Better Than Wolves Forum

jakerman999 wrote:You're letting the earthly concept of gender get in the way of your thinking here folks(somewhat of a ninja by The Phoenixian, you're not). What if creepers were some form of highly mobile plant life? Nitre could be something extra they suck out of the soil, or a byproduct of their form of photosynthesis. They reproduce by spraying seeds everywhere when they explode, the seed pod being what we call the oyster.

This works, considering that Notch once said creepers are dry and crunchy, like leaves.

Creepers are explosive walking shamblers that sort of look like dicks. Anyone notice what Nitre kind of looks like?

To reiterate a point made by Thalarctia, I don't think that the chemical composition of the Oysters is particularly significant. This is different from the other secret recipes in that it isn't actually a secret, there's no figuring out to be done by the player.

Creeper Oysters as I see them are just an arbitrary gameplay element. Or at least as arbitrary as anything can be when Flowerchild is writing the titles.

I have to agree that this is probably just an arbitrary game element added for balance and gameplay reasons, but thinking like that takes all the fun out of speculating!

Anyways, I don't think that they could be plants, as the amount of energy required for movement is much too high to be sustained by a plant; however, someone with whom I was recently talking seemed to think that creepers are actually hermaphrodites and that they reproduced by spreading some sort of reproductive egg/fluid/medium via their explosion. I think that the general consensus is that the oysters are merely a volatile substance of some kind that permits diamonds and iron to in some way be structurally linked.

All of this really brings us to what exactly the nature of the backstory of BTW is in general. The problem with all of this is that, since BTW is not a "completed" game, we don't have all of the evidence. Creepers could be hermaphroditic, they could be all male, or maybe they just lack a gender in favor of some sort of arcane Minecraft mechanic involving darker elements than we have addressed.

Warning: Train of thought ahead may be unstable. Proceed at your own risk.

Going along the creepers=plant "root" I'd argue could be fairly valid. Plants require nitrogen (hence why creepers have nitre as well as for exploding). Most nitrogen salts are fairly soluble. So maybe there's ammonia (or similar) in the oysters which reacts with impurities in the iron, allowing the diamond and iron to be combined into a pure, usable ingot.

As for energy requirements, well...quite frankly they're an impossible species. They have a mouth but don't eat, and they have no roots. Realistically they have no energy supply...unless the creepers we see are in adult form, and therefore spent the earlier years of their lives hoarding energy for the coming of age. Which would logically mean that every creeper we see is essentially in heat. So maybe that's why they're aggressive. They're either attempting to establish a territory (unlikely since their method of seeing you off is to explode) or they're defending their babies.

The problem with that logic is what is the baby form? Creepers appear in all biomes except mushroom, so definitely not mycelium.
They appear in deserts, so it's not grass, tall or otherwise, mushrooms, hemp. They appear on stone in caves so it's not carrots, taters or wheat. No creepers in the nether, so not wort either. And thus all minecraft plants are ruled out.

Hmm...I may have defeated my own logic there. The only other thing that bugs me in regards to creeper life cycle is that spawners exist for all of the other overworld hostile mobs...except creepers.(I know the mechanics reason, just not an in-game one)

New theory. Creepers are the remains of the forgotten green villagers whose souls are unable to reach the nether. Their previous career was as a gardener, hence the nitrogen richness still present. They rejected the enderdragon who sentenced them to forever wander the earth, with no arms. They just want a hug, but anytime they get close enough to a sentient being to get one, the dragon explodes them.

He's a dick :p

I wonder why fish are attracted to the oysters. Is it their light green coloring or are they made of meat simular to that of zombies and bats?

CreeperCannibal wrote:I wonder why fish are attracted to the oysters. Is it their light green coloring or are they made of meat simular to that of zombies and bats?

Yeah that threw me for a loop again. Now it seems as if a Creeper has both mineral/material properties and yet is actually an organic substance. Weird. Then again, so are creepers.

On the subject of Diamonds, I'm really enjoying messing around with the lore behind the diamond uses themselves. I had quite a few creeper oysters by the time I hit diamond gems, so I was able to make diamond ingots quickly.

I got to thinking... perhaps this stuff is actually the magical mythril, referred to in so many RPGs. The secrets of its creation are lost to our present world because we have killed off all of our creepers. In other rpgs, we find mythril ore in the world, where creeper remains have fossilized in proximity to natural diamonds.

