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Educationish!
Shading
koofins
(High-res version available for free over on my Patreon!)
https://unitedhelpukraine.org/ https://savelife.in.ua/en/
Educationish!
Shading
koofins(High-res version available for free over on my Patreon!)
https://unitedhelpukraine.org/ https://savelife.in.ua/en/
Category Artwork (Digital) / Comics
Species Yinglet
Size 900 x 1174px
File Size 921.8 kB
Listed in Folders
Many people have theories that the yinglets are either from space, or uplifted by people from space. The factions on the planet could not, as they are medieval at best, but a spacefaring one could. This also matches in to how the relics of fancy tech that people are interested in seem to fall in a rather "spaceship crash" sort of way.
Assuming Narklet is not actually receiving signals from the stars, but merely watches to see when pieces of an orbiting lab come crashing down, then the lab that uplifted them was just in orbit around the planet, and decayed over time until a section with the uplifted yinglets crashed. Leftover debris continues to fall, and the bits of uplift tech(the nanite stone that transformed Kassen) are hastily snatched up.
Assuming Narklet is not actually receiving signals from the stars, but merely watches to see when pieces of an orbiting lab come crashing down, then the lab that uplifted them was just in orbit around the planet, and decayed over time until a section with the uplifted yinglets crashed. Leftover debris continues to fall, and the bits of uplift tech(the nanite stone that transformed Kassen) are hastily snatched up.
The clues for uplift are more magical in nature, particularly Kass' means of transformation. Someone made a means of making people into yinglets, with no way back. either the newly minted yings boinked, making more smart ones the natural way with inbreeding making itself apparent in the silly modern ADHD ying.
.....oooorrrrr, they had to or were boinked by lesser yinglets, making the ADHD silly modern ying and were slowly trying to weed out the peewee herman yings among their children before they passed, with mixed success.
.....oooorrrrr, they had to or were boinked by lesser yinglets, making the ADHD silly modern ying and were slowly trying to weed out the peewee herman yings among their children before they passed, with mixed success.
I think it's several factors. There's the Antiquties hinting that this is a post apocalyptic, possibly failed colony scenario. There's the sudden apparent rise of the sentient (mostly) Greater Yinglets just a century and a half ago. As a side note Patriarch Figgens has been alive almost a third of the time his entire species has existed. Throw in the existence of the presumed precursor/uplifted species, the Lesser Yinglets and the Zhat Zhing which is probably some sort of crazy Science So Advanced It Might As Well Be Magic that transformed an adult male human into an adult female Greater Yinglet and hints from Val (if not outright statements, I can't remember) that there is no magic in the setting, and there is strong speculation in several places that the Yinglets were uplifted by an as yet unknown agency. My personal pet theory is that the Zhat Zhing is so old that Kass is a basic default Yinglet and is genetically identical to the first Yings of 140 years ago.
It's specifically a yinglet-maker though. And it seems unlikely any human would survive if it wasn't made for use on humans as well. Perhaps a set of them was intended for use in a stage of the project that was never achieved: Civilising the yinglets. It's not enough to just engineer a species to be smart - they need to be taught how to live as well. Perhaps doing so is easier if you turn your teachers into yinglets too, to live among them?
If that stage is never reached all you get are a bunch of smart savages running around and stabbing prey with pointy sticks. The yinglets we see have barely advanced beyond this, learning culture and technology mostly from humans. This theory does raise the interesting possibility that the yinglet great leader might have been a transformed human too.
If that stage is never reached all you get are a bunch of smart savages running around and stabbing prey with pointy sticks. The yinglets we see have barely advanced beyond this, learning culture and technology mostly from humans. This theory does raise the interesting possibility that the yinglet great leader might have been a transformed human too.
That's a cool idea but uh, the explanation doesn't sound physically possible; the movement wouldn't be able to push blood into the extremities of the tongue before the tongue moves across the flesh and thus loses the capability of piercing it. More likely the yinglet tongue engorges with blood in response to tasting mollusk flesh. But it's also realistic for the scientist to get it wrong!
It's actually very close to how woodpecker tongues work, though they don't have the bulbs; other critters also use similar mechanisms. It's pretty neat. The sequence of events sounds like:
1) Yinglet uses a couple quick tongue-thrusts to sever the ligaments holding the mollusk to its shell.
2) Hard stab, where the bristles penetrate the flesh.
3) Blood's released from a small sinus in the tongue, which inflates the barbules and locks them in place.
4) Quick pull out, and down the hatch!
1) Yinglet uses a couple quick tongue-thrusts to sever the ligaments holding the mollusk to its shell.
