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Showing results for tags 'wurl'.
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*cracks knuckles* I would like to begin my very first thread on the Promising Author Forum by talking about some of the sciency (and made-up) stuff behind the story Life Seed, which is my latest serial science fiction project here at GA. I will post some of the rambling thoughts which gave birth to the concept of the planet called New Skye, explain some juicy tidbits which will not make it into the main story, and of course answer any questions you guys might have! Part 1. Concerning New Skye and its selection Life Seed takes place on an alien world, where life evolved very differently from how it did on Earth. The world of New Skye is nevertheless very similar to our own planet, with comparable gravity (1.05 g), day/night cycle (23.8 hrs) and atmospheric composition (N2 76%, O2 23%, within the remainder one percent being a mixture of CO2 , O3 (in the upper atmosphere), and other trace gases). The length of each year is 492.75 days, with the planet having a mildly elliptical orbit around its main sequence star, a sun similar to our own but about 1.35 times brighter, which compensates for the increased distance between itself and New Skye as compared to Earth, and results in a comparable temperature range. The planet has a weaker magnetic field than Earth's, but all lifeforms living on it have adapted to the increased radiation from the sun. Humans living on the surface need to have regular therapeutic treatments to prevent radiation sickness and other complications, but it is required only once every two New Skye years - or once every 2.7 Earth years. New Skye is the second planet in its solar system, with the first planet being a much smaller lifeless husk, entirely devoid of atmosphere. Two gas giants orbit at much greater distances, each of them surrounded by sizeable moons, some of which have shown promising readings regarding the possibility of finding simple lifeforms in their oceans. New Skye has a single satellite to which it is tidally locked, a large moon about 1.23x the size of Earth's Moon. New Skye has no tectonic plate movement. Its planetary layout has remained unchanged for hundreds of millions of years: two large continents, isolated from one another by an enormous ocean. All of these characteristics made New Skye a prime candidate for the first colonization efforts of the coalition of worlds called the Core Systems. The generation ship Ionas, at the time the most advanced spacefaring vessel ever created, was sent on a course to the planet with the hope that humanity might find a new home there. The original crew of Ionas consisted of people carefully selected through psychological screening and compatibility networking to provide the most stable multicultural environment for what would be a journey of more than a hundred years. The so-called First Generation on board was a model of cooperation and unity of purpose. As years went by, however, the second-generation crew members found themselves facing a unique outlook in human history: they would live out their entire lives on a ship, without ever knowing Earth firsthand, and neither would they ever see New Skye. The social, cultural, and political aftershocks of this realization affected the entire societal dynamics of the Second Generation, especially after all of their forebears had passed away, when they found themselves in command of every aspect of life on board Ionas except for its unchangeable plotted course. Their children, the Third Generation, inherited some of these views, although for them it was the prospect of colonizing a new planet that was most important in their minds. The majority of the Third Generation would reach the new planet in their middle years, and many were excited to be pioneers, the first humans ever to set foot on the promising planet just a few decades' travel ahead. Part 2. Concerning alien morphology Bilateral symmetry is a very common characteristic of life on Earth, with most organisms displaying an even number of appendages and sensory organs. On New Skye, however, evolution favored morphological characteristics in multiples of three. The clearest example of this kind of evolution, and the one which elicited the greatest surprise from the new colonists, were the flying creatures. All small bird analogues and arthropods exhibit radial symmetry, with their body plan distributed along a single central axis with appendages radiating out from it. Birds, in particular, have three muscular wings which attach to specialized rotatory muscle structures which enable flight through a carefully-synchronized corkscrew motion which necessitates that the animal spiral as it flies through the air. Birds usually have a single grasping foot at one end of their body, a very strong structure which provides adequate grip for resting, mating, and hunting. The tip of their body plan ends in a lightweight beak-like organ of varying shape and size depending on the species of bird. It is divided into three sectors, all of which can open at once to allow the bird to ingest prey by trapping it within the inner mandibles and closing the beak afterwards. Some bird species have also developed highly precise funnel organs at the base of their necks which are capable of directing large quantities of air backwards in the moment before prey is caught, creating a very small but effective downdraft which slows down any flying prey so it cannot escape. Flying arthropods are somewhat different, chiefly in the fact that they are bodies are heavily segmented, tending to be much longer than the animal is wide, and exhibiting several triads of gossamer wings which beat in unison. The most remarkable of these species is the one early colonists called the hawk dragonfly, a 30 cm-long creature with twelve wings altogether, arranged in four stages radially along its body length, with each triad rotated exactly 22.5º with respect to the previous one. This arrangement allows the creature extraordinary freedom of movement, hunting capabilities, and such high speeds that their upper limit remains unknown. Their eye structure is also unique: a single compound eye, torus-shaped, rings the mandibles at the tip of their bodies. The mandibles are extendable, and it is chiefly through their use that prey is caught in midair. Although there were fears at first among the early colonists regarding whether hawk dragonflies were venomous, careful experimentation was conclusive in the negative. Before the Long Winter began, the animals were seen as helpers and pest controllers in the summer months, despite their fearsome appearance and unnerving screeching and buzzing at dusk and dawn. The spined variety of wurl which inhabit the smaller of the two continents are remarkable exceptions to the radial symmetry pattern which can be seen in nearly all other species. In fact, early genetic mapping done some time after the discovery of the Life Seed, when dazed or helpless wurl individuals were a common sight in the wilderness surrounding the colony, revealed that the genome of juvenile wurl was strikingly different from everything else which had been mapped up to that point. Aside from hypothetical, extremely primitive single-celled organisms, there was no clear common ancestor between wurl and the rest of the life on New Skye. The reason for this fact remains unknown. Read Life Seed here! If you'd like to know when I add more sciency facts, just follow this topic. Any questions you may have are also quite welcome. See you soon! -Albert
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