So, how would a space leviathan work?
By space leviathan, I think of something HUGE, maybe our solar system long, or ten times this. A beast able to feed on stars and nebulas, so huge it as it's own atmosphere and can mess with the gravitational force of a solar system just by being too close. Something formidable enough to travel between galaxies.
Can whe imagine a titan while whe are but mites? Could such a thing exist without involving a major rape of physics?
That shit would be too big
>>44300957
>Could such a thing exist without involving a major rape of physics?
No, but I don't care. It's epic as fuck and any good space opera needs at least one.
I would have no idea what to do with it if it worked. It crushes planets and system like ants, what are you supposed to do against it? Seems awesome tho.
Contributing with world eater beast.
>>44300957
How much XP?
![hellstar+remina[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/ZsybAvw.jpg "hellstar+remina[1].jpg")
>>44300957
Don't speculate too loudly. She might hear you.
>>44300957
That thing would leave a trail of crushed planets and nebulas.
>>44300957
wouldn't anything that big just collapse in on itself?
>>44301009
Maybe something that cannot be stopped but can be redirected for your players to find out how?
It is hard to have epic space adventures when your solar system is about to be devored at best.
>>44300957
>space leviathan
>feeds on stars and nebulas
>has it's own atmosphere
>travels the hellish void between the galaxies
>all logic and reason fail before it's very existence
>there is only screaming madness and unfathomable evil between the stars
Literally all of my nightmares made manifest.
Something that massive would leave a reverse wake behind it. Things that it passes by would be drawn together into it by gravity. Even large objects that only get pulled a bit before it moves away would end up closer to its path.
So yes, you do need to rape physics pretty hard to make something that supermassive capable of movement.
>>44301121
better question would be: How could it not collapse?
>>44301037
fucking hellstar
Players would be an infiltration team to the surface of Planet Nibiru and should fight their way through the native lifeforms of Nibiru until they find a way to enter the Planet-Beast and kill it from inside with a thermonuclear device.
That would be Armageddon to the eleven.
>>44300957
No, but who says that our physics is the right one'
>>44301208
If that thing can eat stars, I don't think any thermonuclear device would work.
>>44301073
how awesome is that
>>44301220
extradimensional creature?
>>44301181
Could it work if it was able to sustain it's own form by the sheer strenght of its muscles?
(I don't know shit about physics)
>>44300957
>Could such a thing exist without involving a major rape of physics?
Just think about it for more than 2 seconds.
Even a planet the size of Earth has enough gravitational pull that it has shaped itself into a sphere with enough pressure in the centre to keep it molten.
And you want a creature the size of a solar system, made out of meat?
Obviously there's going to be some serious physics rape involved.
>>44301231
you're not thinking big enough
way easier to kill using a black hole tho.
>>44300957
If such a thing existed it would collapse into a star under its own weight
>>44301284
Strength doesn't really matter, if something as tiny as earth has enough gravity to melt rock and iron through sheer pressure, muscle-strength isn't going to do much. But it's hella cool, so just invent some space magic bullshit.
>>44301292
>You somehow manage to redirect the beast to enter the attraction field of a black hole
>It looses some meat, but shrugs it off and continue its path
>This is but a flesh wound
Capture it and use it as a spaceship just like in warhammer 40k
>>44301338
It would just get sucked in and make the hole bigger.
Almost impossible to have as a plot device unless your story reaches TTGL levels of insanity.
Perhaps a decent idea as a setting for your campaign, as the outside of the leviathan would still be millions of times larger than our earths surface.
I would reckon the gravitation pull would be too large if you're talking technicalities though. Assuming it's still flesh, it would be less dense than rock but the sheer volume would still result in unimaginable gravitational pull.
>>44301321
But that happens because of density and mass. If the Beast is mostly hollow and crawls by projecting itself like a worm/blob, it could be viable.
>>44300957
>Could such a thing exist without involving a major rape of physics?
No. The mere material strength would be impossible: There's a reason planets and stars are spherical. At that scale, its own gravitational force would force it to schlump into a solid, spherical, smooth blob of meat.
>>44301338
I'm now picturing this solar system spanning hellbeast what swims the void between galaxies as the apex predator of the universe that has an internal voice like the Black Knight from Monty Python.
>>44300957
OP here, forget the whole "whithout raping science". New theme is "with a minimum of science-raping"
>>44301454
God damn you.
>>44301454
Then my work here is done.
>>44301266
sure, why not
>>44301502
I think we're not going to get very far unless we slip Physics a roofie and fuck it in a grimy alley at two in the morning, but we can try.
How about a propulsion system based around gravity? It hurls itself towards the nearest star that might be larger than it so that it can use it's orbit to eat all the other planets in that solar system
>>44301037
that's no moon...
>>44301597
That's Hellstar Remina.
>>44301338
>you have to redirect the beast to several black holes to damage the beast
>>44300957
While solar system sized is out (damned thing would collapse into a star or black hole, ya nut), planet sized leviathans aren't unthinkable. Indeed, there's a running theory that the Earth almost became one at some point.
All you need is for one or more bacteria evolving on an existing planet to run amuck, and covering the whole surface, then developing specialized layer functions (as bacteria usually do when they do this on a smaller scale) where the ones on the outside form protective layers, and possibly photosynthesis, while the ones on the middle live on a combination of energies from that, and from the heat produced by the sheer size of the creature's mass, being radiated from the lower layers (which, essentially, are burning as fuel).
If this combination provides sufficient nutrients to keep the whole mass growing, eventually, you end up with your space leviathan. Conceivably, in a system with a lot of ice, and a series of asteroids in a goldilocks zone, you can end up with multiple small leviathans, that maybe able to propel themselves with gaseous excretions, feeding upon one another, until one such very large colony creature dominates the system.
Such creatures would be slow, but could become self sustaining enough, living on the energy generated by their sheer mass, to make million year journeys across the stars, (should their own fail, or just by life's natural evolutionary tendency to expand), possibly absorbing smaller planetoids for additional nutrients, and maybe dropping spores on more temperate worlds to create more of themselves.
>>44301645
>This thing can reproduce
I'm so fucking done
>>44301712
You should read the manga anon.
>>44301569
So, he would need a celestial objetc with enough mass to use. Could this work with the reverse wade thing? He wades throug a parsec in concentric circles to gather a big clusterfuck of maim and plasma, and then uses it to move?
>>44300957
lets start from the simple things:
I think it would be easier to make it a colony of multiple organisms rather than a single thing, like something akin to a pelagic cnidarian colony with extremely specialized dimorphisms and specializations of the components (which at those sizes would be like being cellular analogs to us), think of an eldritch version of a portuguese man'o war.
simplifying further we could then implement metamerism of the bigger groups of colonies to make them possibly more independent from one another, speaking of acquisition and distribution of resources.
then we must deal with movement and infrastructure, solar sails are a possibility, maybe a necessity; movement and an elongated structure could lead to a sort of cephalization of part of its colonies, for sensory purposes mostly, gravitational receptors, to make the best out of the pull of systems, radiation sensors, to identify position, stars and maybe composition of nebulas and atmoshperes, possibly even as communication among other of the species and its own metameric colonies if we implement parts dedicated to the production of light or charged particles; maybe chemical senses for tasting and valuing resources up close, appendages for the moving things in the front may be useful too
we should find a way to commute volume and mass, fractal surfaces both for the outside and the insides (celom)
the infrastructure could be composed of repurposed minerals, making out the incandescent nucleus of each metamer, possibly providing heat and a geomagnetic field to protect from smaller ionized space debris), which could be part of its digestive system: introduce resources in the mouths on the lower parts of the metamers and a main one on the front, the resources then end up in the nucleus inside the celome adding to the cycle of these mini planets inside the thing, the surfaces of these mini planets would be then used as if they were enormous fields for agriculture
reaching post limit
>>44301781
>The thing is so big its cellules have developped their own civilization.