2) Hard stab, where the bristles penetrate the flesh.
3) Blood's released from a small sinus in the tongue, which inflates the barbules and locks them in place.
4) Quick pull out, and down the hatch!
The last panel is the start of https://scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/8283669.html
And the only thought in that head was "why me?" 🤣
Yinglets are a young alien sophont race. Weird comes with the territory (and it's also very good writing and speculative biology!) And Ran is there to explain every gory detail to us.
Kind of reminds me of a Sundew carnivorous plant, except different mechanism. Really, it's a beautiful design; tongue barbs stab into the soft meat, bulbs inflate to lock them in place, and a good pull does the rest. Perfect anatomy for shellfish-eaters!
Yinglets are a young alien sophont race. Weird comes with the territory (and it's also very good writing and speculative biology!) And Ran is there to explain every gory detail to us.
Kind of reminds me of a Sundew carnivorous plant, except different mechanism. Really, it's a beautiful design; tongue barbs stab into the soft meat, bulbs inflate to lock them in place, and a good pull does the rest. Perfect anatomy for shellfish-eaters!
Of all things about this setting, one of the most impressive is Val's dedication to consistent biology. All plausible in that it's not out of the question for such things to exist somewhere somewhen. Gives me the impression Val has, in soke stack of papers, such a thorough writeup of yinglet and baxxid physiology to make Ran scream with excitement.
The weird part is how distant these species are. Humans and yinglets could plausibly come from the same taxonomic line - they have the same basic tetrapod body plan, and fur, so yinglets could at least be something akin to a monotreme mammal. But the Baxxid and Indrel are entirely different, and just as different from each other. It's hard to see them even originating on the same planet simultaneously. Are we sure even the lesser yinglet is native? It might be that they were always intended to become greater yinglets, but required some critical population or environmental condition be reached before triggering their development into the greater.
That's a bizarre but not entirely ridiculous way to settle a planet. If it's a long term process - perhaps terraforming will take centuries - then edit in a genetic switch to turn off sentience. Let the future population pass the time in animalistic state, thus avoiding all the complexities of trying to work on a planet with an intelligent population who might get in the way. When the time is right, the appropriate environmental trigger can flick over and the first generation of Greater Yinglets are born.
Or maybe that was the plan, but then someone discovered that some of the native life that had initially been dismissed as nothing but dangerous predators actually possesses intelligence far greater than appearance suggests, and the whole plan goes out the window.
That's a bizarre but not entirely ridiculous way to settle a planet. If it's a long term process - perhaps terraforming will take centuries - then edit in a genetic switch to turn off sentience. Let the future population pass the time in animalistic state, thus avoiding all the complexities of trying to work on a planet with an intelligent population who might get in the way. When the time is right, the appropriate environmental trigger can flick over and the first generation of Greater Yinglets are born.
Or maybe that was the plan, but then someone discovered that some of the native life that had initially been dismissed as nothing but dangerous predators actually possesses intelligence far greater than appearance suggests, and the whole plan goes out the window.
The planet is obviously not earth so humans traveled there. Yinglets are related to some local species outside of the obvious lesser yinglet like the local dog.
My take is that humans uplifted the Baxxid as it make little sense they evolved intelligence, Indrel is huge social insects so could evolved it but would all types of them?
Anyway humans landed and started tinkering. Uplifted Baxxid, then started to thinker with lesser yinglets in an very radical way.
Some sort of clark tech who is magic to us transforming anything into yinglets rater than just gene editing and breeding lesser yinglet.
But design still had lots of bugs like they mostly got males offspring, legs to fragile and so on. So the stored crystals was never used but stored.
Everything collapses, hundreds of year later the crystals get washed out to sea. Animals breaking them could become yinglets.
My second theory is that target is transformed into an mostly female yinglet. Who is at her most fit age with no illnesses or defects except being an yinglet.
So its an anti aging potion. This is why the leaders are so secretive of it, if known its an anti aging potion all will want to keep it for themselves or their loved ones.
This includes many humans, if I was old and on my death bed, 30 more years as an female yinglet would an good enough deal for me.
My take is that humans uplifted the Baxxid as it make little sense they evolved intelligence, Indrel is huge social insects so could evolved it but would all types of them?
Anyway humans landed and started tinkering. Uplifted Baxxid, then started to thinker with lesser yinglets in an very radical way.
Some sort of clark tech who is magic to us transforming anything into yinglets rater than just gene editing and breeding lesser yinglet.
But design still had lots of bugs like they mostly got males offspring, legs to fragile and so on. So the stored crystals was never used but stored.
