Von Neumann machines, and oxygen

[wogan]

Dyson tree is the mining/replicating part of the spieces (female), while seedlings are males.

Like queen ants? A queen ant settles in, is fertilized once by a male, and constantly produces offspring. Except that Dyson seedlings should be considered asexual - so a bunch of seedlings mutate into a plant, which then produces more seedlings. Slapping male/female stickers onto any design complicates it

[totally]

Dyson tree is the mining/replicating part of the spieces (female), while seedlings are males.

Like queen ants? A queen ant settles in, is fertilized once by a male, and constantly produces offspring. Except that Dyson seedlings should be considered asexual - so a bunch of seedlings mutate into a plant, which then produces more seedlings. Slapping male/female stickers onto any design complicates it

When 15 seedlings gather in one spot to mate one of the males turns female (mutates into starter root), while the other 14 compete over who will pass their genes to the next generation. All of the 14 pass some ammount of energy (which they got from the mother tree) which is needed for the female to grow the root and start the mutation. All 14 die after mating because they have no energy left. The tree root succesfully reaches the core energy and starts producing seedlings and so on... Or something like that.

[crazeh.monkeh]

well I wasn't really saying that they are male/female, just that it isn't true asexual reproduction. In true asexual reproduction all offspring are exact clones of the parent. There is no room for any mutation to occur. However with a Dyson tree, Every seedling is not identical. The way I see it is that the seedling are sort of reproducing sexually with the asteroid. The child of the seedlings and the asteroid is the Dyson tree, which then undergoes true asexual reproduction to produce the seedlings. I say true asexual reproduction, but I'm not positive that it is... all of the offspring are identical to one another, but not to the parent. I know there is a good natural example of this, but I can't remember what it is... Off to the google!!!

[wogan]

When 15 seedlings gather in one spot to mate one of the males turns female (mutates into starter root), while the other 14 compete over who will pass their genes to the next generation. All of the 14 pass some ammount of energy (which they got from the mother tree) which is needed for the female to grow the root and start the mutation. All 14 die after mating because they have no energy left. The tree root succesfully reaches the core energy and starts producing seedlings and so on... Or something like that.

Or, alternately, you just combine their masses into a single asexual plant. There's no need to complicate the irrelevent theory behind that any further

[wogan]

However with a Dyson tree, Every seedling is not identical.

Actually they are. There are differences in the properties of the asteroids, but on any given asteroid, all Dyson seedlings produced there will be exactly the same.

[crazeh.monkeh]

yeah, on a given asteroid, but it's not universal. that is why I was saying the trees are asexual, but not the seedlings.

[wogan]

yeah, on a given asteroid, but it's not universal. that is why I was saying the trees are asexual, but not the seedlings.

But the seedlings don't influence what the trees will grow - the composition of the asteroid does (please tell me you knew that). If the seedlings contained any genetic code at all, then if you planted a new tree with a mixed bunch of seedlings, you'd get different offspring than if you planted a tree with only one type of seedling.

[crazeh.monkeh]

oops. Lol.
I really thought I included something about that in my paragraph up there, but I didn't.

It is sort of like the seedlings stimulate (sexual) the reproduction of the asteroid, which sprouts a tree (asexual), which then buds seedlings (asexual). So it is sort of a chain of asexual reproduction kicked off by sexual reproduction, but not really true sexual reproduction, as there is no exchange of genetic materials.

[totally]

Or, alternately, you just combine their masses into a single asexual plant. There's no need to complicate the irrelevent theory behind that any further

Which one is more complicated: different factions of the same race compete over territory by sending huge fleets of robots to change the condition of the asteroids in order to colonize them or just one simple spieces which has evolved somewhere.   

yeah, on a given asteroid, but it's not universal. that is why I was saying the trees are asexual, but not the seedlings.

I don't know, asteroids are more close to food/resources, they are kinda passive to mate with.



Lol, I'd like to see where it is going to develope from here

[crazeh.monkeh]

Lol. Well if they have no genetic material how are you explaining the seedlings having their traits?

[wogan]

Lol. Well if they have no genetic material how are you explaining the seedlings having their traits?

How much DNA does your computer have?

[crazeh.monkeh]

ummm... none? Lol. My computer doesn't have plants growing out of it, though, and if it did they wouldn't be like, cyber plants, or anything weird like that.

[wogan]

My point is that you don't need DNA for every single thing you create/set loose. If Dyson trees are mechanized (which they'll probably have to be), then the seedlings wouldn't carry any genetic code - just instructions on how to create the base for a new tree.

Pretty much the same way a computer virus contains the instructions to make more of itself, without actually having any DNA.

[crazeh.monkeh]

ok. I gotcha now.

So this is how I am reading what you are saying, please let me know, how far off I am.

You have the original colony, lets all say with well rounded equal stats. The seedlings scout the asteroid, find out what kind of resources it has, and then chooses the best way to spend those resources in the three stat areas. 15 of them then reconfigure themselves into a Dyson tree that absorbs the resources and produces new seedlings to best utilize the asteroids resources. Then those seedlings navigate to a different planet, scout the resources, plant a new tree, and start production there.

I know you didn't really mention resources or anything, but I figured that would be the easiest way to explain the stats of the seedlings being generated because of the asteroid.

So is that close to what you were imagining? Because I was going down the organic route, myself... Probably because the original meaning of a dyson tree was to produce oxygen in order to support colonies... I never read the thing about mars converting water to oxygen, so I had just always assumed that they worked like regular trees work on earth, they take some element/compound in the atmosphere (presumably not co2) and use that to produce their energy releasing oxygen as a gas.

[wogan]

Not quite.

Trees don't actually produce oxygen - they simply recycle CO2 in the air, using the C for growth and releasing the O2.

Dyson trees would probably have to dig into asteroids to find water, and convert the H2O there into O2. However, the game does deviate from this rather ... substantially, lol.

The composition of the asteroids influences the stats of the seedlings produced, and there isn't really any other science needed to explain that, I think. But apart from the base stats, I was thinking the oxygen could be gathered and used as a resource, probably to upgrade trees/seedlings. Enhancing the base stats of an asteroid? Very out of the box.

Dyson's main strength is that it's so simple, and it'd be preferable if that simplicity would be maintained.