An Alien Race
An Alien Race
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THE GZKTSS SYSTEMGzktss, the home star of the Ltss'Tak is a relatively high-mass hot white A9V type star with 1.57 times the mass of the Sun, giving it a 3.238 billion year main sequence lifetime [as opposed to some 10 billion years for the sun]. Some 0.6% of stars are of type A, so although rarer than the Sun they are not so rare to make life impossibly unlikely. Its mass means that it has some six times the luminosity of the sun and some 1.5 times its radius. It has been on the main sequence for 3.180 billion years [as opposed to some 4.57 billion years for the Sun], so it should last on the main sequence for another 58 million years or so before expanding into a red giant type star. Gzktss is not unlike a somewhat cooler, dimmer and non-variable version of the star Altair [see also here].
The larger mass of Gzktss as compared to the Sun means that it has higher temperature than it, with a surface temperature of some 7900K [as opposed to 5800K for the Sun]. This means that Gzktss outputs considerably more ultra-violet radiation than the Sun, with the peak of its frequency emission being in the ultra-violet rather than in the middle of the visible spectrum as is the case for the Sun.
All of this generates a nominal habitable zone that is considerably further from Gzktss than is the case for the Sun.
THE WORLDS OF GZKTSSOrbiting closest to Gzktss is Bzgsls, a large moonless gas giant planet with a mass some twice that of Jupiter in the Solar System [some 636 times that of the Earth]. It circles Gzktss at a distance of 60 million kilometres [0.4 AU; this is roughly the same distance as Mercury is from the Sun in the Solar System], taking 0.34% [1/290th] of a Tt'ff year to do so [some 74 Earth days; because of the higher mass of Gzktss this is shorter than the 88 days it takes Mercury to circle the Sun]. It has an average temperature of some 1900°C [hot enough to melt iron and many other elements]. Because of this high temperature, its atmosphere has expanded to give it a diameter of roughly 270000 kilometres [more than twice that of Jupiter]. This gives it an overall density of some 485 kilos per cubic metre [less than half that of water].
Additionally, the high temperature of Bzgsls means that it is surrounded by an enormous ellipsoidal envelope of gas, some millions of tonnes a second of which is being lost from the planet, not unlike a vast, very hot, 'comet tail' [this is similar to that of the exoplanet HD 209458 b, but from a larger planet; see also here]. Although large, this 'comet tail' is not enough to cause a significant loss of mass by the planet over the lifetime of Gzktss.
As far as it is known Bzgsls migrated to its current position from an orbit much further from Gzktss than it is today. As such it appears it formed with a number of moons which were lost during this migration. The molten remains of two of these moons - they have average temperatures of some 2500°C - are located at the leading and trailing Trojan Points of Bzgsls. These two bodies, known as Pslssagzuzsk Omuz and Fluzjtkzwz Gt'ln, are very similar molten rocky bodies each some thousands of kilometres in diameter.
Beyond Bzgsls there is a large gap before the next significant world. Within this gap orbit four small rocky bodies some hundreds to thousands of kilometres in diameter. These orbit Gzktss in fairly eccentric paths and are also thought to be former moons of Bzgsls that were lost by it during its migration to its present position. Those of them orbiting within 450 million kilometres [some 3 AU] of Gzktss are sufficiently hot that at least part of their surfaces are molten.
The second significant world orbiting Gzktss is the gas giant planet of Augzaultws that orbits some 1020 million kilometres [6.8 AU; between Jupiter and Saturn in the Solar System] from Gzktss, taking some 0.24 Tt'ff years [14.2 Earth years] to complete a single orbit of it [that is, it orbits Gzktss slightly more than four times for each time Tt'ff does so].
Augzaultws has a mass of some 11.2 times that of the Earth [less than Neptune in the Solar System, which has a mass of some 17 times that of Earth], and is barely large enough to qualify as a gas giant planet at all. As for Bzgsls the relative youth of the Gzktss system, and so the greater internal heat of Augzaultws, means that Augzaultws is nonetheless some 63300 kilometres in diameter [some 1.3 times larger than Neptune in the Solar System] giving it a density of some 635 kilos per cubic metre [less than water].
The axial tilt of Augzaultws is some 64°, something that is assumed to have been caused by a major impact or a close encounter with it at some point in the past. It has no significant orbital eccentricity.
The average temperature of Augzaultws is some 246°C. This means that the entire volume of the planet is far too hot for water-based life forms such as the Ltss'Tak to survive there.
Orbiting close to Augzaultws is a very sparse ring system made up of dark, rocky bodies.
Beyond the rings at a distance of some 500000 kilometres Augzaultws is circled by Tsaubsfs, a large rocky moon some 2100 kilometres in diameter [between the sizes of Triton] and Titania) in the Solar System. Tsaubsfs takes some 36.3 Tt'ff days [12.26 Earth days] to complete a single orbit about Augzaultws and has an average surface temperature of some 415°C.
Beyond Tsaubsfs at some 640000 from Augzaultws is another large moon, Nnbzltpsjt, with a diameter of some 1870 kilometres [again between the sizes of Triton and Titania in the Solar System]. Nnbzltpsjt takes some 52.6 Tt'ff days [17.75 Earth days] to complete a single orbit about Augzaultws. Like Tsaubsfs, Nnbzltpsjt has an average surface temperature of some 415°C.
Beyond Nnbzltpsjt orbit a number of smaller moons, none larger than some tens of kilometres in size.
Beyond Augzaultws is another gas giant planet, Omssgzumuz. This orbits some 1.68 billion kilometres [11.2 AU; somewhat further than Saturn is from the Sun] from Gzktss, taking some 0.51 Tt'ff years [thirty Earth years] to do so [that is, it orbits Gzktss slightly less than twice per orbit of Tt'ff].
Omssgzumuz has a mass of some 32 times that of the Earth [less than a third that of Saturn in the Solar System], but its youth and greater internal heat give it a diameter of some 97500 kilometres [slightly smaller than Saturn], and a density of some 517 kilos per cubic metre [roughly half that of water]. Omssgzumuz has an axial tilt of some 25° and no significant orbital eccentricity.
The average temperature of Omssgzumuz is some 131°C. This means that the entire volume of the planet is too hot for water-based life forms such as the Ltss'Tak to survive there.
Around Omssgzumuz orbits a thin, narrow ring of dark rocky debris, and beyond it more than one hundred small moons ranging in size from some 500 kilometres in diameter [roughly the size of the asteroid Vesta in the Solar System] down to mere kilometres. All of these moons are dry rocky bodies with surface temperatures on the order of 263°C.
Beyond Omssgzumuz is the gas giant planet of Tt'ff, the home world of the Ltss'Tak. This world and its moons are described in more detail elsewhere.
Beyond Tt'ff, orbiting some 7.5 billion kilometres from Gzktss [50 AU; slightly further than the furthest Pluto goes from the Sun in the Solar System] is the gas giant planet of Tsksnmomws. This has a mass of some 48 times that of the Earth [between Saturn and Neptune in the Solar System] and a diameter of some 141000 kilometres [somewhat larger than Saturn in the Solar System because of its greater internal heat]. It takes some 4.83 Tt'ff years [283 Earth years] to complete a single orbit about Gzktss. It has an axial tilt of approximately zero, and very little orbital eccentricity, meaning that it has a very stable climate.
The average temperature of Tsksnmomws at the level where its atmospheric pressure is roughly one atmosphere is some -82°C. However, as with other gas giant planets the deeper one descends into the atmosphere, the warmer it becomes. Because of this there are primitive 'extremophile' cells floating very deep in the atmosphere of this world, where it is warm enough for them to survive. These are very distantly related to the life-forms of Tt'ff, and it is assumed that they were carried there by meteors or some similar means.
Orbiting close to Tsksnmomws, centred of some 150000 kilometres from it, is a glittering icy ring system [somewhat smaller than that of Saturn in the Solar System, but larger (and certainly more impressive) than any other ring system in the Gzktss system as a whole].
Beyond the ring system, orbiting some 1.75 million kilometres from Tsksnmomws is Ls'umflfs, its single significant moon. This is a huge icy world, a frozen super-Earth some 23200 kilometres in diameter [as compared to some 12742 kilometres for the Earth] with a mass some 6 times that of the Earth and a surface gravity of some 1.81 times that of the Earth. It takes some 106 Tt'ff days [36 Earth days] to complete a single orbit about Tsksnmomws, and has an average surface temperature of some -56°C. The surface of Ls'umflfs is a layer of ice some hundreds of kilometres thick, overlying an interior ocean some hundreds more kilometres thick on top of another layer of ice [which is Ice VII rather than normal ice as found on Earth] which covers the rocky core of Ls'umflfs. Because of the dissociation of ice by the intense ultraviolet radiation of Gzktss, Ls'umflfs possesses a thin atmosphere of almost pure oxygen. Because of its high gravity and lack of any accessible materials other from ice, Ls'umflfs is a rather useless world.
Beyond Gzktss is its companion star of Lt'psltbznmlt, the cometary halo of Gzktss, and interstellar space.
There are no asteroid belts as such in the Gzktss system. However, there are many wandering asteroids and asteroid groups not unlike those in the Solar System. There are also collections of asteroids at the Trojan points of most of the gas giants in the Gzktss system.
LT'PSLTBZNMLTThe Gzktss system is actually a binary star system, with Lt'psltbznmlt, the companion star of Gzktss, orbiting some 1987 billion kilometres [13281 AU or some 21% of a light year] from Gzktss. This distance is some 443 times as far from Gzktss as the average distance of Neptune from the Sun. It takes some 20460 Tt'ff years [1.2 million Earth years] for it to complete a single orbit around Gzktss.
Lt'psltbznmlt is a dim M8V type red dwarf star with a mass of some 6.4% that of Gzktss [10% that of the Sun]. As such it is a very dim star, as stars go, with a luminosity of some 0.03% that of Gzktss [0.05% (1/2000th) that of the Sun] and a surface temperature of some 2300K [as opposed to some 7900K for Gzktss and 5800K for the Sun], giving its light a very red cast.
Because of its distance and dimness, for most of the time Lt'psltbznmlt has no significant effect on the temperature of the worlds of its star system. The only exception to this is when Lt'psltbznmlt, in common with many other red dwarf stars, increases in brightness by a factor of six in just a few seconds, and then fades back to normal brightness in half an hour or less. Even these events have only a minor effect on the worlds of its system due to their short duration. Also in common with other red dwarf stars, the energy output of Lt'psltbznmlt sometimes drops by up to 40% as its surface becomes covered with massive starspots [equivalent to sunspots], but this is much less obvious to far-away observers.
Lt'psltbznmlt does have a small solar system of its own, all of whose worlds lie outside of its tiny habitable zone. The planetary system of Lt'psltbznmlt orbits in roughly the same plane as that of Gzktss.
Closest to Lt'psltbznmlt is Bz Ksnnjt, a world 12200 kilometres in diameter [96% that of the Earth] and with a mass of some 88% of the Earth. It is much colder than the Earth, however, with an average surface temperature of some -256°C [less than 17 K]. Bz Ksnnjt is so cold because the luminosity of Lt'psltbznmlt has basically no effect on its temperature, and in fact the majority of its warmth comes from Gzktss, even though it is vastly further away than Lt'psltbznmlt, simply because of its luminosity being more than 3000 times greater. Its surface consists mainly of ice and frozen gas, with some exposed rocks. It orbits some 82.5 million kilometres [0.55 AU] from Lt'psltbznmlt, taking some 1401 Tt'ff days [473 Earth days] to do so.
Bz Ksnnjt has a single small moon, Uznnssnnkz, that is some 800 kilometres in diameter [somewhat smaller than Ceres in the Solar System] with a mass of some 0.9% that of Earths Moon. It consists largely of ice, with a smaller rocky core. It is considered that Uznnssnnkz was originally one of the larger bodies in the Szktpsws Belt but was captured by Bz Ksnnjt at some point in the past. Because of this Uznnssnnkz follows an eccentric and retrograde orbit [one in the opposite direction to the other bodies in the Lt'psltbznmlt system] about Bz Ksnnjt with an eccentricity of some 0.3 so that it varies between some 150000 and 280000 kilometres from it [this is well inside where the Moon orbits the Earth, which is a distance of some 384000 kilometres]. It takes some 36.3 Tt'ff days [12.25 Earth days] to complete a single orbit.
Beyond Bz Ksnnjt is an asteroid belt known as the Szktpsws Belt, made up of a mixture of metallic, rocky and icy bodies. This belt is some 70 million kilometres wide [as compared to some 188 million kilometres for the Asteroid Belt in the Solar System] and is centred some 143 million kilometres [0.96 AU] from Lt'psltbznmlt. The bodies making it up have an average size of some tens of kilometres, with the largest ones being some hundreds of kilometres in size. As for Bz Ksnnjt the average temperature of the bodies in the Szktpsws Belt is some -256°C.
Beyond the Szktpsws Belt, orbiting some 285 million kilometres [1.9 AU] from Lt'psltbznmlt and taking some 0.14 Tt'ff years [8.3 Earth years] to complete a single orbit around it is Tt'saom, a small, cold, gas giant planet some twelve times as massive as the Earth and some 23500 kilometres in diameter [some 83% the mass of Uranus in the Solar System and 94% of its diameter; this is towards the lower limit of possible gas giant planet sizes]. Tt'saom has an average temperature of some -200°C [73K], making it the warmest object in the planetary system of Lt'psltbznmlt. This is because, like the gas giant planets orbiting Gzktss, it is still radiating the heat of its formation.
