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| Atshara; basically, a wet Venus | |
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| Topic Started: Aug 26 2009, 08:06 PM (977 Views) | |
| Canis Lupis | Aug 26 2009, 08:06 PM Post #1 |
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Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.
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![]() Imagine this world. Second from its sun, an extremely dense atmosphere with almost constant storms, an average surface tempurature of 900 degrees, and a surface that renews itself every 100 million years or so. This is Venus, as we all know and love it. A lifeless world which was thought to have life on it for centuries. ![]() Now imagine this world. Third from its sun, a surface covered in 75% water, an atmosphere with about 70% nitrogen, 20% oxygen, and seasons. This is Earth, where you are most likely standing. The only place that harbors life. So far as we know. Now, imagine if Venus was located a little farther from its sun (between the orbits of Earth and Mars). Imagine if Venus had a slighly thinner atmosphere. Imagine if Venus was about as wet as Earth. Imagine if Venus was twice the size of Earth. Now you've got Atshara. http://specbiofan.deviantart.com/art/Crude-Orbital-Map-of-Atshara-134869795 Here's a biome map: http://specbiofan.deviantart.com/art/Crude-Biome-Map-of-Atshara-134871485 First creature is part of a sister clade to the 'vertebrates': the Exogastrids. While most creatures on Atshara are xeprotostomes (alien protostomes), the Exogastrids (phylum Exogastria) and the Musostids (the sister phylum to Exogastria. Characterized by having a muscular tube running through the center of their bones for greater flexibility. Phylum name Musostia) are conclastomes (Latin and Greek for chamber mouth). This basically means that when theblastula-like object forms, their mouth forms first, but the gut never forms an anus; rather, it re-attaches to the mouth opening (hence chamber mouth). I'll post an example species of phylum Exogastria tomorrow. |
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| Canis Lupis | Aug 29 2009, 06:04 AM Post #2 |
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Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.
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Since no one is responding, I'll kick it off with the first creature. The description is in the form of a letter between scientists:
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| StinglessBee | Aug 29 2009, 08:11 AM Post #3 |
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Adolescent
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I like it: can't wait to see more. I'm especially curious about the "plant" life of Atshara (presuming that the black trees and black grass mentioned on the biome map are plant equivelants and not sessile relatives of the other clades mentioned) and about the Musostids. Like I said: I can't wait to see more
Edited by StinglessBee, Aug 29 2009, 08:11 AM.
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| Canis Lupis | Aug 29 2009, 03:56 PM Post #4 |
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Thank you. You win a prize for being the first one (other than me) to post here! Yeah! Your prize: some taxonomy and evolutionary history. First, to answer your question, the eborees and black grass are the plant analogues. They use a substance called melasophyll. Basically, this substance is a black version of chlorophyll. As you may know, black absorbs a large amount of light, allowing it to be extremely efficient. This allows them to absorb as much light as possible in their hot, humid, and dim world. So as not to keep you waiting to respond to your post, I'll post the evolutionary history later tonight. |
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| StinglessBee | Aug 29 2009, 04:12 PM Post #5 |
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Adolescent
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Yeah! I won! Seriously though, this thread looks like it'll be brilliant. I expect you'll get a larger audience soon enough Sadly I won't be able to read the evolutionary history today. It's getting rather late here, and I think I'll be snoring away shortly. I'll read it tomorrow morning.
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| Canis Lupis | Aug 29 2009, 04:19 PM Post #6 |
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Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.
