...it's like TV Tropes, but LINKED DATA!
Life in Zero G
- 102 statements
- 18 feature instances
- 12 referencing feature instances
| Life in Zero G | type |
FeatureClass | |
| Life in Zero G | label |
Life in Zero G | |
| Life in Zero G | page |
LifeInZeroG | |
| Life in Zero G | comment |
Life, proverbially, finds a way, and a common element in Speculative Biology is imagining how life might respond to profoundly alien environments. Some of the most alien such places are those where one of the most fundamental aspects of life on Earth, gravity, is absent. This concept is related to that of the Lightworlder, but has notable differences. People living in gravity, low or high, move along a flat surface, with a defined up, down, front and back, and objects still fall universally downwards regardless of how quickly they may do so. By contrast, the world of someone living in zero gravity is in many ways more reminiscent of life underwater; everything exists in a state of buoyancy, floating freely and randomly unless tied down or otherwise secured, and directions are not cleanly distinguished from one another — up, down, left, right, front and back blend into a sphere of free movement. Instead of walking, jumping or even true flying, movement is most akin to swimming through a sea of air. As a consequence, people and animals living in these conditions tend to have appendages shaped like fins, paddles or wings with which to push themselves through the air. Also common are long, spindly limbs, often with prehensile apelike feet, with which to grip onto and climb through three-dimensional environments. Additionally, the growth of familiar lifeforms is geared to rely on the pull of gravity to orient itself — for instance, plants grow their roots towards the pull of gravity and their stems and leaves away from it. Most forms of plant and animal anatomy are also structured to work in environments where up is one way, down is another, and movement mostly occurs on a two-dimensional plane. Zero-g life is often depicted as growing in rather exotic ways, such as plants that grow leaves and roots at both ends, or out in every direction. Zero-g animals instead tend to have radial symmetry, with limbs and eyes spaced evenly around the axes of their bodies. Zero-g life can also reach sizes far in excess of what gravity-bound life can manage. Weight and its impact on movement, obviously, are a non-issue. Waste heat is also mitigated by the fact that living things can develop elaborate, delicate cooling fins and filigree-like structures that would collapse in on themselves under gravity. Even the limiting factor of pregnancy is relaxed by expectant mothers not needing to support the physical weight of developing fetuses. Overlap occurs with Space People. However, most Space People in fiction live in vessels with some form of artificial gravity, and consequently tend to either be Lightworlders or physically identical to real-life people. See also Space Whale, for creatures adapted for life in the void of space. Note: strictly speaking, there is no such thing as "zero gravity" in a universe in which mass exists somewhere; the proper term would be "microgravity" or "freefall". However, "zero gravity" is the more common term, since that's what media usually thinks that it's depicting. |
|
| Life in Zero G | fetched |
2024-03-06T08:01:17Z | |
| Life in Zero G | parsed |
2024-03-06T08:01:17Z | |
| Life in Zero G | processingComment |
Dropped link to FormerlySapientSpecies: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
| Life in Zero G | processingComment |
Dropped link to Lilliputians: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
| Life in Zero G | processingComment |
Dropped link to SkyWhale: Not an Item - UNKNOWN | |
| Life in Zero G | processingComment |
Dropped link to SquareCubeLaw: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
| Life in Zero G | processingUnknown |
SkyWhale | |
| Life in Zero G | isPartOf |
DBTropes | |
| Life in Zero G / int_2187bf22 | type |
Life in Zero G | |
| Life in Zero G / int_2187bf22 | comment |
Xeelee Sequence: The inhabitants of the generation ship Nord have slim bodies, arms only a little shorter than legs, and long toes, not as long as fingers but capable of grasping and manipulation — a body built for zero gravity. | |
| Life in Zero G / int_2187bf22 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Life in Zero G / int_2187bf22 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Xeelee Sequence | hasFeature |
Life in Zero G / int_2187bf22 | |
| Life in Zero G / int_30b4f7fa | type |
Life in Zero G | |
| Life in Zero G / int_30b4f7fa | comment |
All Tomorrows: The Spacers, humans who went into deep space to escape the Qu, heavily adapted themselves for their new home in giant, zero-G air-filled bubbles, developing extremely spindly limbs and digits for movement in zero-G, as well as pressurized guts and circulatory systems (which allowed them to develop a form of jet propulsion in the bargain). Their descendants, the Asteromorphs, adapt even further to this environment, evolving their legs into paddle-like fins used for steering in the air and developing Super-Intelligence due to gravity no longer constraining the size of their heads and brains. | |
