This discussion svcks.

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In a fantasy world everything is possible. Though you won't see Helseth making out with his stepsister in a leather fetish movie any time soon because their characters would make such a turn of events very unlikely. He'd be tide up and she'd be biting his other ear off.

So yes it is possible that somebody took a Netch, decided to change everything characteristic about it and turn it into a Stilt Strider. He could have supersized any ordinary flea from his asscrack and be done in five minutes but lets assume there is the possibility that some crazy Telvani that doesn't have that clarity of mind.

Since it is a real possibility that 'the wizard did it', and there is no lore to counter it -it is gameplay afterall- this argument must obviously be right! Except it isn't because absence of contradiction is not proof of confirmation. Which there isn't any off, (and hence theories are incomplete, thus only rather true for a limited set of observations).

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Now for the second argument, if Netch could have evolved from Stiltstriders or viseversa, it is like saying that Men descends from Ape. Which popular memes aside, he doesn't. Men and Ape share a common ancestor.

So wrong.

But a Netch and Stiltstrider might also share a common ancestor. If not because they evolved that way, -not likely since Nirn has some 7500 years on the counter- then because they were made from the same bit from the same god that took part in the creation of Nirn.

So this about the same as saying that Men and Dinosaurs shared a common ancestor, somewhat obvious, but also some what trivial, or in other words not a discovery and dumb.

Easy there big feller - this aint a literary competition is it?


This is not where Lore is establised either is it?


Just a place where lore is discussed.


If you are able to make your own web-site into a Dev-Lore-creation zone then more power to you , but this is just a place where everyone, including uncle tom cobbley's dog, get to bark, air their views and share their ideas, right?

I'm well aware. Come back when you know which is which.


Can you point me to where that is in this thread?

Is it here...?


Nope, not there. My bad.

1999:

A discussion requires a subject for discussion and I believe I was discussing the most interesting subject at hand! The discussion of lore itself.

So enlighten me, which part was out of place here?

The preamble?

In any international treaty the Vienna Conventions on Treaty Law hold that in the absence of relevant material in the articles thereof additional material in the preamble (or post script) actually takes effect as part of the treaty because it is accepted that it shows the general feelings and intentions of the signatories at the time.

There are some interesting bits in this thread - not least the Lore content of your addition - just people are getting side-tracked with irrelevant emotional overload.

Basically establishing matters 'de rerum natura' is always valuable - and even more valuable if there is something new that IS viable.

Really? Then what is your problem with my comment?

Have I said someone in this thread had behaved in such a way? No, I haven't.

If air sacs were a sixy feature in stilt striders, then sixual selection could explain a stilt strider to netch transition as the air sacs forming due to being sixy, and then successive males better use the airsacs, at the cost of their legs, which turn into tentacles. The only problem I see with this is that the stilt striders are still around, when they probably would have been wiped out if air sacs emerged as a featured favored by sixual selection. There are also other problems with this hypothesis, but theres no need to go into them.


good point.

Now for the second argument, if Netch could have evolved from Stiltstriders or viseversa, it is like saying that Men descends from Ape. Which popular memes aside, he doesn't. Men and Ape share a common ancestor.

So wrong.
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So you're saying men dosent descends from ape? Meaning what, that they arrived as they were? If so, i hope you're joking O-o

Apes and humans are descended from a common primate like ancestor. Ape's as we know them, are not the direct ancestors of humanity. It would be truer to say that man and the living primates are cousins descended from the same grand-parents. (Only a much longer line of descent in reality)

The debate over evolution, as a condensed metaphor:
"Hey, I just learned that Alice was Bob's cousin!"
"What? How dare you pretend Alice is Bob's grandfather?"

'Yup. Goes to show that spin isn't something Karl Rove invented. Though you have to admire his skills.'

-Cited from "How to derail a topic in 5 steps".

Species don't necissarily evolve to be sixier, they change based on what makes living easier. This means that the proto-striders with strong legs instead of air-sacs would still be around, and they would be able to get much bigger than the proto-netches, making it easier to live. If all creatures curved, rather than branched, down the genetic lines, there wouldn't be nearly as many species on earth

IF for some reason, members of the opposite six favour a certain feature, The feature can become more prominent in the species and eventually become more and more prominent. sixual selection, is thus the choosing of features that aren't necesarily an advantage to the species as criteria for mating. On this head the idea has been proposed that its is advantagous for males to develop these features, as it indicates to the females that "hey, I'm handicapped, but I can do just as well as the other guy, I'm a more fit male."OF course, as you'll read in my post, I stated that there would be plenty of other problems in the hypothesis rendering it improbable.

The following is discounting the lack of time and the rather radical differences between Netches and Stil Striders.

Darwin finches would be a good example where one finch splits up in several different species that each specialize in their own type of food. Though I can't think of any examples where one species stayed in the same place but had a spin off in that very place that specialized. After all it has a distinct disadvantage on the specialized variation.

So for Striders and Netches the idea that one came out of the other does not seem plausible. Unless ofcourse either the Netches and Striders have returned from somewhere else but then we're adding yet another list to an already improbable long list of ifs, making it even less plausible.

You know what i think stilt striders are? Giant fleas......

I mean, Telvanni wizards do get bored once and a while right? Why not create experements on a mundane little parasite?
And if it works..... rinse, lather, and repeat...

Yeah. That explains why there are only nine of them and no wild ones.

Theres still a hole, why would the Telvanni engineer pack animals, yet not have any of their towns utilize them? All the SS paths are on the West and Southern parts of Vvardenfell, and the Telvanni settlements are on the East side of the island. The Stilt Striders are more than tall enough to wade through the shallows of the eastern waters, why not use them instead of the boats they use?

Well maybe the Telvanni were annoyed by someone and engineered some giant fleas just to **** him off, but the recipient had a brilliant idea and turned them into great hoppin transporters instead?

Actually, lookin at the Dagoths it might have been them rather than the Telvannis that experimented with morphing in their magic - they were quite serious magic users in their time I understand ... although there is another candidate:

Why do they have to be initially indigenous to Morrowind? Silt is a River thing especially builds up where massive rivers debouch into the sea... now where is there a vast partially submerged area on a continent? Also fleas are disease carriers.

Isnt there silt strider corpsues out in the ash lands somewhere? I remember seeing them but cant remeber exactly where.

Quite a few, not including Ashlander camps.

So if there are dead silt striders lying around that would kinda imply that they are wild creatures, and not some magical flea.

What I want to know is why some of us are still applying real-world Darwinian concepts in a magical, fictional universe?

Kinda hard to follow the other line without totally role-playing it. Requires an fairly instinctual grasp of the Lore and that's not to be expected on an open forum where people feel too exposed.

Also the Lore is so complicated now that makes it even harder.

Out of curiousity is the 7000 year creation idea just a theory proposed in some books, or is there solid indisputable confirmation?

I ask this because I recently came upon a document I'd never read in Oblivion that asks about ancient evolutionary patterns of Dreugh.

http://www.imperial-library.info/history/merethic.shtml

The Merethic Era counts backwards to 2500, which is the beginning of linear time. The years 1 is the First Era, and you can count from there.