1st Phase

WELCOME!

This is the 1st Phase of the Alternate Evolution community project.

This will be the first phase focused on speculative paleontology. It is assumed that virtually everything that we know from our Earth's distant eras will remain the same, but the community will be able to imagine and create creatures that could feasibly have existed in our Earth's past, but we just haven't found them in the fossil record. This will be divided in a series of subphases, the following are the ones planned:

- Precambrian (4567.3 - 538.8 mya)

- Cambrian (538.8 - 485.4 mya)

- Ordovician (485.4 - 443.1 mya)

- Silurian (443.1 - 419.2 mya)

- Devonian (419.2 - 358.9 mya)

- Carboniferous (358.9 - 298.9 mya)

- Permian (298.9 - 251.9 mya)

- Triassic (251.9 - 201.4 mya)

- Jurassic (201.4 - 145 mya)

- Cretaceous (145 - 66 mya)

- Paleocene (66 - 56 mya)

- Eocene (56 - 33.9 mya)

- Oligocene (33.9 - 23 mya)

- Miocene (23 - 5.3 mya)

- Early Zanclean (5.3 - ~4.5 mya)

Following are the rules and guidelines for this project:

RULES & GUIDELINES

Hello, here are the rules that you should follow to participate on this project.

DISCLAIMER: The rules below mentioned are mostly not hard rules. Any of these can be challenged if properly justified and if room for consideration is present. However, you're best served if you follow them.

DISCLAIMER: Any doubts, questions, discussions and negotiations about any of these rules and about any aspect of this contest in general is allowed to be sent to me directly. I will consider anything to make this project adequate.

This project is focused on a collaborative endeavour where everyone can add their own creations into a singular consistent chronology. Because of that everything and everyone has to be aware of the canon of this project. Every canonical aspect of each subphase will be listed in this site, alongside every accepted submission, so that you can have a stable encyclopedia of all its contents.

Where can you submit? - You can submit it on DeviantArt, Instagram or other mediums. In DeviantArt, you can tag me with your submission, DM me, or submit it to #altevoyp. In Instagram, you can also tag me, DM me or submit it to #altevoyp. I don't have Twitter or Tumblr, so if anyone submits their own submissions there, you will have to find your way to make me aware of them. I am available on Discord, whoever knows me from there can DM me, or tag me in a server where I'm in. This contest will be linked to the Speculative Evolution Forum, where people will be able to submit their own submissions and discuss about them as well.

Do I have a discord server for this event? - I don't have a plan to make a discord server for this event. Although it would be ideally very useful, to ease dialogue between different people, and manage a community as well, it still requires frequent management. I lack the energy to manage a discord server for the time being, so for now, it is not a bright option. Regardless, hopefully over the lifetime of this project, people will be able to find ways to communicate with each other and with myself to get a sense of where the project is going overall. (This will be linked in the Speculative Evolution Forum, where room for discussions will indeed exist, however).

Do you need to make artworks for this project? - You actually don't have to make an artwork for this project (however the inclusion of an artwork will be heavily valorized). As long as you can provide a text that is illustrative enough, your submission can be a great addition.

DISCLAIMER: By submitting to this project, you accept your submission (including your artworks) to be redrawn by myself in my own artistic style. Your original text and artworks will still be showcased in this site, and you will be credited, but I (and other submitters) will have permission to use your concept and your artworks as inspirations for other artworks they might want to do, as long as it is within the context of this project.

RULES & GUIDELINES FOR SUBMISSIONS:

• With or without artworks, you need to have a text accompanying your submission. The text has to have between 300 and 2000 characters (roughly 60-400 words). You can make a longer text, but too much words is going to be frowned upon, same for a too short description. You have to make a succint and understandable enough description of your submission.

• Artworks are not imperative, but highly valorized to get a visual sense of your submission. A text can do enough without an image, if its well written, however.

• You can submit one or more artworks for one same submission. As long as they all relate to the same context, and if they help illustrate your submission further, that's great. Watch out to not make a redundant amount of artworks, however, but that will mostly not be a problem.

