The Real World Discussion Thread

[H3110l12345I20]

Guys, what does everyone think of this potential standards for IRL sources I made?: https://vsbattles.fandom.com/wiki/U...luation_of_Sources_for_The_Real_World_On-site

I'll put a staff discussion thread and notify staff in the IRL Major Animals CRT 2 after feedback from this discussion thread.

 

[Hortonhearsahoot]

Looks great. Also, can you check out my sandbox for a profile I'm working on? It's not quite finished.

 

[H3110l12345I20]

Looks great. Also, can you check out my sandbox for a profile I'm working on? It's not quite finished.

Bold the "higher" part, and it's already good!

 

[Hortonhearsahoot]

Did that just now, thx

 

[Hortonhearsahoot]

By the way, is it possible to transport this sandbox to the wiki when I'm done?

 

[H3110l12345I20]

By the way, is it possible to transport this sandbox to the wiki when I'm done?

Yes. Title the page "Velvet Worm" and copy-paste the needed source code.

 

[Hortonhearsahoot]

Do you need perms to add it to The Real World's page? I at least know how to

 

[H3110l12345I20]

Do you need perms to add it to The Real World's page? I at least know how to

No.

 

[Flashlight237]

So uhh... Apparently hornets can chew through wood:

 

[Flashlight237]

So, uhh... I found a video of a juvenile Humboldt squid biting into a soda can, apparently more casually than a common snapping turtle:

 

[BeTheWay1rst]

Is The Real World a fictional verse with fictional characters ? Isn't VSB all about fiction ?

 

[H3110l12345I20]

Is The Real World a fictional verse with fictional characters ?

No.

Isn't VSB all about fiction ?

The IRL verse is there as a reference point. Like (example) if "X character" decides to one-shot a horse, and we don't have an IRL profile for a horse, how do you know the durability of the horse if there's no profile for one?

 

[BeTheWay1rst]

The IRL verse is there as a reference point

I have seen reals being VS fictionals beings here

 

[H3110l12345I20]

I have seen reals being VS fictionals beings here

wdym

 

[BeTheWay1rst]

wdym

The Predator Hunts The Greatest Prey (Yautja vs Composite Human) (GRACE)

A recently blooded Yautja decides to spend it's first unsupervised hunt hunting down an even more lucrative prey than the xenomorphs, a human. But not just any human, a human with the strength, skill, and intelligence of the best humans to have ever lived. Unfortunately for the Predator, its...

vsbattles.com

 

[H3110l12345I20]

The Predator Hunts The Greatest Prey (Yautja vs Composite Human) (GRACE)

A recently blooded Yautja decides to spend it's first unsupervised hunt hunting down an even more lucrative prey than the xenomorphs, a human. But not just any human, a human with the strength, skill, and intelligence of the best humans to have ever lived. Unfortunately for the Predator, its...

vsbattles.com

Different case. Composite Human is a JBW character I personally remastered (and am currently trying to CRT with enough time on my hands).

 

[Hortonhearsahoot]

Some insects like cockroaches, flies and wasps are seemingly unaffected by losing their heads. This is because of a decentralized nervous system, which means that other parts can keep the nervous system active despite the lack of that part. They eventually die of starvation/thirst, which is why I'm unsure if this counts as Immortality.

 

[H3110l12345I20]

Some insects like cockroaches, flies and wasps are seemingly unaffected by losing their heads. This is because of a decentralized nervous system, which means that other parts can keep the nervous system active despite the lack of that part. They eventually die of starvation/thirst, which is why I'm unsure if this counts as Immortality.

Valid point. The immortality's justification should be removed based off of this reasoning.

 

[Hortonhearsahoot]

I'm guessing it means that many insects have Superhuman stamina by default, then.

 

[H3110l12345I20]

I'm guessing it means that many insects have Superhuman stamina by default, then.

Yes.

