1. I'm more astonished that you even care for something so irrelevant. Then again, people haven't asked what kind of grandma underwear would Barenziah wear.

2. It's not a feeling. You have nothing substantial from any text or in game except based on physical resemblances. Have you heard of convergent evolution? Structures of two organisms from radically different lineages are similar. But, even that statement lacks any evidence from in-game that convergent evolution happened. Simply, not having any phylogenetic relationships mentioned is I don't know irrelevant.

Really now..

@Knight Mariel- Domesticated is the key word. Yes, many things which are unrelated have legs and eyes and skin and dikes.

you must've missed the memo, a telvanni wizard did it.

I don't care if it is domesticated. And you're annoying for even mentioning about your reply about convergent evolution comment.



And you're not funny.

What?

Something which is domesticated does not evolve cross phylum. The dogs of today are very little different from modern wolves, and we have domesticated dogs for millenia so don't assume then a jellyfish can do what dog has not accomplished in less time, and cross into a totaly different animal through domestication.

You are annoying for being little more than a fool tossing convergent evolution around as if it nulifies the arguement against jellies turning into fleas. It is not done in domestication period That is the arguement at hand, and thanks to you there will be more confusion in the matter where there would not have otherwise been. Good day to you.

Not only annoying, but you've been unable to even get the gist of what I said. I'm not even tackling whatever argument you're talking about jellies and fish because any claim or theory in order to attempt to connect some form of common ancestry is unsubstantiated, which is what I've been saying in the first place, and from what I see, you've backing each other up with more claims. Then again, CP actually said something I agree with and know nothing about their natural histories. What have you? Extrapolations based on bio 101?

Let's not say there's an argument at hand, at this point it's little more than the argument for one to have the right to propose an idea based on physical resemblances free of harassments.

So let's not put into position that I'm "arguing" anything, thanks.

Well, actually, I stilt rider could only have been a netch bilions of years before, as they are not the same animals at all. But since Nirn is not that old, stilt rider must have been created as they are now from the aedra. And saying that we couldnt know evolution without having studying it is a very VERY easy argument, wich is a shame. Don't harrass the guy because he does not agree wih you, it was a neat idea, only not logical. Now how about we talk about Barenziah's underwears.....

You both are arguing for the same conclusion but going at it from different directions. Stop talking about it, your both right.

Netches don't even look like silt striders. Netches are big jellyfish floating in the sky, they have a soft baggy body (though the males do have a sort of leather skin) and long floppy tentacles. The silt striders are basically giant fleas, they do not fly but walk on long segmented legs, they do not have a clear jelly-like anatomy but insect organs within their chitinous shell.

Really, the only similarities are that they're big things with long and thin appendages below them. That is as far as you can go. The whole starting hypothesis is so stupid it looks like a joke. And a bad one.

You've had your say in the matter, and since your position has devolved into a spitting match, it's not entirely worth honoring with further attempts to go "If you insist, and please desist the continuous demeaning statements". If you disagree so vehemently that insults are necessary that's your right, but I don't think it's necessarily consistent with forum policies.

I did not insult anybody.

Yeah, it's kinda dumb...but by no means do I think it deserves this level of flaming on Ridefort.

Sorry for the doublepost, but look back at your post before that one, and try to tell us there was no malice in it.

You "not insulting anybody" is a load of bull, and I bet you know that.

However people want to respond, I suppose they are entitled - I just don't see the harm in discussing potential possibilities inherent in the lore, regardless of one's initial estimation on it. But this is unfortunately all frightfully off topic, the discussion was supposed to be about Silt Strider origins, not insults or flames towards the poster. Ah well.

Ok then, perhaps you would care to explain how it would be biologically possible for a netch, essentially an http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siphonophore, to become an arthropod, which is a completely different phylum, within the 5000 years or so since the Velothi came to Morrowind. That is what you proposed, isn't it?

I'm not 100% sure of the point of the inquiry - the possibility was thrown out, it was refuted, and I offered my assent to the refutation. That makes any further demands for me to support a theory I myself don't support little more than beating a dead horse.

Noone said it went Netch -> Stilt Strider, it could have easily gone Stilt Strider -> Netch, if they began splitting by some developing bouyant sacs of air, lessening the need for strong legs and limiting size increases due to the strain on the air sacs, while others grew stronger, longer legs. Looking at a koala and a kangaroo, it could be difficult to see that they are related, but they are.

I don't think that the idea of stilt striders coming from netch sounds very plausible. But if anyone did make netch into stilt striders then it would obviously have been the Telvanni. They build towers out of mushroom, have members that are over 4000 years old who cure corpus and Azura knows what else.

but personally I think a theory that stilt striders are enlarged scribs sound much more likely, but I don't believe that's their origin either.

Criticizing an idea is not the same as criticizing the person who had it. :rolleyes:

Doesn't mean it can't be taken as insults.

Cool down, Gez. Have that new pitchfork of yours gotten to your head?

Only by people who feel really, really strongly about the issue and have a passionate desire to see their stupid idea accepted by everyone.

Just a thought - The creatures we see in ES have to be a small fraction of the actual creatures in and around Tamriel - understood the likely origins coming through the plascticity of the Aedra and whatever other spirits have not yet worked their way into the Lore.

Given that you have to ask yourself is it likely that there are other creatures more like stilt striders and further creatures more like Netches that we have not yet seen> Probably.

However if you accept that all the creatures of Tamriel arrived at their present forms as a result of the original spirit's plasticity then they likely all came from the same creature a couple of thousand years ago. Unless in the process of forming some of those spirits started forming one and then changes their minds and formed the other half-way through?

Check the Mopnomyth again = the things that you're liable to read in the bible aint necessarily sooo.

Having said that what about the Hist? We have yet another major area of Lore that is only part-formed and on the same continent where all else takes place ...

Bewaarree of takin' the claims of any one race at face value.

Or at least it might be courteous when doing so to state that you speak as a member of a specific race or faction. Wanna make that a forum rule?

Wwhhhaaatt? Briefly?

Not understand paw-prints. Care to clarify?