Perspective Is Pain

on endlings, and despair

Hey, y'all. It's...been a rough couple of weeks. So, I thought--better to light a single candle, right?

If you're familiar with wildlife conservation success stories, then you're likely also familiar with their exact polar opposite. The Northern White Rhino. Conservation's poster child for despair. Our greatest and most high-profile utter failure. We slaughtered them for wealth and status, and applied the brakes too slow. Changed course too late.

We poured everything we had into trying to save them, and we failed.

We lost them. They died. The last surviving male was named Sudan. He died in 2018, elderly and sick. His genetic material is preserved, along with frozen semen from other long-dead males, but only as an exercise in futility. Only two females survive--a mother and daughter, Najin and Fatu.

Both of them are infertile. They still live; but the Northern White Rhinoceros is extinct. Gone forever.

In 2023, an experimental procedure was attempted, a hail-mary desperation play to extract healthy eggs from the surviving females.

It worked.

The extracted eggs were flown to a genetics lab, and artificially fertilized using the sperm of lost Northern males. The frozen semen that we kept, all this time, even after we knew that the only living females were incapable of becoming pregnant.

It worked.

Thirty northern white rhino embryos were created and cryogenically preserved, but with no ability to do anything with them, it was a thin hope at best. In 2024, for the first time, an extremely experimental IVF treatment was attempted on a SOUTHERN white rhino--a related subspecies.

It worked.

The embryo transplanted as part of the experiment had no northern blood--but the pregnancy took. The surgery was safe for the mother. The fetus was healthy. The procedure is viable. Surrogate Southern candidates have already been identified to carry the Northern embryos. Rhinoceros pregnancies are sixteen months long, and the implantation hasn't happened yet. It will take time, before we know. Despair is fast and loud. Hope is slower, softer. Stronger, in the end.

The first round may not take. We'll learn from it. It's what we do. We'll try again. Do better, the next time. Fail again, maybe. Learn more. Try harder.

This will not save the species. Not overnight. The numbers will be very low, with no genetic diversity to speak of. It's a holding action, nothing more.

Nothing less.

One generation won't save a species. But even a single calf will buy us time. Not quite gone, not yet. One more generation. One more endling. One more chance. And if we seize it, we might just get another after that. We're getting damn good at gene editing. At stem-cell research. In the length of a single rhino lifetime, we'll get even better.

For decades, we have been in a holding action with no hope in sight. Researchers, geneticists, environmentalists, wildlife rehabbers. Dedicated and heroic Kenyan rangers have kept the last surviving NWRs under 24/7 armed guard, line-of-sight, eyes-on, never resting, never relaxing their guard. Knowing, all the while, that their vigilance was for nothing. Would save nothing. This is a dead species--an elderly male, two females so closely related that their offspring couldn't interbreed even if they could produce any--and they can't.

Northern white rhino conservation was the most devastatingly hopeless cause in the world.

Two years from now, that dead species may welcome a whole new generation.

It's a holding action, just a holding action, but not "just". There is a monument, at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy, where the last white rhinos have lived and will die. It was created at the point where we knew--not believed, knew--that the species was past all hope. It memorializes, by name there were so few, the last of the northern white rhinos. Most of the markers have brief descriptions--where the endling rhino lived, how it was rescued, how it died.

One marker bears only these words: SUDAN | Last male Northern White Rhino.

If even a single surrogate someday bears a son, we have erased the writing on that plaque forever.

All we can manage is a holding action? Then we hold. We hold hard and fast and long, use our fingernails if we have to. But hold. Even and perhaps especially when we are past all hope.

We never know what miracle we might be buying time for.

Good blog

Cheers!!

Probably a good idea to make something vaguely resembling a pinned post, so here we go.

Hey, I’m Molly, I like yapping about palaeontology and spec evo, and I’ve got a bunch of projects I’m working on across a few different universes (aka my brain can never focus on getting one thing done so it bounces around like a cricket on caffeine)

A not so empty universe: After a world war, a plague, and general societal collapse, humanity has made it to the stars, and realised that they’re not as alone as they had thought

-Funny space thing (name still a WIP): a slice of life thing about a bunch of university students on mars trying to survive their studies and each other

-Chimera: set at around the same time as FST, a new life-bearing world has been discovered. What’s unusual about it is that the life forms appear to originate from other worlds, including earth and the home worlds some of other sophonts

-Pasodau: set in the far future of this universe, a moon of a gas giant has been terraformed to house a species of lizards and 3 species of birds alongside various amphibians, fish, invertebrates and plants

A world without us: set after the extinction of humanity and the onset of a new glacial period, a community of sophont ravens have settled in the rusted hulk of a battleship on the plains of Doggerland. One of them named Graucraa has a great interest in the history of not on his own species, but the disappeared beings that came before them

Feorrlund: in a distant solar system, and old god known as The Architect brings life from Earth to populate a planet it has terraformed to live alongside life from its own home world. This planet is now home to the forgotten life of earth, magic, and far too many sophonts

Appalachi fae: fresh out of university, Dan Baker-Hewig makes the regrettable choice to sign up as a park ranger in a world where magic is very real and the forests are home to monsters, fae, and old gods, whilst also having to survive the other rangers.