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I'll give you a little something to look forward to: I've got a phylum that I'll be discussing in that post that looks like a cross between a fish, squid, and balloon (unintentional of course). |
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| Scrublord | Aug 29 2009, 06:19 PM Post #7 |
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Father Pellegrini
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This looks like it has the potential to be a great project! By the way, are you still working on Tongban? I thought Tongban was pretty cool too, especially the way you made it a "sequel" to Snaiad. Also, you can always check out Valhalla, my alien world-building project in the Habitable Zone. No one's posted in it in a long time, but I've got lots of great ideas for it. |
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My Projects: The Neozoic Redux Valhalla--Take Three! The Big One Deviantart Account: http://elsqiubbonator.deviantart.com In the end, the best advice I could give you would be to do your project in a way that feels natural to you, rather than trying to imitate some geek with a laptop in Colorado. --Heteromorph | |
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| Canis Lupis | Sep 3 2009, 07:48 PM Post #8 |
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I was kind of losing interest in Tongban, so my original partner (CarrionTrooper) adopted it. Let's hope he comes out with something. I'd like to see where he takes it, especially with so much freedom. I'll be checking it out here real soon. Maybe you ought to post a creature idea to get people to start posting again. Now, the moment you've all been waiting for: the evolutionary history. I'll be going into detail about the phylums later. Right now, I'm working on a brief tour of the phylums for you. Basically, I'm going to post the description of one organism in each phylum from Phusizoa and just a general description of the flora, then I'm going to accept niche requests. I’ll start with the taxonomic list of the so-called lower kingdoms Micriota (similar ecologically to protists) and Paliuria (similar ecologically to plants). These are both advanced kingdoms, but I’m more interested in the Phusizoans (animal counterparts) than I am in these. If someone else wants to go into detail about them, knock yourself out. But for the most part, I’ll be focusing on the Phusizoans. So here’s just a taxonomic list for the two “lower kingdoms”, with their derivatives: Kingdom: Micriota (micro creatures (like our protista)) Phylum: Naregrama (floating ‘grass’) Class: Erinaria (free floating) Class: Recicula (reef rope) Kingdom: Paliuria (‘plant’ (obvious what it’s like)) Super-phylum: Chlorophyta (green ‘plant’) Phylum: Chlorophytae (green plant’) Class: Moncresa (mountain grower) Super-phylum: Melasophyta (black ‘plant’) Phylum: Eborea (black ‘tree’) Class: Pumillibora (dwarf tree) Class: Iunstipae (joined branches) Phylum: Nigrae (black ‘grass’) Class: Vestia (carpet) Class: Magnoreptor (parasite ‘flower’) Class: Frigusia (cold grower) Class: Onigraema (storm ‘grass’) |
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| Canis Lupis | Sep 10 2009, 06:48 PM Post #9 |
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Since no one is posting, I'll just go ahead with niche requests. I'll list the Phusizoan phyla, of course, but I think more people want to see the actual organisms rather than a taxonomy. So here's the list of phyla, with brief descriptions:
I will now accept niche requests. You can use any format for them you want, but I prefer the following: Biome (refer to the Atsharan biome map): [insert biome name here] Earth "analogue": [insert analogue name here. This is there just to allow me to better understand your niche request] A brief description of the niche: [insert description here] Suggested phylum: [suggest a phylum to take this niche here. But I reserve the right to create a creature from any phylum for the niche. Your phylum suggestion is just that: a suggestion. But I welcome it] So: who's up first? Keep in mind that it may take a day or two to post the description. I would much appreciate it if someone wanted to take it upon themselves to draw the creatures (it doesn't have to just be one artist who contributes. I'd actually prefer if I didn't have an official artist, just anyone who wants to submit a picture. But remember, I reserve the right to make suggestions for the creature you draw (such as anatomical structures and how they'd look alive)). Edited by Canis Lupis, Sep 10 2009, 06:54 PM.
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| Canis Lupis | Sep 12 2009, 09:32 AM Post #10 |
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Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.
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Sorry for the triple post, but is anyone going to respond? |
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| StinglessBee | Sep 12 2009, 02:16 PM Post #11 |
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Adolescent
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How about this: Biome: oceans and seas Earth analogue: black-tip reef shark Niche description: a generalistic, marine predator that lives in shallower waters Suggested phylum: maybe Cephapentae? I'm unsure. Anyway, I'm surprised that few people are posting. I really like what you've created. |
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| Canis Lupis | Sep 13 2009, 11:09 AM Post #12 |
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Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.
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I'll work on it. And thanks for posting. |
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| StinglessBee | Sep 13 2009, 12:55 PM Post #13 |
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Adolescent
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My pleasure! |
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| Iowanic | Sep 13 2009, 02:09 PM Post #14 |
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Adult
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I'm a bit off-topic, I fear, but I had to comment... How do we know Venus 'recarpets' itself every 100 million years or so? In the book 'Venus revealed' it was suggested the surface was, in fact, somewhat older then that? (Sorry for the interruption) |
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| Canis Lupis | Sep 30 2009, 09:08 PM Post #15 |
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Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.
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It's perfectly okay with me to go off topic. I ain't paranoid about it. I'm not actually sure how we know. You'll have to ask our admin for that. BTW, I think I'm just going to do away with formal niche requests. Informal ones like for Nereus are just fine. But StinglessBee's request did help me think of another creature. I'll hopefully post that here soon. |
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9:34 AM Jul 11