• Welcome to the new COTI server. We've moved the Citizens to a new server. Please let us know in the COTI Website issue forum if you find any problems.
  • We, the systems administration staff, apologize for this unexpected outage of the boards. We have resolved the root cause of the problem and there should be no further disruptions.

General Looking for advice on hyper-arctic animals which are nitrogen based rather than carbon based

Commander Truestar

Commander Truestar

SOC-13
Hi,
So, my players will be exploring a set of outer worlds in a given system and the temps there will be in the area of Neg 340-380
This is the domain of solid Chlorine and liquid nitrogen. While animals on Earth are largely bags of "water" in a variety of designs, the animals on these worlds would be "bags of liquid nitrogen", and I envision they would largely feed on hydrogen and oxygen as minerals (because both would be frozen in this environment)


But I am stymied on descriptions of creatures.
I have come up with the following:
"Ice Beetles" H2SO4-based melter/biter (Carrion-Eater) small creatures working in groups to spit H2SO4 on dead or dying creatures to dissolve them enough to take bites out of

"Ice Worms" (Filter) spit dilute sulfuric acid then suck in the goo to filter out nutrients

"Ice Coral" (Filter) sharp thorn-like projections tear at passing creatures which "bleed" on them and that is then filtered for nutrients

Digger (Eater) A class of MegaFauna which will chase and use claws to dig for hydrogen/oxygen ice

Slider (Chaser) A creature that slides down slopes to ambush other creatures, slamming into them with a "wide open maw" of a mouth

Pop-Snake (Hyjacker) Pokes up through ice to steal food from other creatures

Sail-Skate (Chaser) on open terrain, a creature that balloons its back-skin to catch the wind and then "skates" on its claws to chase prey

I am looking for ideas for grazers, intermittents, Hunters, gatherers, etc....

Any help would be gladly accepted
 
How about "Plants" that store chemicals over time, then use them in exothermic reactions to release heat to melt new routes for roots...And a grazer that feeds on these (related to the Digger perhaps)?

And a variety of that plant that also uses heat to deter grazing.

and a burrower that relies on that heat to survive underground...maybe that pop-snake follows root routes.

Heat-Loss is proportional to surface area but decreases per unit volume as size increases. So some of the fauna should be big, if not bigger.

Creature that coats the surface during the day and soaks up sunlight; curling into a ball at night or in high-winds or if something small steps on it...

A creature that preserves warmth by huddling. It looks like a slow-moving shambling sponge until someone touches it - then it disintegrates into a biting swarm...
...With several earlier-met versions that are herbivores just to catch people unprepared.

A tiny creature that moves by flying lines of fibre and sailing off into the high-winds.

A pollinator that visits multiple plants...and something that lies in wait on said plants to catch these

A tick-like creature that infests the larger creatures and hangs from plant-tips waiting for a ride/meal. (I don't know what it was but it's behind your oxygen line. Can I shoot it with my stunner?) Nasty, hollow mouth parts that it will insert through a soft vacc-suit's cloth. You don't have to leak much air before the tank-refresh time goes down noticeably.

Small critters that flock to heat. Walking through them is like moving in a blizzard. No damage directly, but once the sensors are blocked any trip hazard will be dangerous.

A burrower that excavates huge towns under the roots of its foodstuff into which an ATV might fall.
Or something that constructs shallow ditches that break the containment of an ACV's skirt and cause it to ground out.

n.b. The energy densities are very low...and thus populations are low per square (hexagonal) km. Huge herds are unsupportable. Carnivore territories will need to be huge.
 
I guess I am wondering where the energy inputs are for such active animals. You’re not going to have a solar plant base to be consumed by herbivores and in turn by carnivores.
 
@kilemall
Because of the low temperature, the bio-chain is based on Nitrogen-based life which ingest hydrogen through respiration. I am working on an alternate to the cytochrome chain in Carbon-based life-forms.
As you said, life at this temperature will move slow in general.
 
Commander Truestar said:
@kilemall
Because of the low temperature, the bio-chain is based on Nitrogen-based life which ingest hydrogen through respiration. I am working on an alternate to the cytochrome chain in Carbon-based life-forms.
As you said, life at this temperature will move slow in general.
Click to expand...
The dangerous stuff will probably home in on any heat that would accompany animal chemical movement and digestion along with trace exhalation and wastes.

Travellers in vacc suits and their vehicles would be blood in the water for ice sharks.
 
Commander Truestar said:
@kilemall
Because of the low temperature, the bio-chain is based on Nitrogen-based life which ingest hydrogen through respiration. I am working on an alternate to the cytochrome chain in Carbon-based life-forms.
As you said, life at this temperature will move slow in general.
Click to expand...
I could see…
Very slow moving grazers
Trappers that only move when something wanders by once a year.

