How would intelligent life on aquatic worlds came to be?

[RainDreamer]

So since my other thread got a lot of discussion about how aquatic alien came to be, and how they are able to develop technology, which I am interested in, but since it is off topic for that thread (which concerned more on their spacecraft design than how they get those spacecraft), I decide to make this thread.

The main topic of this thread then, is to imagine possible scenarios where aliens from an aquatic world evolved to be intelligent and develop the technology to create space craft. Conditions are simple:

1. Their world has no dry land mass

2. The alien will likely, at least in the beginning of their evolution, breath in liquid

The composition of their world, their star system, the ecology, and so on, will be left to your imagination.

 

What are the conditions required for intelligent aquatic life capable of space tech? Let's imagine.

[Rakaydos]

For there to be NO land mass, there's only a couple possibilities:

An ice world with a subsurface ocean, ala Europa.

A world with no geological activiy to speak of.

Either one shuts down a lot of possibilities for development.

[RainDreamer]

40 minutes ago, Rakaydos said:

*snip*

So a water world situation is not possible? I guess, aside from extremely high mountains from  geological activities that breaks from water surface, 99% of the planet is under some sort of liquid, is that more possible?

[Findthepin1]

Why can't a civilization develop underwater?

[Spaceception]

You say that there's no dry landmass, so I'm imagining some subsurface islands that are several meters deep that the civilization develops on, where the water above them is so shallow, that the intelligent race becomes amphibious, the plant life relies on their Sun (Which is a red dwarf 30 percent larger than Proxima, and the plants in question feed off of the infrared energy) and can conceive the Universe.

Not a whole lot of subsurface landmass, maybe like 3000 square km total, but still.

The planet is a tidally locked sub Earth, and has a gravity of .64 gee, it also orbits close to the inner edge of the HZ and gets more solar energy than Earth, it also has a thinner but hazier atmosphere (.53 atm) all but the brightest stars are hidden, but despite the thinner atmosphere, the planets temperature is 23 c due to the higher amount of CO2, and Water vapor. Oxygen still makes a significant percentage due to the planets equivalent of algae.

Edited April 13, 2016 by Spaceception

[monstah]

Oh, hey! A spinoff from a topic I liked! This is wandering farther from my fields of (self-proclaimed) expertise, so I'll just spectate here

[cubinator]

1 hour ago, Rakaydos said:

For there to be NO land mass, there's only a couple possibilities:

An ice world with a subsurface ocean, ala Europa.

A world with no geological activiy to speak of.

Either one shuts down a lot of possibilities for development.

 

43 minutes ago, RainDreamer said:

So a water world situation is not possible? I guess, aside from extremely high mountains from  geological activities that breaks from water surface, 99% of the planet is under some sort of liquid, is that more possible?

There are actually plenty of exoplanets we've found that could be large 'water worlds', made mostly of water, kind of halfway between small rocky worlds and gas giants. As for intelligent life, I would say look at octopi. They are pretty smart and they can manipulate objects. That could lead to the development of tools later on, and we all know what happens after tools...They developed on a solid surface underneath a shallow(ish) ocean.

[Wjolcz]

Yup, if I were to think of an underwater civilzation/any kind of underwater intelligent life I would also say octopus-like, or cattlefish-like creatures. They are super smart, can learn from each other and communicate with each other pretty well too (using skin colours and shapes like cattlefish). Not sure how precise the tentacles can be while manipulating tools, but if the evolution goes the right way I don't see a reason why shouldn't they be used in a similar way the hands are.

I'm thinking about a set of natural events and disasters that could boost such creatures' intelligence. Similar to a way the humankind had to work their way through some obstacles in the past in order to advance. How to transport your stuff in an easy and reliable way? How to get to another island? What's the best mixture of resin to keep those two pieces of the tool together? How to scare away other animals? Stuff like that.

Let's not forget about food too. You can't really cook meat underwater. Unless those alien octopi eat only plants, or grow bacteria. If so they would perhaps be more of tree (or rather algae) huggers. They would be less agressive which could leave to better cooperation attemps between tribes, or something.

I could really sit here a long time making assumptions and creating theories, but the truth is we will know once we find such civilization. And this post was getting long anyway.

[cubinator]

11 minutes ago, Veeltch said:

Not sure how precise the tentacles can be while manipulating tools, but if the evolution goes the right way I don't see a reason why shouldn't they be used in a similar way the hands are.

Octopi use their tentacles to open things like shellfish that they eat, and they are very good at it. In experiments, they have been shown to be very good at opening containers. I'd say it's not a far stretch to using objects as tools such as rocks, and eventually making tools themselves.