Tt'saom is circled by a thin icy ring and a number of moons. It has two large icy moons [not unlike two of the Galilean Moons of Jupiter in the Solar System] and some dozens of smaller icy bodies in a variety of orbits, some of which were clearly captured from the Szktpsws Belt.
Beyond Tt'saom, beginning some 240 million kilometres [1.6 AU] beyond its orbit (525 million kilometres or 3.5 AU from Lt'psltbznmlt, is a second planetoid belt, the Ttks'gsza'jtsszkza Belt, that fades away over the space beyond, becoming less and less dense until it merges into the cometary halo of the overall Gzktss-Lt'psltbznmlt system. Even at its densest the Ttks'gsza'jtsszkza Belt is far more diffuse than the Szktpsws Belt.
TT'FFTt'ff, the home world of the Ltss'Tak, is a large gas giant planet with a mass some one hundred times that of the Earth [slightly more than that of Saturn in the Solar System] and a diameter of some 180000 kilometres [113000 miles]; this is some 14.1 times that of the Earth and 1.5 times that of Saturn. Its much greater size compared to Saturn despite it similar mass arises because Tt'ff, like the rest of the Gzktss system, is much younger than the Solar System and so retains much more of the heat of its formation. Because of this Tt'ff is, on average, much less dense than water with a density of some 257 kilos per cubic metre [some 37% of the density of Saturn, the least dense planet in the Solar System]. A side effect of this is that the pressure of the atmosphere of Tt'ff drops some 1.5 times more slowly with altitude than is the case for Saturn so that its Scale height [the indicator the distance over which the atmospheric density decreases by a factor of e] is similarly 1.5 times larger at some 89.3 kilometres [as opposed to some 7.64 kilometres for the Earth]. Another side effect of its low density is its low gravity in the region in which water-based life can exist, which is some half the value on the surface of the Earth [lower than in the equivalent position on Saturn due to its larger radius].
Tt'ff has an 8.1 hour rotation period; this is faster than anything in the Solar System [Jupiter being the fastest with a rotation period of some 9.9 hours] and means that Tt'ff is a noticeably oblate spheroid [that is, flattened at the poles rather than appearing to be essentially spherical], with its north-south diameter being some 76% that of its equatorial diameter.
Tt'ff orbits some 2.625 billion kilometres [17.5 AU; somewhat inside the orbit of Uranus in the Solar System] from Gzktss, taking 63471 Tt'ff days [21421 Earth days or 58.65 Earth years] to complete a single orbit about it. Despite Tt'ff's great distance from Gzktss, its high luminosity, and the greenhouse effect and internal heat of Tt'ff mean that it maintains an average temperature [at the level where its atmospheric pressure is roughly one atmosphere] of some 50°C. Some small contribution to this is from internal heating, but most is solar heating, and thus varies significantly with latitude.
The orbit of Tt'ff has only a tiny eccentricity and so its position in its orbit has little effect on the amount of sunlight it receives and thus its temperature. On the other hand it has an axial tilt of some 28° [as compared to some 23° for the Earth], giving Tt'ff seasons somewhat more extreme than those of the Earth. This axial tilt combined with the long orbital period of Tt'ff means that the regions of Tt'ff close to its poles experience times of prolonged daylight of night lasting anything from one Tt'ff day up to more than 29 Earth years [half of the orbital period of Tt'ff] at the poles themselves.
Like Jupiter and Saturn in the Solar System, Tt'ff is mainly composed of hydrogen, but also includes some 12% of helium [some four times more than Saturn] and 5% water vapour [much higher than Jupiter or Saturn in the Solar System], as well as smaller percentages of ammonia, methane and other hydrocarbon compounds. This makes is a much wetter and warmer gas giant planet than any found in the Solar System. If using the Sudarsky extrasolar planet classification system, Tt'ff would fall within the Class II category.
Rain in Tt'ff can be fierce, with raindrops sometimes growing very large, and rain not necessarily being of water or of water alone. In addition to this there are small quantities of solids in the atmosphere of Tt'ff, consisting of dust and various kinds of snow.
The composition of its atmosphere means that Tt'ff has a higher natural greenhouse effect than that of the Earth, adding some 20% to its temperature as opposed to roughly 10% for the Earth.
Like most of the gas giants in the Solar System the atmosphere of Tt'ff is divided into a number of bands running parallel to the equator, with the atmosphere in adjacent bands moving in opposite directions. The winds in these bands are constant, and can be very strong and fast [like those of Neptune] in the centres of the bands, but become weaker as they approach the edges of the bands and reverse direction [see here for the equivalent on Jupiter]. At their fastest these winds move at some 600 metres per second [more than 1300 miles per hour]. In addition to this, Tt'ff has a number of huge long-lived storms [not unlike the Great Red Spot of Jupiter] at a number of latitudes, and when these are in the correct position relative to one another the gas giant can appear almost leopard-spotted.
From space Tt'ff is banded in shades of turquoise, arising from the life floating in Tt'ff's atmosphere, with swirls of red, orange and yellow, and also significant white streaks arising from clouds of water vapour. Life is particularly concentrated in places where nutrients are most abundant - rising air flows around storms, cloud spots, along the edges of cloud bands and so on - but is visible and detectable, at least by instruments, all across the face of Tt'ff. In many places this turquoise colour stands on its own, but in others it mixes with the existing colours of the clouds to form purple, greenish and brown streaks in the clouds.
From inside the atmosphere of Tt'ff the sky is a luminous blue-purple colour.
Tt'ff has a magnetic field some five times as strong as that of the Earth [weaker than that of Jupiter in the Solar System, but stronger than that of Saturn]. This is misaligned with Tt'ff's axis of rotation by some 22° [as opposed to some 11° for the Earth]. This strong magnetic field, combined with the powerful solar wind from Gzktss means that the skies of Tt'ff frequently display powerful auroras which can extend to quite low latitudes [that is, close to the equator of Tt'ff].
Like Jupiter in the Solar System Tt'ff generates a significant amount of radio emissions .
THE MOONS OF TT'FFTt'ff is circled by a number of satellites.
Orbiting closest to it and extending from some 9000 to 34200 kilometres from its cloud tops is a fairly extensive ring system [not as large as that of Saturn, but larger than that of any of the other gas giant planets in the Solar System]. This is made up of seven major rings each of which is subdivided into a vast number of sub-rings. Unlike the icy rings of Saturn, the rings of Tt'ff are dark and rocky because their proximity to their sun has caused their ice and other volatile materials to evaporate and be lost. These rings pose a considerable danger to space travel in the equatorial plane of Tt'ff.
Three major moons [roughly equivalent to the Galilean Moons of Jupiter] orbit Tt'ff. The innermost of these, Nngs'Uz, circles Tt'ff at a distance of some 358000 kilometres from the centre of Tt'ff [268000 kilometres from its cloud tops] taking some 7.3 Tt'ff Days [59.2 Earth hours or 2.47 Earth days] to complete a single orbit of it. Nngs'Uz has a diameter of some 4300 kilometres [124% that of Earths Moon] and a density of some 139% that of Earths Moon, giving it a mass of almost exactly twice that of the Moon and a surface gravity of some 22% that of the Earth. From Tt'ff it appears to be some 0.92° in diameter [1.75 times the size of Earths Moon in the sky].
Because of its proximity to Tt'ff, Nngs'Uz suffers large tidal forces that bend and flex its crust, generating a great deal of heat in its interior, which drives a high level of volcanic and tectonic activity across its surface [much like Io] in the Solar System. In addition to this, Nngs'Uz has a thick atmosphere with a surface pressure some twice that of the Earth but composed mainly of nitrogen and carbon dioxide [the latter being released from the rocks of Nngs'Uz and via its volcanic activity] that extends some 100 kilometres above the surface. Because of the energy received from Tt'ff and its thick atmosphere that is high in carbon dioxide, Nngs'Uz suffers from a runaway greenhouse effect [not unlike Venus in the Solar System], giving it a surface temperature of some 400°C [much higher than Tt'ff with its average temperature of some 50°C].
Beyond Nngs'Uz lies Wsks'Uz, which circles Tt'ff at a distance of some 805500 kilometres from the centre of Tt'ff taking some 24.6 Tt'ff Days [8.3 Earth days] to complete a single orbit of it. Its orbit has quite a high eccentricity. Wsks'Uz has a diameter of some 5500 kilometres [158% that of the Moon] and a density of some 111% that of the Moon, giving it a mass of almost 3.35 times that of the Moon and like Nngs'Uz a surface gravity of some 22% that of the Earth. From Tt'ff it appears to be some 0.44° in diameter [84% times the size of the Moon in the sky]. It is speculated that when it formed Wsks'Uz was rich in water. However, its high surface temperature of some 166°C means that any liquid water is long since evaporated, with most of the water having dissociated into hydrogen and oxygen, leaving only a thin atmosphere of (non-biogenic) oxygen, water vapour and traces of other gases. Because of its constant loss of water, Wsks'Uz orbits within a torus of gas that surrounds its orbit around Tt'ff [not unlike a denser version of that generated by Europa] in the Solar System.
The outermost of the three large moons of Tt'ff is Zaltsz, which circles Tt'ff at a distance of some 2.42 million kilometres from the centre of Tt'ff taking some 128.2 Tt'ff Days [43.3 Earth days] to complete a single orbit of it. Its orbit also has quite a high eccentricity. Zaltsz has a diameter of some 4750 kilometres [137% that of Earths Moon] and a density of some 104% that of the Moon, giving it a mass of almost exactly twice than of the Moon and a surface gravity of some 18% that of the Earth. From Tt'ff it appears to be some 0.12° in diameter [roughly one fifth the size of the Moon in the sky]. Like Wsks'Uz, it is speculated that when it formed Zaltsz was rich in water but again its high surface temperature of some 172°C means that any liquid water is long since evaporated, again leaving only a thin atmosphere of (non-biogenic) oxygen, water vapour and traces of other gases. Like Wsks'Uz, and for the same reason, Zaltsz orbits within a torus of gas that surrounds its orbit around Tt'ff.
In addition to Nngs'Uz, Wsks'Uz and Zaltsz, Tt'ff is orbited by dozens of smaller moons. All of these are rocky and/or metallic in composition because of the high temperatures to which they have been exposed over a long period. Although making them inhospitable, this would also make them useful for mining purposes.
Inside the orbit of Nngs'Uz are six irregularly-shaped moons with sizes from the tens to low hundreds of kilometres. The closest of these orbits some 150000 kilometres from the centre of Tt'ff (60000 kilometres above its cloud tops or 25800 kilometres beyond the outer edge of the rings of Tt'ff) while the furthest orbits some 290000 kilometres from the centre of Tt'ff (200000 kilometres above its cloud tops).
Two small irregular moons with sizes in the tens of kilometres orbit between Wsks'Uz and Zaltsz at distances of 1.14 and 1.68 million kilometres respectively.
Beyond the orbit of Zaltsz orbit dozens more moons. The innermost of these are regular satellites, orbiting in the same plane and the same direction as the major moons. Beyond these lie a cloud of Irregular moons in a wide variety of distant, inclined, and often eccentric and retrograde orbits. These are believed to have been captured by Tt'ff from elsewhere in the Gzktss system. The largest of them are some tens of kilometres in size. The most distant of them orbits some 25 million kilometres from Tt'ff, taking some 4266 Tt'ff days [1440 Earth days or nearly 4 Earth years] to do so.
The size and number of moons that orbit around Gzktss mean that at its brightest moonlight from them is much brighter than the brightest moonlight on the Earth.
THE LIFE FORMS OF TT'FFIn some respects the atmosphere of Tt'ff is very hostile to life, but in others it is very well suited as a place to nurture it.
The main obstacle to life in Tt'ff is the lack of any solid surface or bodies of water on or in which life could develop. Thus life, and the predecessors of life, have always had to be airborne.
Secondly, the very strong winds that occur in the atmosphere of Tt'ff - with speeds of up to 600 metres per second [more than 1300 miles per hour] - are quite inimical to life. At worst they can kill living things; at best they can scatter groups of life forms far and wide. Fortunately, in the banded structure of Tt'ff's atmosphere, different bands move in opposite directions so that relatively calm zones exist between them. There are also large relatively calm zones around each pole of Tt'ff. [This is all much like the situation in the atmospheres of the gas giant planets of the Solar System.] It is in these calmer zones that life developed and from them that it spread throughout Tt'ff.
On the other hand, the atmosphere of Tt'ff is rich in water, and in carbon and other compounds necessary for life. It also has plentiful sunlight and a high flux of ultraviolet radiation (as well as x- and gamma rays) that generates a constant supply of more complex carbon compounds from the simple ones [such as methane and ammonia] with which Tt'ff formed [much as happens in the atmosphere of Titan] in the Solar System.
The shorter lifespan of Gzktss compared to the Sun means that life has had significantly less time to evolve on Tt'ff than on Earth. On Earth by this time [1.39 billion years ago] life had existed for at least two billion years, though the only life that existed on Earth at that point was single-celled organisms of a wide variety of kinds. However, by this time these had already changed the atmosphere of the Earth to one containing significant quantities of oxygen. Note also that by this time the Solar System was well past the heavy meteor impacts of the Late Heavy Bombardment that ended during the Hadean eon [from 4.6 to 3.8 billion years ago], so with similar conditions in the Gzktss system over a similar timescale life should have an equal opportunity to develop.
