Fritz_Brown
Super Moderator
Well, these folks won't be from a low-g world, but the feetses is an interesting idea. I will use that elsewhere, certainly!
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- Thread starter Fritz_Brown
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Brian Smaller
SOC-12
There is always the Pe Choi from Empire of the Petal Throne FRPG. They were once, in the back story to Tekumel, a space faring race, allied to humanity.
http://bethorm.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/pe_choi_female.bmp
http://bethorm.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/pe_choi_female.bmp
One of the biggest limiting factors on insects, at least on earth, is not only their muscular/skeletal system, it's there internal systems. Terran insects and related species are limited by their respiratory and circulatory system. with no lungs, heart or enclose circulatory system,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respiratory_system_of_insects
http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/course/ent425/tutorial/circulatory.html
At one point Arthropods could reach lengths of 2 meters ad were one of the dominant land dwelling life forms on the planet. Due mainly to radical differences in atmospheric oxygen.
.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meganeura
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthropleura
Also the lack of a complex circulatory system limits the size, and complexity of the brain. The brain is an oxygen hungry beast, so to support higher brain function you need a LOT of oxygen.
To evolve past "garden pest/predator" stage an alien species would need an oxygen rich environment, or an enclosed complex circulatory system. The more advanced system can supply muscles and brain with lots of O2. ( or what ever gas they need to live.)
An alternate method would e to have the creatures breath a gas with smaller molecules, that can be more easily transported through the simple respiratory system of an arthropod more effectively, Such as hydrogen.
So if the species evolved an enclosed circulatory system, lungs, and a fairly advanced hybrid endo/exo skeleton. It would be well within the biological limits, as we know, them to evolve intelligence and tool use..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respiratory_system_of_insects
http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/course/ent425/tutorial/circulatory.html
At one point Arthropods could reach lengths of 2 meters ad were one of the dominant land dwelling life forms on the planet. Due mainly to radical differences in atmospheric oxygen.
.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carboniferous
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meganeura
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthropleura
Also the lack of a complex circulatory system limits the size, and complexity of the brain. The brain is an oxygen hungry beast, so to support higher brain function you need a LOT of oxygen.
To evolve past "garden pest/predator" stage an alien species would need an oxygen rich environment, or an enclosed complex circulatory system. The more advanced system can supply muscles and brain with lots of O2. ( or what ever gas they need to live.)
An alternate method would e to have the creatures breath a gas with smaller molecules, that can be more easily transported through the simple respiratory system of an arthropod more effectively, Such as hydrogen.
So if the species evolved an enclosed circulatory system, lungs, and a fairly advanced hybrid endo/exo skeleton. It would be well within the biological limits, as we know, them to evolve intelligence and tool use..
this need not be the case. humans are fully able to don metal armor suits that approach their own body weight so there's no absolutely necessary reason why an exoskeletal form must be small.
consider crustaceans. they can be somewhat large even if land-going, and if water-born there is no need for any particular size limit. (traveller seems to ignore oceans ....)
consider hermit crabs. they are crustaceans but must find and wear supplements to their exo-skeleton. perhaps some version of the hermit crab "dons" and adapts to a land-going creature and it becomes a binary life form ....
Bug threads are like bugs - it's hard to tell if they're really dead. 
Humans can also take off that armor. Consider that a wound to an exoskeleton serves both as a break in the "skin" and a fractured "bone". A fleshie that isn't killed outright may have a better chance of surviving a wound and living to learn from the experience, not to mention reproduce, than a beastie with an exoskeleton. Consider also that humans in metal armor are not incredibly fast. For all their prowess from horseback, armored knights produced equivocal results when fighting equally determined lightly armored foes on foot. While it is possible to conceive of a form evolving the metabolism and structures to overcome the disadvantage of carrying extra weight on land, it is also possible that the disadvantage is too great to overcome competitive selective pressures in nature. It might be that it's easier to make a man-sized exoskeletal land form artificially than it is to see one evolve naturally - unless you introduce some factor that makes the exoskeleton an advantage. Maybe a higher level of background radiation.