Everything collapses, hundreds of year later the crystals get washed out to sea. Animals breaking them could become yinglets.
My second theory is that target is transformed into an mostly female yinglet. Who is at her most fit age with no illnesses or defects except being an yinglet.
So its an anti aging potion. This is why the leaders are so secretive of it, if known its an anti aging potion all will want to keep it for themselves or their loved ones.
This includes many humans, if I was old and on my death bed, 30 more years as an female yinglet would an good enough deal for me.
My current theory is that the colonisation project failed because the humans underestimated the native life. The Indrel and Baxxid don't look like the standard human idea of intelligent life. They look like just dangerous predators that would need to be exterminated from the vicinity of any settlement. Humans land, start their project, deploy the drones to fight these dangerous stabby-snake monsters... and then the stabby-snakes quickly learn anti-drone tactics, coordinated assaults and siege warfare. The resulting conflict leads to the collapse of the colony. Humans survive by fleeing, but they lose access to their technology and the digital records of their history. After a few generations struggling to survive their only memory of coming to the planet is an oral mythology.
Problem with that is that if you can make something who can transform an human into an alien species in seconds making an virus who make them like humans is nothing, just killing them would be way easier but not as nice.
My take is that they brought it on themselves, one small core held all the systems and it failed.
As you could not recharge your energy weapons the wildlife was an problem.
My take is that they brought it on themselves, one small core held all the systems and it failed.
As you could not recharge your energy weapons the wildlife was an problem.
Perhaps, but the Baxxid are no dumb predator as might at first be assumed. The first the humans find out might be when their tower collapses to undermining. But this is all speculation. There are only a few things we can say for sure:
1. This is not Earth. Not even far-future Earth - the sky is dominated by a nebula. Therefore humans are not native. We do not know if they came here by their own power or were brought here.
2. There are relics of a past advanced technological civilisation, with technology suggesting human construction, but something caused a loss of the historical record from this period. Humans today have only a late-medieval technological knowledge. It is not clear if this was purely human or mixed-species. The abrupt appearance without any lower-technology archaeological sites suggests that it did not originate on the planet, which lends strong support to the speculation that interstellar colonisation was involved but is not enough to entirely confirm this suggestion.
3. The existence of Zhat Zhing, which appears to be an object of technology so advanced it verges on magic, and the transformative effect it has. As Zhat Zhing is not clear to make out and the origin unknown, it is unclear if it is a product of the lost civilisation or of human construction at all. It bears no obvious markings, being only a fluid contained in what appears to be a sealed vial.
4. The Greater Yinglet's first appeared comparatively recently, many centuries after the period of the lost civilisation and, most probably, the creation of Zhat Zhing. This poses a problem in that the creators of Zhat Zhing made it based on a species which, at the time, was not documented to exist. There is no clear explanation for this, though commenters have offered many theories.
5. The Greater Yinglet's appearance was abrupt. Whether natural evolution or artificially aided, they appeared in a very short time with no recorded intermediate between them and their closest living relative the Lesser Yinglet.
6. There are, at a minimum, three other sentient species on this planet. Baxxid, Indrel, and a large humanoid with no name yet given but which Ran recognised. None of which are closely related to each other. Any of which might or might not be native - there is insufficient information to answer this with any certainty.
1. This is not Earth. Not even far-future Earth - the sky is dominated by a nebula. Therefore humans are not native. We do not know if they came here by their own power or were brought here.
2. There are relics of a past advanced technological civilisation, with technology suggesting human construction, but something caused a loss of the historical record from this period. Humans today have only a late-medieval technological knowledge. It is not clear if this was purely human or mixed-species. The abrupt appearance without any lower-technology archaeological sites suggests that it did not originate on the planet, which lends strong support to the speculation that interstellar colonisation was involved but is not enough to entirely confirm this suggestion.
3. The existence of Zhat Zhing, which appears to be an object of technology so advanced it verges on magic, and the transformative effect it has. As Zhat Zhing is not clear to make out and the origin unknown, it is unclear if it is a product of the lost civilisation or of human construction at all. It bears no obvious markings, being only a fluid contained in what appears to be a sealed vial.
4. The Greater Yinglet's first appeared comparatively recently, many centuries after the period of the lost civilisation and, most probably, the creation of Zhat Zhing. This poses a problem in that the creators of Zhat Zhing made it based on a species which, at the time, was not documented to exist. There is no clear explanation for this, though commenters have offered many theories.
5. The Greater Yinglet's appearance was abrupt. Whether natural evolution or artificially aided, they appeared in a very short time with no recorded intermediate between them and their closest living relative the Lesser Yinglet.