| Life in Zero G / int_30b4f7fa | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Life in Zero G / int_30b4f7fa | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| All Tomorrows | hasFeature |
Life in Zero G / int_30b4f7fa | |
| Life in Zero G / int_367e56d | type |
Life in Zero G | |
| Life in Zero G / int_367e56d | comment |
Runaway to the Stars: "Spacer" refers to both a major human space political and cultural bloc and a Genetically Modified Human clade (GMH Spacers) that comprises a large fraction of their population. GMH Spacers have Handy Feet, Prehensile Tails, whiskers to detect air flow, and hirsutism (don't call them monkeys), but they have issues living in Earth-like gravity, with one GMH Spacer character who chose to live planetside needing a back brace to walk upright. | |
| Life in Zero G / int_367e56d | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Life in Zero G / int_367e56d | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Runaway to the Stars (Webcomic) | hasFeature |
Life in Zero G / int_367e56d | |
| Life in Zero G / int_60156176 | type |
Life in Zero G | |
| Life in Zero G / int_60156176 | comment |
Vorkosigan Saga: Quaddies are a Human Subspecies genetically engineered with an extra set of hands where their legs would normally be and with a number of other genetic modifications to make them capable of surviving indefinitely in microgravity or freefall. They're a former Slave Race rendered surplus to requirements by the invention of Artificial Gravity and fled to a remote asteroid-laden system to escape being sterilized and dumped on a lifeless planet. | |
| Life in Zero G / int_60156176 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Life in Zero G / int_60156176 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Vorkosigan Saga | hasFeature |
Life in Zero G / int_60156176 | |
| Life in Zero G / int_6ebc7165 | type |
Life in Zero G | |
| Life in Zero G / int_6ebc7165 | comment |
The Integral Trees: The Smoke Ring is a torus of gas around a star, and exists in an entirely zero-G environment. Its natives have adapted to this environment in a number of ways; they're very tall and thin compared to Earth humans, and have prehensile feet. The Smoke Ring's native life is further adapted for its conditions; notably, all local animals have trilateral symmetry, allowing them to see in a full ring around themselves, while the local humans retain the bilateral symmetry and forward-facing eyes of their terrestrial ancestors. | |
| Life in Zero G / int_6ebc7165 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Life in Zero G / int_6ebc7165 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Integral Trees | hasFeature |
Life in Zero G / int_6ebc7165 | |
| Life in Zero G / int_73c536ea | type |
Life in Zero G | |
| Life in Zero G / int_73c536ea | comment |
Love, Death & Robots: The Swarm in the episode of the same name are an insectoid race that inhabit a nest that drifts through space but contains a breathable atmosphere sealed off from the outside. With only minimal gravity, members of the Swarm (as well as human visitors) get around the nest by to "swimming" through the air. | |
| Life in Zero G / int_73c536ea | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Life in Zero G / int_73c536ea | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Love, Death & Robots | hasFeature |
Life in Zero G / int_73c536ea | |
| Life in Zero G / int_7f707367 | type |
Life in Zero G | |
| Life in Zero G / int_7f707367 | comment |
Freespace: The Starfish Alien Shivans are of unknown origins, but are theorized to have somehow evolved in a zero-gravity environment, highlighting how enigmatic and inscrutable they are. Their five limbs have a vaguely radial arrangement (two on top, two on bottom, and one behind), each one ending in a grasping appendage, and appear most suited for grabbing and pushing rather than any standard sort of locomotion. | |
| Life in Zero G / int_7f707367 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Life in Zero G / int_7f707367 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| FreeSpace (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Life in Zero G / int_7f707367 | |
| Life in Zero G / int_897271d7 | type |
Life in Zero G | |
| Life in Zero G / int_897271d7 | comment |
Alien in a Small Town: The Arachne are an alien species who prefer low and zero-G environments. They're all cyborgs who change their bodies as need be, favoring insect- and spider-like shapes to move more easily in gravity-free environments. | |
| Life in Zero G / int_897271d7 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Life in Zero G / int_897271d7 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Alien in a Small Town | hasFeature |
Life in Zero G / int_897271d7 | |
| Life in Zero G / int_8fda7950 | type |
Life in Zero G | |
| Life in Zero G / int_8fda7950 | comment |
