Atoz 77
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Post by Atoz 77 on Feb 20, 2009 8:55:51 GMT -6
Okay, this is where we can discuss physiological aspects of various alien creatures we meet in the Next Generation.
First off, in "Encounter at Farpoint", we meet the Space Medusa (I don't know if it's ever been given a better name than that), a deep space life form which was capable of directly converting energy into matter.
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Post by andrewlee on Feb 20, 2009 16:42:56 GMT -6
The Space Medusa's ability to change energy into matter reminded me of the replicators used by the Federation and other advanced cultures. It must have been highly evolved, intelligent and powerful to have this ability!! I was also impressed by this creatures ability to travel through space!!
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Atoz 77
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Post by Atoz 77 on Feb 23, 2009 8:51:02 GMT -6
The ability to create the elements you need out of energy (or probably transmute elements you don't need) would be a useful ability for a creature that lives in space, considering the vast distances between planets or asteroids where you would expect to find matter.
Obviously it can't "swim" through space like an Earth medusa does through water, because there's nothing to push against. Impulse engines use some kind of action/reaction system -- in order to travel in one direction, you have to apply thrust in another. But that would be wasteful for a living thing because the only thing it has to expel is its own substance. I suppose it could use waste material. Or like that gaseous cloud creature in "Obsession", it could use gravitation fields.
One thing I noticed is that it didn't attempt to communicate with the Enterprise at all. I would think a creature that lived in space might generate radio waves to talk to other creatures of its own species, but the Medusae didn't even do that much. The only contact they had was Troi's empathic contact. And the one on the ground was able to read people's minds and provide whatever they wanted. But he/she didn't seem to understand why Groppler Zorn was angry at him/her. I suspect that this was also just empathic contact, that he/she could feel what people wanted, without actually understanding their words. When the two medusae met up, they seemed to talk to one another by caressing with their tentacles (and they serve no other purpose that I could see). It could be that they don't have a long range means of communication at all, because they had never had the reason to evolve one.
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Luke
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Post by Luke on Feb 24, 2009 14:29:37 GMT -6
Im curious how a creature could use gravity for propulsion, since garivty only pulls.
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Atoz 77
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Post by Atoz 77 on Feb 27, 2009 9:00:15 GMT -6
That's an incredibly good question, Luke. As Einstein said, gravity is simply our perception of the curved nature of space/time. The only thing we know which can distort space/time is mass, but maybe the creature has some exotic means of doing it.
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Atoz 77
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Post by Atoz 77 on Mar 2, 2009 9:20:04 GMT -6
"The Last Outpost" -- Here we meet the Ferengi for the first time. Physiologically, about the only thing I can think to point out is their four-lobed brains, which apparently make them immune to Troi's empathic abilities. We also met the guardian of "Portal 63 to the T'konian Empire", but I don't think he was a life form. He had been dormant for 5,000 years and didn't seem to mind going dormant again, so I'd say he was probably some kind of Artificial Intelligence.
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Luke
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Post by Luke on Mar 4, 2009 11:44:53 GMT -6
What is it with fourlobed brains? do you think its the way our brains are in two hemispheres, but they have four instead? Something liek that?
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Post by Atoz 77 on Mar 6, 2009 8:52:49 GMT -6
I would guess so. Our brains are divided into a left and right hemisphere, which connect to one another by the corpus callosium. In "Lonely Among Us", Troi said that she felt a sort of "dualism" from all Humans, and since there really isn't any dualism, I would guess that this intercommunication is what she was picking up. I would guess that Betazoids also have two hemispheres, but the interconnection between them is much smoother, so they don't feel that dualism. If Ferengi brains have four of them (tetraspheres, I guess you'd say), I suppose it might be confusing to a Betazoid. It might feel like the equivalent of four people chattering at once.
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Post by Atoz 77 on Mar 9, 2009 8:14:37 GMT -6
"Lonely Among Us" -- This features a cloud of coherent energy which apparently contained numerous "life units". One was accidentally taken aboard the Enterprise and moved from person to person. It's curious that Data theorizes that these life units are somehow not bound by the physical limitations of organic brains, and thus are somehow able to travel at unlimited speed. This statement makes no sense to me. Just like us organic beings, an energy being would still limited to the velocity of light unless it could somehow warp space as we do.
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Luke
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Post by Luke on Mar 11, 2009 10:43:01 GMT -6
Maybe because he had a positronic brain Data has the misconceptionthat thought travels at the speed of light or somethng. Although its hard to see how he could think so.
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Post by Atoz 77 on Mar 13, 2009 7:49:01 GMT -6
I don't see how Data could make that mistake, either. At first I thought he was only saying that an energy being wouldn't be affected by the lack of atmosphere in space, but it seems he meant it wasn't bound by limits on velocity as well. Maybe he meant that all the energy-based life forms they knew of were also capable of warping space?
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Post by Atoz 77 on Mar 30, 2009 7:49:25 GMT -6
In "Haven", Lwaxana Troi had a little pet vine that wrapped around her arm. We didn't see much of it, so we can't speculate too much about its properties. I would think it would make a good pet, though -- all you'd need is a sunlamp, and spray it with water and nutrients every now and then, which it would presumably absorb through its leaves. There are many plants on Earth that don't have roots (epiphytes, for example), but as far as I know, none that can move. I suppose it could have some kind of hydraulic system within its stem to enable it to crawl after a fashion.
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Luke
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Post by Luke on Apr 1, 2009 10:43:48 GMT -6
that would be cool to have a pet plant that you could carry around like that.
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Post by Atoz 77 on Apr 3, 2009 8:02:25 GMT -6
"Datalore" -- The Crystal Entity was fascinating to me, and beautiful. An enormously complex structure of crystal, it fed on the life energy of entire planets, absorbing even the bacteria in the soil. It devoured the 400 or so people on Omicron Theta, leaving nothing behind (or at least we aren't told that the USS Tripoli found any bodies).
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Luke
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Post by Luke on Apr 8, 2009 10:32:19 GMT -6
I thought the crystal entity was beautiful too but I dont see how a crystal can be a living thing when it doesnt have moving parts. Does that make sense?
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