Greetings. I am curious to find if at all possible others' opinions on something that came up in discussion recently.

While overlooking a Silt Strider, it came to my attention that I don't think I've ever encountered a wild one, and everyone I've spoken to has pointed out that only the more civilized cities seem to have access to them, and certainly not the Ashlanders, who would enjoy a boon from having such a large source of manual labor.

Therefore it was proposed is it possible that "silt strider" is simply the term for a domesticated form of netch that has been bred down with the purpose of acting as a form of cargo transport? And therefore we don't see them in the wild, because they require a special degree of Dunmer breeding?

STilt strider corpses lacking in the special cavity with exposed nerves of the domestic ones can be found throughout the ashlannds. Heck I think of the ashlander tribes has a stilt strider corpse in the middle of its camp. iTs quite possible that those insects have long been domesticated, with wild ones being hunted by ashlanders to extinction. as to your second paragraph, I do not believe it would be possible to breed a netch so much that it loses its sack, gets a completely new shell, and has its tentacles adapt themselves into long segmented legs. It would take quite some time to make those changes and would take far too long for the dunmer to consider it feasible. They've probably just been domesticated for a while.

Unless over the past several thousand years, the domestication was an unintended side effect. Ergo they were attempting to breed netches for one thing, and over time it was realized they could be used for transport.

It's all grounded in an attempt I think to find out why exactly they're so common in civilization, so resembling netches, and so impossible to find in the wild.

It really wouldn't happen over such a short period of time. The stilt striders have a completely different biology. Even their shells are different.
Look: http://www.uesp.net/w/images/MW-creature-Bull_Netch.jpg
http://www.uesp.net/w/images/MW-Creature-SiltStrider.jpg
Note the measurable differences in the shell, segmented limbs, etc. Netch does not equal Silt strider.

The giant walky bug is completely different manner of beast to the giant floaty jelly fish. That's kinda obvious.

You don't see wild ones because the devs got lazy and didn't bother with animations for the strider other than a little gentle swaying.

Ah well was worth voicing the idea all the same. Can't debunk if you don't throw out all possibilities.

Not to mention that pwning silt strider ancles wouldn't feel very satisfactory.

i always wondered what made the dunmer think to rip open the carapace, dig out chunks, and manipulate nerves and muscle to make a transport out of silt striders.

This would be a quite interesting article in the http://www.imperial-library.info/fsg/. I encourage you to collect more information on the subject and submit it as an article, if you want to of course.

I'd feel compelled to debunk it with another article.

Nothing wrong with a little scholarly debate.

Maybe Vivec got really really drunk one night and cut open a silt striders carapace. He then proceeded to randomly manipulate exposed tissues, and the people were amazed that Vivec could manipulate the creature through its nerve endings.

Okay.

- Silt striders are actually cliffracers.
- Silt striders are actually mudcrabs.
- Silt striders are actually dwemer spectres.
- Silt striders are actually slaughterfish.
- Silt striders are actually ogrims.
- Silt striders are actually centurion spiders.
- Silt striders are actually rieklings.
- Silt striders are actually Fargoths.

There isn't a lot of lore regarding Silt Striders.
[/Captain Obvious]

The cavity is Fargoth's...

...anyway, Netches are http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flumph, aren't they?

No different than pwning the ankle of the large steam centurion.

lol wut? Seriously? You serious about this business?



Silt striders are the universal ancestars, G! They must be like moths based on phylomemetic trees!

Sure, why not?

There's nothing wrong with proposing theories of sorts.

Which has nothing to do with right or wrong. Just that your theory is absolutely unsubstantiated and lacks any relevance at all. It wouldn't be so bad if it were some what if in-character wacky fanfic as to why the silt strider is the bastard son of the netch and a shalk, but it's not. And what amazes me is you are serious.

Inquiring about potential common ancestry in two beings that share some physical resemblances is not something so remarkably out of whack as to warrant astonishment in your part.

If you disagree or feel that it is unfounded, a simple statement therein is fine, but the proposition that there's a possibility of common ancestry is not something so out of whack as to merit the level of "astonishment" that you appear to feel.

You never mentioned a far off, common ancestor from millions of years in the past in your first post, but rather that siltstriders are domesticated netches. Domesticated insects don't come from wild octopi, two different phylums! Besides, Nirn is only a few thousand years old (unless geologists say otherwise), so evolution such as this cannot have taken place.

My apologies, I was under the impression that when domestication was brought up, it went without saying that modern species share a common ancestry with their previous species.

There is a difference between saying they are domesticated netches and that they share common ancestry with a microbe. As I said, you can't get an insect from jellyfish through domestication. My apologies, I thought that went without saying.

this can all be explained, "a telvanni wizard did it"

You see, the Telvanni saught immortality through magic just so they could witness their fantasy come true: a netch to siltstrider evolution, the single greatest contribution to dunmerkind.