A community-driven sci-fi universe
It has been approximately 5 years since the silence. It’s late evening by the beach. The wind is calm but still manages to sway the dune grass in subtle coercion. Crickets chirp with the calm artificial waves, generated by a mechanical seawall some twenty miles out. Their peaks are what remain visible as the sun […]
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On the planet Rogue, the frost bun (Lepulima glacies) can be found tethered on the icy surface, spending most of its life motionless. It anchors itself with keratin-like hooks that grip the frozen surface, while it feeds through a partnership with chlorophyll-producing bacteria that cluster at the tips of its scaled exoskeleton. Instead of foraging […]
Continue ReadingAlso known as the “Cooperative Filter,” it states that for any species to become advanced enough to be a space-faring civilization, it must “play nice” — that is, develop mechanisms of long-term cooperation and trust. Technological and societal complexity require increasingly complex but stable institutions, which only function when there are diminished incentives and opportunities […]
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When the rains finally hit Garmiwala, the environment fully transforms. Dust turns to mud, dry basins fill with water, and a hidden ecosystem kicks into motion. Filter feeders crawl out from the cracked ground and floodplains, drawn by the temporary lakes that only last a few weeks. A most recent discovery has been the sea […]
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On the world of Gepara, there resides an eusocial species along the planet’s tropical mountain ranges. On the map below, the red dots indicate the location of multiple colonies. They live in the lush jungle areas where food is plentiful but competition is high. Because they live in fortified colonies within the mountains, the males […]
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Living on a large tropical island on Ionis III, the Handlebar Knucklewalker primarily feeds on fruit, with the occasional small critter supplementing its diet. This species displays one of the more striking examples of sexual dimorphism observed on the planet. Females stand about 5.5 feet (1.6 meters) at the shoulder and weigh an average of […]
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In forgotten ruins long abandoned by civilization, nature has begun to rewrite the rules. Amid crumbling concrete and rusting metal, one may find that life…always finds a way. Meet the garbage snail, a 12-centimeter-long gastropod that blurs the line between evolution and improvisation. Though it resembles a common snail, it is genetically closer to slugs. […]
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Although the sun-scorched Elgøaq does not betray its origins at a glance, the moon is a mass of the residual detritus and waste from the construction of Dzanach Vahl, World Mind of Strife. Red, ferric sand dunes sweep over the moon, obscuring its secrets, but if one digs deeper, more evidence of its origins may […]
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Drifting over the skies of the gas giant Grro Thum are the Vishva-Rupa. These organisms exist as vast, floating colonies, stretching across the skies of their homeworld like living cities adrift in the atmosphere. Though they appear as singular entities, they are, in truth, great eusocial collectives, each individual a mere fragment of the greater […]
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Dr. Xhith’raal had spent his life studying agriculture. As a leading biologist of the Ivory Spire Institute of Genetic Sciences, his research focused on the genetic optimization of crops to feed his species’ ever-growing civilization. They had harnessed the atom, conquered disease, and stood on the cusp of spaceflight; a golden age of scientific enlightenment […]
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