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bensen-daniel — wheels
Published: 2009-03-11 21:58:48 +0000 UTC; Views: 4477; Favourites: 96; Downloads: 37
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This is a Wheel, an idea of 's, which he mentioned commenting on _my_ wheel-zilla (bensen-daniel.deviantart.com/a… .The idea here is an intelligent alien with the cranium (and presumably other organs---it's big) in the central hub. The hub is surrounded by spongy tissue, covered with a "tread" of spines. Twin rows of tentacles around the rims can be extended or retracted to pull the wheel around or to manipulate objects. I suppose pumping fluids around in the "tire" could also help it move. The mouth and anus, by the way, are at the apexes of the hubs, under the eyes.
The technique here is a new one. I drew the Wheel with pencil, scanned it, then traced over the original with successively smaller brushes in photoshop. I'm not sure if it was a waste of time. I doesn't look much better than the pencil, just different. Comments?
done while listening to: Big Fifty
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Comments: 58
Good question! They're about a meter in diameter. Maybe 15~20cm thick?
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I always imagined the G'Kek being like squids in wheelchairs. Also I think they turned their wheels by some kind of electromagnetic induction...thing.
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The mouth an anus, by the way
(Or perhaps functions as both.?)
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Thanks. I fixed that typo.
Actually for a wheel- rather than worm-shaped animal, there might be no need to place the mouth and anus at opposite ends of the body. I guess it depends on whether this thing evolved from a worm-like ancestor or not.
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From Fragment, you mean? Fun book, that one. Good thing for me I drew that picture before I read Fragment. Yes, I stole that idea from someone else entirely!
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Ah yes indeed lol the best book ive ever read i didnt mean to say youre a theif just recognised the method of locomotion
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If you liked Fragment, you might like Harry Harrison's Deathworld, which also has monsters eating people.
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Cool is it sci-fi?
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With a name like "Deathworld?" Of course it is
I warn you that the beginning is a little silly, but it gets better fast.
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Well it's 's idea, so you'd have to ask him for the cannon version.
But if you ask _me_ to make something up...I'd say this thing's ancestors were something like terrestrial hydras or sea anemones, with a tubelike body with tentacles on both ends. They probably moved like inch-worms. Not a very efficient mode of locomoation, but it didn't need to be, since these things were photosynthesizes, and didn't move around much. At some point, a mutant with no chlorophyll is forced to turn predatory (or perhaps the evolution of predators sparks off a motility arms-race). In any case, the design that most efficiently gets the hydras from here to there puts them flat on their sides, with the fore and aft tentacles used to grab nearby detritus and pull the body forward.
That's what comes off the top of my head, anyway.
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I think it would be leathery, but soft.
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Now i want to hug it even more
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Neat creature! We need more wheel creatures on Earth. Like, maybe, one.
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The closest thing I can think of is tumbleweed.
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www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsnNmC…
www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAGEOK…
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Thanks! Now combine that with the discussion going on in my journal about spinning space-habitats and what do you get?
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Actually I was thinking how nice a mode of transport that rolling spider has. Except it only works downhill, doesn't it? And where because of tangential momentum is there ALWAYS a downhill? A rotating space habitat. Rolling spider mechs, dude. Rolling spider mechs.
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hell yeah rolling spider mechs!
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It would be cool if there were giant squashed caterpillar-track like versions of these living on these beings home planet. They might be wheel equivalent of cows or some other large herbivore.
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I like it. Maybe some conveyor-belt-like system funneling food to the mouth
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yes!!
Kurumichu! I choose you!
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Reminds me of the antagonist in the short story "Arena" (Star Trek did an adaptation, changing the opponent to a Gorn)
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Really? Well these things are supposed to be really violent and aggressive, so I guess it fits.
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So I have to ask; what happens if it falls over (or, considering it probably has organs to maintain balance, if it is knocked over)? Can it somehow pick itself back up?
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Ha! Good point. At very least those eye-stalks will either have to be flexible enough to get out of the way, or strong enough to avoid being crushed. Maybe those stalks can be used to push the wheel upright.
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Oh wow, this is amazing, believable, and cuddly all at the same time! *wants to hug it*
And yes, it does remind of MC Escher's critter - the Pedalternorotandomovens centroculatus articulosus, whose name manages to be longer than it.
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[link]
Oh yes! Thank you!
You wouldn't want to cuddle this little bastard, oh no.
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You're welcome!
He's still cuddly though.
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Hehehe, this reminds me of an old M C Escher picture, only this one don't roll out into a hexapod... nice idea!
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oh, I remember that one, yeah. So there's another idea for a wheel-like creature. Now if only there would be some way for that little guy to avoid massive spinal trauma.
Does anyone remember what that chameleon/pill bug/armadillo is actually called?
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It even has a name?
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children of an alternate cambrian is the vibe I get from this, very, very cool
I can imagine some alien urchin-prawn suddenly adapting towards this, and bingo!
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urchin-prawn huh? You crazy.
Actually, I imagine these would make the sea-land transition pretty easily. This sort of locomotion would work about as well for a benthic crawler as it would for an ambulator, so the conquest of the land by large animals might have happened very early on this planet. I'm not sure if that would have made any difference by the time these intelligent ones evolved.
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I can imagine these guys tending herds of truck-tire cows, to begin with
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Aww, man, this is AWESOME!!! You took my idea and made it about 1000% cooler, which is what ~whale always does for me...It almost scares me how much this resembles my original image. Now I want to see one all armored up and ready to fight the non-wheeled races of the galaxy! (That was an element I added later; they are "wheel supremacists" and disdain legged organisms.)
You achieved a sense of the truly alien that was always missing from my own depictions. One of my favorite elements of your version is the dual rows of "pedal tentacles"--it wasn't clear from my decription, but the original idea was that the suction-tipped stalks were arranged in a single row around the Wheel's "equator." Two rows at the periphery makes SO much more sense, in every possible way--for balance, directional orientation, manipulation of artifacts, etc. etc.
I just can't find enough good things to say about this, so I'll stop before I embarrass myself.
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Oh and don't worry, I'm working on the Fascist Roto-supremacist Over-Wheel.
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The worlds of the galaxy will tremble before their thundering wheels!
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I really like the leg structure .. man, that makes the ol brain wheels turn. It looks very cute
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It's actually a horrible racist.
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suction cups on the tentacles/tendrils? that's my guess as to how it pulls itself along.
however it manages, its great.
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