Biology & phylogeny
What are the organisms of Sornieth?
Introduction:
Did you know that Sornieth features two different phyla (or potentially subphyla) of vertebrate-like animals (Chordata) that have gone through convergent evolution? There is also a mysterious item that our beautiful Toridae in the Mire drop and it's called a Toridae Chew Toy or a Waterlogged Boot that are in the shape of a shoe made specifically for a human-like foot. How is that possible? I might have an explanation (or at least some weird facts.)
The environment - how did it really start?:
We all have to keep in mind that Sornieth is not Earth. It's a planet similar to Earth in size (a bit larger) and its axial tilt, also from what we know the contents like water exists on the planet, possibly oxygen in a gas state as well. All in all, an atmosphere most likely similar to what Earth has. What we also know is that the planet has several moons including two larger moons. Now what we don't know is what sort of life exists there and by what I mean their chemical composition. Life on Earth is called "organic", based on Carbon, perhaps the creatures that live on Sornieth aren't even entirely organic which would explain how they're capable of controlling matter around them (Water dragons being hydrokinetic, Fire dragons being pyrokinetic) and maybe even being more intelligent in certain aspects than humans or any other animal on Earth. We have feral animals who can control matter which means that's a genetic and evolutionary trait that has been passed down since the earliest days of Sornieth. The gods obviously themselves reached a higher state of mind during that billion of years and they genetically and perhaps even materially designed dragonkind (this only applies to You, the reader, if you use the Gods as an influence). They couldn't have created them out of nothing and the dragonkind follows a highly specific anatomical plan which means they were genetically created out of one specific phylum of organisms that exist or have existed on Sornieth for a very long time.
The lore of FR says that the gods shaped the entire planet and can instantly tell you that that is not scientifically possible. They could have shaped certain parts if they can control matter but, for example, Earthshaker smashing the ground with his arm wouldn't cause the planet to tilt unless he was heading towards the planet at a very fast speed and was the size of a smaller planet. It is possible that all of those stories of the gods creating Dragonkind and shaping the lands are hyperbolic and fantastical stories, legends and myths told by our own dragons. It is their religion and they base it on the environment they see but don't understand that well, which is where all those fantastical stories might be coming from. Human religions are like that, human stories are like that, even some non-human animals who practice proto-religions probably wonder how it all works.
There were also humanoid creatures that came before Dragonkind with their own stories and cultures, but they were never humans, and in the modern era, we still have humanoid creatures roaming the planet. Design-wise, they were based on human myths, traditions and folklore such as Centaurs who supposedly have the upper part of a human body and arms, legs and body of an equine. Now, what I have to tell you is that a human-like upper "torso" and an equine rest of the body is highly unlikely evolution-wise. Here's a visual representation of something I will be talking about, although even this take is anatomically questionable:
Art by Viergacht on Deviantart
Putting the pieces together:
On Sornieth, there appear to be two (2) phyla of vertebrate creatures, and possibly many other phyla or even kingdoms such as the so called plant-animal hybrids (in actuality neither). For simplicity's sake, I will be using the same scientific classification for the creatures of Sornieth that perfectly correlate to the creatures we have on Earth, such as Chordata (vertebrates; only apply to organisms from Earth but will be used to refer to these vertebrate-like aliens).
The big and most prominent kingdom of Sornieth's life, at least in terms of familiarity and popularity, are the animal-like organisms we have as our familiars, food or simply as our dragons. We'll call them
Xenoanimalia (alien animals). The vertebrate-like creatures of xenoanimalia seem to come in two phyla but more on that later. Then, there are creatures very similar to arthropods, annelids, molluscs, sponges and so on.
Then, all familiar to us, are the plant-like organisms we have as food. We can call them
Plantae alienus.
Another, completely unique kingdom of organisms found on Sornieth which appear similiar to animals but have the abilities of fungi and plants are those creatures such as Dryads or Wood Ear Deer. On the phylogenetic tree of Earthen life, animals, fungi and plants are all separate kingdoms, but in the case of these, it appears they evolved cells with parts that are capable of complex functions such as those of animals, photosynthesis like those of plants and spore reproduction such the one of fungi. It might actually also be kleptoplasty - the ability to store chloroplasts and use them to photosynthesise to gain energy. We'll call them
Hibrida (hybrids).
