Collector Curio

Collector Curios are spherical mineral orbs created by Great Jaws and littered around the Tar Delta. They can only be picked up using the Tadpole Seafrog Chassis. They can be crushed in the Resource Crusher.

Databank Entry

Source: Scan a Collector Curio


A malformed mineral orb created by interactions between the great jaw and the collector leviathan.

1. Tortured history

Curios are flawed great jaw pearls created when collector leviathans carve or gnaw the developing pearl, inserting apparently random objects. Curio production boomed in the last two hundred years.

2. Random contents

Curios contain a jumble of resources which could be retrieved by an industrial crusher.

3. Behavioral marker

Curios may be a sign of stereotyped behavior—repetitive and frustrated action caused by the absence of necessary interactions or stimuli. In this theory, curios are a byproduct of damaged behavior.

4. Life stage marker

Alternatively, curios may mark young collector leviathans as 'too old to eat'. The ability to lift, move and play with curios could signal that a collector is mature and mentally active—and no longer valid prey. Selection pressure would drive collectors to make and carry their own curios (or steal them from others) as a 'password' to protect them against cannibalism. Pioneers tempted to anthropomorphise the curio as sentimentally valuable, a talisman of safety, should remember that the collector's mind is fundamentally alien.

Assessment: attracts collector leviathan attention. Break down in industrial crusher to retrieve random resources.

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