Life forms in science fiction

[Moontanman]

I know some of you like to read science fiction and I had the idea of what is the most outrageous or surprising idea in science fiction for a habitat for life that has ever been portrayed in science fiction but is also entirely possible?

 

My vote goes to the smoke ring in the book "The Integral Trees" by Larry Niven life evolving in a weightless environment inside a gas ring around a neutron star. We know gas rings are possible, Titan forms one, admittedly a tenuous one, around it's primary Saturn, but in this book the gas ring is far denser owing to the neutron stars huge gravity well, an oxygen nitrogen atmosphere, small asteroids and rocks orbiting inside the ring, I think it just may be the most unique idea that is also possible in science fiction.

 

Any others?

[mississippichem]

I've always been a bit fascinated by hypothetical silicon based life forms. My chemistry background reminds me that they are not likely to exist anywhere because silicon has trouble forming catenated double bonds; but that doesn't keep me from entertaining the idea.

 

What's interesting to me is that any silicon based life from would necessarily have to have a water free biochemistry.

 

Someone wrote some science fiction on the topic but I can't seem to recall at the moment. If you can find it, I'm sure it is quite interesting/entertaining.

[Moontanman]

I've read several stories about silicon life, the most believable one had to do with silicon and concentrated sulfuric acid as the liquid and they breathed gaseous sulfur. I can see the cover in my mind but I can't recall the name of the book but I think the author was Hal Clement. Ah this is it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceworld written in 1951 it would probably not hold up to todays science but it is still very "cool"

 

Here is a good resource for writers and just curios people this site can be used to figure out all sorts of interesting stuff

 

http://www.johnbray.org.uk/planetdesigner/

[pwagen]

If it's possible, I don't know, but I kind of fancied the "mind parasites" in Asimov's Hostess.

 

 

 

Unfortunately, I haven't read a lot of science fiction starring aliens. Will sort that out once I'm done with Asimov.

[Moontanman]

I should have added this link to the first post. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Integral_Trees

[Pwyll Pendefig Dyfed]

I've always been a bit fascinated by hypothetical silicon based life forms. My chemistry background reminds me that they are not likely to exist anywhere because silicon has trouble forming catenated double bonds; but that doesn't keep me from entertaining the idea.

 

What's interesting to me is that any silicon based life from would necessarily have to have a water free biochemistry.

 

Someone wrote some science fiction on the topic but I can't seem to recall at the moment. If you can find it, I'm sure it is quite interesting/entertaining.

There was a Doctor Who sory I read once (I'm not sure if it was a TV episode or not) which had Silicon based Alien invaders.

[Spyman]

One story that made a huge impression on me when I was young was Crabs on the Island, where self replicating machines are subjected to natural evolution. While not exactly fitting the definition for alien organisms or involving strange habitats, it has implications for what should be considered as life forms.

 

Plot from Wikipedia:

In his short story "Crabs on the Island" (1958) Anatoly Dneprov speculated on the idea that since the replication process is never 100% accurate, leading to slight differences in the descendants, over several generations of replication the machines would be subjected to evolution similar to that of living organisms. In the story, a machine is designed, the sole purpose of which is to find metal to produce copies of itself, intended to be used as a weapon against an enemy's war machines. The machines are released on a deserted island, the idea being that once the available metal is all used and they start fighting each other, natural selection will enhance their design. However, the evolution has stopped by itself when the last descendant, an enormously large crab, was created, being unable to reproduce itself due to lack of energy and materials.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_machine

 

This short science fiction classic can be found and read here: http://r-spec.org/fictions/classics/crabs-on-the-island

[Moontanman]

There are two types of hypothetical silicon life, silicon and silicone, silicon life would have to be at low temps, like the surface of Titan, silicone life would have to be at high temps like the surface of Venus. I haven't seen any fiction with low temp silicon life but several stories with the high temp silicone life. Boron life is sometimes speculated about but so far not in fiction that i am aware of.

 

John Varley's Gaea trilogy is a relatively odd habitat for life http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaea_Trilogy