It is redundant to have an "avian" category and also a "reptilian" category.

[AnneFrankFanfiction]

For the sake of keeping the OP meaningful, I'll set aside the improbability of alien life evolving in a manner directly analogous to the diversity of the animal kingdom. The "fungoid" aliens are probably more realistic in this respect, if only in this respect (the probability of fungal life developing sentience, let alone intelligence of any sort, is something I don't have the depth of knowledge to go into but am really skeptical of nonetheless), because fungal life is far less derived than the various phyla and clades of Kingdom Animalia, but that's a different story.

If we're going to assume that alien life would evolve in such a way, then it is redundant to have one category called "avian" and one category called "reptilian". Modern cladistics identifies reptiles (at least in every seriously considered scheme I am aware of) with diapsids, which includes all birds. Birds, then, are reptiles, in the same way that humans are mammals and mammals are animals.

It makes no sense to have "birds" as a separate category from "reptiles", then, not just because they are different tiers of taxonomy, but because one is a subset of the other. If there was another category titled "animalian", you would then look at "reptilian" and "avian" and "mammalian" and think, "This is redundant, why aren't all of those simply included in this?" Which is exactly what I'm thinking here.

Discuss. Feel free to also discuss other aspects of phylogenetic taxonomy, especially (obviously) where it relates to exobiology.

[Regularity]

These are just visual categories, not actual trees of species. Unless you're thinking that all independently-evolved reptilian species are all derived from a single galaxy-spanning origin, rather than just being a product of convergent evolution

[Voss]

i think advanced civilizations would tent to replace their bodies with an mechanical counterpart.

[TVMAN]

In my opinion you're overthinking it. True aliens would be nothing like our local wildlife and would have nothing in common with birds or reptiles aside from some superficial resemblance, so what you see in-game are rough analogies from a human perspective. 'Avian' and 'Reptilian' sound better than 'weird not-quite-bird people' and 'weird not-quite-lizard people'.

[Jynn]

I think you're over thinking it.

crocodiles, lizards, snakes, and turtles definitely fit in a reptile category more than a avian category, putting them in the same grouping and calling the whole group reptiles wouldn't work imo, because then we'd have people complaining that birds should have their own group.

Birds might be related to reptiles, but they have evolved enough differences to have a separate category for themselves in this game imo XD

as TVMAN said, it's better to have a general, nice-sounding name for the category rather than a unnecessarily long one

the fungus section also seems to have plants in it, which are not fungus, and i could see THEM having a separate category for plants, and one for fungus, but birds and reptiles i think should stay separate for the ease of things. Ones are feathery, ones are scaly

[4D chess]

OP, I think you are better off not bothering thinking about this. I had the same thoughts about "fungoids" and the seperation of reptiles and birds, but you just have to realize that the people in Paradox are hardly any sort of geniuses or philosophers, nor is 95% of the fan base.

[Jynn]

Originally posted by Smeghead:

OP, I think you are better off not bothering thinking about this. I had the same thoughts about "fungoids" and the seperation of reptiles and birds, but you just have to realize that the people in Paradox are hardly any sort of geniuses or philosophers, nor is 95% of the fan base.

XD i think you're being a bit harsh. It's a video game with aliens sorted by nicknames given from the human perception of them. Maybe they'd be better off sorting all the portraits by 'Hairy", "Feathery", "Scaley", etc.

[AnneFrankFanfiction]

Originally posted by Regularity:

These are just visual categories, not actual trees of species. Unless you're thinking that all independently-evolved reptilian species are all derived from a single galaxy-spanning origin, rather than just being a product of convergent evolution

I'm sorry if I wasn't clear enough; I thought I made it clear that I understood them to merely be "analogous", not actually inter-related. My point was just that if you're describing one group as "reptilian", then describing another group as "avian" is redundant, since anything that can be described as "avian" must also be "reptilian", by definition.

Originally posted by TVMAN:

In my opinion you're overthinking it. True aliens would be nothing like our local wildlife and would have nothing in common with birds or reptiles aside from some superficial resemblance, so what you see in-game are rough analogies from a human perspective. 'Avian' and 'Reptilian' sound better than 'weird not-quite-bird people' and 'weird not-quite-lizard people'.

That wasn't my point, though. My point was that if something looks like a bird, then it must also look like a reptile, because birds are reptiles.

Originally posted by Jynn:

Birds might be related to reptiles, but they have evolved enough differences to have a separate category for themselves in this game imo XD

But phylogeny doesn't work that way; birds are not just related to reptiles, birds are reptiles. They don't stop being reptiles at any point, no more than they stop being animals.

[NixBoxDone]

Originally posted by Smeghead:

OP, I think you are better off not bothering thinking about this. I had the same thoughts about "fungoids" and the seperation of reptiles and birds, but you just have to realize that the people in Paradox are hardly any sort of geniuses or philosophers, nor is 95% of the fan base.

It's not so much about whether or not people understand OPs point or can appreciate it - we can and do.

The fact of the matter is that this is a game, created by humans for humans. It is for that reason that the aliens are grouped into easily distinguishable general categories based on the terrestrial species they most resemble.

Nobody is gonna be offended because Paradox erroneously labelled those poor misunderstood feathered proto lizards as "avians". If it helps, think of the avian category as a general catch all placeholder for any sapient species that evolved from a base that flies. Flies, birds, pterodactyl, it matters not - it's a phrase clueing you in on what the portraits will look like.

Nobody is arguing that those shell carrying aliens are actually genuine terran space turtles, at last united with the rest of earths species after a freak meteor impact carried a clutch to Nebula 5.