• For any species you submit, its preferable that you give it a binominal name (scientific name, with a genus in uppercase and species in lowercase; ex.: Cuon alpinus). Your nomenclature has to be carefully chosen so to be grammatically correct and to not overlap with existing described genera and species (valid or otherwise). A colloquial name (common name; ex.: snow leopard) is disincouraged. (None of these is an obligation, and is not a disqualifying factor; you can indeed not have a scientific name for your submission and have a common name for it too, but this is the preferable format for this).

• Collaborative submissions are accepted, and often encouraged. Submissions that reference or are worked alongside others are acceptable.

• References to people, media or memes in your descriptions, names and overall creature designs are disincouraged. Your creations are meant to be original creations that don't rely on pre-existing creations or anecdotes to stay relevant. (This isn't a hard rule, but it is an important consideration)

RULES & GUIDELINES ABOUT CANON:

• Everything submitted will be part of the same canon. Because of that, everyone will have to respect the canon. Accepted lineages, species, environments and extinctions will all be listed here, so that you can have a sense of what is in place.

• For every submission its suggested for you to give a basic set of data about your submission. PHYLOGENETIC POSITION, TIME (in millions of years) and GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION are the most important aspects that your submission has to cover, in terms of basic data.

RULES & GUIDELINES ABOUT PLAUSIBILITY:

For the 1st Phase, you have to create creatures that could have existed in our Earth's past, but for some reason we just never found them in the fossil record. Because of that, several aspects need to be considered to make sure every submission is believable.

• In broad strokes, because this is a speculative evolution contest, with heavy focus on science, it should aim for plausibility in every situation. Inaccuracies and far-fetched concepts that favour more sensational creations will be questioned (however there will be an effort to be loose on the evaluation of your submissions)

• If you're making a submission that belongs to a specific lineage of organisms, you have to take into account accepted lines of evidence about their origins. Molecular clock data, fossil data and genetic analysis exist in abundance for many groups that can give us clues as to when certain groups first evolved, so those have to be respected. (For example, you can't make an archosaur in the Permian, as molecular clock and fossil data overwhelmingly put their origin in the Triassic)

• You can appropriate existing ghost lineages or create new ones. Ghost lineages are lineages that have a very large evolutionary gap where intermediate lifeforms haven't been preserved. Existing ghost lineages are good to work with, because they're verifiable by molecular and fossil data. Creating ghost lineages that push back or push forward the temporal range of a certain lineage is also possible, but it has to respect what we know of a certain group's evolutionary history, and should overall follow a good enough justification.

• To strengthen the plausibility of your submission, you can showcase several references of existing studies, or your own thought proccess and research. Links, citations, etc. can be included in your own text, and gives weight to your submission (This could be used to justify a longer text description for your submission). Actual fossil evidence can be used to influence a submission of yours, like fragmentary fossils or trackways, or other existing clues that point towards an enigmatic creature, to which you can speculate about.

• Your submission is meant to be something that could have existed but wasn't found as fossils. Because of that you need to have in mind a reason as to why it wasn't found, and depending on the circumstance, such clarifications may be necessary for your submission. Its not going to be expectable for a ultra successful lineage of cosmopolitan flying sauropods to exist from the Triassic to the Miocene without being detected as fossils, for some reason.

• Although you are meant to create feasible creations, the aim of this project is to be creative, and there is incentive to not be too conservative (no necessity to just do a "normal" trilobite when you can do a funky one... just don't do a fire-breathing one eh eh)

• Any questions and discussions regarding the plausibility of a submission can be directed to me, as well.

RULES & GUIDELINES FOR TYPES OF SUBMISSION:

This is not meant to be a super-extensive project, despite its apparently large scope. Each submitter can only make ONE submission. Each person, however, can do only one out of the following three submission types for each subphase:

• Species: One person can submit just one singular species. This will be the most widespread and accepted form of submission. You cannot cram more than one creature in this type of submission, you really can only depict one unique species in it.

