Return of the Tardigrades
Feb. 18th, 2016 11:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithThese tardigrades were found frozen in Antarctica, kept frozen for decades longer, and then revived. I know that technically, superpowers are abilities unusual to a species, and tardigrades as a species are fucking indestructible. I don't care, they have superpowers. They're resistant to cold damage, heat damage, desiccation, radiation, you name it. Seriously, if we blow up the Earth, there will be tardigrades on some of the fragments and a zillion years from now they're going to smack into some unsuspecting alien world and POW! Panspermia. No deliberation required.
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(no subject)
Date: 2016-02-19 12:30 pm (UTC)Well...
Date: 2016-02-19 07:07 pm (UTC)*ponder* Perhaps they are Martians! :D It would be cool to the power of absolute zero if we found tardigrades in a Martian sample some day. That could totally happen. \o/
Or Enceladus. It has oceans and ice and geysers. Maybe even Europa. There are options.
Re: Well...
Date: 2016-02-19 08:54 pm (UTC)Personally, I'm thinking could we use them to terraform?
Re: Well...
Date: 2016-02-19 09:06 pm (UTC)Likely so.
>>Personally, I'm thinking could we use them to terraform?<<
Sure. They're so small that you could load them into snailbots. A snailbot is a terraforming device that squirts out a trail of nutrient gel spiked with things like algae or moss spores. Adding tardigrades would give you an animal and a vegetable. \o/ Go, baby biosphere, go!
Re: Well...
Date: 2016-02-19 10:22 pm (UTC)Re: Well...
Date: 2016-02-19 10:37 pm (UTC)Yep. The idea is to make them small, cheap, and numerous. Typically snailbots range from the size of a shoebox on up to barrel size. Partly it depends on whether you have to keep reloading them from a central supply unit, or if they're equipped to generate their own materials from local resources.
>> and a microbial pack to split the hydrogen peroxide in the soil to make fuel for the bot. [and with the side effect of making water]. <<
That and solar cells are among the more popular options.
Another advantage is that you can equip them with literally any extremophile small enough to fit through the nozzle. Yeast. Algae. Spores for fungi, lichens, liverworts, ferns, etc. If tardigrades, then probably also things such as rotifers and planaria.
Start in the least-inhospitable places like the ones showing signs of water flow. Then spread out from there.
Re: Well...
Date: 2016-02-21 07:10 am (UTC)But should we? Whenever I think of terraforming, I think of the immense harm we always manage to do whenever we introduce a foreign predator to get rid of this or that pest, for example. I know these are supposedly dead worlds, but what if they have life beyond our understanding?
Re: Well...
Date: 2016-02-21 07:13 am (UTC)I know how to do all kinds of things. Whether to do them is a different question. I do not generally support terraforming any alien biosphere. I am more inclined to allow terraforming of barren worlds, because I like biospheres.
(no subject)
Date: 2016-02-19 04:35 pm (UTC)I think an argument can be made for species-wide superpowers. These little cuties are like tiny Kryptonians.
I'm going to laugh really hard if we get all the way to Enceladus, capture some of the frozen geyser-ice on our way past the poles, check it for life - and it's got tardigrades in it.
Yes...
Date: 2016-02-19 07:10 pm (UTC)Good point. "Tardigrade Powers" would make an awesome metapower. Especially going up against Haboob. Gods, can you imagine the look on his face? He desiccates the hero, turns to leave, a gizmo splashes water on the corpse, and "Ha ha! Surely you did not think I would be so easily defeated?"
>> I'm going to laugh really hard if we get all the way to Enceladus, capture some of the frozen geyser-ice on our way past the poles, check it for life - and it's got tardigrades in it.<<
Oh yeah. Or Mars or Europa or ... probably not Io, but you never know, the little buggers really are the next best thing to indestructible.
Re: Yes...
Date: 2016-02-19 08:56 pm (UTC)Re: Yes...
Date: 2016-02-19 09:12 pm (UTC)Re: Yes...
Date: 2016-02-19 08:58 pm (UTC)Haboob: Why. Won't. You. Stay. DEAD! ... ah screw this, I'm gonna go home. You're no fun.
Re: Yes...
Date: 2016-02-19 11:16 pm (UTC)It'd be awesome to see Haboob get punked by a microorganism.
Re: Yes...
Date: 2016-02-19 11:29 pm (UTC)My suspicion is that the origin story involved visiting a nuclear accident site, probably Chernobyl, and accidentally swallowing some moss crawling with the little beasties. Trip, faceplant into ground, local guide has hysterics. Too late.
I've had Tardigrade in mind for a while but haven't fleshed out a character sheet yet. There are t-shirts, though, Lawrence got one for Stan, who is not that indestructible but is still Invulnerable.
>> It'd be awesome to see Haboob get punked by a microorganism. <<
That would be funny too.
Re: Yes...
Date: 2016-02-20 03:49 am (UTC)'Cause I think part of her wants to see Haboob and his cronies get their behinds handed to them by someone they cannot kill. Especially if that someone doesn't look threatening (because virtually indestructible or not, the little guys aren't very scary looking).
(no subject)
Date: 2016-02-20 05:43 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2016-02-20 10:35 am (UTC)