It's just easier, faster and more self explanatory to refer to them by the name we are more familiar with.

Casting aspersions upon the character of the rest of the people playing it because we haven't lit torches and demanded that Stellaris feature more scientifically pleasing categories such as "Bipedal scaled cold blood analogue" rather than "dem lizard peoples" is just uncalled for.

That said, you are more than welcome to fiddle with the files until you can give each species names more suitable to your sensibilities - meanwhile, I'll be enslaving space avians.

[AnneFrankFanfiction]

Originally posted by PonySlaystation:

Originally posted by Smeghead:

OP, I think you are better off not bothering thinking about this. I had the same thoughts about "fungoids" and the seperation of reptiles and birds, but you just have to realize that the people in Paradox are hardly any sort of geniuses or philosophers, nor is 95% of the fan base.

It's not so much about whether or not people understand OPs point or can appreciate it - we can and do.

The fact of the matter is that this is a game, created by humans for humans. It is for that reason that the aliens are grouped into easily distinguishable general categories based on the terrestrial species they most resemble.

Nobody is arguing that those shell carrying aliens are actually genuine terran space turtles, at last united with the rest of earths species after a freak meteor impact carried a clutch to Nebula 5.

It's just easier, faster and more self explanatory to refer to them by the name we are more familiar with.

Casting aspersions upon the character of the rest of the people playing it because we haven't lit torches and demanded that Stellaris feature more scientifically pleasing categories such as "Bipedal scaled cold blood analogue" rather than "dem lizard peoples" is just uncalled for.

That said, you are more than welcome to fiddle with the files until you can give each species names more suitable to your sensibilities - meanwhile, I'll be enslaving space avians.

So if, for example, another, separate category was added titled "Canine", you wouldn't think it was odd that there's a "Canine" group as well as a "mammal" group? You wouldn't find the exclusion of canines from mammals self-contradictory?

A canine is a mammal by definition. Yes, I know that the space-dogs are not actually canines but merely resemble canines, but it follows that if they resemble canines then they must also resemble mammals.

[Jynn]

Originally posted by Ace of Clades:

Originally posted by Jynn:

Birds might be related to reptiles, but they have evolved enough differences to have a separate category for themselves in this game imo XD

But phylogeny doesn't work that way; birds are not just related to reptiles, birds are reptiles. They don't stop being reptiles at any point, no more than they stop being animals.

but who is to say these aliens are reptiles at all? Or birds? or even animals?

they're aliens.

They just LOOK like them, and are given nicknames based on that similarity. XD i miss the days when people just played the game and enjoyed it without nit picking or being politically correct

They have a jellyfish in the mollusk section. Jellyfish are cnidarians, not mollusks, but i'm not complaining. They have plants in with fungus, they have amphibians lumped in with reptiles

and the separation of birds and reptiles is what people are upset about? XD

[NixBoxDone]

No, I wouldn't. Nothing about this says that the categories are only to be about the most common of denominators - the canine category can be a sub category of mammals, containing ones with a canine aesthetic.

[kesat]

There were several discussions quite similar to this one at pre-release, when those categories were revealed. These categories are actually very inconsistent, e.g:
- Athropods are a phylum
- Mammalians, Reptiles and Aves are a class
- Fungi are a kingdom
and so on...

If you want a correct scientific classifications we would actually need to have a consistent grouping to start with.

And regarding the topic on it's own: Reptiles and aves are currently "officially" not considered to be the same monophyletic group including both (but there are good reason to do), but still seperated as two class. imo it's valid to use both classifications.

And like some other people already said: the categories used by PDX are pretty much just about the visuals and do not intend to be accurate on a scientific level.

[AnneFrankFanfiction]

Originally posted by PonySlaystation:

Nobody is gonna be offended because Paradox erroneously labelled those poor misunderstood feathered proto lizards as "avians". If it helps, think of the avian category as a general catch all placeholder for any sapient species that evolved from a base that flies. Flies, birds, pterodactyl, it matters not - it's a phrase clueing you in on what the portraits will look like.

You just trolled me harder with this paragraph than anyone else in the history of the internet. I don't think I've been this deeply offended by the internet since I used Net-Zero. Daggum Biblical taxonomy ITT. Bats and locusts are birds and presumably whales are fish.

[AnneFrankFanfiction]

Originally posted by kesat:

There were several discussions quite similar to this one at pre-release, when those categories were revealed. These categories are actually very inconsistent, e.g:
- Athropods are a phylum
- Mammalians, Reptiles and Aves are a class
- Fungi are a kingdom
and so on...

If you want a correct scientific classifications we would actually need to have a consistent grouping to start with.

And regarding the topic on it's own: Reptiles and aves are currently "officially" not considered to be the same monophyletic group including both (but there are good reason to do), but still seperated as two class. imo it's valid to use both classifications.

And like some other people already said: the categories used by PDX are pretty much just about the visuals and do not intend to be accurate on a scientific level.

I take no issue with the groups being at different taxonomic tiers; there's no reason to assume that similar degrees of derivation (relative to terrestrial life) would be uniform throughout the galaxy. The only thing that doesn't make sense to me is one category being a subset of another, as in the case of avian and reptilian.

And avian is a subset of reptilian. I don't know what you mean by "officially", there's no office in charge of taxonomy. I haven't seen any justification for any monophyletic definition of reptilian that isn't essentially synonymous with "diapsid", which would necessarily include all birds. Unless you want to argue that non-avian dinosaurs were not reptiles?

[Saxon]

You have very good points, but because this is a sci-fi game designed for a broad audience it includes a lot of tropes of that genre. I wouldn't overthink it.