Aug 11, 2008 0
Alien World, 2678
The Alien world is, to humans, truly alien.
A large rocky moon, twice the size of Earth, orbiting a gas giant, on a relatively close orbit, close enough for the tidal forces and the magnetic field of the giant to generate a lost of thermal energy in the moon’s core, and the molten iron core of the moon generates incredible amounts of electro-magnetic energy, which the Aliens harness to power their technology.
The chemistry itself is different, and although the Aliens seem to be Carbon-based, that’s pretty much where the similarities end. The atmosphere, made of various gases unbreathable to humans, is also almost opaque to what humans consider visible light (colors and compositions to be properly calculated once I figure out a believable biochemistry for the Aliens). The Aliens live mostly underground, where they cultivate the organisms that they use as food sources.
The surface of the planet is wet, water is kept liquid by the thermal energy of the planet. A lush jungle-like ecosystem covers large parts of the land, and some Aliens live above ground, with no apparent shelters. This jungle is not made of plants nor fungi, just of organisms that are unlike anything on Earth. Likewise, the Aliens themselves are neither humanoid, not reptilioid, not insectoid nor molluskoid. They have no feature that could be paralleled to anything of Earth origin.
As the aliens do not seem to have a language, the planet has no name, their species has no name, none of the features and organisms have a name. This is of course highly unsettling for the arriving humans (not to mention very annoying for the writer, who tends to like having names to describe the things that are in his world….).
The closest analogy in the human experience of the Alien World is a world-scale termite mound, with networks of tunnels, and a seemingly auto-organizing society. The apparent lack of communication between the Aliens seem to point to an insect-like pheromone communication system where individuals are bound to a task by pre-programmed messages.
One possible place for this alien World is the Star Lalande 21186, an old red dwarf star 8-light years away, roughly in the north polar direction… (Lalande 21185 on Wikipwedia…)
