The trilobites' civilizationif trilobites had survived

Trilobites lived for nearly 300 million years, with eyes of calcite. The real paleontology behind the Cosmos Era ending “The trilobites' civilization”.

Trilobites survived for nearly 300 million years and vanished in the end-Permian mass extinction. Their compound eyes really were made of calcite crystals. The game's ending “The trilobites' civilization” imagines what would happen if someone protected them through every mass extinction: could trilobites live all the way to the present and even evolve intelligence? Trilobites evolving intelligence and a civilization is fiction.

This page first explains how to unlock the ending, then covers the extinction events trilobites lived through, several key studies on how complex life evolved, and finally a related novel, Of Ants and Dinosaurs.

How to unlock it

Hint: One creature nearly vanished in all three mass extinctions. What if someone protected it each time...
Condition: In a single run, protect Trilobites (or one of its subgroups) through the end-Ordovician, Late Devonian and end-Permian mass extinctions, and keep Trilobites alive until Human origins. Also protect them in the mass extinctions after that.
Note: If “Memory echo” skips straight past these eras, you can turn it down in “Upgrades”.
Reward: The trilobite species card gets a "temple" version.

The ending belongs to the Life category.

Real trilobites

Trilobites survived for nearly 300 million years and vanished in the end-Permian mass extinction. Their compound eyes really were made of calcite crystals. The end-Permian extinction was the most severe on Earth: precise dating shows it may have lasted only about 60,000 years, matching the timing of Siberian volcanic activity (Burgess, Bowring and Shen, PNAS, 2014).

How complex life evolved

Natural selection: Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace jointly published the theory of natural selection, and On the Origin of Species appeared the following year (Darwin and Wallace, Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society, 1858).
Punctuated equilibrium: Species may stay stable for a long time and then change quickly in a short period, rather than evolving at a steady pace (Eldredge and Gould, Models in Paleobiology, 1972).
The earliest animals: Cholesterol-type molecules preserved in Dickinsonia fossils show that this mysterious organism was an animal (Bobrovskiy et al., Science, 2018).
The earliest vertebrates: Myllokunmingia and Haikouichthys, found at Chengjiang in Yunnan, pushed the history of vertebrates back to the early Cambrian (Shu et al., Nature, 1999).
Tiktaalik: Scientists predicted the age of the rock layers where a transitional fossil should be found, then really found it in the Canadian Arctic (Daeschler, Shubin and Jenkins, Nature, 2006).
Whales that walked on land: Fossils unearthed in Pakistan show that the ancestors of whales were running hoofed land animals related to hippos (Thewissen et al., Nature, 2001).
Feathered dinosaurs: Fossils from Liaoning show that feathers grew on dinosaurs before birds appeared (Ji, Currie, Norell and Ji, Nature, 1998).
The first flower: Archaefructus from Liaoning was thought to be one of the earliest flowering plants, and its age was later revised to the Early Cretaceous (Sun et al., Science, 1998).

The end-Cretaceous extinction

The strata at the end of the Cretaceous are unusually rich in iridium, and Luis and Walter Alvarez concluded that an asteroid had struck Earth (Alvarez et al., Science, 1980). Beneath Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula lies a crater about 180 km across, exactly where that asteroid hit (Hildebrand et al., Geology, 1991).

All of these are related real research. They show the real history of mass extinctions and evolution. They are not evidence that trilobites could have evolved a civilization, and only the study of the end-Permian extinction bears directly on the disappearance of trilobites.

Liu Cixin's Of Ants and Dinosaurs (2004) is about an asteroid that never hits Earth, so dinosaurs and ants form an alliance. One side supplies strength and the other fine handiwork, and together they build a highly advanced civilization that ends up facing a crisis of mutual destruction. Its scientific background is this: the Chicxulub impact at the end of the Cretaceous is real, and if it had not happened, nobody knows whether dinosaurs would have evolved intelligence.

Game lore, not real

Trilobites evolving intelligence and a civilization is fiction.