The high ultraviolet flux of Gzktss also generates a higher rate of radiation-induced mutations than on (for example) the Earth. This higher mutation rate means that life in Tt'ff has evolved rather faster than that of the Earth, leading to advanced life and then intelligent life arising more quickly than it did on the Earth.
Because of the presence of life within it, the present-day atmosphere of Tt'ff has only small traces of hydrocarbon compounds more complex than methane gas, and also almost no ammonia, as these are all locked up in living cells. There is also a detectable level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This could be sensed by scientific instrumentation and indicate that there is some sort of unusual process occurring there.
Most photosynthetic life in Tt'ff is a blue-green/turquoise colour [equivalent to the green of Earth plants, but shifted toward blue because of the bluer light of Gzktss]. The cells making up a Ltss'Tak agglomeration are thus of this same colour.
Because of the high levels of ultraviolet and shorter-wavelength radiation from Gzktss, the life forms of Tt'ff are somewhat more resistant to hard radiation than are the life forms of the Earth.
BIOCHEMISTRYAlthough based on water and carbon chemistry, not unlike Earth-type life, the life forms of Tt'ff do not use DNA as a genetic material, but instead a form of Peptide Nucleic Acid (PNA). This is one of a number of nucleic acid analogues and is more robust than DNA in the environment of Tt'ff. [It is speculated that peptide nucleic acids rather than RNA may have been the first genetic molecule. See also here and here.] In addition to this life in Tt'ff makes use of hydrocarbons - what are basically plastics of various kinds - and is resistant to and makes use of the ammonia, hydrocarbons and so on that are part of Tt'ff's atmosphere.
Needless to say, the biochemistry of life in Tt'ff is not compatible with that of Earth-type life.
Within the atmosphere of Tt'ff ultraviolet light dissociates water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen [much as happens in the atmospheres of planets in the Solar System]. However, because Tt'ff has a large enough mass to hold on to is hydrogen - which is what makes it a gas giant planet - it does not lose water over time [as has happened to Venus in the Solar System]. Instead, barring anything else, the hydrogen and oxygen recombine back into water, or with other molecules to make other chemical compounds.
This is assisted by the ultraviolet dissociation of atmospheric methane to give a constant supply of more complex hydrocarbon compounds that can be exploited by living cells.
Because of the spontaneous dissociation of water into hydrogen and oxygen within the atmosphere of Tt'ff its life forms have less need for the complex mechanisms of photosynthesis that Earth plants must use. Instead, they can simply use the products of this naturally occurring process. Photosynthesising life really only needs to optimise itself to make the best use of the dissociation products, and perhaps to maximise the dissociation that occurs and where it occurs (that is, within a given life form). So life in Tt'ff facilitates and uses the products of existing natural processes, with only some need to go beyond them, particularly in otherwise nutrient-poor niches, or to produce aerogels and other structural or complex compounds. This is very unlike the case for Earth-type life, where the mechanisms for building complex molecules and so on were required from day one.
This, in addition to the general availability of chemicals useful to life within the atmosphere of Tt'ff, makes life there considerably simpler than Earth life, at least in terms of the molecular machinery it requires to survive, reproduce and grow. This simplicity also helps to explain why live has evolved faster on Tt'ff than on Earth.
THE LIFE-BEARING REGIONS OF TT'FFMuch of this is based on the structure of the atmosphere of Saturn and how its properties change with depth, as taken from the website of Courtney Seligman, taking into account the greater size of Tt'ff arising from its youth and so greater internal heat. In particular it assumes pressure doubles with every 48 kilometres [30 miles] one descends, and that temperature increases by some 0.23°C per kilometre [2°F per 3 miles] as one descends.
Because the winds of Tt'ff may carry them to very high or low altitudes, the cells that make up a Ltss'Tak, like most of the other life forms of Tt'ff, are capable of surviving in an active state in a wide range of pressures and temperatures, and in an inactive, spore-like state over an even wider range. In terms of temperature they can survive from just above the freezing to not far below the boiling point of water, though they are most comfortable at a temperature of some 50°C. Given that, in general, the temperature of the atmosphere of Tt'ff is directly related to its pressure, this allows them to survive pressures in the range from below 0.1 atmospheres [equivalent to an altitude of roughly 16 kilometres 52500 feet] above the surface of the Earth, where water freezes, to over 50 atmospheres [equivalent to being some 500m underwater on Earth], where it boils. Given the structure of the atmosphere of Tt'ff this covers a vertical height of some 500 kilometres [310 miles], with the Ltss'Tak, perhaps unsurprisingly, being most comfortable, in terms of temperature, in the centre of this band where the temperature is some 50°C and the pressure is roughly 2 atmospheres. This 500 kilometre height is some 0.5% of the radius of the planet as a whole, but is still larger relative to the planet than the equivalent heights on Earth, which would make up some 0.025% of the radius of the Earth as a whole.
Assuming life on Earth exists below some 5 kilometres [16500 feet] in height (where the pressure is some 0.5 atmospheres), and with the average depth of the oceans being somewhat less than 4 kilometres [13000 feet], this gives a life-bearing region on Earth some 9 kilometres [30000 feet or 5.6 miles] high. Taking into account the 56 times greater height of this region in Tt'ff, and the fact that its effective surface area is more than 120 times larger, means that the volume capable of supporting life is some 6720 times greater than the equivalent volume on the Earth!
The wind speeds within the atmosphere of Tt'ff also limit how suitable different regions of Tt'ff are for sentient life. These winds vary across its cloud bands in a similar, if more extreme, way to their variation with latitude on Jupiter. Like the winds on Jupiter, polar winds are less extreme than equatorial ones, so that the most complex life forms and agglomerations, and thus the majority of Ltss'Tak civilisations, as well as the oldest civilisations, are found in the polar regions, above perhaps plus or minus 45° of latitude. However, life close to the poles of Tt'ff is limited by the prolonged periods of darkness that occur there due to the axial tilt of Tt'ff and which can last for more than 29 Earth years at the poles themselves.
Even high wind zones have life, but only single cells, as larger entities tend to be ripped apart there. Cells there are adapted for a turbulent life, being tough, with not much in the way of buoyancy aids or movement control, and they reproduce essentially exclusively by binary fission.
The ecosystem of Tt'ff does reuse existing living matter to build new life, much as happens on Earth, but it also uses new material released into the environment by upwellings from the deep layers of Tt'ff. Thus life is also concentrated where these occur.
There are some life forms that exist deeper within the atmosphere of Tt'ff, in hot and high pressure regions below the levels where the cells making up the Ltss'Tak can survive. These are basically the extremophiles of Tt'ff. Although these cells and those of the Ltss'Tak regions can reproduce with one another on the rare occasions when they meet, in many cases the requirements of survival in each environment are so different that neither side gains from such an exchange of genes.
THE EVOLUTION OF LIFELife in Tt'ff initially developed in a subset of raindrops with the correct internal chemistry within a nutrient-rich, humid and (relatively) calm and stable region of Tt'ff's atmosphere. This region was also one where the density of raindrops was sufficiently low that they were not constantly merging together and splitting apart so much that the developing life processes were irretrievably disrupted. It is speculated that this was on the edge of a large semi-permanent storm, or at the boundary between two cloud bands. Amino acids and other chemicals dissolved within these water droplets were stimulated by environmental conditions and the high level of ultraviolet radiation from Gzktss to became more complex until, eventually, they formed the first self-reproducing life-forms in Tt'ff.
Each raindrop was a single cell, one in which a cell membrane such as cells on Earth possess was unnecessary because of the surrounding environment being gaseous rather than water.
Over time, the need of cells to regulate their internal environment more precisely - maintaining constant concentrations of chemicals and so on to allow their metabolisms to work optimally - drove the evolution of a cell wall around each raindrop, initially via the chemical strengthening of surface tension and later by the evolution of an actual chemically distinct membrane. With a more stable and controlled internal environment, cells could metabolise more efficiently and in general survive better.
As cells evolved further, there was a clear advantage to cells that could float for longer in the atmosphere of Tt'ff. Thus from their original spheroidal raindrop shapes, cells developed forms that sank more slowly and thus that could survive longer and better.
Differing concentrations of nutrients within the atmosphere, and the need for cells to seek out the optimum levels of these to survive, drove the evolution of the ability to sense their environment. This in turn led the evolution of the ability to navigate the atmosphere of Tt'ff to their best advantage, even if only to a very limited degree. Cells also became aerodynamic, with aerodynamic fins and surfaces that let them 'sail' on the winds of Tt'ff horizontally or vertically, and even tacking against the wind to some extent. As part of this cells developed a form of musculature, allowing them move and adjust parts of themselves to navigate more effectively. However, they did not evolve an equivalent of the cellular nucleus.
Because the need to sense and navigate the environment of Tt'ff is constant, cells remain as active at night as during the day, living off stored energy during the hours of darkness.
With some ability to navigate, cells evolved the ability to sense further into the environment to detect and attempt to avoid the worst of the weather, and to avoid sinking too deep or flying to high within the atmosphere of Tt'ff. They also developed a limited ability to learn and remember, and to pass on what they knew when they reproduced.
In the early days of life in Tt'ff it could use existing natural hydrocarbon compounds and other resources present in the air to grow and reproduce with little effort though a process of chemosynthesis. However, as life thrived and spread these resources became depleted, which in addition to affecting the food supply of life there, also drove changes to the climate of Tt'ff. These evolutionary pressures drove competition among the life forms of Tt'ff, driving two competing paths. One developed the ability to use the abundant sunlight of Gzktss to make the compounds it required by a process of photosynthesis, while the other became 'predators' and developed the ability to take the resources they required from other cells. A subset of these predators eventually evolved into gliding creatures. Due to the resource and energy-rich environment of Tt'ff, these predators evolved later in the history of life there compared to the case on Earth.
Although the atmosphere of a gas giant planet such as Tt'ff might appear to be an environment without geographical barriers, this is not in fact the case. Rather than fixed physical barriers, in the atmosphere of Tt'ff there are zones of very high winds and/or turbulence, and large regions of nutrient-poor atmosphere that form regions that it is very hard for life to cross. Some cells do travel across these particularly hostile regions but they are rare [analogous to birds being blown across the Atlantic Ocean on Earth]. It is these barriers that have allowed cells in Tt'ff to evolve in isolation from one another, increasing diversity among its life forms.
The first cells floating in the atmosphere of Tt'ff were highly limited in size because, the thinner and more spread out they because to be more buoyant, the weaker and more prone to wind damage they also became. This only changed when cells began to use the naturally occurring carbon nanotubes that floated within the atmosphere of Tt'ff. Although variable in size and quality, these provided a stronger structure for cells, and allowed them to grow larger. This process accelerated when cells evolved the ability to synthesise the carbon nanotubes themselves.
Over time distinct morphologies of cell evolved:
Each living cell within the atmosphere of Tt'ff is light enough to float there for a long period but beyond that is basically as large as the weather allows. If they become larger they start being at risk of damage from wind and weather, wind shear and so on, but they have also evolved to be as large as possible because larger cells survive better. On average a cell masses some 0.5 micrograms [0.0000005 grams], but is very diffuse. Each living cell is roughly equivalent in terms of functionality and so on to some 200 cells within a human body.
When conditions are unfavourable cells will use up their internal resources and shrink (become 'thin'). If this continues for too long then the cells will become dormant spores until things improve, when they will revive (with a failure rate). Because of this the atmosphere of Tt'ff has quite a high density of airborne spores awaiting the opportunity to become active. This is particularly the case at the poles of Tt'ff during the long polar nights that occur there.
The strong winds and weather of Tt'ff mean that powered flapping flight was never adopted on a wide scale among the life forms of Tt'ff. On the other hand controlled gliding flight) is considerably more common, as it works with the environment of Tt'ff. Also, there are no gasbag creatures in Tt'ff due to the energy problems of their gaining enough heat for a gasbag to provide useful lift.
The most recent radical development in the life in Tt'ff was the evolution of the ability of cells to secrete carbon nanotubes-reinforced aerogels, strong but also extremely low-density solids. This gave cells the ability to grow solid structural parts, and shells much more able to resist the elements.
CELLULAR REPRODUCTIONThe gas giant environment of Tt'ff is far too large and hostile for a profligate reproductive strategy [like those used by many life forms on the Earth] to be very effective there because the chance of free-floating pollen, eggs, sperm and so on meeting a compatible cell is too low. The cost of producing enough pollen, sperm and so on to allow successful reproduction would also be impractically high in terms of energy and materials.
Instead, all living cells in Tt'ff can and do reproduce asexually by fissioning into or budding off copies of themselves. As such, if the resources are available to do so, cells will grow continuously, splitting into two copies of the original when they become greater than a given size; this size is somewhat smaller than the maximum size that it is possible to survive in the atmosphere of Tt'ff. Of course, conditions do not always allow such continuous growth. As part of such asexual reproduction cells pass on copies of their memories and skills to the new cells.
