There is a world somewhere between reality and fiction. Although ignored by many, it is very real and so are those living in it. This forum is about the natural world. Here, wild animals will be heard and respected. The forum offers a glimpse into an unknown world as well as a room with a view on the present and the future. Anyone able to speak on behalf of those living in the emerald forest and the deep blue sea is invited to join.
12-12-2016, 08:33 AM( This post was last modified: 12-12-2016, 08:35 AM by Polar )
Over winter break (finals done, yay!), I will post quite a long "entry-like" story that I am writing after my finals: it is about me, as Polar (and several other personal traits), trying to survive in the ancient Arctic. A similar thing happened (and still happens) at Carnivora, and I'd like to create a parallel version of it at WildFact. The story will take place in the Pleistocene Arctic with several large predators, ample supply of prey, and a nice, unchanged landscape un-impacted by humans.
In the future, post-wise, the story will be in italics and the non-canon, essential comments will be without italics: as to separate my comments from the story itself.
Every day until the 15th of January, a new entry will be posted. From thence on, it might vary sparsely due to winter break ending.
12-13-2016, 05:57 AM( This post was last modified: 12-13-2016, 06:39 AM by Polar )
POLAR
I.Introduction (Part One)
The Arctic floes ever so slightly swarmed around me as I gazed at the beautiful landscape of the pre-homonid Arctic. On one side, a male polar bear laid on a larger-sized floe, sleeping the day away in hopes of not needing to wonder any more about his meal: behind him was a mountain range, one I had extreme trouble accessing. I think that mountain range may hold something of importance, yet who knows? Anyway, back to the scenery. The other half of my vision gave way to a vast, unchallenged ocean with waves that resembled frightening tsunamis with the power of mythical gods. Aside from the scenery, my current task was bare in front of me: to cross to a larger and icy landmass just ahead of my location.
Cold as the air was, the water proved even worse in that respect. Along the way, I tried not to awaken the sleeping male polar bear, and thus had kept my flabbergasted padding and foot-pedaling to a minimum. The wind chills were greater in magnitude along the freezing, blue "body of life" around me, and I began to breathe quite deeply as to conserve oxygen. A few minutes transpired, and I found myself at the opposite landmass's end. My clothes were covered in icy fragments and a thick, freezing layer of pure Arctic ocean-water. Stumbling, I looked up only to meet the desperate drop of a nearby cliff-edge high in the sky: it's startling intimidation resembled that of a dominant, male polar bear or a vengeful, angry sabre-tooth. Around the cliffside was a mountainous arrangement with minimal snow, not so different from the mountain range's appeal from earlier.
Oops, I forgot two important things. One, I have to introduce myself, and two, I must explain why I am here. My name is Polar for short, and yes, it is because of the animal, mind you. The Arctic and cold-ridden nether regions have always interested me for one reason because no one else minds them: it is like these regions do not exist in their records! The humans, well, I happen to be one too, think that barren regions are the same throughout, and this idea is simple pure, mindless, false conjecture with a sense of ignorance. There is much diversity within the Arctic world like there is in landmasses such as Africa or Asia: freezing mountains, ice floes of varying sizes, underground caves and tunnels, exothermic vent-like openings, oceans, "ice floe caves", natural snow formations of varying designs, snow glaciers, and flat ice plains. Not to mention the diversity in the native Arctic fauna as well, in both carnivores and herbivores alike!
Although a bit off topic there, I think it is good to initially erase the misconceptions of the Arctic. As stated earlier, I go by Polar, and in terms of physique, I am quite tall and heavy compared to most of the human population at almost two meters and one-hundred and ten kilograms. Physically strong I am, but physically endurant and durable I must be as well in order to survive the Arctic, not to mention intelligent. As for why I am here, well I do not know myself. All I remember is waking up here three months ago and barely surviving the rest of my days till this very moment, but I am quite grateful for this purposeful learning experience. I do have memories before I woke up, such as my childhood and teenage memories. I do remember traveling the world for quite a bit, and venturing into some physical aspects of life such as powerlifting and some martial arts. Overall, I was a pretty well-rounded person back then.
Now I set myself to explore the rest of this unknown landmass. Maybe it can be much larger than I expected? Maybe smaller? For now, I have no inclination to either side and will, for my mental sake, satiate this question by exploring the landmass outright.
The advantage this kind of writing has is that you can teach and learn so much at the same time that you're enjoying a story, because you can discuss habits, the landscape, interactins with rivals and mates, so many things that otherwise you would talk about in a more "scientific" manner, you can integrate them into the story.
12-13-2016, 06:11 AM( This post was last modified: 12-13-2016, 06:12 AM by Polar )
(12-13-2016, 06:03 AM)Majingilane Wrote: I love it.
