Board Thread:New on Galactic Crucibles/@comment-5135903-20141008164704/@comment-5135903-20141116132803

I can see the brain as being a common adaptation among large species in an Earthlike environment, but not necessarily a given. For example, there are millions of species on Earth which have evolved 'ganglionic' nervous systems, made up of a number of distributed 'ganglions' rather than a single centralised brain. This is okay for small creatres, but would be a problem for larger animals due to the communication delay between the ganglions. However, if there was a world where signals in the nervous system were sent via, for example, light, rather than (much slower) electrical impulses, ganglionic nervous systems may be as common as brains are on Earth.

The Khoikapek have partially ganglionic nervous systems, as alluded to in Chapter 3,  "The little blob on the top of the throat is the optic ganglion, which processes information from the eyes and sends it to the brain down in the chest" - the idea being that the Khoikapek don't have the advantage of having their brains right next to their sensory organs ("I mean, putting the brain in the head. Really?! Couldn't it just get chopped off, or hit a tree branch when you're running, or something? You might as well have your brain in your hand, for goodness sake!" - Speaker), so they evolved an extra little brain in there to make up for it.

I don't think the predator-prey relationship is an evolutionary adaptation, as if an ecosystem would 'decide' to have predators and prey to maximise it's evolutionary potential. However, as long as an ecosystem is made up of individual organisms (which, almost by definition, it is), there will be competion.

You have actually stumbled on one my plans for Diasopra, which as a grand finale will involve the discovery of a planet on which there is no competition between organisms. On that, I will say no more....