#flatbuilding

[2d-dreams]

A quick view at the Bees of Flatland

here depicted: a Square man looking at a few bees, among them a Queen (the largest) and a drone (curved beak/stinger). There is also a wasp (maybe more appropiately a hornet? not sure on the name) which is larger and has three spikes at its back. On the far side is a Linear Woman for size reference.

Bees and wasps are the main pollinators in Flatland. Though their acute stingers seem dangerous, their main purpose is actually to be narrow enough to fit inside of a flower.

here depicted: A flower, characterized by a stem supporting two petals. Each petal (though it can't be seen sorry) has little hairs with pollen. Inside of the flower is a chamber with nectar. A bee is sipping up the nectar! Some nectar drops can be seen inside of its two stomachs.

Bees are the main focus of this post.

In Flatland, they are mistakenly referred to as being mainly male, with the queen instead called the king, the juvenile reproductive members who travel away from the hive being called princes, and the drones being referred to as the females, etc. This is actually wrong, and similarly to Spaceland and Planiturth bees, these are a mostly female species, with males only being useful for fertilizing the queens.

Drones or male bees are characterized by their extremely thin (line-thin) probo-stinger (mix of proboscis and stinger!), which is also curved. This is because of the Queen's reproductive organ's structure. It also helps them get rid of dead drones- after mating, a drone will instantly or near-instantly die, and another drone will stab him with his probostinger, pull him out and then get his own business done.

The queen can store huge amounts of sperm, as you can see the storage organ takes around a fourth of her body. She is also, unlike other bees, able to digest the perimeter of other animals. This is generally restricted to eating her dead mates.

On the note of digesting things, all bees have two stomachs. One is the private stomach, which is the one that synthesizes their meals for themselves, and the other is a public stomach, where they store nectar either to bring back to the hive to store in a cell, or to feed other workers, the queen, or the brood through a process called trophallaxis.

Well, there is an exception to this, and it is drones. Drones are useless for everything that doesn't involve mating, and only have their private stomach. They don't even have more than a tiny fragment of a brain.

Bees, like those in our world, have their caste system based on the reproductive role of an individual, along with a division of labor among the sterile workers, usually dependent on their age. Some clean up the cells and hive, some collect nectar, and some build the cells. They can manage to do all of this with nearly no brain!

The way bees navigate the world is based on highly developed sense of smell and Feeling, like a vast majority of animals.

Other than Irregularity and dimness, another characteristic of most animals in Flatland is the lack of eye. Their facial organ is instead usually just a mouth or also packed with extremely smell-sensitive cells. In my interpretation of Flatland, there are no hairs or cilia, except for in some animals.

More will be said soon, especially focusing on wasps, their relationship to bees, and some other dangerous beings.

[2d-dreams]

A Brief Look at the Flatlander Motor-Circulatory System

I would like to begin this post by clarifying that I have no idea what I'm doing- I put words together and they vaguely make sense to me and I run off with them. These might not make sense to you- much less if you're some Planiturth Science Knower. Pardon me.

Flatlanders don't have flesh in the sense that creatures of Spaceland and Planiturth do. Underneath their hard perimeter there is only liquid and the organs' perimeters, that easily break apart when the bones are split and their balance is broken.

Blood courses through the body, performing its functions, transporting nutrients, oxygen, etcetera. Its movement seems to keep the organs together somehow.

An additional and important function of it is movement, hence the name "motor-circulatory" system.

Blood travels through a vessel at each angle where a Flatlander's bones should conect, as it cannot pass through the bones themselves. This vessel connects the insides of the Flatlander with the skin/muscle. The vessel is a "zipper" organ. Zipper organs are inspired by The Planiverse (a great book!).

Blood passes from the insides to the skin through the vessel, and runs through the skin to wherever it is needed (whether one side in general, all sides, or a specific point in one side!). Different volumes of blood focused in different manners affect a Flatlander's weight.

