Can aquatic species really become spacefaring ???

[[JdG] Pejman]

I would guess one of the most important steps in the technological progress to become a civilization that could eventually leave a planet would be the mastery of fire which seems unlikely if you live underwater. Use of electricity seems also more complicated for underwater civilization.

[mss73055]

in SimEarth water species could be intelligent, but needed land to adapt technology.

In true water worlds everything sinks to the dark bottom. The sheer pressure of 200 km water is enough to dissolve the weakly bonded chemical structures required for life.

[Tiasmoon]

Evolution seems to happen more likely to happen in harsher conditions, so who knows?

Land is required for construction amongst other things, so lack of any extensive structures would make that a huge problem. Perhaps if there were huge creatures they could be used as structure to build on, but getting materials would still be difficult.

Lots of potential problems there, some obvious some less so. I havent lived underwater for any extended period of time myself so I'm no expert at that, tho.

[Tiasmoon]

Originally posted by CaidKean:

Originally posted by mss73055:

in SimEarth water species could be intelligent, but needed land to adapt technology.

In true water worlds everything sinks to the dark bottom. The sheer pressure of 200 km water is enough to dissolve the weakly bonded chemical structures required for life.

Is there even such a thing as a "true water worlds"? As far as I can find there exists no scientific definition for a "water world" is, let alone a "true" one.

Well, all of our real knowledge on planets is limited to the ones in our solar system and a tiny bit of the ones nearby. The rest is all fiction and speculation after all. Hard to give a good defination for something we dont actually know for sure, exists.

[mss73055]

Consider Europe, a rocky core under 400 kilometer of ice and water.

[sotaponi]

Originally posted by mss73055:

in SimEarth water species could be intelligent, but needed land to adapt technology.

In true water worlds everything sinks to the dark bottom. The sheer pressure of 200 km water is enough to dissolve the weakly bonded chemical structures required for life.

Such pressure merely promotes evolution/adoption. Never seen any of these UFO videos released by the USA gov? I think it's pretty plausible that there is actually a Cthulu somewhere on the planet, leading a species much more advanced than humanity in some regards, moving in a way that would be considered a violation of physical laws. And with this being a scifi game based on the violation of theoretical physics that could themselves very well be flawed... I'm sure you can string something together.

I mean, humanity supposedly evolved out of the water. Which can happen by gradually starting to move on land directly, or via the fish -> flying fish -> flying bird -> walking bird -> featherless biped route. But why would evolution happen only in one direction? Especially when scifi elements such as FTL travel are involved.

Plus, there are literally bioluminescent deep water fish that emit light. They don't even need to invent technology such as light bulbs. Hence why, surely, they could just start travelling FTL because the environment necessitates it. Indeed, from such a perspective, humanity having to leave for land and then discover/invent all these things could be considered a poor evolutionary path.

[Gentlest Giant]

Originally posted by sotaponi:

Plus, there are literally bioluminescent deep water fish that emit light. They don't even need to invent technology such as light bulbs. Hence why, surely, they could just start travelling FTL because the environment necessitates it

xD

(Edit: I'm just assuming your post is a joke and I appreciate it from that perspective.)

[Drax]

Can any species really become spacefaring? (Well, to the extent of leaving their solar system). The 'fi' part of sci-fi does mean fiction after all.

It could be argued that due to being land creatures ourselves, our technological evolution has been purely land based. That doesn't mean technological evolution HAS to be land based, it's just the path we went down. If we were aquatic creatures, maybe we would have developed different means of technological progression due to such an environment.

Secondly, it seems like people are assuming all water worlds would be extremely deep and have the same gravitational force as Earth. If the gravitational force was weaker, deeper oceans would be less of an issue. Secondly, I prefer to think of the water worlds like that seen in Subnautica. Where the vast majority of surface area is water, but there are plateaus where life thrives on.

Speaking based on our own understanding of science, it's likely they'd just be able to make dry pockets underground, or make certain structures above ground. In the same way we are land based creatures but can work underwater. Definitely more difficult conditions to work under though.

[sunwalker0347]

Space isn't even 1% harder to survive for aquatic life than for land life. An ocean-dwelling race would have to adapt and there's plenty of ways they could make technology using thermal vents, underwater lava flows, or a variety of things we can't even imagine because they wouldn't happen here on earth. They could have compounds and combinations of materials that would make up for what we have ourselves. It's just as plausible as an avian or mushroom or more human species being in space.