Another stranger kingdom of organisms would be Mimics, or let's call them
Simulata, which are obviously multicellular organisms with the ability to control their cells and build strange body structures with those cells. There are many many other kingdoms on Earth and there are most likely many other kingdoms on Sornieth. Here, we can see some familiar examples of Arthropoda, Mollusca, Hibrida and Simulata:
Now, the vertebrates...There's one major difference that separates those two Chordata phyla:
a) the first phylum features an anatomical plan that is practically the same as the Chordata from Earth which means: one head (unless we have polycephaly but I'm not gonna go through all possible mutations), two arms and two legs (unless we have polymelia), one spine, one torso, one pelvis, and one tail. Examples (mammal, bird, reptile or pseudoreptile, amphibian, fish):
b) the second phylum features a similar but still a different anatomical plan: one head,
four arms, two legs, one spine, one longer torso that holds two pairs of arms, one pelvis and one tail. As you can see, these have 2 pairs of arms and 1 pair of legs. Examples:
According to examples above, in the second phylum even the "fish" have two pectoral fins aka two pairs of primitive arms. What phylum do our dragons belong to? The second one, since they have two pairs of arms (one for holding/walking/other, the other one as wings). How did these individuals from two different phyla evolve to look similar? There's this interesting thing called
Convergent evolution. [cue the music]
The Feathercroaks are by far the best representation of the second phylum because of their very visible second pair of arms that includes two pairs of pectoral muscles (not instantly visible but clearly there; four shoulders are). What makes me love them so much is the fact that whoever drew them actually probably used Dromaeosaurid or similar arms (including birds) because of the visible patagial tendon that spreads from the wrist to the humerus. They were based on a mixture between a frog and a bird after all. All in all, excellent familiars with a phenomenal design and a lot of attention given to the anatomy.
Feet? On MY hands?:
Now lemme tell you something real neat. You know how many people you know say that a horse has four legs? Ha ha ha [insert screen shake]
WRONG. It is not usually known but to those who study comparative anatomy, it is known that all vertebrates from Earth share the same anatomy! Human front limbs? Obviously arms. Dog front limbs?
Also arms. Bird wings? Arms :^) F-fish pectoral fins?
Awms UwU. Arms consist of the humerus (upper arm bone), ulna and radius (forearm bones), carpals (tiny wrist bones), metacarpals (long bones, one for each finger, that go from your carpals to your knuckles) and phalanges (fingers). Legs consist of the femur (thigh bone), fibula and tibia (lower leg bones), tarsals (small ankle bones including the calcaneus aka the heel), metatarsals (long bones, one for each toe, from tarsals to toe knuckles) and phalanges (toes), so what we see on other vertebrate animals is exactly the same as the stuff we have! The majority of bones you can find on (in?) a human can be found in a fish. That, of course, is the beautiful world of evolution.
Where our feet and hands took us:
Anyway, what does this all have to do with the shoe? Well, first, we covered the fact that there are and were no humans on Sornieth. Secondly, there needs to be a specific type of anatomy amongst organisms to wear such shoes and we covered that through comparative anatomy. Those shoes that Toridae chew (I think Toridae belong to the Hibrida kingdom) were specifically made for human feet aka footwear that covers toes (phalanges), metatarsals, tarsals and the heel aka the entire foot. It appears that only dryads (another evolutionary form of Hibrida) who appear to have evolved feet similar to humans', have the necessary feet to fit those shoes.
Our dragons are digitigrade which means they walk on their fingers, toes and soft pads (soft area of the palm/foot at the root of fingers/toes) so shoes like that just cannot go on their feet, while Centaurs are unguligrades which means they only walk on their fingers and toes! Imagine putting a human shoe on your hands, or only toes or fingers, and then try walking?
Nightmare material. Your wrists, soles and souls will be feeling that for 3 weeks.
Since both Dryads and Toridae seem to be Hibrida, maybe those two families of organisms live in some sort of symbiosis?
TO CONCLUDE. Dryads be wearing timbs.
What's dragon taxonomy like?
Introduction:
Flight Rising features many different and interesting species of dragons, ranging from small to imposing, from elegant to bulky, all of which we can technically base on morphological differences between groups but also based on individuality. Now, how do we need to categorise them to make it all sensible? How do we define specific anatomical features? What about the size difference, organs and plumage? I will try to summarize it all down below.
