Changes: Hibernator

Latest revision as of 19:56, 1 November 2017

The hibernator (Homo dormitor) is a forest-dwelling human from the book Man After Man: An Anthropology of the Future, one of the descendants of the temperate woodland-dweller (descended from Trancer's line), characterized by their ability to hibernate for long periods of time.

History and behavior

The hibernators appeared during the periods of 5000 to 10000 years, product of the new cold climate, this species is capable to hibernate the time necessary to be able to withstand the inclement climate during the winter until the arrival of summer, but only the males being able to do it, while the females are forced to migrate southward to survive and to give birth and care for their offspring, but during the migrations many times results in considerable loss of several females. The males are versatile in the construction of shelters formed by wood which they use to pass the winter and to accumulate the necessary food. Females appear to have a much lower life expectancy, tending to live a few years. This species is polygamous, males tend to breed with different females throughout their lives.

Planters

The planters are a much longer-lived descendants of the hibernators which lives 2 million years in the future, being able to live hundreds of years that spend most of the time dormant in large structures which build with the sole purpose of protecting them during the long lethargy period. When they wake up, they take up some time to feed themselves, to grow new food and to repair their enclosures if necessary. It can be assumed that they were extinguished due to the last climatic changes in 3 million years in the future.

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-The '''hibernator''', ''Homo dormitor'', is a conifer forest-dwelling human from 10,000 years, descended from the [[Temperate Woodlands-Dweller]], able to hibernate for long periods of time.
+The '''hibernator''' (''Homo dormitor)'' is a forest-dwelling human from the book ''[[Man After Man: An Anthropology of the Future]]'', one of the descendants of the [[Temperate Woodlands-Dweller|temperate woodland-dweller]] (descended from Trancer's line), characterized by their ability to hibernate for long periods of time.
+==History and behavior==
+The hibernators appeared during the periods of 5000 to 10000 years, product of the new cold climate, this species is capable to hibernate the time necessary to be able to withstand the inclement climate during the winter until the arrival of summer, but only the males being able to do it, while the females are forced to migrate southward to survive and to give birth and care for their offspring, but during the migrations many times results in considerable loss of several females. <span style="font-weight:normal;">The males are versatile in the construction of shelters <span style="font-weight:normal;">formed by wood</span> which they use to pass the winter a</span>nd to accumulate the necessary food<span style="font-weight:normal;">. </span>Females appear to have a much lower life expectancy, tending to live a few years. This species is polygamous, males tend to breed with different females throughout their lives.
-The trancelike state is not now as deep as it was a few days ago. The warmth of spring is filtering through the cocoon's insulating layers of fiber and wood, registering slowly on the dulled nerves and sensory system of the sleeper, triggering a slow increase in his metabolism and bringing consciousness nearer. His mind emerges from total blankness into a dream state, in which he relives and consolidates the hunting and gathering techniques that he learned last season. In his dream he sees the forest of his home, firstly as it was when he was a child, then as it was more recently. The most recent memory-dream is of his mate of last season, and hopefully of this season also, and the thought of her excites him so much that the final barrier of consciousness is broken, and he is awake.
+==Planters==
+The planters are a much longer-lived descendants of the hibernators which lives 2 million years in the future, being able to live hundreds of years that spend most of the time dormant in large structures which build with the sole purpose of protecting them during the long lethargy period. When they wake up, they take up some time to feed themselves, to grow new food and to repair their enclosures if necessary. It can be assumed that they were extinguished due to the last climatic changes in 3 million years in the future.
-With a groan of momentary disappointment that the last vision was only a dream, he stretches himself, pulling open his eyelids against the mucus that gums them together, and unfolding his limbs which are so stiff that they almost creak. With a struggle he breaks through the covering of vegetable matter and into the spring smells of the coniferous forest.
-The spring flowers - the gentians, orchids and saxifrages - are out and blooming, as they are whenever he awakes from his winter sleep, but the sun is low in the sky. Spring is early this year, therefore the climate must be becoming warmer.
-Then the pain of hunger strikes him and he digs at the remains of his food store. Several times throughout the dark winter he broke his trance to feed and now there is little left. Most of the tubers have rotted and the seeds germinated, but there are still a number of items that are edible. These he devours with no hesitation, to give him the strength to look for more.
-There is plenty of food about, since it is the beginning of the time of swarming insects and the damp soil and decaying needles underfoot house a vast array of luscious wriggling things. Beneath the bark of the trees, too, grubs of such insects as beetles burrow and tunnel in their millions, and birds are here as well, having travelled up from the south, as his mate will hopefully do, to feed on the insects. When his stiffness has worn off, and he has built up his strength again he will also be able to catch the birds and the little rodents that have come out to feed on the tender shoots and saplings.