However, this asexual reproduction only produces exact genetic copies of the parent cell. Because of the fairly hostile environment of Tt'ff there has been a strong evolutionary drive towards the development of reproductive methods that allow more variation and diversity than asexual reproduction allows. That is, towards something analogous to sexual reproduction.
Because of the very low probability of cells meeting in the atmosphere of Tt'ff, living cells have had to be able to exchange genetic material with any other living cell they may encounter, updating their genes prior to reproduction by fission or budding. As such the life forms of Tt'ff have never speciated as such. Although different cells may have and/or express different genes and have different functions and capabilities, all cells can exchange genetic material with all others through a process not unlike that of bacterial conjugation among bacteria on Earth. This also includes transferring memories and skills between cells. This allows them to produce offspring via the same fissioning or budding methods used for asexual reproduction, but that may bear little or no resemblance to either parent.
The evolutionary need to be able to exchange genes with any other cell encountered also means that in addition to the lack of speciation life in Tt'ff has also not diverged into different kingdoms). Nearly all cells have some plant-like features and capabilities, such as photosynthesis, but also animal-like ones such as relatively rapid reactions and movement of body parts.
There are populations with different sets of genes, and with different gene functions expressed, arising from geographical and other barriers. These are not separate species as such and genes do homogenise in time if given the opportunity to do so. However, even in one region different groups will have different genes in use to adapt to different environments.
Most cells 'look out' for suitable close-by raindrops to 'infect' with life. Some absorb them, or hold them, or split themselves into the new drop. Others fire an 'egg' into the drop, or infect it via long tentacle or just the tips of their 'arms'.
All of this means, of course, that the very concept of sex as humans know it is utterly alien to the life forms of Tt'ff.
AGGLOMERATIONSThe larger sizes of cells that the adoption of carbon nanotubes made possible was the first step towards them being able to form the agglomerations that led to sentient life.
Originally, when cells encountered one another at random they merely tangled together until separated by the wind or other forces. Over time, though, and once cells were strengthened by carbon nanotubes, a mutation allowing cells to actively stick themselves to and unstuck themselves from one another as the situation demanded was able to become effective and spread. [This uses the van der Waals force in a manner analogous to how it used by geckos on Earth.]
Once cells began to be able to stick together, cells coming together into large linked agglomerations was almost inevitable result. Two cells as a unit could more easily catch a third; the three could more easily catch a fourth and so on up to the point where the agglomeration grew as large as the environment of Tt'ff would allow, when the wind was stripping cells from it as fast as new ones were added. Over time this forming into agglomerations drove the development of joint sensing and motion control among the cells making them up.
Effectively, they were a large, advanced, communal alien form of aeroplankton, a superorganism or even an ecosystem made up of vast numbers of genetically diverse cells. On Earth these cells would be of different species, but this was (and is) not the case among the life forms of Tt'ff.
The way in which the larger agglomerations were more susceptible to the hostile elements of the environment, despite the advantages size brought, drove evolution towards more complex behaviour to cope with these problems. The larger agglomerations grew, the more complex the links among their cells became, initially because of random foldings and twistings of the agglomeration bringing some cells from separate parts of the agglomeration into direct contact with one another, but later because of evolution working to maintain these links using the combination of thread-like and thistledown-like cells to form what is effectively a small world network [not unlike the human brain]. In turn this led to the development of intelligence as an emergent behaviour of sufficiently many non-sentient cells acting together, with the cells organising themselves to perform optimally. As part of this cell genes are expressed differently depending on whether a cell is alone or part of an agglomeration, so they function differently depending on where they are.
The agglomerating process was further driven by the increasing energy output of Gzktss over time [as happens with all main sequence stars as they evolve] driving the atmosphere of Tt'ff into a more chaotic and more violent state, with thinner cloud banks, more violent storms and so on. This in turn drove the need for cleverness to better survive. It also drove the development of social behaviour between agglomerations as cooperation aided the survival of both cells and agglomerations.
Agglomerations can actively reconfigure their shapes by their individual cells climbing over one another or controlling their stickiness as they flap in the wind so as to stick where they wish to and so gradually move to a desired position. This allows them to better navigate in the atmosphere of Tt'ff. They can hold position even in a wind, relative to one another and perhaps absolutely as well; they can tack against the wind and also do this in parts to hold a stable position much as a human might stand up without thinking about it.
Because of the winds and weather of Tt'ff - particularly rain - all agglomerations suffer a constant loss of cells to the atmosphere at large. In most cases this is balanced by a roughly equal gaining of new cells from the atmosphere. This means that individual agglomerations, even if very long-lived, suffer 'erosion' and 'blurring' with others from the constant loss and exchange of individual cells between agglomerations. In addition to this the inter-cell links of an agglomeration shift constantly with time as connections between individual cells are made and broken. All of this means that for an agglomeration, 'losing its train of thought' can have an entirely literal meaning!
Different shapes of agglomerations think in different ways, as they produce different coordination and cross-linking between cells, and so of thought. For example a long and thin configuration thinks differently to a spherical one. Thus, in addition to configuring themselves to cope with winds and weather, agglomerations can also reconfigure their shapes to encourage different modes of thought. They think fastest in a compact spherical configuration. However, this is dense and tends to fall, though agglomerations in this form can be supported by others for a short time before their respective cells attempt to merge them into a single unstable super-agglomeration.
In an agglomeration the turnover of cells is more rapid on the outside of the agglomeration than within it. Thus cells there have lower survival rates, and cells compete for central positions. This competition is judged based on a cells physical ability and its usefulness to the agglomeration - how well 'liked' it is by its neighbours. Cells can (and do) shuffle inside too. Of course, depending on the configuration and location of an agglomeration its central cells can still be very much at risk from the environment.
The splitting of an agglomeration for whatever reason can cause one, some or all of the fragments to revert to sub-sentient status, with the other parts remaining sentient but losing parts of itself. Re-agglomerating can boost an agglomeration back to sentience, and will probably add elements of personality, memories and so on that the agglomeration did not possess before [perhaps not unlike the Emple-Dokcetics from the Orions Arm universe].
Agglomerations smaller than the size required for sentience become progressively less and less intelligent in a decidedly non-linear manner, so that, for example, an agglomeration one quarter the size of a sentient one is much less than one quarter as clever. However, small non-sentient agglomerations often seek out others and voluntarily merge for intelligence, and thus strength and safety.
Because their cells photosynthesise and remain active around the clock, agglomerations do not sleep or eat, though they can become more or less active depending on the energy available to their constituent cells. They also tend to take on different configurations during the day to track the available light for photosynthesis, and therefore have different modes of thinking over the course of the day.
They also do not feel pain as such; that is a cell-level sensation. They do feel dissociation and change from the turnover of their cells and too much of this, too quickly, can be unpleasant, but still not painful as such. A large 'rip' of an agglomeration, causing a great disruption to them, is the nearest thing they feel to pain.
Agglomerations do have a sense of self-preservation as agglomerations are more survivable, both for themselves and for the cells that make them up, than is the case for cells alone. However, agglomerations also have a panic reaction to mortal danger that causes them to split into individual cells in the hope that some will survive.
Related to this, because individual cells can survive at high altitudes [that is, in cold and low pressure], but not low ones [in heat and high pressure], cells have a fear of dropping uncontrolled which can lead to falling agglomerations also splitting up into their constituent cells.
In addition to this, agglomerations can make themselves fall apart, whether intentionally or not, by (for example) starving themselves. Cells then begin to 'see' the agglomeration as a bad place to be and abandon it to seek better conditions, causing the agglomeration to disintegrate at increasing speed as more and more cells reach the same conclusion...
Note that because of the great age of sentient life in Tt'ff, the cells that make up agglomerations in the present day are of different species to those that existed at the beginning of their sentience. Some cells have also been consciously bred over time into specialised forms such as enhanced memory units and cells optimised for different mathematical operations.
Some types of cells are able to reflect the intense sunlight of Gzktss to their own ends. Some use it for defence, to blind or even burn predators. Some form elements of agglomerations that can focus light cooperatively, sometimes to heat the air below them for thermals and thus lift, others, again, to defend themselves. Many of these organisms do this with the lower-frequency light they receive while continuing to use the higher frequency (and more plentiful) photons from Gzktss for photosynthesis and so on.
THE REPRODUCTION OF AGGLOMERATIONSThe cells within an agglomeration reproduce at a level below the conscious mind of a Ltss'Tak. However, agglomerations can also reproduce. They can either bud off a small (non-sentient) 'child' that will contain part of their memories and personality and grow from there into a sentient individual, or fission into two or more larger offspring, which will be more intelligent and more recognisably derived from the parent. They can also merge with other agglomerations and exchange parts with them and/or split into larger numbers of offspring.
INTRA-AGGLOMERATION COMMUNICATIONDespite their great size and effective immortality, individual Ltss'Tak agglomerations still think and act faster than humans. This is because communications between cells within an agglomeration uses surface electrical signals to link cells into agglomerations in what is effectively a personal area network [not unlike the Skinplex, which uses human touch for electrical data transmission].
Some cells also make use of short-range radio transmissions to link parts of agglomerations with one another. However, this tends to be used only where it will not interfere with communications between agglomerations. Because this has evolved to use parts of the radio spectrum that are quiet (at least within Tt'ff) these links can be susceptible to interference. As such agglomerations tend not to rely on them.
Because of the way in which data is passed between cells, it moves about agglomerations much faster than inter-cell communication within (for example) the human brain. Thus agglomerations can still act and respond quickly.
THE LTSS'TAKIn time the agglomerations of cells become sufficiently large and complex that intelligence - sentience - of a kind very roughly analogous to that of a human appeared. They refer to themselves as the Ltss'Tak.
This occurred early in the development of life in Tt'ff, so that Ltss'Tak have existed as sentient entities for a very long time. How long even they do not know, but from the evidence is certainly more than one hundred million Earth years at the very least. Regardless of this, some Ltss'Tak certainly include cells that remember very different constellations in the sky.
The Ltss'Tak are not a sentient species, as the cells that make them up are both capable of independent existence and genetically diverse to the point that on Earth they would count as utterly different species. Instead, they are a sentient superorganism [an organism consisting of many organisms acting in concert towards some end determined by the superorganism as a whole], or even a sentient ecosystem.
Note that these sizes are what a cell fits into without squashing. However, the amount (percentage) of that volume actually taken up by the physical cell itself is tiny much like a thistledown would take up little of the volume of a box it would fit into.
A sentient Ltss'Tak agglomeration consists of perhaps five trillion [5 x 1012] individual living cells linked into a single unit [this compares to some 100 trillion - 1014 - cells in a human body and 100 billion - 1011 - or so in a human brain]. Even when linked, the cells are spaced quite far apart to retain their buoyancy as well as to ensure that all cells have access to fresh air and the chemicals it contains, as well as to sunlight. Because of this there is roughly one cell per 125 cubic centimetres [a cube 5 centimetres on a side]. This means that there are roughly 8000 cells per cubic metre, and so that a typical sentient agglomeration has a volume of some 62.5 million cubic metres; this is equivalent to a cube some 400 metres on a side. Despite its volume, each Ltss'Tak agglomeration only masses some 250kg.
A single Ltss'Tak is much larger - but also much less dense - than any life form found on Earth, but on the other hand its cells photosynthesise and take nutrients from the air, so they require far fewer external resources than a human might to survive. If the entire atmosphere of Tt'ff had a layer of Ltss'Tak one agglomeration thick floating edge to edge covering it this would amount to some 600 billion individuals. This is obviously impractical, but taking into account the thickness of the band of atmosphere in which they can survive, Tt'ff having a sentient population in the low hundreds of billions of individuals would not be out of the question.
The largest agglomerations are more intelligent than the most intelligent human. However, there is an upper limit to their size caused by increasing communications delays, the development of multiple personalities in different parts of the agglomeration and so on. Also, very large agglomerations are physically unstable, being easily broken up by wind and turbulence generally, though with higher technology and the availability of shelter they are more easily formed.
Note that even non-sentient agglomerations may be able to speak, depending on the abilities of the cells making it up. Some may be quite lucid if their cells are sufficiently skilled.
EMOTIONSLtss'Tak emotions arise from a combination of two sources. The first of these are the collective reactions and responses of the cells making them up. These filter up from the cellular, subconscious, level to the conscious level where, if they are shared by sufficiently many cells, they are experienced by the sentient Ltss'Tak entity. Emotions of this type are generally basic drives such as fear (of bad weather, falling and so on) or hunger (for nutrients or sunlight).
Secondly, there are emotions arising from the higher-level interlinking of cells into a more complex entity - the Ltss'Tak agglomeration. These are more 'conscious' emotions and include such feelings as curiosity, satisfaction, annoyance and so on.
Because of how they reproduce, no level of the mind of a Ltss'Tak has anything resembling sexual lust or romantic love. They do have what is effectively love of family, or more accurately love of those with whom they share cells. Given that they also share cells with the world at large this feeling includes a low-level love for the their world and environment as a whole.
The constant turnover of cells among Ltss'Tak within Tt'ff means that it is, in general, very difficult for them to be dogmatic or stubborn in the long term, as the exchange of cells with others tends to erode this. They also find it difficult to maintain illusions about nature and so on for the same reason.
'DOMESTIC ANIMALS'Because of the ability to merge and split their cells into different agglomerations, there are no 'domesticated' agglomerations as such. Instead, non-sentient agglomerations are made from sentient ones and, because of this origin, they know to cooperate with sentient agglomerations, assist them, share their inherited skills and so on.
