Alien Biology

[The Shadow (OP)]

This is a reply to a post in the Suggestions thread:

Technically it is possible for a species to breath radiation, after all it's sort of a kind of energy.

I specified chemistry-based life.  Stuff that "breathes radiation" is definitely not based on chemistry.

And Oxygen is indeed highly toxic to beings not accustomed to it, just like

Certainly.  What's your point?

There were some experiments a while back that showed that life could exist based on elictricity, inside a constant voltage, they sort of developed charge cores with a double ion shere around it that grew and split like our cells do.
Sure, that was primitive, but it would work as a proof of concept.

Any sufficiently large flow of energy could hypothetically support something like life.  I was restricting myself to chemistry-based life, as it's the only kind we remotely understand.

A race with a hivemind could probably also do with a less reactive gas to fuel their bodily reactions, I mean, a spacefaring race could just as well be intelligent goo.

Highly doubtful.  How is this intelligent goo manipulating things in order to build starships?  Why does goo have any evolutionary pressure to become intelligent in the first place?

And playing a race of "plants" that sustain themselves with photosynthesis sounds like a plan aswell, so breathing carbon dioxide is also an option.

While conceivable, this also doesn't sound at all likely.  Again, why would a plant experience any pressure to become intelligent?  Also, plant metabolism doesn't supply enough energy for locomotion, running a brain, that kind of thing.  Like I said, it's *complex animal life* that needs oxygen or something equally energetic.  You can certainly get an ecosystem without oxygen;  it happened, in fact.  Still does - with bacteria.

And then chemosynthesis would be another possible, maybe on some planets theres atmospheres that support that kind of breathing to a degree that intelligent life can be sustained.

I don't understand what you're driving at here.  Name me a metabolism that *doesn't* synthesize chemicals.

And a race that originates from oceans and thus needs water (which contains oxygen, most likely) is also far from impossible, dolphins are close to that already.

Yes, this is quite possible.  They are highly unlikely to be starfarers without help, though.

Btw, the cambrian explosion is of course possible due to the occurrence of oxygen, but maybe it's also because of a suspected higher amount of carbon dioxide, which is rather good for plants, and because it's quite likely two thirds of the planet were deep frozen just a few dozen million years before.

You say these things as if they were disconnected.

[UnLimiTeD]

See, why exactly do we need to understand life forms that much to simulate them here?
I would love for SM functions to create a machine race or a race based on energy.
It's not we need to entirely understand them, we've yet to fully understand our own genetic code, or, how exactly a brain works.
Chemosynthesis is what we find in Hot Vent structures, and is basically based on organisms relying on bacteria to produce food for them.
Such organisms could effectively breath sulfur or other substances, but are likely to be based in some form of liquid, and require high temperatures.
In a suitable environment, who knows.

I've never said that Water organisms would develop into space without help, but hey, still possible they still do after in given circumstances.

Plants have the same "reasons" to become intelligent we do.
In an aggressive Biosphere, where energy is sufficient, they could just as well develop a kind of intelligence, most likely the "hive-mind" type.

About the goo:
A while ago, someone found a giant ball of amoeba in a cave that sustained itself by sending warrior amoeba out in large chunks to defend the cluster or hunt.
Don't ask me why they should do that, but the so called "swarm Intelligence" works even without the parts themselves being overly intelligent.
A huge amount of Ants will eventually find the perfect path from food to hive, even though a single ant wouldn't live long enough to do it itself.
Today, programs are based on that kinda stuff, if you want to find the shortest travel route, simulate a swarm going from A to B, it will be a lot faster than a conventional task of calculating it.

I'm quite aware that the Cambrian explosion isn't connected to only one thing, thats why I'm saying.
Oxygen isn't the only reason, and thus not the only possibility.

Radiation Breathing would just be working on the basis of received energy, either through some sort of elusive reactions, similar to how we use Oxygen, or through the creation of an electric field, as proposed with an energy based race.
It would hypothetically even be possible to have a race entirely based on energy currents that use mass as a propellant just as we require a constant supply of energy that we gain through chemical reactions, though we will never ever understand those.