 

[Mahek_The_Assassin_Silent_Killer]

Real World Page Entry Addition And Arrangement Modification Discussion Thread (ie/tldr Real World Discussion Thread)

So... this is gonna be a bit daunting and probably insane coming from me due to being a relative newcomer, but I have some ideas I would like to pose regarding the arrangement and status of the Real World Entries (I'm probably gonna spend most of my time either in Content Revision regarding the...

vsbattles.com

Sorry I did not see this thread before, but I feel like what I wrote/suggested here needed a separate thread. @H3110l12345I20 may I ask if you could contribute your thoughts to this?
Also lemme join this thread too.

 

[Mahek_The_Assassin_Silent_Killer]

If anyone wants to as well, you all could also join these less serious discussions and share any knowledge you might have in these areas:

Real World Empire Battle Royale

The title says it all but we're gonna need to set the conditions: All empires start at their historical peak in size and population, using the world of today as their battlefield (Overlapping territories unilaterally go to the smaller empire/smallest empires between the overlapping parties so...

vsbattles.com

Deadliest and/or most powerful stuff in the Real World?

Just wondering, what would you all consider the deadliest stuff in our Real World universe? I nominate galaxy cluster mergers by pure amount of energy (beyond even gamma ray bursts or black hole collisions/mergers since it's both the black holes in both galaxy clusters colliding into each other...

vsbattles.com

...Unless it's easier to just discuss them here, in which case we might as well close the threads and move the discussions here.

 

[Mahek_The_Assassin_Silent_Killer]

Just thought I'd put this here (slightly modified from when I first posted it in the Empire Battle Royale Thread, consider this a more improved version) cause I wanna ask how the flow of the post was (WARNING: LOTS OF WORDS AHEAD):

Just in advance, I feel like adding a bit more dramatic emphasis and "flair", you'll see with the font and message styling choices hehehe (I'm gonna have fun with the text style essentially and cut loose a bit)

(I will digress here a bit: I hate empires in terms of morality anyway despite ironically admiring their levels of power and military advancement and progress, and it's personal especially cause the British Empire in particular screwed India and Pakistan and Bangladesh over during its rule (note that the same was done to Israel and Palestine) (and I've had relatives and family friends who lived through that period, quite a few of whom have only passed away from 2017-2023, and one particularly strong example is that my maternal great grandmother had to flee from what is now Bangladesh to what is now Kolkata in West Bengal in India) and let Singapore down by failing to defend it against the Japanese despite the British claiming Singapore to be as impregnable as Gibraltar, in addition to practically razing Africa (which is less personal but still so since Africa is the origin of Homo sapiens, and again, look at what happened to the continent because of colonialism just as with India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Israel, Palestine, etc) in terms of resources and people through the slave trade (also done to Oceania's indigenous people in addition to using Australia as a land of prisoners as as seen in the last link of the bracketed sentence after this) (which is ironic because the British were one of the biggest participants in the Atlantic slave trade, and they then tried to shut it down, but they still ended up replacing slavery with indentured labour which is not much better at all), as you will see with the anthropogenic disasters under:

List of anthropogenic disasters by death toll - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

... so yeah)

On the Russian Hammer-And-Sickle-Wielding Bear's side:

Russian super weapons - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Particularly:

RS-28 Sarmat - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Avangard (hypersonic glide vehicle) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

9M730 Burevestnik - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

(Longest range ICBM, Sarmat, speed not stated (but possibly re-entry Mach 25+ speeds considering the ballistic trajectory) capable of flying 18,000km (or 35,000km if doing Fractional Orbital Bombardment) carrying 10-15 750kt (7500-11250kt = 7.5-11.25MT) warheads, 15-16 lighter (possibly 350kt each according to the articles cited, but unsure) MIRV warheads (5250-5600kt = 5.25-5.6MT), or 3 hypersonic gliding MIRVs (6MT) or any combination of these 3 layouts as well as countermeasures against anti-ballistic missiles, Avangard, being the name of the MIRVs themselves which fly at Mach 20-27 and have 2 MT+ warheads + 21 t of TNT energy through kinetic energy alone, as well as Burevestnik, a nuclear-fission-powered AND nuclear-armed cruise missile.... you'll see why this is insane later.)
They also have this:

