Jack Sandrow
Writer, Character, Invasive Species
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To create a superorganism for Sylva Vitae usage
- Image Credit: New York Invasive Species
- Canon: N/A
- Permissions: N/A
- Links: Vixus (Wookieepedia), Kudzu (Wikipedia), Pando (Wikipedia)
- Name: 'Serpath' superorganism
- Origins: Sylva Vitae labs, on Jack's Pod spaceship
- Other Locations: N/A
- Classification: Vine system
- Average Growth Cycle: 2 weeks from seed to viable root crown; can proliferate extremely quickly, able to cover hundreds of square kilometers in just days. Hibernates in wintery conditions, but will quickly rebound during the spring.
- Viability: Able to subsist in Type I, II, and III environments. Grows fastest in Type I and II environments. Requires constant nutrition which can consist of the pre-existing ground cover, animals, sunlight, water, or any combination of the above. It is a hardy vine system, and ecologically extremely greedy.
- Description: Up close and personal, Serpath is a multitude of tangled vines, broad leaves, slightly spiny seed pods, and a dense mess. Encroaching anywhere plant life can already exist, Serpath will be found surviving and quickly supplanting any pre-existing flora cover. From a distant perspective, Serpath swallows up everything in its path. It covers trees, buildings, even water sources or canyons, all to form a smooth green ground cover that is all-encompassing. It smooths over the landscape, turning a detailed and vibrant forest into a lumpy green blob, or a broad desert canyon into a shallow and choked-up floral valley.
- Average Height: Vines grow a minimum of 1 meter above the surface, and can grow up to 50 meters above the surface depending on viability and longevity.
- Average Length: Potentially limitless. While the root crown is usually about a meter in each direction, the vines themselves can extend for hundreds or thousands of meters, even potentially hundreds or thousands of kilometers given enough time.
- Color: Deep green vines, waxy bright green leaves. Flowers are purple and yellow, with conical seed pods above the flower.
- Nutritional Value: Yes; the vines can be cooked for base nutrition and fiber, and can also be used as animal feed in its raw form.
- Toxicity: None.
- Other Effects: The seed pods are covered in prickly hairs filled with a mild irritant, but the hairs can be cooked and peeled away.
- Distinctions: Rapidly growing, hungry for nutrients, Serpath when uncontrolled is easily an invasive species in just about any climate. Management by constant trimming, digging up of root systems, burning and shoveling, etc. is all needed to keep a lid on it. Unchecked, it can quickly outgrow just about any native plant system and smother whole settlements besides. Partially based on the predatory vixus species from Umbara, Serpath is capable of consuming fauna as well as flora in order to get its nutrients, but will usually not attack living creatures, preferring a scavenging method of intake.
- Extremely prolific growth cycle allows for quick ground cover of a large area within days.
- Hypercompetitive growth is quick to fill any and all ecological niches it can find.
- Very durable root crowns are able to regrow even when chopped up.
- No natural defenses other than its rapid growth; it is as flammable as normal plant species, and cannot survive in cold climates like other plant species.
- Requires constant nutrition in order to survive - cutting off the nutrition or trimming back the vines to force it to overproduce are both viable ways to keep the growth at bay, or kill the plant entirely.
Carefully cultivated to spread as rapidly as possible, soaking up any nutrients available, the Serpath vine system is meant for rapid spread over a surface. With inspiration from the vixus species able to scavenge what it needs and spread rapidly, Serpath is even more voracious, covering massive patches of ground in very little time.
Forming a broad network, it is able to quickly cycle and share nutrients throughout its vines, providing an even distribution across the entire plant system. This distribution allows areas with high nutrient sources to send these nutrients to the outermost edges of the system, allowing for continuous rapid growth. With its rapid growth, it can quickly entangle and overwhelm most settlements and forests, and choke out most natural environments if left unchecked. Scavenging bodies of animals and dead plant matter, it quickly consumes and subsumes, claiming the area for its own. While easily able to be chopped away, burned, or frozen, its survivability with its rapid growth and regeneration is its greatest asset. Care should be taken when growing this, as it will overtake just about every single native species in just about every single environment.
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