Personally, if my body could adpt or if technology was good enough - ES B2F! :)

[Nosferatiel]

For one, any kind of circulatory system cannot function in a tall life form on a high gravity planet.

This would of course pose a problem even to plant life, since the osmotic pressure in the plant stem would have to exceed the pressure generated by the water column in the stem and that pressure is proportional to the gravity of the planet.
On the other hand, single celled organisms, fungii and moss, basically everything almost 2D in shape, might very well thrive given the right circumstances.

Secondly, unless the planet is an ocan planet or has an extremely dense, fluid-like atmosphere, the soft tissue of carbon based, water-dependent life forms needs some form of support structure, i.e. a skeleton of some kind (endo or exo). Any kind of skeleton would break if it was too tall, especially on a high-gravity planet.

For a nitrogen based atmosphere you wouldn't get a fluid-like atmosphere at all, but a supercritical gas, unless we're speaking about a 100 K planet and for high gravity the atmospheric friction should heat things up. See the phase diagram of nitrogen.
This is even worse than what you stated, obviously. ^^
Anyways, I agree that on high gravity planets you would have to stick to flat lifeforms. That's actually the reason why I made my contribution for the faction creation contest grow parallel to the ground.

[Taliesyn]

For a nitrogen based atmosphere you wouldn't get a fluid-like atmosphere at all, but a supercritical gas, unless we're speaking about a 100 K planet and for high gravity the atmospheric friction should heat things up. See the phase diagram of nitrogen.
This is even worse than what you stated, obviously. ^^

Um, considering that our own atmosphere is 78% nitrogen, it wouldn't be out of line at all to call OURS a nitrogen-based atmosphere. Besides, naturally occurring nitrogen N2 is insanely stable - it's just not reactive enough to support life. NITRATES can be and are used, but not pure nitrogen.

[Nosferatiel]

Um, considering that our own atmosphere is 78% nitrogen, it wouldn't be out of line at all to call OURS a nitrogen-based atmosphere. Besides, naturally occurring nitrogen N2 is insanely stable - it's just not reactive enough to support life. NITRATES can be and are used, but not pure nitrogen.

My point was that even under very high pressure a N₂ based atmosphere will not be liquid, unless also very cool.

P.S.: And yes, our atmosphere is nitrogen based. I chose nitrogen as the base of the atmosphere due to it's relative occurence in the universe, inertness and the similarity to earth's atmosphere.
I'm not sure anything could thrive in a hydrogen based atmosphere...

[EisenKreutzer]

Um, considering that our own atmosphere is 78% nitrogen, it wouldn't be out of line at all to call OURS a nitrogen-based atmosphere. Besides, naturally occurring nitrogen N2 is insanely stable - it's just not reactive enough to support life. NITRATES can be and are used, but not pure nitrogen.

Yes, our atmosphere is nitrogen based. Nitrogen based atmospoheres will never be liquid or liquid-like. That was his point. ^^

[Taliesyn]

Yes, I replied to that point because that was the very first mention of nitrogen in the entire thread, when no one mentioned it. On top of that, that part of his statement, as written, was WRONG, because our atmosphere is nitrogen-based, and it is most certainly not supercritical.

I see now, after rereading it a couple times, that there's an implied 'in extremely heavy gravity and thus ultra-high pressure situations' that's not included in his statement, but it wasn't precisely what I call obvious. Maybe it's because I hadn't had my caffeine yet.

Besides, under that much gravity, the atmosphere would be mostly likely to be predominantly a mix of hydrogen, helium, and methane, tending toward the hydrogen as gravity increases, making a supercritical N2 atmosphere a non-issue. The whole reason our atmosphere is nitrogen-based is because Earth's gravity is too low to retain those gasses in the atmosphere - high gravity planets would have retained those light gasses from their formation.

[DMT]

It would be a fantastic tourist destination.