GLIDERSAs they evolved some agglomerations developed down a path in which their cells become more and more tightly bound together until they were effectively solid (if very low density) entities, able to glide, though not actively fly, through the atmosphere of Tt'ff. These agglomerations became adapted for hunting, as their more solid form gives them advantages in this.
Gliders are still quite small, with the largest being roughly bird-sized. They eat the cells making up agglomerations much like an Earth whale eats krill, filtering them from the air. Some use expanding 'nets' to catch cells, diving through agglomerations from above (as with their nets out they cannot fly). Others use sticky tendrils or any number of other methods.
Because of their constant association with one another, glider cells are more specialised than those of 'normal' agglomerations. They reproduce by budding off young who then go on to make their own lives.
Some types of glider form the only true domesticated animals in Tt'ff. In many cases small groups of cells from sentient agglomerations are attached to them and control them to some end.
PARASITESBecause agglomerations represent a significant concentration of resources within the atmosphere of Tt'ff [roughly analogous to a whale fall in the oceans of the Earth], some types of cells have evolved to become parasites on them - they are, after all, an exploitable ecosystem.
This has driven the evolution of other cells that have become symbiotes that remove parasitic creatures and effectively 'garden' agglomerations to keep them in optimum health.
There are also agglomeration 'hijackers', 'cuckoo' cells that join an agglomeration and make it breed more of them at the expense of the rest, hijacking the resource gathering mechanisms of the agglomeration, overwhelming the rest of the agglomeration then causing it to split up into free 'cuckoos' to infect others.
SENSESAs with the life forms of the Earth, the living cells that have evolved in Tt'ff have a range of senses that have evolved to allow them to survive and prosper within their natural environment. However, given the differences between that environment and that of an Earth-like world, their senses are also significantly different from them.
SIGHTSight evolved in cells from the processes of photosynthesis, and allowed cells to become aware of the weather, cloud formations, chemicals in the atmosphere and so on. Cells do not have eyes as such. Instead a number of regions along the tendrils of the individual cell detect light [each one not unlike an ommatidium, the individual units of the compound eye of an insect]. The images detected by these simple eyes are then integrated by the cell to give sight spherically about. In an agglomeration the images sensed by the cells making it up are further integrated to give a view about the agglomeration as a whole. Because of the large number of individual contributions making it up, this vision can be very acute, much more so than that of a human.
In terms of colour perception, the vision of a Ltss'Tak is most sensitive in the ultra-violet as that is where most of the light of Gzktss is emitted. They do sense colour, in particular the blue-green/turquoise of living cells, and the reds and oranges of atmospheric chemicals. However, their vision extends less far into the red than that of (for example) humans.
HEARINGIndividual cells have a crude sense of hearing, which is mainly used for detecting the approach of storms and other inclement weather. Thus it is attuned to the sounds of this weather, and is used mainly to give cells and agglomerations an idea of the direction and distance to it so that it can be avoided or otherwise prepared for.
Because of the hydrogen-heavy atmosphere of Tt'ff, sounds such as thunder are much more high-pitched there than on Earth. Thus the hearing of the life forms there has a much higher frequency range than is the case for Earth life.
BIO-RADIOAgglomerations communicate with one another mainly by biological radio. The carbon nanotubes that each cell includes within itself are actually also natural radio components, and evolution in Tt'ff has exploited this. Thus cells can both receive and transmit radio signals and within agglomerations each cell forms part of a vast phased array of receivers and transmitters. Note that cells do not have biological radar, only the ability to receive and transmit radio signals [much as humans can hear and speak, but do not have sonar].
Radio communication initially evolved as a way for cells to locate and navigate towards one another more effectively. With time it evolved into a medium for exchanging more complex information between cells and agglomerations, and with more and more complex agglomerations the agglomerated cells evolved this ability further to find and communicate with more distant cells. With the rise of intelligence this evolved into speech.
Note that [like Jupiter in the Solar System] Tt'ff generates significant amounts of radio emissions. For this reason the radio emissions of cells occurs at relatively high frequencies, where there is little radio emission by Tt'ff.
CHEMOSENSINGChemosensing is the oldest sense possessed by the life forms of Tt'ff. Individual living cells within the atmosphere of Tt'ff have a sense of smell, that cells use to detect nutrients and so on in the atmosphere of Tt'ff and guide the cell (or agglomeration) towards or away from them.
However, chemosensing is not something that has much of a conscious impact at the agglomeration level. Agglomerations do not smell things as such. Instead they simply feel the results of that sensing in terms of urges to move and so on.
MAGNETOCEPTIONBecause of the powerful magnetic field of Tt'ff [some five times as powerful as that of the Earth] most living cells within Tt'ff make use of this field for navigation and to orientate themselves. However, as with their chemosensing, this is something that occurs mainly at the cellular level, with agglomerations merely feeling the results of that sensing.
ELECTRORECEPTIONCells can generate and sense electrical signals through their skins. This is an outgrowth of their bio-radio sense and is used by cells within an agglomeration to communicate with one another.
CULTURE AND SOCIETYBecause of the constant turnover of cells within a given agglomeration, whether sentient or not, the Ltss'Tak have a very different society then humans. They do not have permanent individuals as (for example) humans do. But also they do not die, just change. They do not have continuity of the individual but they do have continuity of experience and memories.
In addition to this, all agglomerations have memories of being a non-sentient part the ecosystem of Tt'ff, and also know that any or all of the cells making it up may find themselves anywhere in that ecosystem in the future. Because of this, and their knowledge of the constant turnover of cells between themselves and the world at large, the Ltss'Tak do not see themselves as standing apart from the other life forms of Tt'ff. but instead as very much a part of them, and vice versa. As part of spectrum of intelligence leading from cells up to themselves, and not as lords of creation or any such thing.
A side effect of this is that it is very hard for Ltss'Tak to keep secrets from one another, at least within a group in proximity to one another, and also from them to lie, be treacherous or betray one another.
Their racial mindset inevitably includes elements of both a hive mind and a race made up of discrete entities, all at the same time. It is impossible to say precisely where the barriers between these two ways of thought lie. And the Ltss'Tak themselves do not really care; to them this behaviour - becoming part of a greater whole and being separated from it is entirely natural.
As with humans, there are basic drives that underlie their society. However, because of their very different physiology and psychology these are very different to those that drive humans. Rather than survival and reproduction, their drives are survival alone. Not of themselves as an agglomeration - as a specific individual - as this constantly changes in any case, but of their memories, of what they have learned, and what they may contribute to the larger world.
Unlike the case with humans, Ltss'Tak society is not organised according to the genetic relationships of the individuals making it up. The fact that each agglomeration is made up of vast numbers of genetically distinct individuals makes this impossible, as does the constant turnover of cells. Instead, Ltss'Tak society is organised according to the inheritance of memories and mental components from earlier/ancestor agglomerations. Thus (among other things) they have something very loosely analogous to clans or houses based on and sometimes named for descent from an individual of some exceptional experience or ability.
Individual agglomerations can be from essentially any number of 'parents'/'donors' so relationships among them can be numerous, widespread and very complex. Of course, it is also possible for large parts (essentially all) of an individual to be kept together and preserved for a long time. However, within the atmosphere of Tt'ff even these fade over time due to continual low-level 'erosion' of cells and addition of new ones from elsewhere.
When agglomerations are close together many (but not all) of the new cells they acquire will be from agglomerations in the vicinity. This low-level exchange of individual cells between agglomerations within a group gives clusters of agglomerations a commonality of memories and experiences that helps to bind groups together.
Sometimes, where conditions are calmer, 'clans' influence who agglomerates with who. However, this is impractical in most places within Tt'ff.
As another part of the constant turnover of the cells that make them up, the Ltss'Tak consider change to be a part of their nature. They consider change for its own sake to be good, necessary and indeed essential. Of course, they recognise that what change can bring is not always a good thing, but accept this as part of their ... nature.
Historically, the most stable and advanced Ltss'Tak societies are found at the mid-latitudes of Tt'ff. These are the regions between the equatorial regions where winds are more likely to shred and scatter agglomerations, and the poles where the long polar nights cause cells to become dormant to survive, leading to the regular and inevitable break-up and scattering of agglomerations that live there.
With the moving of the Ltss'Tak into space two differing cultural groups have developed.
MEMORIES AND SO ONWhen a cell reproduces all that it carries in terms of memories, skills, personality elements and so on are also duplicated and are passed on to its child cells. However, these memories and so on lose fidelity with copying and can fade into nothing with time. However, the more used or useful they are, the more they are reinforced over time within the cell(s) that use them, and so the longer they last. Even taking this into account, Ltss'Tak memories are good, on a par with those of pre-literate humans.
The Ltss'Tak have much more continuity of experience and memory than they do of personality. The former is fairly fixed (though subject to erosion due to loss and gaining of cells and so on), and is a 'lower level' functionality, something that is automatically passed on when cells reproduce, either asexually or sexually. The latter is much more subject to turnover of cells and changes in the configuration of an agglomeration as it is a higher-level and thus more emergent element of mental functionality.
With a good deal of justification the Ltss'Tak do not consider there to be any genetic element to personality. Instead, they consider personality to derive from the ideas, memories, thoughts and personality elements of the cells making up an agglomeration, via what is basically memetics. They also consider it to derive from luck. Luck is considered an important factor because it has great power over what connections are made between cells and also it governs the cells that an agglomeration gains from and loses to the environment around it.
Because the more interesting and/or useful parts of individuals are, and so the more likely they are to be preserved and reused over time, many Ltss'Tak individuals seek experience, knowledge and so on as this will provide them with a form of immortality.
In addition to this, Ltss'Tak agglomerations can tailor themselves and others by swapping cells and groups of cells with one another, whether voluntarily or involuntarily. Related to this, in some Ltss'Tak societies very significant experiences by an individual can lead to that individual being split up and its cells distributed among its society so as to maximise the benefit of that experience to society as a whole. For example the first Ltss'Tak astronauts may have been distributed in this manner.
Thus agglomerations can compete over skills and so on, to the level of finding (or taking) them from others into themselves.
One persistent belief among the Ltss'Tak is the myth of a 'primal memory' (or memories) of great significance, that awaits discovery somewhere in Tt'ff, and which will change the world when this occurs.
Ltss'Tak history and mythology also has any number of stories of secrets, wisdom and so on learned from the random acquisition of new cells from far away. Likewise there are tales of great things lost by the random turnover of cells with the larger world.
POLITICSLtss'Tak politics involve a form of 'discussion', but not as humans might understand it. In some groups, all those involved in the discussion split into their cells and thoroughly mix all of themselves together, then return to sentient agglomerations with each new one being an average of all participants, such that there should be consensus. This can be complex and slow, and on some issues doing this may still give differences of opinion afterwards.
A second method consists of each participant contributing a part of themselves to a new sentient agglomeration, and it is this one that reaches a decision. Some groups simply have those involved split off a part of themselves; others use a non-sentient 'opinion collector' agglomeration to do so; this forms the basis of the decision-making agglomeration.
In interactions between different groups of Ltss'Tak it is common for new individuals formed from cells from both sides to be made as a form of diplomacy.
THE ECONOMY, INHERITANCE AND PROPERTY RIGHTSBecause each Ltss'Tak is basically self-sufficient, existing on sunlight and the chemicals naturally occurring in the atmosphere of Tt'ff, the Ltss'Tak economy is much less concerned with individual survival than it is among (for example) humans. Instead, the economy is based much more on the production of, if not luxuries, at least non-essentials. Thus most Ltss'Tak do not have jobs as such, but instead a number of interests and hobbies into which they put their efforts. Of course, to outsiders, these may appear indistinguishable to what a human might call a job, and a very demanding one at that...
Because of the inheritance of cells from one agglomeration to another, and the lack of fixed physical death as it is experienced by humans, inheritance and property rights among the Ltss'Tak is very different to that among humans. In particular the fact that cells from a given individual can end up in any number of other Ltss'Tak can make such things very complex.
This is also complicated by the fact that property for the Ltss'Tak can include not only physical objects, but also positions in space, knowledge, rights to resources and so on.
In most cases the goods of a given agglomeration divide among those who inherit its cells in proportion to the amount of that individual living on in its inheritors. However, in some cases where this is not possible (for example when the goods include some indivisible object such as a factory) one agglomeration - usually the one with the most inherited shares - gains that object while the other inheritors gain shares in what it produces.
Because of the constantly changing makeup of each agglomeration, shareholdings and property ownership can change almost on a minute-to-minute basis. This makes such things very complex, and many Ltss'Tak spend a good deal of effort keeping track of such things.
There is some (justified) speculation among the Ltss'Tak that keeping track of the ownership and shareholdings of property was a major factor in driving the Ltss'Tak to sentience. It certainly factored heavily in their development of mathematics, economics and computing technology..
CONFLICTDespite their asexuality and ability to subsist on the resources available in the atmosphere of Tt'ff without any external supplies, there are still sources of conflict among the Ltss'Tak. In the pre-technological period these conflicts were over resources (in terms of atmospheric water and other required chemicals) and access to sunlight - the things an agglomeration requires in order to survive. In particular, although cooperation was also used in the past, conflicts have occurred over particularly resource-rich regions of the atmosphere of Tt'ff, such as upwellings from the inaccessibly deep atmosphere.
