Space People

[chrispenycate]

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.

 

[Ban]

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

 

[mecg_romancer]

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

 

[psychotick]

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.

 

[Russ]

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.

 

[Ban]

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.

 

[Ban]

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