R-29RMU2 Layner - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

(Longest range SLBM, equal in range to UK's and US's Trident at 11,000km (could be higher at 12,000km cause the main page about ICBMs and SLBMs states that, carrying at most 4x500kt (2000kt = 2MT) or 12x100kt (1200kt = 1.2MT) nuclear warheads, speed unstated in Wikipedia, perhaps in other sources)
And of course in their past:

Tsar Bomba - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

(The most powerful nuke ever designed and built (key here being actually designed and built, you'll understand what I mean later), originally made to be 100MT but eventually limited to 50MT to allow the bomber plane to fly to safety with a 50% chance of making it out intact as well as limit long term radioactive fallout.)

On the American Starry-Eyed and Striped-Winged Eagle's side:

LGM-25C Titan II - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

B53 nuclear bomb - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Supersonic Low Altitude Missile - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

(US's own longest range ICBM at 16,000 km with a single 9MT warhead, the W-53, as well as the SLAM, their own nuclear-powered-ramjet and nuclear-armed cruise missile that actually came BEFORE Burevestnik and was cancelled, cause unlike Russia they thought this was too insane since if these sorts of missiles malfunctioned, there'd be radiation all over the place, since, well, THEY'RE LITERALLY SPEWING NUCLEAR-FISSION-PRODUCED RADIOACTIVE FALLOUT AS EXHAUST FROM THE RAMJET ENGINE)

As for US's submarines (cause they still have the biggest navy since the British Empire welp):

UGM-133 Trident II - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

(as mentioned, shared between UK and US, also more or less longest range SLBM on par with or beyond the R-29RMU2 Layner at 12,000km or more with a speed of Mach 24 (since it's also acting similar to an ICBM) and 1–8x475kt Mk-5 RV/W88 (3800kt = 3.8MT) or 1–12x100kt Mk-4 RV/W76-0 (1200kt = 1.2MT) or 1–14x90kt Mk-4A RV/W-76-1 (1260kt = 1.26MT) or single or multiple 5-7kt each W76-2)

And in their past:

Castle Bravo - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

(US's own largest nuke at 15 MT, which unfortunately for them is 3 times (and an additional 5MT) less than the Tsar Bomba... but while they stopped with the designing and building here, Edward Teller, the guy who was half of the reason the Teller-Ulam hydrogen bomb design exists, was not done.)

So here's the real irony: While the US thought the SLAM was too insane (then again, maybe Teller may not have objected, who the heck knows),
US scientists, particularly Teller, were planning to surpass the Tsar Bomba even before Tsar Bomba was detonated.

By how much?

Nuclear weapon design - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"During the mid-1950s through early 1960s, scientists working in the weapons laboratories of the United States investigated weapons concepts as large as 1,000 megatons, and Edward Teller reported work on a 10,000 megaton weapon code-named SUNDIAL at a meeting of the General Advisory Committee of the Atomic Energy Commission."

For the record, Tsar Bomba was originally meant to be 100MT. Krakatoa's eruption in 1883 was 200MT. (And yes, both are included already, in the Real World Page. < Two links in this bracketed portion in the first sentence, separated by the second comma.) SUNDIAL was planned to be 10,000MT, aka 10 GT (gigatonnes), 100 times stronger than Tsar Bomba's original maximum yield and 50 times stronger than Krakatoa.

Let me put this into another perspective based on the effects (gonna try to summarise and restructure the quotations, just bear with me cause the quotations are damn long and stay eagle-eyed for the links, or if you've been in one place for too long (sitting or lying down for hours on end) go and stretch those paws- uh... I meant wings- NO WAIT I MEANT ARMS AND LEGS TOOT- ) (Sorry, I had to, this was the best opportunity for a perfect and terrible pun, might as well sneak it in now cause the rest of this damned essay is depressing or existentially terrifying, so buckle up):

Tsar Bomba:
"The 8-kilometre-wide (5.0 mi) fireball reached nearly as high as the altitude of the release plane (10.5 km)...