Also the setting for a few short story things I’ve written and might post at some point.

So ye, feel free to ask about any of the projects, and hope y’all enjoy.

Slaters

Common names in English:

Isopods, rolley pollies, webspinners, weavers, long spiders

Binomial name:

Sericutextor Sp. (Silk weavers)

Description:

Slaters are a genus of dodecapodal alien sophonts and were a founding member of the USS.

They posses an exoskeleton composed of a mineralised core covered in a layer of organic polymers, consisting of a tegus and a sternum. The body is divided into four tagma: the head, the neck, the body and the abdomen. The head consists of a single plate and possesses three pairs of eyes, two pairs of antennae, three pairs of external jaws and a pair of cephalic limbs. One pair of antennae act as chemoreceptors, audio receptors and to detect gravity, whilst the other pair bear a semaphore-like structure used in communication. Of the three pairs of external jaws, one pair act as pincers and food manipulators, whilst the other two act as both a seal to the oral cavity and as masticators. An additional pair of heavily derived internal jaws separate the oral cavity from the rest of the digestive tract. Lastly, the cephalic limbs posses two manipulators digits and two specialised for silk production. The neck is divided into three segments, the first segment bearing no limbs and allowing greater flexibility of the head whilst the latter two each possesses a pamprodactyl hand. The body is made up of six segments, each bearing a limb with a anisodactyl foot, with each appendage being able to act as a manipulator, especially those of the front segment, however typically they are relegated to locomotion. Finally, the abdomen is also made up of six segments, with the final segment bearing a pair of spinnerets whilst all other segments are limbless.

The respiratory system is made up of two booklungs within the abdomen and a series of spiracles between each segment, linked by a pair of trachea. The circulatory system is centred around two major hearts, one at the rear of the abdomen and one at the base of the neck.

Slaters are capable of producing organic fibres often referred to as silk,and posses silk glands on their cephalic limbs, their manipulatory limbs and their spinnerets. The most complex silk strands are produced by the cephalic limbs, the spinnerets can produce the most durable silk, and the manipulatory limbs produce the most simple silk. The adhesiveness, tensile strength and other factors of the silk produced can be controlled by the skaters.

Slaters have a bisex system, with the primary differences being in sephamore colours, pheromones and social cues, and whilst there is a slight weighting of mass and colour (males on average being slightly paler and lighter) there is significant overlap. They are also bidirectionally dichogamus, naturally undergoing the process when exposed to certain environmental, social or chemical stimuli. In the modern day many slaters use artificial methods to at least kickstart transition, as this is typically swifter and causes less inconvenience.

Between two and eight eggs are laid within an ootheca weaved from silk similar to that used to package faeces. After about a month, these eggs hatch into small, soft larvae, which grow for two years before their exoskeleton begins to harden, with adulthood being reached at about eighteen years old.

Ancestrally, slaters lived in large, communal burrow networks and above ground structures made from wood, silk and soil. Due to these fossorial habits their fore and ventral eyes are quite shortsighted, with their dorsal eyes providing a wild field of vision but poor depth reception.

The modern genus of slaters is thought to have evolved 2-3 million years ago. Due to their subterranean nature, they gained a familiarity with metallurgy and fossil fuels much earlier in their history than most other sophonts. This lead to a comparatively rapid technological development, allowing them to have the longest continuous spacefaring history of any extant sophont. They were also the founding members of the precursor to the USS after making contact with two other homeworlds before the beginning of the Great War. Following the establishment of communication with terrans and formids and the end of the war, they assisted in the founding of the USS.

I lied, it’s alien time

Got 2 more space thing sophonts in the backlog, just finishing the write up. Also got a few things for Pasodau ready that I’ll post at some point

Heya, these are some very interesting ideas! I especially love the Feorrlund one (kinda reminds me of Kaimere). Seedworlds with a higher power are always interesting!

I wanted to ask if you make artworks/write stuff for your ideas? I am new to Tumblr, so I have trouble looking through your stuff (since there are reblogs and I am not used to those).

Do you have a tag you use specifically for your stuff?

Cheers!!

