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Re: Flood and evolution
Posted By: Flynn J Taggart	Date: 2/7/12 9:40 p.m.
In Response To: Flood and evolution (scarab) : Imagine that FCSs do NOT evolve : They are in a race with every other organism in the environment and they have : picked the strategy of standing still. That's not the best option when you : are in a race. :-) : Does the Flood take over everything? : Does it take over the plants? Does it do photosynthesis? : Does it decompose dead Flood cells? : Can it handle every possible environment? : Out compete every possible organism? : How big does its genome have to be to achieve all those goals? : How long would it take to replicate a genome that has to do everything? : Hours? Days? Weeks? : Take all the genes of every organism on earth and stick that into a single : cell. EEK!!! : We know that it was intelligently designed by Precursors, and we imagine that : they were capable. : But are they omniscient? Can they think of everything? Conceive of every : eventuality? : Even if they could, could they fit all that in one cell? : One possible solution : I think that GMs can tinker with the FCS genomes to create new forms of : Flood. They can adapt to new situations by intelligently designing new : forms. They can make local alterations for local environments. : But this is intelligent design and, by definition, relies on having sentient : minds to carry it out. : It wont happen if there are no sentients around. : Problem with ID : Note also that ID relies on minds. Each problem has to be worked on by a : mind. And the number of possible niches is practically infinite. GMs are : few in numbers, they can't actually keep up with the numbers of decisions : needed to keep up with evolution. : Evolution is a massively parallel algorithm were each new organism is a : proposed solution to an existing problem. Every organism that has a child : has just conducted a new genetic experiment that may help further its : race. : But lets not worry about that. Lets just say that without sentients then the : Flood can not adapt. This doesn't stop every other organism in the : environment from adapting. So, in time, the Flood looses out. : Imagine that the FSCs do evolve : Natural selection doesn't understand or care about political agendas. : All it cares about is, does this set of genes produce more offspring than : this set? : (Though to be accurate: natural selection does not care about anything. Its : just a thing that happens like: rainfall or bird shit on cars. There is no : mind, or at least no plan. But it does happen :-) ) : If there are no sentients about then the ability to infect sentients is : useless. Its just excess genetic baggage that has to be copied before a : cell can divide. : It takes time to do this copying and if a FSC is competing with a bacterium : that doesn't have to copy sentient infecting genes then the bacterium will : reproduce quicker. : Why does this matter? : Have you ever played a rushing strategy in an RTS? Lock all the available : resources inside your cells and there is nothing left for your competitors : to use. To do that you need to make lots of cells really quickly. A small : genome helps here. The Flood must copy useless sentient infecting genes or : ditch them. Holding them has a big cost in certain situations and so will : be selected against. : If we assume that FCS gene duplication is imperfect (a requirement for : evolution and the natural state for natural processes) then sentient : infecting genes will be broken over time. : So in time evolution will discard the politically instilled Flood aspects. : Also, if FCSs reproduce independently of each other then they will compete : with each other, some varieties will win, some will loose. But, in time, : we will see an ecosystem made of FCS derived organisms and, perhaps, : natural organisms that have evolved to out-compete FCSs under certain : circumstances. : Every natural environment is comprised of organisms competing with and : cooperating with other organisms. : FSC based organisms are just another set of organism living within that : environment. They will be subject to the same laws. : Intoduce FSCs into an environment and , in time, the environment will look : just like any other natural environment. Precursor politics will play no : significant role in that environment. So if I understand what you're getting at here, you're saying that on a long enough timeline, a galaxy that had once been Flood infected would eventually spawn other life that isn't necessarily still part of The Flood, correct? Or at least they might have some aspects of the Flood, but had just evolved out/around the Flood. This is presumably a long time after the Flood had reached intergalactic stage and left the galaxy it consumed?

Message Index

Flood and evolution	scarab	2/7/12 8:47 p.m.
Great post!	ZackDark	2/7/12 9:01 p.m.
Re: Great post!	scarab	2/7/12 9:37 p.m.
Re: Great post!	uberfoop	2/7/12 10:24 p.m.
Re: Flood and evolution	kanbo	2/7/12 9:35 p.m.
Its independent of any fiction	scarab	2/7/12 9:42 p.m.
Re: Its independent of any fiction	kanbo	2/7/12 10:50 p.m.
No real spoilers	scarab	2/8/12 1:34 a.m.
Re: No real spoilers? eh...	General Vagueness	2/9/12 11:42 a.m.
Re: Flood and evolution	Flynn J Taggart	2/7/12 9:40 p.m.
Re: Flood and evolution	scarab	2/7/12 9:59 p.m.
Night guys	scarab	2/7/12 10:00 p.m.
Regarding Isolation	JDQuackers	2/8/12 8:09 a.m.
Re: Flood and evolution	Stephen L. (SoundEffect)	2/8/12 8:32 a.m.
Re: Flood and evolution	yakaman	2/8/12 1:03 p.m.
This thread is gold. *NM*	Postmortem	2/8/12 9:09 a.m.
