Author Topic: What do Vasudans eat?  (Read 5714 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Nissan

  • 26
Hey all,

So one of my friends (a fellow FS player) got Spore a few days ago.  I don't play it myself, but I told him to make a Vasudan just for fun.  He started on this, and then asked me whether Vasudans were carnivores.  I said no, but after thinking for a minute, I realized I didn't actually know.

Is it ever mentioned in the series what kind of diet Vasudans follow?  I always sorta assumed they were the same as humans/Terrans, generally omnivores, but would there really be much vegetation at all on Vasuda Prime?

(Sorry if this has come up before.)
"Uh, yeah, I mean it's tough to say, woulda-coulda-shoulda, ifs and buts like candy and nuts, you know, you never know.  This, that, and the other thing.  Who knows?  You know, there are a lot of what-ifs.  You know, my whole life is a lot of what-ifs."
- San Antonio Spurs F Matt Bonner

 

Offline Snail

  • SC 5
  • 214
  • Posts: ☂
Headz!


Okay, seriously... They don't have really sharp teeth so I wouldn't say they're exclusively carnivores.

 
Well, let's make the subject wider...

What are the Vasudans?
Insects, mammals, something totally alien?
Once we figure something out, it'll be easier to discuss what they might eat.
'Teeth of the Tiger' - campaign in the making
Story, Ships, Weapons, Project Leader.

 

Offline Snail

  • SC 5
  • 214
  • Posts: ☂
I'm pretty sure they're either mammals or reptiles, maybe somekind of hybrid.

 

Offline FUBAR-BDHR

  • Self-Propelled Trouble Magnet
  • 212
  • Master Drunk
    • 165th Beer Drinking Hell Raisers
I always though they were more fish like.  If so even if they don't have teeth they might just swallow their food whole.  Of course there's always filter feeding.
No-one ever listens to Zathras. Quite mad, they say. It is good that Zathras does not mind. He's even grown to like it. Oh yes. -Zathras

  

Offline Snail

  • SC 5
  • 214
  • Posts: ☂
Well there are no fish in the desert, but they do have fish-like mouths. Maybe that's used to help them drink better

 

Offline FUBAR-BDHR

  • Self-Propelled Trouble Magnet
  • 212
  • Master Drunk
    • 165th Beer Drinking Hell Raisers
Just tried some research.  Never knew Vasuda was another word for Earth.  That could add a whole new twist to the plot.  Earth and Earth Prime?????? 

Back on topic could be something like dolphins. 
No-one ever listens to Zathras. Quite mad, they say. It is good that Zathras does not mind. He's even grown to like it. Oh yes. -Zathras

 

Offline Snail

  • SC 5
  • 214
  • Posts: ☂
Whoa, what!?!!?!??!!!!!

 

Offline TrashMan

  • T-tower Avenger. srsly.
  • 213
  • God-Emperor of your kind!
    • FLAMES OF WAR
Omnivores. In the desert you eat everything you can find.
Nobody dies as a virgin - the life ****s us all!

You're a wrongularity from which no right can escape!

 

Offline Aardwolf

  • 211
  • Posts: 16,384
Just tried some research.  Never knew Vasuda was another word for Earth.  That could add a whole new twist to the plot.  Earth and Earth Prime?????? 

Back on topic could be something like dolphins. 

Source or I'm calling shenanigans.

 

Offline FUBAR-BDHR

  • Self-Propelled Trouble Magnet
  • 212
  • Master Drunk
    • 165th Beer Drinking Hell Raisers
Just tried some research.  Never knew Vasuda was another word for Earth.  That could add a whole new twist to the plot.  Earth and Earth Prime?????? 

Back on topic could be something like dolphins. 

Source or I'm calling shenanigans.

http://www.answers.com/topic/vasuda
http://www.meaning-of-names.com/indian-names/vasuda.asp
http://www.behindthename.com/name/vasuda

Plus about 50 baby naming sites.
No-one ever listens to Zathras. Quite mad, they say. It is good that Zathras does not mind. He's even grown to like it. Oh yes. -Zathras

 

Offline Rodo

  • Custom tittle
  • 212
  • stargazer
    • Steam
they are aliens... so they eat alien stuff??

well they have a visible skelleton so if I should put them in some group of animals I would choose either mamals or insects... but they seem far inteligent for insects.
el hombre vicio...

 

Offline eliex

  • 210
I agree with Trashman. They would have to be omnivores.
On the other hand, do we have any information/speculation from which animal/thing Vasudans evolved from? (no.)

It was mentioned that there was a type of beetle that the Vasudans based one of their ships on. Maybe they ate that too?

