It's been a bit since I've rambled about xenobiology headcanons, and this time because I've been thinking about Andreas I thought today's edition would be about talpaedans, seeing as how I made a list that I haven't put into a post yet-
Let's go!
Between all members of talpaedan youth and development, there is an innate basic understanding of construction, as comparable to human's ability to recognise patterns and facial language (give or take a few neurodivergencies). And specific construction comprehension is linked to whatever tool talpaedan youth are integrated in, which develops over time based on what materials are consumed (a diet of concrete may make cement mixers, or a diet that requires a lot of digging may develop jackhammers) as well of course the genes of the parent/s.
And on to that 'parent/s' thing, let's bring up haplodiplody again.
On Earth, haplodiplody is the system where one sex is developed from a fertilised egg (which tends to be the females) and thus are diploid with DNA of the mother and father, while the other sex is from an unfertilised egg (males would technically be the result of asexual reproduction) and thus is only haploid with only the mother providing DNA. Talpaedans are not an Earth species, but functionally that is the basis of their sex-determination, where females would be best translated as architects and males best translated as tradies, which in of itself is rather contextually slang in English.
And even with haplodiplody, talpaedans still have a bimodal sex distribution, though tradies are neither part of the equation. Instead, fertilised eggs though typically expected to produce architects also just as often produce workers, non-reproducing talpaedan youths that are born an raised to be the most common labourers of the colony they were born under and never leave the hive, as opposed to architects who work higher profile jobs and are in line to be promoted to site queens, and tradies who pre-war were lower rung workers who took to training younglings for work as well as in general raising them. Being bimodal it's not a perfect list of traits to be considered as either an architect or a worker, though there is a bias towards architects being able to reproduce as that would be the key factor needed in promotion. Tradies that are infertile or more characteristically architects would be considered workers and are more of a consequence of asexual reproduction and the lack of genetic diversity.
Talpaedan gender has been typically correlated with sex throughout most Poiana Lüncas colonies, with the architects being the talpaedan equivalent for women and tradies as the talpaedan equivalent for men, but workers have a more diverse gender identity even in more conservative colonies, either being a third gender or having men and women and in between identities being formally acknowledged as such in worker populations. There might be a few general issues about identity especially among architects and tradies, but colonies are less focused on the individual and most of their aggression is directed to other colonies rather than it's own population.
It is this tension towards other colonies that had eventually and near inevitably sent Poiana Lüncas into many wars, though the most recent one had been the worst and the last in many years, a war that fundamentally changed how intercolonial relationships worked. A very large colony had been expanding it's borders to accrue even more resources for it's ever growing population, in turn threatening the smaller colonies on it's outer borders, elevating tensions to an all time high. The whole shtick lasted for years until a few colonies realised that alone no one could stop this large megacolony from wiping out each of them one by one, but through an alliance they could stand together and beat the ever loving crap out of the aggressor.
And how their alliance worked was through the sharing of resources and ensuring the protection of youths especially, and so began the first war-era runs of arranged 'marriages' as tradies live up to their name in a more eh... dubious sense. By sending in tradies (who's lower rung work was mining for resources and food) from colonies not on the front line, the colonies along the border had assurances that their home had well fed and well protected populations - as well as a general diverting of power - to beat back the aggressor colony and in fact not only raze it to the ground, but dug it completely out and functionally turned it into a mass grave reeking of death; No Queen's Land it would later be named, for no surviving members of the colony were left alive to name it after themselves.
With a combination of a clearly war-created desert and the whole 'ant death smell' thing that exists in ants aka the big inspiration for my talpaedan headcanons, makes No Queen's Land an omen that trade routes never cross, instead creating what would be a ring road surrounding the outer reaches of the ex-colony that would direct trade routes through the border colonies one by one. Direct trade or travel between the colonies on complete opposite sides of the pock marked, crater desert is both impossible and otherwise detested by Queens and the architects responsible for trade routes, instead being a multicolonial multigenerational process that circles the border colonies until reaching the 'opposite side of the world'.