[todofwar]

This is all speculation as we don't necessarily know what caused humans to start the whole science thing. I guess it kicked off after agriculture, but I think ag is not entirely necessary so a shallow sea might not be needed. It was mentioned in the other thread their tech could focus on husbandry, and even if they don't eat grown plants they could still lead a stationary lifestyle reliant on coral and kelp rope. The seasons do affect ocean life, so understanding how to predict them will be important and spur some scientific inquires 

[Wjolcz]

Ok, so since I strafed off the topic a bit in the other thread I'll only say that early metalurgy in an underwater society could be discovered using this guy: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaly-foot_gastropod and some sort of hot underwater volcano. You put those two together real close and you get cooked meat and molten, or at least deformed and bent metal.

[James Kerman]

I believe that a liquid dwelling intelligent species that discovered space travel would be possible (I'd like to see what the dolphins on earth are driving in a million years or so) however I can see many 'human-centric" ideas in the posts above.

I understand that H2O is an excellent medium for the chemical reactions required for life on our planet however some scientists are postulating there could be life on Titan in the methane seas due to experiments with hydrocarbons and tholins.  DNA is the base of life here however the possibilities exist for other reactions resulting in life...just not as we know it.

The ability to smelt metal or cook food may not be required by a life form that was so different to us. 

The tardegrade or "water bear" has been found to live after exposure to open space and radiation so we already have space fairing aquatic life here and they may be more intelligent than humanity - they have been here far longer than us.

If I was to look at human history I would say the greatest driver of our science and technology was war and conflict ("It is in Man's nature to rise above His peers and impose His will on all." - Aristotle in Ethics) however I imagine a species that was peaceful and co-operative could also achieve space travel on vehicles that were not originally designed to kill and terrorise fellow members of their species. 

If this is not the case I welcome our new octopus overlords....

 

[RainDreamer]

Makes me wonder about the zergs and the bugs from starship troopers. While they are not aquatic, they demonstrated some possible application of biological development that are comparable with metal-based technology (some other are just pure magic sci-fi things though).

But back to the aquatic world...I wonder if there will be flying amphibious creatures, simply because when you can fly above the water, you get a lot more advantage of not being hunted by predator, and get a bird's eye view on the water to hunt for other preys. Perhaps similar to flying fishes. This would, of course, inspire intelligent aquatic creature to move up above the water, perhaps in floating colonies, and maybe that would eventually lead to them looking toward space.

Plant life form there may also have something similar to lotus, with large leaf that float above water, and can be used by other creatures as living space. 

[magnemoe]

11 hours ago, cubinator said:

 

There are actually plenty of exoplanets we've found that could be large 'water worlds', made mostly of water, kind of halfway between small rocky worlds and gas giants. As for intelligent life, I would say look at octopi. They are pretty smart and they can manipulate objects. That could lead to the development of tools later on, and we all know what happens after tools...They developed on a solid surface underneath a shallow(ish) ocean.

Yes, problem is that you don't want to deep sea, its already very litle interaction between to ocean seafloor and the surface, having an sea hundreds of km deep would cover bottom with some exotic ice because of pressure and you need more than water for life, the oceans are nutrient limited on earth today. 

I think you would need sea bottom within range of sunlight for intelligent life, perhaps also advanced life.

[cubinator]

3 hours ago, magnemoe said:

I think you would need sea bottom within range of sunlight for intelligent life, perhaps also advanced life.

Agreed. The deep sea is not a great place for life to start out in. That's why I suggested octopi, as an environment similar to that in which they evolved would likely work similarly well on other worlds. The only problem with that is that a world with rocky surfaces only a little below the ocean surface is quite likely to also have rocky surfaces above the water too, so it would basically be an Earth twin. The purpose of this thread is to speculate on life evolving on a world that does not have landmasses above its surface. To guarantee that, it would require that the ocean be quite deep and so life would most likely have to resort to chemosynthesis.

[kerbiloid]

As the planet can contain enough thick atmosphere to prevent the oceans dissipation, we can be sure that its gravity is at least Earth-like.

So, every + 10 m of water depth = + 1 bar of pressure.
I'm afraid that it's much easier to have a spaceship for 0.3..1 bar as the humans do, than a spaceship for 100 bars which is absolutely required for the creature living at 1 km below water.
Due to the physicals laws, 100 times greater the pressure → 100 times must be thicker the ship envelope. So, instead of, say, 3 mm of steel, they would need ~30 cm.

P.S.
Probably, the waterworld astronauts must be not a natural creatures, but a forgotten artificial life. And the same about their planet.
Then you can make assumptions which weaken.the requirements.

