Chull Senescence

[The Rooster]

Noone has really brought up a super awesome piece of worldbuilding added by WoR. Chull senescence. Via this image we learn that adult chulls having (as far as I know) no natural predators pupate one last time in maturty and turn into natural gardens. That's a bit of a joke but seriously folks they look really cool in the state known as Senescence. Chull drivers must feed their chulls a special diet to make sure their "cash cows" don't turn into rocks during highstorms. This is super cool, and I think it has a very real world implication. Multiple times WoB has popped up saying that the rampant slaughter of un-matured Chasmfiends known as the Shattered Plains Warwould eventually have big real world impact by greatly decreasing the population of CHasmfiends. What possible boon to the environment could these massive things be. Obviously they're going to be eating many many smaller creatures.. But what else? Chasmfiends obviously have no natural predators besides man so I postulate that Chasmfiends also acieve Senescence at full maturity.

Why is this important?

I don't know, but I can postulate.

1. Mountain Seed : Senescence level chasmfiends would be huge. What if the majority of Rosharan mountains started as giant Greatshell Senescence pods? Thousands upon thousands of years of crem later, BOOM, Mountains. Moutains with a big chull gemstone right in the center. Thus the Shin and Horneater reverence for the spirit of mountains.

2. Investment Release: The massive planetwide investment that Is a high storm leaves being millions of gemstones full to the brim with light. Light that slowly drains until the stone is dun? Is this invested energy used up simply thru the process of giving off this light? Or is there another answer. The Secescent Chull shown in the drawing looks ornamental, even to a spiritual nature. What if these pods are the Nexi by which stormlight leaves the physical realm to be redistributed in another Highstorm.

3. The looks super cool.

I don't have any other uses for giant Senescent Pods. What do ya'll think about this? Is it significant or just super creative and cool worldbuilding?

[dyring]

The last stage, I would assume new larvae/chull cremlings come out of it? Anyone got a better idea?

 

That would mean chull does not have genders, and there is no mixing of DNA, each new chull are clones of their parent? or?

[The Rooster]

I'm assuming based on this illustration that the Senescence Pupation is the end of the Chulls life cycle. So that any breeding would have needed to be done while they are in their adult phase.

[Otto Didact]

Well, given that they try really hard to avoid chulls entering the senescent stage, I assume that they reproduce during the adult stage. This feels like one of those little things that Brandon says offhand that will be super important later on. In WoR, Shallan mentions that the Shattered Plains can't be the natural habitat for the chasmfiends--they just come there to pupate and leave afterward. Where do they live most of the time?

[PudgyNinja]

I'm assuming based on this illustration that the Senescence Pupation is the end of the Chulls life cycle. So that any breeding would have needed to be done while they are in their adult phase.

 

Edit:  never mind.  

 

It seems more likely that the senescence phase is just another pupation into a larger entity.  Like a big rock cocoon.

Edited March 18, 2014 by PudgyNinja

[PorridgeBrick]

If there were another stage, it would be well known and shown on the diagram. Plus, they wouldn't care as much about delaying senescence if they just get a bigger chull– they would want to hasten it, in fact. So Senescence is the end of the life cycle. Since there's not much reason to become a rock unless you're a rock that feeds the little baby chulls, it must be the larvae spawning stage.

Also, chulls are probably either asexual or hermaphroditic. If they had two genders, then only one would have to undergo Senescence. The other would be the one used for workers, since it's much easier to use them when you don't have to worry about them garden-ifying.

[Satsuoni]

If there were another stage, it would be well known and shown on the diagram. Plus, they wouldn't care as much about delaying senescence if they just get a bigger chull– they would want to hasten it, in fact. So Senescence is the end of the life cycle. Since there's not much reason to become a rock unless you're a rock that feeds the little baby chulls, it must be the larvae spawning stage.

Also, chulls are probably either asexual or hermaphroditic. If they had two genders, then only one would have to undergo Senescence. The other would be the one used for workers, since it's much easier to use them when you don't have to worry about them garden-ifying.

Has it occurred to you that senescence is just what it is, that is, essentially, death from old age? We know nothing about how Chulls are bred, but I doubt their larva hatch during pupation, or people wouldn't be able to get larvae without chull parents dying off? And IIRC, chulls have several pupations after the first one, with each next one more likely to end in senescence and each one erasing their memory.

 

As such, Chull maybe just like lobster in a way: lobsters do not really age, just grow bigger with each molting, which in turn makes the next molting harder, until they are either too big to move or die during molting. So the chulls in nature pupate until during one pupation they die and become that "garden", while in captivity they are kept from pupating, prolonging their lifespan.

[thejopen27]

Yes people use a dictionary.  Senescence isn't a word Brandon invented it's literal definition is the decay and eventual death from old age.  It's where the word senile comes from.

[Armless writer]

Just think of what would happen if this occurred to a sainthid or the reshi islands. If the crawled onto land they would form new mountains. Also Brandon said that the continents move gradually with erosion and deposition. So this might be where all the mountains come from.

[dyring]

There would be no point in turning into that if it was just to die. There must be another point, or else they would just die still in chull shape.

 

And several pupations? They go from larvae/cremling(top pic) to chull(mid pick) in one. Is there any info claiming they have several pupations beyond that? I cant recall seing any. Larvae and chull look very different from eachothers.

 

Point being, senescence looks very different from the pupating on that picture. I think first senescence picture is the waiting while cremlings/larvae grows, and second senescence is where they come out (top part looks wierd, almost like a flower)

[Thought]

As we know that much of Rosharian life was inspired by tide pools, might we look to our own oceans for the answer? In short, there are several sea creatures that alternate between sessile and mobile forms (as well as ones that alternate between female and male genders). Many jellyfish, for example, start life as bottom-dwelling pylops that then release the medusa form. Usually, shifts between mobile and stationary forms are related to reproduction: thus it is likely that the final stage of the chull life is the stage that produces young. And, if it is like most sea creatures, a single "parent" can produce thousands of young, so it would behoove most owners to try to prevent Chull from reaching this stage.

 

This would explain why chulls are a viable food source: beasts of burden are usually too valuable to kill. However, if they reproduce so easily, that probably gives a very large surplus population, and so, as they say, "meat's back on the menu, boys."

 

EDIT: To note, as senescence involves aging and the deterioration of function, a mobile creature turning into a semen&egg garden would still fit the dictionary definition of the word.

Edited March 25, 2014 by Thought