A problem with extrapolating from primitive insect species is that they're primitive. Hard to tell what might have occurred had someone else not expanded into neighboring ecological niches that left them as prey to large fast predators. The competitors to the giant insects of that era were the carboniferous amphibians - likely effective predators for the era, but not in a class with the reptiles that would follow. And, the era was noted not just for oxygen concentration but for warm swamp-like conditions: note the significant size difference between modern tropical rainforest insects and their cousins of the more temperate regions. As it is, they were trapped in those niches that emphasized characteristics that enabled them to survive as species despite being eaten by anything and everything up to and including carnivorous plants. They produce large numbers of offspring, grow fast, and they try their darnedest not to be seen by predators - in which contest it pays to not grow so large that you can't hide in the local foliage.
What is needed is a world where the soft-body forms don't get a chance to get out of the water and evolve. Perhaps a world with little or no metallic core to form a protective magnetic field. Without that, interactions with charged particles from a sunlike or larger star would make it very difficult for an atmosphere to maintain the kind of layers that protect Earth from ultraviolet. The insects would have an advantage, and the soft-forms that managed to make the transition to land would likely also have protective armor or other protective strategies. On the other hand, it would affect plants too; that could make for a really odd ecology as plants evolved ways to take in and use solar energy without having their cells killed by high frequency UV-B.
Hydrogen is not an option for a breathing gas. Leaving aside other issues, it is simply too light - on any but an impressively massive world, it floats off and escapes the planet. You could maybe argue hydrogen for the airborne life floating through a Jovian atmosphere, but that kind is not going to want an exoskeleton to make it heavy.
Humans can also take off that armor. Consider that a wound to an exoskeleton serves both as a break in the "skin" and a fractured "bone". A fleshie that isn't killed outright may have a better chance of surviving a wound and living to learn from the experience, not to mention reproduce, than a beastie with an exoskeleton. Consider also that humans in metal armor are not incredibly fast. For all their prowess from horseback, armored knights produced equivocal results when fighting equally determined lightly armored foes on foot. While it is possible to conceive of a form evolving the metabolism and structures to overcome the disadvantage of carrying extra weight on land, it is also possible that the disadvantage is too great to overcome competitive selective pressures in nature. It might be that it's easier to make a man-sized exoskeletal land form artificially than it is to see one evolve naturally - unless you introduce some factor that makes the exoskeleton an advantage. Maybe a higher level of background radiation.
A problem with extrapolating from primitive insect species is that they're primitive. Hard to tell what might have occurred had someone else not expanded into neighboring ecological niches that left them as prey to large fast predators. The competitors to the giant insects of that era were the carboniferous amphibians - likely effective predators for the era, but not in a class with the reptiles that would follow. And, the era was noted not just for oxygen concentration but for warm swamp-like conditions: note the significant size difference between modern tropical rainforest insects and their cousins of the more temperate regions. As it is, they were trapped in those niches that emphasized characteristics that enabled them to survive as species despite being eaten by anything and everything up to and including carnivorous plants. They produce large numbers of offspring, grow fast, and they try their darnedest not to be seen by predators - in which contest it pays to not grow so large that you can't hide in the local foliage.
What is needed is a world where the soft-body forms don't get a chance to get out of the water and evolve. Perhaps a world with little or no metallic core to form a protective magnetic field. Without that, interactions with charged particles from a sunlike or larger star would make it very difficult for an atmosphere to maintain the kind of layers that protect Earth from ultraviolet. The insects would have an advantage, and the soft-forms that managed to make the transition to land would likely also have protective armor or other protective strategies. On the other hand, it would affect plants too; that could make for a really odd ecology as plants evolved ways to take in and use solar energy without having their cells killed by high frequency UV-B.
Hydrogen is not an option for a breathing gas. Leaving aside other issues, it is simply too light - on any but an impressively massive world, it floats off and escapes the planet. You could maybe argue hydrogen for the airborne life floating through a Jovian atmosphere, but that kind is not going to want an exoskeleton to make it heavy.
"Uller Uprising" had plausible(?) exoskeletal lifeforms (the shellosaurs, not the Ullerans).
