# Bioship Designs



## AlexanderSen

Lately, after reading a post by Jester85, I have been inspired by the ideas of Bio-tech. 
I have limited resources because I am in the hospital right now but I made do with what I got and I did some pen/ink conceptual drawings. The designs are of two bioships which carry passengers. Sort of an ocean-liner of sorts. 

One has a whale shark mouth like mouth which functions similar to a jet intake. It also has side pockets openings which serve as door/entrances and are covered in slimey residue which seals the openings shut.

The octopus like one has a movable tunnel entrance in the back which serves as a gangway connector like that od airports. While the tentacles serve as mooring lines. 

I don't have access to Photoshop here so I am limited in capacity. The pics are only B&W drawings, but I'll see if I can't get my markers out and color them when I have some time.


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## ShotokanXL

Cool designs. I particularly like the opctopus one. Organic technology is a great concept. Babylon 5 dabbled with it (the Vorlons and Shadows used organic ships, if memory serves) and it was done particularly well in the reimagined BSG - to the point where the lines are really blurred.

Again, cool stuff. Be great to see more


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## ShotokanXL

Cool designs. I particularly like the opctopus one. Organic technology is a great concept. Babylon 5 dabbled with it (the Vorlons and Shadows used organic ships, if memory serves) and it was done particularly well in the reimagined BSG - to the point where the lines are really blurred.

Again, cool stuff. Be great to see more


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## Prescott Fry

Do either of you create illustrations for writing?


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## ShotokanXL

Prescott Fry said:


> Do either of you create illustrations for writing?


Just stuff based on my own work. Nothing professional.


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## AlexanderSen

Hi! I have been away doing other things for a while, but recently I have been getting back into digital painting and photoshop. Here is an new work based upon the concept of bioships. It's probably for a dense gaseous or water planet. I also played with a version for space that would use ramjets - but would those two puny intakes in the front of the craft be able to collect enough fuel? It probably would need a large scoop funnel in the front.  I put in some reference to an old classic sentient being that is capable of driving himself, as well as a mish-mash of other sci fi ref. Feel free to leave comments and critiques. Any constructive criticism would be appreciated!


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## Droflet

Nice.


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## AlexanderSen

I have been at it again, trying to develop an interesting, but believable bio-ship(s), and it has been quite a challenge. I am not totally happy with the piece, but I see it as a work in progress, and a continuation of my design from my previous works. So, here's my progress so far: I liked the idea of a Space Whale Cruise ship - whales with their big slow graceful movements, and cruises, the relaxing atmosphere of long exotic tours. The two ideas just seem to fit together naturally.

I thought the creature should be reminiscent of a whale, yet not exactly look like one. Playing with the design; I debated on where to give it a vertical fin, like a fish which is better for side to side movement, or to give it a horizontal tail like a whale/mammal which has better up and down movement. I even had played with a design with a propeller and a rudder, but then I thought to myself how would this work? An organic ship with a propeller would need to have parts which are not permanently joined or connected in a way so continuous rotation would be possible, which I wonder if it is even possible for an organic animal due to the nature of organic growth. I don`t know of any animal that has a rotation of over 360 degrees in their joints. Of course I guess it could be something like a cyborg... A mix of bio-tech with machine-tech, but then it would no longer be a bio-ship... 
In the end I decided to give it extra fins, so it doesn't look like an exact whale, but still keep the whale tail and whale face to have some recognizable features of whales for the viewer to relate to.

Right now, I feel like the ship should be more colorful, I will probably do another version with more a radiant myriad of colors for more of a festive feel.


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## AlexanderSen

I suddenly realized our arms and legs are mounted on a pivoting ball joint which can spin infinitely in one direction. lol


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## AlexanderSen

Is there any way to edit old posts? I thought it would be in poor taste to post 3 times consecutively - it kinda feels like I am spamming posts...  But anyhow, here are some more Bio-ship Designs. I felt that my last Space Whale Cruise Ship design looked a little too mechanical, and too much like a cruise ship, and not organic enough. So, I went back to doing some pen and ink drawings and came up with these designs. I feel they are more in the right direction. Any constructive criticism/feedback would be appreciated!


