animals might be able to coexist with insects if the insects lack the power to overwhelm them but they can't get rid of all he insects.

I think humans will at least survive unless they are wiped out immediately. Even small groups could potentially find ways to hide from any opposition too strong for them and live as hunter-gatherers, though insects could potentially be hard to deal with if too numerous. Hell, if society survives the initial wave we will have a massive advantage regards to communication, coordination, and weapons/tactics. If we don't manage to keep food production up though civilization will collapse and all these advantages will be lost. A lot will depend on whether we can keep farmlands under control.
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Formless
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Re: Animal Kingdom FFA

Post by Formless »

Nothing wins. Total annihilation. You destroy the food chain, and thus the ecosystem. End result, Earth is inherited by bacteria and slime molds.

What kind of stupidity is this?
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KraytKing
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Re: Animal Kingdom FFA

Post by KraytKing »

KraytKing wrote: For the sake of the battle, Q waves away all issues regarding environmental destruction. The death of all bees will not result in the death of all flowering plants.
If you don't know your rights, you don't have any.
--Mace

The Old Testament has as much validity for the foundation of a religion as the pattern my recent case of insect bites formed on my ass.
--Solauren

I always get nervous when I hear the word Christian.
--Mountain

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Formless
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Re: Animal Kingdom FFA

Post by Formless »

You are saying that animals no longer need to eat, and energy requirements are rendered irrelevant. No conclusions can be drawn about a system that gives thermodynamics the middle finger, idiot. This is why magic isn't a cure-all for all discussions.
"Still, I would love to see human beings, and their constituent organ systems, trivialized and commercialized to the same extent as damn iPods and other crappy consumer products. It would be absolutely horrific, yet so wonderful." — Shroom Man 777
"To Err is Human; to Arrr is Pirate." — Skallagrim
“I would suggest "Schmuckulating", which is what Futurists do and, by extension, what they are." — Commenter "Rayneau"
The Magic Eight Ball Conspiracy.
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KraytKing
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Re: Animal Kingdom FFA

Post by KraytKing »

Look man, I don't care about the aftermath. I know that nothing could possibly survive the destruction of all other animals. I'm just saying that I don't want to deal with mass die-offs due to plant destruction when there are more interesting things to discuss. Nothing has a hope of survival long-term, I just want to talk about the short-term battles. Try not to be a dick for a few minutes, or at least go to some other part of the forum.
If you don't know your rights, you don't have any.
--Mace

The Old Testament has as much validity for the foundation of a religion as the pattern my recent case of insect bites formed on my ass.
--Solauren

I always get nervous when I hear the word Christian.
--Mountain

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Formless
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Re: Animal Kingdom FFA

Post by Formless »

There is nothing to talk about except the aftermath. The sheer number of insects in the ground is ludicrous-- they literally outmass everything else in the animal kingdom, at least on land. The idea there will be "battles" is brain rot in its own right. Animals-- hell, most living organisms-- spend the vast majority of their time just obtaining food, with sleeping coming at probably second, and fucking a distant (but important) third. Literally every body part you have evolved in part to obtain either food or sex, and this includes your critically misused frontal lobes. This brings us back to the problem that the ecosystem will quickly crash unless these animal's instincts override your bullshit. And frankly, some animals just can't participate no matter what. You know how the two-toed sloth survives? The leaves they eat take so much time to digest that it literally could not survive by being any more active then, well, a sloth. It has some of the weakest and slowest muscles in the entire animal kingdom, but that's okay because if the sloth had no survival instincts natural selection would quickly eliminate the species. The way sloths avoid being eaten by predators is by hanging out in the high branches of trees all day and literally allowing moss to grow in their fur as a camouflage. They come down to the ground about once a week to take a shit, then go back up as quickly as their bodies allow. And you want to believe that fucking sloths would fight to the death against any animal let alone all the animals in the rainforest, just because Q said so? That's not interesting to think about, that's just inane. Watch some Nature documentaries for fucks sake. The reality of nature is far more interesting to witness than some disturbed fantasy discussion of whether the pack of dogs in your neighborhood could eat all the cats.

Animals are evolved to survive, not fight to the death like fucking Digimon. Hell, 90% of a soldier's time is actually spent doing the same; combat is an intense, but infrequent activity. We are, in the end, constrained by the same problem as the rest of life on Earth, and it makes war a lot more boring than Hollywood and the video game industry would lead you to believe. But besides all that, humans have rendered other species extinct just by plopping our stupid asscheeks down on habitats we don't understand and paving them over with concrete. Again, this isn't even interesting to think about, this ends with every rainforest on earth burning to the ground, and then humanity gets eaten alive by all the ants, cockroaches, and wasps you didn't know were living in your house already.
"Still, I would love to see human beings, and their constituent organ systems, trivialized and commercialized to the same extent as damn iPods and other crappy consumer products. It would be absolutely horrific, yet so wonderful." — Shroom Man 777
"To Err is Human; to Arrr is Pirate." — Skallagrim
“I would suggest "Schmuckulating", which is what Futurists do and, by extension, what they are." — Commenter "Rayneau"
The Magic Eight Ball Conspiracy.
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Darth Tanner
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Re: Animal Kingdom FFA

Post by Darth Tanner »

Humans are the only species capable of organising to allow coordinated mass extermination of its rivals, even those animals with crude societies will not be able to coordinate outside of their immediate territories.