With the development of civilisation among the Ltss'Tak conflict has also occurred over calm volumes where it is good to live, as well as over trade routes, routes through the most turbulent parts of the atmosphere, and also over technology and access to it.
Despite this, conflicts between different groups of Ltss'Tak are rare and generally much less harsh than human wars, simply because the constant interchange of cells between agglomerations makes them unable to avoid seeing the point of the other side, unable to 'dehumanise' the other side, and also likely to gain cells from the other side that let them remember experiencing any injuries they inflicted on their opponents. Needless to say these facts greatly limit their wish to wage war on one another.
Even so, because of these conflicts some cells do possess offensive abilities, including the ability to perform chemical attacks on other agglomerations, or attacks using 'paint' that sticks to cells and stops them photosynthesising. Sometimes agglomerations will detach parts of themselves as 'attack agglomerations' to savage others and try to force them to dissipate.
Those agglomerations that are shredded in this way obviously lose the fight.
Ltss'Tak can conquer without killing if the conqueror has a large enough population so that they can literally assimilate the conquered individuals into themselves. Alternatively, the conquered may be sent into 'exile', being forced into turbulent regions to be ripped apart and their cells scattered to the four winds but without actually killing them. Cells being actually physically killed is something that only occurs on very rare occasions.
CRIME AND LAWBecause of the constant exchange of the cells making them up, the Ltss'Tak have a much more fluid definition of what constitutes an individual than is the case for (for example) humanity. This has a significant impact on their law, and makes their definitions of individual rights and responsibilities very different from those of humans.
Thus law and law enforcement is very different to that among races such as humans. One of the most common methods for interrogating a suspect is to split the agglomeration forming it up into more than one smaller agglomeration of a non-sentient level of intelligence and interrogating each of them. Sometimes the smaller agglomerations are interrogated as they stand, but in other cases they are incorporated with a 'police' agglomeration to form a new sentient agglomeration with its priorities aligned with the 'police' that is then interrogated more effectively than the initial agglomeration.
In the most extreme cases an individual agglomeration can be disassembled into very small units that are added to law enforcement agglomerations and examined by them.
In both of these cases should it be required the original agglomeration can be reformed essentially intact once the process is over.
If a Ltss'Tak agglomeration should be considered guilty of some crime, the reordering and rearrangement of that agglomeration into a more acceptable form is the most common form of cure for crimes of all kinds. At the very worst part or all of the offender - the 'responsible' cells - are destroyed.
Even the very rare Ltss'Tak who are the equivalent of human sociopaths - who, for example, attempt to 'eat' their fellow Ltss'Tak by stealing their cells and memories rather than sharing - can be treated in this way. Or they may be left to effectively cure themselves through indulging their own desires; Ltss'Tak sociopaths cannot help but absorb traits from their victims, including more stable thought patterns, and other Ltss'Tak know their memories and so on will live on in their victimiser so that all they suffer is that the particular agglomeration making up their present self comes to an end somewhat sooner than might otherwise be the case. This gives the Ltss'Tak a very different perspective on such matters to (for example) humans.
In addition to this it is rare but not unheard of for dangerous ideas/experiences/modes of thought to be excised from an agglomeration. Sometimes this involves the excision of cells alone, but sometimes whole agglomerations have been destroyed for what is considered to be the greater good. There have been conflicts over this, over doing this and over whether to do this.
LANGUAGEIn many cases the Ltss'Tak do not require a spoken language. Instead, the direct swapping of cells via small agglomerations can convey information between agglomerations faster and with vastly less ambiguity than is possible with speech.
On the other hand there are many occasions when speech is necessary, such as speaking at range or to multiple other agglomerations at once. In this case they speak using bio-radio, with voices made up of contributions from all of their cells at once, giving a voice that sounds, to human ears listening via radio receivers, not unlike multiplexed and modulated noise and static. Thus their words also sound, to humans, not unlike noise.
Words in the Ltss'Tak language can be generated using this Ltss'Tak Word Generator.
Their bio-radio transmissions can travel long distances within the atmosphere of Tt'ff, and in addition it is possible for cells to be blown long distances before they join another agglomeration. Because of this, even in their pre-technological days, the Ltss'Tak did not really have separate languages, more different regional dialects of a universal language. With the development of technology these dialects have converged greatly to give a truly universal Ltss'Tak language, though still one with regional dialects among its speakers.
The Ltss'Tak have never developed a written language. This is partly because of their difficulty of preserving objects with writing on them in the atmosphere of Tt'ff, but also because, with their already-good memories enhanced by specialised memory cells, they have little need to write things down to prevent them being forgotten.
NAMESLtss'Tak do not have names as such. Instead, each agglomeration has a 'signature' consisting of the contribution to its voice of all of the cells making it up. Ltss'Tak with the appropriate skills can interpret this voice and its components into information about the lineage of the agglomeration; this is much more complex than human genealogy. Obviously part of this information can be 'unknown' as cells can come from far-away or otherwise obscure sources.
The signature of an agglomeration can be suppressed (for example to aid survival against hunters) but it cannot be changed without also changing the cells in the agglomeration. In Tt'ff and similar environments the signature of an agglomeration constantly changes due to turnover of cells; this can be anything for subtle changes to major ones. In a closed environment the signature will not change suddenly, and if at all in the direction of homogeneity.
The names of Ltss'Tak nations and other groups are a more abstract 'voice' of the strands of memory, history and story that make them up, that is, like a higher-level and more summary version of the signatures of all of its members.
NUMBERSThe environment in which the Ltss'Tak live - the clouds of a very large world, but also one in which individual (small) cells must operate - covers a wide range of scales from the very large to the very small, and the Ltss'Tak have to be able think in and relate information between all of them. Because of this the Ltss'Tak do not think in linear numbers as humans do, but instead in logarithms. This makes their mathematics and general view of numbers and so on significantly different to that of (for example) humans.
They count in base 12, because this is the coordination number of each cell making up an agglomeration [the integer number of its nearest neighbours] in their 'ideal' packing situation.
TIMEAs with humans the Ltss'Tak measure time through the natural cycles of the world around them. In their case this means that they measure time by the periods of the sun, moons of Tt'ff, and the stars. However, with the shifting clouds, fierce winds and weather, and differences in the rotation period of Tt'ff with latitude this is not always easy to measure consistently, at least until clocks were invented.
Each number in the table below is the number of the time periods given by the header of that column that occur within a single period of that given by the leader of that row.
The most basic unit of time among the Ltss'Tak is the day, which is some 8.1 Earth hours. In addition to this the orbital periods of the three major moons of Tt'ff, Nngs'Uz, Wsks'Uz and Zaltsz form major divisions of time. These are of 7.3 Tt'ff Days [59.2 Earth hours or 2.47 Earth days], 24.6 Tt'ff Days [8.3 Earth days] and 128.2 Tt'ff Days [43.3 Earth days] respectively. The more minor moons of Tt'ff also provide subsidiary time periods of various lengths. The longest unit of time used by the Ltss'Tak is the year of Tt'ff, a period of some 58.65 Earth years. Above this multiples of twelve mark out progressively longer time periods. The major Ltss'Tak time units relate to one another as follows:
| Tt'ff Day |
Orbital Period of Nngs'Uz |
Orbital Period of Wsks'Uz |
Orbital Period of Zaltsz |
Tt'ff Year |
|
| Tt'ff Day | 1 | 0.14 | 0.041 | 0.008 | 0.0001 |
| Orbital Period of Nngs'Uz | 7.3 | 1 | 0.3 | 0.06 | 0.0009 |
| Orbital Period of Wsks'Uz | 24.6 | 3.4 | 1 | 0.2 | 0.003 |
| Orbital Period of Zaltsz | 128.2 | 17.5 | 5.2 | 1 | 0.02 |
| Tt'ff Year | 7836 | 1072 | 318.5 | 61.1 | 1 |
All of these different divisions of time mean that Ltss'Tak calendars are, in general, very complex, with systems to keep all of the various cycles involved in them in the correct step with one another [in a way that makes the Mayan calendar of Earth look simple by comparison]. In general there is one set of calendar cycles that is considered to be the most important and is so the most widely used, with the other calendar cycles used as required.
The Ltss'Tak day is divided into twelve subdivisions of some 40 minutes each; these are very roughly analogous to hours for the Ltss'Tak. These 'hours' are further subdivided into 144 [twelve squared] units of some 17 seconds each, which are very roughly equivalent to minutes. These are further subdivided by powers of twelve as required.
ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENTLtss'Tak play games of intelligence and memory, involving words, mathematics and/or storytelling. These latter are not unlike roleplaying games in many ways, but some are factual ones, some fictional and many go back a very long time. Most sentient agglomerations wish to contribute to one of the major stories, much as humans might wish to find fame and fortune.
Much of their art is ephemeral, such as songs, dance and 'body art' in which the colours of their cells are varied (naturally or artificially) into some pleasing design. However, with the development of technology they do make more permanent art forms such as sculpture-like objects, including wind-powered ones and ones that use the wind to make pleasant (for them) sounds. They also create pictures painted or otherwise drawn onto sheets of aerogel and other such materials, and weave things out of fibres derived from living creatures.
Because of their nutrition and so being a function of the cells making them up, and so something that occurs below the level of conscious thought, there is no equivalent of cuisine among the Ltss'Tak.
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGYAs for humans, Ltss'Tak science and technology has been very much driven by the environment of their world and their perceptions of it, as well as by elements of their other physiology and psychology.
THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGYThe Ltss'Tak were slow to develop mechanical technology due to the limitations of the gas giant environment in which they evolved.
In the early period of their development, the sentient Ltss'Tak agglomerations in Tt'ff had little ability to manipulate their environment and in addition even had they been able to do so, had very little material to work with and so build a technology. Thus for a long time they were not unlike whales, with their intelligence giving them an advantage to survival in their home environment, but without hands or any workable material other than living cells, being unable to develop any kind of machine-based technology.
As part of this, over time they slowly built up a form of knowledge, and science even, relating to what physical processes they could sense around them. They developed the scientific method quite early on in their history and so have had it for a very long time, even if they had no physical ability to perform most types of science. Because of how this forced them to develop, they are particularly advanced in fields such as the specialised breeding of cells, mathematics, philosophy, meteorology and aerodynamics but less so in fields such as physics and in particular fields relating to solid matter.
This changed when a type of cell able to secrete aerogels - strong but also extremely low-density solids - evolved. The early Ltss'Tak were able to harness this ability and manipulate and breed cells to produce larger and more complex aerogel constructions. It is from this point that Ltss'Tak technology began to develop.
Even with this, because of the extreme difficultly of releasing or putting down items inside Tt'ff, for almost their entire history technology has been something that happened as part of an individual Ltss'Tak, or with the Ltss'Tak as part of it. It is also something that, again because of the airborne environment of Tt'ff, has developed very slowly, much more so than is the case for humanity. For example, it has taken them literally millions of Earth years to develop the ability to travel into space.
However, upon reaching space, with its rich resources of solid matter and an environment in which massive objects can be more easily constructed and manipulated, their technology has exploded to new heights in a relatively short period...
Despite their being photosynthetic, the use of aerogel parts as aerofoil wings or sails, and to catch or channel airborne nutrients was still advantageous to them and continues to be so to the present day.
Due to the environment of Tt'ff the Ltss'Tak do not have, and see no need for (if they can even conceive of them), disciplines such as physical history, archaeology or palaeontology. The nearest equivalents of such sciences would 'palaeontology' done via genetic analyses of living cells rather than any fossils or other physical remains [essentially via creating phylogenetic trees], and history as derived from their own ancient memories and so on.
BIOTECHNOLOGYThe very earliest Ltss'Tak technology, and the one that enabled them to develop everything that followed, was the use and shaping of the living cells of Tt'ff to their own ends in what was a very basic form of biotechnology. Even before the evolution of the aerogel-secreting cells that enabled their development of mechanical technology, they were able to selectively breed cells for specific ends over very long times. This was helped by the fact that, although Ltss'Tak are effectively immortal their cells are not and have reasonably short life cycles, allowing them to be bred relatively quickly.
In particular they bred cells as enhanced memory units and for the production of specific chemicals or for the extraction of specific elements and compounds, such as metals, from the atmosphere of Tt'ff.
Once aerogel-secreting cells did evolve, they soon began to use the same techniques to breed cells that could produce better and more aerogels, or aerogels in specific forms or with specific properties, all of which helped to drive their development of mechanical technology.
Although since then the advancement of their mechanical technology has overtaken their use of biology in many areas, they still use specially-bred cells for any number of purposes, and such uses are very deeply embedded in their culture.
In time the Ltss'Tak developed genetic engineering techniques that extended their biotechnology beyond what selective breeding alone could achieve. However, they were very slow in adopting such techniques, much more so than humans, did only did so when they were considered entirely safe. This is because any and all cells can make up a Ltss'Tak, so flawed genetic engineering would affect them personally. Also, the exchanges of genes that occur between cells mean that any engineered genes will escape into the environment almost immediately. Thus they felt an entirely justified need to be very careful in these matters.
In addition to this they have ethical objections to making engineered cells that are incapable for forming part of an agglomeration.