Is anyone familiar with diamond tools in real life? I've got several diamond hole-saws for cutting holes in things (they really grind holes in things, rather than cut), and a set of diamond sharpening stones. Two of the hole-saws are what's known as brazed, which is when diamond grit is kind of welded onto the surface of a steel saw body, so it looks like your finger when you lick it and dip it in a bag of sugar, and they're only suited for light tasks like drilling holes in glass, since the diamonds can get dislodged with heavy use and if the saw isn't adequately cooled. The other hole saw is sintered, so the diamonds are mixed with powdered steel and then they're compressed in a mould and heated to a bit below the melting point of the steel, where the pressure allows the particles in the powder to bond together, forming a steel matrix with diamonds embedded in it. The sintered hole saw will happily put a hole through a concrete wall. The sharpening stones are simply sheets of steel with diamond grit brazed onto them.

Nothing really compares to diamond tools for certain tasks like cutting through glass and concrete or sharpening other tools, both in the durability of the tool and it's ability to perform the task. Silicon carbide doesn't come close. They're really cheap, too; brazed diamond hole saws only cost a few pounds each, and my sintered hole saw was about £30. They're pretty much limited to uses involving abrasion though, whether it's using diamonds to abrade things like with the hole saws and sharpening stones, or using microscopically thin films of vapour-deposited diamond to resist abrasion and extend the working life of various cutting tools.

Off topic necro much? Don't do that.

I thought it might add to the discussion of how creeper oysters work if people knew how diamonds are combined with steel in real life.

Peter5930 wrote:I thought it might add to the discussion of how creeper oysters work if people knew how diamonds are combined with steel in real life.

Well, fc creates game content based on maintaining internal consistency and logic.

eternal8phoenix wrote:They have a mouth but don't eat, and they have no roots. Realistically they have no energy supply...unless the creepers we see are in adult form, and therefore spent the earlier years of their lives hoarding energy for the coming of age. Which would logically mean that every creeper we see is essentially in heat. So maybe that's why they're aggressive. They're either attempting to establish a territory (unlikely since their method of seeing you off is to explode) or they're defending their babies.

Hmm. I agree that establishing territory is unlikely, as you said. For the same reason, defending babies is unlikely (they could only defend their babies exactly once). I was thinking, they only blow up next to Steve, and only Steve produces mystery meat when blown up. So...maybe the creeper larvae live on little shreds of Steve meat, and by blowing up, Mama Creeper spreads her eggs over shredded bits of Steve to start the next part of the life cycle.

jkievlan wrote:

eternal8phoenix wrote:They have a mouth but don't eat, and they have no roots. Realistically they have no energy supply...unless the creepers we see are in adult form, and therefore spent the earlier years of their lives hoarding energy for the coming of age. Which would logically mean that every creeper we see is essentially in heat. So maybe that's why they're aggressive. They're either attempting to establish a territory (unlikely since their method of seeing you off is to explode) or they're defending their babies.

Hmm. I agree that establishing territory is unlikely, as you said. For the same reason, defending babies is unlikely (they could only defend their babies exactly once). I was thinking, they only blow up next to Steve, and only Steve produces mystery meat when blown up. So...maybe the creeper larvae live on little shreds of Steve meat, and by blowing up, Mama Creeper spreads her eggs over shredded bits of Steve to start the next part of the life cycle.

As interesting as this premise is, it falls down when villagers get involved, as they too drop mystery meat, but creepers make no attempt to target them. They specifically target the players. Maybe it's more like a beehive, with creepers as the soldiers. There is some sentient queen being, in control of various defenses. Creepers are her soldier bees, sent out once to kamikaze the enemy in her defense.

eternal8phoenix wrote:As interesting as this premise is, it falls down when villagers get involved, as they too drop mystery meat, but creepers make no attempt to target them.

Well, naturally not. Villagers are filthy savages. Who would want to live on one of them? :)

eternal8phoenix wrote:They specifically target the players. Maybe it's more like a beehive, with creepers as the soldiers. There is some sentient queen being, in control of various defenses. Creepers are her soldier bees, sent out once to kamikaze the enemy in her defense.

Hmm. Shows promise, but wouldn't the same objection apply? Why wouldn't they defend against villagers, and for that matter wolves and other vicious creatures?

Or...there's always the other possibility. They're religious fanatics.

jkievlan wrote:

eternal8phoenix wrote:
Hmm. Shows promise, but wouldn't the same objection apply? Why wouldn't they defend against villagers, and for that matter wolves and other vicious creatures?

Or...there's always the other possibility. They're religious fanatics.

I've heard a few let's player call them Jehovah's witnesses but not exactly sure on that. The villager wouldn't necessarily be a threat due to the fact that they are incapable of changing their environment. I mean their arms are stapled together. That and the fact that the zombies are already on their trail, as a potential secondary soldier. Could be that zombies are for the masses and creepers mop up the stubborn dregs.