Focusing on one point on one side, tensing the skin/muscle at that point, allows a Flatlander to hold an object.

(Same image as the second, but AAGH! THEY'RE HOLDING A GUN!)

Holding things with their sides tends to be a little hard, but it isn't impossible, and unlike the use of their beaks, does not render them blind.

Focusing blood (tensing the muscles) on the entirety of their sides makes them heavier, and drawing it away makes them lighter.

By contracting the muscles on their sides rhythmically, kind of like gripping the ether, they are capable of achieving movement, somehow. It makes sense in my brain.

[2d-dreams]

Flatlander Mouths

short post but basically thinking about how they open their mouths used to bother me so i came up with this

closed mouth - all open mouth - half open mouth

Usually the all open mouth is for when they are ready to swallow the meal, half open would be usually to chew.

so there's little bones at the face angle that can slide back into the mouth/insides to "open". That's it. When fully open the beak parts join at the throat so that swallowing is only possible when the mouth is closed.

closed - full open - half open?

Women can do this crazy thing where, other than the usual beak movement, can 'unhinge' the jaw like a snake. They can probably do it with both, but its usually only one part of the beak that opens up like this. This is mostly to make birth a little easier.

[2d-dreams]

The body of the Flatlander: Lines

CY'S BACK AT IT WITH THE FLATBIO POSTS!

Remember: I am not a scientist/biologist/etcetera! I'm just some kid!

Remember 2: I should start looking into the possibility of getting someone to help me write IDs for these posts and the Flatland Encyclopaedia, because I can't do it always.

front endpoint of a Line

This has been sitting on my drafts since July 11 but I cant bring myself to finish the other endpoint or use my keyboard [my office is too hot] so I'm terribly sorry for the half baked post.

The eye is the brightest part of the body. You could argue that Lines have two eyes because of the division that allows them to breathe.. but it doesnt disrupt the brightness so meh. One eye.

I suppose that suction to the eye [through the respiratory hole sucking air in] could be another way for them to grab things, for as long as they can hold their breath.

Talking about holding their breath, they don't need air to perform their peace cry or to speak. Flatlanders have a tymbal-like organ, like an insect. So they can speak while eating etc. Some sounds do need air, but theyre mostly related to emotion and are used in conjugation to their tymbal chirps.

Around the Line's tymbal, above the lung, lays the occipital lobe and receptors. The receptors of the eye of a Flatlander are sensitive to light [Sight] and also extremely sensitive to touch [Feeling] – the occipital lobe's primary visual cortex right under the eye handles the information it receives and directs the tymbal.

The primary visual cortex's transmitters send and receive information and directions from the eye+vocal through the space that separates them [the lung] from the main brain. The other half of the occipital connects to the rest of the brain.

Under the brain, which extends for the vast majority of the Line's body, is the centroid/heart, which isnt actually situated at the center of the Line. [Still not 100% sure whether they have hearts, but I like the geometry reference—]

Under that is the digestive system. The "throat" from stomach to mouth is off to the side. On the other side is the reproductive system/womb. At last there's the mouth/beak, which unlike the eyepoint is much sharper. You can still die if you're stabbed by the frontpoint. Don't get cocky.

[2d-dreams]

Computers in Flatland

A confused Square man watching his Pentagon son use a computer. [descriptive id soon i still cant figure out how to word this]

I'm going to say some very brief things about modern Flatland computers, because I don't even understand how Planiturth computers work. [I'm learning programming, NOT electronics]

The computer itself is a rectangle [in this case actually an irregular pentagon to fit with the screen] with some holes for additional devices' cables like printers, microphone, speakers and anglephones, and a square shaped pocket for storage devices like chips and peridisks [their equivalent of USBs, the chips are older and square shaped, and the peridisks are polygonal]

The computer has one or two antenna and a connection to electricity. And a good thing about artificial things is that they can have plenty of holes.

The interesting part of the computer is the screen. This is connected to the computer itself through wire attached to the screen chip.