Their use of biotechnology has been greatly helped by the fact that change is such a part of themselves and of the world around them. This has meant that evolution and natural selection are very natural concepts to them, as well as those of ecology and the interlinking of every living thing into a greater whole [analogous to the Gaia hypothesis]. Thus they have not suffered the religious objections to such an idea that humans have.
MATERIALS SCIENCEAs with so much of their technological development, the materials available for the Ltss'Tak to use have been very much constrained by the environment in which they evolved. As such the first materials from which their first un-living items were built were nonetheless derived from living things, in the form of the aerogel-secreting cells that enabled their development of technology at all.
As time passed they were able to use these aerogels and also the carbon nanotubes and hydrocarbon-based plastics common among the life forms of Tt'ff to build the basics of their technology. However, the atmosphere of Tt'ff is (perhaps obviously!) extremely poor in metals and other heavy elements, and this greatly hindered their technological development, as did the fact that anything built of such dense and heavy materials had a great tendency to fall and be lost. Nonetheless, in time such elements were discovered, extracted (often using specialised living cells) and used as much as their abundance allowed, often to alter and enhance the properties of existing materials, for example by creating metal-reinforced or conductive aerogels, or ceramics of various kinds.
However, metals and so on remained extremely scarce and valuable until the Ltss'Tak expanded into space and began to make use of the resources available there.
Needless to say, because of their native environment the Ltss'Tak are masters of low density technology using aerogels in particular, either as they stand or as part of pressure-strengthened structures with inflated structural elements.
ENERGY TECHNOLOGYAs with humans the first sources of energy harnessed by the Ltss'Tak were those of living things, in particular themselves. This state of affairs was the limit of their energy technology until they began to develop mechanical technology. Then they were able to harness the power of combustion, though in the atmosphere of Tt'ff this consists of burning matter high in oxygen in a hydrogen-containing atmosphere rather than the reverse which is the case in an oxygen-containing atmosphere such as that of the Earth.
Using organic lenses and mirrors they were also able to harness the power of the sun, and in addition to that the power of the constant winds of Tt'ff to drive their technology.
In general wind power is harvested from airborne wind farms, usually integrated with one or more Ltss'Tak agglomerations, that hold station in the air and allow power to be collected. The high density air of the lower accessible reaches of Tt'ff makes this particularly practical and effective.
The Ltss'Tak never developed nuclear fission as a power source, or for any other purposes. This is because the atmosphere of Tt'ff is extremely low in fissionable elements such as uranium [there is a very small percentage of atoms of fissionable elements in the air much as there are on Earth, but these remained a curiosity at best until proper sources of them were discovered off-world]. Instead, they had to make the jump directly from wind and chemical-based power to nuclear fusion, something that took rather a long time to achieve.
Large low-density fusion reactors are the most common form of fusion power plant used by the Ltss'Tak. These are basically specialised aerogel balloons, usually supported by balloons of their own, with a great deal of ancillary equipment. Because of the problems of maintaining the high magnetic fields required for magnetic confinement fusion [such as in a tokamak] when using low-density structures this form of fusion reactor is not used. Instead ones using laser-induced fusion are used as they are much practical in the gas giant environment of Tt'ff.
Once in space, the powerful magnetic field of Tt'ff and other worlds was also tapped by long cables arranged as an electrodynamic tether generator, generating power by moving through the magnetic field of the planet. They also make use of solar power satellites where appropriate, with power being beamed to where it is required.
POWER DISTRIBUTIONAnother technological hurdle the Ltss'Tak have had to overcome is that of distributing power, as it is not possible to lay power cables within the atmosphere of Tt'ff! For some applications power plants are physically linked to the things they power, so there is no need to distribute power. Others make much use of batteries, that are physically moved to where they are needed by 'battery couriers'. For others, beamed power, via lasers or microwaves, is the preferred solution. Because of its greater flexibility this is the most commonly used form of power distribution among the Ltss'Tak.
Development of this latter technology has given them mastery of microwave power transmission and power conversion, as well as adaptive optics and fluid dynamics to model the atmosphere so as to be able to maintain focussed power beams. All of these have also proved to be very useful in space and other fields.
MEDICAL TECHNOLOGYThe Ltss'Tak do not generally have or use medicine as humans would understand it. As physical damage occurs only on the cellular level, cells are simply discarded if too badly damaged. This process is normally subconscious but does not have to be. There are tales of discarded injured cells surviving and coming back to haunt an individual, though these are much more 'urban legends' than reality.
The only time medicine as humans know it is required is when a specific cell or cells - perhaps containing some vital skills or memories - must be saved. This is, however, rare.
Likewise, although they have a science of psychology, in that they have investigated how their minds work, they do not have a science of psychiatry. Psychological problems normally arise from the agglomeration rather than the cells making it up. Thus treatment for them normally consists of partly or wholly disassembling the agglomeration and rebuilding it or incorporating its cells into others.
Even the very rare Ltss'Tak who are the equivalent of human sociopaths - who, for example, attempt to 'eat' their fellow Ltss'Tak by stealing their cells and memories rather than sharing - can be treated in this way. Or left to effectively cure themselves through indulging their own desires; Ltss'Tak sociopaths cannot help but absorb traits from their victims, including more stable thought patterns, and other Ltss'Tak know their memories and so on will live on in their victimiser so that all that they suffer is that the particular agglomeration making up their present self comes to an end somewhat sooner than might otherwise have been the case. This gives the Ltss'Tak a very different perspective on such matters to (for example) humans.
THE LNFFWZGZUM'WS [AGGLOMERATION ENGINEERS]In most cases natural and instinctive processes cause agglomerations of cells to assembled in an entirely functional manner. However, although these processes do so fairly well, they often do not do so perfectly.
As such the Ltss'Tak have developed the Lnffwzgzum'Ws, a specialisation that functions as a combination of psychologists and psychiatrists who know how to tailor and optimise agglomerations, either for optimum overall functioning or towards some specific goal or aim.
The Lnffwzgzum'Ws have thoroughly explored Ltss'Tak psychology and the limits of size and intelligence available to a sentient agglomeration. Although their research has not found ways to avoid the communication delays and fracturing of mind that occurs at large agglomeration sizes, with higher technology and the availability of shelter it is now relatively routine for them to, when necessary, make agglomerations of the largest and most intelligent size practical, without that size being limited by wind and weather.
COMPUTING AND CYBERNETICS TECHNOLOGYBecause their natural inter-cell communications make use of surface electrical signals to link cells into agglomerations, the Ltss'Tak have an intrinsic means of interfacing with correctly configured electronics [not unlike an intrinsic version of the Skinplex, which uses human touch for electrical data transmission]. This has meant that from the first Ltss'Tak computing technology has been far more a part of individual agglomerations than is the case for humans. This is helped by the fact that given the environment of Tt'ff, items, whether of technology or otherwise, even quite large ones such as buildings and so on, are normally part of or embedded in the body of its owner as dropped items are normally lost.
This means that making Ltss'Tak 'cyborgs' is much easier than making human ones. Their individual self-contained cells allow easy integration of appropriately configured technology into agglomerations, with their natural inter-cell communications allowing relatively easy interfacing to them. The natural turnover of cells within an agglomeration also makes the adding and removal of technological parts relatively straightforward for them.
Conversely, most of their technology includes at least one living cell as part of its controls.
Assuming such technology is possible and that they would wish to do so, it would also be relatively easy for the Ltss'Tak to upload themselves - their memories and personality - into a computer-based form, as their cellular structure would allow this to be done in a piecemeal fashion relatively easily.
It has also been possible for them to use nanotubes to develop artificial muscles that are strong enough for useful work.
TRANSPORTATION TECHNOLOGYOne of the earliest uses the Ltss'Tak made of their physical technology was the construction of aerogel 'shells' to allow them to cross high-speed wind zones and high-turbulence zones intact (if perhaps a little battered). These were their equivalent of boats and ships. Initially these were simple spheres or oblate spheroids for single agglomerations that were at the mercy of the winds, and easily able to be swept into the depths and destroyed. Even with the advanced knowledge of meteorology and aerodynamics developed in their pre-technological period, this still often made their use more similar to going over Niagara Falls in a barrel rather than sailing as such.
Development of this technology allowed shells for multiple individuals to be constructed, then ones with wings and other control surfaces, initially passive gliders with these surfaces fixed and no controls [perhaps not unlike a vast Frisbee], they later developed into designs with adjustable control surfaces and thus with some control over their course, though still being largely at the mercy of the winds [these are perhaps like a vast aerogel flower, with the centre being the passenger compartment and the 'petals' being control surfaces]. Advanced versions of these vast vehicles continue to be used up to the present day.
When materials and energy technology because sufficiently advanced the Ltss'Tak were able to begin building another enabling technology in sufficiently large sizes to enhance their technological progress. This technology was the hot air balloon, something only possible in Tt'ff with the development of materials string enough to resist its winds and energy sources sufficiently powerful to maintain buoyancy. Even small balloons made a difference, allowing relatively dense items to be held up independent of agglomerations, and beginning their use of large scale solid technology. Should it be possible, they could eventually extend this to the use vacuum balloons rather than hot air ones.
As their technology advanced further the Ltss'Tak developed technology that allowed them to probe deeper into the atmosphere of Tt'ff, beyond the level where they could go without protection, using devices the equivalent of bathyscaphes.
SPACE TRANSPORTATIONBecause of its great size and mass the gravity well of Tt'ff is wider, if not deeper, than that of the Earth. This means that the escape velocity of Tt'ff is some 35 kilometres per second [as compared to some 11 kilometres per second for the Earth]; this obviously makes it significantly harder to reach orbit from Tt'ff than from Earth as the energy required to do so [which increases as the square of the escape velocity] is some ten times greater.
In addition to this, the scale height of Tt'ff's atmosphere [the indicator the distance over which the atmospheric density decreases by a factor of e] is 89.3 kilometres as opposed to some 7.64 kilometres for the Earth [taking into account the 1.5 times greater diameter of Tt'ff compared to Saturn while having a similar mass to it]. This means that to reach space an object not only has to go much faster, it has to climb through much more atmosphere before it can achieve orbit, thus making space travel an even more difficult proposition.
A third problem with space travel for the Ltss'Tak is the great size of individual agglomerations. To launch of a Ltss'Tak in a normal configuration at one atmosphere of pressure into space would require a vessel holding 62.5 million cubic metres with a mass of some 1.2 kilograms per cubic metre for a total mass of some 75000 tonnes (plus 250 kg for the Ltss'Tak itself). This is probably too large to be practical! However, they can live at pressures down to 0.1 atmosphere. Air density is proportional to pressure, so this would drop the required mass to 7500 tonnes, which is still large. Compressing the Ltss'Tak into a smaller volume would probably also be required. If the volume a cell requires could be dropped from 125 cubic centimetres to 1 cubic centimetre [that is, if cells could live in a volume 1 centimetre on side for a while rather than their normal volume of 5 centimetres on a side] this would drop the mass required to only 60 tonnes, which is much more do-able, if perhaps a little uncomfortable for the Ltss'Tak while they were being launched. Obviously at higher levels of technology this would be less of a problem in any case, but it is unlikely ever to become an utterly trivial one.
All of this means that space launches using chemical rockets are impractical from Tt'ff, whether using single or multiple stages, and even ignoring the problems they would have in building such a thing. Nuclear propulsion might well work, but has as many problems with its impact on the environment as would be the case on Earth.
Short of some exotic [and perhaps impossible] drive system using some form of gravity manipulation, space launches using laser propulsion are probably the most practical means of launching objects into space from Tt'ff. This technology would grow out of their laser fusion and beamed power technologies and avoids the requirement for the vehicle itself to carry the vast amounts of fuel it would otherwise require to reach orbit. Launches by this means could use chains of large balloon-supported gas lasers to boost vehicles into space. Depending on the size of the launching chains this might allow relatively slow launches. Obviously advanced tracking and position keeping systems are required for this launch method to work, but these are also required for beamed power transmission and so could be adapted for this work in a relatively straightforward manner. Space launches would almost certainly use the rapid rotation of Tt'ff and motion from its powerful winds to aid them.
In general space travel by the Ltss'Tak was greatly delayed relative to the case for humans because significantly higher level of technology was required for them to do so.
The need to 'pack' individual Ltss'Tak for launch into space could mean that their spaceships are effectively launched as partially-inflated rocket-propelled nanotubes-reinforced aerogel balloons containing a packed Ltss'Tak. Upon reaching space these then inflate under the pressure of gas released inside to form larger structures.
Obviously the environment inside their space vessels is utterly inhospitable to an unprotected human. It is filled with an atmosphere of hydrogen, helium, nitrogen, methane, ammonia, water vapour and organic chemicals at a pressure of some two atmospheres and a temperature of some 50°C that is lit by a bright blue-white light that is more than 50% UV and that changes brightness on an 8.1 hour cycle [the day-night cycle of Tt'ff].
The higher level of technology they required to reach space, and the great flowering of technology brought about by their suddenly having access to large amounts of solid matter - and in particular metals - in a relatively stable environment where they are not limited by density or falling considerations would make the Ltss'Tak powerful very quickly once they reach space. This is helped by their ability to have more, and more stable, agglomerations of the highest intelligence when in space.
