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Unconventional composition; Life dominated by unusual groups
Topic Started: Jun 5 2008, 12:35 PM (1,766 Views)
ItHasTeeth
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When ever people think of alien life, it's almost (almost) always an animal of one form or another (or a heap of rocks... or a crystal... or bad special effects). But what if the dominant group to drive a planet's environment aren't fauna per say... but something else. Some authors have speculated the idea of sentient unicellular life (though this I find hard), and (more common) is the idea of plants taking on animal-like roles.'

If these were/are possible, how would they work?
How could you end up from encrusting pond scum to a vegetable that can build vessels of transport between the stars? :blink:
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Livyatan


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Jul 28 2008, 01:02 PM
It's interesting to note that the sentient plants recognize that their existence is unexplainable, and therefore posit divine creation.
Always interesting to hypothesize cultures and religions for sentient alien races, especially when considering non-humanoid, non-Terran based alien lifeforms.

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Ànraich
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What about gas-planet life? Like the Jovian life from 3001? Many of Jupiter's moons do erupt geysers of organic material (not life, but things that could build life) into its atmosphere. Is it not possible that the matter could settle in a calmer inner layer of jupiter and synthesize into living organisms? Once there is life, it will evolve to best fit its environment. That's why I don't belive Mars has any life, there can be no such thing as a planet with only microscopic life as the microoganisms would evolve to live in the environment in the most efficient way possible. Back to my point, though, if cells could synthesize in the atmosphere of a gas-planet (which I'm sure is possible and true somewhere in our massive universe), wouldnt' it be plausible to take the next step and say they evolve into multicelluar cloud like organisms?
Edited by Ànraich, Jul 28 2008, 04:32 PM.
We should all aspire to die surrounded by our dearest friends. Just like Julius Caesar.

"The Lord Universe said: 'The same fate I have given to all things from stones to stars, that one day they shall become naught but memories aloft upon the winds of time. From dust all was born, and to dust all shall return.' He then looked upon His greatest creation, life, and pitied them, for unlike stars and stones they would soon learn of this fate and despair in the futility of their own existence. And so the Lord Universe decided to give life two gifts to save them from this despair. The first of these gifts was the soul, that life might more readily accept their fate, and the second was fear, that they might in time learn to avoid it altogether." - Excerpt from a Chanagwan creation myth, Legends and Folklore of the Planet Ghar, collected and published by Yieju Bai'an, explorer from the Celestial Commonwealth of Qonming

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I'm going back to basics.

That would be interesting. What were they like in 3001?
Something is upsetting the ostriches.

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Ànraich
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There were delicate animals that wafted along with the wind. They floated in a calmer layer of Jupiter, the eye of the Great Hurricane (Great Red Spot). There were lots of them, some looking like big blimps with tentacles hanging down from what could only be some kind of mouth, some were like kites that shot bursts of electricity at predators...There wasn't much description because shortly after that the Builders (creaters of the iconic Monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey) collapsed Jupiter into a sun in order to force the evolution of intelligent life on Europa.
Edited by Ànraich, Jul 28 2008, 04:33 PM.
We should all aspire to die surrounded by our dearest friends. Just like Julius Caesar.

"The Lord Universe said: 'The same fate I have given to all things from stones to stars, that one day they shall become naught but memories aloft upon the winds of time. From dust all was born, and to dust all shall return.' He then looked upon His greatest creation, life, and pitied them, for unlike stars and stones they would soon learn of this fate and despair in the futility of their own existence. And so the Lord Universe decided to give life two gifts to save them from this despair. The first of these gifts was the soul, that life might more readily accept their fate, and the second was fear, that they might in time learn to avoid it altogether." - Excerpt from a Chanagwan creation myth, Legends and Folklore of the Planet Ghar, collected and published by Yieju Bai'an, explorer from the Celestial Commonwealth of Qonming

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Livyatan


The concept of life on Jovian planets has always intrigued me; they certainly would not resemble Terran life.
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Ànraich
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Large cloud plants that undergo some form of chemosynthesis using the ammonia in the Jovian atmosphere, filter feeders that eat the plants, predators that feast on the filter feeders and other predators...It's interesting to think all that would exist and yet most of them would be so delicate they tear like rice paper and weight almost nothing (on Earth anyways)...
We should all aspire to die surrounded by our dearest friends. Just like Julius Caesar.

"The Lord Universe said: 'The same fate I have given to all things from stones to stars, that one day they shall become naught but memories aloft upon the winds of time. From dust all was born, and to dust all shall return.' He then looked upon His greatest creation, life, and pitied them, for unlike stars and stones they would soon learn of this fate and despair in the futility of their own existence. And so the Lord Universe decided to give life two gifts to save them from this despair. The first of these gifts was the soul, that life might more readily accept their fate, and the second was fear, that they might in time learn to avoid it altogether." - Excerpt from a Chanagwan creation myth, Legends and Folklore of the Planet Ghar, collected and published by Yieju Bai'an, explorer from the Celestial Commonwealth of Qonming

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Saxophlutist
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Gas giant life would be difficult to evolve because of the lack of any solid surfaces for liquid to collect on, therefore, acting as a concentrated soup of chemical to catalyse metabolic reactions. Introduced life I think may be possible though, assuming the cells can keep buoyant. Maybe this could be the beginning of a new arms race! :D
An introduced cell chemosynthetic starts to multiply and speciate. As the cell populations start to mutate the more buoyant varieties have better survival rates. Cell make colonial aggregations that as a whole have better ability to control buoyancy. (Thus balloon-like colonies evolve)
A large problem I see would be getting all of the raw materials, especially carbon to build structure off of. Then again, I haven't look into the chemical structure of gas giants well enough to extrapolate much of the subject.
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Livyatan


I'd love to see giant chemosynthetic balloons floating around the stormy clouds of the gas planets. :D
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PousazPower
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Jul 27 2008, 10:47 PM
Eh, I'm not totally sure about this. Is it not possible for life to develop on land first and then take advantage of the low gravity through flight? I think Abiogenisis's designs also have the advantage of better structure.
Yes, but why would they form solid agglomerations if there wasn't any gravity to begin with? The only way I can think this would work would be if the planet started out with some gravity, like that on Earth or Mars, and then it suddenly disappeared for some reason. Then the animals could evolve to cope with the lack of gravity.
Edited by PousazPower, Aug 3 2008, 02:36 PM.
Was your nose discovered or invented?

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