Guild Wars 2

If you go to the Luminates Plant in Metrica Province and do some poking around, you’ll run into large quantities of food, including what looks like possibly skale meat packed in ice; fruits and vegetables including apples, berries, melons, and possibly onions; some kind of bean (probably coffee); and other items which are more difficult to discern. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen an asuran beverage that wasn’t brightly colored. We know from Guild Wars 1 that asura have Asuracake, because Blimm did not receive a piece.

I’d say it’s safe to assume that asura have roughly the same dietary requirements humans do, though based on what I found at the Luminates Plant, perhaps they tend to rely more on fruits than vegetables. I found it odd that their food was stored in open containers, rather than being sealed, especially in such a hot and buggy environment. Maybe they have some magical technology preserving it? Or maybe they eat really quickly. There’s a lot of food here to just be out in the open. I assume some of the coffee is going to be sold, though perhaps asura just really consume that much coffee (there was a ton).

Thoughts and input appreciated.

I’m always surprised by the fact that Asura can eat vegetation. Their teeth seems to suggest they are carnivores or insectivores, and being a subterranean race, there wouldn’t really be a lot of plant matter for them to consume down there. I would have imagined the Asura lived primarily on a diet of vermin and maybe farmed fungus or molds while they dwelt completely underground.

This is further supported by the fact that meat is a much more calorie-rich food than vegetables, and growing large brains (coupled with high rates of thinking) burns up a lot of calories. The Asura would have needed quite a lot of energy to fuel their metabolism and brains, which again suggests they aren’t really herbivores.

So yeah, I imagine the Asura don’t keep their food in special storage because they go through it really quickly, but I wouldn’t put it past them to have developed refrigeration magi-tech to store large amounts of food for extended periods of time.

They don’t have cloning technology? I figure, a shot of the clone-o-ray and they have huge access to (quickly perishable) supplies of food.

Who needs cloning technology when you have deer/cows/pigs that magically reappear out of nowhere 3 minutes later?

Those deer are deadly though. There was a thread somewhere about it. I have a feeling the deer sacrifice the cows and pigs to their deity and drink their blood for strength. Those cows and pigs are the only thing keeping them from sacrificing us!

Weird. I never have any problems with deer. I hunt them down for their tasty, tasty Slabs of Red Meat. Sure, they get ornery when I just wander up to them and start whacking on their hindquarters with a sword, but then I slam my shield into their faces when they start poking me with their horns and finish up the butchering.

I find it more disturbing that another deer just a few metres away is calmly watching his friend getting hacked to pieces and isn’t batting an eyelid.

Enjoy

I’ve definitely seen deer kill most things in the game, lol. I don’t think anyone is saying that they cannot kill the deer, just that they are pretty formidable as far as animals go.

Shape of teeth has less to do with what intelligent species eat then we like to think.

http://news.discovery.com/human/evolution/early-human-ancestors-ate-grass-121112.htm

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/13/human-ancestors-ate-grass-africa-_n_2122696.html

But unlike the asura, humans have never had a dental plate consisting primarily of canines or fangs. Even going back to early hominid ancestors, their teeth are primarily incisors and molars, which are better suited for cutting and grinding plant matter. That suggests that the primary diet of humans and their ancestors has always been primarily plant-based. We only started to eat meat relatively late in our evolutionary history.

That said, I watched a documentary recently about the marine iguanas of the Galapagos Islands. Despite living on a diet consisting purely of seaweed, the iguanas have a mouth full of serrated, razor-sharp teeth. This might seem illogical at first glance, but it actually makes sense because seaweed is extremely slippery. The iguana’s sharp teeth is needed to grab on to the seaweed and cut it free from the rocks.

So with that in mind, I amend my original theory to admit that the asura could possibly also have lived on a primarily herbivorous diet, although I still think that is unlikely given their high energy requirements and the general lack of plant life below ground.

Hmm. interesting. The only thing I can offer is that Tyria may have a great abundance of plant life below ground. And/or the fungus they eat off the rock breaks down the minerals into a high calorie substance. Oo, or the fungus is also partially mobile or predatorial so it also has a high calorie diet and production.

That is a fair enough point. Tyria’s a magical world after all, and who’s to say that there aren’t magical forms of plant life that do not need sunlight to photosynthesis? Maybe they feed off thermal energy or magical “radiations”.

As for predatory fungus:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Fungal_Bloom

Hard to imagine Asura eating these, but I guess anything looks appetising when you’re hungry. XD

Nice find! I was a little “eh” about the predatory and the need to scrape them from rock while still containing or producing high calories but you proved the precedence for the possibility nicely.

I don’t think they were always subterranean though, or at least not entirely. There are several places in the world where you come across ancient ruins from a lost Asuran civilization. There’s one in Mnt Maelstrom being researched by the Priory and I believe there’s one in the Straits of Devastation near Fort Trinity.

Khyron.8735:

I don’t think they were always subterranean though, or at least not entirely. There are several places in the world where you come across ancient ruins from a lost Asuran civilization. There’s one in Mnt Maelstrom being researched by the Priory and I believe there’s one in the Straits of Devastation near Fort Trinity.

I think those ruins were left by something else. The asura just found Rata Sum and similar ruins when they surfaced 250 years ago and must have decided they liked the style.

I would personally ascribe to that theory too, Ladybug, although the fact that underground Asuran architecture (as seen in the Central Transfer Chamber in GW1) looks almost identical to the ruins of Rata Sum (also during GW1) suggests that the ancestors of the Asura did indeed live upon the surface before moving underground.

Of course, it may be that the Central Transfer Chamber existed even before the Asura found it, and they just appropriated it the same way they did Rata Sum.