# Believable aliens on Venus?



## TransformerRobot (Nov 3, 2014)

Hi, me again, with another problem involving my story concept from before.

One of the alien races in the story is situated on Venus, which of course would not be a suitable place for life as we know today.

I was thinking what if the Venusians were underground dwelling beings who could survive extreme heat (up to 1000 degrees Celsius), and breathed carbon dioxide.

But what would they have to be composed of to survive the conditions on that planet?

Would they have to be some sort of energy being?


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## RedSavage (Nov 3, 2014)

Oooh boy. You're gonna need a chemist for this one. 

You need something that's gonna be able to withstand a high concentrated amount of carbon dioxide and nitrogen in the atmosphere. (plant based?) And then you're gonna need something that can withstand sulfuric acid rains and extreme heat. Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system. Even more than Mercury, which is closer to the sun. Something to do with the greenhouse effect the planet's clouds employ. 

Oh--and those clouds travel in upper atmosphere winds of a bout 225 mph. Venus only rotates once every 243 days, but clouds manage to make a round in about 4 days. On the surface, however, wind speeds drop down to only a few miles an hour. 

Venus is a weird feckin' planet. http://www.space.com/18527-venus-atmosphere.html


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## Kit H. Ruppell (Nov 3, 2014)

This is why most science fiction involving aliens has moved FAR outside of the Sol system. 
Why Venus, if I may ask?


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## TransformerRobot (Nov 3, 2014)

Kit H. Ruppell said:


> This is why most science fiction involving aliens has moved FAR outside of the Sol system.
> Why Venus, if I may ask?



It's a close enough planet to Earth for a part of the story, and I was thinking of the Venusians as a civilization similar to the jinn (aka genies). The jinn are supposed to be from smokeless fire, and what's a more smokeless fire in the galaxy than Venus?


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## Kit H. Ruppell (Nov 3, 2014)

TransformerRobot said:


> It's a close enough planet to Earth for a part of the story, and I was thinking of the Venusians as a civilization similar to the jinn (aka genies). The jinn are supposed to be from smokeless fire, and what's a more smokeless fire in the galaxy than Venus?


Io, for one, and there are presumably MANY things like it and worse throughout the galaxy.


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## TransformerRobot (Nov 3, 2014)

Kit H. Ruppell said:


> Io, for one, and there are presumably MANY things like it and worse throughout the galaxy.



Okay, but if I kept them on Venus could they be just microscopic life forms that were mutated when humans terraformed the planet?


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## Kit H. Ruppell (Nov 3, 2014)

I didn't say you could or couldn't do anything. 
You asked if it was believable!


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## TransformerRobot (Nov 3, 2014)

I guess it's not believable then.


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## Plastic-Fox (Nov 3, 2014)

TransformerRobot said:


> Okay, but if I kept them on Venus could they be just microscopic life forms that were mutated when humans terraformed the planet?



Terraforming changes things. Literally.
It might allow your species to "wake up" so to speak from a dormant state beneath the ground as the climate would be reverting to be more like a previous state of Venus's evolution.


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## TransformerRobot (Nov 3, 2014)

Plastic-Fox said:


> Terraforming changes things. Literally.
> It might allow your species to "wake up" so to speak from a dormant state beneath the ground as the climate would be reverting to be more like a previous state of Venus's evolution.



Would a dormancy in the clouds work too?


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## Charrio (Nov 3, 2014)

I'd make them underground in a subterranean society where thanks to being so deep has it's climate stabilized and much more hospitable than that of the surface where probes only see a dead world.


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## TransformerRobot (Nov 3, 2014)

Charrio said:


> I'd make them underground in a subterranean society where thanks to being so deep has it's climate stabilized and much more hospitable than that of the surface where probes only see a dead world.



You know what, that works better, I should've kept it like that, thank you.


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## Chuchi (Nov 3, 2014)

If it helps you brainstorm, look into ocean hydrothermal vents. Such environments are much akin to an alien world and host a vast array of life that has had to adapt to extreme circumstances. Perhaps you can find something to help you build on.


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## chesse20 (Nov 3, 2014)

maybe their amoeba who gain energy from slowing down particles (aka making them cold)


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## Conker (Nov 3, 2014)

Honestly, for fiction, just go with it and worry about the logistics later. Lewis and Burroughs put people on Venus and no one cared. "Fiction" is still part of "science fiction" afterall.


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## Eggdodger (Nov 3, 2014)

Considering lightning strikes several times a minute in any given place on Venus, I think that any aliens exiting the atmosphere or living on the surface would be improbable unless they had measures to counter that (natural electrical insulation, no nervous system, etc.). Maybe instead of an electrical impulse-based nervous system, they could have a reactionary chemical system, similar to plants? (Which is why flowers face sunlight, venus fly traps clamp down on buggies, etc.) It'd be sacrificing some autonomy on their part, though, unless they could stimulate these chemical reactions on their own somehow. Hey, I'm just running with the plant idea.

As for the ship, it probably can't propel itself through combustion like our engines do; there's no way to oxidize the reaction, unless they create their own supply of oxygen, but that might be more complicated than finding another means of propulsion. I don't know, I'm better with biology than chemistry or physics. Physical chemistry.