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## ErikB

I'm designing a more insect like vessel that is not so much biological as bio inspired design. Insects being a base model for what my aliens consider "organic" thinking and design.


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## ErikB




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## AlexanderSen

Hi, after a hiatus I am back with more bioship stuff.

ErikB, that's an interesting design you have there. So, what is your bioship's intended use? Warfare? Construction? Cargo? Or something else? It's looks kind of aggressive with all its sharp, pointy bits, but there are no visible weapons I can see besides maybe, its claw-like appendages. 

To further develop your design you can ask yourself, “How would you construct/create/grow these type of ship and why would someone choose your bioship over an mechanical one?”

In my world (after doing some research), where FTL(Faster Than Light) travel has not been realized yet, I envision that there are several different reasons for using bioships over mechanized vehicles:

1) Bioships are able to heal and can repair their damaged systems on their own which is a big plus. While, mechanized vehicles, though they can get replacement parts, actually are a logistical nightmare/hell to repair. The parts themselves first need to be manufactured at a factory back on your home planet and then sent to the broken down vehicle light years away, without FTL it is far easier to have a unit who only needs food, or can get resources from its current environment around it to heal and rebuild itself. Of course, you can carry spare mechanized parts on your ship, but how many parts can you really carry? Surely not all the parts, for that would weigh you down substantially. Don't forget that the cost of sending things into space costs heap loads of money and resources (currently ~$10,000US per pound IRL from what I remember).

Also a part of my inspiration of these ideas came from watching a documentary on WW2 which talked about how the famous German Tanks, such as the Panther and Tiger, suffered from such a logistical problem. The Tiger and Panthers tanks, that were highly engineered were very effective in their roles, but being highly engineered they had a down fall - it made them much harder to repair, as it required specific highly manufactured parts that were hard to get in the battlefield that made the tanks more of a liability and resource sink than a effective solution to the war effort. *Many of the vehicles broke down and were just discarded because as it was too hard to fix or to do field repairs on.* Costly to manufacture, these expensive machines *were left and abandoned making it a great waste of resources.* I believe this is one of the contributing factors that lead to the outcome of the war (luckily for us Allies!). Thus having a simple robust unit that can be repaired easily or healed(maintained) is an important factor in the effort to colonize new worlds and travel in space. Imagine how hard it is to send a specific replacement part light years away from you to where your broken vehicle is. Sure, you can order another part, but it might take 300 years before the part to even arrive!

2) Bioships can grow, this is like healing, but different in that it means you can start with a smaller ship which weighs a lot less, and is a lot easier for it to reach critical velocity to escape the planets orbit with the lower payload size it also allows for much less front end investment, thus, initially needing to send less supplies into space the ships are more disposable. Also as they grow they can evolve and adapt becoming more viable in their roles as opposed to becoming outdated due to changes in its environment.

3) Bioships are able to live off the land/environment, and again reinforcing the point of carry less resources on board, and having a more robust unit. Being able to graze off the environment allows for less need for infrastructure such as fuel stations and roads.

I have been working on a new piece based upon the new concepts I have stated in this post. In it is the larger generational colony ships as opposed to my earlier designs of smaller vehicles that used mainly as passenger transports/ferries. These colony ships have life spans in the hundred and thousand of Earth years, going far beyond the lifespan of humans. These giant monoliths which bond with the handlers, are ships that are passed down from one generation to the next. The secrets of nurturing the ship and maintaining the bond is a secret rite to connect it to the host/pilot to the ship. The ship is merged with a handler who serves the rest of their live as a host bonded to the ship, until the host passes away and is handed down to the next host

I also took my favorite designs from my previous posts and designs and added some textures to give them a more rendered feel.


