How Life COULD Begin On Habitable Planets (And How We'd Classify It) | Worldbuilding

Episode 9: The Origins of Life
In this video we discuss how to worldbuild a tree of life, looking at the origins of life, how life begins, how life forms are classified, and creating some of our own organisms that we’ll be using moving forward.
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WORLDBUILDING CORNER: www.worldbuildingcorner.com
Solar System Builder: www.worldbuildingcorner.com/r...
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[@nirnama.aksara]

Personally, I like this juvenile channel's content. May your efforts help this channel to grow into larger community And i hope you can keep creating new and better video.

[@WorldbuildingCorner]

Thanks for the positive feedback! Glad you have enjoyed :)

[@_pachycephalosaurus_]

exactly what I was thinking!

[@CharChar2121]

Hey, let me help you with your choice words. 😊 In English, the word "juvenile" isn't what you're looking for. You could use "young," but "new" would be better; juvenile can also mean "immature," so it's best to avoid it unless talking about an animal.

[@nirnama.aksara]

@@CharChar2121 thanks

[@kelmirosue3251]

If you could make a part 2 or even 3 of this specific section that would be awesome! I'd love to learn more about this for my own worldbuilding

[@Pannenkoekenplantje]

I really like this series and I'm taking notes. I also have ideas come up for in-story. When writing during an extinction event in case of a (post) apocalyptic story, we should consider what species are dying and which ones are thriving, and what that means for food, shelter, etc.

[@nicolashansen2546]

I am currently taking a geologic class in college. In the early earths atmosphere, there would have been a lot of methane as well, but methane goes away because it reacts with the oxygen in the atmosphere.

[@Levi_is_Smol]

Heey, that was pretty neat! Got this video randomly recommended by youtube and since I'm interested in world building, this fit perfectly.

[@WorldbuildingCorner]

Glad it's reaching people who are interested! Welcome to the channel :)

[@ilari90]

This series really is a college/university level course. Awesome job.

[@ArcaneNiles17]

In my world I'm thinking of adding a second branch in the life section strictly for magic/elemental based creatures that don't fall within a cellular based life tree. Really useful to think about how I want them divided up now... might start with brainstorming some species and seeing how I'd like to separate them in an identification system like this. May also add another kingdom as well depending on how out there the things I decide to make get lol

[@TrueWolves]

Early Might and Magic (the first 10 games before the reboot) did this with Elementals. I think Water elementals were first, born of a non sapient elemental aether. Eventually Air, Fire, and Earth emerged as well, with at least Fire elementals being born/created by Water elementals. Some settings have Light and Dark be natural forces which other supernatural beings emerge from as well, like Anima.

[@GrayderFox]

You could've picked anything to represent the Corpus visually, and you picked *that*. (If I didn't know any better, I'd say that was foreshadowing. :D)

[@WorldbuildingCorner]

Don't know what you're talking about 👀

[@Rei_geDo]

Amazingly informative video and greatly presented

[@WorldbuildingCorner]

Thank you!

[@_pachycephalosaurus_]

You have great videos! I love world-building, especially from this channel!

[@WorldbuildingCorner]

Thank you! Glad you like them!

[@TrueWolves]

An interesting example of a hybrid approach is the world of Mekkan from the web comic TwoKinds. An unknown being or process created the world of Mekkan and most of the life within. Life then drifted and evolved over the next unknown amount of time, leading to some creatures and adaptations that were not created originally. Somewhat more recently in Mekkan's history but still a couple of thousand years ago at least, three beings of great power from another world or multiverse happened across Mekkan and settled on some rules to determine who would get to keep the untouched world. Each created a race, one of the three main races of the setting in the modern day and bound themselves to it. Now, whoever's race survives will be the only being to survive and remain to claim Mekkan. These demigods thus actually aim to increase racial tension in their "game" even as some characters within the setting hope to overcome it... and it's not like racial tension wouldn't be a problem without them. It's worth noting that because natural selection and evolution are still processes, if not the source, of life, there is still genetic drift and adaptation. This can even be seen in the relatively shortly existing sapient races with an arctic-adaptated variant of the Basitin race and some hereditary magical powers found in some Keidran and Human families. The latter even led to a Human/Keidran hybrid thanks to shapeshifting despite the Masks specifically removing that unintended "feature" when it happened naturally in ages past. Neat Stuff.