Summary:
All of our currently known dragons of Sornieth have such incredibly different anatomy that there is no possibility for them to be in the same genus so they would most likely have to be spread across different orders, suborders, families or genera instead. However, if we ignore any sort of strange anatomical anomalies such as strange finger fins, non-existent external ears (Coatl) or second pair of pseudo-wings (again Coatl), and give them extremely similar dental plans, same number of phalanges and in general similar anatomy, they could be crammed into the one order or perhaps superorder called Draconiformes. Some Ancients (currently only Banescale) would most likely have to be in a different order.
The origins - take this scenario for a thought excercise:
This is really complicated though because, get this: humans belong to the genus called H0m0 (it will get censored otherwise). There are groups like tribes, subfamilies, families, infraorders and suborders before we get to the Primates order. On Earth, only the family Hominidae developed very civilised characteristics and cognitive functions capable of complex crafting and tool usage (some other groups of animals are capable of this too but not as extensively as hominids). In case of dragons we have a group of creatures who started off closely related, with sapience and some crafting skills, but then extremely diversified in terms of physique. Several species of humans have interbred and today's one single species is constantly mixing with different races - humans will most likely after a while have only one race (at least that is something some scientists believe). Dragons on the other hand must have not bred with others and simply managed to diversify into separate groups. Now imagine if humans were extremely exclusionary (well, they already are but not to this extent) and after a while they diversified like our dragons, with very apparent physical differences. How much would taxonomy need to be changed at that point? Imagine if humans changed so much that there ended up an entire order of humans. How long before a subfamily becomes a family? How long before a family turns into an order? Does taxonomy actually change and adapt through time or do we come up with new terms? That's the ever-branching tree of evolution for you there...
The common ancestor(s) of quad-armed dragons originates from either woodland areas of the Shifting Expanse, Sunbeam Ruins or the Viridian Labyrinth. This is a great premise because it sets a similar past to our ape ancestors - tree climbing. Dragons instead would have used long claws and toes to help with grasping branches while the two pairs of arms were efficient at holding on, particularly with opposable thumbs as well as the elongated third finger on the hands of their wings, similar to what
Yi qi was capable of. All dragons started off relatively small. The common ancestor(s) evolved sapience similar to that of very early humans and all have the cognitive and physical basis for potential future development of technologically advanced crafting intelligence. It is just highly unlikely that they all evolved sapience convergently. Just like early humans and non-human apes of today remained fairly unchanged in terms of crafting for a very long time, imagine Dragonkind remained the exact same way. They simply didn't jumpstart crafting for a very long time, possibly 2 million years, and lived in tight-knit groups that shared culture
and culturally embraced extreme morphological diversity. So much that they were basically performing selective breeding on themselves, similar to what humans are doing with dogs which is why dogs come in so many shapes and sizes. Individual tribes of dragons first inbred but embraced unique physical characteristics. Rapid morphological evolution was running rampant and eventually, Dragonkind was full of anatomically similar but morphologically different groups of dragons. While interbreeding is rare, they still cherished physical diversity, and the genetic ability (and "alien life" argument) to successfully breed between genera gave them the ability to produce fertile hybrids which were quickly derived into new species, and so on. In the end, we ended up with numerous suborders of dragons, each containing potentially several families of dragons which contain several genera which contain several species, etc. Like FeatherHibiscus said:
FeatherHibiscus wrote on 2021-06-04 20:42:47:
An entire order of animals for just 17 breeds may not seem like much, but there's probably a ton more breeds that the deities created that would take forever to implement to Flight Rising.
Basically, there are many other morphs out there that we digitally do not have access to and it's up to us to make them.
As the diversified Dragonkind was living in one territory, one group jumpstarted crafting and shared the knowledge with other groups. They soon travelled outside of their ancestral region and established different tribal communities such as those of Nature, Shadow, Light, etc. Fast forward to a slightly more modern era. They were, however, also developing along with Beastclans but Beastclans are a whole other can of worms that I do not have the time to open rn.