-Looking for food, he rips the bark from a fallen tree, one which must have died during the winter. He remembers when it was merely a sapling - over 60 years ago, but numbers mean nothing to him. He only remembers.
-After building up his strength for a few days he sets about the task of building his fortress. It will be made of wood, comfortable and soft inside, but harsh, jagged and defensive outside. It needs to be, since there are many marauding rival males about that would fight him to death for a fertile female like his. He builds his fortress on what remains of last season's, and that is quite a lot. As the years go by his building techniques improve and his structures become more durable.
-Little remains, however, of the guide walls, and these have to be rebuilt every spring. Reaching out in two directions in a huge V-shape, open end to the south and with the fortress at the apex, the structure stretches for over 2000 paces in each direction. It is made of sticks pushed into the ground and thinner sticks woven in between. It is not meant to be a barrier, but more of a marker across the landscape. His mate has wintered in the milder climates away to the south, and will be travelling northwards very soon. It is essential that she does not miss the fortress and go blundering on northwards, or end up in some other male's domain.
-With construction completed, he starts to build up the food supplies in the fortress itself. After a few days he hears an excited chatter, and he looks expectantly from the mouth of the now comfortable fortress. She is there, walking confidently up the side of the barrier.
-Yes, she carries the winter's baby with her.
-With joy, one of the few emotions he can feel, he rushes to meet them, and to fondle her and stroke the child he sees for the first time. A female. That is good: there are enough males around. This is the first child that he has had by this female, although he has had many others by other mates.
-Females are much shorter-lived than males. They cannot sleep the cold times away, as they have to travel south to give birth in the winter. Many of his females aged and died during his life, while many others became lost in the migration, dying on the trek or ending up in other fortresses.
-Each individual has its allotted lifespan. Barring accident or disease it survives for about 2000 million heartbeats. For the migrating females these heartbeats average about 70 per minute. For the hibernating male this average is kept up during waking times, but during the late autumn, winter and early spring it drops to about 20 per minute. The remainder of his bodily functions slow down accordingly. As a result the male's lifespan is between four and five times the length of the female's.
-In the dimness of his weak imagination he sometimes thinks that it would be better if babies were born during the summer so that they could all hibernate together; but this would not be possible unless the growth of a baby inside the female could be speeded up or slowed down, so that the offspring of the spring mating emerged at a more convenient time.
-That cannot be... yet.
-== By 2 million years ==
-The hibernators become the planters.
-The food will be there, and can be taken, as the [[Memory People|travellers]] know. Every year the enclosures ripen, the planters awake, feed, repair the enclosures if necessary, plant the new seed and return to their slumbers once more. The secret is for the travellers to time the journey so as to arrive before the planters rouse from their long sleep. The planters are supposed to be a very ancient race, and each one lives for many hundreds of years (if "live" is the right word). How can you be living if more than nine-tenths of your time is spent asleep?
-How did this come about? It probably goes back to the time when the differences between the cold times and the warm times were much greater than they are now. There have always been animals that have hibernated - slowed down their systems and gone to sleep during the coldest time of the year. These creatures usually gather their food and store it, waking up and eating from time to time; or else they eat so much when they are awake that they build up stores of fat that nourish them while they sleep. The planters were once normal, like the travellers, but probably not so intelligent. Back when the ice had just shriveled up from the continents and the "winters" were still cold, they developed the ability to sleep away the harshest of conditions, and they stored up food as well. Some of the seeds and grains that they stored would have germinated by the time the stores were opened; if the hibernation time were long enough they may even have fruited again. As the centuries and millennia passed, the planters developed the ability to remain suspended until harvest time, when they would come out and eat, plant the next crop and retire again.
-The travellers knew that it was possible for such things to happen. Vaguely they remembered the knowledge that their ancestors had possessed, knowledge about changing conditions and changing life.
-There must never be any dealings with the planters. The planters build their enclosures, and use the growing vegetation not just for food. They gather their food from where it grows, but also plant it in places that will be more convenient for them to collect it from. They build walls and roofs of stone and wood to protect what they have done, just as their remote ancestors did. It was the beginning of the changes that eventually destroyed everything - the land, the living things, themselves. Now nothing must be altered, nothing must be built, nothing must be changed from its natural state; that is the credo of the travellers.
-Beings like the planters constantly use their minds and their hands to devise and construct artifacts. They are intelligent enough to think out anew the ways of doing things, although they do not remember that these things have been done before. It is as if the whole disease were starting all over again.
-== By 3 million years ==
-They die out.
-[[Category:Future animals]]
 [[Category:Animals]]
-[[Category:Mammals]]
-[[Category:Placentals]]
-[[Category:Primates]]
-[[Category:Future Humanoids]]
 [[Category:Man After Man species]]
+[[Category:Posthumans]]