6. There are, at a minimum, three other sentient species on this planet. Baxxid, Indrel, and a large humanoid with no name yet given but which Ran recognised. None of which are closely related to each other. Any of which might or might not be native - there is insufficient information to answer this with any certainty.
And now generations of biologists get to argue, is it papill-eee or paill-eye?
(I'll settle that one in advance: Latin was around for a long time, and while the written form changed little, the pronunciation drifted all over the place. It depends if you're speaking in classical latin or one of the many flavors of medieval latin.)
(I'll settle that one in advance: Latin was around for a long time, and while the written form changed little, the pronunciation drifted all over the place. It depends if you're speaking in classical latin or one of the many flavors of medieval latin.)
Heya OOPs gang! I'm here to remind you yet again that there's a place called "Top Web Comics" https://www.topwebcomics.com/?home=3 that compiles comics from various places. There's a bunch of cool stuff there. They have monthly votes, so you can support OOPs there. You can vote once a day per device, so your PC, laptop, tablet, phone, etc.
I've noticed that you can sometimes even get in extra votes from different IP addresses, or if you're disconnected from your IP and open up again later.
It closed out last month at about 1150 votes and 59th place. It's currently at 18 votes and 60th place. The highest it's reached is 36th place, and the top vote getters seem to end up with something close to 20,000 votes.
Vote early, vote often! Help OOPs get noticed!
I've noticed that you can sometimes even get in extra votes from different IP addresses, or if you're disconnected from your IP and open up again later.
It closed out last month at about 1150 votes and 59th place. It's currently at 18 votes and 60th place. The highest it's reached is 36th place, and the top vote getters seem to end up with something close to 20,000 votes.
Vote early, vote often! Help OOPs get noticed!
I appreciate your work put into biological lore of a fictional species, and how you seem to execute it so well!
Its one thing to give the typical fiction "Oh this thing does X because of this fluid that does this thing!" or "It has a organ here with a weird name I just came up with that sounds like a sneeze that is able to perform this function! (and thats as far in detail I will go)"
But this does seem somewhat biologically based in something resembling reality. Its cool!
Its one thing to give the typical fiction "Oh this thing does X because of this fluid that does this thing!" or "It has a organ here with a weird name I just came up with that sounds like a sneeze that is able to perform this function! (and thats as far in detail I will go)"
But this does seem somewhat biologically based in something resembling reality. Its cool!
That tongue will forever haunt my dreams. When looking at the tongue with its blood-inflated micro-papillae, it reminded me of trypophobia: so off-putting yet I can't look away. However, if I was a yinglet and found this out, I'd have a compulsive need to get my tongue to do that then see if I can feel them for some reason despite how squimish it'd make me feel. I'd feel them with my fingers and see if I can pop them. But that depends on how microscopic they are for me to even be able to.
Yup, now I realize (one of the many reasons) why I hate this.
Getting "licked" by a yinglet would suck.
Best case, you're getting turned into a pincushion. If those pimples are pulled out of your skin fully-inflated, they'll rip big painful holes around the acupuncture-needle entrance wounds, and you'll be "sweating blood."
Worse and more likely, you'll be introducing their spit to your bloodstream, which will give rise to all kinds of weird, horrifyingly-itchy immune system reactions.
Worst case, the tongue-hemorrhoids aren't strong enough to deal with mammal skin, and rupture inside your tissue. Now you've got yinglet blood in your skin/blood stream. This way potentially lies anaphylaxis. Your body will mistake this for an infected parasite-wound, triggering both an IgE reaction and an IgM reaction. Swollen, itchy, feverish, and your throat might close up and you stop breathing.
Also this one in particular might have something communicable in their blood…
Getting "licked" by a yinglet would suck.
Best case, you're getting turned into a pincushion. If those pimples are pulled out of your skin fully-inflated, they'll rip big painful holes around the acupuncture-needle entrance wounds, and you'll be "sweating blood."
Worse and more likely, you'll be introducing their spit to your bloodstream, which will give rise to all kinds of weird, horrifyingly-itchy immune system reactions.
Worst case, the tongue-hemorrhoids aren't strong enough to deal with mammal skin, and rupture inside your tissue. Now you've got yinglet blood in your skin/blood stream. This way potentially lies anaphylaxis. Your body will mistake this for an infected parasite-wound, triggering both an IgE reaction and an IgM reaction. Swollen, itchy, feverish, and your throat might close up and you stop breathing.
Also this one in particular might have something communicable in their blood…
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