Basal ancestors & their characteristics
- I personally give all of my dragons opposable thumbs. Guardians and Snappers are depicted as having no thumbs and I must disregard that simply for the cognitive complications it would otherwise have. Basically, for an organism to evolve sapience and crafting intelligence similar to humans, the organism must have extremely precise appendages (trunks, arms, tentacles, legs or perhaps mouths and tongues)
- keep something in mind: the Staff have confirmed at one point that the dragons we have in our template art are the most generic and/or random version of the species in question. That means that slight differences in physique are more than possible - they are welcomed. That means that, for example, a classic Pearlcatcher dragon could be a member of a Pearlcatcher subspecies, breed or race, or perhaps even a different species or genus. This sort of brainstorming gives you a ton of freedom with design
- I am going to treat basically all dragons (except Banescales at this point in time) as the descendants of one or two closely related groups of dragons who developed sapience and crafting skills, akin to early humans except as much more diversified later on through rapid evolution
- I personally don't consider breeding between families, suborders or orders possible, but can consider breeding between genera as something that is plausible, simply because this is alien life we speak of and they might work differently. Of course, technically speaking, if we applied the "alien life" logic, we could make them all be capable of breeding BUT that would also require all of the other Xenoanimalia organisms be capable of breeding between completely unrelated species such as Perytons with Hippogriffs and so on
- I believe that, just like the common ancestor of Dinosauria and Pterosauria, the common dragon ancestor all featured filaments that later on diversified into unique structures such as denser fur-like filaments, feathers, quills and reticulae. Also, it would be interesting if all dragons started off with external ear structures and lobes that later continued to enlarge or reduce, or simply get reduced almost completely with only small remnants visible. All dragons also started off with three pairs of horn-like structures: the parietal horns (attached to the parietal bone), the quadratojugal horns (not actually quadratojugal but a process at the back of the temporal bone next to where the ear is located; the quadratojugal bone in mammals was absorbed to become a part of the inner ear while the jugal bone is the zygomatic arch and is a part of the temporal bone), and the dentary horns (also known as the angular process). Some groups reduced those bones but all have the remnants
- all dragons also started off as omnivores and then culturally developed slightly different diets, as well as based on personal preference
- all dragons have the exact same dental plan: 12 incisors, 8 canines, 8 premolars, 10 molars
- no dragon really has actual boney structure (styliform process) in their wing membrane that jut out of their elbows, they are just slightly more rigid, cartilaginous structural elements; all dragons have a propatagium spreading from their wrist to the shoulder, and the pteroid
- I personally won't be treating dragons as airborne, all of mine have vestigial wings so the clothing is easier to apply because I don't want to give them very large wings; if you'd like to treat dragons as airborne, that is alright and feel free to ignore this part
How do the head muscles of dragons work?
- read this in case you want to make good dragon mouths!
Introduction:
Before you draw your dragons, I suggest you spare a few minutes to read this. I assume you will either try to maintain dragon skulls as pseudoreptilian, or perhaps if you're like me, maybe even try to make them more mammalian! Both parts will be covered, but this is mainly a topic about pseudoreptilian/archosaurian reconstructions and I will also include fragments of a post made by domesticus1 on Twitter, it covers this exact topic.
I have seen many artists throughout my life who depict non-avian dinosaurs and dragons with slit cheeks, non-existent lips, overly exposed muscles and heads that appear to be composed of two skull parts (skull and mandible) with some strange, fleshy mass holding their heads together. However, that is completely wrong. Thankfully, it appears that scholars are doing their work and it is getting perpetually harder and harder to find the exact sort of error I'm talking about because more and more proper research is being done on non-avian dinosaur jaw musculature and it appears to be taking over. By that I mean I can't find any art related to dinosaur restorations like that directly on Google anymore. I had to dig deep for some of these.
Basics:
To demonstrate simply, instead of putting muscles superficially aka on the very surface of the bone, connecting jaws basically with nonsensical threads of muscles that are not found in any other tetrapod, scientists used research on crocodillians, which are also archosaurs, just like dinosaurs (birds included), and they used that sort of information to try and reconstruct theropod jaw musculature like that. That means having muscles actually extend through the temporal fenestrae (holes in the temporal bone; holes behind the orbit), including the supratemporal fenestrae (the holes at the top of the skull in between postorbital and parietal bones). The muscle which you can see on the Spinosaurus skull used to be treated as "pseudomasseter" (similar to the masseter muscle found on mammals) but it was completely falsely attached to the skull and it made the dinosaurs look really weird.