[Terijian]

I think an aquatic species biggest barrier to space travel would be having to transport water instead of air. Their thrusters would have to be exponetially better to achieve the same performance as an air breathing species

[sunwalker0347]

Yeah strongly agree if they did their rockets our way and didn't have some sort of neat circumstance on their world that helped in a different way. They might have to set up floating platforms on the surface and launch from them, assuming around the same gravity as us. That wouldn't be *too* terrible

[Terijian]

no, i dont mean it would be difficult to launch from underwater (which it would be) I mean, even if they are already in space, their ships will have to carry water instead of air which will make them exponentially heavier which will increase the thrust necessary for propulsion to absurd levels

[Witch ~]

Bruh just make underwater fire

[O6OPOTEHb]

Aquatic civilization can't be industrial without a metallurgy. Maybe they ate a magical plankton and became a super powerful psionics and are able to launch themselves into space with their psi-powers :D

[Tiasmoon]

Originally posted by CaidKean:

Originally posted by Tiasmoon:

Well, all of our real knowledge on planets is limited to the ones in our solar system and a tiny bit of the ones nearby. The rest is all fiction and speculation after all. Hard to give a good defination for something we dont actually know for sure, exists.

Ttrue that, I was just genuinely curious if there was some established definition, even in sci-fi circles, that I had missed. I always just assumed that a water world was any world covered entirely in water, but that the depth wasn't really vital in whether or not it was a water world.

Certainly a good question.

If a water world could be relatively shallow that would change things a lot. Not only would pressure be much less, the bottom could also potentially be used as structure to build on/in and the hurdles of using any land, or obtaining conditions without water present (either inside of the ground, or on land/above water) would be much easier to achieve.

I always wondered what it would be like if a planet somehow didnt have a solid core at all. An entire water world. No idea if thats even possible or not. With my (very limited) understanding of gravity and physics, I assume a sizeable core mass is probably required for either gravity or the ability to retain gas&liquids.

Originally posted by sotaponi:

Plus, there are literally bioluminescent deep water fish that emit light. They don't even need to invent technology such as light bulbs. Hence why, surely, they could just start travelling FTL because the environment necessitates it. Indeed, from such a perspective, humanity having to leave for land and then discover/invent all these things could be considered a poor evolutionary path.

Those are the initial steps of evolution. However much of what we achieved, like discovering and learning to use fire, creating tools, construction, to name a few; require land or need some alternative conditions where those can be achieved.

You cant make fire in water. Construction requires a solid and reasonably stable surface. Creating tools and construction requires materials, which we mined from the earth, picked up from the ground or took from the trees & animals.

Of all those, only animals would remain as potential viable source, unless the aquatic life evolves near the bottom. Having water constantly present everywhere also poses problems like increased pressure the deeper you go, decreased stability in construction, the inability to just ''lay something on the ground'', etc.

Originally posted by sotaponi:

Plus, there are literally bioluminescent deep water fish that emit light. They don't even need to invent technology such as light bulbs.

Believe it or not, light isnt a big consideration for a topic like this. There's chemical reactions that produce light, and as you say some lifeforms can produce it on their own.
There's also Sonar where sound is relied on, instead of sight.

While indeed, it removes ''part of the tech tree'' that humanity had to discover, atleast on this level of the discussion and with our insight, I'd say there's many more hurdles that would be harder to overcome without access to land for its resources, low water enviroment, stable ground, etc. Whereas the benefits seem much fewer.

Maybe if we had evolved entirely in the ocean we'd have similar considerations about living on land.

''imagine having to crawl on the ground everywhere, instead of being able to swim across the ocean ''

I think if we had tho, I would presume we would have way more advanced bio-sciences as the reliance on biological solutions instead of mechanical tools would be much greater.

Being accustomed to high pressure enviroments would have given significantly stronger hulls and possibly structural design as well, which is very useful in spacecraft.

Speculation ofcourse, but I find its a lot of fun to consider what it would have been like with ''starting conditions'' for a species being so vastly different.

Originally posted by sotaponi:

I mean, humanity supposedly evolved out of the water. Which can happen by gradually starting to move on land directly, or via the fish -> flying fish -> flying bird -> walking bird -> featherless biped route. But why would evolution happen only in one direction? Especially when scifi elements such as FTL travel are involved.

Mainly because that makes the most sense to us. From our perspective there's just many more benefits to being on land, then are under water. The benefits water has, seem to be mainly for evolution. With it being much harsher there but also allowing more freedom. (of movement)

In terms of adaptation its also much easier to evolve and move to land, then the other way around. You ''only'' have to find some way to breath there, and you could crawl then eventually learn to walk, and run.

In contrast the other way around you'd still have to learn how to breath differently, and swim, but then you'd also have to develop an ability to see much better and resist pressure and you would have a lot less materials at your disposal.

Look at it like this: aside from whatever life is swimming in it, the Ocean is pretty empty when you arent close to the bottom or a piece of land. Whereas land has trees, rocks, etc that can be used for materials. Since you are always at the bottom.

There's just too much missing that would from my perspective, limit the development of tech or a functional and productive society considerably.

Again: from my very human perspective, and im not an actual scientist (or even student of a science) of any kind, so there's bound to things I dont consider.

But I do think its much more likely to evolve onto land, then the other way around.

[Tiasmoon]

Originally posted by Terijian:

I think an aquatic species biggest barrier to space travel would be having to transport water instead of air. Their thrusters would have to be exponetially better to achieve the same performance as an air breathing species

Nah, surely it would be getting the drive to explore the stars. How does that happen if they dont even know the stars exist?