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Do you use Speculative Evolution?

I hope this is the right place for this question. Do you tend to use speculative evolution a lot in your worlds? While I am not against explaining away why things act they way they do beacasue of magic, it gives me some satisfaction to have a plausible, if not accurate reasoning behind it. As an example, for my world, I have the 'fire' that dragons spew actually be venom ejected from their mouths by special tissue so powerful, that the particles in the venom sizzle, looking like flames.
 
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Incanus

Auror
Assuming I understand this correctly, I would say I often use something like this in my world-building.

Leaving out some details, I have a situation where new discoveries in the field of sorcery led to differences in opinion about them among different societies, such that a war was begun over the issue. During the course of that war, further new innovations in sorcery were quickly developed and introduced on the battlefield(s). At the conclusion of the war, these innovations were carried on and put toward non-war uses.

This creates a series of actions and reactions and evolution. A loose parallel to this might be how airplanes developed before, during, and after the first World War.

Is this the kind of thing you mean, or were you more focused on how fictional creatures might evolve?
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
I had to look up the term. Given that it's mainly an SF thing, I'd have to say I don't. OTOH, since I write alternative historical fantasy, I do a great deal of starting with some historical fact (roughly equivalent to starting with a scientific fact in SF), then speculating--oh, let's admit it's just inventing--a consistent variation or consequence of that.

It's odd that there has emerged a specific term, grandly clothed in Latinate form. Back in the day, they just called it What If?
 
I have racism in my story, not meaning prejudice. And there is magic that relates to law keeping more than anything else. What you might say is stretching the imagination might be considered speculative evolutions.

If you are asking for an opinion on what constitutes magic, then I’d have to say there is a thin line between what is real and not, and that comes down to science not speculative evolutions.

Looking in some of the books I own; I’d have to say none of the magic is similar, nor is the world building, but there are patterns that derive from other patterns, giving a measurement of sorts.
 

Incanus

Auror
Ah, I hadn't realized this is a known and used term. Going by what it says at Wikipedia, I would say I'm not using Speculative Evolution in my world building. It seems to be mostly sci-fi, and it seems to be mostly biological/zoological. I have a few invented creatures, but they were not developed out along scientific lines.

My fantasy world stuff is more like a bunch of 'what-ifs', with many of them as part of a larger chain of developments. That said, I have adapted a pretty well-known trope from sci-fi, but I've re-purposed it for my fantasy setting.
 

JBCrowson

Inkling
I have some elements of Speculative Evolution - for example my arthropod derived races are too bulky to work like RW bugs - gas diffusion from tracheoles in each segment of their bodies. So they have a circulatory system to carry absorbed gases away from their tracheoles to the areas too far away for diffusion to work. It makes them impossible to smother unless you cover pretty much all the tracheoles down both sides of their bodies. At no point (yet) has any of that needed to be described in any of the bits I've written, but I wanted to know how their physiology worked for my self.
Another example is a desert plant with a nasty means of self dispersal. It injects spores into the flesh of any creature that touches it, which germinate, spread through the creature killing it. The spores then have a nutrition source to grow a new plant. The time taken to die means the victim has wondered far enough away that the new plant isn't competing for scarce resources with its parent.
 

Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
I’ve definitely thought about it, but… I don’t know if anything I’m using really counts. I add in magic, and then speculate.

For example, I have a variety of creatures that feed on rotting magic. There’s a powerful dead magic being buried somewhere, so that whole region is infested with these creatures. They all have the same set of magic traits, but the physical evolved differences make the six or so different creatures unique.

I do a lot of that kind of thing.
 

Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
That sounds like an MMO, Devor. Those things with basically no plot and entirely speculative evolution.

Yes? Kind of? If I had to list ten inspirations, World of Warcraft is on the list, and it’s the one which would make me think on spec evolution like this. A secret dream goal of mine is to have a video game take place after the books, and I kind of had that in mind at times when I designed the world.

But, the individual creatures are also based on cool Celtic legends, and they aren’t a big part of the setting. The story is planned for five books, where the first feels like a tight personal story, and it spirals into an epic fantasy as the series continues. Each book also explores a new aspect of Fairy magic, and the corrupted, rotted, and undead side of fairy magic is slated for book three, even though it exists and is hinted earlier.
 

pmmg

Myth Weaver
Looking up the term Speculative Evolution, I can say with some certainty, I do not use this in my own fiction. I do have something that might seem like this, in which there are much pits that kind of mutate the existing wildlife into much more dangerous foes. A large cat for instance being changed in that it was larger and had inky black tentacles on its back, but to satisfy Speculative Evolution, I would have to consider its biosphere and timelines and future evolution. I did not do any of that.
 

Saigonnus

Auror
I also tend to have a "logical" reason for things; even in a realm where magic exists. Dragons; to use your example, in my world, don't spit fire (or anything for that matter). At one time (thousands of years ago), engravers (wizards) used a fireball charm that the dragon themselves could trigger; which is the source of that particular "legend".

They are also not the size of a house; mainly due to how much a creature like that would have to eat just to walk around. Instead, they are a bit larger than a horse; not counting the long tail; and they live in a family pod that might house up to ten or twelve of the creatures.

They also don't fly. It never made sense to me that a creature of such a large size could fly; even counting wings thrice their width... they would be too heavy, illogical. So, I made mine so they are fast (like a cheetah); for short distances.
 
They also don't fly. It never made sense to me that a creature of such a large size could fly; even counting wings thrice their width... t
This part was always challenging for me to implement in a satisfying way, so I tried to put more focus on non-winged dragons and the species that are winged, living in mountain regions, and gliding more than having actual sustained flight.
 