mamem - Musculus adductor mandibulae externus medialis
mames - Musculus adductor mandibulae externus superficialis (mainly the one we're talking about)
mamep - Musculus adductor mandibulae externus profundus (next to the big one we're talking about)
mptd - Musculus pterygoideus dorsalis
mps - Musculus pseudotemporalis complex
mamp - Musculus adductor mandibulae posterior
mptv - Musculus pterygoideus ventralis
mint - Musculus intramandibularis
Here you can see a lot of musculature on an Ornithischian (bird-hipped) dinosaur, primarily a Triceratops horridus
The meat of the topic:
There are three ways in which we can tackle this topic:
1. tight-knit lips
Something that is extremely important to point out are
lips - awesomebros, do not interact. This is not even a debate on whether non-avian dinosaurs such as theropods had lips covering their teeth or not, oh no no, this is about something else. This, ladies, lads and ladders, is a topic about
cheek lips. However, I will also be talking about lip coverage. When we look at a bird, sure, one can say they don't have lips covering their beaks which is logical because a beak wouldn't be a keratinous maxillary protrusion if it wasn't without skin, now would it? However, birds absolutely do have lips and we're referring to the corners of their mouths specifically. Birds don't have exposed muscles visible on their heads, and their heads aren't shrinkwrapped. Domesticus1 made a direct comparison between crocodilians and birds (birds are extant dinosaurs) and pointed out how both birds and crocodilians who have very tight skin around their maxilla, premaxilla and dentary (basically muzzle; the bones your teeth are attached to) and have no teeth coverage, or simply no teeth, have soft tissue in their corners of their mouth. Now, this could directly indicate that archosaurs due to being closely related, including non-avian dinosaurs, simply never had any lips to begin with.
HOWEVER, this doesn't necessarily have to be the case as it is supported by evidence that the starter condition of tetrapods (animals that have traversed onto land after leaving the seas, including us) is to have lips. Those that don't have to protect teeth (birds and turtles) and those that live in moist environments (crocodilians) do not have lips. It is possible that crocodilians lost their lips and non-avian dinosaurs retained them for a while, until they lost them when they lost their teeth and their premaxilla, maxilla and dentary turned into beaks. Due to how non-avian dinosaur skulls are formed and what sort of foramina (holes around teeth) they have, it is believed that they did have lips.
2. Lepidosaur lips
In case that isn't true (proper palaeontology does in fact embrace a lot of speculation based on the evidence found in extant organisms), there is still a possibility that dinosaurs had more lizard-like lips. Let's look at a Komodo dragon here (NOT a dinosaur, very far apart from dinosaurs actually; a bushtit is more closely related to an Amargasaurus than any lizard.) Do you see how their strong, beefy jaw muscles slightly protrude from inside their mouth? YET, their lips aren't unnaturally-positioned slits on their skulls, it's just that their jaw muscles are so large they protrude outwards. They are still covered in skin! No weird, stringy muscles, no exposed, painful-looking blood-red muscle tissue, just some strong mouth muscles.
This hypothesis is by far the most popular one due to the fossil record, visible places for attachment of soft tissue and similar.
Alternative lip:
Another hypothesis is the alternative lip, a lip in which both the teeth AND the cheeks had covering. Domesticus1 compared that to some other vertebrates, primarily amphibians and fish, when I personally think he should have compared those cheek lips to those of birds. He mentions thick skin and even scales covering the muscles but that is not found in crocodilians or birds, but
soft corner mouth coverage instead is. That means that the attachments of soft tissue would be less prominent (no hard skin, no scales) as birds have much softer lips than the tissues suggested in the image. Perhaps non-avian dinosaurs had exactly that sort of soft mouth corner covering AND the teeth covering.
(shameless insert of my own art)
HOWEVER, we ain't done yet. What if dragons did neither? What if dragons had more mammalian skulls, with strong dentary bones and reduced surangular and angular bones, no antorbital or temporal fenestrae, but with very imposing jugal (zygomatic) bones and a lot of mandibular freedom.
We know very well that dragons can emote, but for that to be achieved, one needs to have very specifically developed facial muscles. That is a specialty of mammals. Mammals are the only tetrapods who can snarl, move eyebrows, smile, frown, move their ears, and all of that is possible thanks to specialised muscles of the face. BUT, more on that in
this thread here (it is a WIP)
The draconic condors of Sornieth
Do you think that the density of Sornieth, despite its size, is lesser than of Earth's, causing the gravity to be weaker, allowing larger animals to fly (along with thermal lifts). Still, the sizes of dragons' wings we have in their profiles would not be enough to lift them. They would have to be much lighter and have wingspans much larger to be able to lift themselves off the ground and maintain flight.