I’ve currently only posted stuff for funny space thing on tumblr, which I’ve tagged with #funny space thing

When I post for other projects I’ll also add tags, I’ll probably add a “my projects tag” too, just trying to learn how tumblr works lol

Meep morp (moots and whoever feel free to join)

ALL MY FELLAS!!! 🗣️🗣️🗣️‼️🦅🦅🗣️🗣️🗣️

Make YOU using THIS PICREW and tag 5 people!!!!

Yep, it's a chain!!!

@eyesofrhodochrosite @taaaaaaawnyfrogmouth @mikebeanz @ofthefrogs @kredena-dark

@dragoninaki @spicy-rat-2 @cloudberry-candy @gingerjaydraws @unexpecteddinolesson @trans-fem-menace @gayoticbeing @lesbianhouseplant @paluboligo @sashathegirliepop , y’all are chill, and cheers for being moots

rb to tell ur mutuals ur fond of them

Faeries

Common names in English:

Kites, gulls, imps

Binomial name:

Fantispiritus Sp. (Fated spirits)

Description:

Faeries are a genus of volant, bipedal hexapods who were the instigators of the Great War and the second alien sophont encountered by Terrans.

They posses a mineralised endoskeleton throughout their body, in addition to a mineralised cranial exoskeleton covered in a layer of organic polymers. They posses a dorsal notochord within a vertebrae-like structure, with a series of overlapping internal plates filling a role similar to the belly ribs of some earth tetrapods. The four thoracic limb bones are derived from two parallel rods of bone, leading to each limb segment possessing two long bones akin to those of the tetrapod radius, ulna, tibia and fibula, with the forelimbs possessing two segments and the hind limbs possessing three segments. Each long bone in the upper segments are connected to the a scapula-like structure with a ball and socket joint, with the two bones for the forelimbs fusing into a disc for increased rotational flexibility. Each limb possesses five fingers, with the outer rear digit bearing a wing in both the fore and hind limbs.

The head possesses a bony crest, a pair of cephalic limbs, two lower jaws fused into a single structure, and two inner jaws. The cephalic limbs posses two main limb segments and the hands possessing four segments.

After being processed in the jaws, food passes down the oesophagus either into a crop-like structure or into a gizzard before continuing on to the stomach. Meanwhile, air enters the parallel respiratory tracts either through external nostrils between the plates of the skull or through internal airways in the roof of the mouth, entering an air sac in the back of the skull before continuing into a pair of lungs within the thorax.

The faerie circulatory system bears general similarities to those of Terran vertebrates and cephalopods, with a heart adjacent to each lung and a larger central heart located between the two longs pumping their haemocyanin blood around their body.

Faeries feel little to no effect from ethanol and some other simple alcohols due to early life of their planet utilising this byproduct of their aerobic respiration as a defence mechanism against other organisms.

Faeries have a bisex system similar to that of Terran vertebrates, with males (tercels) typically being smaller and lighter built, with red skull plates, blue head and eye crests, and red and blue tail veins, whilst females (formels) are typically larger and bulkier, with orange skull plates, purple head and eye crests, and black and lilac tail veins, however there is large individual and population variation.

Between one and five leathery eggs may be laid, which hatch into fuzzy, clumsy eyasm after roughly fifteen Terran weeks. After a year of bulking up, eyasm rapidly develop into volant flaplings, loosing much of their down and becoming much more active and curious. Infancy is considered to end after a year as a flapling, gradually developing both physically and mentally until adulthood, typically considered at sixteen years old.

Ancestrally faeries lived in arboreal communities heavily dependant on a symbiotic xerophyte, with those living in more forested habitats typically living in sprawling, low density and interconnected groups, whilst those in open environments tending to live in high density, isolated communities within stands of trees.

Fantispiritus is generally considered to have evolved three to four million years ago, with the modern species having reached a global distribution by roughly half a million years ago. Shortly after venturing beyond their home solar system, an extremist faction originating on one of their home planet’s moons attempted to seize control over the other faerie factions. Whilst this control was often tenuous over much of the homeworld, it was absolute across the vast majority of faerie space. Following an expansionist policy and a number of attempted coups and civil wars, they came into contact with a lose assemblage of alien sophonts which made up the precursor to the USS. A rapid first strike was carried out that started the Great War, leading to sweeping short term advances and the threatening of multiple homeworlds before forces could be rallied against them. Shortly before the peak of this offensive, accidental contact had been made with the Terrans and formids, opening another front in the war. It has been debated amongst scholars how much this additional front contributed to the collapse of the faerie front lines, however the consensus is that between supply line issues, internal resistance and simple resource disparity, the rapid series of defeats was inevitable, followed by a hard fought offensive that ended with the invasion of the seat of government on the homeworld’s moon. During the following reconstruction period, the faeries joined the USS.

Diagrams of formid anatomy. First is external anatomy, red and orange is skeleton, blue is respiratory system and green is digestive system.