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maxdimo · 2 years

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Render of a Gangorian, a homogeneously-structured alien species whose entire body acts both as a muscle and as a brain. They grow indefinitely into various shapes to absorb as much sunlight as they can, branching off and merging periodically with other “individuals” as a form of exchanging information. While extraordinarily weak to the extreme elements, they are well-suited for their rather uneventful planet.

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cannibalcaprine · 2 years

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okay, so

siliconians, since their name isn't really translatable phonetically

a species largely made distinct by their smooth, grey, lightly powdery skin, flashing communication organs, and incredible adaptivity

depending on how frequently their environment changes, they may change everything except the mere basics of their body shape in a new environment, making them ideal space-farers, taking months, or even only weeks to adapt to a new environment

such adaptations may include the creation of new, non-boned limbs, such as simple legs or tentacles, wings, gas bladders, horns, spikes, shells, fins, flippers, and fusion of limbs in aquatic environments, position of sensory organs, and even structure of internal organs

the number of bony limbs can vary from family to family, usually being 2-6, but can reach upwards of 14

shapes can include:

bipedal

humanoid

radial

bird-like

centauroid

seal-like

serpentine

polypous

and many others

they communicate with their crystalline, flashing organs, usually on the top of the head or hands

certain sequences or colors translate to words or phrases

#speculative biology #speculative evolution #silicon based life #for later #aliens

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cybersoldier82 · 8 months

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Thinking about adding silicon based life to my universe so im asking a spec evo subreddit for info on what would be needed to make that happen and such :3

#silicon based life #alien talk #worldbuilding #spec evo #speculative evolution #alien characters #my universe #cybers input

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siryl · 2 years

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“Tholian” by Michael Ptak, like the Punchatz illustration, interprets the Tholian head seen in the original Star Trek as part of a floating spindle-shaped being. Contrast the Azel piece, which is based on the arthropod-shaped Tholian seen in Star Trek: Enterprise.

#michael ptak #norsehound #tholian #star trek #alien #silicon based life

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thorarms · 11 months

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Genuinely so disappointed with how little worldbuilding there is of Jotunheim in the mcu AND the comics. Like you mean to tell me theres a whole realm made of ice that can sustain a population of literal giants and huge terrible beasts, and youre not even a little bit interested in how it works??

#idk man i just love worldbuilding and speculative biology and a world where only life adapted to extreme cold can survive is FASCINATING #like you could fuck around with deep sea sharks and life in the twilight zone and make some really fun deep sea monsters #i mean the realm is basically all frozen water i bet the marine life there is insane #you could even fuck around with the sci fi trope of silicon based life forms. like just for fun #jotunheim #thor

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pettyprocrastination · 1 year

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100% big badass werewolf creature. Maybe demon werewolf hybrid type vibe ya know?👏🏼

oh HELL YES

I definitely see you as like a siren. Very pretty and alluring but still scary with razor sharp teeth and definitely tearing out a sailor's throat with the girlies

#ask #asks #HI BABE #i see you as belonging to a girl group of monsters yknow #yall hang out at night and kill people together <3 #also i love when mermaids have specific tails depending on what aquatic life theyre based off of. so fun #did anybody else look at those super expensive silicone mermaid tails online as a kid and fantasize or was that just me

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pluralzalpha · 9 months

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Galactic Gazetteer: Kastria

Type: terrestrial planet

Location: Mutter's Spiral

Inhabitants: Kastrians (extinct)

Affiliation: Kingdom of Kastria, c.150 million BC

Visited by: the Fourth Doctor and Sarah-Jane, the Fifth Doctor and co.

Appearances: The Hand of Fear (1976), Eldrad Must Die! (2013 audio)

Fun fact: constantly bombarded by solar winds, leaving the surface lifeless

Another fun fact: Eldrad devised a silicon-based form for the Kastrians and erected solar barriers so that they could survive the winds, but later betrayed them.

