#darwin IV

[thomastapir]

Deeply personal iconic conflation of imagery and music circa 1990—Emperor Sea Strider skull from Barlowe's EXPEDITION + Andy LaRocque's "Insanity" instrumental from King Diamond's The Eye.

Your mileage may vary, but mine never will.

Expedition, Wayne Douglas Barlowe Insanity, Andy LaRocque

[nonebinary-leftbeef]

I would KILL for a video game set on Darwin IV from Wayne Barlowe's Expedition. Like are you seeing this shit???

[godzillafandoesart]

when the company is Lethal! the Forest Giants remind me heavily of Wayne Barlowe's art, thus the darwinian influences on the design. 

[ninebaalart]

Emperor Sea Strider

I love Wayne Barlow's Expedition, the creatures he created for Darwin IV are so unique. The Emperor Sea Strider towers as the most memorable entity for me though.

[nomgeonmunchie]

Emperor Sea Strider from Darwin IV

[galinbookshelf]

Plowprint bikini

[spyglassrealms]

Spy's Spec-Bio Essentials

I honestly didn't mean to write a full-on essay, but I couldn't help myself -I love specbio, and the recent revival of interest in it makes me very happy. If you wanna just get right to the meat: normal links are highlighted blue, YouTube links are highlighted red.

Speculative biology has its roots as far back as Pliny the Elder and his Natural History, though most consider H.G. Wells to be the true grandfather of the genre with works such as War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, and Man of the Year Million. However, any speculative biologist worth their salt credits Dougal Dixon as the father of specbio as we know it today –especially since he is the man who coined the term! Dixon's books After Man, Man After Man, and The New Dinosaurs are considered the foundational works of modern specbio. So too is Wayne Barlowe's book Expedition.

While the original printings of these books are very expensive to acquire, After Man recently received a Kindle version, and Expedition has a very good documentary adaptation available in totality on YouTube. Another important work of early speculative biology was the Discovery Channel limited series The Future Is Wild, a documentary show exploring the possible futures of life on Earth in several million years' time.

With the rise of the internet, people interested in speculative biology –those few and far between– could share their thoughts and amateur works with each other. Online specbio hit its first height around the mid-aughts to early tens, featuring many notable works that were very influential to me personally when I joined the scene circa 2014. Unfortunately, right around when I joined there was a notable "mass extinction" –many of the more active and prominent figures of the specbio community left the web behind for various reasons, and thus the golden age ended.

In recent years, partially thanks to certain YouTube video essays on the classic projects, interest in speculative biology seems to have increased dramatically! I've taken to calling the current era the "specbio renaissance," and it makes me so happy to see new, younger people interested in this unique facet of creativity. In light of this I've created this master post of my personal recommendations of essential specbio works for new "speccers" to enjoy!

The specbio community has congregated on forums for decades. I personally joined the community via DeviantArt right around when the old ZetaBoards forum underwent a massive host shift and never participated on the forum all that much, but fortunately the old Speculative Evolution Forum is still up and still active!

For those who'd prefer a simpler way to keep up with current events in the specbio community, Astrovitae is a free e-magazine dedicated to contemporary spec. A product of the recent specbio renaissance, Astrovitae only has a handful of issues thus far but is already becoming a staple publication in the field.

I made this post to provide what I think is key information and important resources, but the SpecBio Wiki is a far more thorough companion to your journey into the world of speculative biology. As always, though: beware ye old Wiki Rabbit Hole!

Biblaridion's Alien Biospheres video series is an excellent entry point for anyone looking to learn the basics of specbio. It's a demo xenobiology project, with a heavy focus on the scientific concepts used in building up the world and its ecology.

Curious Archive's Alien Worlds video series is an excellent collection of bite-size examinations of various specbio projects, including several on this list!

Nemo Ramjet (C. M. Kösemen)'s Life on Snaiad is universally considered a classic work of speculative biology, started in the early days of the golden age of internet specbio. Snaiad is an alien planet, in its early days of human habitation, filled with strange lifeforms bearing two "heads."

