If you're going for sci-fi realism, you need to recognise that alien species wouldn't share similar cell structures. No DNA, possibly not even any carbon. If animalia is just a kingdom that is a sub-group of a domain that is in turn a subgroup of 'life', then when we discover aliens, 'life' will need to become 'earth life', and any other planets will get their own hierarchy.
Naming moving multicelled organisms by a vernacular 'animal' is probably the better way to describe something that looks like it could fit into the animalia kingdom, yet in fact has nothing in common, or in fact no part in Earth-based taxonomic rank.
Why not?
These are all conscious, k-strategist, bipedal vocal-learner species with opposable thumbs, binocular vision, the capacity for empathy, cognition, abstract/mythical thinking, innovation, and use of tools. All but the Decheeran also share the traits of sexual reproduction, sexual dimorphism and specifically female mammaries. Given the simplification necessary to ensure that combat skills function against all playable races, it's safe to assume they also share some similar organ function and a similar chemical make-up that would make them all at least close to equally vulnerable to a variety of chemical reactions; for example, I assume that all or most are flammable.
While convergent evolution is possible, the likelihood of it is significantly diminished the further up the evolutionary tree you go, which is very far up indeed if you want to assume that humans and Jin, for example, achieved such similar musculoskeletal structures without even sharing bacteria as a common ancestor.
The theory of panspermia holds that life on Earth either started in Space or has the ability to disseminate from Earth to other planets. (In fact, that latter clause is a bit more than a theory; we already know this is possible, we just don't know if it's actually happened and resulted in life on other planets. Source Uno: Space Bears, Source Dos: Space Green.)
Adding a splash of Starmourn fi to our Earth sci, it's also fair to factor in that conscious kith-powered space-flight in Starmourn has existed for a minimum of 14 million years (at least predating the Worldbreaking; we just don't know how much further back more than that), and that 'sentient' life in space predates 'sentient' life on Earth ... I'm putting 'sentient' in quotation marks here because I don't know if it's meant in the more anthropocentric sense of 'human-like' or in the scientific sense of conscious and capable of emotion. The latter would imply that the Empyreals predate the evolution of primates, while the former only mandates that they predate the evolution of human beings.
And then you also have all that fossilised evidence on Earth of cone-headed aliens among us who told us all to build pyramids. I personally don't believe in that rubbish nonsense theory at all, but the realm of sci-fi has always been to lend credence to some of these rubbish nonsense theories as a sort of means of asking, 'what if?' So ... what if? It's totally possible to imagine, within the context of Starmourn, that remarkably similar alien species originating in different galaxies are not the remarkably coincidental product of convergent evolution, but rather intentional panspermia on a level that even NASA wouldn't entertain; that the Empyreals or some other Elder Race visited Earth and other habitable planets years ago (or maybe even uninhabitable planets they intentionally terraformed) and that they're not only our Gods, but our masterful (or perhaps accidental?) progenitors — a common ancestor we share with all the other Younger Races. And who knows! Maybe even Sasquatch is not only very real within our timeline, but is in fact a remnant of some Tukkav tribe who were left behind while the rest of his Homo x people promptly fucked off upon realising what an absolute clusterfuck of devastation their cousins the sapiens were about to wreak upon the planet.
"They are elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty." — Oscar Wilde
"I'll take care of it, Luke said. And because he said it instead of her, I knew he meant kill. That is what you have to do before you kill, I thought. You have to create an it, where none was before." — Margaret Atwood
@Kestrel There would still need to be substantial changes to the taxonomic ranks though. Let's say they all do fit into the same pyramid, your naming scheme still puts them all into the same genus. Let's put that in perspective - humans and deecheeran sharing more DNA than humans and chimps.
Sure, common life in terms of single cells is believable. Maybe aliens spread it around the galaxy on the soles of their boots a few billion years ago and that is why life forms on separate planets evolved on similar lines.
Convergent evolution isn't too hard to swallow - 4 legs is efficent, and using two legs for object manipulation going hand in hand with increased intelligence is also belivable.
A member of the homo genus being seeded throughout the galaxy long ago, and evolving to look like cats, birds, fish and trees, while retaining enough DNA to still be part of the same genus? Not so much.
Maybe it was intelligent design along the lines of what you said - an ancient alien race literally creating them in labs, then placing them in different places as an experiment. I almost want that to be the truth in reality, just to see the effect on religion...
Perhaps it's a mix. Maybe humans really are closely related to jin. Perhaps the Whoorn are the result of long ago gene-splicing experiments. While some others are completely different.