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## ErikB

Warfare and exploration. 

I would venture to say that having obvious weapon systems such as turrets to guns and cannons would represent a more primitive technology level. That beings advanced enough would incorporate weapons that went beyond standard offense and defense devices. Weapons using energy, magnetic fields, chemical fields, radiation, and elements that we as yet lack in our own periodic table. 

But these are loose designs that are not organic in nature, rather imitating organic form. There is an interesting annotation in the non fiction book "The Secret Lives of Plants" discussing metal have a memory that is contained molecularly in the various types of metal. But not cognisance of course. 

By the same token it is also not shape memory in which metals may return to a primary form if bent from that form. It was an interesting passage which might be something akin to a pathway for fusing inorganic with organic materials. A sort of bio to non biological reception and conductivity of energy. 

This making your living bioship a far more scientifically viable idea than perhaps otherwise believed.


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## SilentRoamer

AlexanderSen said:


> 1) Bioships are able to heal and can repair their damaged systems on their own which is a big plus. While, mechanized vehicles, though they can get replacement parts, actually are a logistical nightmare/hell to repair. The parts themselves first need to be manufactured at a factory back on your home planet and then sent to the broken down vehicle light years away, without FTL it is far easier to have a unit who only needs food, or can get resources from its current environment around it to heal and rebuild itself. Of course, you can carry spare mechanized parts on your ship, but how many parts can you really carry? Surely not all the parts, for that would weigh you down substantially. Don't forget that the cost of sending things into space costs heap loads of money and resources (currently ~$10,000US per pound IRL from what I remember).



Hey there, was just reading through your posts and wanted to point something out 

It's very unlikely you would ever have Ship Repair bays at the bottom of a gravity well. As you say it would be far too expensive in terms of fuel but given we have bioships we can assume a better ratio. Best place for Shipyards would be in hollowed out asteroids somewhere quiet on the belt or even in standard orbital platforms although they wouldn't carry the raw resources of asteroids.

I would probably develop bioships that grow in space using solar energies or grow in Interstellar Nurseries consuming the gases their and they would only function outside of a gravity well and outside of an atmosphere. Probably use some sore of solar based propulsion system with a huge wingspan hundreds of KM across (imagine a huge spiders web with a central control area) which would house the brain and main processing area, the edges of the "web" would house a very accurate and finely tuned antenna with a broadcast capability. 

To make it interesting in my imagination these creatures aren't controlled by humans we can just use regular ships to get "on board" and they piggyback us across Intersolar space whilst travelling around (whatever reasons they travel around and any higher form of language are completely opaque to humans, much like ants in a colony looking up as a human strides across their home).

Just some thoughts


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## AlexanderSen

SilentRoamer, I did some more designs using your suggestions. Well, sort of anyways. The first one is a side shot of a giant web like sail in the front. The yellow green on this ship is more an plant like design where the ship just uses the light as a sail and energy collector.

While the second one (red and blue) has a has sails appendages spreading out from the center core, but the sails are more reminiscent of boat sails or tentacles with wind pockets as I call them - I don't know how realistic this is, but it was cool, so...

I am also working on another couple designs which are more on long the lines of what you have suggested with the web solar sail. I will post them once they are ready.


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## AlexanderSen

Here is another design, it mashes the web sail idea with a translucent body. There are little antennas around the outside of the ship, and a jellyfish-brain like structure in the middle of the giant sail.


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## SilentRoamer

That's really cool.

What application are you using to draw/design these?


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## AlexanderSen

Thanks~! I use Photoshop mostly. I am learning digital painting online and taking online courses in my spare time from websites like Ctrl Paint, CDW Studios, and SVS(Society of Visual Storytelling). I am also trying to get more into 3D programs, but I haven't got very far into it. I guess I am a creature of habit...