When detonation occurred, the shock wave caught up with the Tu-95V at a distance of 115 km (71 mi)... The Tu-95V dropped 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) in the air because of the shock wave but was able to recover and land safely.

Flare (aka the fireball ^) was visible at a distance of more than 1,000 km (620 mi). It was observed in Norway, Greenland and Alaska.
Explosion's mushroom cloud rose to a height of 67 km (42 mi)... The cloud was observed 800 km (500 mi) from the explosion site.
The blast wave circled the globe three times...

A seismic wave in the Earth's crust, generated by the shock wave of the explosion, circled the globe three times.

The atmospheric pressure wave resulting from the explosion was recorded three times in New Zealand... with amplitudes of 0.6 mbar (0.60 hPa), 0.4 mbar (0.40 hPa), and 0.2 mbar (0.20 hPa). Respectively, the average wave speed is estimated at 303 m/s (990 ft/s), or 9.9 degrees of the great circle per hour.

Glass shattered in windows 780 km (480 mi) from the explosion in a village on Dikson Island.

Odd exception: The sound wave generated by the explosion reached Dikson Island, but there are no reports of destruction or damage to structures even in the urban-type settlement of Amderma, which is much closer (280 km (170 mi)) to the landfall. (could be due to focusing and narrowing of the pressure wave perhaps)

Ionization of the atmosphere caused interference to radio communications even hundreds of kilometers from the test site for about 40 minutes.

Another odd exception: Radioactive contamination of the experimental field with a radius of 2–3 km (1.2–1.9 mi) in the hypocenter area was no more than 1 milliroentgen / hour. The testers appeared at the explosion site 2 hours later; radioactive contamination posed practically no danger to the test participants. (because they replaced the uranium tamper for the original 100MT design with the lead tamper for the tested 50MT design)

In the Norwegian border village of Kiberg, fishermen reported injured cods, and border guards reported having contracted cancer in large amounts over the following years, though the latter was never confirmed as being as a result of the bomb.

(I removed the repeated parts from above in this paragraph) All buildings in the village of Severny, both wooden and brick, located 55 km (34 mi) from ground zero within the Sukhoy Nos test range, were destroyed. In districts hundreds of kilometres from ground zero, wooden houses were destroyed; stone ones lost their roofs, windows, and doors...

One participant in the test saw a bright flash through dark goggles and felt the effects of a thermal pulse even at a distance of 270 km (170 mi). The heat from the explosion could have caused third-degree burns 100 km (62 mi) away from ground zero...

Windowpanes were partially broken for distances up to 900 kilometres (560 mi). Atmospheric focusing caused blast damage at even greater distances, breaking windows in Norway and Finland. Despite being detonated 4.2 km (3 mi) above ground, its seismic body wave magnitude was estimated at 5.0–5.25." (To put this part into perspective, this is more than half the magnitude, in terms of the logarithmic scale units, of the MOST POWERFUL EARTHQUAKE EVER RECORDED.) (Too much time to actually convert the logarithmic difference into actual difference in energy, cause it's already in here, and I added the total energy of the world's nuclear arsenal, 2.86 GT, in the link to highlight, which, as can be seen, is 3 TIMES, AND AN ADDITIONAL 1.42GT, LESS THAN SUNDIAL's 10GT ALONE.)

Krakatoa:
"The third and largest explosion, at 10:02 am, was so violent that it was heard 3,110 km (1,930 mi) away in Perth, Western Australia, and the Indian Ocean island of Rodrigues near Mauritius, 4,800 km (3,000 mi) away, where the blast was thought to have been cannon fire from a nearby ship.