A machine race created by who ever could be largely silicon based, as it sustains it's energy hunger through other means than breathing.

Those possibilities are something that would surely improve on existing SM functions for RP campaigns.

[The Shadow (OP)]

See, why exactly do we need to understand life forms that much to simulate them here?
I would love for SM functions to create a machine race or a race based on energy.
It's not we need to entirely understand them, we've yet to fully understand our own genetic code, or, how exactly a brain works.

Oh, well, a machine race is a whole 'nother ball of wax, of course.

Plants have the same "reasons" to become intelligent we do.
In an aggressive Biosphere, where energy is sufficient, they could just as well develop a kind of intelligence, most likely the "hive-mind" type.

Really?  Then how come we don't see any smart plants?  They seem to get by just fine by fast, massive reproduction for the most part.

About the goo:
A while ago, someone found a giant ball of amoeba in a cave that sustained itself by sending warrior amoeba out in large chunks to defend the cluster or hunt.
Don't ask me why they should do that, but the so called "swarm Intelligence" works even without the parts themselves being overly intelligent.
A huge amount of Ants will eventually find the perfect path from food to hive, even though a single ant wouldn't live long enough to do it itself.
Today, programs are based on that kinda stuff, if you want to find the shortest travel route, simulate a swarm going from A to B, it will be a lot faster than a conventional task of calculating it.

Definitely weird.  And yes, I could imagine a swarm intelligence.  I just don't imagine it would happen very often.

I'm quite aware that the Cambrian explosion isn't connected to only one thing, thats why I'm saying.
Oxygen isn't the only reason, and thus not the only possibility.

Well, you'll have to take it up with the literature.  The advent of oxygen is what *caused* the ice ages.  And yes, the ice ages did prevent animal life from taking off for a while.  But good luck finding someone out there who thinks that oxygen wasn't necessary for the Cambrian radiation.

Radiation Breathing would just be working on the basis of received energy, either through some sort of elusive reactions, similar to how we use Oxygen, or through the creation of an electric field, as proposed with an energy based race.
It would hypothetically even be possible to have a race entirely based on energy currents that use mass as a propellant just as we require a constant supply of energy that we gain through chemical reactions, though we will never ever understand those.

As already stated, I was talking about chemistry-based life.  Anything that "breathes radiation" is most assuredly not based on chemistry.  An energy race would presumably be based on nuclear physics, or something even weirder.

A machine race created by who ever could be largely silicon based, as it sustains it's energy hunger through other means than breathing.

Sure, it's possible.  I would warn the machine intelligences out there that the second law of thermodynamics won't let them raise humans for energy, even if they are plugged into the Matrix.  (That movie would have been so much better if they were using the humans for processing power.  That scene with the coppertop propelled me right out of suspension of disbelief.)

[UnLimiTeD]

Well, we've found a middle ground surprisingly quickly.
Btw, again, I'm not saying that the cambrian "let's get more" stuff was possible without oxygen, but that it wouldn't have been necessary to result in intelligent life, and in itself is not a guarantee for it either, or in short:
Oxygen is not the only possibility, it just happens to be the one we have here.

Just, as Aurora doesn't really simulate all the needs and traits of humanity, it should be possible to have a race breath water, require radiation, or, in case of machines, not breath at all.

(Imagine a radiation race, you can bombard a planet with impunity as the radiation is required instead of a problem, but you have to waste expensive missiles on any planet to make it habitable. Ok, thats just dreaming, that won't happen, but it sure is interesting.)

[Andrew]

Technically it is possible for a species to breath radiation, after all it's sort of a kind of energy.
!^^

Just a Question have you ever studied any science at any level ever?
Radiation is EM Energy correct (or High velocity particles alpha and Beta , fast neutron etc) .
Oxygen is matter, particularly an atom on the periodic table usually found as a gas .
Breathing involves the respiration process , this in any life form is going to involve a chemical reaction which produces energy (Most life on Earth uses Oxygen/hydrogen/carbon reactions)
The end result of this is that YOU CANNOT POSSIBLY BREATHE RADIATION AS IT IS NOT MATTER!!!!!!!!