Genetic space is not a constraint...	Arithmomaniac	2/8/12 1:43 p.m.
Re: Genetic space is not a constraint...	scarab	2/10/12 2:21 a.m.
Re: Genetic space is not a constraint...	JDQuackers	2/10/12 7:13 a.m.
Re: Genetic space is not a constraint...	scarab	2/10/12 8:06 a.m.
Re: Genetic space is not a constraint...	davidfuchs	2/10/12 8:59 a.m.
Re: Genetic space is not a constraint...	scarab	2/10/12 10:10 a.m.
Re: Genetic space is not a constraint...	General Vagueness	2/10/12 10:10 p.m.
Re: Genetic space is not a constraint...	Quirel	2/11/12 2:58 a.m.
Re: Genetic space is not a constraint...	General Vagueness	2/11/12 11:02 a.m.
Re: Genetic space is not a constraint...	Quirel	2/11/12 12:35 p.m.
Re: Genetic space is not a constraint...	Stephen L. (SoundEffect)	2/11/12 12:38 p.m.
Re: Genetic space is not a constraint...	General Vagueness	2/11/12 1:07 p.m.
Re: Genetic space is not a constraint...	Stephen L. (SoundEffect)	2/11/12 1:55 p.m.
Well...	ZackDark	2/11/12 2:03 p.m.
Re: Well...	Stephen L. (SoundEffect)	2/11/12 2:11 p.m.
Re: Well...	ZackDark	2/11/12 2:13 p.m.
Re: Genetic space is not a constraint...	General Vagueness	2/11/12 4:23 p.m.
Re: Genetic space is not a constraint...	Stephen L. (SoundEffect)	2/11/12 4:48 p.m.
Re: Genetic space is not a constraint...	General Vagueness	2/11/12 5:24 p.m.
Re: Genetic space is not a constraint...	Stephen L. (SoundEffect)	2/11/12 8:09 p.m.
Re: Genetic space is not a constraint...	General Vagueness	2/11/12 10:20 p.m.
Re: Genetic space is not a constraint...	Stephen L. (SoundEffect)	2/12/12 9:25 a.m.
Re: Genetic space is not a constraint...	General Vagueness	2/12/12 4:58 p.m.
Re: Genetic space is not a constraint...	Stephen L. (SoundEffect)	2/12/12 5:19 p.m.
If there's no "cure" to the Flood...	davidfuchs	2/8/12 3:10 p.m.
Re: If there's no "cure" to the Flood...	Stephen L. (SoundEffect)	2/8/12 3:42 p.m.
Re: If there's no "cure" to the Flood...	ZackDark	2/8/12 4:36 p.m.
Re: If there's no "cure" to the Flood...	Hoovaloov	2/8/12 4:42 p.m.
Re: If there's no "cure" to the Flood...	ZackDark	2/8/12 4:57 p.m.
Re: If there's no "cure" to the Flood...	davidfuchs	2/8/12 5:23 p.m.
Re: If there's no "cure" to the Flood...	Stephen L. (SoundEffect)	2/8/12 6:07 p.m.
Re: If there's no "cure" to the Flood...	Bry	2/8/12 8:09 p.m.
Re: If there's no "cure" to the Flood...	Stephen L. (SoundEffect)	2/8/12 8:30 p.m.
Re: If there's no "cure" to the Flood...	Bry	2/8/12 10:03 p.m.
Re: If there's no "cure" to the Flood...	Stephen L. (SoundEffect)	2/9/12 5:38 a.m.
Re: If there's no "cure" to the Flood...	Quirel	2/8/12 10:46 p.m.
Re: If there's no "cure" to the Flood...	Stephen L. (SoundEffect)	2/9/12 5:41 a.m.
Re: If there's no "cure" to the Flood...	davidfuchs	2/9/12 8:00 a.m.
Re: If there's no "cure" to the Flood...	Stephen L. (SoundEffect)	2/9/12 8:02 a.m.
Re: If there's no "cure" to the Flood...	Bry	2/9/12 10:30 a.m.
Well, crap.	Quirel	2/9/12 10:37 a.m.
Re: Well, crap.	Stephen L. (SoundEffect)	2/9/12 11:46 a.m.
Re: Well, crap.	Quirel	2/9/12 5:06 p.m.
Re: Flood and evolution	General Vagueness	2/9/12 11:37 a.m.
Re: Flood and evolution	scarab	2/10/12 7:48 a.m.
Re: Flood and evolution	ZackDark	2/10/12 5:04 p.m.
Re: Flood and evolution	Stephen L. (SoundEffect)	2/10/12 5:19 p.m.
Re: Flood and evolution	ZackDark	2/10/12 5:28 p.m.
Re: Flood and evolution	Stephen L. (SoundEffect)	2/10/12 6:08 p.m.
Re: Flood and evolution	General Vagueness	2/10/12 7:43 p.m.
Re: Flood and evolution	General Vagueness	2/10/12 10:25 p.m.