Is Webber capable of growing up?

[Mantispidae]

4 hours ago, wefoij said:

Some eusocial species like some species of ants can have every worker turn into a queen. When one does though other workers detect it and they bite her and hold her still for a few days until her turning-into-a-queen process stops. I forgot the exact species name. Saw it in a documentary that covered a wide variety of ants, no chance for me to hunt it down.

According to the documentary these types of ants are less evolved and significantly worse in performance as the other species of ants whose workers don't have the ability to turn into queens.

(a little off topic here I'll admit, this is just fun bio facts) Not familiar with ants, but in most cases of eusociality the fine line between "reproductive" and "nonreproductive" is hormonal. I wouldn't know what species you're referring too, but in most ant species reproductive status is something achieved in final molt. If a bug molts into an adult nonreproductive due to it's larval treatment, it can't gain that back. However what there ARE are workers that were never non-reproductive to begin with, there's just a hormonal switch or colony rules that prevent reproduction. The proper term for these are gamergates if you wanna look into them more. Species that have these generally use them as replacement queens or a secondary reproductive caste. 

Some insects species that follow eusocial patterns aren't *completely* nonreproductive and can still produce genetically limited eggs- for example bald faced wasps workers are able to produce unfertilized eggs which only result in males. Insect genetics causes some relatedness weirdness, so having worker-sons is more profitable genetics-wise than raising the queen's offspring. Following the same pattern, bald faced wasps have MUCH higher chance of worker regicide with all the workers overthrowing their queen. It's not less evolved so to speak, it's just that eusocial colony behavior is held together by the promise that the workers still benefit from not producing their own young.

Interesting, Wickerbottom (the more well-read of the bunch) refers to the Spider Queen as "the centerpeice of the hivemind" (not how spider's work, or any bug, really- but she could theoretically be referencing common literature tropes) while Walter states he's never heard of spider's having queens. Wagstaff also calls spider eggs the "juvenile form" of the nest, for a bit more text on the relationship between queen and nest. 
 

[cropo]

I would be interested to hear your comments on the Cave variants of spiders, their reproduction, and relation to normal spiders. There is no cave spider queen(now that I think about this, wouldn't that have been pretty cool?) and the Depth Dwellers/Spitters may be able to reproduce but how would the dangling spiders work?

 

1 hour ago, CameoAppearance said:

and the spider half doesn't understand why the words matter because spiders don't have their own language or any other genders to compare it to

Actually, if you examine the Volcano book from Shipwrecked(wickerbottoms book) as Webber he will say ''I'm not a very good reader, but He is!''. Long before any lore additions DST made it would seem spiders have always been intelligent, or Webbers spider at least.

 

This may just be a wiki problem, but this seems to be the only book Wagstaff has an examine quote for. He states that the book contains complex formulas on how to control the Volcano, so Webber claims the book is too complex with Wagstaff saying it contains complex formulas and then boasts that his spider half is good at reading it for this specific book. This to me is proof of spider intelligence.

 

 

Also if we're going by the spider hats description, the Queen literally controls the spiders through brainwave manipulation. Wagstaff calls the hat a ''Brain Wave Converter''. WX says it ''transmits thoughts to spiders''.  and Maxwell says they have ''malleable wills''.  Wigfrid says it will let her emit psionic control over spiders.

 

So it IS a hivemind.

 

Wagstaff wonders if the spider queen ''evolved'' from the Den if that means anything. WX says they live under a system of Monarchy.

[Mantispidae]

5 hours ago, cropo said:

So it IS a hivemind.

 

Wagstaff wonders if the spider queen ''evolved'' from the Den if that means anything. WX says they live under a system of Monarchy.

Yeah, in this case it seems to be literal hivemind, I was mostly stating it since it is popular tropes to have eusocial/colony species be "hiveminds" even though thats not how real-world colonies work- but it is a trope popular with fake species! Hince why I brought it up with Wicker as either a potential lit. reference or an example of said trope being well, real in the constant. Seems to be the latter!

Given how other things in the Constant seem to work, I think likely best reading of Wagstaff's evolution comment may not be evolution, but mutation. Likely magical in nature, but perhaps the implication is that spider nests naturally convert into queens? He also makes comments about the spider nest growing as if it is properly alive, which seems to further point to the queen and nest being directly linked. Evolved could also be interpreted as a non-scientific term to just say that the queen "grows" from the nest in the non-literal sense.