The advantage this kind of writing has is that you can teach and learn so much at the same time that you're enjoying a story, because you can discuss habits, the landscape, interactions with rivals and mates, so many things that otherwise you would talk about in a more "scientific" manner, you can integrate them into the story.
Yes, that was my original plan. I planned to use my current knowledge of polar bears and some of the Arctic environment (from my Polar Bear International trips and personal research) in a more enjoyable sense instead of simply putting the facts straight out.
Sorry for the delays, I've been promising an entry every day, yet there are some important financial mistakes that I need to setup with my university's bursar (lots of meetings), and my father's financial lawsuit is currently demanding an initial trial set for Sunday.
Can only have limited time for the next two days here as I need to deal with these problems. Next entry will come on Monday, and I promise (for real this time) that an entry will come out every single day after that until the day of January 15th.
12-20-2016, 05:04 AM( This post was last modified: 12-20-2016, 11:44 PM by Polar )
I.Introduction (Part One) cont.
Shivers were already getting to me, and I needed to find some sort of warmth from the Arctic cold. If there is one thing I learned from my Arctic experiences, it is the drastically-negative effect of the Arctic ocean on a human: frozen water can accomplish quite a bit in terms of lowering one's body temperature. Thus, I felt my body temperature dive down as my eyes dove upwards towards the top of the cliffside. Moving my gaze from the cliffside to the surroundings around it, I noticed that, among the various mountainous ridges around it there laid a ice bed curving upwards at a slight angle. This was a great opportunity to possibly get around the cliffside, and at the end, reach the wider section of the landmass.
The Arctic ice isn't much different from other forms of ice, albeit a slight bit colder in touch. As a result, my ice-scattering experience helped me tremendously in climbing the lowly-sloped ice bed. However, right after the ice bed was an intimidating, vertically-oriented obstacle: a 10-feet ice wall. Two options were clear: one, I could either bash the wall with immense force in order for its destruction, and two, retreat. I had absolutely no weapons or tools on my person, only four thick, sweaty layers and a fur coat. Number one was the only available option if I wanted to continue.
Sharp sounds were made as I bashed the ice wall to no avail. Suddenly, a new tactic had emerged. I needed someway to weaken the ice wall at its weak points, and the only warm part of me was my breath. Instead of wasting valuable muscular stress and precious energy, I sighed hot air onto the weakest, thinnest areas of the walls, waited a few minutes, and then weakened the areas more by re-applying the process. At last, the wall came collapsing down with a mix of glass-breaking and dripping sounds as the rock-wall beneath stood erect. The whole process took circa thirty minutes.
Rock is much easier to climb than ice, as most should know, especially if the rock in question has large and protruding ledges for grasping, and when I reached the top, and amazing sight robbed my vision.
Directly in front, an ice valley, separated by two, identical rivers, presented itself in pure white snow like that of Neptune's surface. There were even fiercer winds at this elevation, yet the creatures within the valley had grown accustomed to them. A few foxes, a strike of Homotherium, and two beached cetaceans of unknown species littered the landscape. Beyond the landscape, however, nothing else could be seen; the frozen ocean was the only mentionable scenery at that point.
In the midst of my awe, one of the larger Homotherium caught sight of me, and I noticed his intense stare immediately. This particular individual had only one saber-canine on his upper-left, and I had come to name him "One-Tooth" in terms of his dental oddity. The rest of the Homotherium, initially striking their hunger into one of the beached whales, jolted their heads to my position as if they consisted a unison of haunted mannequins. The young, the motherless, the old, and the larger male stared into my soul as my facial expression changed to that of a young, scared deer. The wind brushed the large male's short mane, making it occasionally pulsate to larger sizes. The cat then slowly bent his elbows and lowered himself while openly baring his last canine...
12-21-2016, 06:45 AM( This post was last modified: 12-21-2016, 06:48 AM by Polar )
I.Introduction (Part One) cont.
...A feeling of dread seeped through my veins as I watched the large male saber-tooth lunge directly at me. "This is my end," I thought, yet as the cat inevitably landed on me, the physical and auditory action of his silenced. Here I was on my back, facing one of Earth's most toughest felines and expecting a swift, spontaneous death with a flick of a paw or a crush from the jaws. None of that proceeded his lunge, oddly.
I opened my eyes expecting an angry expression on One-Tooth's face, yet he remained calm in his composure. An eternity passed while cold winds chilled both of us into frozen statues: heck, we would make quite an expensive exhibit in a natural museum, the cat on top and I on the bottom. One-Tooth quickly let out a loud gruff which was to be taken as a critical threat. He then slowly backed off of me as I regained a sense of motion. Like him, I slowly rose back to my feet as to not disturb him with sudden motions, and rubbed the remaining snow particles off of my person. My mind then went berzerk with both realistic and philosophical thoughts.
