"Complications of alien anatomy" Topic

[The idea of the larger brain is considering another hemisphere in higher mammals/man, but clearly so example by other animals that simple eyes do not require bigger brains] Yes, higher level … like us …

A simple eye or eyes, like that which would provide a 360* danger sense, just simple movement/light detectors…I suspect we have enough brain matter to spare a node or two to support this light-shadow brain tickle system.

A third eye, the classic center of the forehead type, would certainly take some extra brain matter…the idea of most of us actively using only 10% of our brains certainly could establish a reasonable reallocation of space for the new eye.

A third way of looking at things, right side and left side sort of thing, that might be a bit confusing…and we do see in some examples the three eyed character covers the other two eyes or closes them…usually this is in regards to the pineal endocrine gland "third eye", but you do see examples in media of various sorts.

But heck, I could see a bigger head…if you got a third eye then you are already taking the weirdo bus so why not a big head also? :) picture

The trouble is is that eyes of a level much over the basic type take up a lot of neural wiring and thus brain mass: in most Earth organisms, the amount of brain required to operate a limb is 90% less than that for a new optical centre. In insects, by far the largest part of the brain is concerned with eyes rather than their many limbs.

Add to this the fact that three eyes are not as great as an advantage over two as two are over one, it follows that odd numbers of eyes make little sense; on Earth the majority of animals with multiple eyes have them in groups of pairs, and for the most part the eyes that are not primary tend to bee specialised for such jobs as special wavelengths or general motion sensing.

As long as the aliens are not like 3-6 foot long insects … they can have as many eyes as they want !!

Such is the nature of consideration of alien physiology.

As much as I enjoy a conversation of hows, whys, and whats that apply to human mutations (which usually end in failure in nature in the short run), aliens, and other elements of science fiction/fantasy…this sort of debate usually takes one side of the fence or the other.

I suspect the fence is the same that cuts between any opposing side of an idea.

That said, I love science. Actual biology is amazing enough in its mundane without even considering the extreme or extreme.

When a master of science such as Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, or any of the hard science writers (this list has them and more link ) takes an idea like human adaptation it was usually with subtle grace and intellectual insight. The same work was appreciated by all those who read them, saw shows based upon them, and spoke about the ideas created by those same works…in some measure.

I use Lovecraft as a prime example of the process, not that he was a bastion of science but rather is an example whom we can all grasp without issue.

The ideals, designs, and concepts that Lovecraft created have been absorbed and used by so many levels of culture and entertainment that at times it is not even recognized as being Lovecraft…the idea of the Necronomicon for example is known to casual horror fans but the majority of these same fans do not know Lovecraft.

The best part of Lovecraft is that he rarely described the creatures of his creation, yet we as the fans know what they look and act like.

It is much like the nature of Elvis impersonators…the vast majority of Elvis impersonators do not look or sound all that much like Elvis but they do look an sound like each other.

So the greatest of us that considered the nature of alien biology offered their efforts and we appreciated, absorbed, and used in some measure…some times this creates an end result that is filtered to some degree.

Then the filtered result takes a life of its own and what was hard science becomes space opera.

We have been crushed by the ideals of space opera (of which I am a fan :) that hard science fiction (of which I am a fan :) created but now tends to take a backseat or is pushed aside for the sake of the moment.

For gaming or entertainment/media then the flood gates are opened and anything goes.

If you want to design a alien arthropod that walks on the Earth and is 100' high, well then by all means do it…sounds like fun to me…it is horrible science, but it is not meant as science or science fiction, it is science fantasy and that is ok.

The idea of human beings with something extra, before we consider aliens let us look at what we have here on Earth, is a classic of science fiction…the fear and mystery of life and more to the point death is the driving factor for most of these efforts.

A sense of cheating death or in some measure the mundane strife of life.

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Why do we as humans not have one or three eyes, because our world with all of its variables dictated that a bilateral nature is best.

If the world that squeezed life out of the ooze was alien in structure well then certainly the potential for three eyes or other more exotic senses would be considerable.

But for us, as gamers, we can and should wear the fez of suspended belief picture and let science flavor our fun…if we fight too much then the hordes of fantasy types will run us over with giant cyber-dragons that breathe fire, fly into space/time/dimension, and hold all the knowledge that was ever considered.

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The complication of alien anatomy is simply that we have a tough time with the process of alien nature because it is alien.

Science shows us the path, but fantasy is such a seductive striped snipe that we can not help ourselves and dogs will hunt.

Well … we'll just have to wait and see …

On the different points of view about xenos:

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Dan

Great find Dan, top notch! I have work from most of these artists/writers…very nice collection.

A few that popped

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Nice collection…made my day.

Filthy Prawn picture

Great coconut crab use picture

That coco crab is just plain Fugly !!!! But I hear it's good eat'n !