That's fucking epic.
>>44301781
rather than an organism it would end up being a superorganism that somehow builds mineral skeletons all over a collapsed nucleus which makes the center of the metamer, trying to lower the gravitational stress of its components by distancing them a lot from the center and distributing the mass all over an enormous and elongated body
I'm a bit lost on where to move from here honestly, during the brainstorm there were thoughts of screams of ionized particles shot using the geomagnetic fields of all its metamers to fire them, possibly firing a solid projectile like a rail gun or even a single metamer or a dedicated part for reproduction too.
thoughts of moving smaller organisms descending from the leviathan to attack the instantly edible resources of a planet before the consumption of the dead rock in the incandescent cores.
and huge movements of all its metameric tentacles composing the thing to create gravitational flux to eat suns and big nebulas rather than grabbing them somehow.
but I don't really know how to continue.
make of this what you want.
>>44301361
thats not how black holes work damn it. Things dont get sucked in, they fall naturally, any part of the worm that doesnt pass the event horizon is fine as long as it keeps moving along with whatever it uses for propulsion
>>44301954
>thoughts of screams of ionized particles
I know this was a typo, and it was supposed to be "streams" but that is somehow entirely more frightening to think of.
>>44301289
Honestly, the way physics dresses, she's asking for it.
>>44301158
You forgot
>nightmarish monstrosities have eked out a hellish existence upon its back
>>44301979
no no, I meant screams, as they are artistically referred to when speaking about black holes'.
>>44302011
Hoo boy, let's keep things civil shall we?
On such a large scale, I'm not sure that you could have any viable biological machinery. However, a massive hollow sphere of flesh draped across a planet, devouring small flesh covered moons and accreting star dust to produce its own little moons that it reproduces by squirting out another fleshy hellscape onto it, that could work.
>>44301954
>screams of ionized particles are used to strip stellar objects of the outer layers of their athmosphere, angling the scream to make the particles (both shot and stripped) then revolve around the gravitational ellipse to eat them using another part of its body
Does anyone have the screenshot of the guy attempting to generate stats for a WH40K ship 1 AU in length? Shit was absolutely hilarious, in addition to be somewhat relevant.
>>44300957
I don't think you understand exactly how big the solar system is.
>>44302176
well to be fair, considering that there's a star estimated at being almost 2 billion km in diameter, it's at least has the correct amount of digits to fit in with a solar system.
>>44302295
I'm not sure what that is supposed to have to do with anything.
>>44301121
We figure it should, but do you think it oblige us if we told it that?
>>44301158
Don't worry, it's surface is pretty earthlike and it boasts more livable contiguous terrestrial space than the rest of the galaxy combined. The Andromedan have one to evacuate their Galaxy to in case of disaster, they seem to keep it in pasture using probability manipulation. It's a bit spooky but the Andromedans really seem to have their shit together
>>44302631
Except when it molt
>>44302743
>free dyson sphere
I don't see the problem.
>>Space leviathan is rapidly approaching the planet
What magic would you use to explain how
-The heroes can get to the beast
-The heroes can survive on the beast
-The heroes can destroy the beast?
On the topic of propulsion systems, how about a solar sail? Of course, interstellar travel would still take eons since radiation pressure scales with the inverse of distance squared, so once you're sufficiently far away from a star, acceleration drops off. The final velocity that is reached would probably not be even a thousandth of a c unless the star in question emits a huge amount of radiation. The good news is, a solar sail wouldn't require any energy expenditure from the creature's part (other than to deploy/fold the sail), so as long as it can hibernate for the duration of the journey s'all good.
One of the main issues with such a system would be maneuvering. As you can imagine, navigating with a sail becomes difficult if the wind only comes from a fixed point source. But that's where >>44301569 idea of using gravity to slingshot around celestial objects comes into play. It would require a highly advanced or specialised brain to calculate trajectories and solve multiple-body problems, though. The creature would also need incredibly advanced sensors to detect planets/stars/black holes/etc to have enough data to make the calculations. Ripping off Blindsight, it would make sense if the creature was non-sentient (or a colony of non-sentients) to reduce its energy consumption.
This is all assuming that the creature isn't solar system-sized as the OP requested. Also, some questions that I decided not to touch upon since I'm rubbish at biology: How does it feed? How does it reproduce? How the hell did something like it evolve?
A solar system is too big
Larger than a planet, even as large as our sun I can buy, but a solar system sized creature just goes too far IMO
Like, an really insignificant amount of our solar system is actually matter. All of it combined would probably be less than half the size of one of its eyes
>>44302631
What if
What if small fractions of the populations from planets which the creature ate managed to survive and clamber onto the creature?
What if they found others, from other planets?
What if there was an entire vast society, hundreds, thousands of races, made entirely of people who managed to survive the end of their world, and now fly through the void on the back of the creature who caused their apocalypse?
>>44302911
>How does it reproduce? How the hell did something like it evolve?
It does not. It is unique, it always existed, wading through the endless night of space since the very dawn of existence.
>>44301394
Nah, you've got it backwards. That much volume to a hollow form would collapse quickly. There's no air in space to keep it "inflated".
What you'd want would be a hyperDENSE body, getting denser towards its core, like a planet, where the core can be molten metal.
But this leviathan is measured in AU, with proportional girth. The core would be Sufficiently Dense that it would really start messing with physics. It'd need to consume enormous quantities of mass to sustain itself.
A solar system would be a buffet.
>>44300957
>>44300957
Good luck with Newton's Second Law. You're going to end up with a blob of *something* that can't move and will get pelted with micro meteors going 20 km/s.
>>44302743
It only looses a couple continent scales here and there as it traveles. There are rarely more than a few that come loose in any given place, and the gravity tends to keep them close as they slide through the atmosphere and debris field. This process is one of mega geology over eons
>>44301158
Suddenly really glad I don't know physics.
>>44303036
>>44302631
>>44301158
What would a sapient race that evolved within the internal ecosystem of a planet-sized creature be like? Intelligent gut flora? Telepathic white blood cells?
So lets say that billions of years ago a bunch of aliens run into a world like this
>>44301645
The primitive bacteria went nuts, made the world a skin and just generally went weird from there.
This alien race and its world was, other than the Beast Planet, the only known life in the known universe at that time. This was not that long after planets as we know them had started to form.
They took the Beast Planet and sculpted it and fucked around with it and made it strange in ways like this
>>44301781
>>44301954
Why? They were aliens. They were old as balls, both as individuals and as a society, they knew that they really were alone amongst the stars and they were possibly slightly mad. At least by human standards. By their standards there might have been a perfectly sensible reason but from the human point of view it just boils down to "Because I saw no reason not to", "Because I could" or maybe "Because I had a nightmare and wanted to see if it could be real".