Now, some may wonder why I refer to One-Tooth as "him" or "cat" and not "it", and this is because most animals are like humans in terms of consciousness, and at times, individuality. One-Tooth is obviously a cat as well. The case of One-Tooth proves this to an extreme degree. One-Tooth, from his physical description, is quite individual in maintaining only one long saber-canine. His bodily and verbal displays determined him to be an outwardly-social character as well, much like a human extrovert. He displayed a sort of "pure consciousness" right after he lunged at me with only a disillusioned, plain stare and me to him. All animals have this "pure consciousness", regardless of the species or group, and this state is aligned with the rest of the natural world and the universe as a whole.
And it is with this state that the mind is free from the ills of prominent thoughts and societal expectations, assuming there are any. Throughout my short experience in the Arctic, I have learned this idea in many different ways. Once, as I was swimming across a wide river, I excused the prominent thought of hypothermia and continued on with my swim without thought, simply consciousness; life is expected to be tough, and "tough" is not something new.
Another time, a young polar bear of unknown gender seemed to be displaced from his or her rowdy mother, and as the bear's eyes met mine, all thoughts flew away and a blank, staring contest ensued: he was in the same "pure conscious" state as I was. For the rest of that day, life was easier for me since I didn't take the negative thought of hardships into account. Though I was certain that I would see that same bear someday soon, grown up into an adult.
Flashing back to my current situation, I stared at One-Tooth as he walked away from me with the rest of his strike behind him. They were done feeding on the whale carcass. I now had a chance to feed after twelve hours.
Meat preservation and and the acquiring of it were both life-saving skills in the Arctic. Normally, to preserve it, one would grab desired parts of the dead animal, shove the meaty parts into the water for salt absorption, and then stick it within a mound of ice or snow for a more tasty meal in a long time. However, this process usually took around a full day, and I couldn't take any chances with a migrating polar bear or saber-tooth; this applies most to nomads such as myself.
Usually, I took, and still take, a large chunk of fat and a good, hearty kilogram of pure red meat of the animal that I have either killed or scavenged upon. The fat ensures that starvation keeps off for longer periods. Living here makes one copy a polar bear's ways of life. Yet the tools to extract the flesh weren't with me, and, stated earlier, I simply appeared in the Arctic out of thin air with no preparations save for protective clothing. For the past three months, I simply used my teeth as meat-cutting tools, and as a result, they grew much stronger in composition.
Arctic meals aren't exactly for the sane or rich; even the meals of the poor do not compare to fatty, raw meat with tooth-aching coldness. Not to mention the periods of time between feasting. In some instances, I've lived two days without the slightest hydration or nutrition, yet polar bears have skills and physical adaptations to hunt limitless prey. True that there were countless amounts of prey in the Pleistocene Arctic, yet even a human can barely manage. A starving polar bear of the twenty-first century would equalize me in the same habitat, regarding hunger.
A bit of internet problems occured yesterday which was the reason I wasn't able to enter that entry for the day. Today, I will make up for the last entry adding two entries today.
12-24-2016, 06:02 AM( This post was last modified: 12-24-2016, 06:03 AM by Polar )
I.Introduction (Part One) cont.
I quickly grabbed a large chunk of fatty flesh out of the left section of the cetacean's lower jaw: it was the only major piece left. I then placed the chunk inside my jacket pocket. Looking up, I noticed that I still had a long ways to go in this valley, so I trudged up a snowy hill leading to a icy peak. The short, mile-long walk was quite treacherous with thin grounds, numerous holes, and one enormous crevasse. The crevasse caught my attention abruptly.
Two things to note about Arctic crevasses were both the size and the quantity of them within any given Arctic landmass. Small, weakened, hollow holes were another factor to worry about as well, as these may indicate uneven or weak ground. Per square mile, there may be anywhere between five and twenty crevasses of varying sizes, depending on the landmass in question. The crevasses' sizes may range anywhere from a door's vertical length to half the length of a football field. The one I was staring at aimed more towards the latter: this crevasse looked to be quadruple my height and a hundredth of me in length. Staring into the crevasse, an initial ice shield formed around its inner walls, but these ice walls further existed until there was only pitch black beyond. To further explore it, I needed a light of some sort. Let's just say that a light or fire of any kind is near-impossible to create in this frozen biome.
Another thing to note about these structures is their complexity. Back in the human world, I've learned of many explorers who assumed that one of these weak, hollow ground holes wouldn't open up to a larger cave-crevasse system, only to find themselves falling an exaggerated height to their death. Some even impaled themselves upon an icy stalagmite by falling. Others survived and died of starvation later on. Some of these who survived, though, might have discovered some of these cave-crevasse systems which would slightly reduce mental insanity due to the thrill of discovery. The one within my sight could possibly be one of these systems, and I would have heck of a thrill exploring it if this was the case!
