20 Questions -- Halite Hunters

Well, the school year is near ending, so the time has come to give presentations of a chosen topic related to discrete math.  I chose Langton's Ant, but that's another story.  One person chose to present 20 Questions, so we later went into the computer lab to play the game.

I decide to fool the machine by choosing Halite, knowing it will say salt, given my answers to the questions.  So I click classic 20Q, and the first question, of course, is Animal, Vegitable, or Mineral?  Mineral.  I go on, and question 9 is:

Is it killed for its fur?

Another friend also chose halite later, and for question 10, does it live in water?

The following writing is an accurate description of my thoughts (It was written by hand, so there are some ideas that escaped me before I could get them down, and this may be subject to edits later):

Section XIII -- Halite Hunters

The sense of taste is one which many take for granted. It is divided into 5 subsenses, bitter, sweet, sour, spicy, and salty (and the elusive umame, but that is outside the purposes of this writing). These have all been very useful to our survival in the eons of evolution. Poisonous plants and animals have triggered our bitter sense, enabling us to eject the food before it is consumed. Sweet food implies high caloric content, and triggers dopamine, which helped when food was scarce, but is now ruining our species. Sour foods are generally acidic. Spicy foods are useful antibiotics. But there is no obvious reason for our sense of salty. For that, we must observe the salcricetus.

When humans physically or mentally exert themselves, chemical reactions are needed. These raise our body temperature. If no counter measures are taken, overheating could ensue at dangerous temperature levels. For that reason, we sweat. Sweat is composed mostly of water, which can evaporate and cool our skin. But it contains not only water, but some minerals as well. The most abundant is salt. Some people are more prone to sweating than others. But there is an animal that uses its sweat as a lethal weapon, the salcricetus.

The salcricetus appears to be a small furry herbivore, vulnerable to various predators. It is actually a cunning scavenger. Rather than the fly that dresses like a bee, this species provokes predators into attacking it. The fur is covered and saturated in salt crystals, resulting from over-sweating. If a predator bites it, the attacker will consume a dangerous quantity of salt from the salcricetus's coat, which will render it immobile if not dead. The salt crystals are quite heavy, so the salcricetus is unable to move quickly, but it can easily catch and consume struggling dehydrated animals, be it snake, eagle, or lion. This was before animals developed their salty sense.

During the agricultural revolution, humans discovered that salt crystals are consumable in small amounts. Since then, the salcricetus has been widely hunted for its skin, as salt became highly valued, almost to the degree of gold. The abundance of salt in modern day is mostly due to the hunting of salcricetuses, though undocumented. Why is the plight of these creatures so hidden?

The initial discovery of the salcricetus domestication was by Sal, hence salt was named after him. He is also the subject of the fable, “The Goose That Laid The Golden Egg”. After people found out about the salt, Sal slowly traded small amounts out. But being both a scientist and merchant, he wanted a way to extract even more salt from the salcricetuses. One by one, he performed surgical operations, including cutting the salcricetuses open. Alas, he found no way to acquire more salt. As time went on, he became more desperate, and eventually, in a fit of rage, slaughtered all of the salcricetuses. This left him without a source of salt, and the townspeople, thinking he was hoarding salt, raided his house. Sal was killed in the process. Because of greed from both sides, there were many deaths, and this story was passed by word of mouth, later becoming a popular fable.

After some time passed came the period of Renaissance, when a small group of people speculated on the origin of “The Goose That Laid The Golden Egg” and soon after, discovered it revolves around the salcricetuss.  Since then, they have formed what are known as the Halite Hunters, to secretly hunt these animals for their fur.  They have also discovered a way to remove the salt production gene from the salcricetus (also causing it to become an herbivore) and produced the long-haired rabbit, a common pet.

History had to be rewritten multiple times for the safety of the Halite Hunters, as if they are discovered, many people and organizations would profit in kidnapping or "disappearing" members of their organization.  Therefore, no further information will be given regarding them.

Another well-crafted flight of the imagination!

Did you deliberately avoid making explicit reference to the well known factoid about the origin of the word salary?

Actually, the salary word origin kinda slipped my mind; I may put it in near the anecdote of Sal and get rid of the "traded small amounts out".  As I said, this will probably be subject to edits in the near future, especially since I wanted to end it with some kind of clever pun or remark on the salcricetus (salt hamster in latin).  Unfortunately, while I can use a latin translator, I don't know how to pronounce the words, making it difficult for them to flow.

I'm presenting this to a creative writing class on Monday, and probably should have waited until after to post this, but was overcome by either teenage narcisism or writier's arrogance.