# Space People



## Ban (Nov 1, 2015)

I have been wondering for quite a while how life outside of earth looks like or would look like. Specifically, i am interested in how sentient life would look like in the vast emptiness of space itself. The non-human space beings that i am thinking of would be an octopus-like people who could cling to their spacecrafts with their tentacles. They would also have enormous lungs so that they can survive outside of their vehicles for extended periods of time. 

I believe my question can be interpreted in two ways: How would human life adapted to space look like? and How would sentient non-human life acclimated to space look like? The latter of the two is the one i went for in my example but feel free to answer either or both of these questions in as much or little detail as you like. All help is valued and please go ahead and let all your creative ideas, plausible or not, out. Make your answer as fantastic or scientific as you want because i am interested in both.


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## ThinkerX (Nov 1, 2015)

Read some Lovecraft and related authors for the really weird aliens.


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## Ban (Nov 1, 2015)

Thank you, Lovecraft's work is great and he certainly had a great sense for creating outlandish creatures. However, his beings aren't meant to have a physiology that would be able to survive the depths of space, which i maybe should have specified that i am looking for that, and i don't want to simply copy someone else's work.


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## X Equestris (Nov 1, 2015)

Tardigrades might be a good place to start.  They're incredibly resilient.  

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade


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## Ban (Nov 1, 2015)

I hadn't thought of them yet, thanks!


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## MineOwnKing (Nov 1, 2015)

I think they had the same exact thing on the Simpsons. Octopus aliens with one eye and sharp teeth underneath space helmets.

Nasty looking.


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## chrispenycate (Nov 1, 2015)

So, 'outside their vehicles'. So they've evolved sapience in a planetary environment, developed space travel - and then adapted, or were adapted for space. Rather than evolving in space for space (in which case they would have have evolved propulsion systems, senses for finding matter in vacuum and a very variable metabolism. A tailored or evolved organism (or cyborg) might have these mechanisms built in, or might rely on high tech and say some robot miners to generate reaction mass. 

A true space organism might evolve on a comet, with adequate supplies of raw materials, organics and volatiles, and regular (every few decades or centuries) solar energy warming everything up so life can come forth for a few months.


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## Ban (Nov 1, 2015)

Chrispenycat those are some really good points! I like the ideas you have for life born in space and mechanic "life". Now i am thinking of other technicalities for space life. For example i think they would need a very small need for water in order for them to not freeze in the extreme cold and also not die of thirst. 
You've now also got me thinking that maybe i should create multiple space inhabiting creatures who came to live there for various reasons. The thing i am trying to think of now, however, is how a species born on a comet or in space could ever evolve to be sentient. There would be no stimuli in space for them to attain such a high state of being. I could make simpler spaceborn lifeforms though.


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## Devor (Nov 1, 2015)

Building on Chrispenycat's comments,

When you mentioned the octopus clinging to the outside of their spaceship, I immediately thought of Hiro flying on Betamax in Big Hero 6 (I have four children).  His suit has like a suction cup thing that latches onto something built on the back of betamax's armor.

The reason I mention it:  What if they _lived_ on the outside of their spaceships the same way they might live on a comet?  Instead of surviving in space because they have big lungs, what if they absorbed nutrients from the inside of their spaceship through their tentacles by latching onto a feeding pipe.

And if they were raised on asteroids and comets, maybe they've shaped comets directly into their spaceship and instead of using engines, maybe they just change the direction of their natural propulsion.

Thinking about how they might do that . . . . let's say your ship comet fell into the orbit of the sun, and used the sun's gravity to gain speed.  But you had a device that would cut off the sun's gravity mid pull, so you could shift that speed and go in another direction.  Your speed would be the terminal velocity of the ship heading towards the biggest rock you can find (a quick google search, terminal velocity towards the sun is something like 618km/s).


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## Ban (Nov 1, 2015)

Some great ideas coming in once again! I';; definitely merge Chrispenycat's ideas and yours together. Now i have another question though. Would it be better for these creatures to absorb minerals and such with their skin or with some sort of suction devise? I like the first option but i don't see how that would work in a vacuum like space.
Also, while i was thinking of how they could travel around the immense universe i didn't even think of them controlling meteors and their orbit around other celestial objects so thank you.


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## Devor (Nov 1, 2015)

Banten said:


> Would it be better for these creatures to absorb minerals and such with their skin or with some sort of suction devise? I like the first option but i don't see how that would work in a vacuum like space.