[A: Screen chip]

This is the large rectangle at the back or north of the screen monitor. It reads the information that the computer sends to it [messages from the internet, for example] and releases the keys needed to write the message on the screen. It also reads the input given by the user [for example, writing a reply] translates it into computer-language and sends it to the computer to do whatever it needs to do with it.

[B: Screen keys]

These are the needles directly below/south of the chip. They have springs underneath. They write words and rudimentary images [example in first image where on the right side of the screen there seems to be a Square's angle] for the user to see, by extending the springs in such a way that the needles poke the screen [which is not completely rigid but a somewhat malleable material] creating a certain relief or bump along with a brightness depending on how hard the key presses against the screen [harder or more vertically expanded= brighter] or extends its tip [extends it horizontally, creating bigger angles the more it expands]

This is usually used as output only, but in some cases such as in a menu, the user may press the bumps to select an option.

The first computers had less thick screens because they didn't need keys. They were exclusively designed for Circles and employed only Brightness. It appears that this new model is not only more accessible for those who do not have Sight Recognition, but also cheaper.

[C: Stylus]

Also known as cursor. This is used to write on the screen. Some people with acute angles may be able to write with their own angle, but for the wider-angled this is easier to use.

The screen is able to pick up on the indentation made on it and read it as text.

[D: Enter and Delete]

These two buttons can have different functions depending on context. In reading mode they can be used as arrows to scroll through long text that doesn't fit on the screen. In newer computers that come with a Scroller, these can take different functions such as copying text. In writing mode they can be Enter [to signal you're done writing] or Delete [to erase the last letter]

[E: Mode button]

The mode button allows the computer screen to change modes- usually between Input or 'writing' mode [where you can use your stylus to write text or give orders to the computer] and Output or 'reading' mode [where the computer displays what you need].

Usually the change is immediate and automatic, like if you just ordered the computer to open tumblr it will switch into Reading mode instantly. But it can be useful if you're in a messaging app and want to switch between reading your friend's message and writing a new reply, etc.

[F: Scroller]

The Scroller is a new addition to Flatland computers, and similar to a computer mouse in Planiturth. It is connected to the screen by a cable and consists of a circle with more than half of it enclosed in a shell with 2 buttons. The circle can't pop out of its shell. The circle is the scroller itself, rolling it will scroll through the screen's output text if it's very long. It has the Enter and Delete buttons on it.

[2d-dreams]

calendar

i guess you can use a similar thing as a clock too

[2d-dreams]

Beings of Dimensions

A sort of height chart of the 'anthropomorphic' designs of Dimensional Beings.

Suppose that all are adults. You will notice that there is a noticeable height difference between dimensions, that's the main point. To differentiate similar shapes of different dimensions (example, flatland woman vs lineland man) just look at the height. Less dimensions, shorter.

Here depicted are:

Spacelander male(?) - A Sphere, CEO of Messiah Inc.

Flatlander female - Cy Blackwell, Irregular line.

Flatlander male - Paul Schwarz, hexagon.

Linelander male - ???

Linelander females (soprano and contralto) - ???

Pointland Itself

(In background) Hyperlander being - hypercube or tesseract.

[2d-dreams]

My Flatland Worldbuilding Masterlist

For easier finding of all my Flatland lore.

Culture and Society:

Naming:

ID System: post

Writing:

Disability and Irregularity: post 1 -

Religion:

Providence and Nature: post 1 (intro/art) - post 2

Festivals:

Anatomy and Biology of the Human kind:

Motor-Circulatory System: post 1 (main post) - post 2 (bendy Lines) - etc

text

Technology:

Computers.

Transport.

Flatland Animals and Plants:

Flatland Itself (Laws of nature, etc.):

Rain: post 1 (including trees) - post 2

Weight.

Planned Posts:

Hygiene

The bodies of Females, Males, and "Others"

Character Stories:

Campbell Family: post

Yung Venuz and Yung Cuz: post 1 - post 2