As for the other spiders, well, we see no queens for them, and they aren't organically produced from the generic queen (exceptions being the nurse and warrior). However just because we don't see the queen's doesn't mean they don't exist, especially considering that the queens could potentially just be in/are the nests. Given the location too, I  would assume these being a diverged closely related species or subspecies, either via natural evolution or enhanced with constant's mutation. Eusocial colonies DO often have specialized castes (think soldier ants, as opposed to workers) but it would be hard to make this claim for something we only see in the caves, the warrior spiders and nurses would be a better example of something that is biologically literally the same species, just physiologically different.

Also on Webber's beard- Doing a quick run through to see if anyone mentioned anything about subspecies or divergence with the cave spiders, Wagstaff does actually say "looks like spider's here don't spin web's with their posteriors" about the spitter spiders, so it seems spider's in the constant naturally produce silk orally, Webber's just getting it all over his face. It's basically just like, spider drool here.

[Mday]

On 11/24/2021 at 5:23 PM, Geo95 said:

Webber's face is spider butt confirmed

this... I cannot unseen it now.

[Chea-k-hole]

On 11/24/2021 at 4:03 AM, wefoij said:

He's a spider boy fusion mutant thingy right? Maybe that permanently stunted his ability to grow. After all Spiders don't grow so why would he?

But then again, do spiders grow into Spider Queens? How does that work? Anyone understand Spider Queen biology?

Are the spider dens an organism instead of a nest built with webs? But Spider eggs are plural so no that's not it.

Will Webber grow into a Spider Queen Boy fusion?

He makes eggs out of spider glands. So are all spiders female? But only he is able to craft them. Is his spider half female? But one of Webber's quote refers to his spider half as a he. But it could be that Webber doesn't know the gender of his spider half.

Anyone know the answer to these questions?

so the rework made to whole webbers origins weird originally oldscchool ds webber there was a spider the size of webbers head right and webber was a human baby smaller than the spider and the spider ate webber whole then for whatever reason a defecct in the spiders stomach acid production the baby webber human dident get digested instead he gained a immunity to the monsterous venom and such and then spider would eat and webber would eat and grow and as he grew the spider did not and its body just kinda streatched as webber grew untill webber became what he is today which is much better than the webber rework where they made the whole transition out to be a radioactive spider bite like a spiderman ripoff ....why devs why change good lore or was it the devs just did not even bother to learn the characters lure as they reworked it to begin with just seems to be lazy story writing if u ask me 

 

[BezKa]

5 minutes ago, Chea-k-hole said:

Snip

No.

The original story was "a boy has been eaten by a spider. Instead of being digested, they fused and share a body." 

That's was all. Everything else you mentioned has been fan theories. 

It wasn't known what age Webber was. People weren't even sure if it was already in the constant or before it. 

[Chea-k-hole]

4 minutes ago, BezKa said:

No.

The original story was "a boy has been eaten by a spider. Instead of being digested, they fused and share a body." 

That's was all. Everything else you mentioned has been fan theories. 

It wasn't known what age Webber was. People weren't even sure if it was already in the constant or before it. 

nah everything i said is factual based on quotes and the way the mechanics work with webber i dont read fan theories bruh ive lived it ive been a webber main since he was dropped ive dug up the spider bones ive replanted them ive examined everything in the game as webber im a webber main bruh a spider is the same size as webbers head webber was eaten by a spider webber is bigger now so obviously he was eaten when he was much smaller than he is now so a baby or toddler at best like if you actually played as webber and used common sense its plane as day so try to not be a **** ok i constantly see you jumping in threads in a negative manner there guy so calm it down or just refrain from responding to me period 

[cropo]

5 minutes ago, Chea-k-hole said:

nah everything i said is factual based on quotes and the way the mechanics work with webber i dont read fan theories bruh ive lived it ive been a webber main since he was dropped ive dug up the spider bones ive replanted them ive examined everything in the game as webber im a webber main bruh a spider is the same size as webbers head webber was eaten by a spider webber is bigger now so obviously he was eaten when he was much smaller than he is now so a baby or toddler at best like if you actually played as webber and used common sense its plane as day so try to not be a **** ok i constantly see you jumping in threads in a negative manner there guy so calm it down or just refrain from responding to me period 

That's not what factual means dude...you've made inferences based on what you know of examine quotes and hints. I'd also question the validity of your findings since you seem to base your assumption that Webber was a small baby because it's not realistic for a spider to be able to swallow a child whole.  It's not ''realistic'' for half of the things in this game, characters even break the 4th wall to comment on the absurdity of certain things like Golden tools being more durable than they should be.

