Mental Floss

OK, tonight we're just going to have some random thoughts on the story--stuff that came to mind after I hit "Publish," and other things.

First of all, when the two females were discussing the males, and one said that she feared the two were ready to mate, and the other agreed, I thought afterwards that the first could have added the snarky comment, "More's the pity we couldn't get them to mate with each other." And then the other would have scented her own giggle to the conversation.

The name of the planet (in their tongue) is Water. It is "said" by their skin cycling through every shade of the color blue. Think about it--how quickly can you say blue? That is how quickly their skin cycles through all the shades and variations of blue.

We have an exomoon orbiting a gas giant exoplanet orbiting a binary star. The gas giant orbits the primary star. The exomoon is tidally locked to the gas giant. Between the light reflecting from the gas giant, and the light coming from the two stars (although, the secondary star is much dimmer than the light coming from the primary) the face of the exomoon towards the exoplanet is always illuminated. The rare exception is during solar eclipses. With the exoplanet being so large in the sky, how much of a corona will be visible around it? The flip side of this (no pun intended) is that the side away from the exoplanet is dark for large periods of time. This causes quite a bit of wind as the atmosphere on the lighted (warm) side swaps out with that of the dark (cold) side.

Also, with such a large planet being the parent, in addition to two stars, what kind of tidal forces will be in effect on this exomoon? It is almost 80% water covered. So tides most likely will be far greater than on Terra.

The exomoon is close to Terra in size. It has an atmosphere, but the sentient race never came out of the water because of the horrific winds that whip around the planet due to the differences in temperatures from light to dark side--not totally dark, but dark enough long enough for ice caps to form in the months that the surface faces away from light sources.

When the ice caps break up as a star begins to light that side, occasionally bergs break off and float over inhabited areas of the planetary side. Perhaps some type of mythology forms with the people around these bergs. There will also be the possible danger of living areas being scraped up by the underside of a particularly large berg drifting into shallow areas.

Would the Garum feel the need to create any type of buildings? Perhaps. They would need to protect possessions from currents and tides. But would they need homes? Or just warehouse type buildings? Office buildings? A big pineapple-shaped house? Hardly...

Garum Bug Fix, or "How I Made Electrical Frogs"

Meh.

Enough with the Megalomaniac-In-Chief. Let’s get back to the froggies.

Last we left our Garum, we were trying to decide how they made electricity in an underwater environment. Perhaps we can have some type of an electric producing algae and have them improve its output through selective breeding?

There are already algae that produce bioluminescence. Bioelectrogenesis from a plant is possible in an alien ecology. The Terran electric eels is capable of 500 volts at 1 amp. Our algae should be more than capable of topping that in the voltage and amperage needed to run the Garum’s industry. So we put it in a box-like container made out of the non-conductive mucus plates from that mollusk we brought up last month. And the wiring we solved with the seaweed that conducted the electricity from the alien equivalent of an electric eel (which on Earth is not an eel, but a member of the knifefish family).

We take the super electrical slime and stuff it in a mucus box and hook seaweed up to it. Do we let it last for a long time? Or does it have a short life like a battery? Perhaps we have to swap them out from time to time? But the tired ones can be “recharged” with a fructose solution? An algae’s gotta eat, natch! Or better yet, old technology had to be swapped out, box after box. But new tech has a fructose IV that drips (feeds?) the box of algae. Yeah, baby! Slime Power!

On to the problem of our handicapped froggies. So they looked at the star’s corona during an eclipse and went blind. For us, that would not be totally crippling in communication. We could still talk and hear. But the Garum communicate with sight and scent. They use their skin to flash various colors and augment it with scents released into the water. So how would we work around this handicap?

Perhaps we can have a mutualism pairing with some type of remora? You know—those weird, upside down seeming fish that you usually see swimming under sharks? But these remora have a side benefit for the Garums. First, the remora get the benefit of the safety of swimming with the Garum, plus they eat bacteria off of the Garum’s skin. In return, they vibrate a certain way when a nearby Garum turns a certain shade of color. So through selective breeding and extensive training (for both the remora and for the Garum) they turn into effective “hearing” aids.