[@TrueWolves]

Because many early species were divinely created, its hard to know what was created and what evolved from that. Even the 3 sapient races were probably adapted from Mekkan species or from other worlds, or both, since they were able to interbreed unintendedly and the Masks(the 3 beings fighting over Mekkan) have shown to be intensely powerful but not all powerful even among their own created race. The most powerful of dragons, a naturally occuring Mekkan species, can even be enough trouble for a Mask that it rather avoid a 1000+ year old dragon than deal with them directly and one of the few such known dragons can even resist their magic if needed. So how and what is related to what is... tricky.

[@user-mt1qi4vd1z]

Atmospheric oxygen was spent in the early stages mostly at oxidizing minerals. It took mind-blowing amounts of oxygen and now minerals at the Earth's surface are mostly oxides. When all the minerals were done, oxygen started to accumulate and caused some of the early extinctions (one for intoxicating anaerobic guys and one for consuming all the CO2 from the atmosphere, thus freezing the planet to snowball). There was so much oxygen that insects could grow up up to meter big. Then the fungi showed up and started to spend oxygen for the decay processes. Before them the dead plants accumulated as is, and now we have coal deposits. Since then things balanced themselves up, but we now have ice ages and interglacial periods

[@paulprasek1475]

This is a great video, though I do have one nitpick with the scientific data presented. The early cretaceous did have nowhere near as high of an oxygen-content in the atmosphere as the carboniferous did. Recent studies even suggest slightly lower amounts of oxygen than today. The dinosaurs of the time could grow THAT large because the respiratory system of archosaurs is A LOT more efficient than that of mammals.

[@WorldbuildingCorner]

That's interesting! I'm by no means an expert, but I did some double checking on my research and you are correct, the early cretaceous had atmospheric oxygen levels as low as 10%, though it seems the late cretaceous reached levels as high as 30%, and the carboniferous peaked at 31%, compared with the 21% today.

[@piratelord88]

I love this. Trying to mimic this in my own world building. I wish there was a mind map or graphic we could download of this for kind of like what you showed in your video. Keep world building!!

[@piratelord88]

Also where did you come up with the naming? I would like to make my own system but am interested in how you came up with yours.

[@Penguin-ju2qw]

I think he takes a lot of inspiration from Latin, with stuff like the Suns, Moons, and Planets being Latin words for colors, animals, or other things.

[@cerberaodollam]

Kinda love it how the place is just called 'Place'. ;)

[@Schattennebel]

In my fantasy worldbuilding setup the godlike beeings called "Leverem" decided "there would be life" and there was life. Kinda like life was formed in the "Lord of the Rings" world described as in the Silmarillion.

[@BenLafarge]

But how did the Leverem came to be themselves ?

[@Schattennebel]

@@BenLafarge The Leverem came to be into existence by a higher being called Phenris. A galactical god of creation.

[@fionaxu977]

This is really cool! I really enjoy that you have a nice series covering every detail that I can just play. Def gonna sub

[@beddo6662]

Ey, here we go boys!

[@WorldbuildingCorner]

Know you've been looking forward to creatures! Will be many of them from here-on out :)

[@marinomusico5768]

It's An Amazing Biology Lesson!!!!

[@hectorhernandez215]

Magic and Imagination....can make blind chance a possibility .... .

[@WorldbuildingCorner]

Absolutely it can! I'd argue 'magic' creating life falls under creationism though, just that instead of a deity, it's magic itself. I think a universe where magic is so abundant that it is responsible for creating life in the first place would be fascinating!