To this day (or at least to the day that exists universally in the moment that Andreas would consider a 'this day') the trade routes affect the lives of tradies post-war. Instead of being completely locked to the hive like workers and architects, tradies at a certain age are sent to travel in as both tradesmen and concubines to whatever colony they have been raised for, a fact that had been determined early on at the development of their tools and the needs of the recipient colony. The host colony would arrange their young to be raised by tradies that once came from their own host colony, determined by their last name of [birth colony-trade colony] (as opposed to architects and workers whose last names are simply [birth colony]) in order to be raised as bilingual to understand the majority language of their trade colony and to be an example of the future youth they would need to raise speaking their birth colony's language.
Andreas was on one such trade route when Aggregor snatched the talpaedan for materials in functionally a fusion experiment, being part of a group about to be married off to a queen, an architect or as a working tradie, technically 'divorcing' the deal when Andreas was stolen away. Considering that Poiana Lüncas isn't the most peaceful environmentally, the trade routes also serve as a double use, a sharing of resources and a preventative measure for overpopulation. I mean, a colony would be pissed if absolutely none of their trade gets to them - probably spark a conflict that may get hairy - but losing numbers is an expected consequence. Andreas doesn't expect anyone to particularly care that they're missing the one or few talpaedans that disappeared in the night, especially with the generally large number a trade route sends, and Aggregor isn't going to take out a whole line of talpaedans just to get to one; a simple 'cutting off from the group' works fine enough.
And one final thing to note, now more focused on Andreas as an individual rather than talpaedans as a species. I've mentioned death smell and thought to bring it up here since, if you've seen my stuff before or straight up follow me (for my rambling or long enough to see my rambling), I love stealing @kariachi's necromancer Argit and the whole idea of him killing, healing, and reviving Andreas in the titular episode Andreas' Fault. I looked up how ant death smell works and apparently it's a constant thing that's only combated by a constant flow of life smell, so with a brief touch of death even if Andreas doesn't REEK of death, a talpaedan would probably suspect Andreas stepped into No Queen's Land and got cursed by something. But for those of y'all buried deep enough in my rambling would be confused; 'if one can smell actual literal death and associate it as actual literal death why doesn't Andreas at least even slightly suspect the idea of being briefly dead when the castle crashed?'
Well babes, you know what's an easy simple solution for this? Andreas is anosmic :D! Of course Andreas would be the last to know, Andreas' would have no frame of reference for what a 'death smell' is. Could even be how Aggregor got Andreas separated, if everyone else can smell death smell they might notice the fact that No Queen's Land reeks of the stuff. Not a great way to find out that one is anosmic admittedly, but I mean if Ra'ad is finding out that among the many neurodivergencies he does have much of his overstimulated suffering is magic and mutation that he thought every other amperi had to deal with because you find out your husband died and now has a magical mind barrier well...
Okay okay, one more final note. Given that Andreas is a tradie, Andreas's full name would be [birth colony]-Andromeda after the name Andreas actually gets married into because Earth and especially English dominated areas of Earth like last names. And I guess if Andreas gets adopted into any Earth-based packs thanks to being attached to Argit like a puppy you can shove in another last name like [birth colony]-[pack]-Andromeda.
I was watching Ben 10 Omniverse and a character named Atomix appeared. first of all his speech patterns are hilarious. But the most annoying yet I love about him are his play on words, this whole entire shows play on words and general knowledge, when you get it it is just- GOSH DANGIT. The reason I am saying this is because one of his moves was named "Nuclear Winner"... which is a play on nuclear winter and as someone who knows a lot about science, history, and astrophysics, I was just. jsndkdjdjd. But then again it's nife knowing those types of things because you understand all the sciency stuff they are talking about (but I feel like a nerd for understanding that kind of stuff.) But the play on words with things. Here is a couple of things I am talking about: remember the Talpaedan Andreas? His name is from the fault line San Andreas, remember NRG? His species is a Prypiatosian-b, Pryp'yat' is a ghost town in Ukraine and was the ninth nuclear city in the Soviet Union to serve the nearby Chernobyl power plant. I forgot what NRG means though. Just that kind of stuff I absolutely adore but hat because they are good puns and plays on words. I cannot think of any more plays on words at the moment but I just had to get this off of my head.
