Nature-Shaping Technologies

# Giving shape to trees

The purpose of the Orchard and its workshop might be to show that somebody knows how to give shape to plants (see List of Artificially Shaped Plants).

The idea is suggested by the bonsai trees (which require specific techniques to grow the tree in a specific shape and maintain it in that shape).

Then, on the wall near the windmill door, there is a figure of a human being climbing on the wall. This figure is made of roots or lianas (the same ones that grow on the board with the drawings in the workshop above it). That figure actually matches very precisely the human blood circulatory system. This shape cannot be natural and unless one believes in magic or divine powers, it must have a human origin.

And of course, there are the trees with the apples used in the puzzles that open the door to the workshop. There are clear marks on these trees where the branches fork. It could be natural, but the thing is that trees do not grow that way. They don't have branches that fork in two other branches. (That idea might be common among mathematicians and computer scientists, but it is false.) The truth is rather that multiple branches grow on the side of a branch, but rarely on their tips. So here again, it seems that these trees have been given that shape by humans. And the marks on the forks were probably made by the ligatures used to make the trees grow that way.

# Growing mosses and lichens

Many environmental puzzles use moss mats or lichen mats growing on trees or rocks, and we can wonder if the shape of these mats is artificial or natural. There is indeed strong evidence that many environmental puzzles are the result of a careful design, with elements voluntarily placed, painted, broken or otherwise modified so that the environmental puzzle exists. The Marsh and Greenhouse areas also provide background to legitimate the idea that these mass mats or lichen mats have been grown artificially:

* Lichens are algae or cyanobacteria living in symbiosis with fungi, and the former two living forms are believed to grow in the Marsh, where they participate in the coloration of the various pools and form colored mats at the surface of water (and on the walls of the underwater rooms).

* In the Greenhouse, the colored dots in the puzzles are created by applying colored material on graph paper. While this colored material could simply be paint, the use of graph paper suggests that the size of the dot may evolve in times. Once again, this could be simply the consequence of the paint evaporating, but the theme of the building rather suggests that the material is alive and growing (bacteria, algae, fungi, lychens, mosses, and various vegetal species could be good candidates). Note also that the puzzle boxes are initially closed, suggesting that this material grows in the dark (which would work for bacteria) or that the amount and time of lightning are controlled. And note all the yellow moss/lychen on the mountain around the greenhouse.

A headcanon suggested by gaming\_mantra is that "the moss could start as a paint-like substance as seen in the greenhouse and from there grows into the moss. This would also account for a lot of the other 'paintlike' smears found elsewhere on the island and would lend support to the EP puzzles being created" (Discord chat, August the first, 2016). Such a growth process would however lack of precision, as suggested by the traces of moss removed from around the environmental puzzles on the banyan tree in the Jungle. But such a lack of precision would explain why experiments seem to be conducted in the greenhouse to better control the growth process.