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Anonymous
ITT: Xenobiology.
>> Anonymous
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>> Anonymous
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>> Anonymous
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Could anything like this actually exist?
>> Anonymous
>>244741
OH LAWDY IZZAT SOME WAYNE DOUGLAS BARLOWE?
>> Anonymous
>>244741

Isn't it supposed to be astrobiology?
>> Anonymous
>>244755
I guess it would if anyone discovered life on stars.
>> Anonymous
>>244753
It says Alex R.
>> Anonymous
>>244752
Why couldn't it?
>> Anonymous
Alien's don't exist. God told me so.
>> Anonymous
>>244775
They sure is don't.
>> Anonymous
>>244766
godwins law
>> Anonymous
I think that would be interesting to breed some kind of rapid reproduction animal in microgravity...

They could leave a satelite equiped with cameras, sensors, some vegetation and create a artificial environment and breed flyes (or any other fast reproduction anymal) and see how evolution is in a 0G habitat
>> Anonymous
>>244785
Actually it's theorized that anything which lives for several generations in a microgravity environment tend to be dull witted. The decreased gravity does not require fast reflexes and the organism does not exert itself as much.
>> Anonymous
>>244793
Leave two species together, species 1 eats species 2.
this way they will need their reflexes
>> Guodzilla
Check this out:
http://www.nemoramjet.com/snaiad.html
>> Anonymous
>>244824
>snaiad

OH FUCK NO
>> Anonymous
>>244752

At first this creature looked impossible. Then I noticed ears, eyes, etc. Strangely humanized it.

Too bad even if we find sentient aliens at the caveman level of intelligence we will probably try to nuke them from orbit.
>> Anonymous
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>>244824
Awesome!
Fuckers kills with a big pelvic spike!

Raep to death!
>> Anonymous
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We need some Barlowe up in dis thread.
>> Anonymous
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>>244855
>> Guodzilla
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Want an alien?
Here. . .
Have a Zanti Misfit.
>> Anonymous
>>244836
st00pid
For maximal leverage, a spike like that has to be anchored to some braced structure, like an arm, leg, head, jaw etc. Even if it's anchored to the base of the spine, that's not enuff leverage. Why not have the same structure on the forelimbs or head?
>> Anonymous
>>244752
Aliens that are actually alien. Imagine that.
>> Anonymous
>>245237
Insufficient creativity and/or he's applying human semantics to what should be an alien.
>> Anonymous
>>245237
That spike looks retractile (it seems to have some kind of structure to stab)

The most weird thing is not the spike dick, it's that weird mouth (in the second head), if you eat another animal would be interesting to have something to bite.

The genital head could evolve to a arm-like structure, but the mouth would have something hard (beack, teeth, fangs)

I would like to see other creatures of that imaginary world, all the ones in that site seems to have a common terrestrian origin (like mammals) I'm really interested in invertebrades (in Earth we have squids, mantis, ants, dragonflies, crabs, shrimps, crayfish, jellyfishes, coral, etc It would need a lot of imagination to create originals)
>> Anonymous
>>244741
>>244749
http://www.alexries.com/
>> Guodzilla
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People, PEOPLE!!!!!
Now, cuh-MAAAWN!!!
An extraterrestrial thread, and NOBODY'S posted this yet?????
(sigh)
>> Guodzilla
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Alien pics are fantasmic, but it's all speculative science. I'll switch the thread's course a bit with this link:

http://www.unet.univie.ac.at/~a0000265/Spec/

and post a pic from the site.
Enjoy!
>> Guodzilla
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Also, alien lifeforms don't necessarily have to be
EXTRATERRESTRIAL.
Here's a pic of Dixon's Night Stalker, from the classic "After Man: A Zoology of the Future."
>> Hyper Cutter !XQ6W0CNp/o
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>>246131
>> A Recommendation... Aynon
Read "Barlow's Guide to Extraterrestrials".
That is all.
>> Guodzilla
>>246359
I have. . .It's another classic.
>> Guodzilla
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>> Jesus H. Christ !!nwi78PCb+iZ
>>244741

Personally, a lot of xenobiology is unimaginative.

It's a lot of "Let's take Earth animal A, combine it with Earth animal B, but it lives where Earth animal C does."

There is rarely anything original.
>> Anonymous
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>>246417

Barlowe's aliens don't seem to resemble any known animal species or at least none of the kingdoms I know of. Hell, even the line between plant and animal is blurred with some of them.
>> Anonymous
>>246418
Wayne Barlowe didn't invent those creatures, he just illustrated aliens based on descriptions from sci-fi literature.
>> Anonymous
>http://www.nemoramjet.com/snaiad.html

What the fuck is this crap? Second head? What the fuck? It's just a bunch of mutated Mammals and BonyFish.
>> Anonymous
>>246435
Do they even have eyes? Why is it that so many xeno-artists seem to hate eyes?
>> Anonymous
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3106679767514635043&q=Alien+PLanet&ei=aPQlSLj_OIvA4
ALuibHkCQ

Discovery Channel's take on Barlowe's xenobiology book.
>> Guodzilla
Mebbe some1 can help:
There was a series by National Geographic called "Extraterrestrial." It aired about the same time as "Alien Planet," but only "Alien Planet has made it to DVD. Does any1 know if the NGS program is/ever will be released? For those of you in the UK it was aired by the BBC as "Alien Worlds."

THXBI
>> Anonymous
>>246444

I've seen both, and the NGS one sucks compared to Alien Planet.