Why not both?  You've got to eat and breathe, after all.


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## Ban (Nov 1, 2015)

Well i think permeable or semi-permeable skin in space might lead to minerals and water escaping the body which could be deadly in space. It might also lead to increased exposure to light from the sun, which is a lot more intense in space than on earth already.


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## Devor (Nov 1, 2015)

Banten said:


> Well i think permeable or semi-permeable skin in space might lead to minerals and water escaping the body which could be deadly in space. It might also lead to increased exposure to light from the sun, which is a lot more intense in space than on earth already.



If you find it immersion breaking, then don't do it.

I do think that's something you can work around, though.  There could be an outer layer of skin that opens up when pressed against the comet, for example.  That would open up another layer for creativity with these creatures because their outer skin could be a membrane that behaves very differently than anything we see on earth.  It would have to react to the temperatures and the kinetic energy they would have to endure on a constant basis.


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## Ban (Nov 1, 2015)

Another good idea! Yes, that could work actually. The only real problem i would have with that on earth is that it would make the species very vulnerable to predators but a species that evolved in space is highly unlikely to have many natural enemies anyway so that's not a problem. Maybe if the comet they live on is constantly circling around a single planet or sun then the membrane could open and close only when it touches an object that is a certain temperature which would be the temperature of he asteroid's surface. I think the temperature on such an asteroid would be stable enough for that. Maybe they could even have a sort of empire or civilization on the multiple of the planet's asteroids that are at the same distance from the planet.


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## chrispenycate (Nov 2, 2015)

As regards 'suction' - anything we consider suction relies on air pressure, and even in the tail of a comet doesn't contain enough matter per cubic metre to generate anything that can merit the term 'pressure'. So, we either go for electrostatic charge, or muscular tentacles winding themselves round protrusions - sucker cups are out. The electrostatic technique allows us to collect solar wind as reaction mass, and, if we're in a planet's Van Allen belt, concentrate lots of useful energy. The caelestocephalopods have immensely long tentacles, kilometres, but very thin - the environment is benign, with no ocean current equivalents, only tidal forces risking breaking the members, 
and accelerations only in the thousandths of a gee.

	Why sentience? Competition for resources, just as on Earth. Single celled organisms (celestoplancton) might be able to find enough matter (mainly hydrogen atoms and water) to grow, and reproduce, and plant analogues (celestophytes) develop to utilise solar energy, and concentrate useful chemicals - your earliest zoÃ¶celestites will browse these, and in turn be harvested by the more sophisticated 'carnivous' forms. Various survival techniques will be tried - eyes (probably on the tentacles themselves, so they can be spread wide for maximum parallax) are useful to a predator, smell goes down to single molecules, radio/radar senses, infra-red for warm objects at a distance, electical senses like a shark, but no hearing. Integrating this information to improve survival chances involves the development of a nervous system analogur, and ultimately a central calculating unit - a brain. It takes a long time to make a philosopher out of a jellyfish, but this is true in any environment - we have to assume time is something we have a lot of.

	Unless you are going to have your creatures interact with escaped planetary species, I don't think water is your best solvent. Too solid over too much of the stellar system, too often ice, almost never liquid. Helium's good for not freezing, and alpha particles are common in the solar wind, but it's very chemically inert, and doesn't dissolve very much, and goes gaseous with the slightest warmth, so probably some low-temperature hydrocarbon? What temperature does methane liquify? Or pure ethanol? (the idea of a vodka- based lifeform interests me).

For the planet-evolved lifeform moving into space I was going to attach a story of mine, but don't know how to find my own URLs - I'll look it up.


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## CupofJoe (Nov 2, 2015)

Banten said:


> ... The only real problem i would have with that on earth is that it would make the species very vulnerable to predators but a species that evolved in space is highly unlikely to have many natural enemies anyway so that's not a problem. ...


I find it easier to believe that if there is life anywhere, then there will be something else to eat it... if only in the form of Scavenger and not Hunter.


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## Ban (Nov 2, 2015)

I love the idea of long muscular tentacles wrapping around the comet and other objects. This seems very alien yet logical to me so i think i will keep that in. Good point on suction too. Creating a creature with a sort of sucking device would be out of the question but a very muscular organ like an elephant's trumpet that has cyllindrical muscles inside of the trumpet might work. This far in the discussion my  knowledge of physics was sufficient but i am lacking in knowledge when it comes to electric charge and electrostatic technique so i will have to research that a little bit before i can apply that. It sounds promising though.