The third explosion has been reported as the loudest sound in history. The loudness of the blast heard 160 km (100 mi) from the volcano has been calculated to have been 180 dB, loud enough to be heard 5,000 kilometres (3,100 mi) away.
It was so powerful that it ruptured the eardrums of sailors on RMS Norham Castle of the Castle Line which was hove to off Sumatra, and caused a spike of more than 8.5 kilopascals (2.5 inHg) in the pressure gauge attached to a gasometer in the Batavia (correspondent to modern day Jakarta) gasworks 160 km (100 miles) away, sending it off the scale.
At Batavia, the air waves burst windows and cracked walls.

Each explosion was accompanied by tsunamis estimated to have been over 30 metres (98 feet) high in places... Material shot out of the volcano at 2,575 kilometres per hour (715 metres per second) (THAT'S LITERALLY JUST ABOVE MACH 2). The energy released from the explosion has been estimated to be equal to about 200 megatonnes of TNT (840 petajoules), roughly four times as powerful as the Tsar Bomba (the 50MT detonated version), the most powerful thermonuclear weapon ever detonated. This makes it one of the most powerful explosions in recorded history. At 10:41 am, a landslide tore off half of Rakata volcano, along with the remainder of the island to the north of Rakata, causing the final explosion.

The pressure wave generated by the colossal third explosion radiated out from Krakatoa at 1,086 km/h (675 mph)... was recorded on barographs worldwide. Several barographs recorded the wave seven times over five days: four times with the wave travelling away from the volcano to its antipodal point and three times travelling back to the volcano. Hence, the wave rounded the globe three and a half times.

Massive tsunamis struck the coastlines of the Sunda Strait, entirely submerging some islands and destroying all signs of human settlement.

(Odd exception) The Loudon, which at the time was anchored near the village of Telok Betong, survived the waves. (The Loudon ship apparently managed to manoeuvre itself to sail head on into the waves and reduce the likelihood of capsizing, but the aftermath regarding what they saw the wave do to the village it was anchored near is pretty terrifying.)

Ships as far away as South Africa rocked as tsunamis hit them, and the victims' bodies were found floating in the ocean for months after the event. The tsunamis which accompanied the eruption were believed to have been caused by gigantic pyroclastic flows entering the sea; each of the four great explosions was accompanied by large pyroclastic flows resulting from the gravitational collapse of the eruption columns. This caused several cubic kilometres of material to enter the sea, displacing an equal volume of seawater. The town of Merak was destroyed by a tsunami that was 46 metres high.

Smaller waves were recorded on tidal gauges as far away as the English Channel. These occurred too soon to be remnants of the initial tsunamis and may have been caused by concussive air waves from the eruption.

About 10% of the eruption fatalities were from hot pyroclastic flows and falling tephra. The pyroclastic flows travelled 40 km (25 mi) across the Sunda Strait. Once they hit Southern Sumatra, they incinerated entire villages and burned all vegetation. 2,000 of the corpses in Southern Sumatra appear to have been scorched to death, presumably by the pyroclastic flows.

The Loudon and the W.H. Besse, at ~65km north-northeast and ~80km east-northeast of Krakatau respectively, were hit by strong winds and tephra. They were farther away than the scorched victims of the hot flows in Sumatra, so the ships and crew survived. (Oh this is another reason why)

The flows moved faster than 100 km/h (62 mph) (pretty consistent with avalanches and landslides as well, but far more painful from my assumption since it's a combo of ground and lava and ash) and travelled over the sea up to 80 km (50 mi) from the source, affecting an area constrained to a minimum of 4,000 km2 (1,500 sq mi).
Pyroclastic deposits thought to be from the flows have been found on Southeast Sumatra, and northwest of the volcano on the islands of Sebesi, Sebuku and Lagoendi, while on Southwest Sumatra the flows burnt victims. The flows had moved across the water on a cushion of superheated steam.
There are also indications of submarine pyroclastic flows reaching 15 km (9.3 mi) from the volcano. An estimated 20 cubic kilometres of tephra was deposited, some of which fell 2,500 km away. Huge fields of floating pumice were reported for months after the event.
Ash was propelled to an estimated height of 80 km (50 mi) (Oh, yeah, this means the ash was shot 20km HIGHER THAN THE MUSHROOM CLOUD OF TSAR BOMBA).

