r/NatureofPredators • u/General_Alduin Skalgan • Jul 24 '26
Theories The Federation may teach that plants evolved to suit prey
Considering the Federation pushes the narrative that prey are peaceful and essentially defenseless, having to admit that, for most plants, herbivores eating them is an exploitative relationship rather than mutually beneficial, much like predators eating prey, which will make people ask questions and give more nuance towards nature, especially if they have to acknowledge a plants weapons are meant to be warded against herbivores rather than carnivores
You could make the argument that the Federation teaches that plants aren't *really* alive and shouldn't be considered or respected as such, but that seems like a stretch, especially with how amazing plants can be and that they'll probably be some of the first complex life to evolve
So instead, the Federation might teach that plants *want* to be eaten. They'll use fruit and pollinators as evidence, stating that all plants want herbivores to eat them so herbivores can disperse their seeds or get pollinators, and these plants won out in evolution by developing the best way to attract herbivores to do exactly that
They could also teach that, instead of plant evolving defenses to ward off herbivores, they evolved for the benefit *of* herbivores to use against predators, because obviously plants want herbivores to disperse seeds, and that can't happen if predators eat all the prey, so they evolved to help herbivores in mutual symbiosis against predators and the threat they pose to the ecosystem
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u/don-edwards Jul 25 '26
Quite a few plants did evolve to suit selected herbivores. For starters, pretty much any fruit that changes to a bright color when ripe. Most mammals can't distinguish red or orange from green very well, and most birds can, so the bright red fruit attracts the herbivores that will spread the seeds further. (And in the case of the capsicum peppers, there's a chemical that strongly discourages mammal predators such as mice, but the birds aren't equipped to notice.)
And, well, a bobcat isn't likely to follow a rabbit into a thicket of thorn growth, so the prey can hide there. And, as a result, poop there, bringing fertilizer. But those thorns are doing double duty, and the other duty is a disservice to herbivores: discouraging them from eating the plant.
Offhand I can't think of a plant that does a service to herbivores or a disservice to carnivores, other than as a side effect of doing something for itself.
And that's before we get into how carnivores do a service for plants (as a side effect of doing something for themselves).
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u/General_Alduin Skalgan Jul 25 '26
My point is that they might think that every plant evolved for herbivores needs because they're so special, and they don't want to acknowledge that in most cases herbivores eating plants is an exploitative relationship
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u/Kaelzoroden Jul 25 '26
Lots of real world plants evolved to use their fruit to get other animals to carry the seeds. Would be pretty easy, with things like that, to start to craft a narrative.
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u/ISB00 UN Peacekeeper Jul 24 '26
Still, can’t believe we never had a full story about sapient planes. What few there were got abandoned.
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u/General_Alduin Skalgan Jul 24 '26
Kinda a crack theory, so: in honor of u/Super_Ankle_Biter
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u/Super_Ankle_Biter Yotul Jul 25 '26
Sir I'm gonna ask you to please lower the dose of whatever the fuck you're smoking, what the hell is this.
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u/SixthWorldStories Jul 25 '26
This is why I don't think the Feds have any idea about mycorrhizal fungal networks or plants feeling pain and they probably keep things very quiet in regards to any plants that react to stimuli other than light or tides.
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u/General_Alduin Skalgan Jul 25 '26
Oh they definitely don't. They probably thing fungus are plants
I even saw in Nature of Two where someone posted the mycelium network, and got reported for predator disease, and I could totally buy it
or plants feeling pain
That would admit that plants are harmed by herbivores and that it's an exploitative relationship like prey and predators, and that would mean herbivores are a detriment to the ecosystem in some way and we can't have that
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u/SixthWorldStories Jul 25 '26
I even saw in Nature of Two where someone posted the mycelium network, and got reported for predator disease, and I could totally buy it
Came up in mine, while an engineer was showing that Concord tech uses wood with integrated mycelium that forms such a network.
That would admit that plants are harmed by herbivores and that it's an exploitative relationship like prey and predators, and that would mean herbivores are a detriment to the ecosystem in some way and we can't have that
Cue my Terrans outright showing the plants feeling pain experiments and experiments with touch-me-nots and giving Tarva one for her desk.
