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Living Spaceships
Topic Started: Jul 8 2009, 02:38 PM (2,635 Views)
Empyreon
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Are you plausible?

Ridiculous! Do I really seem so vindictive and power-hungry that I'd lash out like that against someone simply for pointing out an oversight of community rules? Am I above the rules just because I enforce them?

Now, if we're going to dismiss an example of biotechnology simply because its source is fantastical, there are a lot of other threads that need review as well. The dovin basal may be implausible, but it certainly is interesting, and a good example of applied biotechnology I've never seen elsewhere.
Take a look at my exobiology subforum of the planet Nereus!

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food for thought
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Vultur-10


While purely 'fleshy' ships are quite a stretch, biological ships could still have hard hulls. Consider how mollusks produce calcium carbonate shells, essentially making rock (limestone), yet they're still biological. No reason why alien species couldn't produce some other stony or metallic material for vacuum-proofing. On a planet where mineable veins of metal were few and far between, or mining was very difficult for some other reason (incredibly deep, swampy soils and shallow seas covering the whole planet, perhaps? Some situation where the local civilization couldn't easily access the actual ground/bedrock) extracting metal from the trace metals in living organisms might actually be viable, and this could be done by some engineered organism that you fed all sorts of biomass to and then it grew your metal items.

Yes, the dovin basal is quite interesting - and since we have no idea how FTL could be done, I suppose it's no more implausible that it be done by a biotech device than a traditional inorganic device.
Edited by Vultur-10, Nov 25 2009, 05:20 AM.
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Holben
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If you read The Reality Dysfunction, there's a lot in that about bioships.
Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

"It is the old wound my king. It has never healed."
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ATEK Azul
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http://thomastapir.deviantart.com/art/Hune-132507476
http://thomastapir.deviantart.com/art/Diverse-Hunes-132536471

Those are plants that ThomasTapir with help from a book I beleave turned into organs for Cthulian space travel in lifeforms. What do you all think?

Also just for lols here: http://graysapphire.deviantart.com/art/Nuclear-Planet-Eater-36624207
I am dyslexic, please ignore the typo's!
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sam999
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Vultur-10
Nov 25 2009, 05:18 AM
While purely 'fleshy' ships are quite a stretch, biological ships could still have hard hulls. Consider how mollusks produce calcium carbonate shells, essentially making rock (limestone), yet they're still biological. No reason why alien species couldn't produce some other stony or metallic material for vacuum-proofing. On a planet where mineable veins of metal were few and far between, or mining was very difficult for some other reason (incredibly deep, swampy soils and shallow seas covering the whole planet, perhaps? Some situation where the local civilization couldn't easily access the actual ground/bedrock) extracting metal from the trace metals in living organisms might actually be viable, and this could be done by some engineered organism that you fed all sorts of biomass to and then it grew your metal items.

Yes, the dovin basal is quite interesting - and since we have no idea how FTL could be done, I suppose it's no more implausible that it be done by a biotech device than a traditional inorganic device.
So does anything earth spawened have a shell that can deal with vacume and rads?
I am not suffering from insanaty. I truely enjoy being mad.
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sam999
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ATEK Azul
Jul 9 2009, 09:38 PM
They sound like a very interesting species can you give any other info on them? They also sound like aztec equivilents with the whole wheel part.
Not much is known about the present day Shee, as they've only recently been located. However, much is known about their history and the way that they used to be. The Shee are some of the most successful scientists in the entire universe, seemingly through luck rather than judgement. Their naivete about the world around them is extraordinary - rarely would they consider the consequences of an action in advance of trying it. These are the sort of people who'd drop one chemical compound into another thinking "hey, I wonder what this will do." Whereas normal universal laws of bad fortune would result in an explosion, a Shee performing the same experiment is more likely to discover how to turn fresh air into used, non-sequentially serial numbered 100 dollar bills.

This amazing ability to stumble blindly into accidental success, together with the ridiculous situations this kind of approach to life has resulted in, has led the Shee through a high speed development of some of the most advanced technology in the entire universe.