Just copied this over from teh suggestion thread to save ranting in the more sueful thread

[praguepride]

I'm not a scientist nor do I have any background in biology, but why do we have to limit a space game with "trans-newtonian elements" to "earth logic."

Sure chemistry might say that Oxygen (or another high-energy chemical) is necessary for advanced life, but then again physics would say that you can't do the things that trans-newtonian elements can do.

Our understanding of chemistry is purely in earth-like environments. Who knows, perhaps at 0.5g's life can ge sustained at lower energy levels because it doesn't have to fight gravity as much. Or lifeforms on higher energy planets (i.e. ones that recieve more energy from the sun) could compensate for a low-energy chemical basis by somehow abosrbing energy from the environment.

Now, some of that might just be the ludicrious ravings of an ignorant mass, but why should we restrict a space game with earth logic?

[The Shadow (OP)]

There's two kinds of "realism".

The first kind is where we come up with a self-consistent system for how things deviate from reality-as-we-know-it.  The Trans-Newtonian elements fit in this category - and while I have a few nits to pick, I won't pick them here.

But in SF, authors usually try to keep the first kind to a minimum.  The rest of the universe works as-we-know-it - the second kind of 'realism'.  Steve seems, like any (reasonably) hard-SF writer, to value this kind of realism.  Certainly his system-generation code is pretty good - astonishingly good for a game.

There's a difference between changing high technology, and changing the way physics works when left to itself.  And frankly, it is, in my opinion, often more *interesting* to work around the limits nature gives you, rather than hand-waving them away.

[UnLimiTeD]

Those limits are none.

This is not physics, it is biology.
As said, Life based purely on electricity is proven to be possible, just no one wanted to build huge generators and wait 2 billion years to test if it will become intelligent.

@Andrew:
Alpha Radiation are practically fully ionized Helium Atoms, 2 Protons, 2 Neutrons, Beta Radiation are Electrons.
They have an inherent charge, and a race that requires that kind of energy, which we probably wouldn't call "breathing", could sustain itself by voltage differences on it's skin, or by inheriting bacteria or elements that want to stay the way they are and release energy whenever they switch back to their natural form after absorbing radiation, which would be the mentioned chemosynthesis. (unlikely with radiation)
Gamma Radiation is a form of energy, as it's basically Photons, those would still work with the second possibility.
Breathing is not necessary for intelligent life, if you create an intelligent machine, it won't breath aswell, at least not in our sense, and given that huge of a universe and practically infinite time (well probably only a few dozen billion years), it is very likely a race will develop somewhere that inherits some of these characteristics.
If we expect life to be probable at all, maybe life came to earth through some comet and the chance to actually develop on it's own is too low to happen on earth^^.

We can't know.

Btw, SF contains the J'rill, I think atleast not breathing at all should ba an option, possible with the penalty of treating reative gases (both methane and oxygen) as toxic.

[The Shadow (OP)]

Those limits are none.

This is not physics, it is biology.

You aren't making any sense.  Are you seriously suggesting that biology (of any sort) isn't limited by the laws of physics?!

Life forms do not receive a "Get Out of the Laws of Thermodynamics Free" card when they're born, after all.  If they did, hamsters on wheels could be perpetual motion machines, powering the world.

As said, Life based purely on electricity is proven to be possible, just no one wanted to build huge generators and wait 2 billion years to test if it will become intelligent.

I don't think this has been 'proven'.  The experiment you mentioned sounded suggestive, but that's all.  Could you give a link on it?

Btw, SF contains the J'rill, I think atleast not breathing at all should ba an option, possible with the penalty of treating reative gases (both methane and oxygen) as toxic.

Wait, now methane is a highly reactive gas?!

No, it really isn't.  I mean, it does SN2 reactions reasonably quickly, but I wouldn't call it highly reactive.  Mostly it just sits there.  It's non-polar, not very electronegative, small, and unassuming.

It perhaps *seems* reactive to us because it burns handily...  but that's more due to the reactive nature of oxygen than methane.

