Have you ever watched a science fiction movie, let’s say Species, where there was a scene where something came out of a test tube and ended up covering the room in an instant? You know, like maybe a couple of grams in the tube, which breaks on the floor releasing the thing that grows into a couple of hundred kilograms of alien badness before the incineration system takes it out. And have you ever asked yourself where the biomass came from in a room full of machinery, with we hope not too much in the way of humidity (which is bad for the equipment), with nothing to eat but the two humans who were in protective suits in the room? And they didn’t look like they had lost any weight during the creature’s growth. So just where does all that extra mass come from. I’m sure there are a lot of young men out there trying to gain weight for football who would like to know the answer to that one. After all, they’re trying desperately to put on a few pounds a week, so they won’t be broken in half by the real blue chippers on the field. And here’s a creature that seems to inhale mass from out of nowhere. Something similar happens in Alien, where a small creature bursts out of the chest of its host after maybe taking in a couple of kilograms of nourishment. It runs away and is later found at larger than human size after having eaten, as far as we know, nothing, except maybe some emergency rations in a locker somewhere. And the alien has some really different protein structures in its body, as shown by the almost universal acid if bleeds, and the cellular structure to hold in that acid. Meaning? That it must have a hell of a metabolism to change proteins so radically. Now the blob does a better job of showing where the mass for its growth is coming from. After all, the damned protoplasmic creature (which is probably impossible for other reasons that are not the focus of this blog entry) eats voraciously. In fact, its eats everything it can get its body around. But again, it must have some kind of metabolism to change proteins, haul its heavy ass around, and do other kinds of blob like stuff. We know that most meat eaters on our world might get a tenth of the food they eat to convert to body mass. The rest is burned up to run the metabolism. And even if the blob is cold, with a lower metabolism, it still couldn’t do better than one third of its food into body mass, now could it?
Now in fantasy there is really no need to explain the mechanism. It’s magic after all. Dragons turn into people and back to dragons and we don’t know where the mass goes to. Another dimension, a dragon cupboard in the kitchen, it don’t matter, because it’s magic. Same as Bruce Banner turning from a hundred fifty pound man to the ton of Hulk. But it would be nice if science fiction, which is supposed to be based in some way, shape or form on science after all, either gave an explanation for the inexplicable, or toned it down so that some semblance of reality was achieved. At least for those of us who give a damn.
Biology
All posts tagged Biology
I was discussing with friends on Facebook about how Zombies are more fantasy and are never really science fiction. Not putting down all the zombie movies, comics and books. In fact I enjoy them myself. In fact, as stated on an article on Cracked.com, there are very few movies that can’t be improved with the inclusion of a zombie horde. But I am not really planning on getting ready for the zombie apocalypse myself, unless some angry God decides to animate dead rotting creatures with no metabolism to speak of. I have guns in my house, and a sword, and a big fricken kukri knife honed to a razor edge. And I expect that, God forbid, they are never used, but if they are they will be used on living creatures. I think the problem is that a lot of people actually believe that zombies can rise from the dead due to some virus or disease. They probably think the same thing about werewolves and vampires. I disagree. I majored in biology before switching to geology, and then back to biology education before graduating in psychology.. And I then went back to school to take anatomy and physiology course for pre-nursing. And in none of those biology based classes was it ever mentioned that dead rotting bodies can come back to life with nonfunctional nervous or muscular systems because they are infected with some virus. They can’t digest what they eat because the digestive system doesn’t work. Their muscles won’t work because they can’t create, store or use ATP, and they also have a bit of a problem with calcium transport. Same with the nervous system. Now again, I am willing to suspend disbelief for the sake of the story, just as I am for giants and other too large creatures life flying dragons. But a good number of people in this country actually believe these supernatural creatures can be explained by scientific reasoning. Unfortunately that doesn’t work. I was talking to someone last week who was sure that rabies caused zombies. She said it stopped their hearts for two hours, and when they awoke they had an appetite for brains (a trope which came out of, well, I don’t know. Night of the Living Dead had them eat all of the human). I tried to explained that the brain would die, then went on to tell her that when everything rotted nothing would work. Her reply? Yeah, and then they rot and acted just like movie zombies. She didn’t hear a thing I said. I guess that shouldn’t surprise me, seeing as to the state of science education in this country.