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## AlexanderSen

Lately, I have been pondering on Bioships and their relationship / role in an ecosystem. 

The pursuit and refinement of Biotech with the human species had begun a long time ago, as early as least 2000-6000 years ago, with the domestication of animals and farming with such things as corn, can be considered as early forms and precursors to GMOs and genetic engineering. Humans used processes such as artificial selection on species/organisms such as corn corps, dog (breeding), and the domestication of animals such as cows. They could be considered the father to the process of genetic modding. In the future, growing bioships by methods such as selective breeding and gene-splicing to create/grow/build bio-vehicles for transportation and bio-machines for resource processing and commercial industry are a plausible reality. 

In regards to Scifi, other possible species which might have mastered biotech to a competent degree, I imagine would also have extensive knowledge of: genes and organic chemistry; understanding of simple celled organisms to complex animals; and some sort of understanding of ecosystems, environmental sciences(such as terraforming). I see Bioships not only as stand alone entity, but part of a Terraforming / colonization process of other planets. Cars, to function efficiently, need infrastructure with things such as roads, gas stations, and mechanics/service shops. But if we use horses, an more organic comparison closer to bioships, are living organisms which tend to need less infrastructure as they draw upon the natural environment to acquire food/fuel for what they need.

For bioships to be effective, I feel that there still is a need to develop a process of developing a favorable environment for bioships, even though needing less than machines, still need some sort of environmental adaptation(terraforming) to function effectively in. This process begins with observing and analyzing current ecosystems and environments to create and evolve native organisms into malleable/useful bio-matter which can be harvested and molded and grown into bioships from preexisting ecologys(ecologies).

For colonizing foreign planets one of the possible first steps(first wave) is sending inexpensive simple probes/recon/surveying/scout out onto other planets to collect and send data back to the hive source for the second wave of evolution and genetic modding, as well as, carrying with them the basic genetic materials to be used as a catalyst to start a Panspermia event on foreign planets with "Goldilocks" conditions for the biogenesis process. These drones should be fairly self -sufficient and require low energy and a minimum amount of resources to function. Simple in design they would carry with them a simple Genetic sequence code matrix which would react to and hatch/spawn in the right conditions. The second wave would include building ships from the data acquired by the recon drones and to secure key resources for further development. They could be bringing with them biological DNA seeds, form their home world, with a 'Shotgun method' where millions of inexpensive drones are fired onto a planet carrying with them a core sample of the primal seeds and DNA material from their home planet gives it a good chance to trigger a Panspermia event. 

These are some of the Drones I envisioned would be used for the First Wave of Infesting and Terraforming.


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## EJ Heijnis

There are some really interesting designs in this thread. Very inspiring!


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## AlexH

AlexanderSen said:


> I put in some reference to an old classic sentient being that is capable of driving himself, as well as a mish-mash of other sci fi ref. Feel free to leave comments and critiques. Any constructive criticism would be appreciated!
> 
> View attachment 30107


Herbie! It's you!


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## AlexanderSen

Thanks for the vote of confidence!

I had some new ideas in regards to bioships. One of these ideas is a Space Ark type bioship. I imagine the ship would be built by an ancient race of aliens, known as the Handlers/Masters, the ship would go around collecting all the DNA samples of the all the superior and strongest species it encounters (collecting data of the best specimens to clone) throughout the Galaxy and stores the collected DNA in the ship's gene banks. The ship can then resurrect creatures it has encountered from it's data/seed/sperm/cell/gene banks. I have not figure how the ark bioship should look like yet, but I imagine it functions like a hive ship, so it might have a honeycomb structure and or queen bee hive design elements. 

The Ark ship would carry with it the cellular genomic goo that is the building blocks of life which the bioships use to clone beings. These Bio-Engineered Ships who's aged cannot be verified because these organisms have longer life spans than the handler species they are basically living fossils. The next generation of the Master's, not knowing the details of birth dates the Masters would turn to myth and legends to understand the birth of these ancient creatures.