I think that you and CupOfJoe are right in that if there is life than  carnivorous life will naturally evolve to exploit the non-carnivorous life. The rest of the ideas you list are really good once again. The fact that they wouldn't develop hearing went completely past me. That does raise the question how they communicate. Pheromones are probably out of the question as well an it would be easier to empatise with these creatures if we can understand them. So they must communicate either with sight or feeling. Maybe they can give of small bits of light that they use to communicate. I am going to list all ideas and post them here soon.



And vodka based life would be wonderful


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## Ban (Nov 2, 2015)

•	no suction possible without air pressure
•	Muscular, long tentacles
•	electrostatic charge
•	no hearing
•	radio/radar senses
•	infra red for detecting warmth
•	electrical sense like shark
•	nervous system
•	brain
•	Solvent that freezes at very low temperature
•	Membrane skin that opens and closes and reacts to temperature and kinetic energy. (downside: vulnerable)
•	Enormous lungs for creatures not born in space
•	Tardigrades as example
•	evolved propulsion system
•	senses for finding matter in vacuum (above sense mentioned)
•	Very variable metabolism
•	Cyborgs might have mechanisms built in
•	Born on comet with adequate supplies of raw materials, organics and volatiles, and regular (every few decades or centuries) solar energy warming everything up so life can come forth for a few months.
•	Very small need for water if any
•	Absorb nutrients through tentacles by latching on feeding pipe.
•	Shape asteroids and direct them with natural propulsion and gravitational pull.
•	Communication through light, or other means that do not include hearing or smelling.


The list of ideas thus far


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## chrispenycate (Nov 3, 2015)

In the inner system, wher water might be liquid (Earth orbit and within, roughly) the only matter conveniently available is solar wind - almost entirely ionised hydrogen and helium. Not optimal for building babies (and reproduction is a key factor in life, or evolution) And we can observe that region, send probes through it - there are no swarms of celestoplancton basking in the sun's perpetual light. Maybe in the dust in Earth's Trojan points, but no space whales harvesting the bounty. In the asteroid belt, well stirred by Jupiter's gravity, loose matter is far more accessible, hut it's cold. We can expect our organisms, regardless of size, to go for solar sail technology, probably a hyperbolic parachute concentrating the sun's rays on a small volume, where the life core is. Actually, for things that split off from the main colony (be this in the belt, in a comet, in one of Jupiter's Trojan agglomerations, in close Jupiter orbit, wherever) will probably not go 'animal' or 'plant', but symbiotic community, photosynthesising, eating and travelling all within one superorganism. Whether sex is practical with such a wide-flung population is not clear, even if it accelerates evolution and spreads useful characteristics - it could be parthenogenesis is the rule, and exchange of 'genetic' material a rare, and memorable experience (I know how they feel). 

Intelligence requires complexity, and complexity needs size. How big? Even as an order of magnitude, I can't see a path to an answer. In microgravity the only real limit to growth is tidal forces, but after the first cubic kilometre of volume thought processes slow way down, due to light speed 

Every advanced organism has a separate eating system, molecular sieving through a membrane being reserved for unicellular and extremely low-level multicellulars. It may not be physically separate, but specialisation appears to be the route to progress. Yes, I agree I only have one little planet for comparison, with all life sharing one origin, but I'm betting on a specific 'mouth/root system' to garthe nourisnment from the environment, rather than trying to disolve it through the skin.

*An alternative creation theory*​
Suppose I have a planet, already teeming with life, even if most of it is aquatic or the frontier region in tidal zones, where tough organisms profit from the lack of competition. Suddenly, BOOM! - either we just got clobbered with an enormous meteorite, or a steam volcano (like Krakatoa) explodes, releasing more energy than all the nuclear weapons tested since the theory of fission was proposed. Lots of bits flying around - most fall straight back down, a few go into orbit and tend to cluster in the Lagrange points, and even fewer manage escape velocity and zing off into the cosmos, propelled by sunlight, preparing for panspermia. For most of these bits are just grains of dust - but bacterial spores are no bigger or heavier.