Point is that it ate Earth.
But the other point is that humanity had ninety or so years to prepare for the event.
At large swathes of it's skin level the Leviathan has between 0.9 and 1.2 Earth gravity and an atmosphere that is similar enough to Earth's to breathe.
Point is that that cold grey mineral skin has green blotches starting to form on it. That's right cosmic bitches! Humanity is surfing the Leviathan, devourer of worlds.
>>44300957
>Solar system long
Nigger you don't understand how fucking big that is
First off, eating a nebula is out of the question. Nebulae are REALLY big. Event he smallest nebula is about 3 times larger than our entire solar system. If the creature were that large, it would never even notice things on the scale of our sun and planet.
Second, eating a sun completely is out of the question. There no conceivable compound that could survive the extreme gravity and heat. This might be difficult for a imaginative layman to accept. But a sun is where elements are made. There isn't an element or molecule that exists that would not boil and turn into plasma. That being said, a large enough creature might use it's own gravity to syphon off some cooler plasma from a distance, assuming it can get close enough without melting.
Thirdly, being as long as a solar system is totally out of the question. Just the distance from the earth to the moon, is about A QUARTER the DIAMETER of the sun. You gotta remember, space is REALLLYY big, and REALLY empty. A lot more than you think.
More reasonable would be to make the leviathan something like 1million miles long, which is wider than the sun, and would make it large enough to swallow Jupiter whole.
Eating planets rather than stars also makes more sense, because they have heavier more complex elements. It could swallow a planet whole, and it's digestion would strip the crust of the planet off, and then it poops out a smaller planet.
>>44302911
I've got an alternative to solar sails for propulsion.
On earth we have several creatures who generate propulsion without muscles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphagnum#Spore_dispersal
and creatures who use chemistry within their bodies with explosive results.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardier_beetle
So the idea hat a creature could evolve a sort of biological rocket engine is not entirely impossible. Imagine large structures shaped something like a barnacle, perhaps made of collected minerals for heat resistance, with large orbs of some kind of bio-fuel it creates. Considering its size and likely age, it could even make petroleum oil out of its own excess biological material.
As for navigation, if we go with the colonial organism idea it could have a section f itself that functions as a primitive brain, not capable of consciousness but able to perform the calculations necessary for interstellar travel.
Really the only thing that strains the physics is the scale of rocket that can move a planet or star sized object, but for something like this scale is the part we're overriding.
>>44303342
>>44303377
Isn't the whole point trying to imagine something that absurdly, impossibly big? It's like an insect trying to understand how big Earth could be, but more amusing because whe actually can at least try.
Being reasonable is less epic than a solar system long monster.
>>44303342
Nigger it's a leviathan of SPACE. It's not big enough to make the entire galaxy collectively shit their panties then you're doing something wrong.
That said you and >>44303377 are right. Solar system size is a tad too big. You want this thing to be viewable and intractable in at least the smallest way.
>>44302122
https://1d4chan.org/wiki/The_ship_moves
>>44303497
the difference in scale between an insect and earth, is still 10,000 times less than the scale between earth and the width of the solar system. The distance that objects orbit each other is really many many many times greater than the size of the objects. You could just as easily say "lol a snake the size of the universe" if you're not putting any functional limit on what you're imagining.
>>44303672
Fair point. I must say, I originally imagined it as something so big it would cause an alteration in gravitation strong enough to reorganize the map of space just by travelling through a galaxy. Sounds like I've overestimated it a bit.
>>44301008
Solar system sized is just too big for me. It'd be so unimaginably huge that interacting with it in any way would be impossible. A planet-sized space-beast is more doable, even if it would also be physically impossible. At least it wouldn't destroy entire solar systems by being in the general vicinity due to it having 10000 times the gravity pull of the system's sun.
>Planets are formed around bones, the free-floating vertebrae of long-dead space leviathans
>>44303818
to help put things in even more perspective, the range of the suns gravitational affect, called the Oort cloud, is is 1,000 times wider than the largest known star, which is 10,000 time wider than our sun.
>>44301645
I have a thing in a SF setting I've come up that works kind of like that. Billions of years ago on some random planet there evolved a silicon-based colonial organism that gained energy from heat and sunlight. With no competitors (it was literally the first form of life to eveolve on the planet), the colony spread out until it covered the entire planet. Being composed of highly conductive material it could transmit electric signals over long distance to allow communication between individual component-organisms and eventually developed into what is essentially a planet-sized brain. After a several hundred million years it advanced its intellect to the point where it became the most intelligent being in the galaxy and figured out shit nobody else has been able to do, like how to open wormholes and move its entire planet to a different system when necessary.
>>44304030
Now we have the basics of the creatures brain or brains sorted out to add to
>>44301781
>>44301954
>>44304071
So Silicoforms, Pelagic Cnidarin and Bacterial Gloop.
This is gonna be fun.
>>44303377
>It could swallow a planet whole, and it's digestion would strip the crust of the planet off, and then it poops out a smaller planet.
>The swath of destruction this thing leaves through the cosmos can be measured by the trail it leaves of former solar systems with dead stars and lifeless rocks that used to be planets
>>44304273
Here's something to help with your anxiety.
Ok, here's the thing about raping physics and gravity and all that: it doesn't have to be filled up. The principle of a dyson sphere is that you can build things larger than suns, and they don't implode because they're hollow. If you did have something like this, here's how it'd work:
>Thermonuclear fusion core
It's mega-hot in the middle and it consumes things and burns the crap out of them to make energy
>Photosynthetic mini-dyson-sphere
Around the thermonuclear bit is a big orb that's like a plant, and absorbs the vast amounts of heat and light that come out of the core
>Huge hollow around the sphere
To deal with the crushing gravity in its center, it'll have to have some lattice that moves energy out to the outer body, which is far enough away to survive. Of course, this means that a plucky adventurer that can pierce the side can cut that shit open and cause it to implode when the core floats into the edge
>Solar Sail Wings
To keep it moving, it'll have to apply the concepts of the solar sail, maybe with some windsurfing, and gravitational bouncing. Basically, light is made of photons, which have a tiny mass, and a big enough wall that gets hit by all of them gets pushed back. So, huge wings to move away from suns, gravity to move towards things.
>Mostly pointless Brain - decentralised consciousness
This thing doesn't have predators, and it doesn't need to be smart. Mostly, it'll move towards small planets and away from suns, while it grows.It's big enough that responses will take seconds to cross it, and it doesn't really need to be smart, so it'll probably stick to just having auto-responses based on light level. Auxin or some shit.
>Super-hard body
Nuff said. The outside, the lattices around the inner dyson sphere, all that'll need to be really tough to survive in space. Heat won't be such a concern because it'll be producing so much from the middle.
(1/2)
>>44304273
>lifeless rocks
>implying it doesn't filter space for dust like a whale and shit out condensed rocks the size of earth, seeded with it's gut fauna
>Worm eats several giant planets
>coils around giant star to keep warm while it digests
>After the star cools down too much (ie: to about our sun's level) it shits out a bunch of earth sized rocks
>Covered in waste liquid and bacteria
>Wake of it's leaving throws a few of the rocks into orbit
We all came from the belly of the beast.
