Alien Worlds Live Review - Excerpts

Recently I spent a live restream doing a review on "Alien Worlds" of the amazing series on Netflix right now. Unfortunately, the livestream is now blocked, so you probably cannot see it anymore, and it's in any case not promoted by the algorithm. In this production, I've removed all the "offensive bits", so hopefully this will stay up, so you can listen to my commentary.
The full version is still up on Utreon: utreon.com/v/I5ONVU4p9GY
Website: www.phrenotopia.com/​
Twitter: / phrenotopian​

[@jaredmc7982]

I have some issues with the reproduction/life cycle of the sky grazers, where the female has to land and die to lay her relatively small clutch of eggs, only for most of them to be picked off by opportunistic scavengers and predators, before they even take flight. It just seems like way too high a cost vs benefit that doesn't make much sense in this case. If the female were producing several hundred or even thousands of eggs as she was dying, then this lifecycle would start to feel more justified in that sense. What would make more sense so something like the sky grazers would be for them to have developed ovovivipary, and eliminate their need to land altogether. Or if the females were still oviparous, then perhaps their eggs could have been laid in the air, with a hydrogen-filled gas pocket to keep the eggs suspended in the air column, until they hatch? Then the young would be forced to take flight as their eggs would start to fall back to their planet's surface. That could have been a very interesting and unique feature for the sky grazer life cycle.

[@allthelittleworms]

honesty confused why the aliens reproduce sexually the same way we do on earth. no logic there

[@peeperleviathan2839]

It should have been something like the mother’s body provides the food for the babies instead of just having the mother die for children who will almost certainly die. And to show the scavengers it could have shown a body of one of the grazers on the ground because the predators killed it, the predators can’t eat all so the scavengers eat the rest

[@Dragrath1]

That is sad that it got blocked copyright crap has gotten crazy >_> Regarding gills and lungs it is often forgotten that the ancestor of boney fish possessed both gills and lungs as for why the trait appeared perhaps it would provided a means for buoyancy adjustment and compensate for the low oxygen content in the water. phonons the quasi particles of vibrations propagate more effectively the denser the medium they propagate though. It gets more complicated the more exotic the medium as they can support more vibrational modes not sure about critical fluids but I think it should still be analogous to traditional sound waves. Solids generally have 3 modes fluids 2 modes(transverse and longitudinal propagation) and if the medium is conducting you get the nasty mess of Alfven wave modes which are so complicated they form a whole other discipline of Magnetohydrodynamics and or plasma physics. As for a shape shifter there is one lineage on Earth that has played around with the modality Octopuses/Octopi/Octopodes as their bodies are highly malleable able to fit through small gaps and the mimic octopus can even somewhat rearrange their shape using their tentacles so a more amorphous body structure is possible. Now actual phagocytosis via pseudopods seems much less likely barring some major revolution in cytoplasmal structures. In all cases with amorphous creatures they need to have some kind of internal support. I.e. amoeboid organisms rearrange multitudes of little cytoplasmic microstructures to switch between more fluid forms so I guess such an organism could work with lots of independent "bone" analogs.

[@Phrenotopia]

I can always count on you to throw a handful of insightful nuggets down in the comment section. 🙂 Thank you!

[@crabman8264]

@@Phrenotopia hello

[@eybaza6018]

They could have made more creatures.

[@KJRUSS0]

And more similar body plans, I would love to see a series about planet Snaiad.

[@Phrenotopia]

In don't think they had the budget for that.

[@eybaza6018]

@@Phrenotopia Netflix has a lot of budget, it's just the first season tho. Maybe they are just lazy.

[@Phrenotopia]

@@eybaza6018 Given the amount of work into the details they put in, I sincerely doubt to the utmost highest degree that "laziness" is the explanation here. No, it's all about the budget that the corporation is willing or able to give to the creators.

[@BonesStones]

Have you ever played Spore? I thought a lot of the body parts in this episode seem to be copied straight from the creature creator. Would be interested to see your take on Spore actually!

[@Phrenotopia]

I do mention Spore briefly in video #7 of the Alien Biosphere Evolution series, as well as my review of Thrive.

[@ohdahngboi_2237]

7:22 >I need about tree fiddy

[@the2econd606]

I was honestly quite disappointed in the creature designs. Seems much more fantasy than Function. Some cool ideas for sure, but the anatomy of we see has much less thought than I think they should..