Kösemen's other well-known classic work is Alltomorrows, a short ebook exploring hundreds of millions of years' worth of possible human evolution. Readers, be advised: this work contains extensive body horror and discussion of human extinction, both circumstantial and deliberate.

Sagan IV, originally created by Hydromancerx, is one of the oldest and most extensive specbio projects. Started as a simple artistic exercise on a forum in 2006, Sagan IV has evolved into a large, highly collaborative vision of an alien world inspired by the works of Carl Sagan. It is still ongoing today, and you can participate in their regular contests and activities!

Gert van Dijk's Furaha is another of the well-known classic specbio projects, and one of the few from the golden age that is still fully active. Furaha itself is an alien world orbiting Nu Phoenicis which harbors a fascinating native biosphere, built upon carefully-researched biomechanics. The site itself is laid out much like an encyclopedia, and the accompanying blog is a treasure trove of specbio know-how and community history!

Sunrise on Ilion, a xenobiology project by @supermalmoworld, is a personal favorite of mine. Ilion is a planet tidally locked to a red dwarf star, and its endemic lifeforms often challenge our expectations for Earth-like ecology. The website boasts extremely detailed information on the setting and its inhabitants, as well as in-universe articles and logs of the various human expeditions to this fascinating world. The project is still active on a very sporadic basis, at least as per blog entries.

Nereus is a xenobiology project created by Evan Black; another reasonably well-known golden age work but one that is unfortunately no longer active. The world of Nereus, orbiting the star Achird, teems with life unfamiliar to the humans which seek to adopt it as their home. Like many specbio projects it adopts a documentarian style, but there are plenty of nuggets of story tucked in the articles.

Serina is a contemporary speculative evolution project created by the legendary Sheather; it is what I would consider the holotype of the "seed-world" branch of specbio. Serina is a planet populated only by the descendants of the domestic canary (and a few other organisms like guppies, snails, ants, sunflowers, bamboo, algae, etc). The project digs deeply into the various unique niches of the world and the organisms that evolve to fill them, and in doing so mixes nature-documentarian style with some of the most compelling and emotionally engaging storytelling I have read in years.

These are just what I think are the essentials. There are numerous other fantastic projects, both contemporary and from years ago, that I would highly suggest investigating! Contemporary honorable mentions that personally inspire me include @alexriesart's birrin, @iguanodont's birgs, @jayrockin's Runaway to the Stars, Christian Cline's Teeming Universe, Keenan Taylor's Kaimere, and my friend Mičkin's Temere!

[thuktunflishithy]

Godzilla if he evolved on Darwin IV

[junoniadoesart]

Pliocene by Cosmo Sheldrake needs to become the International Anthem of Speculative Biology.

The sheer vibes that this song exudes. It fits every speculative biology project I can imagine. From big-budget movies like the MonsterVerse and Cameron’s Avatar to web projects like Serina and Nijin-Konai. All Tomorrows and All Yesterdays. Two Sky River. Strange World. Hamster’s Paradise. Snaiad. Darwin IV. Rhinogradentia. Subnautica. Tales from the Loop. Amphiterra. The Cluster. Polinices. More. All of it.  Have a listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0srKjwRJwc

[general-kalani]

He's just a baby <3

[sanktpolypenbourg]

IT IS DONE.

If anyone is interested, and owns a copy of ye old Warcraft 3, I can share the link to the demo for the mod once I load it on the Hive Workshop.

Over a year in the making. Even if no one else is interested, it has been an old dream of mine to get myself a "playable" version of that beautiful, beautiful book.

Currently looking for a good title card:

[m0nfan]

I like the darwin 4 book

[rotten-sarcophagus]

i had a cd of that I loved watching it even though it scared me

speculative biology is the shit!

Night on Darwin IV Ike continues his voyage as Emperor Sea Striders feast on the amoebic sea beneath him.

[nemnums]

cute combo attack

[deryport]

ㅤ ㅤ ⚝ capas de abril

[galinbookshelf]

Arctic Sedge Sliders