Rethinking rogue males

[mhiahia]

We all know how rogue males work in-game. But what if we try and look at them in a more realistic way instead of a game mechanic?

Rogue Males should objectively not exist. A tribe animal with the exact same set of genes would be unable to feed itself and quickly starve to death- so how come that rogue males are capable of surviving on their own?

Yes, some of them are strong enough to hunt, but their lifespan doesn't differ from those that can't. This also brings up another question: Rogue males are never targeted by bearyenas or other predators. Despite being on their own, they have no problem with evading a premature death.

In fact, rogue males are quite possibly extremely well-fed, since they spend most of their time in the search of potential mates.

So what is the survival tactic the rogue males use? What allows them to flourish in such a dangerous environment?

Easy - it is intelligence. Not only have they found a way to secure a constant food reserve, they can apparently evade predators altogether. This would also explain how they are so succesful when it comes to females - they are simply a good match because of their over-average intelligence.

How is this intelligence formed?

Two traits that all rogue males share are the crippled paws and the derp snout. As many have already mentioned, the derp snout gene is simply a disfigurement of other snouts - possibly generated by a mutation. This mutated gene could maybe lead to a bigger, better brain. The crippled paws could possibly also have an impact on intelligence, and I believe that rogue males have better fine motor skills than the average nicheling.

 

 

This theory was crafted by the Realistic Approach to Niche Gang, featuring me and only me. Please tell me what you think about it.

[Spacestar TheThundersuncat]

Hmm. I don't understand why a tribe-nicheling would find intelligence so attractive, though. We don't know how they operate. Or show off. How could they make best use of it?

For the most part, I kind of imagined rogue males to be not that negatively affected, either. There is no reason a nicheling could not eat berries directly off a bush, paw or no paw. But tribe animals:

1. Create a large pile of food

2. Distribute food by pecking order.

So I can live with that choice of design. Even if we never see them eat or hunt.

 

What might be an important part in the predator puzzle is spit snout. Philo mentioned that they once planned to implement the ability, but never got around to it. 

And so, laaarge scretch... but I like to think rogues can spit. With high accuracy. They're weasel-y, disgusting creatures of the grasslands. Cunning, certainly. Amoral, and probably far less socially intelligent. But it helps them hunt, fend of predators and potentially trap females. (If that is a thing they do.)

 

More important in the plot at large:

1. Why not wild females?

2. Blinded tribe nichelings are strangely limited. Are there hidden degrees? Surviving wanderers just very intelligent?

3. The hive mind. They would rather starve to death than break the food-pile rule. That's probably the largest cue we have to their general behaviour. Nichelings will also mate with everything in sight ... though that is necessary by gameplay, so I'm not sure how to treat that aspect. 

If we assume it is valid, then they might find rogue aggression attractive. Or assertiveness, I guess. If you're bound to an extreme pecking order, or social structure, it must leave some kind of impression, good or not. If females usually approach male nichelings in woo-ing them or whatever, it might mess with the "standard approach" even more. If they don't, the rogue male might still seem like a better choice than they are by faking social dominance.

It's probably worth noting that pregnancy doesn't limit females in any way. And they can reproduce very often. So, they don't actually have much reason to turn the rogue down. Finding a mate from your tribe is probably harder if they "smell wrong", or have some reaction to immunity. 

So rogue males are. Like. Greasy fastfood you only eat because you're hungry and too lazy to cook. I doubt the average nicheling is very intelligent, and so they go by "is it cost-effective?" and could be fooled into thinking it is, whether it turns out well or not...

[Spacestar TheThundersuncat]

The above would also explain why wild females turn them down... if a rogue is something that asks. Mating would not be beneficial if you can only have few offspring, and need them highly able to survive on their own. Perceiving them as socially dominant/attractive is out of the picture.

If they're able to spread out mating strategies, which I assume they can, as they're capable of different social orders:

Wanderers might pair-bound short term. A rogue is not available if they have some specific courtship first. A tribe-male might seem much more attractive to the wanderer, as they're willing to put in all the work, even if their genes are not much better. Or that's one view. But that is the only non-creepy and somewhat internally sound frame I've found for myself.

[mhiahia]

6 hours ago, Spacestar TheThundersuncat said:

Hmm. I don't understand why a tribe-nicheling would find intelligence so attractive, though. We don't know how they operate. Or show off. How could they make best use of it?

I don't think they necessarily understand intelligence, but I imagine a female nicheling would certainly note that the rogue male has survived despite his physical limitations, therefore indicating capability of surviving, which would then be passed on to the offspring. Another part playing into this could be the factor of breeding outside the tribe, which would widen the range of genes and in real-life would also be healthier.

6 hours ago, Spacestar TheThundersuncat said:

More important in the plot at large:

1. Why not wild females?

2. Blinded tribe nichelings are strangely limited. Are there hidden degrees? Surviving wanderers just very intelligent?

3. The hive mind. They would rather starve to death than break the food-pile rule. That's probably the largest cue we have to their general behaviour. Nichelings will also mate with everything in sight ... though that is necessary by gameplay, so I'm not sure how to treat that aspect.