Around noon on 27 August 1883, a rain of hot ash fell around Ketimbang (now Katibung in Lampung Province) in Sumatra. Approximately 1,000 people were killed in Sumatra; there were no survivors from the 3,000 people on the island of Sebesi. There are numerous reports of groups of human skeletons floating across the Indian Ocean on rafts of volcanic pumice and washing up on the east coast of Africa up to a year after the eruption."

So all that is for Tsar Bomba and Krakatoa, and we established that SUNDIAL is 100 times stronger than the Tsar Bomba's full potential yield and 50 times stronger than Krakatoa. So what was the expected destruction this doomsday device would bring?

In Search of a Bigger Boom

What drove Edward Teller to push for a 10,000 megaton hydrogen bomb?

blog.nuclearsecrecy.com

According to Alex Wellerstein ^: "A 10,000 megaton (aka 10 gigaton) weapon, by my estimation, would be powerful enough to set all of New England on fire. Or most of California. Or all of the UK and Ireland. Or all of France. Or all of Germany. Or both North and South Korea. And so on."

This proposed nuke would've destroyed a continent

Soon after America set off its largest-ever nuclear blast on Bikini Atoll in the Pacific, one scientist behind the weapon aimed for a blast that would've been 670,000 times as powerful as Hiroshima.

www.wearethemighty.com

And according to this article ^, "...(What Alex said) only accounts for the immediate overpressure wave and fireball. The lethal nuclear fallout would have immediately lethal levels of radiation across multiple countries, and likely would have poisoned the earth.
We would show you what this looks like on NUKEMAP (nuke effect simulator), but Wellerstein programmed it to “only” work with blasts up to 100 megatons, the largest bomb ever constructed. (aka the Tsar Bomba's max yield)"

(Caption for image from Mighty article: The NUKEMAP application shows the damage from a 100-megaton blast on Moscow. The orange and yellow ovals going northeast are the fallout from the blast. While this may look safe for America, Teller’s proposed design would’ve been 100 times larger.)


Luckily the US government said "Nope" to that since 1: it would have been too heavy, 2: it'd essentially kill millions or even billions of innocents and combatants alike, and even detonating it WITHIN the US would have possibly destroyed part of Europe's population with the radiation alone. (From secrecy article: "The scientist Edward Teller, according to one account, kept a blackboard in his office at Los Alamos during World War II with a list of hypothetical nuclear weapons on it. The last item on his list was the largest one he could imagine. The method of “delivery” — weapon-designer jargon for how you get your bomb from here to there, the target — was listed as “Backyard.” As the scientist who related this anecdote explained, “since that particular design would probably kill everyone on Earth, there was no use carting it anywhere.”")

(Ironically enough, here's another part from the secrecy article: "In 1949, Rabi had, along with Enrico Fermi, written up a Minority Annex to the GAC’s report recommending against the creation of the hydrogen bomb.
The crux of their argument was thus: "Let it be clearly realized that this is a super weapon; it is in a totally different category from an atomic bomb. The reason for developing such super bombs would be to have the capacity to devastate a vast area with a single bomb. Its use would involve a decision to slaughter a vast number of civilians. (Damningly this did not stop them with Hiroshima and Nagasaki.) We are alarmed as to the possible global effects of the radioactivity generated by the explosion of a few super bombs of conceivable magnitude. If super bombs will work at all, there is no inherent limit in the destructive power that may be attained with them. Therefore, a super bomb might become a weapon of genocide."

