Can Slush Planets (Rifter #19 planet builder) support life?

[Kinghawke]

Slush Planets are between gaseous & mineral planets. certain mineral planets can support life. gaseous planets cannot. can slush planets support life?

[taalismn]

IMHO, you can go with either 'life, but not as we know it', with exotic chemistries and life cycles, or seeded life that is designed specifically to exploit some small niche environ(such as a band of oxygen in the atmosphere, or layer of water skinning the surface of the chemical slush).

Similarly, sci-fi is full of 'hydrogen breathers' originating on gas giant worlds, typically evolving (slllllooowwwllllyyy) from self-replicating molecules combining in the slush-layers of the lower atmosphere and becoming higher-band floaters....or, again, the result of deliberate seeding operations.


Either way, the lifeforms tend to be rather kooky, given the thin margins they have to survive in(too cold, too pressurized, not enough ambient energy, etc....)

[drewkitty ~..~]

I've come across one hydrogen breather and one comet life form in all of my sci-fi readings. (in the 'up-lift' series (only mentioned in one book) and the Dragon Riders of Pern books (prominent in only one) respectively.


If you are talking about sentient life forms on slushy planets/comets….I would say no.the metabolism of life forms on such planets would probably be too slow for evolution to up-lift them in the life span of a solar system.

[taalismn]

I've come across one hydrogen breather and one comet life form in all of my sci-fi readings. (in the 'up-lift' series (only mentioned in one book) and the Dragon Riders of Pern books (prominent in only one) respectively..

David Brin's Hydrogen Breather Order of life plays a larger role in the Sooner Trilogy.
Kevin J. Anderson's Saga of Seven Suns series has gas giant natives as antagonists.
Arthur C. Clarke's Meeting with Medusa features the best short story depiction of floaters(an expanded universe sequel written by others makes them intelligent)

The TV series Andromeda has hydrogen breathers as one of the most-feared enemies(before the Magog show up) of the All Systems Alliance. 'Torchship' raids are apparently capable of rendering whole planets lifeless.


David Brin and Gregory Benford's The Heart of the Comet also features cometary lifeforms('Haleyforms').

In another author's 'hard' sci-fi series, protolife is discovered in Ort Cloud/Kuiper Belt objects being harvested for food chemicals. While not complex, the macromolecules prove dangerous enough to the humans stupid enough to wander in and provide them with an energy source and usable, readily-dissolvable-in-water protein....

[drewkitty ~..~]

I guess I have been reading around the books that mention them.

Thou I just remembered another place about 'cold sentients'. In the Tales from Known Space (Man-Kzin wars) universe has an H or He based life form that act as interstellar merchants.

[taalismn]

I guess I have been reading around the books that mention them.

Thou I just remembered another place about 'cold sentients'. In the Tales from Known Space (Man-Kzin wars) universe has an H or He based life form that act as interstellar merchants.

The Outsiders.

Good call!

The Lensmen series also has a few very cold environ aliens including the Palanians, who actually exist across several levels of reality, so what you see is actually the 'tip of the iceberg'(the Wrinkle in Time series also has a few critters like that...living tesseracts, but they're an entirely different environmental niche than the basis of this thread).

[eliakon]

I would, personally, say that since this is not a hard sci-fi game but a science-fantasy game...
Go for it.
Life should be able to exist anywhere considering what sort of rules you have in the game.
There is no reason you shouldn't be able to have life in slush worlds, gas giants, stars, deep space, comets, or even weirder places.
It will probably not be 3d6 stat bipeds that amazingly have really sexy females...
...but that is not the only kind of life so that shouldn't be a problem.

[taalismn]

I would, personally, say that since this is not a hard sci-fi game but a science-fantasy game...
Go for it.
Life should be able to exist anywhere considering what sort of rules you have in the game.
There is no reason you shouldn't be able to have life in slush worlds, gas giants, stars, deep space, comets, or even weirder places.
It will probably not be 3d6 stat bipeds that amazingly have really sexy females...
...but that is not the only kind of life so that shouldn't be a problem.

Or the sexy female space alien is a psychic projection meant to facilitate communication...or feeding....

[drewkitty ~..~]

I would, personally, say that since this is not a hard sci-fi game but a science-fantasy game...
Go for it.
Life should be able to exist anywhere considering what sort of rules you have in the game.
There is no reason you shouldn't be able to have life in slush worlds, gas giants, stars, deep space, comets, or even weirder places.
It will probably not be 3d6 stat bipeds that amazingly have really sexy females...
...but that is not the only kind of life so that shouldn't be a problem.

Or the sexy female space alien is a psychic projection meant to facilitate communication...or feeding....

Why does that bring to mind on the original ST episode with the planet for playing & Bones.

[taalismn]

[
Why does that bring to mind on the original ST episode with the planet for playing & Bones.

I'd have thought of the OST salt vampire that could appear as a human being.

[tobefrnk]

Given the diversity of aliens in Palladium's Aliens Unlimited RPG, you can definitely have life on a slush planet. You've aliens comprised of living rock to sentient humanoid plants.

[The Oh So Amazing Nate]

When the OP said "Slush Planet" my brain went to a place where the world was a combination of water and ice planets (you know..slush). I pictured walrus men, penguin folk, and all sorts of beings adapted for the near freezing, but not quite solid world. Guess I had the wrong description in my head.

[taalismn]

When the OP said "Slush Planet" my brain went to a place where the world was a combination of water and ice planets (you know..slush). I pictured walrus men, penguin folk, and all sorts of beings adapted for the near freezing, but not quite solid world. Guess I had the wrong description in my head.

Or SnoCone World...
"Yep, definitely Freaky Berry."

[drewkitty ~..~]

When the OP said "Slush Planet" my brain went to a place where the world was a combination of water and ice planets (you know..slush). I pictured walrus men, penguin folk, and all sorts of beings adapted for the near freezing, but not quite solid world. Guess I had the wrong description in my head.

Using the HU alien world modifications table, the above would be a 'frozen world'.
Still slushy but with H2O instead of Methane or Hydrogen/Helium.