I present you with a short story that hopefully will expose some of the things I have found to be strange.
It was a crisp day on the surface of Elopor, speckled by the shafts of light peering through the leaves of a great, thick tree. It’s lustrous bark trickled sap down between its ridges and made streams of thick resin leading to the tangled roots. The tree’s sweet offerings gave a hungry passing hopper it’s mid-afternoon snack, and it licked the side of the tree greedily, barely tasting what he swallowed down.
Then, as if in a serendipitous proclamation, a mighty wildstock brayed loudly, distracting the young hopper from his purchase and, instead, drawing his attention to a wandering Oortian. Filled with an inexplicable rage, the hopper began to fume, making a display to demand that the trespasser find another spot to deforest for their own selfish reasons.
The Oortian was unswayed, and ignored his teakettle whistle, probably out of ignorance, or maybe she was just deaf – the fledgling hopper didn’t care as to why. Bounding with reckless abandon, he flung himself at the wayward traveler and commenced his attempt to repel her.
Exploding violently, the hopper that had just began his day was now dead, making his effort to restore the balance of this world. The Oortian, however, had armor to spare, and didn’t even flinch at the attack, instead she continued to chop down the very tree that once had fed her would be assailant.
So, did you get the message? Well, I will clarify it for you: The ecosystem of this game has a variety of species, each with their own specialized talent and function. The hopper, of this story did his best to display his. A creature that kills itself as its only attack, similar to the creeper in minecraft, but… minecraft also had skeletons, dragons, and endermen. This game is meant to be set in a long-passed age of enlightenment.
So, what purpose does the hopper serve to the ecosystem? How can they perpetuate themselves as a species?
The only species that performs a similar suicidal attack that I know of is a bee. A common honey bee can sting only once before it expires, but their strength lies in their numbers. Colonies that house thousands of them. They have relatively low gestation and maturation periods, allowing for lost warriors to be quickly replenished. On top of that, they are birthed in mass, creating a formidable foe, that stands as an organism of many.
For all we know, the hopper doesn’t have that same ability, or organization. The most I have seen in a group was four, and for some reason it was lead by a larger, more experienced hopper. How could it be more experienced? Did it find some way to attack invaders that didn’t result in it’s untimely death? I have seen no evidence of this behavior.
But, it’s not just the hopper that concerns me. I have talked about species richness before, with my example of Grandpappy Steve the Sultry Spitter. There is also the question of predation. What feeds on what? How is it that every known species seems to work flawlessly towards the common goal of our extermination? If there was some sort of seeding project like @eldwen explored in his post, then why is it that these creatures were created with overly aggressive tendencies towards their creators?
