Anyone Want Knowledge On Ta, Drekol, And Ap During This Hiatus? Feel Free To Ask One Or More Of These

anyone want knowledge on ◗ta, drekol, and ap during this hiatus? feel free to ask one or more of these questions with the specified sophont[s]

Alien Questionnaire - A Biological Perspective

A while ago, somebody linked me a very comprehensive worldbuilding questionnaire. For most aspects of a fictional society, it was great, but I noticed it assumed that anyone using it was making up a fictional human society, or at least a society of beings very similar to humans. As such, there was almost nothing in the biology department, which to me is one of the best parts! Thus, this questionnaire was born.

These questions are designed to help people worldbuild from a biological foundation. As such, the questionnaire only touches lightly on other aspects of a fictional society, and is more of a jumping off point. I wrote it with the aim of using it to develop aliens, but it should be suitable for any project with non-humanoid species, such as sapient terrestrial animals.

Have fun! I'd love to see your answers :)

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General Anatomy How many limbs do they have? Do they have limbs at all?

What are their primary manipulators? Where are they located? How does this affect their tool use, building ability, etc?

What kind of body covering do they have, e.g. hair, scales, feathers? How do they clean it? Do they shed this covering constantly, or all at once at certain times? 

Can they maintain a constant body temperature? If not, how do they deal with changing environmental temperatures? 

What kind of habitat do they live in? Both specific habitat, and broader such as on land vs in water.

What adaptations do they have for living in this habitat?

What kind of creature did they evolve from?

What are the similarities and differences to their closest living relatives? 

What resource(s) is the most necessary and urgent for them? E.g. for many animals, but not all, it’s water.

What are some common mutations? E.g. eye colours, ability to digest lactose in humans.

What injuries or illnesses are considered disabling? 

How is their healing ability? Can they regenerate? If they can, is that limited to certain body parts or a certain number of times?

Senses What senses do they have? E.g. sight, smell, electroreception, etc.

How good are those senses?

Which of their sense/s do they use the most in everyday life?

How might this choice of sense impact the way they interact with the world? 

Can they detect things that Earth creatures cannot? If yes, how and why?

Movement  How do they move? Do they walk, crawl, fly, etc? 

If they have multiple modes of movement, which is preferred, and why?

Which part/s of their body do they use to move?

What is their speed and endurance like? 

How agile are they? 

Do they rely mainly on their own bodies for travel, or do they use pack animals and machines? 

How often do they move around? Are they mainly sedentary, do they move a lot within a set area, do they migrate, etc?

Do they have different levels of mobility depending on age, sex, or other biological group? E.g. young barnacles are able to swim, while adults are anchored permanently to a surface. 

Reproduction and Lifecycle  How many sexes are there? 

Are there differences between the sexes (ignoring the reproductive system)? 

Are there different castes, such as in honeybees or naked mole rats? If so, what is the function of each caste? 

Are differences in sex or caste used to justify discrimination or hierarchy? How might these ideas differ in different populations? 

Do they have a concept of gender? If so, is gender affected by sex, caste, or some other factor?

How do they attract a mate? Do they release a chemical into the air, do an elaborate display, etc?

Does one individual try to actively woo another, or is courtship more mutual?

What do they find attractive in members of the same species?

What is the usual reproductive partnership? E.g. two individuals, one main reproducing individual with a harem, no set partner, etc. 

How long do they live?

How are young brought into the world? Live birth, eggs, spores, etc?

Is producing young a painful, dangerous process, or is it easy?

How much parental investment is there? Are there many young with little investment, or few young with a lot of investment (r vs K strategy)? Or is it somewhere in the middle? 

How many offspring are produced at a time? Think about how attitudes towards children may differ between a species that produces one or two, and a species that produces dozens or even hundreds at a time.

How do they grow? Are they born looking like miniature adults, gradually growing bigger? Do they have specific phases of high growth, like puberty? Do they have a larval phase, metamorphosis? 