Known Space: The Outsiders appear to have evolved in some kind of asteroid or cometary environments. They are naturally suited for a life in either extremely light gravity at best — even Luna's forgiving pull would kill them, after a while — move by releasing light gas jets form their tentacles' tips, and do not require any kind of atmosphere around themselves. Their ships are elaborate affairs of twisting metal that are mostly exposed to the hard vacuum of interstellar space, and in planetary systems they prefer to lease small, airless moons as waystations. | |
| Life in Zero G / int_8fda7950 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Life in Zero G / int_8fda7950 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Known Space | hasFeature |
Life in Zero G / int_8fda7950 | |
| Life in Zero G / int_9838249c | type |
Life in Zero G | |
| Life in Zero G / int_9838249c | comment |
Transhuman Space: The Tennin parahuman was designed by the Duncanites after they got kicked off Mars and fled to the Belt, with many advantages designed to make life easier in microgravity. There's also a variant used by the Wimmin's Pantropic Collective of Margaret Station at L5 that can reproduce by parthenogenesis. | |
| Life in Zero G / int_9838249c | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Life in Zero G / int_9838249c | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Transhuman Space (Tabletop Game) | hasFeature |
Life in Zero G / int_9838249c | |
| Life in Zero G / int_a2a386c9 | type |
Life in Zero G | |
| Life in Zero G / int_a2a386c9 | comment |
Orion's Arm: Freefall habitats aren't uncommon in the Terragen Sphere. For the most part, these consist of non-rotating space stations; freespheres, insulated air-filled bubbles that can be up to thousands of kilometers across; and Niven rings, tori of air around a star usually kept in with some form of solid or nanotech airwall. Human natives of such environments are usually modified to possess flippers, fins or wings, either on their limbs or growing from their sides. "Landscape" features consist mainly of artificially introduced objects and of 0-G-adapted trees, which tend to grow in circular or spherical shapes. Niven rings often partner with Dyson trees, spherical tree-derived plants designed to serve as deep space habitats, which orbit through the gas ring as a way to drop off and pick up passengers and to disperse pollen to be picked up by other trees. Freebirds are birds modified for life in zero gravity — birds adapt to low gravity fairly easily, but they evolved for life in an environment with a definite up and down (for instance, bird wings are vertically asymmetrical in order to generate upwards lift specifically) and need extensive modifications to live in true free fall. Common traits include symmetrical wings to generate life in either direction, shoulder joints capable of figure-eight wing movements, gecko-like feet capable of grasping perches at any angle, additional legs including ones on the "back", and extra eyes for a wider field of vision, and instinctive building of enclosed, egg-like nests instead of the usual cup-shaped ones. More advanced species tend to add traits such as wings modified into circular jellyfish-like "skirts" or rippling tails for propulsion, and often cease to look very much like birds at all. |
|
| Life in Zero G / int_a2a386c9 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Life in Zero G / int_a2a386c9 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Orion's Arm (Website) | hasFeature |
Life in Zero G / int_a2a386c9 | |
| Life in Zero G / int_a71cb0e6 | type |
Life in Zero G | |
| Life in Zero G / int_a71cb0e6 | comment |
Airborn: The third book of the series, Starclimber, focuses on life discovered by the characters in low Earth orbit while on the titular Space Elevator. Unfortunately, that includes a form of 'astral barnacle' that is eating away at the elevator's cable... | |
| Life in Zero G / int_a71cb0e6 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Life in Zero G / int_a71cb0e6 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Airborn | hasFeature |
Life in Zero G / int_a71cb0e6 | |
| Life in Zero G / int_c399cd39 | type |
Life in Zero G | |
| Life in Zero G / int_c399cd39 | comment |
Eclipse Phase has multiple morphs designed for microgravity, particularly Bouncers, although the basic biomods in most biomorphs and pods counteract the deleterious effects of life without gravity. | |
| Life in Zero G / int_c399cd39 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Life in Zero G / int_c399cd39 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Eclipse Phase (Tabletop Game) | hasFeature |
Life in Zero G / int_c399cd39 | |
| Life in Zero G / int_cf6ae01b | type |
Life in Zero G | |
| Life in Zero G / int_cf6ae01b | comment |
At the Mountains of Madness: The Elder Things are depicted as radially symmetrical around their central axis, with tentacles on one end, a ring of eyestalks on the other, and wings running down their sides that they use to fly the luminiferous aether (or sail the solar wind in later interpretations). | |
