"Different Worlds for Very Different Folks..."
Handout
Here is how the writers who created these worlds solved the problems:
1. Cycle of Fire (Hal Clement): There are two completely different forms of life on Abyormen. One is more-or-less humanoid, and lives during the cool times. Almost all of them are the same age, because they all die off when the temperature rises above a certain point. The only exception are the "Teachers", who survive the hot time in ice caves near the poles, to pass on civilization to the next generation. When the hot time comes, the cool weather types die, and from their cells arise a starfish-like six-tentacled hot-time creature. They, in turn will die when the cool time comes again, except for their own Teachers, giving rise to the next generation of humanoids.
2. Close to Critical (Hal Clement): At nightfall, the atmospheric water condenses, and fills in all the low points. The natives become dormant at night, staying under the pools of water for protection.
3. Mission of Gravity (Hal Clement): The Mesklinites are expert sailors and traders on their methane oceans. They are fifteen inches long, and crawl on thirty-six legs. The enormous gravity as they head toward the poles makes the concept of throwing anything hideously dangerous. "If I were to throw anything at home it might very well land on someone - probably me. If something is let go - thrown or not - it hits the ground before anything can be done about it," says Barlennan, a Mesklinite ship's captain. If a Mesklinite from the Southern Hemisphere were to throw something, it would curve sharply to the left because of Coriolis effects. The same effects result in vicious storms as sinking air flows from the equator to the poles. The Mesklinites only live in the Southern Hemisphere - they believe they live in a great bowl, with the pole at the bottom.
4. Ringworld (Larry Niven): The Outsiders appear in a number of Larry Niven's books. "The Outsiders were traders of information... Their trading ground was the entire galactic whorl... Presumably they had evolved on some cold, light moon of a gas giant. Now they lived in the gaps between the stars, in city-sized ships whose sophistication varied enormously, from photon sails to engines theoretically impossible to human science. Where a planetary system held potential customers, and where such a system included a suitable world, the Outsiders would lease space... Half a century ago, they had leased Nereid (Neptune's moon). Nereid was an icy, craggy plain beneath bright sunlight. The sun was a fat white point giving off as much light as a full Moon; and that light illuminated a maze of low walls...". Speaker-to-Animals, hovering hugely behind Louis, said "I would know the purpose of the maze. Defense?" "Basking areas," said Louis. "The Outsiders live on thermoelectricity. They lie with their heads in sunlight and their tails in shadow, and the temperature difference between the two sets up a current. The walls are to make more shadow-borderlines."
5. The Ship Who Sang (Anne McCaffrey): The Corviki look like giant manta rays. They swim in the dense atmosphere, and live on the tremendous surges of energy caused by the temperature differences in atmospheric layers. They have developed powers to control energy expenditure, and use it recreationally.
6. Flare Time (Larry Niven): Every few miles, the ecology of Medea changes as one travels from the Hot End to the Cold. The dominant intelligent life form in the twilight zone are the "fuxes", which are vaguely centaur-like. They are born female with two arms and six legs. At between 7 and 18 years of age, they give birth for the first time, shedding the hind-most pair of legs to form a "nest" for the young. They will give birth one more time after they are 18, shedding the next pair of legs and becoming roughly humanoid males. When the suns flare, most Medean wildlife burrows into the ground or otherwise take cover. Some lifeforms become more active, breeding madly while the energy flows from the suns. They will form spores or eggs which survive until the next flare time. Some plants use the added light to grow and seed, and some smaller lifeforms emerge to eat the seeds while the flare lasts. The "baloons", creatures much like jellyfish, generate hydrogen from the energy and rise high into the air. (See also the novel "JEM", by Frederic Pohl, for a picture of a similar world).