Want to read the originals? Search these titles

Burgess et al. (2014): "High-precision timeline for Earth's most severe extinction"
Eldredge and Gould (1972): "Punctuated equilibria: an alternative to phyletic gradualism"
Bobrovskiy et al. (2018): "Ancient steroids establish the Ediacaran fossil Dickinsonia as one of the earliest animals"
Daeschler et al. (2006): "A Devonian tetrapod-like fish and the evolution of the tetrapod body plan"
Alvarez et al. (1980): "Extraterrestrial cause for the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction"

Real basis

Trilobites survived for nearly 300 million years and vanished in the end-Permian mass extinction; their compound eyes really were made of calcite crystals.
Of Ants and Dinosaurs (Liu Cixin, 2004), the science: the Chicxulub impact at the end of the Cretaceous is real; whether dinosaurs would have evolved intelligence had it not happened, no one knows.

Related research

These studies relate to this topic but are not direct proof of this page.

Natural selection: Darwin and Wallace jointly published the theory of natural selection. The next year, On the Origin of Species came out.
Source: Darwin & Wallace, Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society 1858, "On the tendency of species to form varieties; and on the perpetuation of varieties and species by natural means of selection"
The dinosaur extinction puzzle: Iridium is anomalously enriched in the end-Cretaceous layer, and the Alvarezes, father and son, concluded that an asteroid had hit Earth.
Source: Alvarez et al., Science 1980, "Extraterrestrial cause for the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction"
Finding the crater: Buried under Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula is a crater about 180 km across, exactly what that asteroid left behind.
Source: Hildebrand et al., Geology 1991, "Chicxulub Crater: A possible Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary impact crater on the Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico"
Tiktaalik: Scientists predicted which age of rock the transitional fossil should be in, and then really found it in the Canadian Arctic.
Source: Daeschler, Shubin & Jenkins, Nature 2006, "A Devonian tetrapod-like fish and the evolution of the tetrapod body plan"
The earliest animals: Dickinsonia fossils preserve cholesterol-type molecules, proving this mysterious creature was an animal.
Source: Bobrovskiy et al., Science 2018, "Ancient steroids establish the Ediacaran fossil Dickinsonia as one of the earliest animals"
The earliest vertebrates: Myllokunmingia and Haikouichthys found in Chengjiang, Yunnan, pushed the history of vertebrates back to the early Cambrian.
Source: Shu et al., Nature 1999, "Lower Cambrian vertebrates from south China"
Feathered dinosaurs: Fossils from Liaoning show that feathers grew on dinosaurs before birds appeared.
Source: Ji, Currie, Norell & Ji, Nature 1998, "Two feathered dinosaurs from northeastern China"
The first flower: Archaefructus from Liaoning was considered one of the earliest flowering plants, and its age was later revised to the Early Cretaceous.
Source: Sun et al., Science 1998, "In search of the first flower: a Jurassic angiosperm, Archaefructus, from northeast China"
Punctuated equilibrium: Species may stay stable for a long time and then change rapidly in a short time, rather than evolving at a steady rate.
Source: Eldredge & Gould, Models in Paleobiology 1972, "Punctuated equilibria: an alternative to phyletic gradualism"
The worst mass extinction: Precise dating shows the end-Permian extinction may have lasted only about 60,000 years, matching Siberian volcanic activity.
Source: Burgess, Bowring & Shen, PNAS 2014, "High-precision timeline for Earth's most severe extinction"
Whales that walked on land: Fossils from Pakistan show that the ancestors of whales were hoofed animals that ran on land, related to hippos.
Source: Thewissen et al., Nature 2001, "Skeletons of terrestrial cetaceans and the relationship of whales to artiodactyls"

Game lore (fictional)

Trilobites evolving intelligence and civilization is fiction.
Summary of the novel Of Ants and Dinosaurs: The asteroid never hits Earth, and dinosaurs and ants form an alliance, one providing strength and the other fine handiwork. Together they build an advanced civilization, which finally heads toward a crisis of mutual destruction.

See it in the game