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Milliways. Oh, bless.
Dr. Xavier could have finished her shift, made it home, and buried her head in a pillow if she had to. But this is much easier.
"Hi, Bar, can I have a stimulant that won't interfere with my judgement or dexterity or anything like that?"
iamnotpolaris
iamnotpolaris
"We have chickens and lizards and pigs and possums but I've never heard of them being combined..."
iamnotpolaris
"Weirdness is subjective! I think it's weird that you have something that's a cross between a chicken and a pig."
iamnotpolaris
"I've never eaten pig because of religious restrictions but I'll take your word for it. And that would seem to follow, considering how huge just plain moose are."
roc_on
"Moosows are pig-cows. I'm not actually aware of any moosepigs. Mooselions yes, dragon moose, moosewhales..."
roc_on
"Dragon moose are domesticated. They've fallen out of use, but they used to pull heavy loads."
iamnotpolaris
"I'm trying to imagine what a moosewhale would look like and I'm probably doing it wrong because it's coming out implausibly comic and also very Canadian."
roc_on
"...Bar, can you give us a picture of a moosewhale?"
Bar produces a picture of a moosewhale. It is basically a killer whale, brown where orcas are black, with moose antlers, angled to reduce their impact on the streamlined shape, and a blunt mooselike snout.
Bar produces a picture of a moosewhale. It is basically a killer whale, brown where orcas are black, with moose antlers, angled to reduce their impact on the streamlined shape, and a blunt mooselike snout.
iamnotpolaris
"I had the antlers at a different angle and was using a different kind of whale, is I think most of the problem. The Canadianness persists, I'm just going to assume my brain inextricably links moose with Canada. Canada is a country near mine that has a lot of moose in it," she clarifies.
iamnotpolaris
"So most of the animals where you're from are weird mix-ups? Weird from my perspective, I mean, sorry."
roc_on
"Yeah. We have some isolate animals - an Earth King once famously kept a pet bear - but they're uncommon and tend not to do as well even if they establish populations."
roc_on
"I don't know. Do you not have very many kinds of animals? Since there's no combinatorial explosion?"
iamnotpolaris
"We have a lot of animals. We have I think several million kinds of beetle, thousands upon thousands of kinds of birds, mammals, reptiles, uncountable sea creatures...I'm not a taxonomist or I'd have better figures but it's a lot."
roc_on
"...Okay. Maybe you have more kinds of animals than we do. Since instead of crossing and generalizing they're specializing ever-finer until you have millions of kinds of beetle."
roc_on
"Fair enough. ...That is so many beetles. Counting everything that has as a component any kind of beetle we probably have a few thousand, it's a good design, but that's just ridiculous."