Plants (move)

The move Plants was introduced on 25 July 2020 11:36 UTC and recorded to the Canon on 1 August 2020 20:44 UTC.

Text

Trafalgar recorded the move to the Canon with the following text:

Move 7:

The main world in our narrative contains a surfeit of plant life, with no fewer than one million species (at least 600,000 of them being terrestrial), some displaying remarkable evolutionary divergences allowing them to fit into a wide variety of ecological niches. However, lignin has not evolved in this world, so the tallest terrestrial plant life does not grow much beyond the height of the tallest of the sentient species.

Trivia

• Plants was the eighth move in the Greater Game. It was misnumbered "Move 7" and recorded in the Canon with the misnumbering.
• This move was introduced by RavShimon and managed by Trafalgar during Round 2.
• Unlike most other moves, RavShimon never gave this move an official name, nor did Trafalgar give the move an official name in the Canon. "Plants" is an unofficial name, appearing only in this wiki.
• RavShimon did not intend to imply that there are not any sentient plant species.
• RavShimon also provided some examples that seem to have been approved by Trafalgar but were not recorded into the Canon. They are:

• "Example 1 - the Brewer Plant. Two large leaves extend above the main body of this plant, each of which contains thousands of micropores allowing free flow of air while providing a support frame for naturally occurring yeast. These yeast, when captured, form colonies which are nurtured by the Brewer Plant's secretions and in turn excrete waste products which supplement deficiencies in the host plant's diet due to poor soil quality in its native environment. The Brewer Plant is so named due to the use of its leaves in early forms of fermentation."
• "Example 2 - Floating Wanderers. This range of free-floating aquatic plant (with both lake and oceanic varieties) have no means of self-propulsion, but float freely with the tides and the currents. These carnivorous plants have dangling structures (visibly similar to, and evolved from, roots) which capture plankton and smaller nektonic organisms."
• "Example 3 - Fleshfruit Trees*. These bushes borrowed on the evolutionary idea of encouraging herbivores to consume their fruit (as a method of seed dispersal) by wrapping them in large balls of sugar: the Fleshfruit Tree wraps its seeds in masses of protein which exude an odour of animal flesh as a means of tapping into the carnivore 'market.' To protect against the caustic environment of the carnivore gut the seeds are extra-sturdy; however, the energy required to construct dense balls of complex proteins and hardy seeds requires extra-efficient energy availability, which the Fleshfruit Tree obtains by digesting corpses of smaller animals that fall into holes formed naturally around its base as a result of the growth of its extensive root system (rather akin to the feeding practices of antlions). *These plants are on the taller side and are thus called trees relative to other plants; however, they are no taller than what we might call bushes."

• The players discussed how it is possible that plants did not evolve lignin.

• Dominick: "I'd imagine there is normally evolutionary pressure on plants to compete for starlight and grow taller than one another. It seems unlikely to me that plants would not evolve this, and I'm failing to come up with some ideas for evolutionary pressures against height in plants (other than like, some toxic gas that lingers a few meters above the ground somehow)."
• RavShimon: "I envision such heavy adaptations in so many species as partly driven by the lack of height as competitive advantage--or, conversely, the lack of need to reach upward as a result of such effective (and disparate) adaptations. It could also be that this is a 'primitive' world in that lignin has simply not evolved YET--but time will tell...."
• Dominick: "Maybe the planet is very large with high gravity, so it's more advantageous to grow outward than upward."
• Trafalgar: "The lack of a molecule doing the job of lignin doesn't bother me so much and I don't think a "why" is required on this move, or maybe even at all, although it's a good thing to contemplate. It can take millions of years for an adaptation that allows the lucky winners who come up with it to take off to show up. It could just be the 'before times.' Unless there *is* an adaptive pressure against the development of height, can you imagine if seeds of a plant that can grow tall blew through a schist, though, and what that could do to the native ecology..."

• The players debated whether or not these are plants in the same biological sense as in the real world.
• During this move, RavShimon and Trafalgar discussed the possibility of invasive species of plants on the planet that have lignin and do grow taller.
• During this move, Dominick suggested, "I'm getting the sense that this planet is gonna be like the Australia of planets, where everything, even the plants, are trying to kill you." Although RavShimon clarified that it was not intended for the plants of this planet to be exceptionally murderous.