Ghost's Wild Kingdom

[Blue Ghost]

Let me know what you think.

Crystal-Creature, "Quatz Creature" or sometimes "Pizak" (telemus crystallinus belua).

5000kg 38/8 battle Laser Rifle 5/4/1
(hunter-gatherer)

A silicon based life form that gathers its energy from the surrounding EM spectra and soil. It can reroute, store, and thus enhance and focus sun or other light, and attack its prey with a heat beam. It normally does not attack carbon based life, but is attracted to various trace elements found in the bodies and fluids of all living creatures; iron, zinc and general minerals for growth.


This particular species is found in the mountainous regions on Hader's World, a habitable world with cool dry deserts, oceans and snow capped mountains. Prey usually consists of other crytalline animals, but also feeds off of heavy metal veins and crystalized mineral deposits.

The animal is excessively slow, but exceedingly deadly. At first glance it looks docile, but will strike when hungry. The animal moves by "deconstructing" its forward/rear and lateral crystal base where it touches the ground, and forms or "reassembles" the structures in the direction of motion.

The creatures have some commercial value in the harvesting of the digested heavy metals, and have a niche market for big game hunters of unusual or exotic creatures. Though these are rarely hunted because of their fantastic resiliance.

 

[veltyen]

A quartz slug?

The rebuild/regenerate aspect of the foot certainly sounds like it (similar to a monopod).

Does it eat through the foot?

Dual use of the heat-beam-call-it-a-laser?

 

[Blue Ghost]

Not really a slug as we would think of one, but I guess that's a fairly precise name. It's more a lump of crystals. I'm thinking it approaches and "absorbs" its prey via the deconstruction/construction process.

 

[Blue Ghost]

No other thoughts?

Ah well. Back to the old drawing board.

 

[Plankowner]

I find it interesting that you chose to put this life form on a Habitable planet. Most of the Silicon based life seen in SF (books and video) have not been from habitable planets (SG-1 had an exception though).

Does the planet have a mix of Carbon-Based life (us) and Crystal-based life? If so, how did that happen?

I like the idea of a laser equipped crystaline creature.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Thanks Plankowner

You know, I thought about a mixture of life on the world; carbon and silicon, but just decided to hold off on posting that in the description. I did have this animal feeding off carbone based life forms for any trace elements in their blood sream or biomass in general.

The world in question is habitable, but fairly barren and cold. Think of the Rockies above the timberline with ice patches here and there, with the lowlands being mostly scrub brush with the occasional ocean.

The thought really hadn't occured to me to situate it on an inhabitable world, though I suppose in a rewrite it certainly could thrive on one (or maybe even a transplant for some kind of ecological project).

The LASER was inspired by the "natural LASER" that a few folks at NASA speculated or affirmed happened on Mars due to some unusual exposed crystal geology (said phenomena was repeated in the Traveller animal encounters table, or so I recall). So I pondered and formulated a creature that, if it needed to be really efficient, then perhaps it may've evolved some way of directing its natural energy into a focused beam for the purposes of cutting (and probably hunting).

Thanks

*EDIT; ADDENDUM*
I guess the other thing is is that I never saw a neccesity for a silicate or silicon based life form to be relegated to evolving on a hostile or volcanic world. If anything I would think the presence of water would help facilitate the burgeoning of silicon life, but that's just me. Any solution that can carry reactive atoms and/or molecules would meet the basic need for the neccesity of life.

Maybe those authors did it for dramatic reasons in a science-fictiony kind of vein; i.e. since there's a lot of molten rock and volcanic stuff, there better be strange and exotic mineral life forms

*insert creepy outer space music*