Oh, bother. I just thought of another problem. During the expedition to the surface (or in this case, the “Shallows” and they stood up enough to look into the sky—actual words and concepts for these items to be selected later) we had decided that they look directly at the star during the eclipse and were struck blind by the corona’s intense light.

So we have an expedition of now blind froggies.

How’d they get back?

Oh, bother!

Bug Fixes

So we have a few problems with the story concept up to now. First and foremost, we have a problem with our day/night cycle. A while back, I’d decided that the exomoon was tidally locked to its mother planet. Therefore, with the exception of the occasional eclipse, it will always be daytime, or at the very darkest twilight (lit only by the light reflected by the mother planet), on the planet-side surface where our Garums live. So in that case, we will not have to worry about ice forming on the surface. Either starlight, or reflective light will be caressing the exomoon’s surface keeping the seas warm.

So our Garums exploring the lights above the water in the sky would have to be during a solar eclipse. That does bring up the point that most likely they (they being the original explorers who first braved the waters’ surface) would have not only looked at the stars, but would also have looked directly at the corona of the star during the eclipse. I’m not going to claim any über 1337ness for the Garums’ eyes, so they would go blind in the process. That brings us to a set of blind Garums (we’ll set it at thirteen total) claiming to have seen multiple dots of light in the sky, and then being struck blind and trying to make this claim from memory. A mythology would grow around the claim, as well as a general debunking of any lights other than the planet proper, and the star. I’ll tackle those concepts later.

Now, I have a big problem to take care of. An aquatic race beneath the seas will obviously not have access to fire. I thought at first it would just affect their propulsion system, but I was wrong. But on to the lack of fire...

Oh, sure—they might have the occasional lava flow under the sea, and a few mineral chimneys spewing forth. But they would not have fire. Ergo they would not have the ability to smelt ore. So we’re not going to have iron, steel, not even bronze. So how are we going to build our space ship? Will our illustrious froggies be stuck in the stone age, with the arts and philosophies their only advances to look forward to?

What if we had a mollusk that secreted a mucus that would harden to a steel-like substance that could be used to make plates? In addition to that, we have a mussel-like mollusk that creates a byssus that is also as hard as steel, that is woven in to the mucus so we come up with almost a Kevlar-ish plate. The mucus secreting mollusk has been selectively bred so it will deliver this mucus on demand, and is used in an industrial setting and the plates are welded together with the mucus. Mmm! Sea snot! Just what I want to travel to the stars in! Meh. But it is what they had to work with.

On to the next bug. Electricity. Oh, sure—they probably had an electric eel type of critter swimmin’ around down there with them. But with a lack of fire, we did not have copper to extrude for wiring. But then back in the day, one of the Garum noticed the electric eel rubbing up against this particular seaweed and zapping a fish that was way up at the top of the weed. They found out on further investigation that the weed conducted electricity. But how to keep the current from bleeding off into the surrounding salt water? Our mucus secreting mollusk comes to the rescue again. His snot does not conduct electricity, and will coat the weed-wire quite effectively. But we cannot build an electric motor, can we? Do we just lift with a farm of electric eels in the back of the ship, and when we need more juice, poke ‘em with a stick?

“Cap’n! She canna take an’a more o’dis! She done ate muh stick!”

Ahem. Sorry.

So we still have the electrical motor bug to fix. Will have to ponder more on this.