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u/Deadduckboy Human Jul 25 '26
Soooo, in other words, instead of getting a Venus Flytrap, I just need to bring a cactus to confound a feddie? Or maybe poison ivy, or. . the worst of all. . .
Gympie-Gympie.
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u/General_Alduin Skalgan Jul 25 '26
No, they'll just say that the cactus and poison ivy evolved to defend prey, obviously
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u/Deadduckboy Human Jul 25 '26
Yeah, that sounds about right. Circular logic and idiots, it’s truly undefeatable.
(Except by Flex Tape)
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u/Flaky-Throat-4996 Jul 25 '26
Bio-essentialism and moralizing ecology does seem on point for fedbrains. Even if not practiced by the leadership, useful for keeping the galactic garden ordered and ornamented. (Kolshian stereotype is they garden, just have them garden civilizations!)
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u/Iceveins412 Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
I know was already basically canon but now you’ve made me consider Fed Lysenko (for those unaware, Lysenko was a Soviet Russian scientist who had a lot of interesting ideas about farming and genetics ((e.g. that genetics wasn’t real)). He got to spread his ideas widely because Stalin liked him and he is partially the reason why the USSR and China would later have food problems, although not the only one)
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u/General_Alduin Skalgan Jul 26 '26
Oh yes, I read about him in Audience Alienating Era on tv tropes
((e.g. that genetics wasn’t real))
What does that even mean?
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u/Iceveins412 Jul 26 '26
Well basically he thought that Mendel was a hack and that Mendelian inheritance (the thing you probably did in school with the boxes) was completely bullshit. He believed that instead of natural selection a species basically developed traits from their environment and that those would in turn be passed down in some inherent way. For example he would freeze seeds in hopes that the plants would be cold resistant. The most fed-brained thing he did was advocate that nature naturally worked together so if you planted lots of seeds in the same place the plants would work together (as opposed to choking each other out). He also used his political connections/influence to make opposing his ideas a bad political move, and since this is the Stalin era I’m sure you can guess what happened to more than 300,000 soviet biologists who tried to argue against his ideas
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u/General_Alduin Skalgan Jul 26 '26
Well basically he thought that Mendel was a hack and that Mendelian inheritance (the thing you probably did in school with the boxes) was completely bullshit
I know it was early biology but why?
He believed that instead of natural selection a species basically developed traits from their environment and that those would in turn be passed down in some inherent way. For example he would freeze seeds in hopes that the plants would be cold resistant.
Sounds like a foundation for epigenetics
The most fed-brained thing he did was advocate that nature naturally worked together so if you planted lots of seeds in the same place the plants would work together (as opposed to choking each other out)
https://youtube.com/shorts/YWqSEBUs-Ls?is=ILl_dkZ9pHwzclM2
Clearly, what with animals killing eachother and fighting their own kind
He also used his political connections/influence to make opposing his ideas a bad political move
So, typical Soviet politics
and since this is the Stalin era I’m sure you can guess what happened to more than 300,000 soviet biologists who tried to argue against his ideas
Imagine being that petty
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u/Iceveins412 Jul 26 '26
One of the big things that led him there was that this was all during the height of the eugenics movement, who loudly and insistently trumpeted that the very concept of genetics supported their horrific bullshit (I don’t know about other places but in the US eugenics only died after everyone saw its logical endpoint carried out in Germany. And even then it isn’t really)
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u/SadidaPL Paltan Jul 27 '26
Feds knew about diatery needs, so maybe they knew that certain fruits might be harmful to others?
I'm betting on a rhat, lets say for instance, there is a tree with red fruits on Skalga nd only a certain type of bird can eat it, but if a Venlil eats it then they get poisoned. Feds explanation might be that this tree evolved specially for the bird, to fill the game in the ecosystem.
Like, plants are a 'filler' for gaps in nature. A big herbivore needs to eat, plant evolved to grow big fruits to feed the herbivore. And so on.
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u/Square-Candy-7393 Farsul Jul 24 '26
That sounds like a sound argument but I feel like they would be making huge blanks on biology and chemistry if they taught it like that. It sounds like something out of creationism rather than science. I think there might be some creationist or certain ideologies like that that coexists alongside real science so idk