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19474/19474-h/19474-h.htm#Introduction
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19474/19474-h/19474-h.htm#Introduction
First the exoskeleton problem: yes, it would be heavier than an internal skeleton if it was the sole means of supporting the critter, protection, as well as give the muscles something for leverage No reason, though, that some system of complimentary structures can't be used to overcome that.
The exoskeleton could have evolved to be not so much as and external support system, but mainly for protection. It is thick keratin with a leathery structure that has thick chitinous scutes to protect the main organ cavities and provide sharp and heavy edges to limbs and such. Not everything has to be (nor would it even in insects here)the same thickness everywhere so the joints and thoracic areas would have thinner layers of keratin (and more flexible) so the beast can move and breathe. Internally, the creature could have plenty of internal support structures of honeycombed bone or some analog of such, just like large crustaceans have today. However, since the outer layers would be less rigid and heavy (being that only the most important areas, and along the spine, etc..) the internal structures should add that much weight overall. Scale will be important, but there's nothing to say that a being that is around 4-5' tall couldn't have a carapace that combines some of the properties of an exoskeleton, enhanced by internal support structures to provide bracing for the outer shell and muscles.
As an additional enhancement you could add in the strategy that the Chamax have that uses a higher internal pressure to provide a way to help the limbs move (quickly in the Chamax). I put it in a thread on Chamax predator somewhere her, but basically the adventure specs say the beasts kind of explode from high internal pressure. i posit that the reason for the pressure is so the legs will "spring out" when the muscles relax, while the muscles only pull against this pressure in one direction - no push/pull required and only one set of locomotive muscles are needed so stronger (larger) ones would fit into the same relative space. A hunting spider does a similar thing: they will pump themselves up a little but rapid contraction up and down of the leg joints at the thorax - this increases the internal pressure slightly but give the spider a little extra "spring" in its step. A Chamax might have just developed the same strategy to allow it grow so large - and an intelligent insect-like race might have evolved the same way. It doesn't mean they would always move fast, or at all....it just provides a mechanism that allows movement at all given their size.
The beast would need real lungs or some analog, so the thoracic area needs to be able to expand and flex for at least that reason. Spiracles and passive exchange systems won't cut it. Book lungs are going in the right direction but depending on how "hot" the metabolism will be, the more air (or whatever it breathes for the chemical reactions) will be required. Maybe these guys are not all that "active"? Or maybe this hot-burning active type is the one calling the shots on the hive mind because it is the one that evolved with a larger brain while the others did not because the race hit the weight limit?
Just spit-ballin' here.
The exoskeleton could have evolved to be not so much as and external support system, but mainly for protection. It is thick keratin with a leathery structure that has thick chitinous scutes to protect the main organ cavities and provide sharp and heavy edges to limbs and such. Not everything has to be (nor would it even in insects here)the same thickness everywhere so the joints and thoracic areas would have thinner layers of keratin (and more flexible) so the beast can move and breathe. Internally, the creature could have plenty of internal support structures of honeycombed bone or some analog of such, just like large crustaceans have today. However, since the outer layers would be less rigid and heavy (being that only the most important areas, and along the spine, etc..) the internal structures should add that much weight overall. Scale will be important, but there's nothing to say that a being that is around 4-5' tall couldn't have a carapace that combines some of the properties of an exoskeleton, enhanced by internal support structures to provide bracing for the outer shell and muscles.
As an additional enhancement you could add in the strategy that the Chamax have that uses a higher internal pressure to provide a way to help the limbs move (quickly in the Chamax). I put it in a thread on Chamax predator somewhere her, but basically the adventure specs say the beasts kind of explode from high internal pressure. i posit that the reason for the pressure is so the legs will "spring out" when the muscles relax, while the muscles only pull against this pressure in one direction - no push/pull required and only one set of locomotive muscles are needed so stronger (larger) ones would fit into the same relative space. A hunting spider does a similar thing: they will pump themselves up a little but rapid contraction up and down of the leg joints at the thorax - this increases the internal pressure slightly but give the spider a little extra "spring" in its step. A Chamax might have just developed the same strategy to allow it grow so large - and an intelligent insect-like race might have evolved the same way. It doesn't mean they would always move fast, or at all....it just provides a mechanism that allows movement at all given their size.
