Life on Venus
Space Cadet
You've no reason to believe me, and I'll admit I'd be the first to say I'm
a kook were I someone else reading my words. But bits and pieces of
knowledge from elsewhere in the cosmos have been slowly drizzled upon
humanity ever since we first acquired grammatical thinking & the subsequent
language which inevitably accompanies it. I am familiar with the process
whereby this dispersal of knowledge occurs, and it is much less spectacular
or impressive than anyone would be likely to guess if they felt compelled
to try. "Microprobes" is the essence of it - knowledge is exchanged
throughout the cosmos via microprobes due to the untenability of meaningful
interstellar travel in timescales practical and useful to the average
civilization. Particularly organic civilizations, but even non-organic
civilizations seldom bother to drift about through space.
In any event, I am host to one such microprobe. They embed themselves into
the minds of whatever species they happen to encounter and then unfold over
the course of the being's life, both acquiring knowledge of the being and
its world as well as imparting knowledge which from a cosmic standpoint
might be useful and relevant to the species as it evolves. There are many
individuals on the world who are host to such probed, and most of them are
aware of it (though perhaps not in the "microprobe" lingo I use).
One of the things to be conveyed to humans via such devices is the fact
that the universe is literally teeming with life, even on worlds such as
Venus & Mars. It's largely microbial, and in the case of Venus is almost
entirely sub-surface. Martian life is much closer to the surface, though
generally nestled neatly beneath the permafrost. In gas worlds such as
Jupiter & Saturn, a plethora of lifeforms tend to evolve, though as they
tend to lack any sturdy base upon which to evolve a more -grounded-
existence, they're generally not equipped either psychologically or
physically for developing any sort of meaningful technology (things like
iron ore and latex-bearing trees don't tend to become airborn, not even on
a windy giant like Jupiter, and even those which do don't tend to stay
there very long - iow, the resources for developing technology are
unattainable to most gas-giant organisms).
The microbes of Venus can largely be found in a location similar to where
many extremophiles are found on Earth - near fault lines, particularly in
the depts of the trenches between what tectonic network there is on Venus.
One reason is that so-called "hot ice" forms in the crust of Venus, and as
it churns slowly to the surface, it is liquified long enough and held in by
the surface shell of the vulcan crust that actual water-using life can
emerge and thrive in cases. Of course, most organisms on Venus don't need
water, but other liquids often serve the same purpose.
Venus had once housed a technological civilization, some of which had made
it to Earth and Mars before self-anihilation via a runaway greenhouse
effect. Those beings are no longer represented in any gene pool extant
today - i.e., they were not the ancestors of any martian or terrestrial
lifeforms, though some of their bacterial and microbial life had managed to
adapt to the local ecology quite well.
Mars has housed technological settlements, also, but largely only as
outposts for beings passing through. No long-term technology has ever
existed on Mars.
Io and Titan both contain forms of life which once discovered will reveal
quite a few surprises to humanity. We look forward to watching this event,
though not for quite a few years yet. I, in particular, am hoping to be
able to watch this from a human perspective, meaning I hope that it happens
before this body gets too old to continue and I'm forced to go back from
whence I came.
In any event, just letting you know a thing or two. Most of you won't
believe it, and this is well as it should be.
Over and out - for now. :-)
ll