>>44304423
>Deathbreath
When this thing opens its core sphincter, to allow the gravity of its inner core to suck in towards the planet, it'll allow all the electromagnetism that comes out of that to fly out. Instantly, all the planet's electric tech will probably go dead, or at least the close stuff. The crushing gravity will screw up tide patterns, throw the planet out of orbit, and generally mess up your day. The sudden appearance of so much heat and light will quickly become unbearable, and the ice caps will melt while the water goes to shit and all the ecosystems stop working.
> Flaws and ways to kill it
Well, the permanent nuke inside it is a bit of an issue, so if you can get near to the inside and punch a hole in the lattice big enough to collapse it, the whole thing will swing sideways, and it'll go nova and destroy everything nearby.
Also, iron and above. It can burn that stuff, but that won't release much energy for it. It relies mostly on very low-density matter. It'd rather have your oceans than your planet's core, and it really doesn't have much use for spaceships.
If you just leave it alone for long enough, it runs out of fuel and goes nova.
It can't reproduce without first creating a fusion reaction somehow, which is hard, so it must have been created by some mighty pissed space gods.
It's constantly fighting with the sun inside it to make sure it moves slow enough for the sun not to crash into a wall, but fast enough for it not to crash into the opposite wall. It takes ages for it to turn. So, if you can mount an opposition, or stop it quickly, it's screwed.
>>44304423
>>44304570
I'd love to see an artist's impression of this.
I'm kind of imagining it like a moving dyson sphere. Could it use the photons emitted from the sun inside of it as propulsion? Perhaps its internal lattice can open slots in the direction it does not want to move, so the photons impact more on the internal wall and propel it forwards.
Or am I imagining solar sails incorrectly?
>>44304645
That actually sounds like a really good system. I have a niggling feeling that it'll have the same problem as standing on a skateboard and pushing it from on top, because space is a vast void, but I'm not sure.
>>44304437
Maybe this is how it reproduces. the way I'm looking at is like this.
The 'skeleton' is basically several conglomerates of mineralized Pelagic Cnidarians, linked to the 'brain' which is a gigantic Sillicoform at its core with several smaller ones embedded into the other parts of the 'skeleton' as well as lines of Silicon acting as the nerve cables. the rest of this creatures body is made of bacteria and a soup of chemicals. this mass is basically all of the creatures vital organs rolled into one, along with its primary feeding apparatus and energy supply for the brain.
The feeding system is actually rather efficient first the creature sends several tendrils of the bacterial mass down to the surface of the planet, to strip away the biomass and render it down, this rendered down biomass is then consumed by the Cnidarians and used to make more of the chemical soup. this process generates a lot of energy most of which is distributed to the sillicoforms and absorbed, finally the crust of the planet is broken into manageable chunks and then stored in solution.
These creatures actually don't lay a singular egg, they instead produce a number of planetoids to facilitate the growth of the requisite life forms and fire them off at carefully controlled angles calculated by the brains around a prospective star such that they will form into another creature when the planets collide.
>>44303342
It can be long, but at the same time thin and flimsy, like some deep sea abomination.
Speaking of terrible things in the cold void of the sea, what if it's less like a monster and more like a space amoebae hitching a ride on an asteroid or a planetoid with no direct means of controlling it. Or it grows a rocky surface on it with squichy bits inside and consumer what ever particles of gas and dust comes along. Sometimes crashing onto planets and just fucking the place up before ejecting its spores into space to start growing into new living meteors/planets.
Problem is how does it get enough escape velocity to not only break from orbit but also the solar system?
>>44304386
Seems spooky, but reality is that even a planet the size of earth would pass trough to quickly and with such a large gap nearly every time that it's more likely that space lightning or just pure heatdeath of a close star would kill us.
Which you know, is smaller than finding alien life.
>>44303492
Being able to use it's own gravitational force to aid in creating super pressurized chambers would be cool.
If it's biology had a way to microwave particles as if it were a super advanced scaled up electric eel that would open up possibilities too.
Also might allow for some possibly dangerously radioactive areas on it's surface where a pore or node would be.
Also I like all the ideas for planet sized creature. Think of human being scared of a bug, or a virus. Something that propagates fast enough to really fuck shit up. Imagine a swarm of these things forcefully creating black holes by collectively balling up together like a ball python breeding ball.
>>44304914
Seems like if
>Suddenly, Saturn!
was a thing, we'd have significantly bigger things to worry about than a trip through it's rings.
>>44304914
Dunno if that webm is related to it, but there's this crazy religious-alt-science hybrid thing that tries to make the case that Saturn used to be a star, and that we used to orbit it, or... Something. And there's some illuminati conspiracy to revive the worship of Saturnus as a result... or... something...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPDWy7HaPLg
I'm sure /x/ has the details - but it might make for a good campaign concept - for WoD or... something.
>Space opera game
>Players having jolly adventures across the solar system
>Offhand comment about a star being out of alignment from a chart
>Game carries on
>An important star blinks out
>All the stars start gradually disappearing
>Gravity anomalies start sweeping in from outside the solar system
>It dawns on everyone the stars aren't going out
>It's something huge obscuring them
>The anomalies are the thing's bow wake
>It's heading this way
>Party's face when
>>44305654
>>44305654
Well at least this gave me a chuckle so I'm not scared shitless by this thread anymore.
I'm notI promise I'm not
>The big bang wasn't just the birth of our universe...
>... it was also the birth of something else
COMING THIS SUMMER
STELEVIATHAN
>>44305964
Featuring:
Benedict Cumberbatch as Steleviathian
Eddie Redmayne as Steven 'The Hawk' Hawking
Daisy Ridley as Steleviathian's Gaping Maw
I'd watch it.
>>44300957
Not really, but its still cool. Star Trek had a few episodes with giant space monsters that fed on the ship's energy output. Have it come out of hibernation to devour a system every million years or something.
>>44301158
The concept of Nibiru must scare the living shit out of you then.
>>44306049
>The cosmic horror speaks to the obligatory astronauts in a refined British accent.
>"Oh dear, dreadfully sorry about this; I try to make it a point to not eat planets with sentient life, in any case, if you could not bother with whatever weapons and defenses you have that would be great; they give me dreadful indigestion.
>>44306138
The Steleviathan does this by hacking their communications equipment with it's brain. The voice it uses is the one it has discovered to be least likely to cause distress.
>>44306182
It turns out to be the one that causes the least amount of distress among all species that have an aural sense, for some reason.
>>44306214
This is rather impressive for a blob of silicon, cnidarians and gunk.
>>44306138
oh fuck you reddit, why do you have to shoehorn "le posh british gentleman" into everything?
>>44306396
We've made it work you dongus.
>>44306477
no you faggot
>>44306527
Ass-trumpeteer
>>44306527
Gong farmer.
>>44306541
>>44306577
>look, I'm using silly quirky insults! I'm the Zooey Deschanel of /tg/, aren't I cute, uguu? *holds up spork*
>>44306396
>>44306613
Fuck off you double mon'kike
>>44301121
>>44301181
It would have to manipulate gravity to not be a sphere.
>>44306613
Who is Zooey Deschanel and what do sporks have to do with anything you bespawler?
>>44306636
We are /tg/, lets go medieval on his arse.
>>44301645
>Indeed, there's a running theory that the Earth almost became one at some point.
>>44306636
>Mon'kike
This is my favorite combination of fictional and real racial slurs.