| Life in Zero G / int_cf6ae01b | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Life in Zero G / int_cf6ae01b | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| At the Mountains of Madness | hasFeature |
Life in Zero G / int_cf6ae01b | |
| Life in Zero G / int_d4d17cca | type |
Life in Zero G | |
| Life in Zero G / int_d4d17cca | comment |
Uglies: The "inhumans", the antagonists of the fourth book Extras, are revealed to be Good All Along. They aren't stealing metal to build a weapon, but to build rocketships, hoping to leave Earth, get into orbit, and start farming and establish a society in space to reduce human waste and footprint on Earth. Their bizarre, sometimes terrifying appearances, with prehensile toes and widened eyes, are adaptations made to make life in space easier. They also practice floating in zero-G as much as possible so they can get used to it ahead of time. To do this on Earth, they use hoverball rigs (a common piece of sports equipment in the series' future), setting them to zero-G mode and wearing them 24/7. As a result of the rigs and the body modifications, they've gotten phenomenally good at floating around and using whatever is nearby to propel themselves where they need to go. They call themselves Extraterrestrials, aka, Extras. The heroes support the Extras' endeavor once it's explained to them, and, to make up for the fact that they destroyed a few of the Extras' ships as a result of the misunderstanding, help them recruit, attracting several adventurous people to the project. | |
| Life in Zero G / int_d4d17cca | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Life in Zero G / int_d4d17cca | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Uglies | hasFeature |
Life in Zero G / int_d4d17cca | |
| Life in Zero G / int_e235270c | type |
Life in Zero G | |
| Life in Zero G / int_e235270c | comment |
Stellaris: Biological species with the "Void Dwellers" trait and the "Habitat" climate preference have evolved to live in artificial space habitats, and therefore suffer large penalties when settled inside gravity wells (i.e. on planets or moons). | |
| Life in Zero G / int_e235270c | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Life in Zero G / int_e235270c | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Stellaris (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Life in Zero G / int_e235270c | |
| Life in Zero G / int_ed86d97 | type |
Life in Zero G | |
| Life in Zero G / int_ed86d97 | comment |
Blue Planet: Spacers are a genetically modified subspecies of human designed for life in microgravity. In particular, they not only have Handy Feet but their hips are socketed more like arms. This means that many humans of other subspecies upon seeing a spacer walk in gravity think it looks wrong. | |
| Life in Zero G / int_ed86d97 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Life in Zero G / int_ed86d97 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Blue Planet (Tabletop Game) | hasFeature |
Life in Zero G / int_ed86d97 | |
| Life in Zero G / int_fcc3907 | type |
Life in Zero G | |
| Life in Zero G / int_fcc3907 | comment |
Nobledark Imperium: The Voidborn are Space People who have lived on spaceships for millennia, having enduring the fall of the Great and Bountiful Human Dominion and the ensuing dark ages on their fleets. They have long since gotten into the habit of not using artificial gravity on their ships, and have become pale, drawn-out and slender thanks to ages of this lifestyle. When the Tau explorer Por'O M'arc encounters one of their crews during his travels, he wonders to himself whether this will be the fate of his species' Air Caste. | |
| Life in Zero G / int_fcc3907 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Life in Zero G / int_fcc3907 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Nobledark Imperium (Fanfic) | hasFeature |
Life in Zero G / int_fcc3907 |
The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.
| Life in Zero G | processingCategory2 |
Gravity Tropes | |
| Life in Zero G | processingCategory2 |
Speculative Fiction Tropes | |
| Life in Zero G | processingCategory2 |
Tropes in Space | |
| Nobledark Imperium (Fanfic) / int_cfa1ad9 | type |
Life in Zero G | |
| Airborn / int_cfa1ad9 | type |
Life in Zero G | |
| Alien in a Small Town | processingUnknown |
Life in Zero G | |
| Uglies / int_cfa1ad9 | type |
Life in Zero G | |
| Xeelee Sequence / int_cfa1ad9 | type |
Life in Zero G | |
| Blue Planet (Tabletop Game) / int_cfa1ad9 | type |
Life in Zero G | |
| Eclipse Phase (Tabletop Game) / int_cfa1ad9 | type |
Life in Zero G | |
| Transhuman Space (Tabletop Game) / int_cfa1ad9 | type |
Life in Zero G | |
| Orion's Arm (Website) / int_cfa1ad9 | type |
Life in Zero G |
Copyright of DBTropes.org wrapper 2009-2013 DFKI Knowledge Management. Imprint. - Thanks to Bakken&Baeck for hosting. Contact.
Copyright of data TVTropes.org contributors under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
Copyright of data TVTropes.org contributors under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.