Llellewyloly

[Adam Dray]

Let's brainstorm about the http://wiki.travellerrpg.com/Llellewyloly (TravellerWiki), more easily know as "Dandelions" or "Dandies."

I assume everything canonical that's known about them is summarized on the wiki page.

Discussions with Marc this weekend also enlightened me a bit, too. As the wiki says, they're native to Junidy/Aramis (Spinward Marches 3202 B434ABD-B) and their biology requires worlds with thin (low pressure) atmosphere and low gravity. What I didn't understand is their colonization strategy. As described by Marc, the Dandelions realized that no one really enjoys the kinds of planets they do, so they looked for all nearby planets with low gravity and thin atmospheres and started colonizing them. They're spread over at least seven different worlds:

1. Junidy/Aramis (Spinward Marches 3202 B434ABD-B) -- home world
2. Celepina/Rhylanor (Spinward Marches 2913 B434456-9)
3. Crout/Glisten (Spinward Marches 2232 E4359CA-7)
4. Harvosette/Lunion (Spinward Marches 2129 C430737-9)
5. Rethe/Regina (Spinward Marches 2408 E430AA8-8)
6. Rhylanor/Rhylanor (Spinward Marches 2716 A434934-F)
7. Treece/Lanth (Spinward Marches 2311 D432866-8)

Let's fill in the blanks. The wiki has some unfinished sections. Let's speculate about what kind of society they have.
We know that, "Llellewyloly have a complex society with many dimensions of social precedence; the same individual may be entitled to high status in one situation and low status in another, and to make an error concerning propriety is a serious matter." We also know that there are Llellewyloly freedom fighters bombing things in Junidy, or at least there were.

We also know they "have a great phobia of non-native environments."

• What do they eat?
• How many genders do they have and how do they reproduce?
• How do they raise children?
• What drives their psychology and society?
• Do they have religion?
• What are Llellewyloly politics like?

 

[Adam Dray]

I imagine that the Dandelions normally siphon food out of the air or water as part of their normal respiration process, killing two birds with one stone. Maybe their spherical body is really a dense pack of tentacle-like pods that can sting, crush, or suffocate tiny insects or fish and absorb their nutrients. There might be some kind of "mouth" inside there, too. Of course, modern Dandelions buy food in cartons and absorb that the same way, but there's nothing wrong with going out into the swamp for dinner.

Dandelions probably "root" a lot, too. That is, they don't need to move around as much as humans. They stick themselves in a good place and let the world come to them. Their culture and technology is designed around this. They have excellent communication tools and very formal letter-writing customs.

They probably have evolved some kind of long-distance communication biology, too. Chemicals would not travel well in thin atmosphere, right? Light flashes? Maybe their central sphere "fuzz" has special hairs that are photoelectric and can produce short flashes of light, and they communicate this way, primarily.

This might explain some of their phobia of different kinds of planet. Their body shape isn't really well suited to heavy gravity, of course, but a thick atmosphere could create fog that made it impossible for them to communicate.