Forward to 100,000 Years: Here!
Dawn breaks on a new, pristine world. One with no biological fauna on it... only flora of many different shapes, sizes, colors and allergen-producers. No sounds emerge from the forests save the blowing of the wind... no chirps of crickets, no buzzings of flies, no nothing... for fauna of any sort has not yet arisen.
This is an Earth-like planet, with the same four seasons that we humans are used to. Gravity equal to Earth's exists, with the planet the right size for its part of the Habitable Zone. Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall come and go without being noticed by anyone, anything, or any plant. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west, same as Earth, and a single large moon shines overhead reflecting light from its sun back down onto the planet below.
Then, one fateful night...
WWWWHHHHHHOOOOOOMMMMMMMMM...
The clouds part, and a massive comet... nay, an asteroid, strikes through the planet's atmosphere. It defies the planet below commanding it to make way for itself, screaming across the sky and rending the heavens asunder. Micrometeors and debris trail off as it crosses, some burning up in the atmosphere, some large enough to survive the trip to the planet's surface, and still others as large as boulders slamming to the ground with the force of hundreds of kilotons of TNT.
The asteroid breaks up into three huge chunks. The first chunk bounces off the atmosphere like a basketball being dribbled, spiraling off into space before slamming into the moon and making it appear that the moon's face has a sharp "nose" of dark, angular, different-styled stone than its regular composition. The second chunk explodes in the atmosphere, causing a sonic boom that flattens untold amounts of trees, splintering them like toothpicks. The third slams into the ocean, causing a tidal wave that reduces the nearby landscape to a washed-out beach and neatly scours the nearby forests and hills clean of all plant life.
This third chunk broke apart while sinking to the bottom, bubbling and hissing as the water cooled it after its roaring surge through the atmosphere. When it broke apart, a huge chunk of a strange lavander crystal stone was exposed.. While this chunk promptly sank to the bottom faster than the rest of the meteorite, at the same time it was also being intentionally "propelled" away by some unseen force.
The strange lavander crystal shattered, releasing its contents into the unsuspecting pristine waters of the planet's oceans.
Some strange advanced civilization had seeded the comet with a single fast-breeding bacterium they called X. Neutralis Thromalius. Colorless and measuring only an inch both long and wide (so it looked like a square), this bacteria had the potential to go on to be the sentient, sapient force for the planet and would shape the world to its whims and desires.
In order to bend reality to its whim, it just needed to survive the deepest oceans, first! By the time it reaches the surface, the frozen wasteland left by the millions of cubic feet of dirt thrown up by the asteroid should have thawed.
While utter darkness in the bitter depths, bone chilling tempratures that freeze the bones from your skin, and crushing pressures capable of actually getting through Donald Trump's thick skull are not really a sentient life form's best friends... Life Finds A Way. It always finds a way.
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All right, folks. It begins. As I wrote in my introductory post a few days ago, I want you to tweet "suggestions" for mutations of this colorless bacteria. As there are other bacteria in the ocean to prey upon and be preyed upon by, let's see if you survive. Suggestions for mutations can include anything from what it eats to what color it is to how it moves and defends itself. Be creative within the length of a single tweet (multiple tweets will be ignored)!
For the first week and a half, I will write a post every day explaining which mutations made it. As beneficial mutations are rare, I will be rolling on Random.org (1-100 random roll, 90+ keeps the mutation). I will then write about what our little bacteria does, as well as what its opponents do... and there WILL be other critters in the ocean to deal with!
If I roll more than fifteen mutations with a 90+ I will select the top seven by roll-off, culling the list by 7 each time until I have under fifteen total. If I roll NO mutations making 90+, I will select the one that rolled highest and apply that.
I write to the whim of the dice. In future rounds of the game when specific paths open up, I will be rolling for its successes and writing as the dice fall. It will not be as RNG-dependant as you think, as specific actions and paths will add bonuses and penalties to the rolls based on previous actions.
Each post, for this first round, will equal about 100,000,000 years. When we hit 1 Billion Years, various paths will open up and evolution will slow down as you vote on said paths. At 2 Billion, more paths open and evolution all but stops; basic appearance will be "locked in" until we end at 3.5 Billion... then the next stage of the game will begin as you decide to Proceed Unto Land or Remain in The Deeps as an aquatic race.
Tweet your suggestions to (and follow me, in order to keep updated) @DrHervisJasper -- please tag it #Civolution if it can fit within the 140 letter length of your suggestion.
Heh. Get it? Civilization and Evol-- I'll see myself out, thanks.
Can you, the Collective Internet, give rise to a Civilization starting from the primordial soup, or will you (and this site) be forever lost, condemned to the gene pool of history? Let's find out. Start suggestin'! :)
Good luck, guys.
--- Dr. Hervis