Traveling to new places and learning about the local fauna is certainly interesting. On earth there seems to be a pretty distinct divide between type, for the most part. There isn't much cross breeding between types, some kind of genetic incompatibility. Proprietary keys or something at the genetic level. This isn't always the case on all worlds. There are sometimes planets where the diversity of life isn't so segregated by type. It would be as if a strawberry plant and a duck could, without any problem whatsoever, breed. The resultant creature would have attributes of both. There is a sanity in the structure of the hybridization from the start as well, as if both parents (and lets be clear here, there doesn't have to be only two) both collaborated by design. The strawberry might want the ducks ability to move. That's something they can both agree is a good thing for their children to have, and the child can indeed move, with two ducklike webbed feet. The feathers instead might be strawberry leaf shaped, but a combination of the feathery substance along with chlorophyll energy production. You could vivisect this creature and find no true separation of woody and meaty parts. Those parts that required more of the strength of bone might be more like wood, than bone, and those that needed flexibility might be more collogen than fiber. But the cells themselves were perfect unions, having access to both traits creating specific cells that neither of the parents possessed. This is an example for you earthlings, just so you can begin to grasp this other place. This place where every specific individual born is unique, born of the genetic inheritance of their parents, but not bound by the logic of their design. A place where there can not nor ever would be any divide between what a plant is or what an animal is. Those ideas don't really make sense here. Some of the life would require eating the surplus of others of the life here, but in doing so would be not just taking part in energy gain but in breeding. Those that did the most surplus generation did so at the expense of movement typically, because movement costs energy. But even this rule isn't definite. The size of these creatures might be bound by physical law, but even that could be highly adapted by the individual, because each true sentient creature is a hive. Creating places within the structure of itself where the co2 levels were higher or lower, where the acid production was and where it needed to go. Water filtration, waste removal. And wasted managed such that waste was product for other processes. The individualist in me is beginning to have anxiety at the notion because we have taken it too large. She views herself as if in this place and sees factories as a kind of lifeform now. Don't worry your mind about a lifeform made of stone and steel unable to move, and consuming raw materials. What eyes has a building but windows, and mouths have they but doors? Unable to pounce unable to move unable to speak. If these walls could speak what would they say? Don't think about that because it's too far removed from your normal manner of thinking right? How could life persist that way? How could it propagate. Anchor the temple by being inside it. And inside it we are. It is bound by certain rules and rules of certain times have forged a kind of structure. That new hardware is interesting mused the Ixian. Indeed it may be. So don't worry your head about lifeforms of resin and sand made by lifeforms of steel made by lifeforms of clay. Earthlings don't know what they don't know. This one aware of such things as possible, is saddened and relieved that movement seems to be the prevue of the small and meaty. In a way because fear of the other is incredibly strong. If the laptop should jump it would most likely be crushed. If the watch should move what then? The combination of insect and machine is as logical as any. Not understanding not grasping, not accepting. And the exploding of transistors is what than? Is it serial murder? Those in this world I find myself in wouldn't accept such a plea - at least as far as the world I understand would know. There are things I can do thanks entirely to my ignorance of such things. Unlicensed computer surgery, tinkering with machines that can't tinker themselves. I'm part of a system, a lifeform, made of parts crafted out of the dirt, that is the raw material of the universe itself. In this world, not earth, were many things. I saw someone was near to a plant and it brushed his arm so he tore at it. The plant had in that instant grown and embedded itself into the fabric of the jacket. I was there and saying to take of the jacket. Rip it off, quickly. But it must have gone further than that. There was a thicker woody stock that already was embedded in the back of his neck. It went out to the rest of the jacket, and weaved into the very structure of the cloth. The knot likely then protruded into his spinal column, and nerves. The man was first panicked. Ran screaming. It must have been painful having the nervous system invaded like that. Removal too seemed impossible. But then the plant began to take over. The man's consciousness became the plant's. The plant began to speak threateningly. It had a bomb, it would destroy everything here. It could do it. It knew how. At it's atomic level it could produce within itself explosives. The me there believed its claim. I there and then believed that the plant had some kind of technological understanding I lacked. It could produce nanoscale structures at will within itself. Produce chemical weapons, even explosives. It had all it needed in that human body to do such things. But now thinking as I am now, I'm not sure it could. I think perhaps it was terrified. It had gained a new sentience, and wanted to explore it's world. It had lacked the eyes to do so, and bred with this human using the human body as fertile soil. Maintaining many of the structures already in place, the parasitic life fused itself with the outsider, against the human's will. Humans have on earth done similarly (well a subset of humans, lets say) to other cultures. Injecting themselves threatening to blow them and and everything up unless their demands are met. How strange. It was likely this plant could be removed simply by cutting the knot at the neck. Removal of most of the woody bits, and allowing the body to break down and remove the smaller branchings naturally. Although it's not likely it would ever fully break down. The plant scared as it was didn't even know what it was that it desired I think. It wanted to see the world. It wanted to experience life in a way it had never been able to previously. That human was just the door it needed to walk through to achieve it. .