But without any souce of light, this couldn't be accomplished, sadly. Shrugging, I turned my back away from the entrance and gathered a handful of soft, Arctic snow. Hey, if I wanted to save this location for later use, at least I could make a landmark for it. With this in mind, I went on to building a tall snow tower, which was to be adjacent to the exterior sufraces of the crevasse for better visualization. Slowly but surely, I made a large, two-meter mound within ten minutes and took a short pause; however, hunger was grabbing me with its talons right after.
With one swift motion, I pulled the meaty chunk out of my right jacket pocket and landed it on my mouth. A painful sensation of ice cold flesh harmed my teeth as I quickly chewed one bite of the meat into pieces. The fatty parts helped the most in providing a decent, adequate flavor as I quickly swallowed the bite-sized amount. Two more bites and I would be good for a few more hours, assuming that my appetite significantly subsides.
Within a minute, I was back to work. However, whilst trying to add more fresh snow onto the now condensed two-meter snow mound, a half-section of the mound suddenly collapsed due to the excessive dryness of the already built snow. Angrily, I smashed the rest of the mound down with my kicks, mad at my poor, faulty usage of physics knowledge. This was not a snowman-building contest, this was survival!
The whole process elapsed an hour-and-a-half before the landmark was built: a two-meter snow mound with a thin, one-meter structure consisting of compacted snow on top. Glad at my work of art, I looked back once at the crevasse, looked to my front, and slowly walked away from the crevasse to what appeared to be a dual-ice cap mountain system.
12-26-2016, 06:31 AM( This post was last modified: 12-26-2016, 06:32 AM by Polar )
I.Introduction (Part One) cont.
Upon sight, the dual ice cap system seemed to maintain copious amounts of fresh water untainted by the vast saltwater of the Arctic seas. Around the ice caps, a few Arctic seagulls stood around, glancing towards my direction. It seemed as if a particular one of them took to the liking of my presence, thus explaining why the curious one waddled a few steps in my direction. Slowly, I bent down and stared at the birdy being: it continued its stare of curious apprehension.
Ignoring it, I sidestepped towards one of the ice caps and punched a fist-sized hole into it. Water, for sure! Without hesitation, I quickly acquired a handful of water in two hands and began to placate my excessive thirst. Some spilled out, but the magnitude of water within this ice cap exceeded the magnitude of my thirst. A few more handfuls in, and two seagulls started waddling towards the ice cap I was drinking from, thrusting their elongated beaks into it. Seems they were as thirsty as I was, yet they couldn't break through it with their weaker beaks.
In the Arctic, moments like this can easily form a positive mental reinforcement within one's mind. My situation involved helping creatures of flight get the water for their survival. It helped knowing that animals can appreciate help and reciprocate it, especially when the same group of seagulls helped guide me to a rotting carcass later.
12-28-2016, 09:39 AM( This post was last modified: 12-28-2016, 09:42 AM by Polar )
I.Introduction (Part One) cont.
As I gazed at the rotting mammal carcass ahead of me, I noticed a large, shadowy shape: it looked like a huge beast of some sort. It was hard to see within the cold, foggy winds of the Arctic terrain, but a huge beast was quite apparent, judging from its bear-like figure.
It seemed to be heading for me, possibly not catching sight of me and simply detecting my smelly presence. Then I saw it, or him, rather: a mature monster of a male polar bear, a foot taller than my height at his muscular shoulders, thick forearm guard hairs, robust face, and most importantly, his death-striking stare.
My stare met his, although without fear on my side. It was as if his stare intimidated me into an inability to display any emotion. He was the largest bear I've ever came upon in my entire life, quite larger than the fattest bears at the zoos back in the human world. Weight-wise, he looked to be a ton; not fat, but mostly muscle.
His shoulders looked like a tall and thick snow mound, his arms were as defined as a professional bodybuilder and thick as a durable tree trunk, his neck looked too thick for even his chest, not taking into account the thick vat of hair around his girthy neck. Most importantly, his torso section imitated the defined portion of a sharply-decorated cake; ribs protruding out and muscle lines across his belly. I was looking at the most powerful meat-eater, one that could, with extreme ease, liquify my flesh into a cold, meaty broth with a single swipe of his two-foot paw.
12-31-2016, 10:57 PM( This post was last modified: 12-31-2016, 11:20 PM by Polar )
Again, I apologize for the lack of posts, but it looks like my modem permanently retired (typing this by phone).
But anyway, Part II of the introduction of "Polar", titled "Strange Visions", will be quite a different (more spiritual) journey than the survivalistic, direct approach of Part I of the series. It will be about myself in a dream state, and so far, I've developed a few rough ideas of some dreams that could be implemented in this part.