Probably no chasers

Goodlot of possible microbes

Although an important fact is your travellers will “burn” these creatures to death if a suit cracks or even just from heat exhaust.
 
At 40 to 60 K - I am assuming Fahrenheit for the units in the original post - biology and chemistry behaves very differently to room temperature biochemistry.
Rates of reaction decrease, the influence of hydrogen bonding, dipole-dipole interactions and even van der waal forces have a greater influence than at room temperature.
 
Worse, would be a creature that by its very composition is horrifically dangerous to carbon-based life. Imagine something that uses hydrochloric and hydrofluoric acids in a solid state or in a thickened liquid form to make its skeletal structure and skin, with nitrogen compounds like say nitroglycerine and the like forming its internal functions and things akin to blood. It could say form nitroglycerine--an exothermic reaction--to produce energy for its life cycle. The nitroglycerine is however too cold to really act as an unstable explosive in the absence of oxygen and such.

The idea is that the resulting creature in its natural environment is a stable and safe thing. Put into any other environment, like a oxygen / water rich one and it becomes a horrific mix of deadly chemicals and explosives. It might for example, if you physically contact it in a standard vac suit its hydrofluoric acid skin eats through the suit in seconds and as the skin dissolves releases hydrochloric acid into your suit under pressure as it reacts with the oxygen released and well, things don't go well after that...
 
Enoki said:
Worse, would be a creature that by its very composition is horrifically dangerous to carbon-based life. Imagine something that uses hydrochloric and hydrofluoric acids in a solid state or in a thickened liquid form to make its skeletal structure and skin, with nitrogen compounds like say nitroglycerine and the like forming its internal functions and things akin to blood. It could say form nitroglycerine--an exothermic reaction--to produce energy for its life cycle. The nitroglycerine is however too cold to really act as an unstable explosive in the absence of oxygen and such.

The idea is that the resulting creature in its natural environment is a stable and safe thing. Put into any other environment, like a oxygen / water rich one and it becomes a horrific mix of deadly chemicals and explosives. It might for example, if you physically contact it in a standard vac suit its hydrofluoric acid skin eats through the suit in seconds and as the skin dissolves releases hydrochloric acid into your suit under pressure as it reacts with the oxygen released and well, things don't go well after that...
Click to expand...

You've reminded me of things my players will hate you for!!
 
One other thought about producers ie plants. There is almost certainly not going to be enough light energy from the star to support any type of life. However, geothermal would still work. and would provide a high density of energy for species living very close to the source. (maybe the travellers explore a cave full of boiling nitrogen ponds)
 
whartung said:
But all of our arctic biomes seem to have these (well, save for Antartica which apparently doesn't have anything save penguins).
Click to expand...
You have the chaser Leopard Seals, along with Crabeater and Weddell Seals, with the penguins. You also have Killer Whales as Chaser, plus the Blue Whale and a couple of other Baleen Whales.
 
You can do better on something like that! Something like the Icelandic shark is what you want, then the locals found a way to eat it that is on the order of harkarl (look it up... It's one of the foulest foods on Earth. Fermented, rotting shark that reeks of rancid, week-old, urine...) The locals tell your players, "It's all we have to eat right now..." 😈
fJSlFTFndk6WZrEJVUmFv7vL5RoJdEVpeluriOZDBio.png
 
Last edited:
Look at the OP, Look at the temperature. Nothing like a shark or an elephant seal will be remotely likely, it is too cold.

I wouldn't discount some form of photosynthesis, at the temperature the OP gives the energy input has to be small, because as energy is transferred temperature must stay pretty low or the effects on the surroundings will be 'interesting'.

Slime molds, moving by growing in the direction of nutrients, some may even be intelligent. They could even be bioengineered into some sort of alien super-computer....
 
In Solis People of the Sun, on page 138:

Posa’s climate, and thin atmosphere,
stripped by the stellar storms of it’s variable
binary, are hostile. The seas are known for
giant forams (foraminifera), single celled
creatures resembling an oak tree covered in
stones. They are predators, where their
sticky web of pseudopodia can rip the flesh
from unsuspecting victims, rending them
alive. The tight-knit food web of the near
arctic temperature waters make many
organisms presumptuously ferocious.

It is the main world of the Luyten 726-8 (BL/UV Ceti), the animal description is from the study of forams in the antarctic sea.

en.wikipedia.org

Foraminifera - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
At the temperature of the OP nitrogen is frozen solid and liquid oxygen will only exist while the temp is above 54K, otherwise it will also be solid.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

L
The Lords of Creation Mini-campaign
Replies
4
Views
1K
jwdh71
J
Back
Top