[@midzyblinkonce7716]

Ok, so I am currently world building 2 planets in 2 seperate systems One is pretty Earth Like, one is very alien. On the alien world, I have crystals that are technically alive but are very much a mystery - they produce light, heat, cold, gas, etc, some are solid and some are hollow with liquid or gas inside, some are living in the ocean, on land, under the crust, some are insect-sized and some are the size of mountains, and the question of whether they communicate, reproduce, feed, have some form of intelligence is up for debate largely. Also there is a branch of life, that while look like plants, are sentient, communicate telepathically and can move around very slowly. I'm wondering where they would fall on the tree of life. Both the crystal beings and the intelligent plant-like beings. The overall idea of the larger universe is that my universe is very old, and that there is a highly intelligent and advanced space faring race of AI from a bygone era that travel across the Universe terraforming planets to create life or transferring, via panspermia, the 'LUCA' organism and observing how life would evolve on different planets, following a Universe-wide catastrophe (hence the bygone era). So the AI's life-creating programming is either active by terraforming and trying to mould life into a ceratin way, or passive by simply giving a planet a chance to harbour life, and observing what happens naturally. This is over the course of billions or trillions of years. The AI itself is still very mysterious, and even more mysterious is the race of beings that first made them, and what the catastrophe was and why they made a life-creating race of AI to begin with. In my story and world building project, I'm starting by looking at 2 planets in 2 neighbouring systems - Viridus (Earth like Planet) and Iruseum (Alien Planet). The idea is that those living on the planets are unaware that their worlds as they known them were created by AI, and that what they see as natural disasters and mass extinction events are actually AI controlled errors or experiments. I should also say that these 2 planets I have chosen are because the experiment for both started at the same time, so life on these worlds are the same age basically, and also them being from neighbouring systems, space travel and exploration from either world would lead likely to each other. I have made a map for Viridus, but am rather stuck with the classification of the crystal and intelligent plant but not plants of Iruseum. I am currently making the map for Iruseum. For now, I refer to each group as Lithiods (I got that one from Stellaris since they are basically living rocks like the lithiods in Stellaris), and Palantals for the intelligent plant-like beings. So in total the life groups I have but not sorted into the tree yet or given unique names are - Bacterium, Viruses, Lithiods, Fungai, Plants, Palantals and Animals. So yea, theres my world building ideas lol.

[@krystalfruehling7522]

There was pointed out to me that Technically you are the deity of the world based on you creating it. Given the idea of the prime mover. (My world) I went with deity's as being elemental based and on cosmology.

[@DavidGlenn]

I admit in my story, I have that people in my world believe in creationism, but there is evidence of primordial soup too. I didn't go with taxonomic ranks because I was afraid I'd get too wrapped up in the details. Part of me wonders if I should've now I may have gotten a little wrapped up filling a variety of niches as well. I also haven't come up with any extinction events for my world.

[@WorldbuildingCorner]

I actually really like creationism as a concept for worldbuilding, especially fantasy settings with magic. Taxonomic ranks can be as heavy or light as you want them to be. Perhaps a system with less tiers can make it easier to navigate? I love filling niches, though it can become time exhausting! There are literal millions of unique niches on earth-like planets, and filling every one as a worldbuilder is a borderline impossible task. It's why I've mostly stuck to describing orders or families of creatures that fill a 'type' of niche. Extinction events are likely for older planets, and I think they're cool too! It adds a lot of flavour and history.

[@DavidGlenn]

@@WorldbuildingCorner Gotcha I see. I'll try that Oh yeah THanks for that

[@jemm113]

One example of a lighter taxonomic system can be found in Final Fantasy XIV. The Kingdoms are split into Bloodborn, blodess, and transcendent. Further for class are the “-kin”. Then genus is the archetype, which in terms of monsters, this refers to things like “bat”, or “troll”. Then species are divisions of genus, like “giant bat” vs “black bat”, or “island rail” vs “cockatrice” for various dodos. Finally, notorious monsters get individual names, generally because they sit head-and-shoulder above the rest of their species and kin in terms of power. Scalekin refers to lizards and other scaly species, beastkin for land mammals, cloudkin for most things that fly and have feathers, ashkin for undead, elementals, seedkin for dexterous plants, Dragons get their own class (as they are aliens), there’s even soulkin for golems and forgekin for machine lifeforms! But in lore, this system is rather imperfect. For example, the class of “Spoken” describes any species that is sapient save for dragons and Auspices. This means any of the previous classes that evolve into a sapient and sentient species (that are also not something like voidsent or sin-eaters) just becomes a spoken, effectively shifting class category. Same deal with Auspices, they are simply animals who live more than a century then more than a few extra and become sapient beings of great power, magic, and shapeshifting. Any individual beastkin, wavekin, cloudkin, etc. can shift to the Auspice class by living long enough. But spoken is weird because while the major player races are descended from the same common ancestor (unlike some other settings), the beast tribes are also categorized as spoken despite having completely different evolutionary paths! But that might be a good thing! Having an imperfect system (in-world) can still inform the direction to take your various species! It further helps reflect how the characters view and study the world!

