#yilanè

[siryl]

Years ago I bought the first brick-sized book in the series hoping it would be like a serious adult version of Cobra-La. It doesn't seem to be in my bookcase anymore.

Frog- and lizard-derived optical and audiovisual recording devices from Harry Harrison’s West of Eden series.

[forehead-alien]

Yilanè doodles.

[guthrie-odonto]

Some new details about Biola: Monster Genesis regarding Godzilla and Rodan:

With the dinosaurian ability to see into the ultraviolet portion of the electromagnetic spectrum in addition to all the colors humans can generally see, Erika sees Godzilla and Rodan as brighter in her new state than a regular human would⏤although Godzilla is still duller than he once was. As mentioned, the vibrant colors of this Rodan paired with the burn scars that were more apparent to Erika are what resulted in the title of "Fire Rodan".

Two new additions to Godzilla's species' color patterns: Not only is the inside of the mouth a vibrant blue like cormorants (also being bioluminescent and giving the irradiated water vapor that makes up his atomic breath its blue glow), but his species also had patterns on their palms (inspired by the Yilanè from West of Eden) that were unique to each individual, essentially being their version of a name. Because of him trying to shield himself from the blinding, searing light of the bomb, his magenta and yellow palm mark was burnt and even rendered invisible to human eyes⏤essentially meaning his previous name was another thing he lost to this atomic baptism. Because of this, he takes on the name "Godzilla" for himself after answering Erika's question about what his actual name is, not wanting to only call him by a name given to him by humanity.

[forehead-alien]

The Saurians from Day of the Dragonstar, the second book in Dragonstar series from the 80s. The way they are described is mostly pretty boring, I tried to make them as interesting as possible while sticking to the description, but by reading you can tell the authors were simply describing what they remembered of the Dale Russell dinosauroid, with some extras that are even less plausible than the actual Russell classic such as a flicking tongue and four fingers on each hand, a recurring trait among less creative dinosauroids in novels due to older reconstructions of troodontids showing them with too many fingers (I try my best to get around that as creatively as possible however). Like the Yilanè from West of Eden they use genetic engineering, ranging from living weapons to iguanodontid cars. Their clothing is made of plant fiber which is at least less gross than the living shark cloaks of the Yilanè. The Saurians have a coming-of-age ritual where a young one must wrestle a mid-sized theropod, claw into the back of its neck and then with an elegant finger movement under the predator's skin reprogram its brain stem to tame it. Now that all aside it also needs to be mentioned that the book is quite racist. Like... super racist. The authors got a little pissy over the oil embargo of the 70s and instead of behaving normal and being angered at corporations and politicians they let it all out on the African and West Asian characters which is quite embarrassing. When there are no opportunities in the book for racism and islamophobia they use any opportunity for pumping in misogyny, making me take breaks constantly to recover from the absolute cringe. I can't honestly recommend this to anyone, the only reason I read it was to look for descriptions of the dinosauroids, and at least some of the reviews prepared me for what I was going into but man... That was a bit much, especially as they turned out to be generic Russell fare.

[adastra-sf]

This discussion wouldn't be complete without referencing this series by Harry Harrison:

The Eden trilogy (which starts with West of Eden) is set in a world where the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs (and much of the rest of Earthly life in the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction 65 million years ago) never happened, clearing the way for an intelligent species to evolve... from mosasaurs - the Yilanè as the dominant life form on Earth.

But they're not the only intelligent bipeds, because they don't live on the North American continent or Caribbean, leaving the region free of Yilanè for millions of years.

A humanoid species, the Tanu, has evolved from a New World monkey to fill the niche, and at the series opening have developed late Stone Age technology and culture, including agriculture.

It's a blast to read, and chock-full of interesting worldbuilding and cultural (and evolutionary) development. The matriarchal Yilané feel truly alien, and their language is a rich mixture of sound, gesture, and color - imagine carrying on a conversation verbally but also using sign language that involves your entire body plus organic color signals.

If you're looking for a fun story set on an Earth where the dinos and their ilk never died out and coexist with a human-like species, we recommend West of Eden (and its sequels).

Very little alternate history goes quite this deep into the past!

so the Spouse and I like to have a lot of verbal discussions about the universe where the asteroid didn't hit. mainly spec evo stuff. what would evolve into what, that kind of thing. we know we're not alone in that.

we maintain that humans evolved alongside some pretty terrifying mammalian megafauna, so why not dinosaurian? so what would a realistic sapient ape in a dinosaur world be?

it's taken some thinking, but:

wookies.

we'd be wookies.

no need to leave the trees, the grass would be very unsafe if it evolved the same

no need to leave the trees, we remain furry

we could build tree houses and other structures, in the trees, to stay out of the range of predators

that's. just wookies. that's just the wookies.