Alien parasite

[NerdyCavegirl]

The original idea came from this awesome vivid freaky-as-hell dream I had months ago. So these football-sized black rocks, looks like suspiciously uniform meteoroids, are floating through space for 10,000-100,000 years at a time. They travel in clusters several thousand miles in diameter, held together by an electromagnetic field. One day the rocks chance across a planet and are pulled into its atmosphere; the black outer shell burns off, revealing a translucent greyish crystal, then crash into the surface and shatter into both grey and more opapue white shards. The rocks are unharmed by any of this. They remain solid up to 6000 F, and the shattering is a part of what seems to be an endless lifecycle, one that consists of only a few centuries of activity at most per several millennia. The white shards, although broken from the core of each rock, are rounded and smooth. You can see where they fit together, but there are no sharp edges. (my phone is gonna make me put this in 2 posts)

 

[NerdyCavegirl]

No light shines through except iridescent veins at the surface; these veins pulse and swirl very slowly but surely, something that taker several minutes to notice. Every carbon-based lifeform within 25 sq ft per 4 sq in of shard for more than an hour loses the will to live. If for some odd reason, the crater wasn't that big anyways! plants would die mysteriously. Any animals who find a white shard would probably lie down and starve or jump off the crater rim, but humans may find more creative methods. Depends on how the individual processes the signal. For 25 days, the white shards spread death within their territory, then go dormant for a year to allow decay to take place. They absorb some of the simple decay products, but leave most of the rot to the grey shards; white shards only use their energy to kill during that 25 days every year. (okay 3 posts)

 

[NerdyCavegirl]

The gray shards are sharp and jagged, translucent but far from transparent, and simply wait harmlessly until they come into contact with carbon-based life. When they do, the shards awaken from their dormancy. The activator organism has about 4 minutes to escape before tough, rubbery, sticky, lighter gray almost sap-like tentacles burst through the crystal and seek a host. Tightly coiled within the shard, the tentacles were formed within the first hour after landing, and can stretch up to 9 ft away. Formation and use of these is one of the few things the gray shards use their own energy for. The tentacles burrow into the host, using the combined genetics of both the activator and host (which are usually the same though not always) to rapidly mutate the host into whatever possible form most suits the environment. (okay dammit 4 pages max then I'm done)

 

[NerdyCavegirl]

The shards themselves seem to have no sentience, but they redirect 50% of the host's caloric energy to themselves and 50% to the host's further back brainparts, sensory organs, and healing/immune system. Assuming said host has the prior; the gray shards will attach to plants and are compatible with photosythesis at this stage in the life cycle, but they'll go after the next potential host that can process the most calories. Bacteria don't seem to pique their interest, nor do patches of moss under 4 sq in, possibly because any energy input wouldn't be worth the output. A preferred host is mobile and will only sleep, eat, and kill, but retain identity and some free will. Carrion left by white shards is an important food source (infected are immune to the suicide signal) and the host can eat its natural diet as well. (these explanations always take more words than I planned)

 

[NerdyCavegirl]

The grey shards use the energy to mature, the internal tentacles metamorphizing into the hard white psychic crystal core, and to grow more rocks that start with a grey shard, grow bigger, form internal tentacles, and harden the tentacles. These rocks bud off on each other until the host dies, which is when the energy required to heal or seek food is more than the 50% the parasites care to share. This can happen through attempted removal, being crushed by the weight of the rocks, or rapid mutation. The parasites then subsist on the corpse until either seeking a new host at the tentacle stage or growing a new black shell at the white crystal stage. If the tentacle stage can't find a host in 25 years, it simply matures and grows a shell without reproducing. The shells are one of the few things a whole rock uses its own stored energy for. So is the electromagnetic field they generate to defy gravity, float back out into space, and hold the colony together. (last post for sure)

 

[NerdyCavegirl]

Then the colony just meanders through the universe again for another 10,000-100,000 years seeking out a new planet with carbon-based life to crash down on and seek hosts. Whew finally done. I hope my multiple posts and lack of paragraph spacing isn't too confusing and/or irritating. So what exactly could the science be behind any of this?

 

[Smajdalf]

I think this is a very interesting concept for story. The science can be behind this, but only at the high level tech. Someone wanted to make a bio-weapon or found a crystallic life-form on another planet, then he began experimenting and maybe he done what he wanted, maybe an experiment failed, he created these. Magic is an option, too. Magician or alchemist was experimenting and the same story happened. Or, a lifeform evolved or mutated itself. I don't know, there are many options.

 

[Alile]

You could try looking up theories and research within a rather new science, Astrobiology. I stumbled upon it but unfortunately I read it in a foreign language, however, it's about the origin, evolution, distribution and future life in space. They haven't proved any life on other planets yet, but many now assume it exists. Indeed, a theory is that as on earth life can thrive underneath the surface of the planet, even if it can't live on the planet's surface. If you decide life also includes plant life or microbes or cells who divide themselves. So it's a lot warmer there and studies prove that cells can take a lot of heat and radiation, and theories say that's one of the ways life might spread though the universe, on meteorites, free-floating dust and rocks, floating around then crashing into other planets. Some would be habitable, other's not and maybe freeze this life form for years... Or just burn it to crisps, depending on the planet. It's all very interesting and I wish you good luck!