Imagine leaving earth, visiting the high gravity for say a 10 year holiday. Then come back to earth and 1000 years has passed. EPIC! I would then join the federation or equivalent

[Taliesyn]

It would be a fantastic tourist destination.

Imagine leaving earth, visiting the high gravity for say a 10 year holiday. Then come back to earth and 1000 years has passed. EPIC! I would then join the federation or equivalent

It would likely be easier and safer to do a relativistic close orbit of a black hole for ten subjective years than to survive gravity intense enough to cause 100:1 time dilation.

[DMT]

There is a higher chance of beaches on the high gravity planet than in a black hole and possibly some native dense women . Though it would be a super spectacle to see all those stars going at 1000 times the speed of our own nearby stars speed and all that new stuff being created

[Taliesyn]

There is a higher chance of beaches on the high gravity planet than in a black hole and possibly some native dense women . Though it would be a super spectacle to see all those stars going at 1000 times the speed of our own nearby stars speed and all that new stuff being created

Yeah, it wouldn't actually look like that. Light gets slowed down too (as speed inherently includes time), so everything would appear to be normal as far as you were concerned.

ETA: On top of that, I think the mass needed to get the distortion you're looking for would require a neutron or quark star at the minimum, or else a supergiant. There is just too much mass involved for the planet to not ignite and start fusing hydrogen.

[DMT]

Yeah, it wouldn't actually look like that. Light gets slowed down too (as speed inherently includes time), so everything would appear to be normal as far as you were concerned.

Dammit that is true. Well in that case it would still be very interesting because all these things are still "fresh" in comparison to our area of the galaxy We would see some mad stuff in there that is too far away to see from here As a bonus, we see it relative to what makes sense so we should be able to see it with telescopes and the naked eye, not as much recording, and slowing down X 5000

The same goes for the high gravity places but for different reasons

[n18991c]

There are a number of reasons for why not actually. ^^ For one, any kind of circulatory system cannot function in a tall life form on a high gravity planet. Secondly, unless the planet is an ocan planet or has an extremely dense, fluid-like atmosphere, the soft tissue of carbon based, water-dependent life forms needs some form of support structure, i.e. a skeleton of some kind (endo or exo). Any kind of skeleton would break if it was too tall, especially on a high-gravity planet. I know this is fiction and anything goes, really, but I like lots of science in my science fiction.

That's exactly my point though, EisenKreutzer. I'm not saying your argumentation or logic are flawed, rather that my point is a different one: you are indeed correct in saying that lifeforms using circulatory systems would find it difficult to function in high gravity environments and that carbon-based life forms such as humans would thus not be able to survive in such hostile enviroments; however, my point was that life in such an environment would not have to be carbon-based nor human. I was thinking more along the lines of the universe being gigantic, many things existing which we cannot grasp and that therefore our absolute science in fact amounts to little more than a limited beginners understanding of the universe. My argumentation was more theoretical than practical - I think that species like, say, the crystalline Tholians from startrek could exist simply because one could make the argument "why not?"!

So, not to worry, I'm not saying you've got your facts wrong, I'm just "dreaming" if you like

[EisenKreutzer]

I can dig that. I do it all the time. I just like to stick with what we know about the universe.

You could, for example, imagine a race of intelligent crystalline structures which function like advanced quantum computers. They could trap light inside their forms, bouncing it around inside themselves to alter the quantum states of their individual particles to achieve sentience. Such immobile life forms would not use technology of any kind, since they cannot manipulate the world around them, but they could very well exist in a virtual society. They could even be mobile in some mechanical way. Such life could exist on a planet almost regardless of the gravitational conditions.

[n18991c]

I like the way you think. And I love finding common ground

Whether or not sentient beings in, for example, crystalline form could become mobile or not, now that's a good question!

[EisenKreutzer]

If they could in some way manipulate their crystalline growth, they could perhaps fashion themselves into simple machines, which could in turn produce more complex machines.

[n18991c]

hm... sounds like the Sowers to me!