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Post by Infinity Blade on Apr 25, 2019 9:49:09 GMT 5
This is a portion of my third chapter, specifically, how I handled how the protagonists start to realize that they've been not just spatially, but temporally displaced. I gave the animals their own year system*.
creature386, do you have any recommendations? “To be more specific, are you familiar with the name Hell Creek?”, asked Hem’yoc.
“Nope”.
Flurrd’kick decided to see if this guy knew any other names they knew. “How about some others, like Scollard, Willow Creek, North Horn, Lance-“.
“Oh, I know the Lance! But it’s been a real long time since it was called that. Like, millions of years, if I recall correctly”.
Hem’yoc and Flurrd’kick immediately grew surprised or confused looks on their faces. Millions of years?
“Millions of years? What year is this?”, demanded Hem’yoc. “About how many years since the Deathly Eruption have passed?!”. The Deathly Eruption was a huge volcanic eruption that, if one were to take the lore the animals believed in, occurred hundreds of millions of years ago, so named for killing the vast majority of lifeforms living on Earth. Honestly, no one even knew whether or not the Deathly Eruption actually happened, or whether or not there was even life on the planet so long ago for it to kill (assuming it genuinely occurred). To the vast majority of animals, or at least the ones who haven’t lost their minds, the answer to both of those questions was “probably not”. But it proved a useful metric for recording the years anyway, so everyone at least pretended that it was a real event.
“It’s been some 194,902,000 years since the Deathly Eruption passed. Close to 195 million years, actually. C’mon, don’t be like Bar’drick here”.
“A hundred ninety five million years!!??”, Hem’yoc incredulously repeated. It had been nearly 186 million years since the Deathly Eruption as she and Flurrd’kick had known it. Could…could they be in the future?
“So, uhh…about the big guy here. Do huge mammals tend to live around here in Wasatch?”, inquired Flurrd’kick, still amazed at Bar’drick’s great bulk.
“What place in the world don’t mammals around Bar’drick’s size live in?”, replied the Dipsalidictis.
“Uhh, not in Hell Creek”, Hem’yoc stated matter-of-factly. “Mammals where we’re from don’t get all that huge. If you want to see enormous animals, you look at dinosaurs, which dwarf even this dude here”, pointing to Bar’drick.
“Dinosaurs? The dinosaurs are just a legend, one that may or may not be true. Most of us lean towards it not being true. I mean, land-dwelling predators that weigh several tonnes? I’m not buying it”, the “creodont” said. *Specifically they count the years after a certain event, namely the P-T event. It was so traumatic to life on Earth that even millions of years later animals "remember" the event. Actually, they don't really believe it genuinely happened (after all, it has been nearly 200 million years), but pretend that it did for the purposes of a useful year-counting system. |
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Post by creature386 on Apr 25, 2019 18:07:55 GMT 5
The mammal size increase is a great way to show this.
My recommendation would be to give their home a familiar landmark such as a mountain which they would recognize even in the future, but they could see how it eroded over time.
The Deathly Eruption calendar is problematic. Each culture has their own time-keeping methods and no culture persists for 200 millions years. Especially with several mass extinctions in between. Especially if the world these cultures live in is even more savage than early human civilization. If the cultures don't even have written records, it is even more difficult for their successors to keep their knowledge.
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Post by Infinity Blade on Apr 26, 2019 8:48:54 GMT 5
Thinking about it now, I'm going to have to switch formations. I asked someone on Discord for help on Paleocene mammal faunas, particularly taxa that coexisted with Barylambda faberi, which is known from the Wasatch Formation (which is in southwestern Wyoming, not Montana). If I'm going to go with a landmark approach, however, I'll need to choose a place that at least is close to Hell Creek. I think the place that will become the Fort Union Formation (from Montana and Wyoming) will work better, considering it actually overlies the Hell Creek Formation. I'm going to use data I have found for fauna found in the Wyoming parts of the formation to extrapolate what fauna during the Paleocene of Montana would have been like. This also means that the gap in time between Hem'yoc's and Flurrd'kick's day in the Paleocene and the late Cretaceous isn't going to be as wide as it originally would have been.
B. faberi was going to be a creature I planned to use to emphasize the evolution of greater size in mammals, but I think now this will have to wait until the Eocene for that to really happen (and I think I already have a good plan for that epoch). Instead my approach might now have to focus on the unfamiliarity of the Paleocene fauna, even if they haven't quite gotten huge yet.