I asked myself what kind of culture would be able to and or choose to use biotech? I would believe it would be a culture which has mastered the genome, granting them powers like:

- Immortality - they live forever. IOW Not dying from/through natural causes

- Eternal Youth - they are forever young (non aging)

- Cloning - Resurrection and replication bringing back the dead and the power to bring back extinct species

- Reincarnation - cloning bodies and the transferring of the Masters minds to new better types of bodies

- Regeneration - healing and re growing of limbs

- Genetic engineering, modification, and artificial selection

- Virgin Birth - abiogenesis from pool of genetic goo and Test tube babies - Artificial breeding and growth

- DNA mapping / Seed banks and mapping of the genome - a large library of genes

- Extensive understanding in Ecology Botany and Zoology

- Germ warfare - biological and chemical weapons

- Ritual self training and animal training - bonding with the intellect of bioships

- Mind over matter and mastery over self - cognitive self-programming

- Breeding and Artificial insemination

- Virus immunization and superior cells which fight off all diseases

- Bacteria cellular nanobots which when injected into subject can modify the being from inside out

I imagine perhaps the alien Masters in the past tampered with their own genes and developed bio-weapons, perhaps they even developed a viral disease that mutated and ran out of control on their planet and turned the Master's home world into a dsytopian toxic world. The Master's had to go on a mass exodus off world and journey to new planets and as they spread throughout the galaxy, they began collecting the best specimens in hopes to stop the mass pandemic that was occurring on their home world, the Masters started breeding the collected species out to create the perfect specimen / being that could help the Masters save their home world. The Alpha was the name of the first being that the Masters attempt at developing clones. The Omega the ultimate being combined from the best DNA genes of all creatures. Eventually they were able to modify their genes so much they were able to decide what they wished to become. 

With the Masters faith in the biochemistry and bio-engineering they would believe in and have myths about mastering the genome. Their belief that life on their home planet arose from and was born from the bubbling pool of chemicals near underwater geological vents - the heat and conditions allowed chemicals to bond and form skins and pockets of RNA proteins. In these underwater volcanic vents bubbling forth chemicals, needed for carbon life, known as the fountain of life - was pools of bubbles forming, combining (eating or encapsulating other pockets of chemical proteins), bumping into each other, exploding and releasing new combinations of chemicals that combined when encapsulated in a skin pocket, these formations of chemicals eventually lead to the regulation of RNA proteins into simple celled organisms.

From the stew in the bubbling pool of chemicals formed strands of simple chemical proteins (RNA) which was the basis of carbon based life.

BTW Sorry for the poor grammar.


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## AlexanderSen

On a slightly different but related topic, 

I wonder as a species, if these aliens which have god-like powers, would believe in a god or gods? Perhaps they would see themselves as god(s), or somehow directly linked to a creator god. 

If these aliens have god like powers, then does it de-mystifiy their god to just a being who wields powers that are greater than them just for the moment? Or at least until they uncover the workings of their god's powers - such powers that once seemed godlike, once uncovered of how it works, is then no longer godlike or supernatural, but everyday and common, so would the aliens still believe in a god(or gods)?

Or if they believe in an all powerful god, then how would they interact with other species? Would they see their species as superior to other species due to their relationship with god, or as equals - as brothers and sisters created by the same creator god?

In relationship to aliens and god, and as well as own own existence as humans with god which we as humans only have witness the truths of this planet, no human in recorded history has traveled to other worlds(beside only a handful who have traveled to space and a even fewer to the moon, if you even count those as other worlds). So how can we as a collective organism prove an existence of a greater all powerful god when we are limited in a our means to understand god or gods as we have only witness life on this planet - so, who is to say of other worlds? Just something to think about...

Whether there is a god I cannot say for certain but in my experience everything happens for a reason. Thing only seem random because we do not know the source of the effect. But like the laws of the universe they play a role in the daily workings of existence. Whether or not we understand these laws or its logic is another matter.