 

Offline Droid803

  • Trusted poster of legit stuff
  • 213
  • /人 ◕ ‿‿ ◕ 人\ Do you want to be a Magical Girl?
    • Skype
    • Steam
Apsu-heks?
(´・ω・`)
=============================================================

 

Offline Mars

  • I have no originality
  • 211
  • Attempting unreasonable levels of reasonable
Just tried some research.  Never knew Vasuda was another word for Earth.  That could add a whole new twist to the plot.  Earth and Earth Prime?????? 

Back on topic could be something like dolphins. 

Makes sense... no matter what planet you live on, if you originate there, you'd probably call it the world or "Earth"

 

Offline FUBAR-BDHR

  • Self-Propelled Trouble Magnet
  • 212
  • Master Drunk
    • 165th Beer Drinking Hell Raisers
True but then why the Prime?  It's not like we call it Earth Prime.  So is there another Vasuda out there?  Did the Ancients take them from Earth to Vasuda?  Did the Ancients seed both planets?  Is there a Vasuda 2 or 3 or 27?
No-one ever listens to Zathras. Quite mad, they say. It is good that Zathras does not mind. He's even grown to like it. Oh yes. -Zathras

 

Offline Mars

  • I have no originality
  • 211
  • Attempting unreasonable levels of reasonable
I suppose the apt question would be why did they name a solar system "Earth"

 

Offline Droid803

  • Trusted poster of legit stuff
  • 213
  • /人 ◕ ‿‿ ◕ 人\ Do you want to be a Magical Girl?
    • Skype
    • Steam
Quote from: Answers.com
Means "granting wealth" in Sanskrit. This is another name of the earth.
The "Earth" thing is secondary...primary meaning is "Granting Wealth".
They obviously like their home system, so they name it something positive. At least they didn't name it something meaning "Rotten Hellhole".
(´・ω・`)
=============================================================

 

Offline Herra Tohtori

  • The Academic
  • 211
  • Bad command or file name
Vasuda and vasudans are names assigned by Terran linguists to the language of these aliens. Much like Shivans were assigned an arbitrary name.

Obviously every conscious species calls their home planet "Earth", "Water", "Home", or some variant thereof, and space-traveling species would likely assign the names of planets corresponding with the names of the species that originates there, or vice versa. We're from Terra, so we're called Terrans. This group of aliens got an arbitrary name assignment of "Vasudans", so it makes sense for us to call their planet "Vasuda". What, there's more than one habitable planet in the solar system and they have spread to them? Well let's call the original home planet Vasuda Prime then. [Primus = The First, Prime = derivative that can mean "the most important" or "main", you get the idea]

What do Vasudans eat? Well, first of all it's no use trying to establish taxonomical connections to any Terran species; you can find parallel features and resemblances but to our knowledge, Vasudans don't have common ancestry so even trying to estimate their bilogical structure is guessing at best.

However their appearance does give us a couple hints. First of all, they are big. Very big in fact, and from their apparent strength I would estimate their body density is about equal to humans or higher, which means their body mass would probably be something between a gorilla and a bear. Herbivores of that size need to eat almost constantly. Vasudans don't.

Also, Vasudans have two seemingly very well developed eyes that are pointed forwards, which means they have a good stereo vision, which is important for judging distances accurately. Again a trait that is not usually present in exclusive herbivores, but could be explained with stereo vision being important for other reasons than hunting - like grabbing tree branches and stuff, like many tree-dwelling herbivoric species do.

Another thing, Vasudans walk upright. That's an interesting thing to note because upright posture is a rarity in Earth... in fact, apart from bipedal Saurischian dinosaurs and flying dinosaurids [birds], there are few species that mainly relay on their rear limbs for walking/jumping around. Kangaroos come to mind, chimpanzees can do it but usually don't, bears can stay in upright posture for a while but tend to move on all fours. Some rodents jump mainly on their two rear legs, but otherwise most mammals tend to use their all four legs for movement.

If these similar traits to humans can be considered as parallel evolution, then there is a distinct possibility of vasudans sharing similarities in their evolutionary history with humans - which would make them most probably omnivores.

What comes to their biological structure, perhaps the biggest question is whether they have an endoskeleton or exoskeleton. I would guess endoskeleton, since exoskeleton gets difficult to maintain for big animals during their growth to adults; due to the required structural strength, it's usually more efficient to have living tissue over calcium endoskeleton.

This probably doesn't apply to shivans since we have no idea of their evolutionary history, which is bound to be a very special case seeing how they can withstand vacuum of space and operate effectively in zero-g environment, and they have a laser beam they can shoot from their heads, and energy claws not unlike light sabers... :p
There are three things that last forever: Abort, Retry, Fail - and the greatest of these is Fail.

 

Offline Iranon

  • 26
What I also find very interesting is the Indian rather than Egyptian naming convention... if everything didn't point to a tie to Subspace rather than a planet for the Shivans I'd make something else of it. As it is, it's probably only an inconsitency in the naming system.