sci-fi biology

G

Gifted

World Wanderer
Registered Senior Member
I've been spending alot of tiem recently thinking about the other races that will inhabit the universe(in my books, anyway). Anyway, I have one basic law that I think works rather well: Sentience is an adaptation. An intelligent being will not be physically adapted to the environment it lives in, because it uses its head to adapt the environment to it, and do things to adapt to the environment.

Other than making sure that sounds right, I was looking at basic things about biology. A different metabolism and everything is required. I'm looking at two races right now. One developed on a volcanically active planet, many of the elements that are present are used in thier biology, arsenic, sulphur, stuff like that. I'm looking for details like what thier metabolism would be like, how being in a less than ideal environment would effect them, etc. The same for teh second race, which I was thinking maybe an alcohol based metabolism, rather than sugar. I wasn't quite sure how that would work though. Anything else you guys could tell be would be great, there's going to be about a dozen races, and scores of worlds with life, and am trying to make it realistic to some greater extent than many out there.
 
Are you hoping to publish some hard sci-fi? I hope that anyone who assists you here will get a credit in the book...

Your axiom of "sentience is an adaptation" concurs well with the drift of the discussion in the ET thread:
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?p=574719#post574719

Your highly volcanic planet might produce an ecosystem powered entirely by geothermal energy, especially since the volcanos would pump a lot of dust and ash into the atmosphere and severly reduce any solar energy supply. As with deep-sea vent communities on Earth, the main biomass would probably be chemosynthetic microbes and/or plant-like structures, obviously lacking any special pigment, and not producing oxygen. "Animals" could feed on these as they do Earthly plants, though they would need a strong defensive integument to resist the heat and explosion hazards in a volcanic environment. Perhaps their skins, or shells, would concentrate silicates as a rock-like natural armour? Without oxygen they could not respire as we do: their metabolic energy might be derived directly from inhaling hot volcanic gases, but this would be an inconstant resource. Therefore they would have to metabolise all their food anaerobically, which is obviously less efficient than our biochemistry. It would probably mean that they are slow-moving and lacking in high-energy activity, despite their tolerance of high temperatures.

Have you thought of life in a radically different environment - like inside a planet's molten core? It would have no shortage of energy, and have to based on some sort of ultradense crystalline structure (or even partially degenerate matter). Imagine beings who could swim through molten iron like fish through water...
 
I figured that the volcanic people would be coold blooded, in some way. with all the heat from the environment, they wouldn't need exo-thermic reactions to keep warm. I plan on giving credit, I'd expect the forum to become more popular as the URL gets listed in a book credits. The idea was to layer the book. A simple person without a whole lot of science will see enough to interpret the rest, letting him enjoy the book. As you know more about various things, though, you see a whole lot deeper, getting ideas, jokes, etc. that alot of people won't quite get.
 
Does no-one else have anything to contribute here? Surely, a few open-mined exobiologist types must exist - as surely as alien life...
 
A ethanol or methanol metabolism is quite viable, many life form here on earth can metabolize ethanol even us.

Have your volcano planet people use sulfides as oxidizer instead of oxygen. A atmosphere rich in SO2 would be horribly toxic and corrosive to anything but life that breath the stuff and lives well in very low pH environment. Here on earth there are ecosystem that run off sulfides though all of them are prokaryotic or reliant on prokaryotes that can metabolize the stuff.

Think out side the box, give your organism Quadruple helix Nucleic Acids. Try different base pairs and base pair arrangements. Try new amino acids or peptides. Getting ride of sugars is a good start, think how different biochemistry would be like with some other carbon molecule as the base for its carbohydrates.
 
Fetus, you probably meant sulfates. These organisms reduce sulfates to sulfides, producing corrosive sulfhidric acid fumes.
 
No I meant sulfides as in sulfide-oxidizing chemoautotrophes or organisms that oxidize sulfides and produce sulfates (and protons which are pumped through a proton gradient to produce ATP)
 
I wasn't thinking of that volcanic an atmosphere. Just enough so that the otherwise trace elements would have a significant affect on the biology.

I need more biology. The ideas are there, I just don't know how to describe them. I know the Molnari and Humans don't have to worry much about exchanging diseases. There's places for me to go haywire with genetics, I'm just looking for areas I can use in the story to help maintain thier differences. Psychology is going to be fun.
 
Make them sulfur breathing god dam it! Oh you could have them trying to "terraform" jupiter moon Io and the humans are like "Hey fuck off this is our solar system!" and they are like "Fuck you! your not using this moon, you fuck off!"... etc.
 