How self-sufficient are they as young? Can they move around and feed themselves as soon as they are born? Do they require parental care? 

What is the usual structure of childcare? Single or multiple parents/related individuals? Communally raised? 

Is sex purely for reproduction, or does it serve other purposes?

What kind of sexuality is considered the norm? This doesn’t just refer to same/other sex pairings, but the culture around sex in general.

Diet and Foodchain What is their diet? Are they carnivores, omnivores, frugivores, insectivores, etc?

Do they feed off an unusual source, for example rocks, metals, or (in appropriate settings) something like magic or souls?

What physical adaptations do they have for this diet? 

Is their diet very restricted, or can they have a wide range of foods?

How often do they eat? What is the culture around mealtimes, if any?

Are they prey for other organisms? For each other?

If they are, how do they deal with it? Do they fight back, have barriers, or do they accept it as a part of life?

If they are hunters themselves, what is their attitude to killing other organisms? Are they respectful? Prideful of their kill? Is it completely trivial? 

If they are hunters, how do they hunt? Are they solitary or packhunters? Are certain members of the group designated to hunt? 

Are the results of foraging or hunting shared, or is it everyone for themself?

Are they parasitic, parasitised, or in a symbiotic relationship with any other organisms? 

Body Rhythms How often do they sleep?

What time of the day are they most active? Are they nocturnal, diurnal, crepuscular? 

Do they generally sleep for one long period a day, multiple shorter periods throughout, or something in between? 

Do they sleep to cope with extreme temperatures or bad conditions, i.e. hibernate or aestivate?

Do they have any biological processes that disrupt their life e.g. moulting, reproductive cycles, etc?

If yes, how does their society accommodate for these processes? Does it accommodate them at all? 

Communication What is their main method of communication? Sound, visuals, scent, etc? Think about their main sense and how this would affect communication.

What is their body language like? What small moving parts might aid their body language?

If they have multiple methods of communication, are they all given equal weight, or is one considered higher than others? 

Society How sociable are they? 

If social, what is the usual social structure? 

Are there hierarchies? How strict or relaxed are the roles?

How are disputes usually settled? Is it more common to be violent or appease the other party? 

If not social, what is the reaction to being with other individuals? Do they become aggressive or stressed? Do they tolerate each other? 

What is the usual size of a community? Do they have communities at all? 

Do they have an in-group vs out-group mentality? If so, how strong is it? This generally relates to how scarce or plentiful resources were during their evolution, and how territorial their ancestors were.

What kind of bonds do they form? 

On the spectrum of individualistic to community-oriented, where do they fall?

Do they have a strong sense of personal identity? Think about how this might tie in with the previous question. 

What are the main things they derive identity from? Occupation, gender, family ties, etc?

Do they have names? If yes, how are these names formed? Are they given by another party or chosen by the individual?

Have they domesticated any creatures? If so, what do they use these creatures for?

Do they have any unusual relationships with other creatures on their planet (beyond predation, parasitism or mutualism)?

Do they produce art? What are their main forms of artistic expression? Think about how this will be linked to their main sense(s), communication method, and/or primary manipulators.

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GLOSSARY Primary manipulator: Main body part used to manipulate objects, e.g. hands in humans, trunks in elephants, feet in parrots.

Sedentary: Inactive, staying in the same place.

Caste (reproductive): A group within a species with differences in body type and reproductive ability.

Symbiosis/Mutualism: Interactions where both parties benefit, e.g. cleaner fish getting a meal in exchange for picking irritating parasites off larger fish.

Aestivate: To become inactive during hot or dry periods, usually involving being sealed in mucus or soil e.g. lungfish, snails. 

