Many times in Sagan 4's past, there have been failed attempts to rid it of all earth clones. Sometimes, these are just plagues or competition; other times, they will be "alienified" in order to "fix" them. I would hope that the current opinion of Earth clones is neutral; that said, I would still like to make a case that earth clones in xeno projects are not bad and can actually be used in interesting ways without making them something completely different.

Take Pluvimundus, an alien planet conceptualized by Dylan Bajda (better known as Sheather).


One thing noticeable in this image is that there are apparently mammals, right there in the middle left, albeit with some pretty odd display structures--Pluvimundus has inexplicable mammals on an alien planet too! And if anything, they're even more Terran than Sagan 4's Shrews, and they come in plenty of suspiciously familiar forms, if not for their odd coloration and bipedal tendencies.



Indeed, the majority of small, unspecialized mammalogues on Pluvimundus just look like familiar small mammals, like rodents or shrews. However, everything changes with the larger, more specialized species:




These are still clearly derived from a mammalian base, and they even converge on distinctly mammalian strategies such as trunks and fangs, yet combine features in unusual but logical ways to create distinctive creatures that don't look out of place on another world. Principals such as convergent evolution are clearly applied, these are clearly mammal clones, and they did not replace their extremely terran ancestors, but they are distinct and they aren't bad.

I think the takeaway from this should be that earth clones have more potential than just to be earth clones, and they shouldn't be "fixed" by turning them into something completely different. I hope that this example will prevent us from ever going through another "kill all the bad Earth things" era.

This post has been edited by Disgustedorite: Dec 21 2020, 01:05 AM