A long story short, in the cluster of stars around my home system there were these tribal creatures, and when I checked back yesterday they'd advanced to Civ stage, which I thought was pretty nifty. I went down to the planet to have a nose about, and found lots of boxes of blue spice, which at the time I didn't have access to. I beamed up their crates and then gleefully bombed their cities with them having no way to effectively stop me (they didn't seem to have many turrets, or I was too high for them).

I bombed them all because, as aforementioned, it was my first blue-spice world (I hadn't explored too far) that hadn't been snatched up by any of the other spacefaring races. My intention was that by eliminating the sentient race I could monopolise their resource and terraform the planet myself. Truly, greed makes monsters of us all! 

But a little later....I realised that if I'd just left the guys there running their little Civ-game, I could've just stopped by every so often and stole myself some free Blue crates, with them doing all the work and powerless to resist, and best of all with no financial investment from me whatsoever on colonies, turrets, factories and all that. And of course, not having a colony means I'd not have to defend the frelling thing.

Obviously sooner or later the race would've reached space themselves and may have even chased me for stealing all their resources on their way to their first starship. But it still seemed to be an intriguing idea; keeping Civ-level worlds as kind of 'farms' for spice; free spice (the best kind!); and making a package off the profits. Kind of get as much of the looting and pillaging in as possible before they advance to space themselves.

I guess all this longwindedness is just my way of asking....has anyone else ever played around with this concept? I haven't had a chance to actually try and 'keep' a farm-world of sorts yet. Is it doable? Can it be done over a long enough period of game-time to make it a more viable alternative to taking the planet yourself and establishing a colony? If the Civ-level lifeforms reach space, will they remember your actions and try to punish you for them?

If I've accidentally stumbled upon a golden ticket when it comes to spice here I'd like to know, especially if it's something you guys have already experimented with. 

  Nothing like yet another creature thread to let the world know we Spore fans are hard at work conceptualising. Hopefully, unless I make a complete pig's ear of it all, the picture might even come out and everything. you never know.

This is my first try at this, so bear with me. 



This rather passive creature with an I-don't-give-a-flying-Willosaur-attitude is the Waldog (thanks again for the name Skraeling!), an animal around the size of a greyhound and just as disconcertingly skinny. Let's examine him from snout to tail, shall we? Oh, come on. It might even be FUN.

His nose is disproportionately large, with a long snout and a rubbery brown proboscis. A common mistake is that this brown nose becomes wet, similar to the dogs of earth, but the Waldog is far too lazy and wrapped up in his own daydreams to bother with that kind of thing. In fact, comparing him to the dogs of Earth makes him moody, and it is a known fact that the best way to coax a Waldog to bite your arm off is by waving a stick in front of his face going 'Fetch it, boy, fetch it!'

More on that later. His mouth is large, omnivorous, and rests in a permanent expression of semi-despondency. It's not that Waldogs are naturally prone to depression; far from it. They simply believe in the premise of the simplest conceivable pleasures in life; paradoxical considering their buildings and artistry, but we shall discuss that another time.

Waldogs started with two eyes, but evolved more once their formerly powerful ears became wings because they found telescopic sight to be advantageous. In fact, the two eyes stacked on his head each have a different ability; the aforementioned telescopic sight, and the ability to see infrared waves. However, doing so is a tremendous effort and gives them a frightful headache so most of the time these eyes are used more as signs of supposed wisdom to impress other creatures with. Their primary eyes; the ones in their skulls; are slightly less advanced than those of a human being, but can detect colour. However, most Waldogs rarely open them more than halfway, because to look too alert is deemed blasphemous to such a passive and slow-paced race; alertness suggests excitement, which is not something Waldogs feel very often. Besides, keeping eyes half shut means less effort.

On the subject of blasphemy and religion in general, Waldogs believe that the universe in which they reside was brought into being by the mighty force known as Mack-Syss. Long ago when the universe was young, the Mack-Syss decreed it to be so that the Universe be Split into Fragments running in Parallel, and that such Fragments be passed on to the mighty creatures known as Plae-Yarrz to to with as they Wish. It is not certain if Mack-Syss truly did use Unnecessary Captial Letters in Important Words, but this has become the case with Waldog runes depicting these events anyway.

It is not known if Waldogs still use their ears to fly, since doing so takes effort, but it is certain that most of their hearing was vanquished during their evoltuion from ears to wings. however, the creatures now use this as a legitimate excuse to play their music rather loudly.

It is unclear how their legs evolved into the odd configuration they are now. Waldogs, however, do not take kindly to being called 'odd', because they believe that they are normal and the rest of all creation isn't; the only thing that was done right. Their aloofness often earns them a jolly good beating at the hands or other appendages of outraged aliens, however. Most of their aloof nature comes from the fact that they realised eons ago, with a smug sense of satisfaction, that their name when spelled backwards is 'Godlaw', giving them reason to think that they are immensely important. However, they aren't.

Because his hands evolved so far down his back, the Waldog found that giving things a punch meant standing side-on to them which meant slightly more effort than usual. Evolution was kind enough to give them a frontal chest-mounted claw to rectify this problem, though they are much to passive and lazy to use it in violence unless provoked. for example, waving a strip of material with a loop for around their neck at the end and cooing 'Walkies!' usually is enough for them to scratch you an extra eye-socket, albeit without an eye to go in it.

Their tails became their final leg to compensate for their ridiculously short hind legs, which support the most valued of the Waldog's anatomy; his stomach. Waldogs like eating, especially sweet berries or prey that doesn;t make too much trouble of itself by doing annoying things such as running away or hitting him.

Due to canine lips, Waldog language is not as advanced as a human, consisting mostly of howls, yaps and barks. However, Waldogs have developed a variety of Looks to convey messages to each other.

A Look is an expression that has meaning to Waldogs inside their own culture. It is not known how many Looks there are, simply because they all look the same to a casual observer; droopy eyelids, dopey mouth, and so on. This has served Waldogs well throughout history as it effectively offers them a secret and silent language.

Finally, his fur. The Waldog is coated in a sleek layer of rich fur, which displays the fact that though he is lazy and a pacifist whenever possible, he does like his extravagances. Purple and white are the most common colourations of this fur, and Waldogs are naturally fond of fashion over function; they have resisted all urges of evolving a better-camoflauged fur coat through fear of not looking quite so sexy to one another. The red spikes he developed on his back over time to stop himself being ambushed are also signs of fertility. The larger and more red the spike, the better a mate he will be. However, it is not clear how Waldogs mate; but it is known that they see such a thing as rather a nuisance, because it involves a lot of energy.....but at least gives a legitimate excuse for a lie down afterwards. Therefore, their culture as not evolved to the same lust-crazed degree as certain other planets.

And there you have it!  The Waldog, detailled in gratuitously long-winded detail for your (possible) pleasure. Thanks for your interest! The Waldog too would be thankful, but he can't be bothered to be at the moment.