Hiroshima and Nagasaki are one half of the irony. I highlighted Fermi because of this:

Trinity (nuclear test) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

(last paragraph of the section linked from the Wikipedia article ^) "Enrico Fermi offered to take wagers among the top physicists and military present on whether the atmosphere would ignite, and if so whether it would destroy just the state, or incinerate the entire planet. This last result had been previously calculated by Bethe to be almost impossible, although for a while it had caused some of the scientists some anxiety.")
(So the person who took bets on whether an atomic bomb test would blow the entire planet up later then co-writes a letter condemning hydrogen bombs, 4 YEARS AFTER THEY DETONATED ATOMIC BOMBS ON HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI)

(and perhaps more terrifyingly from the Secrecy article, which is reminiscent of the ending of the Oppenheimer film:
"Both the US and the USSR looked into designing 100 megaton (Tsar-Bomba-max-yield power) warheads that would fit onto ICBMs. The fact that the Tsar Bomba was so large doesn’t mean that such a design had to be so large. (Or that being large necessarily would keep it from being put on the tip of a giant missile.) Neither went forward with these." (Thankfully.)

The aftermath would really be, to borrow an acronym from survivalists and doomsday preppers...
TEOTWAWKI: The End Of The World As We Know It.

 

[Hortonhearsahoot]

Platypuses have electroreception. They detect the electrical pulses produced by small prey and use this to find them. It's definitely at least Enhanced Senses, but is it technically Electricity Manipulation? I wouldn't call the ability to smell Fragrance Manipulation, so I'm unsure.

 

[Mahek_The_Assassin_Silent_Killer]

Platypuses have electroreception. They detect the electrical pulses produced by small prey and use this to find them. It's definitely at least Enhanced Senses, but is it technically Electricity Manipulation? I wouldn't call the ability to smell Fragrance Manipulation, so I'm unsure.

Did you include the venomous spurs already? They're able to deal nasty venomous injuries even to humans, apparently from anecdotes they can hurt VERY badly but non-lethal, quite long-lasting though, but still not near the levels of much more deadly creatures like box jellyfish, black mambas and inland taipans and sea snakes, golden poison dart frogs, ciguatera fish (ciguatoxin and maitotoxin), etc etc.

Platypus venom - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Platypus - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

oh and yeah they have electrolocation you're right

Platypus - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Hortonhearsahoot]

Yeah. I added that stuff a while ago

 

[Mahek_The_Assassin_Silent_Killer]

Yeah. I added that stuff a while ago

Nice...
Wait should we specify that only males have the venom? (cause of anatomical differences)
(I know it's sexual dimorphism but.... SEXISM) (lel)

 

[Hortonhearsahoot]

Oh yeah, you just made me remember that platypuses don't get killed by the spurs during fights (even though the venom may be enough to a kill a dog). So venom resistance. What do you think electroreception qualifies for?

 

[Mahek_The_Assassin_Silent_Killer]

Oh yeah, you just made me remember that platypuses don't get killed by the spurs during fights (even though the venom may be enough to a kill a dog). So venom resistance. What do you think electroreception qualifies for?

Extrasensory Perception? (I mean, the same goes for sharks and electric eels to a greater degree and it's essentially an extra sense to the rest of their senses...?)
(please help check if that's a valid VSBW ability, I'm pretty sure it is but I'm not 100% sure )

 

[Hortonhearsahoot]

I looked at that page on vsbw yesterday, but apparently Enhanced Senses involves extra sense as well. In order to be Extrasensory Perception rather than just extra senses, the ability must be something beyond the normal 5 senses that you can perceive without a sensory organ such as eyes, whiskers, or in this case, a platypus bill

 

[Mahek_The_Assassin_Silent_Killer]

Oh yeah, you just made me remember that platypuses don't get killed by the spurs during fights (even though the venom may be enough to a kill a dog). So venom resistance. What do you think electroreception qualifies for?

To be fair, about the resistance, it's probably more of being resistant to their own venom, which IS made of chemicals that are partially unique to them. (Not sure if they have demonstrated resistance to other venomous animals' venom or poisonous animals' poison, I'm assuming most of us already know the difference between venom and poison.)

