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[Dragontologist]

Felegro walks the border of his domain, brushing his branch against a shimmering sheet of slightly opaque energy.  Those who have looked into such things can recognize that the sheet is hundreds of times thicker than any normal barrier, incorporating hundreds of territory boundaries along with the domain, thickening the border to nearly opaque.  The thin line where Felegro is dragging his branch ripples outward across the border.  He doesn't seem to be busy creating a ritual, just tracing the border in contemplative thought, or perhaps looking for weakened areas.

[Trafalager]

After a short time the soft clatter of leather and chain armor can be hear approaching from a short distance away as the young Ares, Traff, slowly steps into stride with Felegro.

He walks along the Hevetian quietly leaving Felegro to his thoughts, waiting to see if there are an objections to his presence.

[Dragontologist]

"Hey," says Felegro, as Trafalgar joins him, but continues walking without adding more.

[Trafalager]

Traff will watch the ripples as they cascade across the vast surface of the domain wall.

"Friend Felegro, it has dawned on me that we have never really had a chance to talk.  I wish to know if you would care to take some time to share you're story with me?  Lots of people would shout their opinion of you from the rooftops at the moment, and I would prefer to spend some time with you to create my own opinion.  I have no desire to fall to the tides of raging emotions.  I'd rather make a clear and informed assessment of you."

His eyes narrow on the Domain for a moment, "Especially considering my House seems to be insistent upon drawing itself in deeper and deeper into a conflict I understand little about."

[Dragontologist]

Felegro sighs, realizing that this is neither the first nor the last time he'll have to go through this story.  "Well, to make a long story short, I have, or rather had, a copy of every Avatar in the last six cycles in my domain.  Clones, usually somewhere between five and nine each, all in a vegetable state without minds or ability to move off life support.  And when the Council failed to act, Vlad, Cappy, and Spew charged in, activated the clones, and caused all sorts of havoc, so now the clones are up and alive and level zeros.  And on top of that, they released an army of monsters and demons and the like; the same ones that came out at the past few Lugosicons alongside the Ghostrock.  So now the domain is no longer mine, and I can't get in easily, and the Sigma virus may be activated, and the clones may take over the Council, and the Army could easily wipe us out with one tenth of their numbers, and there's just an insane number of things that could go wrong."

While talking, Felegro is continuing to walk at a calm pace, trailing his branch along the border.  "And because I'm sure you're wondering why, it's because I can do all sorts of positive work with these clones.  Or rather, could have, if it had not been interfered with on such a huge level.  I can stop the energy loss from death, I can cure the Sigma virus, and I have a backup of the Nexus and backups of Avatars in case something goes MASSIVELY wrong.  I could have done so much, and the Council decided it would be better to have a witchhunt.  I've had these things six cycles and the only things I've released into the Nexus were just strong enough to put up a fight and make life interesting.  They never even hurt anybody."

[Trafalager]

Traff blinks up at the tree in surprise.  "I don't care about that story.  I've heard it seven million times from seven million different people.  I want to hear YOUR story.  Who are you, where are you from, what have you done here...before this."

[Dragontologist]

Felegro stops, turning to the Ares in surprise.  "Me?  You want to... hmm.  okay.  Sorry about ranting there.  Uhm.  Okay.  Let's see.  I think I'm going to start at genetics, move on to society and genetic memory, magic, maybe more society, the Balancing, and then me.  You wanted to know, and this will be long.  Are you sure you're up for it?"

(OOC: Assuming Traf agrees, in some way, I'm posting the first part of this... and also, I hate you for making me write this rather than telling it in person like I've done to so many others :-p )

"The biggest thing about my world, obviously, is that we are all plants.  Many worlds that have researched their evolutionary beginnings believe that when life began, it was initially small chains of chemicals, which eventually became simple plants, such as Algae, but grew steadily more complex.”  He waves a branch, and in midair an illusion forms of steadily more complex plants, growing from algae to moss and up to ferns and grasses.   