Its going to be a long brutal war dealing with the bugs but on the presumption we don't all get eaten by bacteria then a small population of humans will most likely be left standing on a irradiated and chemically pollutted earth with nothing left to eat.

I believe we had this scenario a while ago where it was all animals larger than a mouse to exclude most insects. Having to wipe the insects out makes it a lose lose scenario as we are going to have to destroy the entire biosystem to get to them.
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KraytKing
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Re: Animal Kingdom FFA

Post by KraytKing »

Formless, how fucking stupid do you think I am? I know how interesting the natural world is, I spend half my fucking time in it. I had a somewhat interesting idea, so I shared it. Fucking pricks like you can't seem to understand that someone else might be marginally intelligent.
If you don't know your rights, you don't have any.
--Mace

The Old Testament has as much validity for the foundation of a religion as the pattern my recent case of insect bites formed on my ass.
--Solauren

I always get nervous when I hear the word Christian.
--Mountain

Brought to you by Carl's Jr.
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Formless
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Re: Animal Kingdom FFA

Post by Formless »

I go by demonstrated intelligence. And you have demonstrated none. Now quit your bitching. I don't give a fuck.
"Still, I would love to see human beings, and their constituent organ systems, trivialized and commercialized to the same extent as damn iPods and other crappy consumer products. It would be absolutely horrific, yet so wonderful." — Shroom Man 777
"To Err is Human; to Arrr is Pirate." — Skallagrim
“I would suggest "Schmuckulating", which is what Futurists do and, by extension, what they are." — Commenter "Rayneau"
The Magic Eight Ball Conspiracy.
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Raw Shark
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Re: Animal Kingdom FFA

Post by Raw Shark »

KraytKing wrote:I know how interesting the natural world is, I spend half my fucking time in it.
So... where do you spend the other half of your time, the Matrix or something..?

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Ziggy Stardust
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Re: Animal Kingdom FFA

Post by Ziggy Stardust »

KraytKing wrote:Look man, I don't care about the aftermath. I know that nothing could possibly survive the destruction of all other animals. I'm just saying that I don't want to deal with mass die-offs due to plant destruction when there are more interesting things to discuss. Nothing has a hope of survival long-term, I just want to talk about the short-term battles. Try not to be a dick for a few minutes, or at least go to some other part of the forum.
Sorry, with Formless on this one. I don't know that there even ARE "more interesting things to discuss", not without making the scenario less ambiguous.

How exactly does this "desire to kill everything else", as you state in the OP, work? Is every animal overcome with nothing but the desire to kill other animals, like "28 Days Later" style zombies? Does this mean that they neglect all of their other essential bodily functions, and just move on in a relentless desire to kill, without stopping to eat or reproduce or anything? How does this impact animals that are physiologically incapable of really fighting ANYTHING (Formless mentioned sloths, for one; but how about something like deep sea tube worms or sea anemones or other animals that are physically incapable of locomotion)? Does a single ant, separated from its colony, relentlessly try to attack the water buffalo that happens to be nearby, or is it capable of making decisions about what other animals to attack or not attack at any moment? If wolves "still avoid bears", and there are no "other behavioral modifications", how does this scenario NOT just reduce to all animals acting more or less the same way they act in nature, while humans just bomb the shit out of them?

How do "two animals of the same species from different continents" team up? How does an albatross flying above the Straight of Magellan coordinate anything with an albatross flying somewhere in the South Pacific? How is such coordination possible without making the other behavioral modifications you claim that your scenario doesn't imply?

Hell, for that matter, how are we even defining "species"? That isn't even a well-defined concept (there's something on the order of 20-25 different possible biological definitions of 'species', none of which are exhaustively unambiguous). Which one are the animals themselves using? What about the thousands of species that we identify as distinct due to minute genetic or morphological differences that are only detectable in a lab, how do the animals know? Do they just "sense" it?

Instead of getting defensive that people don't like your scenario, maybe you should try to think through some of the questions that Formless raised, and now I have. As it stands, your scenario ambiguously gives every animal on earth ill-defined magical abilities and goals, which makes any actual discussion impossible. It's too vague and open-ended for any of us to actually predict what any given animal will do in this scenario.
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