Fungi facilitate cytonic hyperdrive

[ecohansen]

So, a few weird observations about fungi on Detritus:

If I’d learned anything from collecting mushrooms in the caverns, bright colors meant: “Don’t eat me, or soon my brethren will be eating you, sapient one.” Better to not put the strange cave slug into my mouth.

 

“Clearly not,” M-Bot said. “I’m here to categorize fungi. Didn’t you listen to my last orders? I am not supposed to get into fights.”

“I appear … to be missing some code,” M-Bot said. “Curious. Oh, what an interesting fungus!”

I frowned, then glanced to the side, to where Doomslug had crawled up on a rock.

Well, and you’re also missing cytonic hyperdrives. And proper fungal documentation techniques. So I guess you’re actually backward in all the important areas.

“Well, what do you eat, dear?” Kimmalyn said. “Rats,” I said. “And mushrooms.” “Every day?” “I used to put pepper on the rats, but I ran out.”

We also know from WOB that Doomslug eats "mushrooms and other things."

****

So, we know that Spin and Doomslug, the only entities that have been observed to use Cytonic Hyperdrive, have diets very high in mushrooms.  We know that M-bot is ABLE to categorize mushrooms, and he believes that Doomslug IS a fungus.  We should probably take him at his word, and conclude that Doomslug is a mobile fungus, like a slimemold.  Alternatively, Doomslug consumes so much fungus that when M-bot measured something like its carbon isotope ratios, it was indistinguishable from a fungus.

Of course, we know that rats also have a diet high in mushrooms, and they DON'T seem to have cytonic hyperdrive, but clearly it could still be the case that the Defect grants the ABILITY to use Cytonic hyperdrive, and fungi provide the fuel.

This would, of course, explain why Mbot had an open fungal database when his pilot went missing.  He was on Detritus on a fuel run. Also, the massive Detritan shipyards would exist for the same reason that early gas stations were also repair garages.

Finally, there is the weird thing about warning coloration.  Why would an organism in a dark cave waste energy on warning coloration that nothing could see?  Even on earth, where mushrooms are exposed to sunlight, most of the deadliest mushrooms are boring white, yellow-brown, or grey, and several excellent edibles are very brightly colored.  So, clearly, Detritan mushrooms are linked into a source of excess energy that can cause cellular damage if it isn't dissipated.  Some mushroom species dissipate that energy by manufacturing energetically-expensive toxins and pigments, while other species use that excess energy to open doorways into the fundamental fabric of the universe.  It's the only possible explanation.

[ecohansen]

Sorry, somehow I missed the "importance of mushrooms" thread where this was already discussed.  Apologies.

[Angsos]

Either that or Mbot is a refugee from king koopa and wants to categorize mushrooms to see which one will make him big.