Sigh, which means I'll have to rewrite a significant portion of what I've already got down.
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Post by dinosauria101 on Apr 26, 2019 17:17:48 GMT 5
I asked someone on Discord for help Who are you on Discord? Would we be able to join a group chat or something? |
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Post by Infinity Blade on Apr 26, 2019 19:38:05 GMT 5
The mammal size increase is a great way to show this. My recommendation would be to give their home a familiar landmark such as a mountain which they would recognize even in the future, but they could see how it eroded over time. The Deathly Eruption calendar is problematic. Each culture has their own time-keeping methods and no culture persists for 200 millions years. Especially with several mass extinctions in between. Especially if the world these cultures live in is even more savage than early human civilization. If the cultures don't even have written records, it is even more difficult for their successors to keep their knowledge. I'm thinking about having the cave the characters took refuge in during the second chapter as the familiar landmark. I'm considering having the natives of the Paleocene be aware of the K-Pg extinction, but only because of written (carved) records into the walls of that cave; that latter portion isn't really an idea I like, though. With all this in mind, I'm a bit unsure now of how rapidly the animals of the Cenozoic should forget earlier ecosystems and faunas. I wanted them to go from having some (perchance even reasonable) memory of it during the Paleocene (just ~2 million years after the K-Pg event), to thinking that the K-Pg event and the species it killed being most likely just a myth during the Eocene, to having absolutely no memory of it by the Oligocene onwards. I kind of feel like that would be more effective for the story and the internal conflict. But obviously 2 million years, though not that long in the geologic time scale, is actually a helluva lot of time in absolute terms, so realistically the denizens of the Paleocene would be absolutely clueless about non-avian dinosaurs, pterosaurs, marine reptiles, the extinction event, etc. I'm torn between realism and (perceived) effectiveness in dragging the internal conflict along. |
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Post by creature386 on Apr 26, 2019 21:42:34 GMT 5
I'm in favor of the carvings. Unfortunately, I can't tell you anything about the average erosion rates in caves, but once you know how fast your cave erodes, you also know how long Cenozoic animals will remember their progenitors.
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Post by creature386 on May 4, 2019 16:51:58 GMT 5
Once I'm done with Life Before Man, I might write my own Jurassic Park.
I never thought I could do that because there was no way I could not make it feel like a ripoff, but I figured out some ways to make it fresh:
1. The prehistoric beasts will not be brought back from Mosquito blood.
This was fine during Critchton's time, but nowadays, we know DNA doesn't last this long.
Instead, people have an unbelievable understanding of genetics and phylogeny in the future. Show them the skeleton of an animal and they know what genes it had. Even if they don't, phylogenetic bracketing from extant relatives and plausible evolutionary paths will fill in the gaps.
The only exception will be recently extinct animals like mammoths (maybe even Megalodon, though I've yet to think of a preservation mechanism). They will leave behind actual DNA.
2. It will feature in THE FUTURE.
What I described above does not exist today. It will not exist in 20 years either. Hence, the story will take place near the end of the 21st century and have a cyberpunk aesthetic.
The protagonists all have cybernetic implants and drive on their magnetically levitating cars past the farmscraper-filled capital of the Federal Republic of Europe (or some other country of THE FUTURE!) into the Jurassic Park 2.0. There, the theropods get lab meat and the sauropods GMO crops.
Even though this futuristic world building might add some burden to the story, it will make it feel fresh.
3. Obscure animals
I can already hear your objections:
"If what you described took place, scientists would revive well-known animals like Tyrannosaurus rather than Giganotosaurus."
My answer:
"In the year 2082, scientists found a complete skeleton of G. carolinii"
Of course, well-known and beloved animals like Brachiosaurus, Tyrannosaurus or Velociraptor will feature. Otherwise, the park would quickly go bankrupt. However, they will not the only animals to feature and perhaps the story focus will be on the more obscure ones.
4. Wish fulfillment.
You know what follows from the above. There will be new scientific discoveries in the future and your pet theories will be proven true.
"Yes, Livyathan did grow to 16.2 m, had the vertebrate count of Physeter and the bone elongation of Brygmophyseter."
"Yes, Megalodon did grow to 20.3 m and 103 t and was an active predator."
"We now know the exact head proportions of Carcharodontosaurus!"
"The question to which extent Spinosaurus was terrestrial has been resolved once and for all."
"We now know which dinosaurs were fluffy and which not and to what extend."