[@quierosaberde2284]

I am fascinated by your videos and I am sure there will be much more quality content. I wondered if it would be possible in any way possible if in the beginning of the solar system Jupiter had stayed in the habitable zone, capturing Mars turning a moon and being something like Pandora (avatar). if it is possible how would life have evolved? or it would continue to be habitalbe to our days, I look forward to your opinion. Cheers,

[@Phrenotopia]

Thank you! That is a fascinating concept that I would love to make a video. I am no planetary scientist, but I'm willing the bet that, however unlikely or likely, there's bound to be several systems like that in the galaxy.

[@quierosaberde2284]

@@Phrenotopia Thank you for answering, I always asked myself how it could be Mars inhabiting something comparative to what happens with the earth, in that note that for example, ganymides has a magnetic field or titan a dense atmosphere, all for being moons of gas giants and more what he passed with triton the captured moon of neptune, all in a hypothetical case that could happen.

[@VirgoShelter]

Im glad I got to watch this

[@meli-melo9759]

I'll give the animals better names: Ep. 1: Planet Atlas Sky grazer (Aeroichthys aves) Predators - Gas floater (Arthrogasos linnega) Bone less creature - Flesh crawler (Gorgoxenus garodon) Ep. 2: Planet Janus Pentapod (Pentapede deinoarthropus) Desert grub (Microxenus desertus) Glow grub (Microxenus biolumanus) Ep. 3: Planet Eden Grazer - Moth eared bunny (Lepomimus terrin) Predator - Protomonkey (Xenopithecus sentomus) Worm like creature - Reproductor (Microcondus silicons) Ep. 4: Planet terra Melter robot (unknown species) Terra minions (unknown species) Power Terra panels (unknown species) Chronik carrier ship (unknown species)

[@ArkaSaurusRex218]

I would call the hunter in the first episode jet stingers, and also, the worms in the 3 Rd episode are just the reproductive organs of the grazer species, which can detach from their body and move on their own.

[@meli-melo9759]

Jetstinger is a good name!

[@evan448]

I would think a higher gravity world would retain more hydrogen from it's initial formation and from asteroid/comet strikes. So perhaps it would raise the chance of a water world flying a long distance or floating In air would be an evolutionary advantage that would make up for the deep water nutrient desert. Some organism might opt to fly and cover large distances rather then try to cope with pressure and resistance of higher gravity water. I'd imagine the energy cost of swimming rises under such an environment though I might be wrong Compare it to a deep sea organism

[@LimeyLassen]

It would also have more helium, right? I wonder if that would make breathing more difficult.

[@evan448]

@@LimeyLassen I would assume helium would always be in the upper atmo Hydrogen has the advantage here of bonding with other things. But just having a persistent hydrogen or helium upper atmosphere might have some interesting effects

[@LimeyLassen]

@@evan448 Good point! I know that helium isn't a greenhouse gas, so it might not matter much.

[@Dragrath1]

@@LimeyLassen The catch is that pressurized hydrogen is a greenhouse gas (but only under pressure) so if the planet has a very massive atmosphere it could come with interesting consequences for one there ceases to be any meaning in terms of an "outer edge" of a habitable zone since a hydrogen atmosphere can support liquid water on the surface of a planet for billions of years even in the absence of a star. That of course would be a significant problem closer to a star.... Molecular hydrogen would at least be useful metabolically as photosynthetic reactions (as well as chemosynthetic reactions which fix carbon) are dependent on a source of hydrogen to combine CO2 into glucose and other sugars. In principal if you start with pelagic organisms that can survive entirely suspended in water oceans even a mini Neptune or potentially even Neptune itself could support simple life. When I was working on a Term paper last year I had come across a paper discussing aperiodic exponential variations in unexpected molecular spectral features and I was struck by the observation of where such chemical variations occur namely Venus(Unknown blue-UV absorber, Sulfur dioxide(at latitudes where it shouldn't be), Earth(molecular oxygen is the big one which we of course know the sources of) Mars(methane, molecular oxygen) Titan(complex organics of some type) and Neptune(unknown) none of the other giant planets show such variation apparently and with exception of Earth the causes elsewhere are unknown. I was intrigued but as I couldn't find much more on the phenomenon I pushed it aside as life as we know it couldn't really arise on a giant planet and heavier elements would preferentially fall deeper into the planets interior. But more recently I realized that Triton's tidal volcanism is constantly raining material down onto Neptune so if life were to have arisen within Tritons' subsurface Ocean it would have had billions of years to adapt to survive and colonize Neptune's oceans relying on the planets abundant internal heat and molecular hydrogen water methane and trace elements for survival. So while it is improbable it is feasible that Neptune's effectively bottomless ocean might be inhabited and this probability skyrockets if life is identified within Triton's plumes.