Now prior to modern times most zombie tales revolved around Voodoo, some kind of magic or possession in which the victim might be dead, or could be something else, or some spell place on the dead, which was similar to bringing skeletons to life. I liked this explanation much better. I also write fantasy, and use the undead liberally. Now I suspend my own disbelief when I write fantasy. I don’t really think some angry Elder God will be waiting for me outside my house when I go to my car. Nor do I think a horde of skeletons is going to come out of the ground. But if, and this is a really big but if, undead exist, it will be due to some supernatural explanation, and not some impossible biological process. (Hey, I love Dritzz Do’Urden also, but I will be shocked, probably to death, if I ever see a jet black elf wielding double magical sabers outside of my house). The scientific explanation doesn’t hold water. If someone puts out a really good movie or book about a shambling horde of rotting bodies eating brains, and explains it as a virus, I will suspend disbelief and enjoy the story in the spirit in which it was written. But I won’t tell people after seeing or reading the work that, oh, that’s how it happens.
Will aliens have different senses than we have? If so, what form will they take? Our own senses seem to serve us well, the old vision, hearing, odor, sense of touch, and taste. I would suspect that they would serve aliens on other worlds just as well, but there could possibly be exceptions. The exceptions may be better suited to some really bizarre environments. They may not translate well into other environments. Let’s start with vision, probably the most important of our human senses. Not to say that people can’t survive without seeing, and can’t develop other senses to take over if necessary. But try to drive a car or fly an airplane without vision and you are in real trouble, if not dead. Now our vision operates within what we call the visible spectrum because it is what we see. On either side are the Ultraviolet and Infrared waves that we can’t see, though some other animals can see in them. Species from planets with more of either wave impacting their planet may also see more into those ranges of the spectrum. We have good color vision, better than most other animals, and very good discrimination, also better than the great majority of animals. Our motion detection and night vision aren’t as good, which seems to be the trade off we have made to have eyes that function really really well in the daytime. Infrared might serve us better at night if we had it, but in some situations is worse than useless, like in a heat filled environment where living creatures are not always the hottest things out there.
Now our sense of vision also serves us very well in environments other than the surface of the Earth. In the vacuum of space electromagnetic waves are still transmitted, and we can still see most things. We don’t see all the xrays, cosmic rays, ultraviolet and such, but we can work around that by developing devices to see those for us and translate them into something we can see. We can see through transparent substances that look out into hostile environments without problem, whether it is the vacuum of space or the crushing waters of the ocean depths. If the atmosphere is too opaque, such as a dense fog bank or permanent murky atmosphere we might have problems, but we can still develop things to let us see what’s there. There have been many representations of alien vision in the infrared or ultraviolet, one coming to mind is Predator. I really wasn’t impressed by the visual acuity shown, and would much prefer our own eyes in most cases.
What about other senses that might take the place of sight? There are some possibilities, all with weaknesses that, in my opinion, make them a much less effective in the long run, especially when the species gets into a space environment. Sonar is one possibility, where an organ is used to pick up sounds from the environment and interpret them. This was portrayed in the movie Pitch Black. Sonar might make a good substitute on a totally dark or murky atmosphered planet. However, it does have series drawbacks. Other sounds can mask the sounds the creature is interested in, like something it wants to eat or that wants to eat it. There is also the problem of the sound waves giving away the generating creature. It would be kind of hard to sneak up on something you are beaming continuous sound waves at. It gives new meaning to the saying “feeling the eyes of something on you.” Now maybe the sound could also be used as a stunning weapon, which brings in whole new possibilities. What about passive sonar? Only using the sounds generated around you as the means to locate. Works well with things that make noise. Not so well with the trunks of large plants or rocks. Chasing down a prey animal while running through a forest could lead to serious bodily harm. Radar is another possibility, if an organ could be developed that sent out radio waves to bounce off a target. Same limitations and problems as sonar though. In space sonar would be just about useless, as sound does not travel in a vacuum. Any space faring sonar race would have to develop devices that turn electromagnetic waves into sound so they could be interpreted by the creature. Radar using races would have the advantage of being able to use their sense in a vacuum, but the disadvantage of giving themselves away to whatever they’re trying to get a look at, if that thing has the ability to detect radio waves. If not then it is just as good as our kind of vision, and better in an obscuring atmosphere.
So if vision is so superior, will it be developed to the exclusion of any other kind of primary image sensing ability? Not a definite. Evolution works kind of randomly, with organisms surviving to reproduce due to their fitness or adaptation to the current conditions. Again, if in an environment where vision does not do a great deal for survival, then non vision techniques will predominate. Or if be chance sonar develops first and all animals that develop eyespots, the precursors of eyes, are eaten to extinction, then eyes will not develop and rule the world. But the eyes have it as far as overall utility goes, and I would expect that among intelligent space faring races, most would have eyes, at least two, since this helps with depth perception, which is a useful survival trait. I have seen some stories in which some modification of a single eye had depth perception, so that is not something that couldn’t happen. And more than two eyes is a distinct possibility, though I doubt the compound eyes of insects would dominate due to their lack of acuity and confusing visual pattern (they are more suited to picking up movement from a large visual field) but again not impossible. Later I will discuss the next major sense, hearing.
