I'm not sure what my favorite animal is. Let's decide it by a market! This March Mammal Madness inspired game will play out in phases. Aside from the Setup phase, expect each phase to last about a day, but I reserve the right to speed up the clock as I deem fit.
Setup phase:
Traders add animals to the market. After the setup phase is complete, traders will no longer be able to add animals to the market. Expect this phase to end some point after this other market resolves. Traders can add as many eligible animals as they wish to the market. To be eligible, add a real, non-microscopic, non-Homo-genus animal by following the provided formatting:
[common name] - [scientific name]
Example: Goldfish - Carassius auratus
A subspecies can be specified, but new animals must have a unique genus + species compares to all other animals already listed.
Selection phase:
The animal with the highest probability (the “Frontrunner”) and the lowest probability (the “Underdog”) will be selected to do battle. I will declare when the approximate cutoff time for when this selection is.
Discussion phase:
Traders can convince me why an animal should win the match up. DO NOT paste an AI / LLM output in the comments. However, I might read an AI / LLM conversation if you paste a link to it.
Battle phase:
The selected animals will appear on “The Field of Battle” in my imagination, but the animals won't necessarily feel that they are supposed to fight each other. At the very least, one should notice the other one.
By default, “The Field of Battle” will be the native habitat of the “Underdog”, and the boundaries of "The Field of Battle" will vary at my discretion. If the probabilities were miraculously a tie, the default habitat would be decided by a coin toss. Other animals may also be present as part of the habitat.
An animal wins the battle if they are last to be incapacitated, or if they are last to be capable of moving, or if the other contender flees “The Field of Battle”. I myself will be the sole judge of how this plays out.
If the result doesn't seem manifestly obvious to me, I will use these attributes to guide my decision: temperament, weaponry, armor, body mass, speed, fight style, physiology, and motivation, all relative to the battle's habitat.
I will not take kindly to bribes. Don't even try.
I expect many matches to end by asphyxiation or by an animal wandering off. They won't know where the boundaries are, and they won't know they are in a tournament. They just want to survive and thrive.
If an animal loses a battle, it will be marked as "defeated". If an animal wins a battle, that animal will continue on in the tournament, and that animal will have its memory wiped of the battle. We loop back to the Selection phase after a Battle phase if we're not at the last animal. The last animal on the market that isn't defeated and isn't ineligible resolves YES. All others, NO. "Other" will not resolve YES, but it may be a useful answer during the Setup phase. I cannot resolve market answers until the game is over.
I will award at least 100 mana to the person who adds the animal that wins this tournament. I guarantee no refund of your mana of you add an ineligible animal.
There will be no AI clarifications added to this market's description.
I will not trade on this market.
The close date is a placeholder and has no bearing on this market.
This will be a very subjective market. Expect that something will be scuffed, and I will have to fix things on the fly.
1,000People are also trading
Btw what are the exact boundaries of microscopic being used?
Also for organisms with different body types and environments in different stages of their life cycle, are we only counting the adult form, or does the form most suited to the current battle environment get used?
@TheAllMemeingEye Boundaries on the battlefield may depend. On average, expect boundaries ranging anywhere between a basketball court to an American football field in most cases, with ceiling and floor limits that seem to "make sense". The main idea is that the encounter ends from leaving The Field of Battle when the animals no longer meaningfully interact with each other, depending on the size of the animal. Whichever one disengages will typically lose, with the winning preference weighted toward the animal that stays at the encounter site.
One animal should always at least notice the other to start the encounter. The animal not native to the habitat should be about its senses and not be too disoriented from being out of place, but if a raccoon spawns in the deep ocean, it has bigger problems to attend to than dealing with a nearby whale.
Don't expect many matches to end by a grappling contest to throw the opposition out of the ring.
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Expect the most arguably fit version of the animal that still matches the scientific name of the animal to be the champion for that encounter. For example, a dog vs polar bear might have the dog be a Siberian Husky. Dog versus a sheep or some other farm animal might be a Shetland Sheepdog, and so on.
If there is dimorphism between sexes, expect the most arguably fit version for the battle to be represented.
This is the idea of the discussion phase. Persuade me.
@TheAllMemeingEye Oh, my bad, you were asking about microscopic limits, not battle limits. Haha. We'll let that be on a case by case basis, but if you can't see it with the naked eye, expect it to not be eligible. Bedbugs are towing the line, but just barely pass. Feel free to run an idea by me before submission if you're unsure.
@Quroe thanks, the info was still really useful even though some of it wasn't precisely what I was asking about
Regarding the animal form used, I was specifically thinking about arthropods that have an aquatic or parasitic larval stage but an airborne adult stage, am I right in thinking that this life cycle variation will also be a variable tailored to maximise encounter fitness?
@TheAllMemeingEye I'll only allow non-microscopic life stages to be eligible for an encounter.
For example, I would allow for a mosquito submission, but its larval stage will never be the contender in an encounter, but its larval stage could be present as side characters as a parts of the habitat.
@TheAllMemeingEye I'll accept arguments for what is considered most fit during an encounter. Be prepared to advocate for your submissions if you don't want me to have to fully figure out optimal fitness myself (since there's technically a prize for the winning submission). Fitness is determined on a case-by-case basis.
To be eligible, add a real... non-humanoid animal
Alright @traders, this is a borderline case. This rule was mostly to prevent somebody from adding regular humans (or any other animal from the Homo genus) to the roster, but I currently think this also triggers the rule and makes these ineligible.
I'm willing to hear an argument to change my mind.
Do we think the rule should be updated to say, "non-Homo-genus animal"? This might be more in line with the spirit of the rule, but I don't want to rug pull this if anybody was seriously pricing this into their trades. (And can anybody think of a way to abuse the rule if it was updated?)
I've mulled it over a bit, and I think updating this rule is more enforcible and causes less confusion.
I'm willing to hear more arguments for or against, but I will tentatively make it strictly filter out the Homo genus.
I'm invoking this clause to justify my decision:
This will be a very subjective market. Expect that something will be scuffed, and I will have to fix things on the fly.
@Quroe I interpreted the original rule as banning Homo genus, although I recognized that the gorilla additions were a gray area.
@moobunny If I left the rule as-is, I didn't feel like stepping on the landmines of if bonobos or lemurs qualify. I think the new "non-Homo-genus animal" rule is superior.
@RenaoJedi The comment did not seem appropriate, at least the way I read it. I was the one who hid it.
Just leave the subject be, and let's move on. Consider this a gentle slap on the wrist.
@GazDownright I haven't done my deep dive yet, but I'm assuming they shouldn't be too different from other primates. Maybe they'll have some proto tool use to work with, but nothing like fighter jets.
I would appreciate a repository of suggested information I could reference if somebody does add them.
@GazDownright Agreed. However, I'd like to start setting the precident of citing a source if people want to submit an idea for review here.
@Quroe of course, it was just to say @RenaoJedi's comment is nonsensical and no citation can change that