Now, a friend (who we’ll call Deuce) had a couple thoughts on my last entry. He was curious as to the Garums’ scientific advancements—particularly in the area of chemistry. Save the Cartel humor. Not that kind of chemistry. He wondered if perhaps they had learned that by mixing certain compounds under water would produce violent chemical reactions that would produce buoyant gas bubbles to assist in bringing a ship to the surface of the sea. I had thought of that as a way for the first stage of their space flight—perhaps even for their version of the Bell X-1 to break the surface as the first step in their exploration. Deuce went on to ponder the possibilities of this gas being used to break the ice cap and launch the ship through. Since we don’t have ice to worry about any more, that might be something that the Garums would use if they ever began to explore the dark side of the exomoon in earnest. He did suggest that the nosecone would have to be set up like an ice breaker. That would get us some heavy use of the byssus encased mucus on the nose cone. But I think it could be done.

So now I just have to think about how to fix my electrical motor problem…

Livable Exomoons?

So let's toss this out for consideration...

In light of the movie, "Avatar," which is set on the life-bearing satellite, "Pandora," revolving around the gas giant, "Polyphemus" in the Alpha Centauri star system, we are given the usual scifi plot of the moon being habitable instead of the gas giant planet proper. (This was also done in the Star Wars movies with the moon, "Endor.")

If we were to create our own moon around our own giant planet, in our own star system (our own and a creation since we humans have yet to actually find a satellite orbiting a planet outside of our own solar system) what would need to be the parameters for life? (I may not have a continuing path of thought here--I may go off on a certain tangent that strikes my fancy and pick at it, forsaking the rest of the original thought. Bear with me here. I'm just idea bashing. Might use them, might not.)

It would have to have a mass close enough to Earth's own to retain an atmosphere primarily--unless we took the route of another form of life that did not need breathable gases to support its life--perhaps some type of photosynthesis that pulls nourishment directly from the rays of its star and capable of living in vacuum? But I'll leave that for another day--if ever.

So we're massive enough to retain a breathable atmosphere. Is it so massive that it is able to scavenge atmosphere from its gas giant planet? Is the mother planet giving off radiation? If so, the atmosphere would have to be thick enough to protect the life forms from the ambient radiation.

Next, do we have a rotation? Or is the exomoon tidally locked? One side always facing its planet? Imagine this, for a moment--a set up similar to our own moon. Depending on the circuit around the planet, and thus the star, one side would always be warm (warm only--not superheated. We want life here, not cinders) and the other always cold. Well, not always--but for a lengthy measure of time. The transit time of dark to light would vary depending on how long the lighted side was facing the star. Would we get substantial winds as the warm and cold air fought along the shadow-line? How substantial could they be and still have life develop? Would the life forms be low to the ground? Or just massive? How would the life develop to deal with the high winds? Or would the life forgo surface dwelling altogether, returning to the sea and gills?

Let's go the aquatic route. They never stayed on land due to the high winds. They remained aquatic. So we now have a set of aquatic denizens on our exomoon that have now become sapient and are in the process of discovering space flight. Of course they are after space flight. We don't want a puddle of tadpoles, swimming around. There's no story in that. (We'll skip the long trek out of the stone age into the industrial age for now.) How cold did the dark side get during the night. (Let's make the "days" and "nights" last 4 months for each portion, for a total 8 month long day/night cycle, just to pull a number.) Did the oceans freeze over during the night? We obviously would not have a fire-based launch system living underwater. Would they even be able to launch from beneath the surface? Since they did not stay on the land during their climb from stone age to technology, it would seem so. But that gives us a new set of problems. We now have to reach escape velocity through the water and through the air.

Let's have the oceans freeze at night. Not solid, but enough of a crust of ice that "Launch Window" takes on a whole new meaning. It's not whether or not we have the proper trajectory to reach our target, it's whether or not we can break through the ice.

What other problems will they face? We're not just launching our life form's mass. They will also have to bring up their "atmosphere" too. In this case, we're talking enough water to breathe. They live underwater, of course they are going to breathe it with gills.

One gallon of water on Earth weighs 8.35 pounds, making a five gallon jug weigh 41.75 pounds. Without going in to the difference in gravity from Earth to our exomoon, let's just think about the mass of all that water.

