Being plant threshold to talk to plants/triffids brings up an interesting idea. What if ALL the mutation thresholds each have their own unique monster faction you become friendly with? Plants get plants/triffids, Fish get whatever terryfing things below the water, and etc.
Some thresholds are flat out better than others, so giving us more reasons to consider the other thresholds would be a boon.
Note that all mutagens, including plant mutagen, is based on blob shenanigans. Post threshhold plant mutants are not closer to being allies to triffids, rather they are probably seen as more enemies of the triffids than the quasi-neutral native humans. If you want plant mutation to be the road to triffidhood, you probably need to change it into a equivalent of the marloss transformation.
Don’t you use Triffid parts in creating the Plant mutagens and serums?
You might be manipulating the blob, but you are also injecting triffid DNA, no?
Has anyone actually thought that only thing a Triffid would like to communicate after lot of effort on human side would be “You will make great compost for my roots, bald ape”. Alien life can be alien not only for it’s looks but also moral code, world view, etc. Expecting to communicate on a same level with and invasive specie is as futile as if suddenly a chicken asked me if I liked em. “I do, especially with a hot sauce, my little nugget KFC. Would you lay me some eggs first for supper, while I heat up the oven?” You get what I mean.
We must remember that even if the trifids are smart and everything they could get addicted to stuff like industrial fertilizer just like the food industry addicted us to glutamate monosodium
Intricacy of triffid negotiations: “So you tell us you never ate a single plant in your life, Mr. Vegan?”
“On one hand I have fertilizer” Holds up sack, “On the other I have ‘Weedkiller’” Holds up Rivtech Flamethrower loaded with napalm “Now, how about we talk…”
Firstly, there are parasitic plants that use other plants to grow and spread, so plants themselves have enemies.
Secondly, plants literally spread by bearing fruits and vegetables for animals to eat them (and later poop seeds, which also acts as a fertilizer).
Thirdly, what prevents some Triffid offsprings not to be insta-hostile to everyone? Maybe there could be a rarer Triffid heart that actually wants to communicate with others, you know like a “scientist”? Not every “evil monster” is evil (but is still dangerous).
They are aliens, so their mindsets are likely different to ours. That being said, unless they consider all plant life as being themselves (in which case why are they overgrowing/displacing earth plantlife?), and also do not believe that sentient beings should consumed (in which case the very act of communicating with them takes humans off the menu), then this seems unlikely. The possibilities for this though are pretty wide.
They may consider all things equally edible and that not eating something that is dead, even if it was sentient, is wasteful.
They may consider every living being a potential meal for something (including themselves), unless it does not think of itself as being food (ie, outside of nature), because they would consider doing so to so be rude.
They might believe that deliberately killing lifeforms to consume directly or generate fertilizer is unethical.
They may consider who or what gets eaten completely irrelevant.
Simply making them uniformly hostile with motivations that are always inherently destructive to humanity and the player is a cop out. Hostility in itself doesn’t really make them alien, it just makes them another one dimensional enemy mob. At the most, it makes their motivations only matter for tactical purposes, ex: spiking bags of fertilizer with weed killer and leaving it for them to find.
They are aliens, with alien motivations, values, and thought processes. We need to make them WEIRD, not just another implacable one dimensional enemy. We have enough of those already. They should be dangerous and difficult to communicate with, but not necessarily inherently hostile.
I I myself were really in the CDDA world talking to plants would rank at about number 20,890 on my “things to do” list.
I’m thinking of 2 things this reminds me of. Farscape episode Exodus from Genesis. In which the hive creature is actually intelligent enough to learn speech. But has a Queen’s superiority complex.
The other thought is from Avatar. In which the Navi(those blue people) have tenticles coneccted directly to their brain/spine, in order to communicate similar to a USB device. A mutation could give this via plant mutagen. Thus opening up a possible route of friendship…or well, you know. A humorous round about way of saying go F yourself, in their own language as you light them on fire lol
edit:
How would this work though in game? Do the triff end up being coded as NPC faction or mobs with special properties…something else?
Yeah I figured the process would begin as part of a mission chain.
I think it should be like a NPC faction. Kinda like how Morrowind does factions - join a faction and disposition with allies and enemies adjusts.
Or when you join a House and locks the other houses.
Ohhh…do not get me started on Morrowind lol
Seems like a major overhaul. Curious when the NPCs get fleshed out if this idea maybe a thing =)
know this converstion died down but think it is worth reviving again. espesisally given the NPC overhual.
one point that people seem to forget is that triffids as sentient creatures would most likely be curious creatures as well (as this is a trait seen over and over again in real animals if they are intelligent they are curious as well since intelligence is only a survivial adventage becease it makes you better at using new experiences and things in ways that give you a survival adventage) and therefor there is a good chance that triffids would have some copassity for curiousity as well or at least valeu knowladge to a extant only for knowladge sake. The only other sentient creatures they seem to have encountered before seems to be the mycus which might as well not be sentient since it is so alien to them.
If it where to become apperent to them that humans where infact induvidulistic (becease mycus) sentient creatures there would be undautedly be atleast a few triffids hearts (since they are the only sentient beings of the bunch with the rest being accin to trained animals/breed or bio-engineert robots) who would begin observing if not trying to initiate contact even if only out of curiosity/ the potential knowladge to be gained.
As for how it would become apparent that humans are sentient creatures i think that simple interaction and observation for either human or triffid part simply wouldn’t do since humans and triffids seem to stay in completely different area’s so contact would be to limited and so would be the observed behaviors be to limited violent interactions or just staring at eachother form a distance. triffids have also now way to know that all the ruins are humans made structures and might conclude that they are natural formations with humans just being exaptionaly dangerous and nasty creatures perheps best avoided. With the exeption being if the player or a group of humans fights it way or sneaks into the triffid growth. This would draw the attention of a triffid heart enough and force/give him the oppertonity to abserve the behaviors/tactics of the humans enough that it might conclude that these creatures might be sentient and that thus comunication might be a vaiable option to deal with the humans. The other option is if a plant mutant where to show up and start to conumicate with the trees (the point about plant/A-elf mutant not being able to communicate becease they don’t understand the language is valid but misses the point that if triffids have a way to conummicate with earth plants and so can you than you can conumicate with the triffids through the same mechanism even if you have to learn the langeuge first which shouldn’t be impossible) in the triffid’s territory. This should definetly get the triffids attention if they notice since this would be a clearly mobile and intelligent plant that clearly isn’t a triffid but is earely similar to them in many ways and should definitly get them to investigate further. They might try to get you under there control (thinking you might be a form of stray triffid boi-form) or as this would inevitably fail (since you aren’t a boi-form breed to be control and fallow commants). This should prompt them likely to try and communicate (as your sentience or at least intelligence would be obvious to the triffid at this point). the same might aply to A-elf or any other mutant that can comunicate with trees since this would puzzeling in and of itself to the triffid if they where to notice. What would certainly cause the triffid to try and inicate contact if not at the very least to pay special attention to humans where if it where to find out what the mycus is trying to to with humans (one for all and all for one). This fact should seem at the very least be wurrying to the triffids if not deeply concerning and be in and of itself enough to warrent further investigation into the humans. Since if there much hated enemy is paying special attention to these creatures spicficly there must be a reason for it.