Timeline for Assistance to fight off a silicon-based lifeform
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
24 events
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| Jun 16, 2020 at 11:03 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
Commonmark migration
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| Apr 1, 2016 at 17:50 | comment | added | ventsyv | Your calculations are off. USDA recommends 2000 food calories or kilocalories, thus 2 million regular calories. Also, 250J = 59 cal, not 1000 thus 65kg being will use around 3 835 000 calories (3 835 food calories) and I'm not even sure the whole 65 kg need to be considered. | |
| Apr 1, 2016 at 17:25 | history | edited | JDługosz | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 32 characters in body
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| Oct 8, 2014 at 19:14 | comment | added | Kromey | @Octopus True, but it would have to get there somehow in the first place. Then they'd need some mechanism that turned the heat energy of the radioactive decay into chemical energy to fuel a refrigeration process to chill their blood below its boiling point. It could work, of course, but gives us a new means to detect them: Geiger counters. (Although if their atomic reaction is primarily alpha decay their skin alone would block it, letting only the tiny amount of incidental gamma radiation out, which may be too little to reliably detect in a hurry.) | |
| Oct 8, 2014 at 18:57 | comment | added | Octopus | @Kromey, What i was getting at is that they could have a mineral core within them that provides the immense proportions of energy that you suggest they require, and then they might only eat to mimic the carbon-baseds. | |
| Oct 8, 2014 at 18:50 | comment | added | Kromey | @Octopus They'd still need some sort of fuel for that reaction, but in theory that means they could metabolize (well, the equivalent thereof) far denser stuff than the food we eat, sure. I've no idea how that affects their intake, other than that they probably would not eat "normal" food, which could be a distinctive and identifiable behavior. | |
| Oct 8, 2014 at 18:04 | comment | added | Octopus | What if their primary source of energy is not food, but atomic? | |
| Oct 8, 2014 at 16:26 | comment | added | Kromey | I'm no chemist, so I can't speak to the effects of water, alcohol, etc., but I did just think of another potential counter-measure (more in the vein of "fighting back" rather than "detect them") and edited it into my answer. | |
| Oct 8, 2014 at 16:25 | history | edited | Kromey | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Added another possible counter-measure.
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| Oct 8, 2014 at 15:33 | vote | accept | Ifree Contractors | ||
| Oct 8, 2014 at 12:46 | comment | added | Lesto | so you just need to make a cheers with everyone. Maybe something with alcohol so it will be harder to them to use some kind of protection (more substance there are, the better it is; energy drink and cola maybe?). also a microwave witch emit wavelength of silica (like our microwave are using the one of water) may be very effective, as they are already having bad time to keep internal temperature low. also all kind of "radiation imagery" like x-ray and similar will make really weird different scan, as "permeability" of silicate is very different from water. | |
| Oct 7, 2014 at 23:55 | comment | added | Jay Vogler | Okay, okay, their skin probably forms a sufficient barrier to prevent water from being a big deal, but throw a bucket on one for me anyway? ;) | |
| Oct 7, 2014 at 23:54 | comment | added | Jay Vogler | "Our chemists are all on vacation at the moment." Oh man. Oh man, oh man, all the best stuff happens while I'm gone. Fortunately, one of the more interesting weapons should be readily available. Water. Yes, water. See, in a pure-ammonia-based system, water acts as an acid. It will donate its own protons to form ammonium hydroxide and rapidly change the chemistry from basic to neutral if introduced. Didn't anyone show you that documentary Signs? | |
| Oct 7, 2014 at 20:13 | comment | added | Kromey | @kaine True, but if you see someone walking around the comfortably temperature-controlled ship in a parka, you're going to immediately know that something's up! (Plus even well-insulated clothing will show up on IR as being colder than similarly-insulating clothing on a warmer human being.) | |
| Oct 7, 2014 at 20:12 | comment | added | Kromey | I think you could logically have the liquid ammonia in their veins, but they'd have to maintain a much lower temperature (and thus be readily spottable on IR). If you think about it, humans are ~17C over room temperature, and in theory the same energy expenditure could take you ~17C under room temperature, meaning you only need to go another ~33C to keep the ammonia liquid. That's a vastly different result when you go back through all those (again, very rough) calculations. | |
| Oct 7, 2014 at 18:43 | comment | added | kaine | Be careful that they don't improve this with more insulating clothing or only maintaining temperature on their faces. Doesn't matter though, an IR camera seems to be the best way to go then. Try to find other ways, however, for backup. | |
| Oct 7, 2014 at 18:35 | comment | added | Ifree Contractors | OOC mode: Oh wow, that's a lot of food. Guess, it's more logical for them to have gas in their veins then? Wonder if gas can carry as much or as consistent amount of nutrients to their silicone-based cells. | |
| Oct 7, 2014 at 18:31 | comment | added | Kromey | I've edited in some (very) rough calculations on their dietary needs. It's insane. You would definitely notice the eating habits of these guys as being highly irregular! | |
| Oct 7, 2014 at 18:30 | history | edited | Kromey | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Oct 7, 2014 at 18:12 | comment | added | Ifree Contractors | Yes, they have the smell of ammonia about them, but they used some kind of deodorant to mask the smell. Truthfully, I think our sense of smell is shot, with so much ammonia in the air, even I smell like ammonia now. Is there anything that can be toxic to silicone-based lifeforms? Something like how arsenic is toxic to us. | |
| Oct 7, 2014 at 18:09 | comment | added | Ifree Contractors | I see, I wondered about that. They are indeed slightly colder. A crewmate remarked once that his bunkmate was freezing, but he looked fine. Assuming that their skin temperature is 30 degrees Celcius, how often will they need to eat to maintain that temperature? | |
| Oct 7, 2014 at 18:08 | comment | added | Kromey | @kaine True, but as noted any organic lifeform exerting this type of pressure on its internal fluids would have a host of problems maintaining it, to say nothing of the huge unlikelihood of such a system evolving in the first place. A combination of pressure and temperature would give them a few degrees of "fudge factor", but they'd still have to be vastly colder than humans. | |
| Oct 7, 2014 at 18:06 | comment | added | kaine | Great idea on the blood temperature requiring them to be cooler. I felt a IR camera would work but wasn't exactly sure how. Please note, however, that if their blood is under pressure would help their situation significantly. | |
| Oct 7, 2014 at 17:54 | history | answered | Kromey | CC BY-SA 3.0 |