The Goasts

[Badger Man 22]

Species long forgotten the goasts are a gaseous intelligent lifeform. The goasts, goast meaning peaceful in their native language of Gindrish, are a shy race, avoiding direct contact with foreigners for decades. This shyness was developed in the dark ages, before the signing of the International Declaration of Peace and Protection, due to the mass murderers, assassins, wars and other forms of death. Their gaseous form allows them to survive in the void and other locales that would kill other species. They are red in hue, often with a purple tint.

[Badger Man 22]

Alien sheet: Goasts

(Section 1 -- Biology)
Type : Space-Dwelling
Appearance : Otherworld
Gravity preferences : Any
Temperature pref. : -60 to 1000000 °C
Atmosphere breathed : N/A
Body cover : N/A
Body color : Red with a purple tint
Hair : N/A
Hair color : N/A
Eyes : N/A
Eyes color : N/A
Body characteristics : N/A
Diet : Direct Energy Intake
Sexual reproduction : Asexual
Reproduction method : Budding
Mass : .000005 kg
Size : 7 - 40000 cm

(Section 2 -- Culture)
Attributes:
Militancy : 0
Determination : 20
Racial tolerance: 0
Progressiveness : 20
Loyalty : 20
Social cohesion : 20
Art : 15
Individualism : 0
Body : 0
Mind : 35
Speed : 15
Lifespan : Immortal
Tech level : 7

(Section 3 -- Government and Religion)
Government type : Democratic Oligarchy
Religion : Deism
Devotion : High

(Section 4 -- Extra things you should know)
Ultrasonic communication
Ultrasonic hearing
Vibration sense (Race is very sensitive to vibrations)
Vibrolocation (Echolocation turned up to 11! Able to echolocate by only using ambient noise)
Systemic antidote (Immune to poisons. AKA The Super Liver.)
Time sense (Race allways knows what time it is.)
Toughness (It... Won't... DIE!)
Subsonic Communication
Subsonic hearing
Sound Sensitivity
Spatial orientation (Race can naturally orient itself relative to certain landmarks or planets)
Spectrum vision (Able to see radio waves, gamma rays, X-rays, and/or ultraviolet)
Strange appearance (... Whatever that thing is, it's frea-kay!)
Sonar (Echolocation!)
Radiation Tolerance
Radioactive sensing (can detect radioactivity)
Radio hearing (Who needs a Walkman?)
Regeneration (Able to regrow lost body parts.)
Pressure support (Can withstand heavy atmospheres or the vacuum of space.)
Odious racial habit (Race has habit(s) that are considered wierd by other races. Examples include sadism, slavery, caniblism.)(Sadism)
Perfect balance (Race can easily keep it's footing even on narrow walkways)
Night Vision
Microscopic Sense (Has extremely acute sense that can detect tiny details)
Mimicry (Can duplicate sounds.)
Light sleeper (Needs sleep 15% or less of the time.)
Language talent
Infrared Vision (Predator vision, Yey!)
Involuntary dampen (Same as Dampen, but ability is allways "on")
Field sense (Race can detect and orient itself to electromagnetic fields. Like a bird's internal compass)
Foul odor (Race emits a nasty smell, on purpose or not)
Heat Tolerance
EM imaging (Can see Electromagnetic fields generated by magnets, electronics, etc.)
Cold Tolerance
Chemical communication
Clone (Every member of this race looks exactly the same)
360 Vision
Acid Secretion
Acute Hearing
Acute Smelling
Acute Vision

[Clarke]

Really cool, I can't wait for their anatomy and further explanation! So what biochemistry are you thinking of to explain their gaseous state?

If I may make a suggestion, the excellent team member Vivus on the Sagan4 board presented this, which I find facinating.



By the way, what do you mean by "direct energy transfer"?

[Badger Man 22]

By Direct Energy Transfer I mean they remove energy from items through contact.

When they absorb the energy it causes the matter to change state, liquids to solids and gases to liquids. They then put this energy to use in their bodily processes.