 

[Mahek_The_Assassin_Silent_Killer]

I looked at that page on vsbw yesterday, but apparently Enhanced Senses involves extra sense as well. In order to be Extrasensory Perception rather than just extra senses, the ability must be something beyond the normal 5 senses that you can perceive without a sensory organ such as eyes, whiskers, or in this case, a platypus bill

... that is a bit tough then.... should we double check with any other more knowledgeable peeps regarding the correct ability to confer unto the platypus' profile?
For now we could keep it to Enhanced Senses, since the electrolocation may be more of a complement to... probably tactile sense in this case since apparently their eyes, ears and nose are are sealed underwater so that's my only logical conclusion

 

[Mahek_The_Assassin_Silent_Killer]

Venomous mammal - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

by the way if you or anyone else is interested, we could also include other unusual venomous creatures.

 

[Mahek_The_Assassin_Silent_Killer]

^speaking of which though, there ARE animals which are both venomous and poisonous, and I found a funny meme to show the variety of venomous and poisonous animals

Can Snakes Be Venomous AND Poisonous?

Are snakes venomous or poisonous? Can some snakes be venomous and poisonous? Florida is home to 44 different snake species, from the large and dramatic eastern indigo snake, to the ...

www.osc.org

 

[Mahek_The_Assassin_Silent_Killer]

Rhabdophis tigrinus - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Corythomantis greeningi - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Bruno's casque-headed frog - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

All 3 are both venomous and poisonous (inject venom and secrete poison)
(in particular for the last one: The venom of A. brunoi/N. brunoi is estimated to be 25 times as toxic as that of local fer-de-lance pit vipers. It has an LD50 of 0.16 mg/kg (I.P, intraperitoneal) and 1.6 mg/kg (S.C, subcutaneous).)

 

[Mahek_The_Assassin_Silent_Killer]

Also, yeah, quite a few animals obtain poison by either eating poisonous prey (similar to flamingoes eating plankton to go from grey to pink) or covering their bodily surfaces with the secretions of other poisonous creatures

 

[Mahek_The_Assassin_Silent_Killer]

Krill, shrimp and prawn still be confusing on a side note
but I found the differences online

Prawns vs Shrimp: What's the Difference?

Prawns and shrimp are closely related and often confused. This article explores the key differences between shrimp and prawns.

www.healthline.com

The Difference Between Krill and Shrimp - American Oceans

Krill and shrimp are both small, aquatic creatures that are commonly consumed by humans around the world. While they may look similar, there are several key

www.americanoceans.org

(shrimp is basically in between krill and prawn size wise, and also evolutionary differences in structure and lifestyle)
(a bit sad that the two pages are talking about them in the context of eating them)

 

[Mahek_The_Assassin_Silent_Killer]

A Nitpicker’s Guide to Venomous and Poisonous Creatures

“Are there any poisonous snakes around here?” a friend asked me while on a camping trip in Pennsylvania.

slate.com

another funny article about poisonous and venomous creatures, AND creatures that are both.

 

[Hortonhearsahoot]

... that is a bit tough then.... should we double check with any other more knowledgeable peeps regarding the correct ability to confer unto the platypus' profile?
For now we could keep it to Enhanced Senses, since the electrolocation may be more of a complement to... probably tactile sense in this case since apparently their eyes, ears and nose are are sealed underwater so that's my only logical conclusion

I’ll try and contact a knowledgeable member to help out. Still, the platypus’s detection doesn’t need to be a regular sense to qualify for Enhanced Senses

 

[H3110l12345I20]

I’ll try and contact a knowledgeable member to help out. Still, the platypus’s detection doesn’t need to be a regular sense to qualify for Enhanced Senses

ESP is stated to require one of the primary physical senses to qualify.

"

• Note - This is not to be confused with Extrasensory Perception, as this ability must involve the use of one of the standard five senses, or any other sensory organs, in order to qualify.

"

The Great White and platpus' extra senses have limits, and users of ESP should be able sense energies even when normal physical senses would fail (like cameras for example. Your visibility is enhanced by you can't detect matter signatures behind walls unlike ESP).

TL; DR. the Great White and platypus should have extra senses.