When I was a child I used to read a lot. Still do, though my tastes have changed just a little. But from the age of eight to fifteen I would read any piece of fantastic literature I could get my hands on. Comics were of course a favorite, and I would even read the letters to the editor in the back of each one. I remember one in particular in The Incredible Hulk. The writer commented on how it was impossible for the Hulk to pick up a castle and throw it at the army he was fighting. Not because he wasn’t strong enough. No, the Hulk was that powerful. Instead the writer, who was an engineering student at some major University, commented on how the structure itself would not hold together while lifted out of the ground by a pair of hands, no matter how over sized. The structure, which had been designed to sit on a large flat piece of ground, would fall apart, and the Hulk would find himself holding onto a couple of handfuls of stone while the castle fell in pieces on him and around him. And of course he would get even more pissed, but even the anger of the green beast couldn’t change the laws of physics. I also remember, though at a latter age, how Larry Niven fielded questions from engineering students about the properties of Scrinth, the marvelous substance that was the matrix of Ringworld. Someone had done the math and shown that it was impossible for a structure of any conceivable matter to hold together under the forces it had to endure. Niven had commented that it was almost impossible to come up with some high tech idea that someone couldn’t shoot down. Another famous example of a fan finding fault through factual analysis was the famous treatise on the power of the Death Star. You know, the moon sized station from Star Wars that could totally destroy Earth sized planets with a one second blast. This analysis has appeared in many places on the net, and the analyzer, who I think was a physics student, took into account the force of gravity, mass of the planet, and many other factors. Definitely something I couldn’t have done. He found that to totally destroy an Earth sized planet, meaning to blast it into pieces that did not fall back into a globe and form a new, if somewhat lifeless, planet, required half the energy produced by the sun for a year. The author made a remark about the capacitors of the Death Star, but plainly he was pointing out that such a weapon was impossible using any kind of tech as we understood it.
Now I try to make my work as technically factual as possible, as long as it doesn’t destroy a good story. I was trained in psychology, with a minor and some more in biology. I still know enough physics and chemistry to not make any huge errors, I hope. And some things I just put down to faith that we will solve insurmountable problems, at least problems for our current tech. I used inertial compensators in spaceships, with no idea how they would work, because they are necessary to advance the story. I figure that inertia would be converted to heat, so now I have another problem, like how to get rid of all that heat. I hand wave it away, because I figure that it will either be solved or not. But again I try to make whatever is factual in the story fit the known facts. No magical fifth or sixth fundamental forces of nature. Then I read the work of other authors, some of them doing quite well, and the responses of their readers, and wonder why I even bother. I might find the mistakes in the works of others, but the fans either do not or don’t care if they do.
A couple of years ago I was reading a series by a well known writer about an interstellar conflict started by turning a gas giant into a star. Now the technology used seemed a little over the top, but who can say it was not possible, moving a neutron star through a wormhole into the heart of the gas giant. Now I believe the result would have been to add the mass of the gas giant to the outside of the neutron star as a new layer of neutronium, but in the story the compression resulted in the gas giant sustaining fusion and becoming the life giving light to its moons. I guess it could happen. But the error that destroyed my suspension of belief was that the new gas giant/star, which now had a mass much greater than the star it orbited, was still orbiting that star. What I am sure would have happened is that solar system would have rearranged its orbits to compensate for the greater mass that now ruled the system. I wondered how many people actually caught that error, and how many cared who did. More recently I read a novel in which the premise was that colony ships had been sent to nearby stars because an asteroid was about to hit the Earth. Now from what I have read, most experts agree that once we have gotten interplanetary travel pretty much under control we will not have to worry about random rocks striking the Earth. We will detect them and we will move them. So it didn’t make sense that we would have interstellar travel, even sublight, and have to worry about a rock striking the Earth, especially if it gives us enough time to equip ten expeditions to other stars. Now I was surprised that a book would be based on such a poor premise, but I was even more surprised by some of the reviews of this book, in which readers said it was based on such a believable premise. I guess they don’t read the views of the experts on the future dangers of asteroid strikes.
Now all writers make mistakes. The physicists make errors with biology, the biologists with physics, and on and on. I try to make my work as accurate as possible within the constraints of the story. I will still use handwavium or unobtanium when necessary to move the story forward. I will not make people float off a world for no know reason, or fighters bank in vacuum, or G class stars go supernova as part of their natural evolution. I know I will make mistakes, and hope that my readers point them out in a non-obnoxious manner. But reading some of the things I have read, and seeing what is put on the screen, silver and small, makes me wonder if anyone really cares. I know that I do, and I will continue to try to make my stories make sense.