#doctor who #galactic gazetteer #fourth doctor #fifth doctor #sarah jane smith #silicon-based life

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the-helixverse · 2 years

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//It’s been a while since my last update, and in that time, I’ve added some new residents to the galaxy ^^

Ceracite Small, quasi-humanoid creatures, standing about 0.9-1.2 meters tall, that are native to the planet Icarus. While they may seem unimposing, Ceracites are a uniquely hardy species. Planet Icarus is a hostile, frigid world composed largely of hydrogen, sulfur, carbon and fluorine, where the Ceracites evolved in a niche similar to penguins. Their bodies are largely composed of paraffin waxes, one of the few materials able to withstand the corrosive nature of the hydrofluoric acid they use as a solvent.

While the Ceracites lacked many defenses, they were able to project streams of hot acid from their mouths as a defense mechanism, and were able to communicate across the icy tundra with melons found in their large heads, similar to toothed whales on Earth. This, combined with a strong social dynamic, allowed the Ceracites to gradually begin evolving intelligence.

Ironically, one of their closest celestial neighbors, the warlike Kuhlanni, viewed the Ceracites as a potential threat and attempted to exterminate them early on. The kinetic strikes across their system were devastating, but more than a million Ceracites survived inside asteroid colonies and deep underground on many worlds. Once the Kuhlanni were defeated during the Cygnus War, proper contact was established and the two species made amends.

Haddamori An immigrant species from another spiral arm of the galaxy, the Haddamori Dara Kestissii, known more simply as the Haddamori, are mechanical lifeforms. Each possesses a micro black hole reactor at their core, surrounded by highly reflective and amorphous programmable matter, which allows them to take near-infinite shapes. To move, they generate powerful magnetic fields and can combine to form larger and more complex structures.

Their homeworld, rather than a planet, is an ancient moon-sized gunship, estimated to be well over 350 million years old, which the Haddamori have been maintaining; millions of years of drifting through the galaxy has left it with craters, patchwork renovations, and even valleys in the barrel large enough to hold atmospheres and small ecosystems.

The Haddamori themselves were not the inventors of the gun. Their parent species was methane-based, native to a planet they refer to as Liurra. Potentially one of the earliest K2 civilizations in the Milky Way, the Liurran civilization collapsed following a war between colonies across their binary solar system, which ignited the world’s atmosphere and likely killed the majority of the species. Many of their derelict ships were allowed to drift around the galaxy, where, millions of years later, one would find its way into Heaven’s Arm.

While the Liurrans themselves abandoned the ship, the onboard machines- equivalent to janitors and engineers- continued their work maintaining and repairing it, eventually undergoing programming mutations and, gradually, the mechanical equivalent of evolution. While they have no knowledge of what became of their creators, they’ve preserved the information on the ship prior to its abandonment, including the Liurran language, which has had a role in shaping their own culture. Indeed, “Haddamori Dara Kestissii” literally translates as “Children of the God Gun.”

Chironus One of the most enigmatic known species, Chironuses are one the only known silicon-based forms of life, with bodies made of crystal, ranging from pyrite to anhydrite to even diamond, and complex neuromuscular systems made of fiber optic cable, with tendrils that trail behind them and absorb light, which serve both as food and action potentials. Chironus live in space and directly feed on solar radiation.

Very little is known of Chironus culture, if any exists, as the species also seems inherently hostile to any attempts at contact. Early expeditions into Chironian space were met with extreme aggression, including attempts to ram ships and absorb power to cripple them. Individual Chironuses also exhibit the ability to project electrical arcs and even lasers from their tendrils.

Because of this, there is conflicting information on Chironus psychology and language; indeed, while clearly intelligent, some question whether or not Chironuses are truly sapient or even sentient, or if their actions are purely instinctual and view non-vital usages of energy, such as greetings, as an attack. What is clear is that, like all species capable of reaching space, the Chironus civilization (if one can call it that) has migrated far from their homeworld.

