Taxxon Evolution

[DinosaurNothlit]

Does that men that Taxxons are silicon based life forms.
Jimmy Neutron.

Not necessarily.  Earthworms eat dirt, after all, and they aren't silicon-based.  The fact that Taxxons' DNA can be acquired leads me to believe that they have a chemical make-up similar to that of earth creatures.  Interesting idea, though.

Anijen, the way you've phrased it made it sound like Taxxons are made of dirt, which we can be pretty sure isn't the case, since their anatomy seems to consist of a lot of slime and internal fluids.  And anyway, most things aren't actually composed of what they eat, since their bodies rearrange those compounds into more useful ones to release energy and build proteins.  Koalas are not made of eucalyptus leaves, for instance.

But although Taxxons probably wouldn't actually taste like dirt, your points are still valid ones.  Taxxons do actually eat the dirt that they dig, so it makes sense that they'd want to eat anything they could find if they were prevented from digging.  And as far as the Living Hive making new drones out of dirt, that's probably not literrally true, but the Living Hive probably eats dirt, too, and could use that matter that it consumed to produce new Taxxons, which sort of amounts to the same thing.

[anijen21]

I was being a little facetious, saying the Taxxons are comprised of dirt, sort of like saying a sailor is made of the surf or...never mind I really don't want to defend that.

And yeah, if you ate a koala it wouldn't taste like eucalyptus leaves, and I don't know if any cannibals frequent this forum but certainly humans don't taste like chocolate and hamburgers and potato chips. But what the things we eat themselves eat is often a matter of concern and quality. Corn-fed beef, for instance. But I guess what I was thinking of was more along the lines of growing a garden and irrigating it with well water--when you eat the vegetables, they taste like iron. And the Taxxons just happen to be a race whose main, if not only, source of sustenance tastes like iron, are addicted to iron, and have evolved not only to eat it but to eat it constantly as a source of their instinctual urge to dig. So if, by some magical, soft sci-fi process, "The Living Hive" contrives Taxxons from the magically nutrient-enriched Taxxon earth, maybe they will taste like dirt. And would be delicious to a Taxxon. It's as good a theory in any, imho, because I agree that the law of conservation of matter and energy pretty much dictates that the Taxxon race will die out if they are exclusively cannibalistic.

I hope this makes sense. Now I want to write a fic about the process by which the Living Hive spawns Taxxons...

[Azguard]

hehe. i've never been so fascinated by Taxxons.

but yeah , i read up a little on cannibalism on wikipedia, here are some interesting points

"Cannibalism seems to be especially prevalent in aquatic communities, in which up to ~90% of the organisms engage in cannibalism at some point of the life cycle.

Cannibalism is also not restricted to carnivorous species, but is commonly found in herbivores and detritivores."

 The aquatic part is interesting in tying in with Taxxons because they can swim on a desert world. Also, dentritivores are creatures that get their nutrients from decomposing organic matter. makes sense.

"Another common form of cannibalism is filial cannibalism (a form of infanticide) where adults eat the young of their own species (sometimes even their own immediate offspring). "

 that kinda fits in with what we've been thinking. Maybe Taxxons are actually just a lower stage of Taxxon growth, and the Living Hive produces axxons to be eaten. It could be an extreme version of cannibalistic infanticide. Crazy huh?

this is the article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannibalism_(zoology)

[voodooqueen126]

people taste like pork... in a lot of polynesian languages the word for human/food is 'long pig'. Also my brother in law who was in Iraq and Afghanistan noted that burning people smell like bacon, even though people in those countries don't eat pork. He still eats bacon.(imagine one of those faux motivational posters which shows a burnt iraqi/child and a caption that reads 'Those children smell delicious')
Conversely the reason crocodile tastes like fish chicken is thought to be because  captive crocodiles bred to be eaten eat fish and chicken. So perhaps you taste like your food only applies to lower life forms...
If the living hive is an adult taxxon then wouldn't the yeerks screw the taxxons reproductive cycle?

[Azguard]

 you mean wouldn't they want to mess with it? or wouldn't they have messed it up?

[voodooqueen126]

(see Steven Pinker, Chomsky and Konrad Kottak are idiots: informal language does affect ones ability to communicate ideas clearly)
I meant that if the living hive is the adult taxxon, then the yeerks taking a huge number of Taxxons off world would have serious negative effects on the reproductive cycle of Taxxons which would have been harmful to both the Taxxons and the yeerks (because their hosts would've eventually died out) because the yeerks were preventing the Taxxons from developing into adults, much like some parasites wasps and others, do to their catipillar or crab hosts on purpose the yeerks would've done by accident.

[Azguard]

Well. I think they would have done their research....and then went ahead and did it anyway. More so because the Taxxons were volunteer hosts.

maybe the Yeerks enslaved the living hive and forced it to reproduce mass quantities.

[voodooqueen126]

Remember the living hive doesn't like the yeerks.
but perhaps she is like a brooding ant queen and can't stop herself from producing more babies.