Aliens Continued

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Realistically speaking, multi-species governments shouldn't be possible. Humans can barely coordinate together in large states, let alone unite our whole planet, and we all have the same base psyche, values, goals, needs, etc. The best we might get would be basic communication and exchange of ideas and technology, but otherwise staying segregated from one another.

>>50123836

Light is a pretty effective communicative tool. As is sound. But would the senses be different is these aspects were somehow changed?

Naturally, there's also body language, the tone and context, and other senses like scent and touch. If you're looking for differences you'd have to examine how these things might be different where these aliens come from or how they might have evolved to utilize some scents more than others.

>>50123945

If you're thinking about entire species working as whole governments together. It's quite possible to find a group of individuals or organizations within those species who find it advantageous to work together toward a common goal or purpose.

>>50123945
I think some form of interspecies government could be possible, but it would probably have to give plenty of autonomy to individual worlds so they can best govern how works for them. Mostly it would be an exchange of technology and idea.

>>50123945
Alien morality and values are certainly inscrutable as is, but there's no reason why an alien race wouldn't be somewhat similar to us. If they evolved from pack omnivores, or maybe even pack carnivores, they might be close enough to us to have stable interactions with.

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>>50123962
You can look at other senses species use here on Earth. The biggest would be echolocation, especially in any area that wouldn't evolve eyes.

Another big one would be producing and detecting electrical currents, which some species of sharks and eels can do.

>>50123994

Consider civilization and science as we know it is a group effort. Would an intelligent solitary animals ever develop sentience? Possibly but not from what we've seen. Greater brain mass seems to stem from having to have it on hand for communicative purposes, which evolve to become larger to better communicate more complex ideas and understand more complex ideas.

It's why I think Earthly biology is actually a good standard to look at. There's a lot of varied traits and ways to do things, and we can see how these might pan out on a larger scale, or at least theorize. If evolution works much the same elsewhere as on Earth (or at least Earth-like environments), shouldn't we also assume that similar threads might tie together behavior, like pack communication, coordination, and teamwork?

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Happy to come to my *house* some more times. I am Orz.
I do not have the name because I am Orz. Orz is the name.
Do you want to *squirt*?
If you want to, then you do. It is best, I know it.

>>50124047

The Orz need to Orz more copypasta.

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Does anyone have stories where humans are the aliens, that are also not HFY in the extreme?

>>50124233
>~Where would you like the couch moved?~

>>50124105

None that I know of? I like the whole humanity getting up there and meeting other races of weird shit but taking maybe a star trek approach to things.

Got my own but that's self wank shit. I'll look into it more.

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>>50124105
I was about to post a rant about how that's very, very difficult to do.

Then I remembered: http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/watts_01_10/

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If two species cohabilitate a region of a planet, and both are members of some larger interstellar agreement or some shit...Can friendship form? like the friendship between pets? sure we aren't the same but we don't kill eachother and enjoy eachothers strange company.

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>>50124105
http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html

Designing Aliens from Scratch:
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Putting it into practice: Designing creatures on Hera
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Side notes: How to determine the colour of your worlds
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>>50110367

>>50124986
most of these civilizations have studied eachother for a long time, and with AI assistance have figured out ways of transfering information enough that technology can be shared.

>>50124865
This one has always bugged me. It doesn't make sense. If they come from a world that is silicon based or something, their linguistic equivalent of meat would be machines, and machines would be meat. Right? If they were to use the English word, "meat" they would be referring to the flesh of an animal or animal-like being. If they say "machine" they must be referring to things made of sentient artifice, so why would there be confusion? I can maybe forgive it as them not understanding the language they're speaking, but misunderstanding in a way both understands, but it still just rubs me the wrong way.

>>50124828
Oh wow, this is really cool. The idea that every other world in the galaxy has non definite, plastic entities and that Earth is the only one that doesn't kind raises my hackles, but otherwise this is super interesting.

Given the pervading theory that MacReady gives Childs one of the Molotovs to drink because he knows the Thing wouldn't recognize that the taste was wrong, I wonder what it would be thinking if he were to kill it. Defeated by clumps of thought hidden in skulls.

