becka_sutton | Worldbuilding: Sulphuric Acid World

So I'm not sure how coherent this post will be since it's a slighltly tidied up stream of consciousness from where I was talking to a friend on Twitter about the second Intelligent species on my Sulphuric Acid World.

The second intelligent species I only found about last night when I was wondering why they initially had problems agreeing with humans about what plants and animals are. When I initially realised what I had my first thought was "argh it's a triffid" so I set to work to make sure they actually aren't triffids. So it's fair to say they don't look like this.

Anyway on with the post:

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I am currently trying to design an ambultory, intelligent carniverous plant that isn't a triffid ripoff

On my sulphuric acid world there's a whole kingdom of mobile plants (as well as animals and more normal plants).

The mobile plants have actually evolved something like a nervous system (unlike earth plants) and this has formed something more like a terrestial cordate CNS (protected by a woody skeleton) than the animal sulphies have. This woody skeleton is made of internal tubes of their equivalent of xylem.

(There's two intelligent species on sulphuric acid world - the plant one and the animal one).

Anyway plant sulphie 'brain' is found in a woody capsule under their digestive organ which is at the top and is like a pitcher (into which they feed their prey directly. I think they are not immediately recognisable as plants to humans and possibly look more humanoid than the animal sulphies (which are four legged, feathered critters with tentacles as manipulatory appendages) though even the plant sulphies don't look at all human but they are bipedal with an obvious "head".

They also photosynthesize (well they are plants) but due to their mobility they can't get enough energy that way.

(The animal ones descend from a cuttlefish like critter so while they do have an internal skeleton it's not like a vertebrate's.)

Plant sulphies can either reproduce by exchange of germ material (which is mediated by a symbiotic species like many plants on Earth) or clone themselves naturally via cuttings.

I don't know if they have eyes. I think they use photoreceptors all over their body and they communicate via a combination of scent and sound meaning their language is very difficult for other intelligent species to learn.

The animal and plant sulphies did not at first realise the other was intelligent and preyed on each other but seem to have realised about the time both species developed agriculture. Almost all Sulphie religions have myths about this

By the time they contact Earth (to buy Venus for bioforming) they've been living and working together for millenia and the plant sulphies have various sound only creoles they use to talk to the animal ones.

A shared characteristic of both species is that since they have no access to metal they grow a lot of their technology though they also have glass and ceramics. (Yes, this means they have living spaceships – advanced biotech is surprisingly common among aliens in this universe because of the number of worlds where metal is either not extractable (no free oxygen) or impractical due to rapid corrosion (acid worlds).