Spacefaring lifeforms, rare and random encounters...

Aashenfox

Aashenfox
Anyone remember the episode of Star Trek 'Tin Man' with the entity known as Gomtuu?

It was a starship sized shellfish like thing that lived the majority of its existence in space travelling between the stars, completely organic. Would be nice to have something generate a few random biological creatures (ala NMS but with a simpler, more limited algorithm), to create the occasional space ship sized lifeform encounters in space? Make people wonder if they just saw a thargoid or not. ;)

Just daydreaming out loud, maybe stick it on the long term to-do list? :)

Yes, you should be able to kill it (assuming you can survive its defenses), but I wouldn't. Maybe like NMS some could be hostile, some benign, and some even benevolent (for example, if they notice your ship is damaged, they spit out a load of titanium by way of a gift). Lots of opportunity for emergent gameplay here with little code (except the actual modelling of the biocreature components and how they fit together, which would be tougher).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_Man_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation)
 

Ouberos

Ouberos
We've got space fungus, what more do you want?
Some people.
Sheesh.

Obviously joking. Yes any new encounters in deep space would be welcome. I think the Braben once said that the chances of two intelligent species being actively space faring at the same time is fairly small though. Like infinitesimal.
 

Chrystoph

Chrystoph
David Weber wrote space faring beings in his Belisarius saga, but his existed as an energy matrix. They looked vaguely like luminescent whales.
 

Archduke

A
Whilst organisms such as the much touted tardigrades are shown to survive in space conditions, the issues with the organism as presented by OP in being able to thrive in the vacuum opf space are considerable especially in terms of energy considerations. There is little availability for enegery other than radiation from stellar sources. This would either be great such that the oganism would overheat or too little that it would spend most of its lifetime in a virtual hibernative or dormant state.
 

kmwmtd

K
Aashenfox said:
Would be nice to have something generate a few random biological creatures (ala NMS but with a simpler, more limited algorithm), to create the occasional space ship sized lifeform encounters in space? Make people wonder if they just saw a thargoid or not. ;)/QUOTE]

I saw a massive, bloated life-form in space the other day! Then I realised it was my reflection in the canopy as I've eaten the entire ship's supply of space pies, but I am incapable of leaving the pilot's chair to get any exercise. Being in zero-g doesn't help either :mad: I have come to the conclusion that Mass Lock Factors are caused by the pilots, not the ships ;)
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Aashenfox

Aashenfox
Yeh, loads of historic examples. So many in fact as to be a glaring omission from our galaxy to date (though perhaps not so glaring as space 'weather': radiation storms, massive solar flares, gamma bursts, meteor showers, comets, etc), especially considering we have random water based life. :)

As for the radiation/heat/hibernation conundrum, on a much smaller scale of course, lizards have managed it.
 

IndigoWyrd

IndigoWyrd
Gomtuu:
Gomtuu.jpg


Moya:

mo2.jpg


Budong:

Budong_Colony.jpg


The Farpoint Station Lifeform:

farpoint_hd_886.jpg


Space-borne life forms are certainly nothing new to the sci-fi universe and would be a welcome addition - to the ones we already have - those big green flying artichokes.
 

Deleted member 115407

D
Ouberos said:
We've got space fungus, what more do you want?
Some people.
Sheesh.

Obviously joking. Yes any new encounters in deep space would be welcome. I think the Braben once said that the chances of two intelligent species being actively space faring at the same time is fairly small though. Like infinitesimal.
Click to expand...

I hear you, Ouberos. That being said, as much as I respect the lore of this game, the playing field is just too damn big and has too much potential for there not to be other things out there. I mean that from a "player interest" perspective. Basically what I mean is - to hell with the lore, I want to see fantastic stuff out there. Other civs, space whales, asteroid worms, whatever.

What makes Star Wars and Star Trek and every other space sci-fi thing out there so great is the fantastical wonderfulness of the galaxies wherein they take place.

