Alien encounter - the Chmido

At yesterday's Chandra event, in the Alien By Design workshop that Julie Czerneda ran, I worked with Chris and Michael to construct an alien that would live in an environment specified by Julie.

These were Julie's conditions:
- Daytime temperatures up to +50C, nighttime down to -10C
- Strong and gusty winds up to 100 kn/hr
- extreme dryness for months at a time, followed by a brief interval of heavy rain and flooding
- gravity about 0.75 Earth normal

And, with a table filled with goodies that Julie supplied, the additional requirement was that we had to build a model of the creature as well. This is what we came up with:


The Chmido (first two letters of each of our three names) has a vaguely manta-ray shaped body plan. They are omnivorous aerial predators, hunting in small packs during the day. At night, Chmido family groups and individuals seek shelter in caves on high cliff faces close to the ocean. Chmido wings are integrated, manta-like, into their body. They have a total of 8 limbs. They can stand upright on two rear appendages. The next set of two appendages have a cluster of fleshy manipulator digits at the end. There are two pairs of appendages with an attached web like structure next to the sharklike mouth, allowing a chmido to capture prey (or aerial plant life) in flight.

Chmido have four eyes, which point groundward and ahead while they are in flight, and which point forward when they stand on the ground. They also have two photosensitive spots on their back which allow them to react to predators behind or above them. They breathe through gill slits on their back, moving air through a pumping action. They breathe out through orifices along the trailing edge of their wings. There are specialized organs that produce sound for communication.

Because they are flying creatures, Chmido are quite light for their size, but they are very strong.


Chmido mating rituals involve 3 sexes participating in a complex aerial dance. The three particpants have specialized functions - one to produce sperm, one to produce ova, and one optimized to gestate the fertilized ovum. They bear live young.

Culturally, the Chmido are at a mid-industrial tech level, so no spaceships yet. They understand machines, but have religious objections against building machines that fly. However, their culture is based on striving to be higher than the rest of the pack -- an urge that will eventually drive them into space, once they get over their religion-imposed limits.

The most desirable caves are the ones on the leeward side of cliffs. Because these are rare, the first Chmido forays into technology involved channeling the flood waters during the wet season to use in carving out additional habitats. Through the generations, they have become accomplished hydraulic engineers.

For the model that we built, much of the allotted time was spent discussing the basic creature and agreeing on details. Michael constructed the outer layer, I carved the internal sponge that gave the body shape, Chris did the finicky job of making and attaching the limbs.

Having designed the alien, Julie threw a curve at us. Matching up two groups at random, we were to come up with a First Contact scnario. Michael, Chris, and I were paired up with Lindsay, one of Lorna's staff members, and her partner for this exercise.

In our scenario, the Chmido, in the course of exploring another continent on the same planet, encounter a sentient species which moves through several different forms during its life cycle. A flying form is a juvenile stage which the Chmido initially encounter. Because the Chmido are pack hunters, this probably doesn't end well for the peaceful, telepathic, solitary flying creature. It is likely that the initial Chmido response is "lunch". However, the subterranean-dwelling elders with their enhanced telepathy will allow both species to eventually communicate and reach an understanding. The ability of the others to tunnel deeply into the ground and extract metals is something the Chmido are not well suited for -- this is a partnership which will act to drive both species' technological capability.


And of course, in the process of working through their interspecies cooperation issues over generations, the Chmido and their partners achieve something which could be described as a culturally hard-wrired propensity toward diversity. It is this which allow the Chmido and their partners to get past the serious errors made by human merchants 200 years later when a Chmido starship is mistakenly attacked.

Chandra X-Ray Observatory event at Merril

The Merril Collection hosted a triple barrelled event on Friday evening and Saturday involving a presentation from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, a book launch for Julie Czerneda, and a space art retrospective by Jean-Pierre Normand.


Friday's science summary of the work done by Chandra for the last ten years was presented by the Observatory's Lead Education Officer, Donna L. Young, an enthusiastic and knowledgeable speaker. One of the hightlights for me was the composite photo of M101 in Ursa Major -- a giant spiral galaxy seen nearly head-on from our vantage point, and historically used as a marker for establishing the cosmic distance scale.

Photo credit -- X-ray: NASA/CXC/JHU/K.Kuntz et al.; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI/JHU/K. Kuntz et al; IR: NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI/K. Gordon. Image Scale -- Image is 18 arcmin (114,000 light years) across

The second half of Friday was a book launch and book signing, with a reading from Julie Czerneda, for her novel Rift In The Sky, the third book in a three book series written as a prequel to her Trade Pact Chronicles. Julie had some insightful things to say about the difficulties and pitfalls in writing a prequel trilogy for a trilogy that had already been written and published. I wish Geotge Lucas had considered these things with the same degree of care.

Saturday morning's activities started shortly after 9:30 with some introductory remarks by Professor John R. Percy of U of T and the RASC. Donna spoke some more, and then turned things over to Jean-Pierre for a space art retrospective.

Shortly after this began, Corwin experienced severe stomach cramping and vomiting, and had to be taken home by Jill. I carried him out of the building and across the street, until my arms gave out. Jill took over, while I tried to retrieve the car, from its parking spot underneath the Addiction Research Foundation north across College Street. What I discovered was that there were no regular entrances that allowed one back down to the parking garage, so I circled the building and walked down using the vehicle ramp. Jill and Corwin headed home, and I went back to the library.

Whatever Norwalk-like stomach bug had gotten Corwin continued to make him periodically sick over the next four or five hours until it subsided in the afternoon. By evening he was keeping down liquids and able to eat the official Lum family sick rations of macaroni and soy sauce.

Back at the library, Jean-Pierre concluded his space art slide show, and Donna ran a Stellar Evolution workshop, highlighting the various pathways along which stars could be born and evolve and end.

In the afternoon, Julie ran an Alien By Design workshop session. The lesson of evolution is that life adapts to its environment, and adapts again when things change. The physiological features that we see in life forms are there for valid environment-related reasons. For purposes of the workshop, Julie specified some environmental conditions, and our task was to design an alien being that could plausibly live in that environment and develop intelligence. I did this in conjunction with Michael and Chris, two of the Usual Suspects who also attended this event.

After the Alien By Design workshop, Jean-Pierre did a truly amazing retrospective of his cover and illustration art over nearly thirty years.

In the course of the afternoon, I got Corwin's copy of Orbiter signed by Julie, by Jean-Pierre, and by Eric Choi, author of one of the stories in the collection. I also got a couple of copies of Jean-Pierre's book of artwork, Science Fiction Illustrations, again signed, one of which will go to our friend Hicaru in Japan.

At the end of the day, Julie sent a package of alien-making materials for Corwin. By the time I got home, Corwin was well enough to appreciate it. It will be interesting to see what he comes up with when we (or he by himself) does this exercise.

Phyllis Gotlieb - 1926 to 2009

Phyllis Gotlieb, noted Canadian poet and science fiction author passed away earlier this week on July 15. She was 82 years old. We last saw Phyllis the previous year on June 5th 2008 at the Merril Collection, at a special event where she was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement award by SF Canada.

Phyllis' novel O Master Caliban had been published shortly before I began participating in organized science fiction related activities. In all of our encounters, I remember her as unfailingly warm and gracious.