>>44306741
Holy shit this is really reddit!
>>44306670
a tasteless cunt who believes that quirks and vintage accessories make her endearing and funny
just like reddit
just like you
>>44301292
You misunderstand. If it was affected by gravity, it would already be a black hole.
>>44306789
>a-am I cool yet guys?
The village called, they want their retarded nigger faggot back.
>>44306913
What if, and just hear me out here, but what IF the black hole WAS the leviathan? The gaping maw of a mighty space leviathan devouring everything.
>>44306973
>black holes are actually the mouths of extradimensional beasts
>a star collapsing into a black hole isn't natural, the beast is just extruding it's maw into our reality to consume it
>they only eat stars which have iron in them because those are the most ripe
>the stars that go supernova are the ones which went rotten before the beasts could get to them.
Leviathan was created by some long forgotten precursor race.
Its reason for being?
Collect civilizations and cultivate them on its skin/shell. Then get out of the universe before it ends.
>>44307034
Aaaand I need to go change my underwear now. Thank you for that, Anon.
>>44307034
>our universe is an orchard for extradimensional farmers
>galaxies are trees
>stars are the fruit
>humans are just the bacterium on the nuts known as planets
>>44307064
>Hawking radiation doesn't actually exist, it's just the beast withdrawing it's maw as it senses there are fewer and fewer crumbs around it.
>>44303108
I guess the point is that if newton had known about this fucker he would he would have added a caveat to his law. It's existence is a violation of out understanding, which is the most basic root of its horror
>>44304386
thanks for that mate, now i´m fucking dead.
>>44307072
>>44307128
I now feel insignificant as well as terrified. And sadly, I could see this as being all absolutely true.
>>44307072
Yggdrasil was true.
>>44307072
>>humans are just the bacterium on the nuts known as planets
Not exactly. Life, once it gets advanced enough anyway, is a parasite.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_lifting
>>44300957
If realism, then it won't work, ever.
If not realism, why ask? You can literally make up anything and it won't make any difference.
>>44304877
What the fuck creature is that
>>44308039
pyura chilensis
What is this, 1990? Use Google you chimp.
>>44308039
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyura_chilensis
>>44308086
>>44308079
Ooooohhhh
Damn that's interesting
>>44308115
Not really.
>>44308122
The interesting thing to me is how such a bizzarre and unearthly-looking thing can be such a mundane organism that's even eaten as a local delicacy. A reminder that our world is crazier than we usually think.
>>44308151
Most life on earth is bizarre. Something is not more bizarre just because it's abnormal.
I was thinking...
You know the method of propulsion that is setting off thermonuclear explosions behind you? What if we did that, but with a space worm. I just love the idea of a planet sized space worm traversing the endless black by pooting out bombs
>>44308314
Sure why not. Realism isn't a factor. Might as well say it just moves telekinetically.
>>44301645
So, a green goo scenario? Awesome.
Can you link stuff about this? Articles, papers, what have yoy. For research.
>>44300957
>So, how would a space leviathan work?
It's a leviathan
BUT WAIT FOR
...
...
...
IN SPACE
>>44306769
One of the theoretical causes of the Permian–Triassicglobal global extinction event, is that a rapid and unchecked bloom of bacteria covered much of the planet, and nearly all of the ocean floor, as a result of a global temperature shift, that, in turn, released so much methane that it accelerated the effect.
In this instance, this "Methanogenic burst" simply made life all but unsustainable for both itself and nearly everything else on the planet. In a slightly different environment, and one with less competitors, however, it could have just as easily gone the other way, and its growth may have remained unchecked nearly indefinitely. Since many bacteria covering large areas tend to form various functions in the process (from those that cover lakes, to those that form the plaque in your teeth), it is conceivable that this giant mass may have eventually become its own self sustaining ecosystem.
>>44300957
That's a big beast...
>>44300957
Physics doesn't work that way my friend, what you need is a few wizards.
>>44308831
It's name is fehor'yahew
>>44302866
Beast play with them and only some homeless survive
>>44308700
reminds me of that time cyanobacteria started growing and poisoned almost all lifeforms on earth that didn't breath oxygen.
http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Planet_killer
>>44308314
Nahh, Project Orion is chump change. Look up Nuclear Salt Water Rockets for a real man's engine.
>>44300957
Would have to be mostly hollow to avoid crushing itself by gravity.
If it is then roughly laterally symmetric the massive opposing gravity creating masses on either side would have to be balanced out by the beast spinning and using the centrifugal force to stay hollow. Maybe this is how it "eats" giant masses like planets, by expanding and conflating, by spinning at different speeds. Thus openning its "mouth" by spinning quickly forcing its body apart, then closing its "mouth" by slowing itself down, when the doomed planet is inside.
From there the planet would need to be crushed by some giant internal "molar" like organs, so that the smaller bits can fall into the gravity created by any side of its internal "belly" for "digestion" of useful elements.
>>44312044
Orion would create less radioactive debris. Just because you read it on project rho doesn't make it practical. It's a guide to writing science fiction.
>>44314884
>project rho
CASABA
HOWITZER
>>44314941
...are you just shouting buzzwords now?
>>44315189
No, I'm just REALLY ENTHUSIASTIC about directed nuclear energy cannons.
>>44315214
Ok.
How about this:
Stars are just leviathan caviar/shit.
>>44315828
Sure nothing matters why not. Anything goes. Stars are just dogshit, and all elements are just aspects of poo.
Why bother with realism when we can get such quality settings?
>>44315828
>Caviar
>"just"
You do know what caviar is, right anon?
>>44316113
Nobody on this board knows anything. Being a recluse does not give you much life experience.
>>44314884
Why would a planet+ size space leviathan give a shit about radioactive material?
>>44308194
>>44308122
Get a load of the jaded teenager. Life is fucking amazing, deal with it, nerd.
>>44316586
>>44316586
Get a load of the arrogant jackass. Life is a struggle outside the ivory walls of the first world you spoiled idiot.
>>44316787
And yet they probably aren't as miserable as you are :^)
>>44314884
>>44316557
It's also far more likely for a giant space monster to have a series of organs that refine uranium, mix it with water and piss it out as a continuous fission reaction then for it to shit out it's own shaped nuclear charges aimed at its springy ass plate.
A space leviathan would be a great unifier, with loads of different alien species forced to live on it when it ate their worlds. Think of it like a train ride you never get off.
Too much physics rape to ignore here.
Too big, too biologically inviable.
Spore clouds could be a thing though, bajjilions of little things.
There was this kids tv show about a cartoon guy catching space bugs in a Steven Irwin esq manner
There was an ep about a space traversing bug that ate asteriods called a 'whale strider'
in side of it sentient bugs use the abiotic matter to create farms which was used to feed the big whale bug
Maybe an internal ecosystem processing rock, gas, dust and ice into biological compoenents for the creatures consumption could work
>>44319920
Yeah i remember that, Dex Hamillton or something right?
>>44319766
Nah I think it'd be possible (not up to solar system scale though), but it'd just have to be some kind of superorganisim
>>44317604
Mr Bones, what have you done?
>>44300957
First off, it would have to be a non-organic creature. Like mostly crystalline in nature or perhaps a gas cloud. Anything that can handle large amounts of radiation, meteor storms, severe changes in gravity, capable of propulsion and it doesn't need to breathe anything to do all that.