But if you really want to see it, it might be on Google Video. Or maybe you can torrent it.
>> Anonymous
>>246444

found it

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8412353167450847437&q=Extraterrestrial%2BNational+Geogra
phic&ei=6fslSLvVG4vS4QLOso3iCQ
>> Anonymous
>>246445
Is the Alien Planet available anywhere? The only thing I found was a videos full of talking heads (or in the case of Stephen Hawking, talking synthesizer).
>> Anonymous
>>246447

I posted the link to Alien Planet earlier in the thread>>246442
>> Anonymous
>>246452

OK, there is a lot of talking heads, but there's more than that.
>> Jesus H. Christ !!nwi78PCb+iZ
>>246418

Bad example... That one was first conceived to be something like a three-toed sloth (they can grow algae on their fur) but much bigger.... Then somewhere they did start to get original with the whole giant flat elephant thingy.
>> Anonymous
>>246435
the second head is the real head and the first is a sexual organ and a limb together
>> sage
>>246447
the DVD has some interesting visuals, but they're all CGI rendition of Barlowe's aliens from his book "Expedition."
(Nothing intrinsically BAD about that per se, since I'm something of a Barlowe fan. For other WDB fans out there, it appears he's starting up his "Thype" storyline again--yay!)
>> Guodzilla
>>246447

the DVD has some interesting visuals, but they're all CGI rendition of Barlowe's aliens from his book "Expedition."
(Nothing intrinsically BAD about that per se, since I'm something of a Barlowe fan. For other WDB fans out there, it appears he's starting up his "Thype" storyline again--yay!)
I just googled "Alien Worlds DVD" and it's available from the UK! When I get paid this coming week I am SO getting it. Yay#2!
>> Anonymous
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>>246086
>> Anonymous
>>246603
I've watched something like half of it, and it seems like Barlowe has gone to extreme lengths to produce the least likely creatures imaginable. Echolocating eyeless diurnal creatures with bioluminescent organs on a planet with ample light? Elephant-footed bipeds? Bipedal mountain-sized monsters on a planet that does have quadrapeds? Don't even get me started on the freak with the fused leg pairs. It's all just weirdness for the sake of weirdness, and at the expense of realism.
>> Anonymous
>>247278
you'd be surpised how weird nature is

think about it, if the turtle didnt exist you'd be calling the guy who draws them, stupid

think about it an animal whose ribs are on the outside and they developed and fused together into a shell?
>> Anonymous
>>246134
I own a couple plates from that book...awesome stuff
>> Anonymous
>>247295
No, everything in nature actually makes evolutionary sense. Our understanding on some details may be vague, but the big lines are clear. This isn't about some minor weirdness like the carapace of the turtle. In fact it's not really all that unusual. Now, animals with no eyes living on a planet with plenty of light and using BIOLUMINESCENCE, for all the god's sake, that is FUCKING RETARDED! It's practically the same as making an animal that communicates by changing colour and is BLIND! GET IT?
>> Anonymous
nature is weird not saying that it doesnt make any sense
>> Anonymous
>>247304
why do they have to have eyes if they evolved on a planet with light?
>> Anonymous
also are there any other characteristics of the biolumenesence?
>> Anonymous
>>247306
Think about it. Pretty much every organism on this planet that is exposed to light has the ability to sense it. Just about every mobile multicellular organism that lives in an environment with ample light has eyes. Why? Because the better informed you are about your environment, the more likely you are to survive in the great struggle that is evolution. This is why life has repeatedly and convergently evolved very similiar structures for sight. All the major lines of animal life have them. Only those that live in environments that lack light or where there is almost no visibility otherwise have they been lost. Even single-celled organisms that are too simple to ever evolve the complex structures needed for sight can sense light, which is a precursor to sight.

And it's not just light. Animals tend to have senses for everything that carries useful information. Senses of sight, medium vibration (e.g. hearing) and smell, heat and touch have evolved independently in all sorts of creatures in environments where they convey useful information. Extra senses like electroreception or echolocation have evolved as addition where some of these senses fail, or as additions to the sensory spectrum if they aid survival. As a rule, senses are not lost where they are useful, they are accumulated.

So, if you have a planet with plenty of light, where visibility is just as good as on Earth, you don't need to explain why animals there have eyes. Instead you HAVE to explain why they DON'T have them, if they are for some reason absent.
>> Anonymous
>>247321
Also, an afterthought about echolocation. Echolocation is an active sense. You need to be transmitting sound to receive echos to build your picture of the surrounding environment. That means you are a constant source of sound when you use it, and without it, you can't tell what's happening around you. So either you reveal your location or you remain blind, there's no middle ground.

Sight, on the other hand, is a passive sense. You are essentially just picking up photons reflected from your surroundings. You can remain completely still, completely undetectable, and still see everything around you. It's perfect both for an ambush predator and hiding prey.

In an environment dominated by blind echolocating creatures, any creature with even rudimentary sight would gain an advantage. A predator with vision would make a killing, since prey adapted to sense the echolocation of a predator would never sense it coming. A prey animal with vision could remain perfectly still and yet see the predators without giving away its location by its own sensory vocalizations. It might even be able to communicate visually with others of its species using colours or light, and the predators would be none the wiser. Ergo, as soon as sight does appear, it will immediately become a requisite. Just what happened during the cambrian explosion.
>> Anonymous
I recall seeing a fantastic TV-movie thing a little while ago in a similar vein. It's a story about two intelligent probed that crash-land on a planet, get separated, and explore the planet while trying to relocate each other. It was full of very well-thought out alien animals, and the climax, where they meet up to discover the main, intelligent form on the planet was fantastic.

Anyone know what I'm talking about?
>> sage
>>247726
"Alien Planet," on An/Plan. It's been mentioned time and again on this thread.