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If it's allowed, I'll edit this and the new arbourshrooms to also be present on the driftwood islands. They'd be pretty decent at rafting and spreading around them.

I've got no issue with that. These little guys are precious, and I look forward to seeing if they'll conquer the world like ants and other eusocial insects have, even if these technically aren't a perfect analogy to them.

Don't you mean "Rundi"? It's descended from the Verdiundi, which itself isn't closely related to the Yellowdundi, and therefore the Sitting Dundi or Handlicker Dundi.

"which will lose their will to live and starve once the gamergate dies to ensure there will be no inbreeding when a new gamergate is chosen." That seems rather vague. Breeding males of the entire species reliably losing their will to live ("give-up-itis", I believe, is the medical diagnosis) does seem odd to guarantee. Breeding males being especially prone to takotsubo syndrome brought on by the stress or even heartbreak of the gamergate dying and then killed when they have a near-heart attack does make more sense.

"haram" should be "harem"; "haram" means "forbidden by Islamic law".

Would these really be entirely global? I don't think they would be well-suited for tundras, glaciers, or other very cold environments.

The purple one on the right doesn't have a scar on her throat. Should it be assumed that's a gamergate sample? It does seem to have a bigger throat, but it's so subtle I had assumed it was a different body fat distribution at first.

I don't like the making of groups willy-nilly, but its ancestor did exist in 14 habitats, and its diet means it wouldn't need to become locally adapted as much as usual. I can't think of any reason why they wouldn't be a genus group.

This post has been edited by Coolsteph: Jan 27 2021, 07:11 AM

Each species has a gamergate and infertile representative.

Nobody on the discord server objected to the term "dundi" being used. Though, I may not have made the ancestry clear. TheBigDeepCheatsy ?

Renamed to "Gamergate Gundis", an infinitely more cursed title.

You know, I was going to pass this one by, and try to ignore the rhetoric it contains, but I'm afraid I can't hold myself back any longer. I know this genus contains politicized rhetoric. As much as I wanted to avoid a political discussion, I see it necessary as a means to point out the dangerous precedent that this genus sets for the project.

The world is becoming increasingly divided by politics as left and right-wing spheres jostle against each other with increasing intensity, ripping apart groups in the process. I wanted to have Sagan IV be a refuge from the madness, so that it could remain in one piece throughout this crisis. However, this species completely shatters this necessary paradigm with its left-wing, third-wave feminist perspective of the Gamergate debacle. Let me make this clear, I want this to apply to all sides of the political spectrum. It doesn't matter if your politicized species/genus contains left or right wing rhetoric, it must not be allowed.

If you can prove that there were other species/genera featuring political hot takes in the past, then I'll have no choice but to let this slide. However, if Sagan IV has remained apolitical thus far, I implore everyone to keep divisive politics out of Sagan IV.

Bufforpington A "gamergate" is a fertile worker of a eusocial species and the term has existed longer than the political word of the same spelling.

And if you're still confused about it, the biological term shares a root word with "gamete".

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamergate

To help it’s pronounced Gam(as in gamete)-er-gate

There's still the "haram" typo.

Her harem reliably losing the will to live and starving is odd and seemingly maladaptive. Certainly, birds which mate for life (more or less), can appear deeply emotionally affected by the loss of a mate, and may end up dying within months afterward, but this species' description suggests losing the will to live always happens. Do they bond really, really strongly? Do they actually desire being with her more than eating, and so keep looking for the now-dead gamergate and get stuck in a neurological loop of prioritizing that over everything else? Do the fertile females emit some kind of appetite-inducing chemical, and the harem's ability to muster up an appetite atrophies while she is alive?

Well then, this is both unexpected and awkward. I didn’t expect a biological term surrounding eusociality to share a name with a politically divisive debacle. Sorry about the misunderstanding. I was just worried that the project was going to be politicized like so many other things these days.

it's okay. I do understand why one would be confused about the term... maybe the myrmecological community should consider an alternate form of it in latin (it means "married worker", so that's probably easy to translate).

the purpose of the harem starving is to remove risk of inbreeding. The existing harem would contain the new gamergate's father.

What would stop them from instead leaving the colony and trying to become the harem of another, unrelated female? It would seem there's a protocol of sorts for reproduction-capable Gamergate Gundis: "Losers, instead of being killed, will simply leave the colony followed by their own supporters and start anew."

I've edited it to state they leave.