The rest of Heaven’s Arm has tracked their expansion out from the planet J1407b, around the star V1400 Centauri, and has quarantined 20 light-years of space around the system. Their evolution likely began in the planet’s enormous ring system, over 200 times larger than that of Saturn’s, which helped to foster a void ecology. While it’s hoped that this sphere of allotted space will be enough to keep them content, it’s unknown if the Chironus civilization will seek war with the rest of the galaxy.

#the-helixverse #Ekpyrosis #Ceracite #Haddamori #Chironus #silicon-based life #artificial intelligence #speculative biology

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wigoutlet · 4 months

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Optimus Tesla Robot - AI Day 2022 Teslabot Robotic Hands in a Heart Shape

by WigOutlet

Optimus Tesla - AI Day 2022 Teslabot Robotic Hands in a Heart Shape

#elon musk #tesla #teslamotors #ai #robotics #robots #androids #silicone based life #wigoutlet #robot #robot girl

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silicon-based-life · 9 months

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making a little pinned post just for fun :3 this is kind of a trek blog but it’s also my main blog, so there’s sort of a lot going on here

my artblog is @faewildwolf!

^this is what i look like btw. if you even care

#oh to be a silicon-based life form held tenderly by mr. spock

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mostlysignssomeportents · 9 months

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Tesla's Dieselgate

Elon Musk lies a lot. He lies about being a “utopian socialist.” He lies about being a “free speech absolutist.” He lies about which companies he founded:

https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-cofounder-martin-eberhard-interview-history-elon-musk-ev-market-2023-2 He lies about being the “chief engineer” of those companies:

https://www.quora.com/Was-Elon-Musk-the-actual-engineer-behind-SpaceX-and-Tesla

He lies about really stupid stuff, like claiming that comsats that share the same spectrum will deliver steady broadband speeds as they add more users who each get a narrower slice of that spectrum:

https://www.eff.org/wp/case-fiber-home-today-why-fiber-superior-medium-21st-century-broadband

The fundamental laws of physics don’t care about this bullshit, but people do. The comsat lie convinced a bunch of people that pulling fiber to all our homes is literally impossible — as though the electrical and phone lines that come to our homes now were installed by an ancient, lost civilization. Pulling new cabling isn’t a mysterious art, like embalming pharaohs. We do it all the time. One of the poorest places in America installed universal fiber with a mule named “Ole Bub”:

https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-one-traffic-light-town-with-some-of-the-fastest-internet-in-the-us

Previous tech barons had “reality distortion fields,” but Musk just blithely contradicts himself and pretends he isn’t doing so, like a budget Steve Jobs. There’s an entire site devoted to cataloging Musk’s public lies:

https://elonmusk.today/

But while Musk lacks the charm of earlier Silicon Valley grifters, he’s much better than they ever were at running a long con. For years, he’s been promising “full self driving…next year.”

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/herbies-revenge/#100-billion-here-100-billion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

He’s hasn’t delivered, but he keeps claiming he has, making Teslas some of the deadliest cars on the road:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/10/tesla-autopilot-crashes-elon-musk/

Tesla is a giant shell-game masquerading as a car company. The important thing about Tesla isn’t its cars, it’s Tesla’s business arrangement, the Tesla-Financial Complex:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/24/no-puedo-pagar-no-pagara/#Rat

Once you start unpacking Tesla’s balance sheets, you start to realize how much the company depends on government subsidies and tax-breaks, combined with selling carbon credits that make huge, planet-destroying SUVs possible, under the pretense that this is somehow good for the environment:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/14/for-sale-green-indulgences/#killer-analogy

But even with all those financial shenanigans, Tesla’s got an absurdly high valuation, soaring at times to 1600x its profitability:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/15/hoover-calling/#intangibles