[Clarke]

Apr 25, 2010 1:54:05 GMT Badger Man 22 said:

By Direct Energy Transfer I mean they remove energy from items through contact.

When they absorb the energy it causes the matter to change state, liquids to solids and gases to liquids. They then put this energy to use in their bodily processes.

And by what method is that achieved? Its sound kind of....vague.

Also, some of its stats seem kinda god-moddish.

[Badger Man 22]

They absorb thermal energy from matter. They are incapable of energy absorption when not 'hungry' and require very little energy in their 'bodily' functions.

[Clarke]

Apr 25, 2010 2:04:07 GMT Badger Man 22 said:

They absorb thermal energy from matter. They are incapable of energy absorption when not 'hungry' and require very little energy in their 'bodily' functions.

Ah. How do they establish temperature gradients to accomplish this without a negative net energy?

Also, I don't think that anything organic could withstand 1000000 C, or be immortal.

[Badger Man 22]

Well they are hardly organic.

[Clarke]

Then what are they?

[Badger Man 22]

Well, I can't really explain it.

[Plank of Wood]

[Badger Man 22]

>_>
<_<

[Clarke]

Apr 25, 2010 7:04:59 GMT Badger Man 22 said:

Well, I can't really explain it.

What were you thinking of when you created it? Since their gaseous, and nobody really knows what they would be made of, this gives you some leeway and lets you use some technobabble when considering the biochemistry. I did find this, which should help.

Say you start out with one of those, which the article says can survive at lower temperatures. You'd still need higher temperatures though, so how about silicon life? At 1650 degree silicon dioxide becomes liquid, so that seems a good place to start. Obviously you'd have water vapor replacing water in most reactions(this part I'm a bit unsure of, what do you think UFO?), so you'd have a gaseous organism with some solids and liquids. Since silicon based life is near-identical to carbon, once multicellular, to carbon, you'd be able to build RNA and DNA analogous, although they'd have to have different structures to -interact with the different states in kinds of matter.

The problem with this is that I'm not quite sure where your organism would fit in. Probably in a hot jupiter, but I'm not quite sure if all the right elements would be there. I think you could fudge it a bit there, or just say that original life on the plane was a naucean alien experiment.

Of course "direct energy transfer" still doesn't work, it has the temperature limits, at a most optimistic estimation, of 1649-5000 C, and it would be easy to kill by any of the organisms here, especially mine. Of course then they would also die if they cracked open its pressure suit.

[haseri]

Posibilities:

Plasma:
A ionized plasma-based life form could evolve in the photosphere of a star, or an energetic nebula (anywhere above 4000 F), storing energy and information in the form of electric charges and magnetic fields. A self-replicating pattern of electromagnetism could function as the “DNA” for plasma-based life. The plasma organisms could get energy by tapping the hotter layers lower down in the star’s interior. However, the 'cells' of such a creature would be centimeteres across, and an intelligent organism would be tens of kilometeres across.

Plus, they would have to live in a fusion reactor torus to be outside their native enviroment comfortably.

Silicon:
What solvent to use to replace water if a silicon based life form depends on the tempreture.
Sulphuric acid could be used between tempretures of 50 and 600 F.
Liquid Sulphur at 250 to 700 F.
Liquid rock (or more commonly, lava) at tempretures of over 2500 F. They could come from the mantle of a planet.

Hydrogen:
The kind most likely to evolve on a gas giant world. Near the core, crystals of hydrogen could store 'genetic' information. At more normal pressures, lifeforms could gain energy via "reduction" reactions, releasing energy by combining organic molecules (manufactured with photosynthesis) with hydrogen.

Probably not very helpful, just responces to Clarke's ideas.

[UFO King]

I dunno much about these kinds of things. I generally focus on astronomy rather than biology. It sounds plausible enough.

And damn you Plank. I was thinking of Zombie Goasts the moment I saw this. Badger Man, how is it you're so creative with everything but names?