On the other hand, in Elite, when I stare into the black, I think "Yep, there's 400 Billion star systems that are all dead and pretty much the same."

Science is boring. That's why we have science fiction :)
 

space voyager

space voyager
Would definitely love to find something. And see it! The life we do already find is a completely boring text in a scanner's description... though it would probably be a really cool thing to see!
 

Archduke

A
Aashenfox said:
Yeh, loads of historic examples. So many in fact as to be a glaring omission from our galaxy to date (though perhaps not so glaring as space 'weather': radiation storms, massive solar flares, gamma bursts, meteor showers, comets, etc), especially considering we have random water based life. :)As for the radiation/heat/hibernation conundrum, on a much smaller scale of course, lizards have managed it.
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Lizards enjoy a differential of external temperature wither by swimming or during nighttime. Lower entropy energy is conducted to rocks or water.For any spaceborne lifeform to achieve similar it must be able to motivate itself to shade - which requires some ability to propel itself whciich itself would require a significant proportion of energy (both in acceleeration and deceleration) for which again it can only radiate away excess heat - or it would ultimately burn up under the radiation of the star.
 

Aashenfox

Aashenfox
Archduke said:
Lizards enjoy a differential of external temperature wither by swimming or during nighttime. Lower entropy energy is conducted to rocks or water.For any spaceborne lifeform to achieve similar it must be able to motivate itself to shade - which requires some ability to propel itself whciich itself would require a significant proportion of energy (both in acceleeration and deceleration) for which again it can only radiate away excess heat - or it would ultimately burn up under the radiation of the star.
Click to expand...

While I appreciate the astrophysical and biological accuracy with which you critique my admittedly unlikely scenario in reality, given how cold, dead and harsh the universe appears to our primitive eyes, I do have the following advice for you: Invest in handwavium, it's great, and it makes the game more fun. ;)
 
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[VR] Deggial

[VR] Deggial
Aashenfox said:
While I appreciate the astronomical and biological accuracy with which you critique my admittedly unlikely scenario in reality, given how cold, dead and harsh the universe appears to our primitive eyes, I do have the following advice for you: Invest in handwavium, it's great, and it makes the game more fun. ;)
Click to expand...

Indeed.

The scientist in me cringes, when imagining life forms in a vacuum. The player and fan of science fiction stories wants them!

And it's not as if FDev is adamant in their "just pure & true science" approach.
We've got "brain trees" and those "vacuum corals" already (unfortunately, I haven't visited them so far. Maybe I should make the trip at some point ...)
So yes, space dragons or amoebas or beings of pure energy should be in the game at some point. I even don't think, much (any?) procedural generated variety would be necessary, as such enteties would use the whole galaxy as their dwelling and the same species therefore could be found in enormous regions of space.

Realistically, I think that large lifeforms floating in the atmosphere of gas giants will be introduced first, though.
I still think (hope!), that those planets will mark our first steps into atmospheric flight ...
 

Hadarmil

Hadarmil
I don't know how feasible space faring whales/squids/whatever are really...maybe as something local to an asteroid belt feeding off the radiation at a very specific spot and jumping between asteroids, though it will need to be pretty good at it or get extinct real fast. Making such a creature evolve without serious handwavium is pretty impossible( Those earth analogues are especially weird - what are those moving appendages for? They're definitely not moving by pushing a couple of hydrogen atoms around), not to mention something that managed to bend spacetime.

As a survivng relic made by a long dead civilization, well, we've got the anti-fed artichoke. Mybe they could stick other stuff out there.
 

Aashenfox

Aashenfox
I think it's very confident to the point of prideful folly, to believe we can rule things out in a universe we can barely see and so poorly understand. We still have elements missing from the periodic table, don't completely understand the human brain, can't perceive more than 3 dimensions (that is likely to be our big handicap compared to other possible alien lifeforms) and we think we can say what is possible in the entire universe? Come on. :)
 
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