[@DavidGlenn]

@@jemm113 Wow. I didn't know all that. And thanks for letting me know my imperfect system can still work

[@rodrigobueno8652]

Good video,but tip from a byologist and science teacher: don't limit yourself to lineus classfication system, the modern phylogenetics don't follow it close because it don't reprsent well evolution

[@T4N7]

I get that these videos i to help explain the thought processes but it would've been nice to try n split from Earth analogs at least a lil. The only changes u may wete simplifications like adding jellies to cephalopods. At least i know some of the ways u mix n match anatomical features in the animals later in this series r cool. N ur geographic n climate videos were great but overall i wish the world u were making was a lil weirder than Earth.

[@WorldbuildingCorner]

Non earth-like planets are always very cool. My design philosophy is to take what is 'Earth-like' and then move maybe one or two steps away in each layer of worldbuilding. The middle ground is hard! I am often either criticised for being too earth-like, or when I deviate, told bluntly that "this isn't how things work". Either way, my goals for this series from the beginning have been for an earth-like planet. Thanks for the feedback!

[@Catvrix]

I just wanted to build a world for my dnd campaign and now I’m studying biology… help

[@vincenzopiras9765]

This isn't totally correct. The Carboniferous was something like two hundred million years before Argentinosaurus. Furthermore, the speech of gigantism was valid for insects, since they have a passive breathing system. In the Mesozoic the oxygen level fluctuated, but was generally lower than in the modern era.

[@entityunknown2]

Do you dm?

[@shadow.7842]

I dont have the brainpower for this

[@nerd8502]

My man took "global warming" a bit too literally lol

[@Alkis05]

Just out of curiosity, those taxonomic ranks are outdated and are kinda useless in modern biology, except the few smaller ones. For example, if you are looking for phylogenetic groups, mammals are a subgroup of bone fish and birds are a subgroup of reptiles. So it makes little sense to say that birds, mammals, reptiles and fish are all classes.

[@WorldbuildingCorner]

Good to know! I am not a biologist, so I am by no means an expert. My understanding of taxonomic ranks (and therefore the information in this video) has come from my own research into the field, which is from currently available information online and in biology books.

[@VelociraptorsOfSkyrim]

I think you're a little confused, mate. All the research I can see says that things like Domain, Kingdom and Phylum are still used. They're just so Generic that They're hardly used in every day study. And, you're right. Mammals, Fish, and Reptiles all fall under one Group. Its called "Vertebrata". With the next level being "Tetrapods'

[@Alkis05]

@@VelociraptorsOfSkyrim The very broad (Kingdom and Phylum) and very specific (species, gen) are still used. It is the intermediary (Order, Class) that are not in use. Family is debatable. Some of them still make sense, others don't. Sure, Vertebrata envelops mammals and fish, but that is not what I was talking about. You ignored what I said that mammals are a subgroup of bone fish, and birds a subgroup of Sauropsida (Reptile is not even considered a Clade any longer, by the way. Neither are fish. That is why I'm being specifically trying to using only "bone fish", which is a clade). So it doesn't make sense to say they are at the same level of the hierarchy, namely class. The problem is that taxonomy focus on clades now and between the very low clades and the very broad, often there are a huge stratification of clades that would make cumbersome to put it in a neat and consistent hierarchy. You would need a lot more than three.

[@theconqueringpotatoofeurop1805]

While I'm a Christian that doesn't have enough faith to believe in the big bang, nothing becoming something, or inorganic life becoming organic life by chance. I have found the world building aspects of these videos really interesting! From a fictional standpoint I've really enjoyed the birth of Locus

[@rzu1474]

Please forget the "by chance" chemistry and evolution isn't random. Not totally

[@nealjroberts4050]

Worth noting that the Big Bang is merely the expansion of everything NOT something from nothing

[@optillian4182]

🤡

[@junofall]

dude believes generational hearsay and chinese whispers over literal facts

[@Aerostarm]

*has faith to believe in a benevolant imaginary friend, but not widley accepted scientific fact*