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## Inpw (Nov 3, 2014)

Let's see. the temperature on Venus is far greater than that here due to the atmosphere being 98% carbon dioxide causing greenhouse effects and under great atmospheric pressure. Life as we know it? Not likely. Venus also has a slow reverse rotation that takes longer than its entire year to complete a day and night cycle.

However, what about life as we don't know it?

The pure though of that has finally caused scientists to accept that looking at the goldilocks zones for life is not only unpractical but rather arrogant of our understanding of nature.


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## TransformerRobot (Nov 4, 2014)

Chuchi said:


> If it helps you brainstorm, look into ocean hydrothermal vents. Such environments are much akin to an alien world and host a vast array of life that has had to adapt to extreme circumstances. Perhaps you can find something to help you build on.



Well, another idea I had was that they were a civilization of microscopic creatures. But that wouldn't fit so much in my story since they would be required to use the same things as humans do in this timeline (vehicles, tools, etc.). Unless you can think of a way for them to change their size and mass to fit the circumstances.


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## Schwimmwagen (Nov 4, 2014)

Suspension of disbelief.

If you want to make a believable world, you gotta be careful to not fall into the trap of trying to explain shit.

Star Wars is somehow believable. Nobody thinks of it as "real" but all this weird shit blends together and works together in a way that it all seems so natural, like we forget about our world and peer into another. Fiction doesn't have to be like reality to be believable - that just makes it realistic.

Believability and realism are two different things. It's entirely possible for a realistic story to lack in believability and vice versa.


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## Eggdodger (Nov 4, 2014)

Schwimmwagen said:


> Believability and realism are two different things. It's entirely possible for a realistic story to lack in believability and vice versa.



That explains why my mom always has so much trouble in court.


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## TransformerRobot (Nov 4, 2014)

Schwimmwagen said:


> Suspension of disbelief.
> 
> If you want to make a believable world, you gotta be careful to not fall into the trap of trying to explain shit.
> 
> ...



I understand that now. I just really wanted this particular world to be real. Maybe it's just my lack of faith in today's society, but enough about that.

When you put it that way I'll just say that the Venusians exist on a separate dimension than ours', so we can't see them under normal circumstances.


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## Eggdodger (Nov 4, 2014)

TransformerRobot said:


> When you put it that way I'll just say that the Venusians exist on a separate dimension than ours', so we can't see them under normal circumstances.



That... doesn't make sense.

I mean, like, people don't regularly debate the concept of life on Venus. You can't see past the atmosphere, for one. Plus all the lightning would make it hard for anything standing upright to go about their day unless they lived below the surface, which you wouldn't see with radar imaging anyways.

The whole point of suspension of disbelief isn't to explain what doesn't make sense, necessarily-- it's to take something that could make sense with the right mindset, and give it its own set of rules that don't work the way they do here.

Take magic, for example. In most video games, it's just like stamina, right? Once you've tired yourself out, you can't cast spells anymore until you get some rest. That makes sense, because the magic's implied to be of your body. That's why you take mana potions the same way you take health potions, and why in some games mechanical characters don't have mana (or very little).

(Wow, that sudden server crash made me lose some of my auto-saved post, the following is totally adlibbed from what I remember)

I'm just gonna say this-- the dimensional thing isn't necessary to the plot. People don't usually debate life on Venus, and no one's lived there, so you have some creative license as far as what can and cannot go on there. Like I said above, if they're below the surface, they couldn't be picked up with radar imaging-- and that makes more sense than saying they live in a three-dimensional planet, but exist on a higher plane. That's like... Okay, that would be like us being compressed and living in a two-dimensional planet, just cuz. Or if you're talking about a different realm of existence that's still the shape of how we perceive things... Dude, really? Venus is still in this dimension. Doesn't matter how big it is, something that's here is gonna stay here, and even if you apply the quantum mechanic principles and say they're on another copy of Venus, they're still not on _our_ Venus. Take Chief Swimming Wagon's advice; don't try explaining stuff you don't have to.


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## TransformerRobot (Nov 5, 2014)

Well, now that the issue of their existence is out of the way, I'll be off doing concept art for it. Thanks for giving me this insight.


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## CaptainCool (Nov 6, 2014)

Haha, wow. You really did pick the most hostile place in the solar system for your aliens^^
Here is a video that explains why Venus is evil. Pure evil. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6K2ibg-Wb0

The planet essentially baked itself dry. There is nothing there that could sustain life.

Even Mars would be better than Venus.
If you want some kind of subterranean culture I'd choose one of the bigger moons of the gas giants. Those are said to have underground oceans! I mean, that is a place where scientists actually do speculate that life could be found there^^


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## Inpw (Nov 6, 2014)

CaptainCool said:


> Haha, wow. You really did pick the most hostile place in the solar system for your aliens^^
> Here is a video that explains why Venus is evil. Pure evil. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6K2ibg-Wb0
> 
> The planet essentially baked itself dry. There is nothing there that could sustain life.
> ...