So now I have life invading the realm od non-life. And life which is our cousin - and we know the potential that has. Unfortunately, to breed and spread it needs liquid water, which is in very short supply in the ultra-low pressures of space, so it might need to be swept up by a passing comet before the spores can produce their next growth spurt, but life is tough, and determined. Plenty of CHON (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen, the building blocks of our life) in the solar system, even if most of it is tied down in planetary gravity wells. And life adapts to fit the niches it discovers . that might have been Mars getting hit, not Earth.

So now it's a fraternal conflict between life lifted into emptiness by the technology of one of its species, and life flung there by an uncaring cosmos, and only so much raw material to go around…


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## Ban (Nov 3, 2015)

I believe we are really making some great progress with this. Though admittedly the majority of ideas have come from you not me (which i very much appreciate might i add!). Anyway, onto the discussion. 

I have to admit that i am not as informed about astronomy as you are, though i am interested, but i think that after some rereading i get the gist of it all. Basically, and correct me if i'm wrong, the chance of life being created in the space nearby earth is very unlikely due to the fact that there is not enough matter or atleast useful matter to build life with. So our best bet in our universe is the asteroid belt. But if we go with the asteroid belt we have to take in account the very low temperatures. 
I do not understand "solar sail technology, probably a hyperbolic parachute concentrating the sun's rays on a small volume, where the life core is" however can you please explain it further, because it sounds fun 

I like you idea of a superorganism. I assume by that you meant the thing that most likely happened in our world where organelles became part of larger cells in the earliest stages of the creation of lifeforms, but then taken to extreme with a giant collection of different cells and organelles working together in one creature. To all the biologists out there i don't know how far or if this theory is true. It always seemed interesting to me, though. 

When it comes to the size of the creature i agree we have to stay in a reasonable range. Maybe in the range of half a meter to a few hundred meter or else it would be implausible.

Good point on the separate eating system, but i don't think the necessity for a separate eating system has to exclude absorbtion through skin necessarily. We could make specific transporter cells under the skin that transport chemicals through the body to a central organ. This could function sort of like our nervous system only instead of impulses this system transport chemicals. 
This also brings up the point of other systems in species on earth. I think for any creature that is even remotely human (which isn't necessarily the goal, but i think that i've decided that i will make multiple species out of these ideas) a cardiovascular system is needed (with whatever solvent we go for), a nervous system, a skeleton (be it internal, external, hard bones, purely cartillage, etc), muscles and of course the mentioned eating system.

I like your creation theory, it would explain easily why the "alien" life would be similar to our lifeforms atleast in its very basics, instead of going a completely different route to existance. It would make sure we have to think a little less in that department.


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## chrispenycate (Nov 4, 2015)

I don't think the skeleton is essential in a microgravity environment - sure, it's a convenient way of attaching muscles, but an inflatable balloon would give enough rigidity - it's considered a working theory that cartilaginous fish (sharks, rays and things) stiffened up their bones when moving up estuaries into fresh water not so they could attach legs and walk on land later, but as a mineral reserve for losing everything that the seawater had dissolved in it.

The idea of huge lungs is conceivable, if the entity has somewhere to recharge them - ie, if the planet-based organism can go back to its base for a cylinder full of oxygen. For something born (hatched, seeded, whatever) in space, this isn't an option - but it could have an air reservoir with photosynthetic organisms (plant analogues, algae, bacteria, own specialised cells) encouraged to flourish within it so, (assuming our biochemistry, not a safe bet,  but some way of using solar energy for powering the life cycle is - there isn't enough matter around to have the equivalent of volcanic vents) carbon dioxide and water are converted into sugars and oxygen,  powering the mobile organism - a sophisticated but quite probable symbiosis. Even if the bubble of the membrane is extremely thin, there will be a bit of greenhouse effect - if it should 'double glaze' - two layers of clingfilm with a gap between - there's considerably more, allowing the system - is it an organism any more? - to explore territories considerably father from the sun.

For a solar sail, working either on light pressure or solar wind (largely stripped nuclei streaming out from the sun) consider and old-fashioned parachute not a modern ascensional or flying wing, but one of the umbrella-like circular ones with shrouds all round the edge. It's silvered, so light is focused onto a small region, where the organism basks in reflected glory, getting practically all the energy hitting the membrane concentrated at a small hot spot.  Light falling on it will generate a propulsive force (a very small force, admittedly, but in a stable situation it will generate a tiny acceleration - our life form will have to be patient, because it's going to take a long time getting places.