That valuation represents a bet on Tesla’s ability to extract ever-higher rents from its customers. Take Tesla’s batteries: you pay for the battery when you buy your car, but you don’t own that battery. You have to rent the right to use its full capacity, with Tesla reserving the right to reduce how far you go on a charge based on your willingness to pay:

https://memex.craphound.com/2017/09/10/teslas-demon-haunted-cars-in-irmas-path-get-a-temporary-battery-life-boost/

That’s just one of the many rent-a-features that Tesla drivers have to shell out for. You don’t own your car at all: when you sell it as a used vehicle, Tesla strips out these features you paid for and makes the next driver pay again, reducing the value of your used car and transfering it to Tesla’s shareholders:

https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/6/21127243/tesla-model-s-autopilot-disabled-remotely-used-car-update

To maintain this rent-extraction racket, Tesla uses DRM that makes it a felony to alter your own car’s software without Tesla’s permission. This is the root of all autoenshittification:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

This is technofeudalism. Whereas capitalists seek profits (income from selling things), feudalists seek rents (income from owning the things other people use). If Telsa were a capitalist enterprise, then entrepreneurs could enter the market and sell mods that let you unlock the functionality in your own car:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/11/1-in-3/#boost-50

But because Tesla is a feudal enterprise, capitalists must first secure permission from the fief, Elon Musk, who decides which companies are allowed to compete with him, and how.

Once a company owns the right to decide which software you can run, there’s no limit to the ways it can extract rent from you. Blocking you from changing your device’s software lets a company run overt scams on you. For example, they can block you from getting your car independently repaired with third-party parts.

But they can also screw you in sneaky ways. Once a device has DRM on it, Section 1201 of the DMCA makes it a felony to bypass that DRM, even for legitimate purposes. That means that your DRM-locked device can spy on you, and because no one is allowed to explore how that surveillance works, the manufacturer can be incredibly sloppy with all the personal info they gather:

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/29/tesla-model-3-keeps-data-like-crash-videos-location-phone-contacts.html

All kinds of hidden anti-features can lurk in your DRM-locked car, protected from discovery, analysis and criticism by the illegality of bypassing the DRM. For example, Teslas have a hidden feature that lets them lock out their owners and summon a repo man to drive them away if you have a dispute about a late payment:

https://tiremeetsroad.com/2021/03/18/tesla-allegedly-remotely-unlocks-model-3-owners-car-uses-smart-summon-to-help-repo-agent/

DRM is a gun on the mantlepiece in Act I, and by Act III, it goes off, revealing some kind of ugly and often dangerous scam. Remember Dieselgate? Volkswagen created a line of demon-haunted cars: if they thought they were being scrutinized (by regulators measuring their emissions), they switched into a mode that traded performance for low emissions. But when they believed themselves to be unobserved, they reversed this, emitting deadly levels of NOX but delivering superior mileage.

The conversion of the VW diesel fleet into mobile gas-chambers wouldn’t have been possible without DRM. DRM adds a layer of serious criminal jeopardy to anyone attempting to reverse-engineer and study any device, from a phone to a car. DRM let Apple claim to be a champion of its users’ privacy even as it spied on them from asshole to appetite:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Now, Tesla is having its own Dieselgate scandal. A stunning investigation by Steve Stecklow and Norihiko Shirouzu for Reuters reveals how Tesla was able to create its own demon-haunted car, which systematically deceived drivers about its driving range, and the increasingly desperate measures the company turned to as customers discovered the ruse:

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/tesla-batteries-range/

The root of the deception is very simple: Tesla mis-sells its cars by falsely claiming ranges that those cars can’t attain. Every person who ever bought a Tesla was defrauded.

But this fraud would be easy to detect. If you bought a Tesla rated for 353 miles on a charge, but the dashboard range predictor told you that your fully charged car could only go 150 miles, you’d immediately figure something was up. So your Telsa tells another lie: the range predictor tells you that you can go 353 miles.

But again, if the car continued to tell you it has 203 miles of range when it was about to run out of charge, you’d figure something was up pretty quick — like, the first time your car ran out of battery while the dashboard cheerily informed you that you had 203 miles of range left.