Greatly disappointed by Cohen & Stewart's 'What Does a Martian Look Like?' link while I've found their 'Collapse of Chaos' and 'Figments of Reality' absolutely brilliant.
Basically self-contradictory approach, alluding to the most 'unbelievable' forms of sentient life, then adding that aliens advanced enough to find us would master cybertechnologies allowing them to 'inhabit' any kind of material organism they'd like or find suitable.
Yet, while not ignoring historical 'cultural' deformations of skull, feet, lips, neck… I think more likely that any enhancement would produce an 'idealized' version of the 'original' body of the species (all humans looking like Michelangelo's statues or Adriana Karambeu…).

We are speaking of *sentient* aliens having developed advanced technologies. At 'our' (current) extremity of evolution, intelligence came from social interactions / cooperation, specially in collective hunting. Thus the very basic requirement for intelligence is *mobility* (plants never developed it, and in fixed animals -fixed echinoderms, mussels, parasites…- the nervous system is drastically regressed. Mobility, from all examples on Earth, always led to cephalisation (a permanent front were the brain and most
receptive organs are concentrated, and generally the mouth -while excretats are dropped 'behind') and bilateral symmetry. Bilateral symmetry is partly lost (seen from the outside) in lineages with reduced motility such as echinoderms, but not that 'highly' mobile urchins regained an obvious bilateral symmetry.

Then for 'technology' prehensile appendages are required to manipulate tools and, I'm afraid, *aerial life*: fire and chemistry simply cannot be discovered in water. Furthermore, 'advanced' adaptation to swimming (or, for that matter, flying at least in Vertebrates) specializes limbs that can no longer 'manipulate'.
Manipulation requires free limbs, but a *bipedal* stance is not the only solution -even not the easier nor the most likely: a 'centaur / praying mantis' bodyplan would achieve it more easily 'true bipedal movement is difficult to achieve), and hexapods, either with endoskeleton like us or exoskeleton like Arthropods (or this really original alien species in Babylon 5) would more easily keep a pai of free limbs while being adapted to running, climbing, flying (re. most dragons, angels, succubi…), whatever…

As for the *size* remember that the volume (the overall mass, the quantity of tissues to be oxygenated and fed…) increases with the cube of the linear dimension, while the section of bones, windpipe, arteries… increases only as it square. (One of the reasons you cannot have 'giant' arthropods: their 'legs' would break under thee weight, and without active breathing apparatus their tissues would not be oxygenated enough to allow even a semi-active life).

The 'humanoid' alien comes from – lack of imagination -cheapness (boys in a rubber suit, or with a little make-up) -perhaps an (unconscious) creationist background.

A totally different approach is the 'colony' one, ant hill / beehive type: but those we know on Earth are, currently, at the very beginning step of their evolution (a germinal line segegrated from the 'somatic cells', but no constant overall form: the evolutionary level of sponges, roughly).

I think more likely that any enhancement would produce an 'idealized' version of the 'original' body of the species (all humans looking like Michelangelo's statues or Adriana Karambeu…).

Highly unlikely unless you assume a monolithic human culture. Give us the ability truly choose our appearance (including inhuman forms better suited to work or environmental conditions) and looks become a statement of fashion or pragmatism. Beauty is extremely variable from one culture to another, and some will deliberately embrace the repellent or absurd to display individuality or (ironically) memebership in a subculture. I certainly wouldn't regard Michaelangelo as the peak of human perfection, and he wouldn't look the same with a set of gills and extra eyes for 360 degree vision anyway.

At 'our' (current) extremity of evolution, intelligence came from social interactions / cooperation, specially in collective hunting. Thus the very basic requirement for intelligence is *mobility*

By your own definition, the key to intelligence is not mobility, it's cooperation and the ability to communicate. A xenospecies with little or no mobility might easily develop superior communications skills via organic radio transmission, chemical cues, or just plain sonics, and their inherent lack of mobility would be an excellent impetus to drive them to true intelligence. A barely-motile photovore that supplements its diet with animal tissues might cooperate with its kin in trapping prey, eventually evolving to animal husbandry and tool use to simplify the process. It didn't happen here – that doesn't mean it hasn't happened elsewhere.

Then for 'technology' prehensile appendages are required to manipulate tools and, I'm afraid, *aerial life*: fire and chemistry simply cannot be discovered in water.

That depends on what you define as technology. Terran octopi are tool-users, although they're still at the found-item stage as far as we know – the first time a camera catches them sharpening a rock or shell that will change too. Xenospecies could easily develop some types of physical science, including aquaculture, animal husbandry, civil engineering, medicine and (within limits) chemistry – there are a wide variety of reactions that can take place in an aquatic environment, some of which can't happen in our own. They'd certainly have gaps in their knowledge, but they don't have to be stone-age primitives and might be ahead of us in some areas, especially if they have a biological leg up in some fields (eg sensitivity to electromagnetic fields, or even self-generated electrical output).

The main limitation of octopi is indeed their short lifespan: they die before the next generation hatches, thus preventing any form of 'cultural heredity', the possibility to learn, to pass on knowledge to the next generation and to accumulate new knowledge every generation. Of course, this may change…
Otherwise, octopi do have the essential: a brain and a 'hand'; but, outside water, they would barely crawl under their own weight… Like Wells' Martians, actually.
But these Martians are anatomically regressed, if I remember well?