And now, because I'm bored and have nothing better to do, here's a short list featuring the names of all of my favorite alien species from different media that I know of.
Thinking about talpaedans again, how I’ve gone ahead and given them (among direct inspiration from armadillos) that alien element in ant genes, and how in the blazes Andreas survived getting crushed by a castle-
As stated previously, I gave talpaedans that ant-based edge because of the desire to have a whole construction/deconstruction site within one ‘family’, or to the extent of ant biology plus civil engineer lingo, a ‘colony’ or ‘union’ which would include smaller groups more akin to family even if most anyone in any given city is related to their ‘queen’ (haplodiplody is an interesting beast). And ant gender doesn’t directly translate to ant sex because of some sleeper genes that, when activated in a certain species series of events, give an ant on the individual level a specialisation. Some specialisations are general but some are sex locked, and in talpaedans I’ve been thinking of making that split between construction and deconstruction.
This would mean that Andreas specifically would have a gendered specialisation, jackhammers so to say, and so indeed lives up to that by being a being in castle crashing. An example of a gendered counterpart would be a set of cement mixers, except with a little more techno organic ingredients, which can in a carbon-based lifeform be a self-produced tar (since tar is made from wood, coal, bones and other organic substances, a few ingredients here and there plus canonically black blood, you get fucked up ant biology just like the ants that explode themselves) and kinda serve to glue stuff together if sealing the cracks isn’t enough. A gender neutral specialisation would be a ‘used everywhere’ adaptation like forklift or scaffolding tools which kinda translate to ‘has big claws’ on one end or ‘has long hammed’ on the other.
And these are just only a few examples, this does not even include drills (it was Omniverse to make Armodrillo a jackhammer and drill), bolt guns and more.
Okay but why am I - a gender apathetic lad - trying to make the talpaedan equivalent for male a deconstruction tool and the talpaedan equivalent for female a construction tool? Well because I recently learnt about specific techniques of home defence that certain colonies of ants perform!
Inspired by the ants that collapse the entrance to the colony (and causing casualties in the process), wouldn’t it make sense for the male-ish deconstruction equipment to stay and turn a little corner retreat into a full on bubble of air in a sea of dirt, entirely defensible and difficult to get in (thanks to the rubble of actual genuine architecture because if you’ve got a whole city of civil engineers you’ve got a whole lot of actual underground city planning). For the predominately female-ish warrior force (especially my wonderful passing mention of a ‘bolt gun’ specialisation), the backlines and really the only thing for a colony deems worthy of fighting for - the literal fucking colony - and collapsing tunnels, trapping choke points and being 100% certain that any young, elder or otherwise non-combatant is kept safe between layers and layers of controlled rubble.
And so with this I bring to you, how did Andreas survive a castle collapse? That’s because no matter how good someone is at sealing off tunnels, the actual destruction of the passage isn’t entirely controlled and can indeed BACKFIRE to those unprepared or unused to the responsibility. Regardless of Andreas’ own experience with tunnel closing (a precaution done during wartimes which, given that [my headcanon] Andreas was in one of the first few generations of peacetimes, is not as necessary a task to do so much as just keep in mind), there’s a reason why talpaedans are so heavily armoured. Being buried in rubble is no easy thing - hurts like a bitch - but with the collapsing of tunnels being a rather purposeful if still variable defence, having crush resistance helps keep more folk alive. And I suppose, the best way to survive being buried would be to have collapsible armour oneself, the metal having room to cave and potentially have internal cushioning (such as techno-organic fur) just to prevent sharp shell pieces from stabbing vitals.
And hey that’s the end of the post, which was total not inspired by me rereading Kariachi’s necromancer Argit reviving Andreas fic no no it was the Casual Geographic video on ants yeet-