Video basically says my comment with a little more on how it actually got there. Saw it in some documentary somewhere. 

But OP, does this live necessarily have to be something similar to our understanding of it?


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## TransformerRobot (Nov 6, 2014)

CaptainCool said:


> Haha, wow. You really did pick the most hostile place in the solar system for your aliens^^
> Here is a video that explains why Venus is evil. Pure evil. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6K2ibg-Wb0
> 
> The planet essentially baked itself dry. There is nothing there that could sustain life.
> ...



Did you not read the part where I said "survive temperatures of 800 degrees celsius"?

After all, they're aliens, and they're biology would likely be hella different from ours.


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## CaptainCool (Nov 6, 2014)

TransformerRobot said:


> Did you not read the part where I said "survive temperatures of 800 degrees celsius"?
> 
> After all, they're aliens, and they're biology would likely be hella different from ours.



You also said "Believable aliens" in the title. Venus is the last place where I would look for life, that is not very believable.
At temperatures like that there can't really happen any biology anymore. You need a medium to start life in, like water. Water and other fluids don't exist in large enough quantaties on Venus.
Venus is just a big chunck of hot rock. It is literally the least habitable place in the solar system XD


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## Kit H. Ruppell (Nov 6, 2014)

CaptainCool said:


> It is literally the least habitable place in the solar system XD


  Actually, it's not. Mercury is worse, Io is worse, any asteroid is worse, don't forget Sol itself.


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## CaptainCool (Nov 6, 2014)

Kit H. Ruppell said:


> Actually, it's not. Mercury is worse, Io is worse, any asteroid is worse, don't forget Sol itself.



How is Mercury worse? Venus is the hottest place in the solar system (except for the sun itself of course but I don't count that anyway), its atmosphere is 90 times more dense than that on earth so you would get crushed by it, it rains acid, there are volcanoes everywhere, at nights it's -180Â°C but not that it matters, a day on Venus lasts over 200 earth days so you can't exactly just wait for nightfall, due to the slow rotation it has almost no magnetic field at all so you get blasted by the solar wind... It's just a plain nightmare. It's actually pretty close to how some poeple would describe hell 

Mercury on the other hand is relatively tame. It's colder there and if you hide in one of the craters near the poles you might actually find water!

Asteroid are small and boring. The sun is just that, the sun. You can't really go there anyway. I read on XKCD that if you went into the sun (not onto the surface) for just one _femtosecond_ that would be enough to give your whole body second or third degree burns, t horribly damage your DNA through radiation and to fry your organs with photons that are reduced to microwaves.

Io is probably pretty bad as well, but my bet is still on Venus^^


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## TransformerRobot (Nov 6, 2014)

CaptainCool said:


> You also said "Believable aliens" in the title. Venus is the last place where I would look for life, that is not very believable.
> At temperatures like that there can't really happen any biology anymore. You need a medium to start life in, like water. Water and other fluids don't exist in large enough quantaties on Venus.
> Venus is just a big chunck of hot rock. It is literally the least habitable place in the solar system XD



But then I was reminded that, since I'm making science fiction, I can bend the rules a bit. There are a lot of things science hasn't been able to explain yet, and obviously won't be able to explain those things until decades, maybe centuries later.


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## Eggdodger (Nov 6, 2014)

TransformerRobot said:


> But then I was reminded that, since I'm making science fiction, I can bend the rules a bit. There are a lot of things science hasn't been able to explain yet, and obviously won't be able to explain those things until decades, maybe centuries later.



And science fiction, as a medium, is meant to make you think. You think of a problem, perhaps one that could eventually happen or maybe one we've never speculated about before, and you think how advances that we don't have in the present could solve them. In this case, you're building a scenario in which life on one of the most inhospitable places imaginable could possibly be sustainable. I think that's the mindset of a science fiction writer, or even a scientist: look for something that seems impossible, and make its attainment conceivable.


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## Kangamutt (Nov 9, 2014)

TransformerRobot said:


> But then I was reminded that, since I'm making science fiction, I can bend the rules a bit. There are a lot of things science hasn't been able to explain yet, and obviously won't be able to explain those things until decades, maybe centuries later.



Except that you can only hand-wave so much before it stops being believable. And you have quite the load on your plate using Venus of all planets to have something living there. As it's been said, it's one of the most inhospitable planets in our system. The air is almost completely carbon dioxide, it rains goddamn acid, atmospheric pressure is 90 times our own at sea level, and it's at average, a balmy 462 degrees Celsius. You know, hot enough to melt lead. Then there's the fact that the planet spins so slowly, it is unable to generate the magnetosphere to deflect any solar wind that comes at it. As it stands, the planet is a total wasteland. 

You've got a lot of biology and chemistry homework.


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## TransformerRobot (Nov 9, 2014)

Kangaroo_Boy said:


> Except that you can only hand-wave so much before it stops being believable.



I'm not too good with biology or chemistry as you know, so I'm not sure where I'd have to stop hand-waving for the believability to stay in place. What if I just don't explain their existence beyond living underground under our noses, and being practically made of magma or something?


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