tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6480750207070339465.post7387239976254428264..comments2023-05-11T11:51:28.252-04:00Comments on Keys to YA: AliensA. Lockwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04978856161066277320noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6480750207070339465.post-75896102175160396622010-03-29T10:22:33.283-04:002010-03-29T10:22:33.283-04:00Great thoughts, thank you both! Your enthusiasm i...Great thoughts, thank you both! Your enthusiasm is exciting. I'm tempted now to go study as much molecular biology as I can and start designing some new "life" forms. One thing at a time! I must keep reminding myself. Still, maybe there's a short story in here somewhere... Oh, the possibilities!<br /><br />Well, Austin, next time we chat you'll have to explain some of these things in more detail for me. I'm totally fascinated by the infinite potential.A. Lockwoodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04978856161066277320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6480750207070339465.post-44467891286839323182010-03-27T19:20:18.450-04:002010-03-27T19:20:18.450-04:00Delightful Audrey! I've always had a fascinat...Delightful Audrey! I've always had a fascination with realistic but non-traditional views of extraterrestrial life. There are a few quite excellently unusual alien concepts out there, but my main scifi days were almost a decade ago so my memory is rather shaky on the particulars. The Four Lords of the Diamond by Jack Chalker, The Chaos Chronicles by Jeffrey Carver, and Mindbridge by Joe Haldeman are three of the best examples that I remember.<br /><br />Scientifically speaking, no one can honestly tell you what is or is not feasible, realistic, or possible. I think that allows for plenty of freedom on the part of an author who is willing to drastically change parameters pertaining to a new biosystem. But I would suggest making sure that a world that is host to a non-carbon based life be substantially different--I think it is the best guess of most scientists that life from an planet similar to Earth would have, at least, recognizable biological molecules, if not similar ones.<br /><br />Nanotechnology is such an exciting area of research these days that I would love to see a species that evolved on a planet where some specific set of conditions caused the formation of stable nanoparticles and tubes. The replicative unit (DNA or whatever analog) could have been shelter within that instead of a lipid bilayer. The ramifications of that alone are staggering, not to mention so many other conditions would be altered as well, producing life in an unimaginable way.<br /><br />Another form of 'life' or intelligence I've found fascinating is the energy species. Some form of organized energy currents inhabiting potentially inert and otherwise not living matter.<br /><br />And why must life live only in our dimension? Is it possible for a species to exist in four or five spatial dimensions and still interact with us in three? Or even two or one--or multiple time dimensions. Or even something we don't consider a dimension. Dimension play, to a degree, was done by Carver, but still plenty of creative space there.<br /><br />I would love for there to be more non 'Star Trek/Star Wars' aliens out there, so here's one from Iowa rooting for creative aliens!Austinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01009962844919834043noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6480750207070339465.post-36463995923352583012010-03-24T17:53:19.840-04:002010-03-24T17:53:19.840-04:00I am all for the sonar communication. :) I think...I am all for the sonar communication. :) I think there are so many places to go with that idea. I also like the idea of alien social structures that are *not* based on human ones. Even higher mammals have very different societies and can be used as models for exploring other kinds of culture. Insects have been done to death; but what about, say, orcas? Or what about a sentient non-social alien? Instead of forming its identity through prolonged and hierarchical struggles within a group it might form its identity in isolation in some completely different way. And the need or desire for companionship would be absent.<br /><br />Would this be too inhuman to relate to? Maybe as an MC, it would. But as a side character, a race encountered by a more human MC, it could be very interesting to see something really and *truly* inhuman in its thought patterns.<br /><br />I dunno. I'm just sick of "aliens" that are really just humans in disguise. :PIcohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18033213137355925129noreply@blogger.com