accessing the future via the past

[Worldtree]

Here's some of the Muuh threads

Gengineered Muuh/Muuh vecs
http://www.orionsarm.com/forum/showthrea...light=muuh

Muuh Cyberspaces and Muuh Archives
http://www.orionsarm.com/forum/showthrea...light=muuh

Muuh Clade Variation
http://www.orionsarm.com/forum/showthrea...light=muuh

Muuhformer Minds
http://www.orionsarm.com/forum/showthrea...light=muuh

Muuhome
http://www.orionsarm.com/forum/showthrea...light=muuh

[tomzdadster]

Thank you for guidance and encouragement, Todd!
I'll try to find the appropriate forum/thread for discussing the Muuh
As learn more about them from the archive, I can see that there's far more depth and detail to them than is currently showing on the site.
Partly because of your points about not repeating prevalent sci-fi tropes and because of the need to ground thinking in science, I'm interested in seeing that archive material brought to the fore, if that works for others.
Btw, I'm kind of wondering how sexual reproduction makes sense for a species like the Muuh .... sex is usually seen as requiring a lot of energy ...
Anyway, there's been a lot of great guidance and support from OA members. Thanks again.

[Drashner1]

Thank you for guidance and encouragement, Todd!
I'll try to find the appropriate forum/thread for discussing the Muuh

You're very welcome And if you don't find an existing thread that really works for discussing the Muuh, feel free to start one. Creating new sub-forums isn't something we do lightly, but any member can create new threads as the spirit moves them.

Btw, I'm kind of wondering how sexual reproduction makes sense for a species like the Muuh .... sex is usually seen as requiring a lot of energy ...

Perhaps something like the way fish do it?

One Muuh could lay some kind of egg(s) and then one or more Muuh could fertilize it/them externally. The parents (however many that might be) could then cooperate to care for the egg(s) and offspring.

Or perhaps they release spores which gradually grow into a Muuh child or adult, either when they come into contact with another Muuh, where they stick and 'gestate, or even in an appropriate local environement. Perhaps the Muuh 'farm' the next generation instead of birth them.

Just some thoughts,

Todd

[Rynn]

Btw, I'm kind of wondering how sexual reproduction makes sense for a species like the Muuh .... sex is usually seen as requiring a lot of energy ...

Wishful thinking I'd say there In all seriousness there are plenty of animals for whom reproduction is not that intensive. In terms of how the Muuh might do it consider that they are symmetrical along the dorsal-ventral axis. Reproductive organs are therefore unlikely to be on the top or bottom of the body (because if a Muuh had flipped over at some point they'd have to flip back over for sex, an energy intensive move for them). That rules out front or rear entry penetration. They may reproduce by spawning as Todd says, for another idea though they could have egg sacs tucked away inside their shell. From the pictures of the Muuh we know they have a gap between their upper and lower shell, within the posterior may lie the genitals and egg sac. Muuh could reproduce by coming in contact end-to-end. Sex happens and a new Muuh grows in the sac protected within the shell opening. However long later it grows to an immature form and breaks out of the sac, the mother rests as the small, young muuh crawls onto the ice and takes its first steps.

Another thing to consider is whether or not Muuh are K- or R selectors, which is a fancy way of saying "do they have a lot of kids they don't spent much effort raising, or a few kids they spend a lot of effort raising?" It could be that Muuh give birth like humans, with one or two children at a time they raise in family groups. Or maybe they give birth to litters of pre-sophont Muuh, most of which will die due to the dangerous nature of being a slow cryolife organism. But a few will live to sophonce and at that point join the community.

Lots to play around with, any it could all end up just being a Muuh taboo! God knows sex is taboo enough in many human cultures.

[selden]

Consider the squid:

The male reaches under his own mantle with a specialized tentacle, retrieves a sperm sack, then reaches under the female's mantle to deposit it. Of course, there's a lot of colorful foreplay to persuade the female to allow that to happen.

[tomzdadster]

It's great that everyone is so enthusiastic about figuring out how the poor Muuh do it, but I'm now realizing that my previous post wasn't very clear at all. I meant to point at sexual reproduction as a strategy used by everything from marigolds to, well, squids. It's generally considered to be "expensive," not in terms of the sex act alone, but as an overall summation of the incredible amount of energy/resources that go into producing viable offspring. In comparison, budding, for example, doesn't require much. I don't even know if budding feels good, although sexual reproduction doesn't always feel good either. Sad face.

Budding has it's uses (just ask a Hydra), especially if you're energetically/resource challenged, but it doesn't exactly rock the genetic variability angle, and, anyway, I haven't seen anything on OA which would suggest that the Muuh are into budding. Yet.

But I did see this today:
http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.v...Millennia/

Lateral Gene Transfer, aka Horizontal Gene Transfer. Okay, I'm obsessed with it. I'll just come clean. In the past it's been discussed as a prokaryotic thing, but there's more and more evidence of LGT-type activity in eukaryotes/multi-cellular creatures. Like humans. And, yeah, I am seeing part of the discussion taking place in terms of disease vectors in humans, and, yeah, I'm also obsessed with how LGT seems to undermine conventional definitions of "species." I'm willing to admit all of that. But still, for the energetically challenged, it might offer survival advantages that aren't applicable to a Garden World context. Whether it's a strategy that evolves "naturally" on Muuhome (or elsewhere), or it's been provolved into the picture, or the Muuh did it to themselves just so they could have options.... Hey, they could even make it feel good.

Ooohhh, and here's something which suggests that, without LGT/HGT, arthropods might never have been able to wreak havoc on the plant world, which they definitely do:

http://gbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/8/6/1785.full

There's also the further implication that LGT/HGT might have come to the fore as a relevant to the process of natural selection in herbivorous arthropods precisely because plants are so successful at fending off herbivores. Actually, plants can be incredibly manipulative. Don't fall in love with a plant.

Anyway, talk about undermining conventional notions of how natural selection works in eukaryotes.... Well, only if it's a strategy that's used more often than it seems to be used on Earth....

Hey, what if the Muuh (or any other non-prokaryotes) never even crossed the Darwinian Threshold:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3043529/

?
Or what if they straddled it? With so many legs, it shouldn't a problem.....

[tomzdadster]

Here's some of the Muuh threads

Bless you