Back to the topic of these aliens and the creator of these bioships I was thinking early in their history they were early beings called golems - soulless(non-sentient) beings made from mud/muck, and the primordial soup/stew in the universe. One of the first Alpha-type golems turned into a sentient being, an alien(man) aware of his own existence who was named Adam. Adam then began to understand words and meaning of ideas, and as the group of Alphas used knowledge to over come dangers and gain profit from their endeavors - the fruit of knowledge, they left that utopian world that once was their naivety, and changed into the world that to them became a place of knowledge as power.


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## AlexanderSen

Here is a ship based upon the honeycomb cell pods. I imagine each pod on the body is a place where the aliens can store DNA, breed, and clone different specimens.


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## AlexanderSen

Here is a Racing Bioship I just came up with. Not much research here, not sure how it would work and function - not so concept heavy, but just a fun piece to do. I guess it's a racer so, not much more needed to say than that. But I like the sleek lines and fast trimmed and slim kind of feel of the ship. Just experimenting with rough sketches to line drawings and photo-dropping textures in. Not sure how to refine it into a finished piece, feels kind of unresolved, so I am just trying out different methods and styles.


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## AlexH

It's always interesting to see how a sketch progresses - thanks for sharing.


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## AlexanderSen

In my last Space Ark design I felt that something was missing. So, I added a tail like piece to the Ark Bioship and it feels a lot better to me. The silhouette before was a little too much like a blob, now it feels more like a spaceship. 

I am not sure how interstellar travel would work with this ship, but I'll leave that for later.

The organic ship would carry with it the DNA of sampled creatures and it wouldn't need that much space to carry them because only a small genetic sample of each type of creature would be needed to in order to clone and breed the species with some genetic engineering involved.


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## AlexanderSen

I felt the Interstellar ark design was too small and needed to be much bigger, so I cloned it and repeated the honey comb design and made the ark much bigger. It feels more like an giant space ship now. I like how the collage design looks kind of feels like a DNA double helix. Next is to flush it out and add color, which I have been mulling over trying to think of a easier way to color it than individually coloring each cell. I have a size comparison of the newer bioship ark design with the previous design.


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## AlexanderSen

I did another take on the hive bioship and really emphasized the helix more, so it can be more easily recognized. I like the design mirroring DNA, but I feel the new ship is kind of small, but at the same time it is hard to just scale up the size of the vehicle. I find that just making it bigger is a bit sloppy, as the doors, seats, controls, and all the internal equipment must be a certain size in relationship to the users. You can't just make it bigger without adjusting the size of the equipment (which function as visual clues) or it will feel like its hacked together. That being said, I don't know what size to make the incubator cells that are used to gestate the genetically engineered embryos in the middle of the ship, as there are different types animals which are different sizes when born. I suppose I could say that when first the zygote is inseminated the embryo and babies all start out relatively small and the same size...


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## AlexanderSen

Here is a the bioship design from the previous post with textures and colors. I was re-imagining the design as a bioship carrier, it would still have a hive mind presence but it would focus on carrier type roles and only carry space fighter pods instead of infantry geniod type creatures. The spikes like things in the newer design are the guns of the cellular-like pod bays which are placed all over the surface/hull of the carrier bioship that carry smaller strike craft. These smaller drone like strike craft would dock to the carrier with a tail which would latch onto the larger carrier ship backwards into the pod bay so that it's front and weapons would face outward when docked. This way the guns of the smaller pod strike craft could be used and fired from the docking bays this way the fighter pods would function both as weapons for the larger carrier bioship or detach and fly off and function as separate individual fighters.

