>>5412460Far beyond the frigid sea, the harsh sun’s (astronomically-speaking) brief period of turbulence has come to an end. This reduces the amount of radiation reaching the planet from hellish to nightmarish, in turn reducing the rate of cancer, in turn, giving the radiation-resistant life that survived the period of solar strife the opportunity to flourish. Evolution is accelerating and four immediate changes are apparent in the narrow band ecosystem. With lessened radiation, the comparably delicate, multicellular Stone Moss has risen from the deep, to spread sheets of itself across the peaks and crags in fierce competition to the sturdier but less efficient Growth Lumps and Growth Strands. A surge of vegetable matter and reduction of cancer has seen explosive growth of the Lump Grazer population despite the continued merciless heavy metal poisoning, resulting in an abundance of readily available prey for the predators in the narrow band ecosystem.
With less tumor-riddled corpses sinking to the depths and worse heavy metal saturation below, a sizeable population of scavenging Flesh Gnawers has scraped, clawed, and thrashed their way to the narrow band ecosystem proper, where they’ve begun on live Lump Grazers in desperation. Last, with radiotrophic cartilage shielding from some radiation and an aggressive immune system destroying some tumors, for the very first time, a handful of Flounder Feeders that prefer to stay near the less toxic ice have done the unthinkable, and managed to die of old age. It turns out that the natural Flounder Feeder lifespan, sans starvation, predators, cancer, and heavy metal poisoning, is approximately four local months, or two Terran years, before internal organs shut down due to genetic decline and wear-and-tear from straining against the pressure. Radiation causes a loss of fertility in eight to twelve Terran months and performance begins to drop off after sixteen at the latest.
Due to environmental factors, predatory and otherwise, it’s extremely unlikely for any Flounder Feeder to reach old age but it has happened and their current upper bound is now known. Needless to say, every species in the narrow band ecosystem has dramatically increased in population and it’s possible that a new era of evolution is on the horizon. The Flounder Feeders have certainly smelt worse.
>How should the Flounder Feeders evolve?>3/3 