The Shee are born inventors, and as such share many of the typical traits of such people. They over-engineer everything - they'd happily spend weeks researching a way of saving time, even though doing the task in the first place might have only taken five minutes. This follows the "automobile short-cut" theory to life, in that any short-cut taken on roads invariably takes longer than if you'd stuck with the bad traffic, but good grief, does it feel good to try it. A typical example of this would be dealing with short sightedness. This problem can be solved using glasses or contact lenses. The Shee would have discovered DNA, found the errant genes and fixed them. Indeed, this is precisely what happened - there are no opticians on Albia.*

Technologically, the Shee's creations look and feel like a Jules Verne illustrated novel - a mixture of tubes, escaping steam and pure brute force mixed with incredibly advanced biotech components. The Shee used their early discovery of DNA to create animals and plants designed to improve the quality of their lives and discovered the wheel hundreds of years after curing every single genetic error in their expansive genome.**

The Shee are not good planners. They tend to plan by execution - they have a great idea, try it and see what happens. On Earth, they'd happily fly from Heathrow to San Francisco on the off chance that a friend would be at home that evening for a drink. It would never cross their minds to phone first just to be sure, as after all - it is a long way to go only to find that they're out.

As a final reference to the Shee's personality, here is a text transcript of a recorded conversation between two Shee, circa. 500 B.E (500 years before the Shee left Albia forever):

"I say, old chap, I'm on fire."
"Goodness gracious, I expect that hurts. I'll design a device to pump water from the eastern ocean up to here. You get the kettle on." "Splendid. Sugar, Milk?"


footnotes:
*NASA knows just how this feels, having invested in the production of a pen that would write in zero gravity. The successful result of this research and development program (costing millions) is the space pen. The Russians used a pencil.


From a webpage devotd to the game.

Also the unkillable birds are a programers bug not meant to be like that.
I am not suffering from insanaty. I truely enjoy being mad.
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ATEK Azul
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sam999
Dec 25 2009, 08:37 PM
ATEK Azul
Jul 9 2009, 09:38 PM
They sound like a very interesting species can you give any other info on them? They also sound like aztec equivilents with the whole wheel part.
Not much is known about the present day Shee, as they've only recently been located. However, much is known about their history and the way that they used to be. The Shee are some of the most successful scientists in the entire universe, seemingly through luck rather than judgement. Their naivete about the world around them is extraordinary - rarely would they consider the consequences of an action in advance of trying it. These are the sort of people who'd drop one chemical compound into another thinking "hey, I wonder what this will do." Whereas normal universal laws of bad fortune would result in an explosion, a Shee performing the same experiment is more likely to discover how to turn fresh air into used, non-sequentially serial numbered 100 dollar bills.

This amazing ability to stumble blindly into accidental success, together with the ridiculous situations this kind of approach to life has resulted in, has led the Shee through a high speed development of some of the most advanced technology in the entire universe.

The Shee are born inventors, and as such share many of the typical traits of such people. They over-engineer everything - they'd happily spend weeks researching a way of saving time, even though doing the task in the first place might have only taken five minutes. This follows the "automobile short-cut" theory to life, in that any short-cut taken on roads invariably takes longer than if you'd stuck with the bad traffic, but good grief, does it feel good to try it. A typical example of this would be dealing with short sightedness. This problem can be solved using glasses or contact lenses. The Shee would have discovered DNA, found the errant genes and fixed them. Indeed, this is precisely what happened - there are no opticians on Albia.*

Technologically, the Shee's creations look and feel like a Jules Verne illustrated novel - a mixture of tubes, escaping steam and pure brute force mixed with incredibly advanced biotech components. The Shee used their early discovery of DNA to create animals and plants designed to improve the quality of their lives and discovered the wheel hundreds of years after curing every single genetic error in their expansive genome.**

The Shee are not good planners. They tend to plan by execution - they have a great idea, try it and see what happens. On Earth, they'd happily fly from Heathrow to San Francisco on the off chance that a friend would be at home that evening for a drink. It would never cross their minds to phone first just to be sure, as after all - it is a long way to go only to find that they're out.

As a final reference to the Shee's personality, here is a text transcript of a recorded conversation between two Shee, circa. 500 B.E (500 years before the Shee left Albia forever):

"I say, old chap, I'm on fire."
"Goodness gracious, I expect that hurts. I'll design a device to pump water from the eastern ocean up to here. You get the kettle on." "Splendid. Sugar, Milk?"


footnotes:
*NASA knows just how this feels, having invested in the production of a pen that would write in zero gravity. The successful result of this research and development program (costing millions) is the space pen. The Russians used a pencil.


From a webpage devotd to the game.