They are one of three races that form an initial alliance. Humans, Molnari(alcohol metabolizers), and the Oozan(volcanic homeworld). I get to have fun from there as they encounter other races, but most of the conflict has nothing to do with biology. I was thinking that Io would be too much for them. I mean, I want them to be able to handle earth without too much difficulty, and if they breathe sulfur, well, they'd need respirators, and ideally humans can survive for a little while on their planet, so it can't be too bad.
 
Ok ok enough jerking around.

When designing your race first consider there home worlds. Please fill out the below for each race home world, we can go from there:
What is the gravity level?
How many suns do they have?
What is the orbit of their planet?
What are the seasonal conditions?
How long is a day?
What are the weather conditions?
How much of the planet is cover by water?
How many moons does it have, or is it a moon its self?
What is the air pressure?
What is the atmosphere gas percentages?
 
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If your various races live on the surfaces of their homeworlds (rather than underground, or beneath a frozen ocean) we should also decide what sort of star(s) each planet orbits. A red dwarf, for example, would have an ecosphere so close in that any planet orbiting within it would be tidelocked to the star, and have one side permanently in shadow. In fact, the climate might only be suitable for life in the planet's narrow twilight zone, since the dayside would probably get too hot.

Conversely, an RR Lyrae variable would subject its planets to an uncomfortable variety of temperatures, and the surface might only be habitable for a few days every 3 or 4 months. Life might have arisen before the star became unstable, but would have to adapt to long periods of hostility - perhaps by spending most of the time hibernating.
 
Oozan,
They live in binary star system with a G or K class star and a brown dwarf.
I would put them on a moon around the super gas giant about 3-4 times Jupiter (brown dwarf) their day will be worth 15 of our days. They are the first moon of the dwarf and have many other fellow moons though not as large as their home world nor as hospitable. The tidal force will make their planet very volcanic. A atmosphere thinner then ours by at most 1/2. They will have a high CO2 atmosphere, high SOx levels, very high O2 levels. They live in a very low pH world. Their oceans will be like battery acid, and their rain will be as acidic as soda. Make them insect like for the lower gravity, give them an exoskeleton, particularly well for handling the caustic environment. Let have them have copper based blood, Cu has a lower affinity for SOx and CO then our iron based blood. We can call them "Crab People"!.

how that?
 
I'm seeing earthlike conditions for the Molnari. They're basically the same on the cellular level, just that life came about using different elements and compounds. Perhaps a bluer star.

I like the idea for the Oozan. They can colonize the other moons before the Molnari find them. I was thinking a reptilian type organism would work. Due to the warmth of thier world, they wouldn't have to have exothermic metabolism to stay warm. They'd be cold-blooded, and the sealing of a thick scaly hide would probably do as well as an exoskeleton, right?
 
Actually, I was looking at the fact that liquid water would be a rarity on thier world. So thier body would be 75% what? Perhaps they drink thier sulfur.

I was also looking at the Molnari homeworld. Two thirds land, with climate ranging from cool and damp swamp to stagnant ocean. They don't have sweat pores, thier green and brown skin is leathery, many garments are designed to hold water, teh evaporation of which replaces wallowing in the mud. Thier muscles are better than ours, giving them less muscle mass. A lack of fat deposits gives them a bit of a starved appearance, bones and muscle standing out like an anorexic. A longer jaw, close-set eyes. An extra joint in thier legs gives them a crouched appearance, though they aren't any bigger than humans.

I'm also thinking that sugar would have a similar effect on them that alcohol has on us. Does that make sense?
 
There is no sulfur compound that is liquid at room temperature.

I'm also thinking that sugar would have a similar effect on them that alcohol has on us. Does that make sense?
Click to expand...

Lets not do that anyone would see that coming. "What they eat alcohol like sugar? What do they drink sugar like booze?
 
Not pure, anyway. I'm guessing it might not work, but the idea was that they form an alliance, and they can't really interact with the other races if they're too imcompatable with the environments.

The Oozan are shorter than humans, interesting becuase they come from a moon about three quarters earth's size. Stocky, Their bodies attempt to minimize surface area exposed to the atmosphere. The atmosphere is denser, and due to the tectonic activity, they are obliged to be migratory to some extent. Until later on, there was a rough balance between a slash-and-burn type culture, and hunter-gatherers. They were able to leave thier moon earlier than Humans or Molnari left thier homeworlds, as the lower gravity and tidal assistance from the gas giant made space travel somewhat easier. For them colonization of the nearby moons was well worth it, the ecosystem they were part of was not easily capable of supporting large population concentrations. Warfare quickly dissappeared, and they had been a peaceful race for hundreds of years when the Molnari found them. Ironically Humans are not the dominant colonizer, the Oozan are. Despite incompatabilities, they are a vital part of the treaty organization, having the longest record of manned space travel of the Three Races, and the fact that thier equipment is by nature designed for difficult environments.
 
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