Quick experiment: get a one gallon jug of water and a five gallon jug of water. Put both of them on the floor. Balancing yourself on on foot, push the one gallon jug with the other foot. Now push the five gallon jug with the same foot. See the difference? Imagine now the amount of water needed to "breathe" for any extended space trip. Imagine now the amount of force needed to lift it off-planet (or off-moon as the case may be). Are we delving into the realm of diminishing returns here? Mass of life forms, plus mass of space ship, plus mass of ship's drive, plus mass of water, verses delta V to break out of the gravity well.

And once we're clear of the exomoon's gravity well, we have that of the gas giant it orbits to deal with. We'll also have that of the star--be it a single, or a binary (like that in "Avatar").

Are they so advanced in mathematics as to create a star drive that does not require fire? One that would lift all this mass? Through the water resistance?

Or am I poking sticks in the wrong mud puddle? Are they truly just happy sapient tadpoles, ignorant of the stars and space? Will they simply be happy swimming in their oceans, thinking artistic thoughts and occasionally poking their heads out of the water long enough to lick their eyelids and decide that this is not for them?

Tadpoles . . . juvenile lifeform that later crawl out of the mud and walk erect to tackle space and fire and the atmospheric wind? Naw, we already decided that they gave up on the wind. So we're back in the mud.

Let's give them a drive that can do what we need: lift the froggies, along with their breathable water, and their starship. Since we're just idea-storming at the moment, let's just call it the "Tadpole Drive." Somehow it mathematically waggles its forcefield tail behind the ship and swims it up through the water, and through the air--and is capable of doing the same in vacuum. Alas, it is slow, in star distances. So once they are clear of the water, they have to switch over to some type of star drive.

For the sake of argument, we going to decide that they have found that the light speed boundary is able to be broken. They discovered the mathematical calculations to show that it can be passed. (Hey, speed of sound used to be unbreakable, too!) No hyperspace here! Nosireebob! They have a good old fashioned zoom along drive!

They're first ship must have met with a horrific end. Not knowing about all the particles that are out there, they would have plowed into one and bam! Fireball! Imagine the energy released by two objects colliding at faster-than-light speed. One, a starship of . . . let's say the size (mass) of a 737--filled with water instead of air, of course. The other, a grain of sand. Imagine a particle collider . . . with our froggies as one of the particles. Boom.

So our humbled froggies go back to the drawing board and come up with some type of magnetic field (I'd hate to call it a force field, but along that idea) that will deflect particles and such from the path of the starship.

But wait--let's back up. How did they even discover about space and stars? They're aquatic, after all. At some point they would have to brave the winds to look unblinking into the night sky and wonder at those bright points of light. And with a gas giant as the mother planet their exomoon is orbiting, conditions would have to be just right for both the sun and the gas giant to actually allow a star watching night sky.

So the conditions were all perfect, and Froggy went a gazing and he did spot a star. Uh, huh. Being curious creatures, they decided that they wanted to travel to these pinpoints of light. But wait (there's more!) the traditionalists fight them. If Froggies were meant to star travel, the Great Egg On the Surface would have given them fire erupting from their hind end--not tails.

We would have a great conflict between the two factions. They would most likely be omnivores. So meat is on the menu. Why? Omnivores and carnivores are feistier than herbivores. We don't want herd beasts. We want individuals that will have that spark of fire that drives one being to overcome another.

So how would the fight go? Would it be mostly rhetoric with occasional bellowing matches? For that matter, how would they communicate? Color changes on their skin in a manner similar to that available to the octopus? Voice is right out the submarine's window...

We'll select color changes on the skin, supplemented by scent emitted into the water. So we have a stinky Technicolor battle of ideals going on under the sea. The seas are shallow enough for light to permeate, but deep enough for their cities. Perhaps along the lines of the crystal clear waters in the Caribbean? C'est bon. We'll leave them flashing and stinking for now, and pick it up another day . . . maybe. I don't like the smell of day-old fishy things.