>>44303036
stealing this.
>>44300957
>The entire galaxy is just the nerve cells of a giant beast
Its so large you'd never even notice it was there. You are in it. You are part of it.
>>44304437
Gives a new meaning to "Your Waifu a shit"
>>44304386
https://youtu.be/ueAYUp4rHZI?t=25s
https://youtu.be/e-WNBsp15Bc
>>44300957
>>44301158
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kq5SNYFHfos
The sun is about 1.4 million kilometres across.
Our solar system is something like 15000 million kilometres across. (Or over twice that if we count magnetosphere instead of where the rocks are.)
To something the size of our entire solar system, even a star is a pretty insignificant speck of dust. How much would you notice something that's 0.2 mm across?
>>44301645
So we get a layer of mould covering the planet's surface, infinitesimally thin compared to the size of the plenty itself, and then this layer suddenly and magically converts the planet inside into more of itself.
It then feeds itself though a combination of photosynthesis and violating the laws of thermodynamics.
>maybe able to propel themselves with gaseous excretions
If we take the entire atmosphere (all 5 million billion tons of it), and send it off with a speed of 1km per second, that'd change the Earth's velocity by 1 millimetre per second.
Add in all the water on the planet as well and we can manage a velocity change of almost a quarter of meter per second.
By comparison, the Earth goes around the sun at a speed of 30 kilometres per second. Meeting Venus will require 640m/s of velocity change, to Mars is 1060m/s.
I don't know who suggested all of this, but he was either tripping balls, insane, or both.
>>44306657
It would have to manipulate gravity to not be a black hole.
For something that isn't a continuous fusion explosion about 3-4 solar masses is normally the limit before gravity becomes almighty.
>>44322158
>So we get a layer of mould covering the planet's surface, infinitesimally thin compared to the size of the plenty itself, and then this layer suddenly and magically converts the planet inside into more of itself.
Won't stay thin, so long as it can maintain its ecosystem, it just grows indefinitely.
>It then feeds itself though a combination of photosynthesis and violating the laws of thermodynamics.
Nothing about that violates the laws of thermodynamics, all sorts of creatures do this.
>maybe able to propel themselves with gaseous excretions
This only applies to smaller ones, as the large number of asteroids in ice rich goldilocked zone scenario implies. Though some other folks came up with some, interesting, ways it maybe achievable with a larger mass.
>I don't know who suggested all of this, but he was either tripping balls, insane, or both.
Edward Boyle, head of the National Academy of Sciences, at the time.
>>44322203
>Won't stay thin, so long as it can maintain its ecosystem, it just grows indefinitely.
Apparently it has an infinite supply of nutrients it can build biomass with. Normal ecosystems just reuse that shit, putting an upper limit on how much biomass you can get in it.
>Nothing about that violates the laws of thermodynamics, all sorts of creatures do this.
No creature lives off of its own waste heat (second law). Hell, no creature is a heat engine at all. And this one seems to generate that heat out of nothing (first law) while it's at it, or possibly through anaerobic combustion (ehm, yeah, that's where we go from fucking the laws of thermodynamics to just plain insane rambling) of its own tissue, which then somehow supplies enough energy both to make more tissue and for everyday living.
>>44316851
A drunk is often happier than a sober person, yes.
>>44320226
The less you know about the universe, the more things are possible.
That's why the EM drive is /tg/'s mascot.
>>44322158
In order for electron degenerate core collapse to occur it would need to be a solid ball of iron about the size of the earth.
Black holes are not as easily formed irl as they are in children's science fiction cartoons.
I'm sure you can find a schwarzschild radius calculator somewhere. Now you know the correct term.
>>44322338
>No creature lives off of its own waste heat (second law).
Uh, what do you think endothermic means, dipshit? Our waste heat is what propels our metabolism.
/tg/ - Terminally Ignorant.
The CoC supplement jovian nightmares has something like this. In it Jupiter is a prison for a monstrous creature.
>>44322540
The fact that we generate a good amount of waste heat is in itself proof that the majority of our metabolism is exothermic, not endothermic.
>>44322599
The anime Diebuster has the same sort of thing trapped on Titan. Variable Black Hole Space Monster.
>>44322614
Lizards are exothermic. That means they get their heat from the outside. We are endothermic, we get our heat from the inside.
You are a moron who cannot even grasp basic biological concepts because you think you're a genius for reading a few pages of project rho.
>>44322614
>>44322670
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endotherm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ectotherm
Fucking year one of biology.
These days i really cannot if /x/ has worse science discussion than /tg/.
Either way, this is embarrassing.
>>44300957
Could be a machine. No real size limits. Had a traveller game once where the planet we were on was the GM's old character, who'd become a ship, and just grew, and grew. The species living on the planet would occasionally trade with it for knowledge, this advancing the TL of the surface. Interior TL of the planet was 16 or some crazy shit. Everything besides time travel. The planet went around eating suns and absorbing resources to grow. Course, when it grew, it got warm, so species were only viable living on land when it was cooling down after eating a star. In long journeys between systems, the species' would migrate underground to keep warm.
>>44322769
Sounds like your gm has no sense of scale.
>>44322785
The planet character grew beyond playable, so became an entity in the universe, and we played on the surface of it. This all happened before I joined his game. My character was one of a sentient tree race we invented, and basically a doctor/scientist. The race doesn't seed, they plant their young in dead bodies. Whenever there's a war, the species blooms. Their primary purpose is to collect and process information over generations, like a giant living neural network.
>>44322856
None of that disputes what i said.
>>44322873
Wasn't disputing, I actually agree with you. Though, if you could be more specific as to what your issue was, maybe I could give some more info. Right now I'm just spreading stories of fun games we've had.
>ITT
>>44322614
From a chemical reaction standpoint, you are correct. Our metabolic processes are largely exothermic in that the net energy change results in energy being released into the environment (in this case that would be our bodies.)
>>44322683
Quoting from the first link provided here,
>An endotherm (Greek: endon = "within", thermē = "heat") is an organism that maintains its body at a metabolically favorable temperature, largely by the use of heat set free by its internal bodily functions instead of relying almost purely on ambient heat.
Biologically, humans are endothermic.
>>44322910
Eating suns for materials to sustain a planet is a bit silly at best.
>>44322927
We know /tg/ hates science because science says no more often than not, and reality saying no all the time is why so many people refuge in escapism.
>>44322683
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endothermic_process
Your metabolism is overall an exothermic process.
The processes in our body need a certain temperature range to work properly, which is maintained by balancing cooling and waste heat generation. Outside of this range they will be too fats, too slow, or other reactions will take over.
This is something entirely different from using that heat as an energy source. You don't live off of it any mroe than you live off of any of the vital substances your body produces. You live off of the food and oxygen you eat and inhale. It's form that you get your energy, including that which ends up as waste heat. The various processes in your body that require a certain temperature range aren't generally driven by the surrounding temperature, that's not where they get the necessary energy, that role is played by chemical energy or light.
When the surface of your bacteria colony lives off of photosynthesis, that's its energy source. Waste heat on the other hand is not used as an energy source by any living creature. So your middle and lower layers can't sustain themselves in whole or in part on that. It's also highly questionable from a thermodynamic standpoint, since you're unlikely to ever have a temperature gradient steep enough to drive day reaction worth mentioning. Ambient temperature can't be tapped of energy, that's the second law, you need a temperature difference, and that difference across any of your little critters will be ridiculously small.