P.P.S.

Maybe Cameron's 1989 movie "The Abyss" is something similar what the topicstarter wants.
This guy's suit is filled by a fluorine-based special liquid which helps him to stay alive under great pressures.
He is literally breathing with liquid in his lungs.

See also: Liquid Breathing.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 15, 2016 by kerbiloid

[RainDreamer]

Can life exists on extremities of underwater mountains that reach closer to the surface? Would evolution somehow push them going above the surface like flying fishes to avoid predator? Maybe they could be able to use organic balloons filled with methane to float above the water?

 

Also, some light researching on the topic gives me this weird, weird news article from 2005: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4486247.stm

What kind of fungi/bacteria that just produce so much gas that it explode toads?...Can a similar type of being can co-exist with our alien, which instead of exploding them, give them just enough gas to float above the water surface?

[kerbiloid]

Of course, life can exist on underwater mountains, but this meets two disadvantages:
1. Low total area of their peaks near the surface.
2. Underwater mountatins are mostly mid-ocean ridges, where the young oceanic crust rises from the mantle.
So, these areas are nearly as good for continuous living, as giant stars are: live fast, die young.

So, if imagine an underwater low-depth equivalent of the Easter Island, which became populated a thousand years ago or so with species from another place - why not.
 

Edited April 15, 2016 by kerbiloid

[James Kerman]

Exploration may be a requirement for intelligent life.  A sentient being on a deep ocean floor could start wondering what is above like the ancients in our cultures looking up at the stars.  Such creatures would need to be capable of withstanding high pressures as a matter of course.  They may have the opposite problem to the humans in the abyss in that they might need mechanisms to increase pressure as they ascend.

Humans have pursued mechanical technology for the most part.  It is only in the last decades that bio-mimicry is being seriously investigated however there is nothing preventing an alien society pushing biological technology first - particularly with the difficulty that would arise from submerged metallurgy and combustion sciences.

[KSK]

I can easily imagine intelligent life evolving on an aquatic world. I can imagine that life developing civilization and culture. Art, symbolic representation of concepts, an oral tradition, philosophy, hunting, farming, certain sciences, pharmacopeias - all of those could be developed by an intelligent aquatic species.

A technological civilization on the other hand would be significantly more difficult at least, as James Kerman has already pointed out, human style technological civilization. Certain branches of science and key scientific concepts would also be an awful lot harder to develop. Astronomy is the obvious one but a lot of classical mechanics would be pretty tricky too. Working out Newton's 1st Law in an environment where things demonstrably do stop moving if you stop pushing them, would be even more impressive than it was for Newton.

Edited April 15, 2016 by KSK

[magnemoe]

One major issue with an sentinel aquatic creature might be energy to the brain. 
Water don't contains much oxygen, we uses so much oxygen gills would not work for us. Yes we also keep an constant temperature, this uses lots of energy too. 
How easy will it be for an energy starved brain on low or variable temperature. 
Without oxygen like the volcanic vents and  the energy budget is far lower, even advanced life is probably hard. 
 

[kerbiloid]

20 minutes ago, KSK said:

Working out Newton's 1st Law in an environment where things demonstrably do stop moving if you stop pushing them, would be even more impressive than it was for Newton.

Also one objects being dropped, fall down (with different speed), while others are moving upwards.
For example, apples are moving up.

[lude]

Due to lack of an atmosphere (they live in) that supports fire, they'd never develop past a certain point that requires certain tools, also in an aquatic environment it would be much harder to build and maintain.

 

-- edit --

There are quite a few very intelligent life forms that have developed a different "oxygene solving" strategy, on our world they developed hemocyanin which is far superior to hemoglobin in such cold environments and doesn't even require the upkeep of a red blood cell.

 

much like we can make assumptions of the colors of plants depending on the sun their planet is orbiting we can make assumptions like that they'd develop hemocyanin or similar solutions.

Edited April 16, 2016 by lude

[Camacha]

I am both annoyed and pleased by this thread. A few years ago I had almost exactly this train of thought, with pretty similar results, right down to the intelligent squid. I squirrelled the idea away to be worked into a story, artwork or something else down the line. Of course, with the idea widely discussed it would now simple seem I stole the idea from a forum I frequent. Very annoying, but also pretty neat.

[11of10]

The intelligent squid idea reminds me of Mass Effect.

As for Newton's first law, they would realise that there is drag when moving even more easily than humans, due to increased drag in denser environment, like water.

Therefore, they might be able to conclude from that that when there is 0 drag, in 1/∞ dense medium, object would move without stopping once a force acts on it.