SPACE EXPLORATIONBecause of the limitations of their very low-density physical forms, and their need for a high-hydrogen atmosphere, basically all rocky worlds [like the Earth] are hostile environments to the Ltss'Tak, ones that they simply cannot exist in outside of some form of sealed environment with extensive life support, such as huge tanks or balloons of some kind. On the other hand, as long as they have a breathable atmosphere gravity or a lack of same, and so long-term survival in space, is no problem for them. Thus they tend to keep their ground facilities to the minimum necessary with most facilities in space.
Short of very advanced drive systems they can only practically access non-gas giant worlds via robots or other remote controlled technologies. Gas giant worlds other than Tt'ff may be habitable for them depending on their atmospheric composition, temperature and so on.
Should they send expeditions to other gas giant worlds, leaving such a world may be a problem for them. Without very advanced drive systems it might be necessary to set up the industrial infrastructure to allow them to do so. Or they could use lasers in space with the beam reflected back up from mirror systems in the atmosphere to return to orbit. This technique could also be used for launches (of resources and so on) from solid worlds.
The ability of individual cells to turn into spores when conditions are particularly unfavourable, and revive (with a failure rate) when they improve is very useful for hibernation in longer-distance space travel.
The expected remaining lifetime of their sun is less than the lifetime of the Ltss'Tak as a sentient race. Thus the impending death of their star is perhaps considered more pressing than might be the case for humans, and could well motivate them to expand into space as a matter of urgency.
SPACE COLONISATIONIt is as possible for the Ltss'Tak to travel to other stars as it is for humans, and thus they may colonise other gas giant worlds over time. They may also Tt'ff-form them to give them a more hospitable environment. Note that given the size of gas giant planets it is probably impractical for them to try to do unless their tech is very advanced.
One additional problem they will have to overcome is the relative scarcity of type A stars such as Gzktss [some 0.6% of stars are of type A], for the light of which their photosynthetic processes are optimised. They may overcome this problem in one of two ways:
Which of these techniques might be used depends on the circumstances in which they find themselves...
In addition to this it is possible that they might adapt themselves to other gas giant planets by engineering in the ability for their cells to survive on the mix of nutrients available in those gas giants, which may be very different to those in Tt'ff, and photosynthesise what they need to live from them.
By extension this same technique could conceivably be used to adapt Ltss'Tak cells to live in suitable atmospheres of rocky worlds, planets that either began as or have been engineered to be a 'warm Titan)' or a 'cool Venus'.
However, all of this has the danger of splitting the Ltss'Tak into a number of biologically incompatible races between which the exchange of cells is simply not possible, potentially leading to misunderstandings and war. Thus this may be considered to be undesirable...
ISSUESLtss'Tak agglomerations very much rely on the constant turnover of cells with the environment to keep them 'fresh', refreshing their minds with new ideas and memories. Without this the mental processes of a Ltss'Tak can become stuck in a rut, fixed into static patterns of thought, repetitive and uninspired. In addition to this they can become much more dogmatic and stubborn than Ltss'Tak whose cells have frequent turnover.
At the same time their cells, deprived of genetic exchange with unrelated cells, can become inbred, with all of the problems that can imply. Even if different agglomerations share an environment there is a tendency for the agglomerations to homogenise both genetically and in terms of memories and personality as they only swap cells within a closed group, leading to their becoming an 'average' of all of the individuals they started out as.
With the movement of the Ltss'Tak into space individual agglomerations would inevitably come to live in relatively small sealed environments - space habitats and so on (though the same problem also applies in other sealed environments). And it is via this that this problem of a lack of change would become apparent.
This is something that the Ltss'Tak should inevitably become aware of and hopefully be able to account for in their behaviour. Perhaps space-going agglomerations remain stable for most of the time but have periodic 'seasons of change' where many agglomerations come together in a vast turbulent chamber to mix, change and emerge as new agglomerations. Or rituals of meeting and exchanging cells could grow up to do this in a more sedate and controlled manner.
TECHNOLOGY AND THE ENVIRONMENTBecause they are very much part of nature and the environment of Tt'ff, and likewise nature and the environment is very much of them, the Ltss'Tak in Tt'ff are intrinsically more aware of their environment than humans are, and as importantly the negative effects of technology on it. Thus throughout their technological development they have been 'green', vastly more so than humanity.
They also use technology to improve the ecosystem of Tt'ff, by expanding the amount of life that can exist there. They mainly do this by sending pumping stations deep into the atmosphere of Tt'ff to pump nutrients up from the depths to the life-bearing layers, allowing more living cells to survive there. This is equivalent to humans 'greening the desert'.
Another such improvement is the use of orbiting mirrors to illuminate the poles of Tt'ff during the long polar nights and so allow life to remain active there during these times.
LTSS'TAK SETTLEMENTSOriginally the Ltss'Tak did not have settlements as such, merely 'pods' [not unlike those of whales] of agglomerations that associated with one another. With the evolution of aerogel-making creatures and development of technology things changed. Aerogel was used to make windbreaks and other shelters, leading to vast floating 'cities' of glittering (or otherwise) aerogel divided into spaces of all sizes and uses, and with agglomerations forming integral parts of the structure of control and guide it. Given the environment of the atmosphere of Tt'ff such buildings and structures are, however limited by the need to survive its winds and weather.
At higher levels of technology all such structures are powered, and can guide their course through the atmosphere of Tt'ff. Because of this Ltss'Tak cities are easily reconfigurable, and like the Ltss'Tak agglomerations themselves, most have a constant turnover of structures with other settlements and Tt'ff as a whole.
The members of Ltss'Tak communities tend to be more similar to one another in terms of memories, behaviour and so on than they are to outsiders, as they tend to share more cells with one another. Of course, there is still some exchange of cells to and from the larger world, and outsiders will eventually come to share the same mix of cells as a community they join.
Some settlements possess rooms shaped so as to force an agglomeration into a given configuration and so to force them think in the way that the architect desires.
Most settlements include floating gardens of photosynthetic life forms, some of which are sentient Ltss'Tak agglomerations.
RELIGIONUnsurprisingly the Ltss'Tak have evolved a very broad range of spiritual and other religious beliefs as they have attempted to explain their world and their place in it over tens of millions of Earth years.
One common feature of all of these beliefs is that they all emphasise the power of chance and luck quite heavily, and many of them also emphasise the need for change. In these beliefs change is part of their nature; they consider change to be necessary and indeed essential. Of course, it is not always a good thing, but it is necessary. Additionally, as life forms much of whose manipulation takes place inside themselves, many Ltss'Tak beliefs consider themselves to be part of or inside of their deities in an analogous way.
The two major threads of Ltss'Tak religious belief are very roughly analogous to the division between (for example) the Abrahamic and Eastern religions on Earth.
There are two major threads of belief among the Ltss'Tak. As it does with everything else, their physiology colours their world view, and leads in one of these cases to their seeing everything (not inaccurately!) as being made up of smaller things agglomerating into larger, more complex and better things. Thus subatomic particles agglomerate into atoms, atoms into molecules, molecules into life, life to sentient life, sentient life into society, society into their world as whole, their world into their solar system, solar system into their galaxy, their galaxy into the universe and perhaps on even beyond that to a multiverse of universes. Thus at every level what exists is an agglomeration of what exists below, with an overall god being the universe (or multiverse) as a whole.
For these beliefs deities are numerous, and arranged in agglomerations and hierarchies that extend out from the agglomerations and hierarchies making up the physical life within Tt'ff and indeed the Ltss'Tak themselves, so that they live in and are part of the overall world system/agglomeration. Within these beliefs the two highest-level deities are the World and Change which, agglomerated together, make up everything - both physically and otherwise - in their world.
Beneath these two, and making them up, are a number of subordinate deities. The most major of these are Chance, Luck, Life, Storm, Wind and Weather. The first three of these are part of Change, the others are part of the World and are themselves agglomerations of all storms, winds and weather within Tt'ff. Because of these beliefs some Ltss'Tak consider themselves to be Wzltauktbzlszz ['God Dwellers']. Those Ltss'Tak who consider the universe as whole to be a deity thus consider themselves to be doubly God Dwellers.
Below the secondary deities are the sun Gzktss, the moons of Tt'ff and the other planets of the Gzktss system as well as the strong radio noise of Tt'ff itself. Below these are the stars. All of these apart from the radio noise are considered to be floating individual cells.
A branch of these beliefs considers that societies - their own society and those of other sentients if they exist - also form part of the universal hierarchy, with sentients agglomerating into local societies, local societies into larger ones and so on into a sort of 'super-society' bigger and better than individual societies alone.
Another branch of these beliefs which has grown up since the development of science and technology - and in particular of astronomy allowing them to see the larger universe - considers the universe in terms of physical hierarchies.
Some Ltss'Tak believe that evolution will drive the development of sentience in Tt'ff until all life in it is one vast super-sentient entity. A vast radio-linked agglomeration of agglomerations. This is very much a minority view, and in addition would pose formidable technical challenges to achieve.
A second overall thread of belief among the Ltss'Tak considers their sun, Gzktss, to be the Szjtzs [Life-Giver], the centre of the universe and source of all life everywhere. The constellations of stars around Gzktss are considered to be an agglomeration of Jtbsskkzgtjtps ['world souls'] making up a Zkgzlsuznmum ['over soul']. The Ksskjt'Kt ['wandering stars'; that is, the planets] are considered to be individual cells lost from, or simply seeking, the greater agglomeration.
The Ltss'Tak who hold to this belief realised early on that Tt'ff is also a lost cell of the Zkgzlsuznmum. They have evolved an eschatology in which Tt'ff will eventually reach its place in Zkgzlsuznmum and merge with it. Likewise the moons of Tt'ff (and of the other worlds of Gzktss) are also considered to be lost cells, either travelling with the larger 'cell' that they orbit towards their overall end, or seeking to merge with that Jtbsskkzgtjtps prior to that.
However, advances in astronomy and science down the years, and observations over millions of Earth years showing no signs of the expected merging of moons with their parent worlds taking place have undermined these beliefs more than a little...
THE SOULSpiritually, the Ltss'Tak differ among themselves as to whether or not they consider themselves to have souls as humans might understand them.
The majority consider that they do not. Instead, they consider that cells have spirits - a vital force that makes them different from un-living matter. They also consider that all cells together make up a vast Ksbsnn Sauzzattgz ['agglomeration of agglomerations'] that forms the soul of Tt'ff itself. However, they consider that the Ltss'Tak themselves, between these two extremes, have no special spiritual component. Instead, they believe that they exist for those times when the world soul needs to consider some matter intelligently.
A minority of Ltss'Tak consider that only sentient agglomerations have souls, but that they are subject to constant splitting and merging and changing as the agglomerations with which they are associated do the same.
OTHER RACESBecause of the relatively benign and life-friendly chemical environment of Tt'ff, the Ltss'Tak might well consider non-gas giant worlds [such as the Earth] - those without the abundant free resources and energy available in Tt'ff - to be too hostile for life to have developed. They would consider the likelihood of life developing all of the complex molecular and energy-gathering mechanisms required to survive - for example to perform Earth-type photosynthesis - too unlikely for life to be common on solid worlds. They might also consider non-gas giant worlds to be simply too small for complex life to develop there, based on the fact that they themselves are so large.
Even though the physical needs for the Ltss'Tak are very different from those of humanity and other races from Earth-like worlds they do still overlap with those of such races. In the main this is in the area of resources that are only obtainable from non-gas giant bodies in space, such as metals and minerals, or energy. This obviously has the potential to lead to competition and conflict between these two types of life form.
However, as large, immortal, but physically fragile and constantly changing entities, the Ltss'Tak may well have issues with comprehending small, robust, mortal but relatively unchanging entities such as humans. The reverse is probably also true.
It is also possible that life forms from rocky worlds might impinge into gas giant worlds inhabited by the Ltss'Tak via exploratory probes or the mining of helium-3 for use in fusion reactors from the atmospheres of those worlds.
Assuming a level playing field in terms of technology and force levels, it is quite likely that the Ltss'Tak would win a confrontation between themselves and humanity. The physical fragility of the Ltss'Tak is more than compensated for by their vast numbers and high degree of intelligence and creativity, particularly among the space-going members of their race.
NOTESThe concept of intelligent life arising on a gas giant planet has interested me since I first heard of it. However, I have not found any of the published gas giant races entirely convincing, given what I know of gas giant planets. In particularly how floating life would survive there, and were sentient life to develop how that life could move into space entirely by its own efforts - their being given help to do so by others is too much of a cop-out for my liking. The Ltss'Tak are my take on a convincing race of sentient aliens that evolved in the atmosphere of a gas giant planet and that could escape from it, given time, using technology.
There are also a number links relating to life in the atmosphere of gas giant planets that I found useful in creating the Ltss'Tak:
A version of the Ltss'Tak formed the opponent of the human race in the online novel 'War of the Gods' that can be found on the Counter-Factual.Net discussion forums (registration and login required to access it).
The Ltss'Tak Word Generator is derived from the Traveller alien word generator software found at the Welcome to The Patinir Belt site.
The background used on these pages is a modified version of one from Bigoo.Ws. It is used here without permission, but for personal use only and not for profit or other financial gain.
The font used in the banner of this page is called Serpentine. It comes from the Ascenderfonts.Com site.
Tt'ff and its rings were drawn using MATLAB with the aid of these MATLAB m-files.
Send any comments to me at tony {dot} website {at} clockworksky {dot} net.
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