It's probably worth noting that pregnancy doesn't limit females in any way. And they can reproduce very often. So, they don't actually have much reason to turn the rogue down. Finding a mate from your tribe is probably harder if they "smell wrong", or have some reaction to immunity.

In real-life, there would certainly be some children between wanderers and rogues, but they would have very bad chances for survival. There is also certainly a very high selection of wanderers - I doubt they have a very high life expectancy, since certain ones even go so far as to drown themselves in order to get food.

As for the general behaviour, I think that Nichelings are in general highly social animals. The tribe system must raise their chance of survival significantly. As with other animals with similar social systems, the advantages of working together are probably the following: Instead of wandering tribe nichelings can set up a camp which grants safety from predators, food can be stored and more easily foraged, predators are less likely to kill you, hunting and defending is easier when you have backup, tasks like taking care of your young can be taken care of by multiple individuals, etc.

A nicheling will most likely not take care of its offspring on its own. Instead, the tribe will help take care of the cubs (real-life examples are rats, who raise their babies together).  Now, if nichelings have an understanding of who they've mated with, females would be better of if they mate with multiple males (maybe even fake mating) so that these males would then have an interest in providing for the baby. Thus, mating with a rogue male wouldn't be a mistake and instead more of a gamble - the resulting cub might be more cunning/smart which would lead to your genes being passed on.

This, of course, only fits nichelings living in this particular social system, since they are also capable of mating for life and raising cubs as pairs.

[Lilytuft]

11 minutes ago, mhiahia said:

real-life examples are rats, who raise their babies together

Someone: mentions rats as a positive example

Me: happiness noise

[mhiahia]

1 minute ago, Lilytuft said:

Someone: mentions rats as a positive example

Me: happiness noise

I will forever use rats as a positive example, they are precious beings and deserve all the love of the world.

[Spacestar TheThundersuncat]

1 hour ago, mhiahia said:

I don't think they necessarily understand intelligence, but I imagine a female nicheling would certainly note that the rogue male has survived despite his physical limitations, therefore indicating capability of surviving, which would then be passed on to the offspring. Another part playing into this could be the factor of breeding outside the tribe, which would widen the range of genes and in real-life would also be healthier.

In real-life, there would certainly be some children between wanderers and rogues, but they would have very bad chances for survival. There is also certainly a very high selection of wanderers - I doubt they have a very high life expectancy, since certain ones even go so far as to drown themselves in order to get food.

As for the general behaviour, I think that Nichelings are in general highly social animals. The tribe system must raise their chance of survival significantly. As with other animals with similar social systems, the advantages of working together are probably the following: Instead of wandering tribe nichelings can set up a camp which grants safety from predators, food can be stored and more easily foraged, predators are less likely to kill you, hunting and defending is easier when you have backup, tasks like taking care of your young can be taken care of by multiple individuals, etc.

A nicheling will most likely not take care of its offspring on its own. Instead, the tribe will help take care of the cubs (real-life examples are rats, who raise their babies together).  Now, if nichelings have an understanding of who they've mated with, females would be better of if they mate with multiple males (maybe even fake mating) so that these males would then have an interest in providing for the baby. Thus, mating with a rogue male wouldn't be a mistake and instead more of a gamble - the resulting cub might be more cunning/smart which would lead to your genes being passed on.

This, of course, only fits nichelings living in this particular social system, since they are also capable of mating for life and raising cubs as pairs.

I'm never sure what to peg them as. You can travel the whole world, yet never meet another tribe besides Adam's. If they are that social, living alone as wanderers would not be that common. And yet, you see two highly developed ways of living...

"How can that be one species?!" Is the semi-official title for Niche, after all, haha. 

For intelligence, nichelings don't use tools or even interact with the enviroment very deeply, usually. But the rogue male has a way of being "eh, good enough for me", anyway. I'm not sure how he does it, but I much prefer them with more consent than as ... male ducks on steroids. "He's here, he's an option and probably can't suck that badly for (insert probably reason)" has way fewer plotholes than them being Just Evil, yeah.

[mhiahia]

15 minutes ago, Spacestar TheThundersuncat said:

I'm never sure what to peg them as. You can travel the whole world, yet never meet another tribe besides Adam's. If they are that social, living alone as wanderers would not be that common. And yet, you see two highly developed ways of living...

"How can that be one species?!" Is the semi-official title for Niche, after all, haha. 

For intelligence, nichelings don't use tools or even interact with the enviroment very deeply, usually. But the rogue male has a way of being "eh, good enough for me", anyway. I'm not sure how he does it, but I much prefer them with more consent than as ... male ducks on steroids. "He's here, he's an option and probably can't suck that badly for (insert probably reason)" has way fewer plotholes than them being Just Evil, yeah.

Yeah, the whole "no other tribes"-thing is very weird. Maybe an option could be that they are very versatile, kind of like an extreme version of humans (we can live in very complicated social structures and at the same time some people are perfectly content with being alone/in small groups). Maybe the tribes we play as automatically try to avoid others? These other tribes could have a similar thing to Adam's when it comes to immunity, so only tribes/nichelings with the same immunity or lone wanderers would be accepted in?

And I'm scrambling to find consent instead of the whole...Evil Bad Word.