[UnLimiTeD]

I meant that those are potentially breathable, thus reactive enough.
Though this is Auroras problem, actually, it should probably be Hydrogen. Isn't methane more or less the product of that?^^

The limits said are none because they don't change "how the world works".
Regarding complex Biology, we still have next to no idea how it is actually working, so coming up with strange kinds of aliens doesn't break any laws, and if it does, we can't possibly know it.

I sadly don't have a link to that experiment, I read it from a scientific paper I got by my chemistry teacher, and he didn't really dwell on it, it was more to support his view of life ("If you apply Voltage to a sausage, it smells like burning hair, now guess what's in the sausage") by ending it with the sentence "And then someone shut it down, and they were all gone")


Btw, this proof of concept did just proof that that kind of life could exist, it didn't result in actual Genetics being created. Like those experiments to produce aminoacids in what was believed to resemble the oceans a billion years ago, it was proof that life could develop in that soup, they didn't actually get any proteins.
The only reason from those experiments that we seem more likely is that we exist, over all, any kind of complex life at all, in any environment, is highly unlikely, yet it still exists.

Just as those life forms may all be unlikely, It is unlikely, nearing impossibility (of course never reaching it) that we would find an oxygen breathing race of roughly humanoid shape, that is intelligent, and has a desire to actually leave their planet.
Even if it exists, which is about as unlikely, actually finding it would pose an equally hard challenge.

Really? Then how come we don't see any smart plants? They seem to get by just fine by fast, massive reproduction for the most part.

Well, last time I checked, jellyfish did that aswell.
They don't even have a brain.

Btw, this comes up when you google "smart plants", and it's atleast going in that direction. Given an agressive Biosphere that provides enough energy by either photosynthesis or stealing it from other life forms, I think Intelligent plants would probably be a possibility. And possibly they would even breath Methane^^

[Andrew]

@Andrew:
Alpha Radiation are practically fully ionized Helium Atoms, 2 Protons, 2 Neutrons, Beta Radiation are Electrons.
They have an inherent charge, and a race that requires that kind of energy, which we probably wouldn't call "breathing", could sustain itself by voltage differences on it's skin, or by inheriting bacteria or elements that want to stay the way they are and release energy whenever they switch back to their natural form after absorbing radiation, which would be the mentioned chemosynthesis. (unlikely with radiation)
Gamma Radiation is a form of energy, as it's basically Photons, those would still work with the second possibility.
Breathing is not necessary for intelligent life, if you create an intelligent machine, it won't breath aswell, at least not in our sense, and given that huge of a universe and practically infinite time (well probably only a few dozen billion years), it is very likely a race will develop somewhere that inherits some of these characteristics.
If we expect life to be probable at all, maybe life came to earth through some comet and the chance to actually develop on it's own is too low to happen on earth^^.
.

All known.
Still think the suggestion of breathing radiation is total idiocy.
I will avoid further comment and really don't mean to be rude(although I probably am   )

[Hawkeye]

If you haven´t allraedy, you might have a look at the "Aliens" section of the Atomic Rocket site. It doesn´t concentrate on atmospheres, more on a general makeup of possible aliens

http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3aa.html

I also reccomend the site as a whole, as it deals quite nicely with a bunch of misconceptions in popular SF


(I found Aurora through that site, so I think it is in order for me to promote it here)

[UnLimiTeD]

Thats one really good page.

[praguepride]

The issue with "breathing radiation" is that radiation is a category that contains a lot of different things. Radiation comes in all kinds of sizes and effects.

Saying something can "breath radiation" is like saying you breath "gas." Although technically true, you can't abstract that out and say that you breath all gasses.

My understanding is that the radiation emitted from missile strikes is an abstraction of all sorts of "harmful" radiation. The game doesn't track little stuff, just the stuff that would kill your planet. So I'm not opposed to an alien "breathing" some specific form of radiation, but I think implying that an alien race would need to nuke a planet to colonize it is a bit of a stretch due to the abstraction involved.

[UnLimiTeD]

True, radiation can be alot, like closely orbiting a new star on a planet with low atmosphere, but talking about nuclear radiation, the one we would expect from missiles, which we perceive "harmful", theres only alpha, beta, and gamma, all of which are extremely high energy and could sustain life that has adapted to utilize it.