Saigonnus

Auror
Gliding would be okay, but they'd still have to be smaller, maybe the size of a large dog, which would be terrifying if they were pack hunters, like a murder of crows.
 

pmmg

Myth Weaver
I also tend to have a "logical" reason for things; even in a realm where magic exists. Dragons; to use your example, in my world, don't spit fire (or anything for that matter). At one time (thousands of years ago), engravers (wizards) used a fireball charm that the dragon themselves could trigger; which is the source of that particular "legend".

They are also not the size of a house; mainly due to how much a creature like that would have to eat just to walk around. Instead, they are a bit larger than a horse; not counting the long tail; and they live in a family pod that might house up to ten or twelve of the creatures.

They also don't fly. It never made sense to me that a creature of such a large size could fly; even counting wings thrice their width... they would be too heavy, illogical. So, I made mine so they are fast (like a cheetah); for short distances.

Sounds like you are taking the fun out of fantasy. Why have dragon at all? Judging by real worlds standards, they just simply dont exist.
 
I hope this is the right place for this question. Do you tend to use speculative evolution a lot in your worlds? While I am not against explaining away why things act they way they do beacasue of magic, it gives me some satisfaction to have a plausible, if not accurate reasoning behind it. As an example, for my world, I have the 'fire' that dragons spew actually be venom ejected from their mouths by special tissue so powerful, that the particles in the venom sizzle, looking like flames.
I tend to develop rules for how things work (even magic) and then make everything conform to those. This way, the world is internally consistent. I do this even if the rules are ridiculous. (Although I will occasionally fudge a rule if it makes for better comedy.)

I once wrote a short story where, because cats always land on their feet, and toast always lands buttered side down, bridges were supported by large colonies of cats with toast harnessed to their backs (buttered-side-out) living on the underside. They were fed twice per day with special trays that were suspended beneath the bridge deck, and, of course, the more active or enterprising among them tended to catch plenty of birds. The birds, it seems, couldn't resist all of those pieces of toast just wandering and lying around like that, and they tended to forget that they were also rather pointy on five ends.
There was also a separate species of feline called "Stumpys" living in that land. Stumpys had much shorter legs and an intense fear of heights. Though related to cats, their evolutionary path diverged centuries earlier, before the perfection of the technology to ensure the toast always stayed on properly.

I had to acknowledge, however, that gravity refusing to act on the toast-adorned cats, was only one possible outcome of these opposing rules. Another is that if one strapped buttered toast to a cat's back, buttered side out, and dropped it, it would fall to perhaps a couple of feet from the ground and then spin incessantly. I was therefore compelled to write another brief story where these furry little perpetual motion machines were used to generate electricity by dropping them into the middle of a set of magnetic coils. I love animals, so I felt rather guilty consigning the cats to that kind of fate, but it was a story that demanded writing, nevertheless.

These then became two neighbouring lands that my protagonist travelled through, and was rather shocked by these discoveries. Because the basic premises were already absurd, I didn't feel the need to resolve why these "laws" of 'pseudo-physics' would operate differently from one country to the next. Had I felt so compelled, I would likely have made it the result of two different systems of government. I suspect that I may have begun with the natural state having been where gravity just said "Well, bugger 'em then" and leaves them where they are, and that the law was amended by an act of parliament in the neighbouring country, under pressure from the clean-energy lobby and despite passionate protestations from the animal rights lobby. In fact, the generating stations are, no doubt, under constant threat of sabotage by animal-rights activists, despite following strict regulations for spin times and breaks for the cats, maximum spin-hours per month, providing comfortable living accommodations, good food, and regular veterinary check-ups for them, and requiring that they be retired after a maximum of five years. Furthermore, upon retirement, if they are not adopted out, the Feline-Electric Corp. (a public corporation) is required to continue providing for them in retirement.

Umm..., that got a little involved, sorry.

I don't know if my ramblings are of any help, but it was fun revisiting this story premise. It's been nearly 30 years since I originally wrote these.
 

ThinkerX

Myth Weaver
I have 'Lovecraftian Evolution,' plus meddling by the ancient aliens. The former was largely responsible for the creation of the cat-like Rachasa - they were supposed to be the shock troops/hunters of the Twisted Mother. (Let's see who here can identify her.) Ancient alien experimentation trapped a race of etheric spirits in human form, who modified their fleshly host bodies. (Elves.)
 

Saigonnus

Auror
Sounds like you are taking the fun out of fantasy. Why have dragon at all? Judging by real worlds standards, they just simply dont exist.

Not at all. Dragons are still fantastic creatures, just not the stereotypical stylized ones that are bigger than house for no reason, breathe fire for no reason, and be immune to basically everything for no reason; well, except for the "cool" factor.
 
Sounds like you are taking the fun out of fantasy. Why have dragon at all? Judging by real worlds standards, they just simply dont exist.
Science doesn't believe that the humble bumble bee should fly, but it flies all the same, same can be said for dragons.
Science also doesn't believe that time can be slowed or stopped, but the kitsune in my story don't care, they just have to do an ass load of math, geology, and positional reasoning all at once to make it work.
 
Science doesn't believe that the humble bumble bee should fly, but it flies all the same,
It does believe that bees can fly. The quote is something that the Bee Movie based of off myths, I think.
Sounds like you are taking the fun out of fantasy. Why have dragon at all? Judging by real worlds standards, they just simply dont exist.
I think, in some ways, guessing how things can 'really' act like, is fun. It certainly feels that way to me at times.
 
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