The Art of World-Building: Kosemen's Snaiad

For those who follow this blog or who have read some of my recent posts, they will recognize that I am a member of Deviant Art and I use the site to post some of my world-building ideas associated with my speculative fiction interests and writing. There are so many artists on Deviant Art who have been an inspiration for my own attempts at world-building and my conception of the possibilities open to speculative fiction. For all the interest that fans of speculative fiction have in world-building, it is rarely appreciated outside of its implementation in works of literature, film or video-games. World-building in itself seems undervalued as an art-form, as do the artists responsible for it. For that reason, I have decided to begin the “Art of World-Building” series, wherein I promote the world-building projects of artists who I feel have contributed something interesting and inspiring to the genre of speculative fiction and whose works deserve wider recognition in the fan community. With that said, I wish to introduce the first world-building project I was inspired by: Snaiad. 

     

          Snaiad is a science-fiction world-building project created by artist the brilliant Turkish artist C.M. Kosemen, otherwise known as Nemo Ramjet on Deviant Art. Snaiad is the name of “one of humanity’s first off-world colonies” founded by “hopeful colonists arriving from the war-wearing Mediterranean”. Snaiad is a world twice as old as our own home-world of Terra, but is very young to its human colonists with “scarely three hundred years” separating the “initial landing and their new-found peace in those precious few cities” founded on the planet. The history of Snaiad begins with life's conception 8 billion years ago, taking another 3 billion years for the first multi-cellular life forms to appear. Within another billion years the planet experienced a radiation of complex life, followed by a mass extinction thereof. Following this another cataclysm extinguished the majority of life on the planet and resulted in the originals of almost all modern plant and animal life. The ancestors of modern pseudo-vertebrates evolved during this period of re-diversification, resembling Terran sea cucumbers. From there life evolves, diversifies and goes extinct in patterns unique to Snaiad, giving rise to the life that humans will discover in the near future when the finally colonize the planet.   

200 years into the future and planetary warfare and resource conflicts have driven development in biotechnology, nanotechnology and metallurgy while life is first detected on planets beyond our solar system. 50 years later and economic and social progress have allowed the colonization of the Moon and Mars with colony ships sent on missions to planets outside of our solar system. During this period Snaiad is discovered by telescope. Over the next 200 or so years advances are made in suspended animation and nano-manufacturing, replacing the need for colonization by generation ships. Turkey, Greece, Cyprus and Israel unite together in efforts to colonize Snaiad and launch their first probes to the planet. Soon after “Sleeper” colony ships are sent to Snaiad. After successfully landing on the planet, the colonists awaken from their suspended animation and utilize nanotechnology to biologically manufacture the “Firstborn” generation utilizing stored ova and sperm. For the next 100 years, madness and depression among the artificially-born Firstborn generation complicate efforts at widespread colonization of Snaiad. The surviving Sleepers intervene and “invent the first Snaiadi religions as a means of social control” including such imaginative and mysterious cults as “Dicephalism, Nerdism, Jethjanism, Neo-Sabbatean sects and Snaiadi animal worship.” Soon after the first naturally conceived generation of colonists is born on the planet and colonization efforts begin in earnest.

Colonists initiate the “Arbophobe Wars” against the indigineous life forms and establish cities and nano-rail using nano-technology. At this time a Sleeper nano-technologist named Moiz Mavrokordatos secedes from the colonial government, changes his name to Sabbatai Sevi and identifies himself as the Messiah of Snaiad. Thousands of colonists follow his authority. The cult create a new nano-technology city named “Memograd” in remote Notor. Following this they begin construction of a star-ship fleet and weapons with the intention of leaving Snaiad in order to conquer Earth. This act of rebellion results in a short war between the Mavrokordite cultists and Neo-Mediteranean colonists, ending with the destruction of the starship fleet and the disappearance of “Sabbatai Sevi”. At the end of the war extreme measures are taken to ensure that another manic abuse of advanced technology does not occur. Knowledge of nano-technology and star-ship systems are ceremoniously destroyed and nano-technology is limited to use in food production, mining and medicine. Standards of living improve and the population of Snaiad stabilizes at 15 million colonists with an average lifespan of 250 years. An elite community of Sleepers, kept alive due to “now forbidden nanotech immortality, silently dictates population control and environmental management policies.”   