“Now, mind you, this is all told in a mostly fanciful way... the actual process of change took millennia.  But it's easier to understand this way."  If needed, Fel provides a basic explanation of helpful vs. unhelpful traits in the evolution of a species, and expounds that into a larger worldview.

"Plants of this type absorbed light from the suns, and produced energy from that.  To do this, they went through a complex chemical process that used a certain gas from the air, as well as water, and exuded a different type of gas."  The illusion forms into a leaf, demonstrating the very basics of this process.  "But as you can see, the exuded gas never goes anywhere after being exuded.  Eventually, this gas built up in the atmosphere - a slow buildup which was poisoning the atmosphere.  In some worlds, nothing changed, and the plants died horribly when there was nothing to breathe.  In some worlds, animals were created, which breathed in that gas that was poisonous to the plants.  But in my world, other plants developed which breathed in this other gas.  So my world never evolved animals, and never needed to. 

“Anyway, eventually, some plants developed the ability to fill in niches which were not being used.  Plants moved from the ocean to the land, and from the land even to the air, in small amounts.  Some grew underground, like fungi, and some grew in other inhospitable environments, such as near active volcanoes, or at the bottom of the deepest depths of the oceans.  And some plants developed to eat other plants, which involved moving more than many of the others.  Anyway, over a long process of a slowly escalating war of genetic development, plants began to think, much like humans grew from apes." 

Felegro pauses, making sure Traf understands the basic concepts behind evolution.

[Trafalager]

(Traf will request the brief explanation of Darwin's Evolution.)

Traf listens quietly as Felegro begins his tale.  He nods at some points to indicate that he's following the tree's explanation.

He'll only stop Felegro at the end of the first part of his story, "If you could avoid any analogies between your world and this common world 'Earth' I would appreciate it.  While I am Human, I'm in not from any of these 'Earths' that are so popular to reference.  I can follow your explanation better without them, and I'll fill in analogies to my own world if I need."

"For example," Traf continues, "Where I'm from many species and races evolved into their current forms from those long since gone.  The difference is in my world that much of it was caused my the mixing of blood and gene pools and less from natural selection.  For instance the Trell and the Barghast are the descendants of the joining of a mortal Imass and a Toblakai in the age before the Ritual of Tellan.  Or humans, who are the direct progeny of the last mortal Imass after the Ritual of Tellan.  There are even those who speculate that the Imass are descended from the Eres, who little is known of."

[Dragontologist]

Felegro smiles.  "Of course, that's not a problem.  Most of the comparisons are over, at this point; from here it's development and society."

"Anyway, the new, moving, intelligent plants developed a society, of a sort.  They passed down their knowledge between generations, they developed a system of cultivation.  Much like all primitive societies, they developed language, and writing, and math.  However, my world also had magic, which the plants used to improve their lives in many ways.  They discovered biology as a science much earlier than other worlds I have journeyed into, and worked on developing specific traits into their offspring.  Because my race does not procreate based on love or connection to a partner, it is based on purely genetic traits - which, I understand, is the basis for beauty in most worlds."

"After a long while, and the rise and fall of many empires and civilizations, one grove realized that trees were taking as long as a third of their lifetimes learning the skills and knowledge which previous generations had already learned, and decided to do something about it.  Well, it took about two hundred years to work out all the issues, but they developed genetic memory - memory which could be implanted into the genes, and passed down to offspring.  Plants grew up knowing, without training, calculus and biology and language and history - without need for training outside the social construct and how to use their knowledge effectively.

“This is the start of my story, since my genetic memory dates back to some of the earliest experiments with the process.  It’s not perfect memory of course – can you imagine knowing what your 200-generation-removed ancestor did on vacation? – but stories and information passed down by choice.  It isn’t perfect learning, either, to ensure that each generation can make its own mistakes and grow despite the failures of the past.  It’s more like we are born with a quarter million years worth of stories in our heads, stories of our history and the world and how to talk and reason and do math and genetic splicing and all sorts of other information."