>>44322985
Fair enough, my GM is a bit silly. All in good fun though. Though at TL16+ physics is basically magic, and can be explained with 'this universe has malleable physics'
>>44323049
Just stop, idiot.
>>44322338
Leaving alone the rest of the replies, lots of creatures live in part on heat generated by the sheer mass of the Earth. Doesn't much matter if that sheer mass is rock, or millions of years worth of their dead brethren. Lots of bacteria form layers in this way, where the lowest layer can no longer receive nutrients, feeding the layers above, the dead merely sinking to the lower layers, increasing the size of the overall mass indefinitely. In the middle layers, it's also not uncommon for them to form symbiotic relationships with the upper layers, by creating enzymes the upper layers require, the upper layers have access to different energy sources, pass nutrients down in turn. You see this in various sorts of large, long standing bacterial blooms, covering lake beds, and see similar behavior, in tooth plaque.
Neither law of thermal dynamics apply, as it isn't an entirely closed system.
It's true, it'll run out of energy eventually, barring a new source, but planets take a long time to cool, in addition to often being found orbiting rather abundant energy sources.
>>44323277
>lots of creatures live in part on heat generated by the sheer mass of the Earth
Oh my god you are causing me physical pain with your bullshit.
>>44323302
>what is thermal vent coral
>what is spinoloricus cinzia
They tend to be very simple sea critters, but a large part of the ecology revolves around simply trapping volcanic heat, sulfur, and silica, to make calcium and cellulose, in some cases, with no oxygen processing involved, and little to no organic input nor sunlight.
It's simple enough to imagine repetition extending that into an ecosystem that incorporates both surface light and organics, by perpetuating that process through layers of different functions, which, in a sense, on the grand scale, is how most seabed life already works.
>>44301781
>>44301954
>>44301921
makes me think of the Tyranids.
>>44303103
not if there's a relative pressure diference.
even a fraction of a PSI or a couple of pascals would keep the thing inflated.
>>44303103
have you ever read the web-novel called Worm?
because you described a thing from that universe...
>>44303303
>Humanity is surfing the Leviathan, devourer of worlds.
yeah...I'd read that.
>>44303377
>That being said, a large enough creature might use it's own gravity to syphon off some cooler plasma from a distance, assuming it can get close enough without melting.
this is an idea I can steal and fully intend to for a Dungeons the Dragoning encounter.
>It could swallow a planet whole, and it's digestion would strip the crust of the planet off, and then it poops out a smaller planet.
covered with the seed to make a new Leviathan, photosynthetic and able eventually, to move on it's own.
>>44303497
yes but for people with an education in physics or people who read certain types of fiction it becomes impossible for us to have that much whimsy...just bear with us, it's still a devastating monster.
>>44304015
reminds me of the scene from Guardians of the Galaxy the space station inside an old skull.
>>44304030
so, a Discworld troll.
>>44304174
whose to say it isn't fun already?
>>44304437
>the great beast moves
>>44305654
stealing this idea.
>>44306182
>>44306138
eh, I'd believe it.
>>44323277
>lots of creatures live in part on heat generated by the sheer mass of the Earth
No, they do not.
And the sheer mass of the Earth isn't generating any heat. Radioactive decay does.
>where the lowest layer can no longer receive nutrients
They eat the corpses that come sinking down, volcanic sulphur, or those that do. That's where they get their energy, not ambient heat.
>or millions of years worth of their dead brethren
So instead of having a huge ball of rock with a ridiculously thin layer of mould on it, we now have a huge rock of bacteria-derived rock (ok, so most of it will have been re-molten and thus we can't even tell any mroe that it was made of living creature remains) with a ridiculously thin layer of mould on it. That's not a planet sized leviathan, that's a planet with a biosphere.
> Lots of bacteria form layers in this way, where the lowest layer can no longer receive nutrients, feeding the layers above, the dead merely sinking to the lower layers, increasing the size of the overall mass indefinitely
In this case the whole thing lives off of photosynthesis in the upper layers, or the corpses of those that did. And the whole thing must be supplied with nutrients from somewhere (photosynthesis alone isn't enough, that provides energy, you need actual mass form somewhere) if it's to keep growing. But when you're looking to convert an entire planet, you run into the problem that most of the planet isn't suitable as nutrients.
>as it isn't an entirely closed system.
Our planet sized variant will be.
Of course, you must keep the energy needs and matter needs separate here. Your bacterial lake wouldn't die out as a closed system, because it doesn't try using ambient heat as an energy source. It would stop growing though, because it could no longer get all the various elements it needs from anywhere but itself.
>>44323450
So when you eat a hamburger, you think it's the actual temperature of it that feeds you?
>trapping volcanic heat, sulfur, and silica, to make calcium and cellulose
Impressive, they take sulphur, silicon and oxygen, and with that they make calcium and carbon.
How hot exactly did you say those volcanoes got?
>>44322158
>I don't know who suggested all of this, but he was either tripping balls, insane, or both.
but this is how the BEST ideas are had...
>>44322785
three words
>Total Perspective Vortex
>if life is going to exist in a Universe of this size, then the one thing it cannot afford to have is a sense of proportion.
let us have this dude, we-re just trying to have some lighthearted escapism here and you're being all negative and shit...
>>44302866
>i roll on seduce
>>44323677
Somewhere between hot, and pretty damned hot, depending on proximity, I assume. Clearly choral works on magic - you've single handedly explained the critical flaw and unraveled the secrets of the universe. Life is, in fact, scientifically impossible.
>>44323450
That heat is from the earth's internal dynamo, not the pressure of the earth's upper layers. There are plenty of similar sized bodies with no geological activity because they don't have an internal dynamo at their core.
>>44323703
There is more than enough nonsense out there to be sated for several lifetimes. Do not act as if you are not already in the majority.
>>44323703
Always eat the cupcake.
>>44323128
And if your GM can't afford to have some silliness, you're the one with the rod of lordly might stuck mightily up where the sun doesn't shine. Rule of cool and all that jazz
>>44324561
but what if I want a pancake instead?
>>44324561
I'm sure that can be arranged... Ahem. JEEVES! GET THIS AWKWARD FUCKER A PANCAKE!
>>44324600
Why do you have to be such a cunt about everything?
Just post stuff, don't get caught up in petty arguments.
>>44324776
>>44300957
What if it's just a biological Dyson sphere? Like it's huge and hollow, set itself up around a star to feed off its energy and moves on when it's done, that would still be really bad fro anything living inside or out of the sphere yeah?
>>44324223
Most of the rocky planets generate heat to one degree or another, as do some of the larger asteroids (such as Sirius), but true, the Earth generates more than most, not only due to fluid dynamics, but also due to radioactive elements. Though there's still a lot of debate about dynamo theory and how much each factor contributes.
The Earth still doesn't generate as much heat as say Jupiter, let alone Saturn, and there are plenty of moons in the system that generate far more heat through geological activity than does the Earth, and most all large masses, in any given solar system, generate heat for quite some time after their initial formation.
>>44300957
Something that big actually can't exist because its own gravity would cause it to implode into a fusion explosion and transition into a supermassive blackhole.