[@M1AIN40]

Would a shapeshifting alien be possible, given how much energy must be required

[@ryennfilms6429]

don't think that is how evolution works.

[@M1AIN40]

@@ryennfilms6429 well the laws of physics does influence evolution, so how would a shape shifting alien be even possible- what is the evolutionary benefit, or the environmental pressures that will push for a shape shifting alien. Not only that but shape shifting would require a heck load of energy. So I think it is extremely unlikely. What do you think?

[@ryennfilms6429]

@@M1AIN40 I think that it may evolve certain behavioral techniques and structural ones to focus towards camoflage, such as the octopus which changes it's skin through it's specialised cells, mimics it's surroundings, other species, etc.. I think it's impossible for matter to change like that and how would the creature attain that kind of energy, how would it transport it, and how would the energy be transferred and then converted into actual motion between separate atoms. Because it has to be changing it's atomic structure to reassemble that of another being so it'd also need to change their brain matter to that of the creature, effectively lowering their iq, maybe the animal their mimicking needs more atoms to become and so they'd need to change their the amount of matter it had, the intelligence, or seemingly need to store brain matter in a free space, which would affect it, etc.. This creates a multitude of paradoxes. So if a creature were to evolve in a similar way. I'd say it'd just be extremely well adapted to mimicking the behaviors of other creatures, and developing ways to further change it's form. Similar to how some people can twist their arms or how octopus can move their tentacles in a certain way to mimic other creatures or plants. These alien creatures would probably have a high-intelligence to hold the information of various alien animals it hunts, and is hunted by. And it most likely transfers this information through generations, slowly becoming a fully-sentient lifeform. So yeah, this is an interesting concept. I wanna say it's impossible but I'm not a fucking genius. In my opinion the closest thing that may come from this is a creature adapted to camouflage and the mimicking of other species.

[@M1AIN40]

@@ryennfilms6429 wow that blew my mind, pretty insightful way of thinking on the possibility on how a mimicking alien could potentially evolve and hence also gain incredible intelligence, as they’ll be a selection pressure for it, like mimicking a close rival competitor that is also intelligent, just like the way Homo sapiens likely competed with our close ancestors like homo Neanderthals. Yeah given how incredibly and incomprehensible big the observable universe is, let alone that there’s more distance out further on, I won’t be remotely surprised if there’s something like that out there. It’s not so far fetched when thinking about it, or they deffo be some elements of what you saying to be correct. But I’m still sceptical. Because mimicking to a certain degree might actually limit there intellectual potential or need of intelligence to the level of ours or higher. For example if these mimicking aliens have to change colour then not so much, but if they had to growl or make some noises for communication, grow extra limbs, tentacles , or and other stuff that can get them close to their prey or camouflage with predators, then this process would require so much energy that having our level of intelligence or higher would infact be more of a burden on top of their biological ability. But I might be wrong because maybe I have a bias as I am basing this on our evolutionary timeline, so therefore a alien like that might have a longer and rich evolutionary history and evolve, adapt, loss traits and gain traits and eventually retain a great degree of intelligence. Obviously I assume when you mean mimicking abilities tho, you mean like to camouflage or make noises, but! not like to grow a tail or extra limb or change texture, because I believe that part (the latter)would be far fetched , and so then require excessive energy, hence my reason stating that it’s likely improbable for a selection pressure to favour that type of speculative trait and let alone them being intelligent on top.

[@Aethuviel]

Octopuses are kind of shape-shifting, their skin can do amazing things, not just color.

[@thunderwazp7653]

Så … all text är på svenska … eller ær det norsk? Jag ser inga ä’n men tro mig se några enstaka æ’n så det är nog inte modersmålet mitt

[@nick-sx5ob]

So you are danish?

[@user-pi4cf6fj7b]

He's Dutch living in Danemark 🇳🇱🇩🇰

[@Ponk_80]

That explains the accent