Which brings me to a new deviation - variable time sense. My dragons measure time by heartbeat, and as their metabolism slows with cold, they get older faster in the lowlands than among mountain peaks. It is quite possible for a lowland dragon to be older than her mother. For an organism where 95% of its time consists of gently drifting and meditating, and only a minute fraction requires rapid reaction speeds a variable rate time would seem essential.

When I say 'light, I quite frequently mean 'all electromagnetic radiation', not just the visible stuff. The reason I have not concentrated on radio waves as a major means of communication is not because an organic-based radio transceiver is so unthinkable, but that in our solar system SETI would likely have picked up the signals, and recognised the order, or early space exploration would have detected them, if they fell in the VHF region largely reflected by the ionosphere. If your space dwellers are in a different planetary system, this is irrelevant, and the entire electromagnetic  spectrum, from hard gammas to hundred metre radio waves is open to them. And don't reject out of hand smell, even if it is a very slow technique (we have no idea of their speed of thought, after all - it might be a century per dream); depending on their propulsion/steering technique, reaction mass, either matter or particle beam, could be aimed at their corespondant, and the contents modulated with information. 

In the short story I PMed you I used a human cyborg as the planet evolved space organism - there are a number of them in literature, so it wasn't very original (I suspect that the next paragraph brings several tentacles looping round the capsule to equalise their velocity - the original 'ships passing in the night' no longer feels right). Anyway, tomorrow I fly to Switzerland (francophone) so you won't be inundated with my weird ideas (or equally stange vocabulary for a while.


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## Ban (Nov 4, 2015)

I don't have my pc available to me at the moment so i will try to keep this short for the sake of my thumbs. Your points are all good and i will think more about how to apply but the one that grabbed me the most was your point about time and their perception of it. I am trying to stay as far away from relativety of time because my physics knowledge isn't advanced enough for that. Biologically speaking you have got me thinking though, how low can i make these creatures heartbeat and brain frequencies before they become incapable of communication with us? 
I really like your solarpanel idea now that i understand it.

Anyway if i don't have time to find a working computer in time to properly talk about your ideas than i will just wish you a nice time in Switzerland which shouldn't be hard in such a beautiful country and thanks for the help sof ar.

Verstuurd vanaf mijn LG-E610v met Tapatalk


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## mecg_romancer (Nov 11, 2015)

Have a look at the TV series leviathan. The living sentient space ships might give you some ideas.

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk


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## psychotick (Nov 11, 2015)

Hi,

A few thoughts. First what say they grip on to the asteroids etc by thousands of tiny little claws that curve outwards rather than pushing down.

Their skin has to be elastic but half the battle of a space born environment has to be avoiding heat loss, so it's also highly insulating.

They have photosynthesis like a plant to give them energy. And the energy allows them to take nutrients from the asteroid and turn it into organic compounds.

Note there is water out there and I see no reason why they couldn't access it. Assume that they have a way of detecting it as ice. They crawl over the asteroid surface until they reach it, cover it completely, and then allow a tiny bit of heat to escape to warm it to liquid which they can absorb.

As for minerals, my thought would be that they eat rock because they aren't a carbon based life form. Instead they like silicon and can eat the rock, use the silicon and perhaps even extract any oxygen from it.

I see them as very slow moving and slowed in all ways. There isn't enough air and food in space to keep them sprinting. So they live an almost dormant life crawling slower than a snail to conserve energy, just very, very slowly eating and growing. Intelligence would not be priority and brains use a lot of energy. These would simply be the most efficient eating, reproduction machines in existence. Lifespan might be ten thousand years and during it they might grow from nothing in size to many metres across.

And reproduction is a hit and miss thing. They meet up, touch tentacles etc once a century or so and then release their millions of spawn into space. Some lands on other asteroids in the belt. Some travels much further in doing so allowing them to colonise other asteroids in other systems.

Hope that's useful.

Cheers, Greg.


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## Russ (Nov 11, 2015)

psychotick said:


> And reproduction is a hit and miss thing. They meet up, touch tentacles etc once a century or so and then release their millions of spawn into space. Some lands on other asteroids in the belt. Some travels much further in doing so allowing them to colonise other asteroids in other systems.




What an enjoyable discussion.

I just thought I would suggest that if these beings lived in a space environment and were really this slow, reproduction might well be better asexually rather than sexuality for a number of reasons.


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## Ban (Nov 12, 2015)

Hello mecg_romacer, psychotick and Russ. I see that the space people discussion is back thanks to you guys!

