From a scientific perspective, there is no difference between portraying a stationary autotroph like a clump of moss or a mobile heterotroph like a bug realistically. Careful thought must be applied to the coding so that it generates realistically. We don't really know what 'realistic' is of course in this context, but as close as we can get is good enough. The barrier between plant and animal is hazy, and hazier still if speculative biology is considered, wherein trophic ecological levels and biochemical basis' are variable in context.I think we need to to start with flora on habitable planets, then think about fauna.
Or one could just start with something simple and slowly make it more complex over time. After all we don't what life looks like on other planets (or even if it exists for that matter). *Any* choice will be speculative anyway. "Analogs of Earth life and ecosystems" might be reality for all we know. And actually, the odds are that those analogs are the most common type in the Universe, there are no reasons to think that Earth is "special".
Exactly! That would be the smart way to implement it in-game. Per edition of release, 'evolve' the code itself within the game so that each version would have more advanced life-forms pre-generated. It would give the devs some time to properly work out the bugs and and correct absurdities in procedural generation. There still be titles in the details of the planet wiki stating that such and such planet would have x type life of y type complexity, but at first only the 'simpler' life-forms would be generated in-detail, dependent on the planet's biochemical compository bias and of course if life can even develop on it due to planet age/type.
Certainly AI would be useful in the development of the process I described above. It is a 'ground-up' way of generating life-forms, whereas many sci-fi creatures are 'top-down' designs wherein an appearance is proposed, and evolutionary catalysts and factors are extrapolated thereof.
That's exactly what we would want, though many planets will probably host only single-cell organisms, even when the code for generation is fully developed in-game.
Yes, this would be realistic, though certain constants may apply - like the need for a thallasogen, and bondable element as a base for biochemistry (we have carbon) and almost endless variation in biology and chemistry thereof. But yes, no other life-form generated will have an identical chemical profile to a Earth life-form. Some detail of the organisms biological profile will differ, even in the obscure chance they are otherwise identical (chemically, not physically of course). And lets not forget about panspermia or terra-forming - when a planet's biosphere shares genetic data or traits from another planet due to natural or artificial migration.
There is an indie game called Thrive that revolves around that concept.Is there any way that we can make even planets with single celled life fun? I am invisioning a miniaturization technique when we are scaled down to single cell level and can see the microbes interact with each other and even glow in different colors. I would love to see interactions on the molecular and even atomic and subatomic level!
That would be beyond cool . Very CPU intensive though, but cool and even useful for astrobiological experiments if properly coded.We could spread microbes between planets or even from planet to moon if they share the same atmosphere!
I would like to simulate such a journey by piggybacking on a tektite in real time!
We could even simulate mass extinctions and perhaps even have planets that have very active suns where life never reaches beyond the microbe level before the planet is sterilized only to begin again!
It does! The Author (Robert Freitas) explores all possibilities for life as we know or don't know. I learned some interesting facts about the characteristics of silicone life naturally evolving, for example. That was precisely why I so highly recommend this book to anyone interested in astrobiology - it's very comprehensive. It is a wee bit out of date though - the last editorial update was made in 2005, I think. However, Freitas sources all the research he did for the chapters (as any scientific work should), so it is very easy to do your own research and branch out from there.
This sound like quite the series - but I'm afraid I've never heard of such (or maybe I did and just forgot). When was it published? In which country? Who was the author? There are some very good modern hard sci-fi series like those by Iain M Banks, or Alastair Reynolds - was it well known or obscure?I have a question maybe you can help me with. A few years ago I read about a series of books (sci fi but realistic) that went from the birth of the universe through our species exploring the universe, but I was never able to find the name of the series or where I can find them. Do you know what series it could be? It was basically a cosmic history of everything from the Big Bang through us achieving interstellar travel. It covered billions of years!
I hope you do not mean the 'Lensmen' series by E.E Smith. It begins about 2 billion years before our time.