The planet Snaiad hosts a variety of ecosystems, some similar to those on Terra and others entirely unique to the alien environment of Snaiad. Deserts, forest, jungles and tundras are all familiar to the human colonists to Terra, excluding the alien flora and fauna inhabiting them. Unique to Snaiad are the Neomediterranean maquis, erthrophyte scrubland, sproglands, and pinnacle ranges. The maquis comprises “water-retaining, heat-resistant plants growing along warm seashores” specific to the Neomediteranean and Orolandic Aegean. The erthrophyte scrublands are a “steppe-like growth of Red-plant” pseudo-grass covering both seaside plains and islands. Sproglands are named after sprog itself: a “spongy, hole-ridden, landscape-blanketing vegetative growth”. Sprog not only provides sustenance for herbivores but is also home to smaller organisms that use it for shelter. Unique to the Pansavannah region of Vesterna is sprog grasslands where there is a “presence of grass-like filamentous plants that carpet the uppermost layer” of the sprog. Finally, there are the pinnacle ranges. These are plains dotted with “reef-like collections of symbiotic plants” bonded together to create massive pinnacles.

Snaiadi life-forms are deceptively alien insofar as they superficially resemble Terran vertebrates, especially dinosaurs, but are radically different once their anatomy is explored in detail. The most extreme divergence is that their genitals are contained in what we would identify as their head. While this body part is involved in the capturing of prey, it is the lower secondary head which is actually involved in the consumption of food. In complex vertebrates, young develop within a uterus within the female’s chest cavity and are birthed by the mother literally vomiting out the infant. In species with simpler or smaller heads, the infants disturbingly “slash their way out” using “specially developed womb-beaks.” Thankfully for the mother the injuries involved in such a birth are superficial and heal rapidly. Other species carry eggs or birth less developed young that resemble worms, which only later metamorphose into a form resembling an adult. For males the space occupied by female reproductive system is “occupied with a wide variety of specular penises, and/or display organs”.  

Snaiadi skeletons resemble wood more than they do bone because they are comprised of a “modified hydrocarbon composite” rather than calcium. This not only gives the skeleton a coloration of brown, black or green but also means that it burns easily when heated. An implication of this is that the fossil record of Snaiad is far more incomplete than that of Terra. The musculature of Snaiadi vertebrates are hydraulic in nature and are derived from “the water-vascular system of the sea cucumber-like” ancestors. As their muscles expand, bones push against one another, thereby moving them. These muscles come in a variety of sizes and are partitioned within self-sealing segments which are “resistant to puncture, and prevent the whole system from failing if a single lobe is disabled”. As vertebrates sleep the majority of their hydraulic fluid migrates to internal reservoirs which “help clean and replenish the hydraulic lymph supply, and also helps accommodate volume change in the entire system”. The bizarre consequence of this is that awakening vertebrates appear to “have thinner limbs and fatter bodies, as it takes a while for the fluid to fill up the limps and the spine”. While Snaiadi animals may breathe in oxygen and release carbon dioxide, they do so using nostrils located under their armpits or the tops of the body. These nostrils also contain their vocal cords which always vocalize in “stereo, from two separate sets of vocal cords on either side of the body” giving their songs “an enchanting, otherworldly effect on human listeners”.  

The deeper one goes into Snaiadi anatomy, the more alien and mysterious it becomes. The nervous system of Snaiadi vertebrates are a “fusion of stringy, impulse-transmitting” nerve fibers and “network of nodes and vessels containing a salty, slightly acidic fluid”. The vertebrate brain is actually two distinct organs which operate in unison. One is a dense formation of fibrous nerves similar to Terran vertebrate brains while the other is a disturbing structure known as a “worm basket”. As its name suggests, the organ is a “sac filled with an extremely convoluted bundle of microscopic tubules” within which millions of glands reside. The organ actually squirms when vertebrates engage in intellectually demanding activity or are dreaming while also being involved in the recording of memories, modulating the rest of the nervous system, and regulating growth and metabolism. The eyes of Snaiadi animals, if they possess them, are small “silicate lenses with no liquid inside” which are annually shed to clear up vision and are augmented by surrounding heat receptors. Hearing is primarily “accomplished by sensing vibrations in a compact bone-in-bone structure” under the arm-pits and secondarily by a hearing organs which “exist under the front footpads” of some vertebrate groups. The wide variety of Snaiadi animals, some of which I have put on display in this essay, can be explored here. I sincerely hope that the project continues to expand in the near future as it has been a huge inspiration to me.