Yes, making up scientific discoveries will make my work a laughingstock in ten years, but it will be a laughingstock even now if I assume our knowledge of science is exactly the same in the future as today.
I'll resist the temptation to make up genera though. I don't think I can.
Of course, I can include AVA scenarios like the Spinosaurus vs T. rex fight in JP III, but with one caveat…
5. Dinosaurus will not be the main villains.
Imagine you had a high-profile blockbuster movie where someone released a lion from the zoo. It kills a bunch of humans, the heroes flee in their car at the last moment and chase away… until someone shoots the lion with a handgun.
Yes, I know, bad analogy. But would the movie be much more exciting if I swapped out the lion for an Asian elephant in its musth?
A T. rex is basically just an elephant-sized lion. The difference is one of degree, not of kind.
Dinosaurs make terrible movie monsters for two reasons:
1. They are insufficiently motivated. Unless the dinosaur is a sadist like the Indominus rex, no big theropod will chase after a tiny human that can put up a decent defense (e.g. a protagonist). That's not how animals behave.
2. They are not powerful enough. Not even an Indominus rex would stand any chance against the military. Not even the largest sauropods would. Especially not in the future where a laser or a nanobot swarm could kill/incapacitate a dinosaur without huge collateral damage.
That's even assuming they could break out of future high-security zoos.
Besides practical considerations, it would be cool if people one day had the means to do what I outlined under the first point and I wouldn't want them to scare them into thinking it would be too dangerous.
That being said, maybe the dinosaurs will break out in some way, but because someone let them, not because they are inherently dangerous and hard to contain.
The Big Bad will be a human. Probably a C.E.O who wants to ruin the park because it somehow harms their own business (making their plans/actions both evil, realistic and threatening will be a challenge though).
Not making the dinosaurs the main villains risks making them irrelevant. Jurassic Park's T. rex would not have been so memorable had it only been in the background.
Possible ways to make the dinosaurs matter to the story:
1. The Jurassic Park 2.0 has a mascot (like Knut the polar bear from the Berlin zoo) which must be kept alive to keep the park going.
2. Some dinosaurs can be made sapient and aid the heroes.
3. There will be an outbreak scene, but it will not be the story's main problem. Having a Dreadnoughtus break out and walk through a densely populated area in the search of food would make an incredibly compelling short-term problem (it must be stopped as quickly as possible before it accidentally kills all these civilians!).
Of course, I need a name for the park. Anything with "park" in it just screams rip-off.
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Post by dinosauria101 on May 4, 2019 16:59:10 GMT 5
Obscure is just fine, we could have, say, Dinhierosaurus and Bistahieversor instead of, say, T rex and Apatosaurus. Not too saperate
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Post by creature386 on May 4, 2019 17:13:44 GMT 5
The park should still have an actual T. rex and an actual Apatosaurus in it though.
Otherwise, in-universe dinosaur fans would feel cheated. But yeah, the focus could be more on the Dinhierosaurus and Bistahieversor of course.
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Post by Infinity Blade on May 9, 2019 9:47:53 GMT 5
Just a heads up. Yes, I'm still working on the third chapter of my story. Unfortunately, finals are nigh upon me at my college. I must get those out of the way first.
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Post by dinosauria101 on May 11, 2019 7:39:37 GMT 5
I've got a new idea: What do you guys think of a conflict between 12 Dakotaraptors and a Deinosuchus? The plot is that the Deinosuchus often steals food from them and is too durable to quickly be killed, but the pack would eventually get revenge
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Post by DonaldCengXiongAzuma on May 12, 2019 18:12:35 GMT 5
/\ Please write your story.
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Post by creature386 on May 12, 2019 19:18:31 GMT 5
Not the most original story, but you can do it provided you have a big and epic boss fight in the end, so that we have an AVA scenario turned into a story.
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Post by dinosauria101 on May 12, 2019 19:21:02 GMT 5
^Actually it's dually inspired from different sources: the 12 Dakotaraptors vs Deinosuchus thread and the Postosuchus-Coelophysis conflict in WWD episode 1
It's also inspired by the commonplace theme of 1 big animal stealing from a bunch of smaller animals but the smaller ones unable to do much, until the end, when the lake dries up and the Dakotaraptors can confront and get revenge on the Deinosuchus
In fact, there won't be much AvA at all, mostly just a 'feud'of sorts between the 2 parties
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Post by creature386 on May 12, 2019 19:24:01 GMT 5
Ah, OK. That sounds good, actually.
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