The beast would need real lungs or some analog, so the thoracic area needs to be able to expand and flex for at least that reason. Spiracles and passive exchange systems won't cut it. Book lungs are going in the right direction but depending on how "hot" the metabolism will be, the more air (or whatever it breathes for the chemical reactions) will be required. Maybe these guys are not all that "active"? Or maybe this hot-burning active type is the one calling the shots on the hive mind because it is the one that evolved with a larger brain while the others did not because the race hit the weight limit?
Just spit-ballin' here.
Bug threads are like bugs - it's hard to tell if they're really dead.
Humans can also take off that armor. Consider that a wound to an exoskeleton serves both as a break in the "skin" and a fractured "bone". A fleshie that isn't killed outright may have a better chance of surviving a wound and living to learn from the experience, not to mention reproduce, than a beastie with an exoskeleton. Consider also that humans in metal armor are not incredibly fast. For all their prowess from horseback, armored knights produced equivocal results when fighting equally determined lightly armored foes on foot. While it is possible to conceive of a form evolving the metabolism and structures to overcome the disadvantage of carrying extra weight on land, it is also possible that the disadvantage is too great to overcome competitive selective pressures in nature. It might be that it's easier to make a man-sized exoskeletal land form artificially than it is to see one evolve naturally - unless you introduce some factor that makes the exoskeleton an advantage. Maybe a higher level of background radiation.
A problem with extrapolating from primitive insect species is that they're primitive. Hard to tell what might have occurred had someone else not expanded into neighboring ecological niches that left them as prey to large fast predators. The competitors to the giant insects of that era were the carboniferous amphibians - likely effective predators for the era, but not in a class with the reptiles that would follow. And, the era was noted not just for oxygen concentration but for warm swamp-like conditions: note the significant size difference between modern tropical rainforest insects and their cousins of the more temperate regions. As it is, they were trapped in those niches that emphasized characteristics that enabled them to survive as species despite being eaten by anything and everything up to and including carnivorous plants. They produce large numbers of offspring, grow fast, and they try their darnedest not to be seen by predators - in which contest it pays to not grow so large that you can't hide in the local foliage.
What is needed is a world where the soft-body forms don't get a chance to get out of the water and evolve. Perhaps a world with little or no metallic core to form a protective magnetic field. Without that, interactions with charged particles from a sunlike or larger star would make it very difficult for an atmosphere to maintain the kind of layers that protect Earth from ultraviolet. The insects would have an advantage, and the soft-forms that managed to make the transition to land would likely also have protective armor or other protective strategies. On the other hand, it would affect plants too; that could make for a really odd ecology as plants evolved ways to take in and use solar energy without having their cells killed by high frequency UV-B.
Hydrogen is not an option for a breathing gas. Leaving aside other issues, it is simply too light - on any but an impressively massive world, it floats off and escapes the planet. You could maybe argue hydrogen for the airborne life floating through a Jovian atmosphere, but that kind is not going to want an exoskeleton to make it heavy.
Hydrogen's also the only thing reactive enough and lighter than oxygen to make for a decent breathing gas.
Nitrogen, maybe...
Sulfur's a good high-temp substitute for Oxygen - Vapor at just about 445°C.. For a world with life in the 500-600°C range, Sulphur is a better option than Oxygen, and similar reactivity.
Oh, and if you lose the magnetic field, you lose a LOT more atmosphere to solar wind ablation.
Bug threads are like bugs - it's hard to tell if they're really dead.
Humans can also take off that armor. Consider that a wound to an exoskeleton serves both as a break in the "skin" and a fractured "bone". A fleshie that isn't killed outright may have a better chance of surviving a wound and living to learn from the experience, not to mention reproduce, than a beastie with an exoskeleton. Consider also that humans in metal armor are not incredibly fast. For all their prowess from horseback, armored knights produced equivocal results when fighting equally determined lightly armored foes on foot. While it is possible to conceive of a form evolving the metabolism and structures to overcome the disadvantage of carrying extra weight on land, it is also possible that the disadvantage is too great to overcome competitive selective pressures in nature. It might be that it's easier to make a man-sized exoskeletal land form artificially than it is to see one evolve naturally - unless you introduce some factor that makes the exoskeleton an advantage. Maybe a higher level of background radiation.
