If you’ve tried to bend a piece of metal, such as a school-chair or paper-clip, you know that this generates heat. So I had a shower-thought 💡 about animals that evolved to bend metal, then I asked myself “why/how would that happen?”, this is my train-of-thought.
1st of all, where do they get metal? My mind jumped to volcanic zones 🌋, places where there’s natural rocks and metals expelled by the Earth’s core. Granted, most solid lava is hard to break, so it’s hard to imagine any animal mining metal, no matter how strong or smart they are. This is when I remembered those hexagonal things! What if, in ideal conditions, many of those columns were thin enough to be broken easily? Let’s assume that’s possible, and continue.
2nd, what kind of animal could bend metal to make it glowing hot? No known lifeform can do this, but this is fiction, so let’s pretend it’s possible! We need an animal that satisfies these requirements:
The winner is clear as day, even without the spoiler head-line: 🦍 Gorillas. The set of animals with hands is relatively tiny, only primates are in it. Most primates can exist in tropical zones. So we only need to find the strongest primate!
Now, why would they bend metal? Well, if the Metal Ages have taught us anything, is that metals are extremely versatile. But gorillas don’t care about all the things you can do with metal, they want to solve a small subset of practical problems. I propose the following use-cases:
🗡️ Weapons: Let’s be real, the concept of gorillas with volcanic metal rods can be easily associated with violence. The very pipeline of events that leads to the existence of such rods is violent, even if it only harms inanimate objects; and gorillas are subject to similar stereoptypes as sharks :( . Rods can be used to hit and impale, and if you heat them up (by any means, such as bending) you can deal fatal damage to many animals. I can imagine gorillas plotting an ambush, so that before they jump on their victims, the rods are already glowing.
🛐 Rituals: if these creatures develop a culture, they’ll have some sort of rituals which may be religious. For example, in a funeral, the deceased’s parents (or any family-member, if the parents can’t be present) must each bend, break, then place a pair of mildly-glowing rods near the tomb (this is performed in a dark place, such as a cave); the pair represents the life and death of the loved one, so the rods are typically asymmetric (long = life, short = dead); if they died young, the rods should be symmetric; if they were killed by one of their own kind, an additional pair must be placed, this can imply that the killer has been killed (justice?) or it can symbolize the fact that the killer is dead inside, pick your poison.
😏 Mating: During mating season, each male builds some shape or pattern of rods near their home, shorter rods equates to higher chance of getting laid (size DOES matter, but it’s inverted!); the implication is that “short rod = good genes”, because you must be strong and/or smart to be able to break rods that tiny; granted, the rods must be glowing, as proof of being bent (yes, you could could steal them from someone else; yes, I’ve considered the possibility of using lava to fake a glowing rod, but there are some details that make it hard to fake). While the males are building their patterns, females can see them working and choose an appropriate partner. Relationships are somewhat monogamous, and they have a concept of anniversaries! on each anniversary the male prepares a romantic setting by using glowing rods as candles; I can already imagine them saying
M: hey babe, see those rods over there? that’s how you make me feel ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
F: could you be more cliché?
and
M: if you look carefully, you’ll notice I’ve built the same pattern I made when we first met
F: aww that’s so sweet!
Now, let’s address the heat resistance. Let’s go crazy with it! I’d say these creatures can hold magma in their hands for ~90s before 50% of their thick skin is disintegrated. They can hold yellow lava for ~8s.
The implications are terrifying: if these creatures are very territorial, and you accidentally enter their zone, you’re DoA as they can no-scope you from far away by throwing lava, which is yet another reason why they’re so dangerous.
In day-to-day life, the implication is kinda funny: if there’s no water to wash their hands before eating, they’ll simply use magma. Can you imagine your bro casually saying “hey pass me that magma over there” then washing their face with it?