"The Atrii have made themselves like animals in many ways," notes D'an. "The idea of having no concept of time; of nothing in your culture ever changing or advancing. Just like the animals,. They have returned themselves to nature"
"They still have language," says Essalin. "They still used the adaptive skills that differentiate higher life forms from animals in order to build those caves of theirs- they used tools. Simple tools, but still not the way an animal would do things."
"Well, they have managed to become part of the balance of things."
Sunda comments again.
"Why would anyone choose to be like that?"
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Getting the Merongam to die via stampede is an entirely reasonable option. But remember, you have to get quite a few of them and a random stampede in all directions won't meet that. You need it controlled, as you saw happen here.
How you make that come about is where the thinking comes in. You don't have to involve the third life form of the cycle, but you can.
"It may be that there was something in their past that caused them to seek a return to nature," Gallagher says. "Maybe something they were doing was endangering the planet and they went to extremes to distance themselves from it."
The raptors obviously kept the Merongam stampede controlled so that they could feast upon the fallen. Perhaps once they were set to stampeding, the raptors attacked from the sides and herded them in a way.