Also the unkillable birds are a programers bug not meant to be like that.
Wow I had forgotten I had asked that.

Thanks for responding though it is an interesting species from how you describe it.
I am dyslexic, please ignore the typo's!
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sam999
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ATEK Azul
Dec 25 2009, 09:03 PM
sam999
Dec 25 2009, 08:37 PM
ATEK Azul
Jul 9 2009, 09:38 PM
They sound like a very interesting species can you give any other info on them? They also sound like aztec equivilents with the whole wheel part.
Not much is known about the present day Shee, as they've only recently been located. However, much is known about their history and the way that they used to be. The Shee are some of the most successful scientists in the entire universe, seemingly through luck rather than judgement. Their naivete about the world around them is extraordinary - rarely would they consider the consequences of an action in advance of trying it. These are the sort of people who'd drop one chemical compound into another thinking "hey, I wonder what this will do." Whereas normal universal laws of bad fortune would result in an explosion, a Shee performing the same experiment is more likely to discover how to turn fresh air into used, non-sequentially serial numbered 100 dollar bills.

This amazing ability to stumble blindly into accidental success, together with the ridiculous situations this kind of approach to life has resulted in, has led the Shee through a high speed development of some of the most advanced technology in the entire universe.

The Shee are born inventors, and as such share many of the typical traits of such people. They over-engineer everything - they'd happily spend weeks researching a way of saving time, even though doing the task in the first place might have only taken five minutes. This follows the "automobile short-cut" theory to life, in that any short-cut taken on roads invariably takes longer than if you'd stuck with the bad traffic, but good grief, does it feel good to try it. A typical example of this would be dealing with short sightedness. This problem can be solved using glasses or contact lenses. The Shee would have discovered DNA, found the errant genes and fixed them. Indeed, this is precisely what happened - there are no opticians on Albia.*

Technologically, the Shee's creations look and feel like a Jules Verne illustrated novel - a mixture of tubes, escaping steam and pure brute force mixed with incredibly advanced biotech components. The Shee used their early discovery of DNA to create animals and plants designed to improve the quality of their lives and discovered the wheel hundreds of years after curing every single genetic error in their expansive genome.**

The Shee are not good planners. They tend to plan by execution - they have a great idea, try it and see what happens. On Earth, they'd happily fly from Heathrow to San Francisco on the off chance that a friend would be at home that evening for a drink. It would never cross their minds to phone first just to be sure, as after all - it is a long way to go only to find that they're out.

As a final reference to the Shee's personality, here is a text transcript of a recorded conversation between two Shee, circa. 500 B.E (500 years before the Shee left Albia forever):

"I say, old chap, I'm on fire."
"Goodness gracious, I expect that hurts. I'll design a device to pump water from the eastern ocean up to here. You get the kettle on." "Splendid. Sugar, Milk?"


footnotes:
*NASA knows just how this feels, having invested in the production of a pen that would write in zero gravity. The successful result of this research and development program (costing millions) is the space pen. The Russians used a pencil.


From a webpage devotd to the game.

Also the unkillable birds are a programers bug not meant to be like that.
Wow I had forgotten I had asked that.

Thanks for responding though it is an interesting species from how you describe it.
I made a topic to spec on them.
I am not suffering from insanaty. I truely enjoy being mad.
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ATEK Azul
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Thanks for making a topic just for my question that was nice of you.
I am dyslexic, please ignore the typo's!
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sam999
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ATEK Azul
Dec 27 2009, 12:50 PM
Thanks for making a topic just for my question that was nice of you.
Well, I like creatures...
I am not suffering from insanaty. I truely enjoy being mad.
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Xiora4
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what if the ship had an own ecosystem? and what if it was like a cyborg?
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Zoroaster
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Well - one of my favourite TV SciFi shows is named after its living ship - "Lex"...

The Speccer Formerly Known As Magoo...
My exobio project(s) :
Hormizd / Zarathustra

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Holben
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Ah, Lexx. :rolleyes:

The ecosystem will die due to radiation, microgravity etc. Unless you have impactical or super-advanced shielding, and the ship would have to be almost entirely mechanical for that. Biological material just isn't up to the stress of space!
Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

"It is the old wound my king. It has never healed."
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Xenophile
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How would a living ship reach a significant enough percentage of the speed of light? My star plague uses matter/antimatter proplusion but are there any other ways?
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FallingWhale
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It couldn't handle a antimatter reaction.
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