>>44324980
Jupiter and saturn do generate heat from their gravitational pressure via the Kelvin–Helmholtz mechanism.
A rotating core seems to be one of the most important things for life, as it provides vulcanism and a magnetosphere.
>>44325006
That's not true in the slightest. Look up schwarzschild radius if you wish to be accurate.
>>44325031
Meh, magnetospheres are overrated, it's amazing how well some rock, or even a layer or ice or water, can block radiation and trap gasses.
Jupiter's just a few American asses shy of fusion though. Saturn, for some damned reason, generates even more heat than Jupiter, despite being a fraction of the mass, and even gives off some light, though it's been so long since I looked into that I canna remember why.
Saturn is just freaking weird though.
>>44325047
A biomass the size of the solar system? I think that'd be big enough to at least collapse into a star. It's not like I have numbers to plug in, but that's gotta be more than 50 solar masses.
>>44325123
Stop making claims you haven't investigated. Jupiter would need to be 12 times as massive to even have a hope of fusion occurring at its core.
>>44325152
You know there are stars bigger than the solar system by quite a wide margin?
>>44325123
That hexagon is perfectly normal. It's just a simple result of fluid dynamics.
>>44325154
Meh, I keep hearing crazily different numbers for that. Some say 20% more, some say 75x more. Some say it may have actually been a brown dwarf at some point (however that works). Never could get a straight answer - damned internets.
Granted now there's this electric universe crap floating around out there just muddying the info waters to boot,
>>44325171
Yes, but nothing bigger than our sun that hasn't also collapsed into a star.
I mean, even if you had a cloud of hydrogen that large, if it had any meaningful density, it'd eventually collapse into a star - and a solid biomass is a hell of a lot heavier than a hydrogen cloud.
>>44325195
Just because it's natural, doesn't mean it ain't freaking weird.
>>44316787
>Life is a struggle outside the ivory walls of the first world you spoiled idiot.
Said the anon on his personal computer at his mom's house.
>>44325223
>biomass the size of the solar system
I didn't realize we left sense so far behind.
It could be a distributed organism, like a tyranid hive fleet.
>>44325198
Although Jupiter would need to be about 75 times as massive to fuse hydrogen and become a star, the smallest red dwarf is only about 30 percent larger in radius than Jupiter. Despite this, Jupiter still radiates more heat than it receives from the Sun; the amount of heat produced inside it is similar to the total solar radiation it receives. This additional heat is generated by the Kelvin–Helmholtz mechanism through contraction. This process causes Jupiter to shrink by about 2 cm each year. When it was first formed, Jupiter was much hotter and was about twice its current diameter.
so yeah, i should have checked first as well but i was on my phone. 75 times larger for fusion, 30% larger to be the smallest red dwarf we've ever seen.
The universe only allows fusion in the most exotic of physical conditions.
>>44325242
Weird is subjective. It's not weird to me.
>>44325320
I ran goth clubs that regularly had live meat puppets covering the stage, for eight years, and I find Saturn weird.
You've clearly seen some shit, man.
Here's a relatively hard SF treatment of the subject
TL;DR might work if the leviathan is mostly empty space.
>>44325302
Google around a little more and you'll find numbers varying radically from that, in addition to claims that it was at some point a star, but yeah, going by the average among the article - I maybe slightly exaggerating the mass of American asses.
Plus you're just as apt to find claims that Saturn was a star, and the Earth was orbiting it - and it's being covered up by some illuminati plot - cuz, fuck the internet, man. (But hey, it's good /tg/ material.)
>>44324776
Nono a cute. A CUTE.
>>44325406
>Google around a little more and you'll find numbers varying radically from that, in addition to claims that it was at some point a star, but yeah, going by the average among the article - I maybe slightly exaggerating the mass of American asses.
>Plus you're just as apt to find claims that Saturn was a star, and the Earth was orbiting it - and it's being covered up by some illuminati plot - cuz, fuck the internet, man. (But hey, it's good /tg/ material.)
Why would you go anywhere besides real websites like wikipedia? Of course straying from there leads you to crazytown or the EM drive.
>>44325438
Hey now, Wikipedia's article on the EM drive makes a pretty positive case for it.
>>44325353
There's a tribe in south america that has a rite of passage where boys must collect the semen of adult males in order to be considered adults.
I've seen people gleefully recount their tales of garroting people to death.
I once put out a car fire with a dr. pepper.
Nothing phases me anymore.
>>44325171
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_known_stars
1700 solar radii is a bit under 8 AU. 2775 solar radii is just under 13 AU.
Neptune sits around 30 AU away form the sun. Pluto goes just past 49 at the furthest. The Kuiper belt keeps going strong to about 50, and has some stuff floating around at least out to 65. And the heliopause is around 120.
>>44325481
I visited /b/ once.
**shiver**
>>44325458
Cut through the bullshit and untested claims and you'll find:
>The design of such thrusters, whether they work as claimed, and theories attempting to explain how they might work, are all matters of controversy. There is little consensus among those designing such drives about which theories are most plausible, and several theories are criticized as violations of conservation of momentum.
>The idea did not receive much attention when first proposed in the early 2000s, and experiments to test it have been limited in scope. Publicity about such thrusters has been maintained by inventors of specific designs promoting their own work.
>Inventors have been unable to reliably demonstrate thrust from one of their own theoretical designs and few scientists take the claims about these designs seriously. Critics assert that positive results are misinterpretations of spurious effects mixed with experimental errors. Research teams that have seen tentatively positive results are continuing their work to remove potential sources of error, and to ascertain whether they can explain the observed thrust using traditional physics models.
Nobody in physics gives a single damn. It's all media hype and kooks being kooks.
Call me when they find a rabbit in precambrian strata.
>>44325493
This image reminds me. How much truth is there to the fact that Earth is very rare for getting eclipses, and that we'll actually eventually lose eclipses entirely at some future point; is that even valid? I mean, I guess it seems like it wouldn't be FREQUENT but you'd never be able to actually not have an eclipse as long as the goddamn moon and sun keep revolving.
>>44307034Stolen
>>44325535
Moon is steadily moving away from the Earth.
Earth is steadily slowing rotation.
That'd about do it.
>>44308086
>Vanadium blood
The fuck?
>>44325547
The moon is currently tidally locked, because of friction from the tides in the lunar bedrock caused by the earth's gravity. The same is happening on earth and soon the moon will always occupy the same location in the sky.
Soon as in quite a few million years from now.
>>44325560
Vanadium is a necessary part of your diet.
>>44325535
space nerd here! While we will eventually lose eclipses, I cannot comment on whether it has anything to do with the earth being special. Due to the nature of gravity and the moon's position, gravitational forces pull at its sides unevenly. Eventually (read: a really really long time from now) the moon will be pulled apart and becomes chunks or even break up into planetary rings.
>>44325535
When they say we won't get eclipses they probably mean we won't get the kind we have today, with the sun itself obscured but the corona well visible. As the moon distances itself form us we'll start seeing the sun itself around the edges.
How rare it is on other planets is hard to say. It's unique amongst the eight planets of the solar system at least, and it does take some fine matching of the size and distance of the moon and the sun. Since we're only just being able to spot planets around other stars, and so far haven't found any moons at all, I don't think we have much to go on in order to say with any certainty how rare it is in the universe at large.