A problem with extrapolating from primitive insect species is that they're primitive. Hard to tell what might have occurred had someone else not expanded into neighboring ecological niches that left them as prey to large fast predators. The competitors to the giant insects of that era were the carboniferous amphibians - likely effective predators for the era, but not in a class with the reptiles that would follow. And, the era was noted not just for oxygen concentration but for warm swamp-like conditions: note the significant size difference between modern tropical rainforest insects and their cousins of the more temperate regions. As it is, they were trapped in those niches that emphasized characteristics that enabled them to survive as species despite being eaten by anything and everything up to and including carnivorous plants. They produce large numbers of offspring, grow fast, and they try their darnedest not to be seen by predators - in which contest it pays to not grow so large that you can't hide in the local foliage.
What is needed is a world where the soft-body forms don't get a chance to get out of the water and evolve. Perhaps a world with little or no metallic core to form a protective magnetic field. Without that, interactions with charged particles from a sunlike or larger star would make it very difficult for an atmosphere to maintain the kind of layers that protect Earth from ultraviolet. The insects would have an advantage, and the soft-forms that managed to make the transition to land would likely also have protective armor or other protective strategies. On the other hand, it would affect plants too; that could make for a really odd ecology as plants evolved ways to take in and use solar energy without having their cells killed by high frequency UV-B.
Hydrogen is not an option for a breathing gas. Leaving aside other issues, it is simply too light - on any but an impressively massive world, it floats off and escapes the planet. You could maybe argue hydrogen for the airborne life floating through a Jovian atmosphere, but that kind is not going to want an exoskeleton to make it heavy.
from a sheer game related standpoint the simpler answer, with less need to finesse the entire eco-system. would be a complex respiratory/circulatory system.
the rigid exoskeleton would be a hindrance for mammal style systems, but an enclosed bellows system where the "lungs' expand and contract within the confines of a fairly roomy cavity would be feasible.another option would be for the organs to be partially encased with non rigid sections that allow the lungs to expand freely.
From what I've read in the past day or two the high concentrations of oxygen were key to the evolution of mega insects, but it also made amphibians and other vertebrates even more successful than before due to their lung/gills and more efficient internal systems.
So, if the simplest method to arrive at a desired outcome is usually the route nature takes.... the most direct route would e a complex respiratory/vascular system, which would make the already numerous arthropods more likely to edge out their soft bodied neighbors.
making any major alterations to the planets basic environment also has other limiting factors that make it more problematic for creating an evolved and intelligent Insect looking species.the lack of a strong magnetic field would over time reduce the planet to something similar to mars, it's atmosphere stripped away, and it's tectonic cycles halted. not exactly a warm and inviting location for advanced life forms.
I'm likely going to steal this race from abiogenisis... They have a whole series of pictures of this race.
Example
http://www.deviantart.com/#/art/Kaybor-Gate-193956941?hf=1
http://www.deviantart.com/art/Protest-179905676
http://www.deviantart.com/art/Birrin-Study-274382033
Example
http://www.deviantart.com/#/art/Kaybor-Gate-193956941?hf=1
http://www.deviantart.com/art/Protest-179905676
http://www.deviantart.com/art/Birrin-Study-274382033
Well, what about if on the world they evolved on, this species of big critters did develop something akin to a circulatory system, managing to push enough oxygen-rich goo about a circulatory system with its several pumps to each of its brain units. Its outer covering being a combination of rigid chitin and tough leathery material was an adaptation that enabled it to survived breaks that killed other species that only had a hard outer covering.
Less implausible now?
Very plausible.....
...with intelligence driven by endless hive-wars in prehistoric times, over millions of years. Over time the warriors that develop some initiative and cooperative skills, the workers that learn to build better, directors that begin to reason, the layers and tenders that spot the signs in the larvae that produce superior versions of those others, all ends up driving them to a type of sentience that we can appreciate but struggle to understand.
A dark, hungry, remorseless intelligence...
A dark, hungry, remorseless intelligence...
Enoki
SOC-14 1K
There's at least one already in existence: (expanded from original canon materials)
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=24979&highlight=maskai
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=24979&highlight=maskai