[Trafalager]

At Felegro's last statement Traff misses a step and one hand goes to the cover of the book hanging from his belt.  "There are those cultures in my realm that have magics they use in a similar manner to what you describe."

[Dragontologist]

Felegro nods.  "It is not completely unknown.  It is an artificial way of increasing one's lifespan without medical advancements.  Magic is a very important way of making it happen, and in fact, my particular species are both the magicians and genetic engineers - since these two tasks usually intertwine, one must be beyond master in both.  Our job is to experiment and create change, to find new and exciting ways to employ our talents to create a new and better world.  The Windtaker, my post, is head of this change and creation.

The Grovemaster position is the other side of the coin: to preserve that which already exists, to maintain tradition and reduce upset.  After the advent of genetic engineering, their role of tradition-keepers gradually fell away, but their conservative “things as they used to be” attitude continues to hold true.

While the Grovemaster and I sometimes cross swords, so to speak, we generally work well together.  I can unleash my newest creations on small areas at a time, but the final decision on whether certain new plants would be a good addition to the general population is worked out between both of us, then offered to other groves as trials.  Some sections accept and grow these new species, some do not.  There’s a wide variety of species and a wide variety in each grove, so each grove is unique."

[Dragontologist]

((OOC: As a side note, for those not in the scene, this info is public if you want your character to have it - broadcast on Lightfoot TV or whatever.))

[Trafalager]

Traff nods to indicate that he understands and for Felegro to continue.

[Dragontologist]

Felegr continues, "Anyway, during one of the good centuries, a number of groves’ magicians came together and decided to take yet another shot at weather magic.  Weather had been a huge uncontrollable force in the world, and while magic is able to take care of a number of issues, there is always weather.

“These magicians gathered in one grove, and created a ritual.  They assembled huge amounts of other magicians – not just the top few, but the top ten thousand or so, and gathered them all in one area.  And then, they performed the ritual.”  Felegro sighs, taking a deep breath.  “No one really knows what the ritual was.  What we do know, is that afterwards, there was a crater three hundred miles wide, and the planet itself was rotating incorrectly."

A globe of a planet forms in the air before Traf, with a pair of suns shining on it.  A crater blows on one side, transforming half of a continent into black ash, and the planet whirls on its axis unpredictably, then slows, rotating in a totally new direction than before.  “It was a winter beyond winters for one half of the globe, and on the other half, boiling deserts.  The few that survived were in the border between the two, and that area was rotating quickly, forcing mass migrations that continued nonstop for generations.  The event became known as the Balancing, because all Groves became equal under the auspices of the unceasing weather."

[Dragontologist]

Felegro looks upset at this revelation, and it takes a long moment before he can continue.  “Eventually we managed to create a new society, a nomadic one, but we were never able to truly fix the issue of the world’s rotation.  We grew clones when we could, since the youngest could not survive on their own in the harshest weather, and developed hibernation cycles for seedlings.  We enacted strict rules on weakness; those who were too weak to keep up with the grove as it migrated were left behind.  The grove could not survive if it didn’t make its quota of movement for the day.  It was harsh, and it was horrible, and we all knew it because we couldn’t forget the past.”

Felegro sighs.  “I was very young when I came here.  I still am; I would be considered a sapling not worthy of spreading seed in my own world.  But I am the only one of my kind, and have to act.  When I came, I was horrified at the society the Avatars had created.  It was abhorrent, it was wrong on all sorts of levels.

“And in response, I initially decided to change these Avatars into something with morals and goals more like my own.  Since then, obviously, I have changed my mind, and have learned what it is to be human.  Was even human for a while.  It’s a very different experience than anything my ancestors have had.  I believe the world is bigger than myself, but it is everyone’s responsibility to live up to that importance.  I’m just trying to inspire the Avatars to greatness.”