• Clades: One person can submit one clade, that is, a group of closely related organisms. One person can submit from 2-3 species that are related to each other in a specific made-up clade. These related organisms can be found in the same or distinct environments and times. Details on the evolutionary and phylogenetic context of the clade are requested. This is the second type of submission that is less likely to be accepted, with only a few clades likely making it onto canon, for each subphase.

• Ecosystems: One person can submit one ecosystem. This will be an environment that is not recorded in the fossil record, and therefore has its own unique biota. Anyone who submits an ecosystem can include 2-6 original species that are part of it. An ecosystem will need to have a fixed short time frame and a specific geographical region, so that it can be locked in space and time (it is possible to add 2-6 original species that are situated in an ecosystem already created or suggested by someone else). Ecosystems are the least likely submissions to be accepted, with only a short handful being accepted.

NOTE: A collaborative submission, with more than one authorship, allows for one submission to harbour more species than these ones (for example, a submission with dual authorship, can have two species for a "Species" submission, up to 6 species for a "Clades" submission, and up to 12 species for a "Ecosystems" submission)

Every person however is capable of making ONE suggestion that may or may not be related to your submission (it is meant to be an additional suggestion unrelated to your original submission):

• Extinction: You can suggest the extinction of one type of organism. This is a suggestion that can be elaborated with a short text or not at all. If your extinction is suggested, it is expressely forbidden to make any more members of that group in the following subphases, becoming well established canon. You can't, of course, declare the extinction of a group before its actual real life extinction (you can't ask for conodonts to go extinct in the Permian, when they survived into the Triassic). You can ask for the extinction of a specific species/genus, or an entire family or larger clade of organisms. You can suggest the extinction of a fictional lineage that was created for this contest, be it your lineage or the lineage of someone else. You may suggest the extinction of a non-monophyletic group, such as every member of a large group except the members of a smaller specific group (ex.: "the extinction of all cynodonts except mammals") or a collection of related organisms that share a specific trait or lifestyle (ex.:"all flightless unicorns"). Only a few of the extinctions suggested will be accepted, and will be revealed after a certain subphase ends, revealing repercussions for the following submissions.

• Ecosystem: You can suggest an ecosystem. This is different than an ecosystem as a submission. Here you will not be able to submit unique species or lineages to it, but you can suggest an existing known ecosystem or fossil formation (ex.: Hell Creek Formation) or an ecosystem you made completely on your own (ex.: Heaven Creek Formation) where a short text description of its biome, time and geography is requested. You can suggest a known environment that has poor fossil record (ex.: terrestrial Eocene Madagascar), or even hypothetical islands to which we have circumstancial or even zero evidence of their potential past existence (as long as its feasible enough, hypothetical geological and environmental foundations can be accepted). Once suggested, an ecosystem will be automatically added to a list of ecosystems in this site, and people will be able to add their own submissions to it, while the submissions are open. Not all ecosystem suggestions will be accepted, but they will be open for submissions to be added to them, with their canonicity only being revealed after the submissions are closed.

RULES & GUIDELINES FOR EVALUATION:

Depending on the amount of submissions and submitters for this project, between 25-50% of the submissions are meant to be canonized. Every submission will be added in a folder, for people to see what others have been submitting, but a special folder will be erected only for those that have been accepted to the canon. Species, clades, ecosystems and extinctions will all be listed with their respective credit, and segregated between canon and non-canon.

Submissions and suggestions will be evaluated for canonicity based on their plausibility, creativity, and abbility to respect the rules above. The selection will be a mixture between a scoring system made by me, randomized selections and (potentially) public polls to see what's the general preference of the community.

RULES & GUIDELINES FOR BASIC HUMAN DECENCY:

• There won't be any tolerance to any exclusionary behaviour, this is open to everyone.

• Don't be rude or an asshole, pretty much.

• Plagiarism and AI art is not accepted.

Good luck with your submissions!