"They are elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty." — Oscar Wilde
"I'll take care of it, Luke said. And because he said it instead of her, I knew he meant kill. That is what you have to do before you kill, I thought. You have to create an it, where none was before." — Margaret Atwood
This is a science fiction/fantasy game that is more reliant on storytelling and RP. Not an X-treme Science Simulator 3000 guys, relax and enjoy the news
Comments
These are all conscious, k-strategist, bipedal vocal-learner species with opposable thumbs, binocular vision, the capacity for empathy, cognition, abstract/mythical thinking, innovation, and use of tools. All but the Decheeran also share the traits of sexual reproduction, sexual dimorphism and specifically female mammaries. Given the simplification necessary to ensure that combat skills function against all playable races, it's safe to assume they also share some similar organ function and a similar chemical make-up that would make them all at least close to equally vulnerable to a variety of chemical reactions; for example, I assume that all or most are flammable.
While convergent evolution is possible, the likelihood of it is significantly diminished the further up the evolutionary tree you go, which is very far up indeed if you want to assume that humans and Jin, for example, achieved such similar musculoskeletal structures without even sharing bacteria as a common ancestor.
The theory of panspermia holds that life on Earth either started in Space or has the ability to disseminate from Earth to other planets. (In fact, that latter clause is a bit more than a theory; we already know this is possible, we just don't know if it's actually happened and resulted in life on other planets. Source Uno: Space Bears, Source Dos: Space Green.)
Adding a splash of Starmourn fi to our Earth sci, it's also fair to factor in that conscious kith-powered space-flight in Starmourn has existed for a minimum of 14 million years (at least predating the Worldbreaking; we just don't know how much further back more than that), and that 'sentient' life in space predates 'sentient' life on Earth ... I'm putting 'sentient' in quotation marks here because I don't know if it's meant in the more anthropocentric sense of 'human-like' or in the scientific sense of conscious and capable of emotion. The latter would imply that the Empyreals predate the evolution of primates, while the former only mandates that they predate the evolution of human beings.
And then you also have all that fossilised evidence on Earth of cone-headed aliens among us who told us all to build pyramids. I personally don't believe in that rubbish nonsense theory at all, but the realm of sci-fi has always been to lend credence to some of these rubbish nonsense theories as a sort of means of asking, 'what if?' So ... what if?
It's totally possible to imagine, within the context of Starmourn, that remarkably similar alien species originating in different galaxies are not the remarkably coincidental product of convergent evolution, but rather intentional panspermia on a level that even NASA wouldn't entertain; that the Empyreals or some other Elder Race visited Earth and other habitable planets years ago (or maybe even uninhabitable planets they intentionally terraformed) and that they're not only our Gods, but our masterful (or perhaps accidental?) progenitors — a common ancestor we share with all the other Younger Races.
And who knows! Maybe even Sasquatch is not only very real within our timeline, but is in fact a remnant of some Tukkav tribe who were left behind while the rest of his Homo x people promptly fucked off upon realising what an absolute clusterfuck of devastation their cousins the sapiens were about to wreak upon the planet.
"They are elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty."
— Oscar Wilde
"I'll take care of it, Luke said. And because he said it instead of her, I knew he meant kill. That is what you have to do before you kill, I thought. You have to create an it, where none was before."
— Margaret Atwood
There would still need to be substantial changes to the taxonomic ranks though.
Let's say they all do fit into the same pyramid, your naming scheme still puts them all into the same genus. Let's put that in perspective - humans and deecheeran sharing more DNA than humans and chimps.
Sure, common life in terms of single cells is believable. Maybe aliens spread it around the galaxy on the soles of their boots a few billion years ago and that is why life forms on separate planets evolved on similar lines.
Convergent evolution isn't too hard to swallow - 4 legs is efficent, and using two legs for object manipulation going hand in hand with increased intelligence is also belivable.
A member of the homo genus being seeded throughout the galaxy long ago, and evolving to look like cats, birds, fish and trees, while retaining enough DNA to still be part of the same genus? Not so much.
Maybe it was intelligent design along the lines of what you said - an ancient alien race literally creating them in labs, then placing them in different places as an experiment. I almost want that to be the truth in reality, just to see the effect on religion...
Perhaps it's a mix. Maybe humans really are closely related to jin. Perhaps the Whoorn are the result of long ago gene-splicing experiments. While some others are completely different.
The W'hoorn were created by Monsanto.
"They are elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty."
— Oscar Wilde
"I'll take care of it, Luke said. And because he said it instead of her, I knew he meant kill. That is what you have to do before you kill, I thought. You have to create an it, where none was before."
— Margaret Atwood