Talking To Plants: Interacting With The Triffids

[Trivega]

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.

[Maddremor]

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.

[BushElito]

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?

[mr_sep]

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.

[Turtleoverlord]

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

[mr_sep]

Intricacy of triffid negotiations: “So you tell us you never ate a single plant in your life, Mr. Vegan?”

[crazykiddeath]

“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…”

[BushElito]

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).

[nameless_survivor]

ntricacy of triffid negotiations: “So you tell us you never ate a single plant in your life, Mr. Vegan?”

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.

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.

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.

[Hof1993]

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.

[TheZoneWizard]

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?

[nameless_survivor]

Yeah I figured the process would begin as part of a mission chain.

[BushElito]

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.

[TheZoneWizard]

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 =)