I like the tiny claws idea. Asteroids should be rough enough for these claws to get a strong grip on it. If the asteroid is made of soft or brittle enough material we don't have to exclude claws pushing downwards i think.

On your second point you are right as long as we assume the species has no form of protective exoskeleton. If they do than the skin underneath doesn't have to be very insulating.

I have thought about the ice thing and i like it, but the problem i see with it is that the required heat necessary to warm up the ice and the energy used for it would probably be more detrimental to its survival than the benefits that the water can give the creature.

I like all your other suggestions alot. I will be making a new and updated list of ideas pretty soon.


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## Ban (Nov 12, 2015)

The new and Improved List is here. Thanks to everyone who's contributed and hopefully we can make this an even more succesful discussion than it has already been. To those reading this feel free to use the ideas brought up here. 

•	• no suction possible without air pressure
• Muscular, long tentacles
• electrostatic charge
• no hearing
• radio/radar senses
• infra red for detecting warmth
• electrical sense like shark
• nervous system
• brain
• Solvent that freezes at very low temperature/ resistant to cold
• Membrane skin that opens and closes and reacts to temperature and kinetic energy, can absorb nutrients. (downside: vulnerable)
• Enormous lungs for creatures not born in space
• Tardigrades as example
• evolved propulsion system
• senses for finding matter in vacuum (above sense mentioned)
• Very variable metabolism
• Cyborgs might have mechanisms built in
• Born on comet with adequate supplies of raw materials, organics and volatiles, and regular (every few decades or centuries) solar energy warming everything up so life can come forth for a few months.
• Very small need for water if any
• Absorb nutrients through tentacles by latching on feeding pipe.
• Shape asteroids and direct them with natural propulsion and gravitational pull.
• Communication through light, or other means that do not include hearing or smelling
•	Inner system not ideal for life. Earth Trojan's point potentially possible. Asteroid belt possible due to lots of loose matter.
•	Solar sail technology. Explanation for people who don't know (like me ) what Solar Sail Technology means: " consider and old-fashioned parachute not a modern ascensional or flying wing, but one of the umbrella-like circular ones with shrouds all round the edge. It's silvered, so light is focused onto a small region, where the organism basks in reflected glory, getting practically all the energy hitting the membrane concentrated at a small hot spot. Light falling on it will generate a propulsive force (a very small force, admittedly, but in a stable situation it will generate a tiny acceleration - our life form will have to be patient, because it's going to take a long time getting places." Chrispenycat

•	Superorganism consisting of highly symbiotic community of lifeforms.
•	If intelligent than somewhat formidable size required. 1/2 meter to few hundred seems reasonable. If too big than thought process slows down, due to light speed.
•	Seperate eating system. Could function with a mouth or by absorption of nutrients through skin that is connected to specialized transporter cells.
•	Cardiovascular, Musculary, Nervous, Skeletal (Internal, External, Hard Bones, Cartillage, Chitin...) system. Skeletal system could also be replaced by a sort of inflatable balloon due tio lack of pressure in space.
•	A very adaptive species such as tardigrates could have existed on planet, but was launched into space by comet. This provides an easy way to explain why they rely on carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen like earth life.
•	 If large lungs than the species could live in symbiosis with photosynthetic organisms who produce oxygen for the species.
•	Variable time sense. Considering most of these space creatures lives are spent slowly drifting we can assume that their perception of time is different than ours. Years can seem like seconds.
•	Thousands of tiny claws curved outward gripping the asteroid, this provides mobility. These claws could also push down, but this would decrease mobility perhaps.
•	If no exoskeleton than skin has to be very insulating, yet elastic.
•	Photosynthesis within the creature itself.
•	Melt frozen water. Problem: could require the creature to waste more energy than it can afford.
•	Creature could eat rocks on the surface of the asteroid. Especially if they are silicon based instead of carbon. Specialized organ needed to filter minerals and chemicals.
•	Very slow moving. Potential to live extremely long especially if they don't have to waste energy on large brains (could be a secondary creature in my world)
•	Reproduction through simply releasing spawn into space kind of like a flower releases spores. Hit and miss. Could lead to colonization many parts of the galaxy.
•	Considering vastness of space this species would have an easier time procreating asexually. Leads to lack of diversity in species though but that doesn't have to be bad necessarily because no single event could possibly wipe out an entire galaxy spanning species... I hope


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