The pods also allow for rapid to simultaneous deployment because the pods are all on the hull thus effectively allowing swarming actions and formations to be more effective. There is no taxi time needed when docking/launching the fighter ships. These carrier does not have traditional hangar bays and launch ramps because fighter pods being in space, unlike in an atmosphere, don't need a long runway to build up speed in order to generate enough lift to fly, they can just detach and take off immediately, so hangars and runways can be combined to reduce space and maximize deployment.

I was imagining that the carrier ship would have umbilical cords in the docking bays that the fighter pods could latch to and would connect to the smaller fighter craft for resupply, feeding it fuel and ammo.

I also included some initial rough designs of the strike craft and pods types.


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## Brian G Turner

The Drone Carrier is interesting - I like the organic shape - but I'm not sure you'd need a conning tower (correct word?) for a bridge or communications as presumably tech would be advanced enough that neither would need to be on a vulnerable outcrop.


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## -K2-

Just a thought regarding how the 'pods' reside then are released... instead of the word "pod," I was instantly struck with the word "spore" when I saw it.  It sounds more organic, plus it implies weaponry, defense, transport, etc. in an organic way.

K2


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## AlexanderSen

Brian G Turner said:


> The Drone Carrier is interesting - I like the organic shape - but I'm not sure you'd need a conning tower (correct word?) for a bridge or communications as presumably tech would be advanced enough that neither would need to be on a vulnerable outcrop.



Good point! Thanks for the input.

I agree with you about having the command bridge on an outcrop being dangerous, so I am playing with some other ideas to address this issue. Also, feel free to dispute me on my ideas  as I am just throwing out ideas in a brainstorm and using this as a sounding board.

But before I begin, I have to state that I feel that it is impossible to create a perfect vehicle, IMHO successful vehicle designs usually focus on a maximizing a particular set of strengths and or focusing on specific roles while forgoing other ones. Like the common saying "Jack of all trades, master of none."

My point is - everything is a choice and so what is the cost of having or not having a conning tower/sensor array?

My reasoning for having a conning tower is it allows for better cone of vision - like lobster and snail eyes which are away from the main body, allow for a better line of sight around the vehicle itself. If your eyes are too deep inside the head, or too close to the body, you can't see what's going on around you very well. Having eyes and sensors away from the body allows the creature to see it's own body or hull and deck if it is a ship (it would also give the ship an extended view of the horizon if it was planet bound, on an ocean for example) but the problem is they tend to be rather weak and an easy target for enemies.

That being said, there are several ways they could address the problem of its weakness of the bridge and command center. One way, a simple solution, is it could be it grown with much better armor like humans and our stronger skulls made from bone.

Also another idea is having a multitude of eye stalks |(sensor arrays) that would stem out from the craft that are connected to the hive mind/brain deep inside the body of the ship, these eye stalks would be spread out so it is impossible to take out in one shot, so if one eye stalk is damaged it can have the other eye stalks take over the damaged eye stalk's duties. I thought this might be good idea for a battleship type of bioship.

To even further expand on this idea, if the carrier ships have a hive mind or some sort of psychic link to its drones (I don't know if this idea is overdone in scifi, but...), perhaps a hive mind could see through the eyes of its drones thus eliminating the need for a sensor array cluster and conning tower on the main carrier. So, instead of having a system where you can easily disable a ship by just destroying its bridge and thus crippling the whole ship or squadron in a single blow instead have a system with a multitude of sensors on every ship that would relay info back to the hive mind, thus having multiple redundant sensors that would create a system which could survive even if one set of sensors are destroyed, because there would be other ones which could replace the ones destroyed, kind of like how the internet works (or at least how the internet was originally designed to work...).


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## AlexanderSen

Oh BTW after doing some research about head sensory development and why animals have brains in their heads as opposed to brains in their chest, or any other part for that matter.

I found this term, its called - Cephalization, which is actually a thing where sensory organs tend to form around an outcrop (like an conning tower) and or along the anterior of an creature.