 

Your assertion is just absurd!

[BezKa]

6 minutes ago, Chea-k-hole said:

Snip

So you've made your own fan theory. 

I've been a Webber main as well, although much shorter, but none of his quotes suggest anything you said. His mechanics also never pointed towards your theory. 

I don't want to spread negativity, I just don't want misinformation to spread. 

[Chea-k-hole]

4 minutes ago, BezKa said:

So you've made your own fan theory. 

I've been a Webber main as well, although much shorter, but none of his quotes suggest anything you said. His mechanics also never pointed towards your theory. 

I don't want to spread negativity, I just don't want misinformation to spread. 

like i said refrain from responding to anything i say ever i literally feel attacked every single time you say literally anything in response to anything so stop

[BezKa]

Just now, Chea-k-hole said:

like i said refrain from responding to anything i say ever i literally feel attacked every single time you say literally anything in response to anything so stop

That's not my fault. Sorry you feel that way. 

If you want to, there's a function to ignore users on the forum. You can find it in your profile. 

[Chea-k-hole]

1 hour ago, cropo said:

That's not what factual means dude...you've made inferences based on what you know of examine quotes and hints. I'd also question the validity of your findings since you seem to base your assumption that Webber was a small baby because it's not realistic for a spider to be able to swallow a child whole.  It's not ''realistic'' for half of the things in this game, characters even break the 4th wall to comment on the absurdity of certain things like Golden tools being more durable than they should be.

 

Your assertion is just absurd!

the whole " it's not realistic for a spider to be able to swallow a child whole" i mean i think is kinda realistic tho like webbers size now in game he is a child right like 7-8ish ok now id imagine a small child like toddler would probably be about the size of webbers head so then we compare the size of a spider to webber and come to find out its his head size ok now spiders are all mouth so if the spider opened its mouth up all the way a baby would fit in there and constant spiders are bigger i guess also about webbers mechanics this one conclusion pops in my head specifically monster meat immunity and the way human immunity work to toxins would suggest that webber slowly gained immunity by being poisoned by monster meat toxins in small doses while inside the spider so now he can eat it with no health penalty's as he has gained a immunity to the level of toxins present in monster meat over time without experiencing death which happens to everyone else in the constant when they gorge on monster meat so that would suggest that the spider had a weaker lvl of monster meat toxins as webber didn't perish before he became immune like anyone else would i think webber is a human child trapped inside a spider where the stomach acid ripped off some of webbers human skin before he gained immunity so the spider is sustaining off of webbers blood pee and poo and pooping out silk on webbers chin and there mouths overlap so webber growing would make sense that he looks that way with spider skin stretching over him to show his human form trapped inside and now mind you skin doesn't stretch that much without ripping so to fit him perfectly like that it would have been a grow to fit sort of thing so that suggest webber was a baby when he was consumed 

 

[CameoAppearance]

Chea-k-hole, would it kill you to use line breaks or some punctuation besides quotation marks?? Also, nothing you said is how Webber's lore works either before or after the rework. The spider clearly still swallowed him in the cinematic, because it's not skittering around in the room with him after his transformation. It was just a very stretchy spider, I suppose.

On 11/25/2021 at 10:28 AM, Mantispidae said:

Given the location too, I  would assume these being a diverged closely related species or subspecies, either via natural evolution or enhanced with constant's mutation. Eusocial colonies DO often have specialized castes (think soldier ants, as opposed to workers) but it would be hard to make this claim for something we only see in the caves, the warrior spiders and nurses would be a better example of something that is biologically literally the same species, just physiologically different.

Maxwell does have a quote (for a spider, no less, it's the Dangling Depths Dweller examine quote) where he says "Creatures in this world evolve at a terrifying rate", so rapid speciation seems entirely possible.