To anatomically analyse this: dragons have elongated fingers on their second pair of arms, all connected with membranes (skin) to be capable of flight. Some who are landbound can use them for gliding. The drawings we have on FR are simplified and not supposed to look very realistic while keeping the general realism of the anatomy plan. In real life, those wings have patagial tendons that stretch from their humerus in the shoulder joint all the way to the wrist bones (carpals). To allow flight, dragon bones need to be light as well as their general body mass but also very sturdy, flexible and resistant to hold the weight. The gravity of Sornieth also preferrably needs to be weaker and the atmosphere warmer, the thermal lifts strong for the warm air to lift and keep the dragons airborne. Dragons also need to have extremely strong shoulder muscles around the scapula, strong backs and muscular breasts, torsos probably with a keel to hold the muscles. The wings also have to be enormous, especially for large dragons which is excellent for gliding, but that could not have been drawn into a 350 x 350 px rectangle. There is a reason why the dragons on this site are stilised.
Scales?
Did you know that the scales we find on squamous reptiles and the scales we find on Dinosauria (modern birds included of course) and Pterosauria are not at all the same. Pterosauria and Dinosauria are not the same meaning that when the public claims that for example Pterodactylus is a dinosaur, it is completely wrong. Pterosauria and Dinosauria share a common ancestor but they branched into two different directions. Now, what is interesting is the fact that the common ancestor of both was originally feathered or, more accurately, covered in filament-like feathers or "proto-feathers". That extends the whole feathered debate to a presence of feathers before dinosaurs even existed. Now why is that important, you ask? Well, I mentioned that because of the first point - the scales of squamous reptiles and archosaur reptiles not being the same. In the case of Pterosauria and Dinosauria (including birds), the feathers have not evolved from scales, but
scales have evolved from feathers. The scales we see on bird feet and on the skin of some ancient dinosaurs are actually feathers modified to look like scales called
reticulae. That is why it is strongly believed that all saurischians had at least some sort of non-scaly feathers such as filaments, and it even goes to Ceratopsia, Hadrosauroidea, and even Stegosauria and Sauropoda, even though that's less likely. Wild, isn't it? Now just IMAGINE the potential when it comes to reticulae on dragons! Soft-tipped dragon wings! Fuzzy Draconiformes ancestors!!
SPECIAL ADDITION - Desert Nightmare species overview - MOVED HERE
Our little tick friends (or fiends, whichever you prefer) don't have any eyes drawn on when they should look like the image on the right! Ticks are basically all head with limbs
Quick rant: in terms of "protective instincts" that are mentioned about Guardians and "an instinctive urge" in Coatl - that makes no sense in terms of cognitive science and ethology. There is no such thing as protective instincts or instinctive urges. Instinct isn't a feeling, urge, force or reflex. Not even one creature in existence is operated by a higher force, we all have free will and perform actions based on the analyses of our environment by using our intelligence. Even microorganisms sense their environment, the ability to make choices is an integral part of complex, non-sessile life. Instinct IS intelligence. It is a cognitive ability to consciously grasp a concept and then perform an action based on it without having to have previous learning experience. That's all it is. No one operates on instinct, we all observe, study and learn. There is a very good reason why instinct as a concept is an incredibly controversial topic in humans - because it keeps getting proven as a false narrative. It is incredibly dehumanizing, it proposes a genetic predisposition of an individual to act in specific ways and has very similar roots as racism (and anthropocentrism) and completely strips them off of any sort of cognitive accomplishments.
For many years, naturalists thought that "birds exhibit 'mindless' behaviour when constructing nests" which of course has been proven completely false as each individual uses intelligence to operate through life. Research has shown that birds have preferences for building styles and materials based on what sort of nest they grew up in (imprinting), that they observe others and discriminate, that they are incapable of successfully building nests if they were hand-raised, that they have art styles and preferences, etc. We all function in the exact same way, but every one of us has different skills, experiences and exhibits different aspects of intelligence.
Evolution isn't a scale, it is an ever-branching river, and intelligence isn't a scale either, it is a multi-dimensional stat tree.