A Unique Spider Discovery - Idea Potential?

Old News I just ran across

So, spider silk is even capable of something like this; which means I'd say that all dridders have probably just acquired another useful ability.

Dridder society I think is one of those many things that is discussed at a level where people forget their natural unique ability. For example, I'd almost certainly think that you'd see the dridder society building homes out of silk, vice, y'know, actual buildings; given the structural property and comparisons. If they needed something more fortified (though it is extremely difficult to argue with the tensile strength of their silk) I could see some of them taking up residence in locations that had been built by others and/or using underground caverns, but I think a good reason their society doesn't have ruins is that most of the former silk constructs have decayed away without tenants to provide upkeep.

Moreover though, such items provides the smaller dridder inhabitants of the Matomo Docks with a very unique selling point - them being weavers and clothiers has almost always been presumed, but if their silk is capable of such things as oxygen exchange in water I imagine one could easily see medicinal uses as well as construction (they make rather handy cranes, even the small ones - would just require load balancing and a secondary 'tower' object in their case), water treatment, et cetera.

I post this in the Dridder section since this in particular applies to Dridders, but actually my intent was to look at Negav's technology base again. Negav is definitely a society that encourages 'capitalism' and I think the reason for the 'allowance' of areas that promote non-human living quarters is probably more related to the beneficial aspects that small predator species can provide without technology or magic. Technology has always been one of the stumbling blocks for describing Negav, but I think we could describe a lot of the interrelations and society intermingling with the benefits and detriments the non-human species offer. Besides ironing out the trade/ability that dridders offer, we ought to look at the other species as well. For example I've already looked over slimoids and come up with a variety of ways their unique species traits could be used to supplement or outright replace technology in the city's environment.

Actually, going to post some additional thoughts on construction as well:

In my mind I see dridders as have two primary structure types, call it the overarching species definitions if you will -

1) Hunter Dridders
A hunter dridder's physical construction is such that the cephalothorax is larger than the abdomen. Indeed, the abdomen on a hunter should not be bulbous at all, and depending on the subspecies might even be significantly smaller. For these dridders power and locomotion to the legs is a necessary attribute, and the larger 'thorax gives them better endurance for 'running prey down' with more hydraulic capacity and use.

2) Weaver Dridders
A weaver dridder's physical construction is such that the abdomen is larger than the cephalothorax. This does not mean that the abdomen is required to be bulbous, but it more than likely will be. For these dridders locomotion is not the necessary attribute, silk manipulation and production are. Comparatively, they have a lower 'endurance' for locomotion than a hunter dridder due to the smaller hydraulic reservoir.


Then we can further define dridders by both 'racial quality' and 'subspecies quality'. For example, you have the variance of their behaviors and appearances (racial quality - Bolas/Trapdoor/Argyrone) and then subspecies qualities (such as cribellate/spinneret, venomous/non-venomous). This I think will help provide substance to the idea of 'general dridders' since the listed 'dridder races' would then actually be 'races' and not 'species'. In this way, hunter/weaver can be applied to any dridder across variance, and then it is left up the user to be more specific if desired to further define things.

http://felarya.com/wiki/index.php?title=Argyrones =D

Looks like the Argyrones are getting a bit of an upgrade.

Quite an interesting little feat this arachnid has pulled off. As if the deep blue wasn't scary enough.

Ohh it's a very interesting idea here !
Silk contructions... and it makes a lot of sense too. I like it
Overall i think the dridder entry need quite a lot of rewritting indeed.