Bones of Indar: Sand Whales, Sand Worms & More

[ForTheRepublic]

So if you've ever paid attention to the stuff in Indar, you've probably seen the bones of what appear to be ancient and very dead animals. I was watching Koolaid's new video on Heavy Assault loadouts, and for the very first time noticed the bones while he was talking. I immediately paused the video and saw that it was located at the NS Refinery on Indar. Without a second to spare, I hopped on Indar with my Waterson VS, got in a Harasser, and went around looking for these "whale bones". I found a lot near Camp Waterson, NS Refinery, Mao Tech Plant and the surrounding area. I turned off my HUD, and used my pistol as not to obstruct my view too much. Then I figured out I could just turn invisible, and then I learned instead of scoping with a sniper without HUD, it just zoomed in, so I stood back and took some pictures of the bones I found. You can find them in my steam library here, along with two additional pictures from Skyrim:
http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198079990999/screenshots

I think it's really cool how the devs added the bones to Indar, and it felt really nice to hear the howling ambient sounds of animals in the distance. It reminded me that Indar was not always a battlefield, rather a barren desert with little life. It made me wonder what life lived on Indar millions of years ago. A few days ago I also studied early humans and some of the oldest homos and hominids found (Lucy, Homo floresiensis, etc.), and it's just amazing to think of what could have lived on the continent before.

So PlanetSide Universe, what do you think about these large bones of dead creatures? I always thought they could have been ancient sand whales, or sand worms, that slithered around, three times as big as a blue whale, eating what little life there was, scattering sand everywhere. Or maybe they floated. That would be kind of cool.

So what do you think guys? Sandworms? Mammoths? Anything at all? Or maybe they're the remnants of the Vanu? Who knows?

[HereticusXZ]

Well the story of Indar is that it use to be a giant ocean until the J908 Impact Site happened and the blast super heated the ocean, evaporating it all.

If the sea animals didn't die immediately then they probably struggled and eventually died on the newly formed desert sands...

Ultimately though, we know these events were all false, implanted into our memory by the Vanu.... There were never any sea animals, there is no life on Auraxis, just Nanites. The truth is hidden in the vaults of Vanu Archives in South-Western Indar.

We the soldiers aren't even real people, just nanite holograms living out false programs....

[Sonny]

Thanks for those pics, great archaeological work, FortheRepublic :).

I think that the original Vanu settlers found that Auraxis was inhabited by many species of huge creatures across all of the continents. The Vanu hunted the animals to (almost?) extinction, before the Vanu civilisation mysteriously disappeared from the planet hundreds of years before the events of Planetside.

[ForTheRepublic]

If what Hereticus said is true, then a) there could be so much ocean life to be found if we drilled deep enough but b) how do we know that for sure, and how did the howling animals in the ambience survive in the first place?

I always thought it would be really cool if there were giant sand worms that roamed the land kind of like in Dune: http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/11/118136/2344388-05_terry_oakes___sandworm_and_rider.jpg

But there were also these different bones. Thin and narrow, sticking up from the sand, unlike the others, which appeared to be spines, it appeared to be more of a ribcage for a large animal. Does this possibly imply that mammoths lived here before?

[Emperor Newt]

Could have been anything. The only thing you can say for sure is:
a) The animal(s) could not have been very mobile. The vertebrae do not seem to have had spinal discs, so moving must have been either hard or very painful. Or both.
b) Their bones are out of a super strong and dense material that was able to withstand erosion by wind and sand for centuries.

Or nobody at SOE simply ever gave a damn about thinking about that and simply put them in there because bones are cool.

[KesTro]

Yeah Hereticus got it right. I rather like how the maps can tell a story just from the name of the zones and bases alone. I like how the bases on Esamir that are located on the frozen river are designed as if to allow water to pass through them, with floodgates and such. By the sounds of things this is only going to get better with the new Amerish as Clegg described he wants peopel to be able to visualize exactly what a base is just by hearing the name it. More J908/Crown/Bl-4 Crashsites for us.

[HereticusXZ]

Another tell that Northern Indar use to be ocean is the various rocks - There dried up coral reefs

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Environment/Pix/columnists/2011/1/10/1294663958810/Endangered-Corals--Elkhor-006.jpg



IRL I live in the desert, I love the desert, Might be far a fetched request but I'd love it if the devs did a legitimate desert continent with sand dunes, large mountains, and the occasional cliffs. Something along the lines of Death Valley + Texas + Sahara.

Recently dried up ocean, so recent you can still see the coral plain as day, does not resonate, for me anyways, as a legitimate desert.

[OpolE]

Would rather look at these from PS1

http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?t=44027

[ForTheRepublic]

Well, it seems certain now that there used to be an ocean, which raises my next question;
Do you think the bones are of whales that lived there, or do you think the Whales somehow evolved to survive in the desert but died soon after? And what do those ribcages mean?

[HereticusXZ]

I think there whales that died on the beach from dehydration - that and there own weight crushing there organs just like real whales when beached....

But again back to the famous fact of Auraxis that there's never been any animals on Auraxis, ever, or so the lore says.... These bones IMO are just nanite constructs imitating whales, created by the very aliens the VS worship just to fuck with us, maybe some grand experiment or test?

It's all one great big conspiracy!

[Falcon_br]

It make no sense, Amerish flora suggests some kind of insect life.
It is impossible to have flowers without having some kind of animal to be attracted by them.

[War Barney]

Its not impossible to have flowers just completely un-needed as if theres no insects they'd self pollinate so have no reason for colourful flowers to attract insects

[ForTheRepublic]

Well, you can clearly hear animals howling in the background of Indar if you listen closely...