So Teslas tell a third lie: when the battery charge reached about 50%, the fake range is replaced with the real one. That way, drivers aren’t getting mass-stranded by the roadside, and the scam can continue.

But there’s a new problem: drivers whose cars are rated for 353 miles but can’t go anything like that far on a full charge naturally assume that something is wrong with their cars, so they start calling Tesla service and asking to have the car checked over.

This creates a problem for Tesla: those service calls can cost the company $1,000, and of course, there’s nothing wrong with the car. It’s performing exactly as designed. So Tesla created its boldest fraud yet: a boiler-room full of anti-salespeople charged with convincing people that their cars weren’t broken.

This new unit — the “diversion team” — was headquartered in a Nevada satellite office, which was equipped with a metal xylophone that would be rung in triumph every time a Tesla owner was successfully conned into thinking that their car wasn’t defrauding them.

When a Tesla owner called this boiler room, the diverter would run remote diagnostics on their car, then pronounce it fine, and chide the driver for having energy-hungry driving habits (shades of Steve Jobs’s “You’re holding it wrong”):

https://www.wired.com/2010/06/iphone-4-holding-it-wrong/

The drivers who called the Diversion Team weren’t just lied to, they were also punished. The Tesla app was silently altered so that anyone who filed a complaint about their car’s range was no longer able to book a service appointment for any reason. If their car malfunctioned, they’d have to request a callback, which could take several days.

Meanwhile, the diverters on the diversion team were instructed not to inform drivers if the remote diagnostics they performed detected any other defects in the cars.

The diversion team had a 750 complaint/week quota: to juke this stat, diverters would close the case for any driver who failed to answer the phone when they were eventually called back. The center received 2,000+ calls every week. Diverters were ordered to keep calls to five minutes or less.

Eventually, diverters were ordered to cease performing any remote diagnostics on drivers’ cars: a source told Reuters that “Thousands of customers were told there is nothing wrong with their car” without any diagnostics being performed.

Predicting EV range is an inexact science as many factors can affect battery life, notably whether a journey is uphill or downhill. Every EV automaker has to come up with a figure that represents some kind of best guess under a mix of conditions. But while other manufacturers err on the side of caution, Tesla has the most inaccurate mileage estimates in the industry, double the industry average.

Other countries’ regulators have taken note. In Korea, Tesla was fined millions and Elon Musk was personally required to state that he had deceived Tesla buyers. The Korean regulator found that the true range of Teslas under normal winter conditions was less than half of the claimed range.

Now, many companies have been run by malignant narcissists who lied compulsively — think of Thomas Edison, archnemesis of Nikola Tesla himself. The difference here isn’t merely that Musk is a deeply unfit monster of a human being — but rather, that DRM allows him to defraud his customers behind a state-enforced opaque veil. The digital computers at the heart of a Tesla aren’t just demons haunting the car, changing its performance based on whether it believes it is being observed — they also allow Musk to invoke the power of the US government to felonize anyone who tries to peer into the black box where he commits his frauds.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/edison-not-tesla/#demon-haunted-world

This Sunday (July 30) at 1530h, I’m appearing on a panel at Midsummer Scream in Long Beach, CA, to discuss the wonderful, award-winning “Ghost Post” Haunted Mansion project I worked on for Disney Imagineering.

Image ID [A scene out of an 11th century tome on demon-summoning called 'Compendium rarissimum totius Artis Magicae sistematisatae per celeberrimos Artis hujus Magistros. Anno 1057. Noli me tangere.' It depicts a demon tormenting two unlucky would-be demon-summoners who have dug up a grave in a graveyard. One summoner is held aloft by his hair, screaming; the other screams from inside the grave he is digging up. The scene has been altered to remove the demon's prominent, urinating penis, to add in a Tesla supercharger, and a red Tesla Model S nosing into the scene.]

Image: Steve Jurvetson (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tesla_Model_S_Indoors.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

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