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Is talk about artificial aliens, or human made but still very far removed from human artificial beings, cool? I'm working on a setting right now where humans have basically been forced to become galactic gypsies and giant computers have taken to using the name Humanity for themselves. I just don't know how to make a computer seem alien.

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>>50125462
AI aliens are fine too.

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>>50125173
>>50115804
On Earth, segmentation was a fairly early adaptation. It's very visible in arthropods like millipedes, or in Burgess shale arthropods, or in your own spinal column. It's a handy trick - once you have segments, you can add or remove or fuse segments with relatively little evolutionary effort. It would take a huge number of mutations to add a 3rd pair of limbs to a mammal, but adding or removing a pair to a segmented arthropod is pretty much how we ended up with the variety we currently have. There are chapters in "Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History" that deal exclusively with this phenomenon.

But on Hera, it's a relatively late development. Only the Tiny Rift Worms develop it, but once they do, the advantages become clear.

The Segmented Worms have individual fins on each segment, rather than one long body-length fin. This requires a slightly more complex movement method, so they grow "sticks" in the middle of each segment fins, like paddles.

Some of the Coated Rift Worms have stopped moving entirely, building metal shells close to the volcanic vents, where it's difficult to dislodge them. Their single-celled coatings have developed complex relationships with the worms, feeding in nutrients, receiving protection and proteins, and even inhabiting inner tracts of the now-immobile worms. We're going to call this branch the Rift Filters now, as they are essentially filter feeders, but they filter

The image attached deals with Earth chemistry specifically, but for rocky worlds like Hera with water-based oceans, I don't think the chemistry would change much.

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>>50125462
The same caveats that apply to alien evolved intelligence design also apply to alien constructed intelligence design (or potentially, human intelligence design).

You need to be ready to play six steps ahead of your players (or leave enough vague hints that you can later /seem/ like you had it all planned). Sufficiently advanced intelligence might manipulate without even being conscious of it, creating fake stiuations to get what they want.

For example, the PCs might decide to explore a crashed ship.

It later turned out that one of the "giant computers" planted a secret command on the ship during a pirate attack it also orchestrated, that caused the ship to crash at a particular location, to lure the PCs off their usual route and to that location (via faked rumours about treasure inserted into the local newsnet /only for the PCs/), so that the cargo /crates/ the PCs are carrying (which are actually disguised AI drones, the cargo is legit) can evade the usual quarantine protocols (the PCs are operating illegally) and get close enough to their real objective.

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>>50125534
Floaters on land have adopted 2 major forms to deal with the weather. The plate forms are broad and ridged. Most of them look like those mats you store shoes on. They are the largest creatures on Hera at the moment, reaching sizes of up to a meter long.

The Pillar Form Floaters go for vertical height, but also dig into the earth for stability. While the Plate Forms still use iron for stability, the Pillar Forms use less energy-intensive carbon to grow. This makes them more vulmnerable to the atmosphere, but some creatures that have evolved to deal with iron-walled creatures have trouble with these grease-coated stumps. The slightly less dense and brown air means the Floaters have plenty of energy to spread across the land.

The major variant of the Jawed Sulphur Worms uses its jaws to pry apart rocks to reveal minerals and smaller worms, not to snap and crush other creatures of equivalent size. The "muscles" of contracting tissue involved are located around the middle of the creature, connected by "tendons" to the two symmetrical metal-tipped plates at the worm's front. Digging also requires more subtle movement, so the fins of these worms have split, with three separate flaps on either side of their bodies. Again, most worms are less than five centimetres long.

We've already mentioned the Sense-Tube worms, but a variant has evolved that is curved like the letter "c", and scoots backwards. This adaptation lets them jet directly away from predators, but does make traditional face-first consumption methods tricky. The Reverse worms rely on sediment for their food.

The Slow Digestion worms have developed very efficient methods of turning consumed creatures into useful resources, and are the apex predators of Hera's seas. The two major Orders are the Sinkers and the Hunters. Sinkers consume prey animals until their primary digestive sack is full, then sink into barren waters as they digest, away from other predators. Hunters are much more active.