Cephalization - Wikipedia


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## AlexanderSen

I am trying to develop my own unique spin on Bioships and Alien Biotech. Initially I did some designs just for fun, but after doing some research I found that other people had done similar ideas already. So, in order to develop more original and interesting ideas that have not been done before, I thought i would do some more research and find all other alien races in other IP(intellectual Properties) which use biotechnology.

Here is a list of different Alien Races that I found that use Biotech. Are there any notable ones I am missing?

Tryanids / Genestealers - Warhammer 40K
Zerg - Starcraft
The Flood - Halo
Species 8472 / Undine - Star Trek
Alien - Alien, Aliens, Prometheus
Cthulhu - not biotech per se, but similar and cool

Thanks and much appreciated for any help!


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## Joshua Jones

AlexanderSen said:


> I am trying to develop my own unique spin on Bioships and Alien Biotech. Initially I did some designs just for fun, but after doing some research I found that other people had done similar ideas already. So, in order to develop more original and interesting ideas that have not been done before, I thought i would do some more research and find all other alien races in other IP(intellectual Properties) which use biotechnology.
> 
> Here is a list of different Alien Races that I found that use Biotech. Are there any notable ones I am missing?
> 
> Tryanids / Genestealers - Warhammer 40K
> Zerg - Starcraft
> The Flood - Halo
> Species 8472 / Undine - Star Trek
> Alien - Alien, Aliens, Prometheus
> Cthulhu - not biotech per se, but similar and cool
> 
> Thanks and much appreciated for any help!


The Shadows and Vorlorn from Babylon 5
The bugs from Starship Troopers
I feel like this came up at some point in Dr. Who, but I cannot place where.
The Wraiths in Stargate Atlantis
There are the Reapers from Mass Effect and the Raiders from the new Battlestar Galactica, but they are sort of a special case of biotech/mechanical tech hybrids.
Most space video games have something like this, as well.


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## AnnWanges

Quite interesting designs. Keep us updated with your works)


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## PCSamaI

AlexanderSen said:


> On a slightly different but related topic,
> 
> I wonder as a species, if these aliens which have god-like powers, would believe in a god or gods? Perhaps they would see themselves as god(s), or somehow directly linked to a creator god.
> 
> If these aliens have god like powers, then does it de-mystifiy their god to just a being who wields powers that are greater than them just for the moment? Or at least until they uncover the workings of their god's powers - such powers that once seemed godlike, once uncovered of how it works, is then no longer godlike or supernatural, but everyday and common, so would the aliens still believe in a god(or gods)?
> 
> Or if they believe in an all powerful god, then how would they interact with other species? Would they see their species as superior to other species due to their relationship with god, or as equals - as brothers and sisters created by the same creator god?
> 
> In relationship to aliens and god, and as well as own own existence as humans with god which we as humans only have witness the truths of this planet, no human in recorded history has traveled to other worlds(beside only a handful who have traveled to space and a even fewer to the moon, if you even count those as other worlds). So how can we as a collective organism prove an existence of a greater all powerful god when we are limited in a our means to understand god or gods as we have only witness life on this planet - so, who is to say of other worlds? Just something to think about...
> 
> Whether there is a god I cannot say for certain but in my experience everything happens for a reason. Thing only seem random because we do not know the source of the effect. But like the laws of the universe they play a role in the daily workings of existence. Whether or not we understand these laws or its logic is another matter.
> 
> Back to the topic of these aliens and the creator of these bioships I was thinking early in their history they were early beings called golems - soulless(non-sentient) beings made from mud/muck, and the primordial soup/stew in the universe. One of the first Alpha-type golems turned into a sentient being, an alien(man) aware of his own existence who was named Adam. Adam then began to understand words and meaning of ideas, and as the group of Alphas used knowledge to over come dangers and gain profit from their endeavors - the fruit of knowledge, they left that utopian world that once was their naivety, and changed into the world that to them became a place of knowledge as power.


Probably they have a god/gods with powers that they consider impossible.


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