Reproductive cycle: Regular hormone fluctuations that affect an animal’s fertility or attitude towards breeding. The cycles can range from months to years and can include things such as antler growth in male deer, heat cycles, and menstruation in humans.

heres some description of ath and lotred as per the poll

Lotred: A superficially earth-like planet, from a view of the planet and not the life on it that is, Lotred is home to a bouquet of organisms which blur the lines between flora and fauna, having organisms which are highly mobile but photosynthetic, or highly sessile and heterotrophic, and a full range of organisms inbetween, Lotred has a higher amount of silicate than earth does and this effects almost everything in Lotreder biology, the main flora of Lotred is composed of high amounts of organic silicate glass, and certain organisms have skeletons composed of calcium silicate, the terrestrial fauna of Lotred is a mix of tripodal primarily megafaunal organisms with exoskeletons, and bipedal primarily smaller endoskeletal organisms, Lotred is home to the Drekol, Lotred orbits around an A-type star and has a ring system as well as two moons of similar composition and size Ath: A rogue planet with a subsurface ocean, Athian organisms are divided into many groups, two primary faunal groups are a group with a skeleton derived from muscles which can adjust depending on the pressure around them in order to keep their body relatively intact even in low pressure environments, four tentacles, five eyes, and ray-fin like fins, and a clade of snail like organisms with 8 eyes, 3 mantle skirt like structures they use for locomotion, two mouths, and usually a shell which they can retract into which can close on them, the snail like organisms function as a multiple major "floral" clade of chemotrophs, Athian "plants" are jointed yellow thermotrophs which riddle hydrothermal vents alongside other "floral" clades of snails, Ath is home to the Ap, Ath has 4 moons of varying size and 2 of them have a handful of moonmoons

macrodermaderes, more commonly called a oasis fleshhoof, are large seelenlos which wander around the oasis that they call home, eating the “leaves” off of nearby trees and the fruits of ammonianthus, theres usually about 4 to 5 macrodermaderes around oases, they will mate with each other whenever their oasis’ particular ammonianthus begin fruiting, laying about 20 eggs per clutch very soon after their young hatch they will leave the oasis their oviparent lives in, similar to ostoexoapo and most ichthyongiu with every macrodermaderes they reproduce with they both fertilize their mates eggs and get their eggs fertilized by their mate, they have a small layer of fuzz on their back to avoid the radiation from their star, and a large dewlap on their neck to help with thermoregulation, if you have any questions at all please dont be afraid to ask im more than overjoyed to answer

rhynchodontodilitria, more commonly called a venomous rattler, are venomous seelenlos which riddle the maschoran desert, theyre relatively solitary, only interacting with other venomous rattlers if they wish to mate, or they are fighting over food, if they chose to mate with another rhynchodontodilitria, they will judge the archiena on their potential mates face as well as the pigments in their klariech, and whichever display is the most impressive will end up as the graiparent, their back is covered with a layer of almost scale like archeina to cover their skin and insure that their back is not constantly bombarded by solar rays, they also have a layer of brachodas on the bottom of their feet to avoid them burning, if they feel threatened they will inflate the small sac that hangs off of their throat and make a rattling sound to intimidate the potential threat as well to show their venomous nature, they generally hunt small game like cotlyglot and ocullophoderes but on occasion will hunt larger game such as macronuch and macrodermaderes, using a similar way of hunting to early humans, by attacking whenever the prey stops or slows down to rest, though for the rhynchocdontodilitria this method goes a lot faster due to their venom, if you have any questions about this seelenlos please dont be afraid to ask im more than happy to answer

cotlyglot, more commonly called a cuptongued thief, are small generalists that frequently invade nests and burrows in order to steal and eat eggs, they also eat any ostoexoapo they find, most frequently fortipelta, they will also eat most of the plants they come across, even digging to find tubers beneath pachyrodiciphytes, they share a clade with feather ears having their glosspharyncal opening at the back of their mouth which lets them use their tongue to help pull things into their mouth faster than if they had a typical seelenlos tongue, if they have recently mated they will search for a corpse and lay their eggs inside of them, if you have any questions about this eelenlos please dont be afraid to ask im more than happy to answer

an [admittedly sloppy] information post regarding the two planets

when i get my data back, about a year from then i will be starting one of the other planets, that being said