#nijin-konai

[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

[statecryptids]

REVIEW: Astrovitae magazine Issue 2

Astrovitae is a magazine devoted to creators in the speculative fiction subgenre of speculative biology. Though people have imagined fantastic beasts and beings since the beginning of our species, speculative biology  focuses on developing organisms using our current knowledge of biology, ecology, physics, geology and other sciences. Though even within these limits there is a wide spectrum, as some creators may work with strict hard science rules while others prefer to design fantastic beasts closer to myth and folklore.

This second issue of Astrovitae shows significant refinement from the already impressive first issue.   There is a new section on speculative biology news featuring interviews, YouTube videos, Kickstarters, and new projects.. It’s a good way to keep abreast of the bewildering variety of speculative projects out there. This issue also features the first of a regular book review column, beginning with Christian Cline’s The Teeming Universe.

Collaborative projects are the focus of issue two, with articles on the online Discord-based Specposium convention, the Project Sil Discord, and a preview of Almost Real magazine. The latter showcases the Keraunoplast, fascinating slime mold-like organism that feeds directly on electricity and can actually bond with old space junk to form cybernetic life forms. This issue came out in September 2021, and it’s fascinating to see how the imposed quarantine of the Covid pandemic and the subsequent burst of more online communication through Discord, Instagram and other social media has led to the birth of so many new speculative biology projects.

Hyperlinks embedded in the Pdf pages are a really useful feature. Readers can click an article’s byline to go to the creator’s website or other social media. Clicking the section heading will also take one back to the table of contents.

As with the previous issue, Astrovitae #2 is divided into several sections: Captivating Worlds, with overviews of large world-building projects; Artist Spotlight, which looks at the creators themselves and their bodies of work as a whole; and Creature Compendium: which zooms in on individual organisms.

 Captivating Worlds begins with an in-depth look at the natural history of Mathijs Megens’ Amethyst Beach Shield, a chemosynthetic armored organism.

The next entry, Domenic Pennetta’s Project Perditus is a survey of a world that resembles Earth in the early Paleozoic, with creatures that will feel familiar to many paleo-enthusiasts, while still retaining their own alien-ness.

The Alternate Cenozoic Project by Thien Anh Nguyen is a what-if about an earth where the large dinosaurs were not killed off by an impact form space, following in the tradition of works such as Dougal Dixon’s The New Dinosaurs, and the Speculative Dinosaur Project.

Sea Serpents of the Arthechocene by Alejandro Martínez Fluxá is set in the future after human-caused mass extinctions. With all the large pinnipeds and cetaceans gone, sea snakes evolve to fill the niche of large oceanic predators and filter-feeders, becoming the long, whale-like tiamats.

Evan Proctor’s Before Planet Feni is primarily an outline of the dominant species on the titular planet, as well as some background about the planet’s explorers. Hopefully there will be more to come in this work.

The World of Nijin-Konai by Lorenzo Battilani is a hard science look at a primarily aquatic alien world, delving into microbiology and genetics with a radiation resistant enzyme and redundant genes that allow the planet’s organisms to adapt to the lethal UV radiation of their native star.  Battilani also discusses the complex neurological, metabolism and anatomy of his creature in minute detail that could have come from a college biology textbook.

  Artist Spotlight features an article by YouTube creator Biblaridion detailing how their channel grew from a tutorial on concepts in evolutionary biology to a detailed study of a fictional world. 

Reinhard Gutzat offers a meditation on the sometimes rocky intersection of creativity and biological accuracy during an artist’s development process.

 Artist Sibilla Pepi offers a look at their design process as they develop a feathered wyvern based on the biology of real-life birds.

Creature Compendium showcases individual speculative creatures in the manner of pages taken from a field guide and includes a giant diving beetle, an alien tadpole, a balloon-like organisms that lives in the atmosphere of a gas planet, and more.

The authors write with the enthusiasm and vernacular of seasoned biologists well versed in scientific nomenclature. Their creatures are given unique taxonomic names and anatomical terms, adding greatly to their believability. These complex names can get a bit overwhelming, however, leading to what one might call “textbook burnout”.  Sometimes I found it necessary to go back and reread articles to fully absorb all the names. This terminology might turn off a reader with a scientific background, but the imaginative variety on display should hold most interests. This is a minor critique, though, and the magazine overall is a professional-quality publication that would be at home in any library shelf. I am particularly pleased to see more projects focusing on the hypothetical evolution of Earthly creatures.

Astrovitae issue 2 is vailable both as a free downloadable PDF from the magazine’s website and as a virtual book that one can flip through on Yumpu.com

[kiruliom]

nijinkonaiprojic

a gender connected to the speculative biology project nijin-konai by Lorenzo Battilani coiner's note I love this fictional planet so much,,

[ID: an 8 striped flag with 2 versions. the colors from top to bottom are green, cream, tan, blue, dark blue, and a 3 stripe gradient from light teal to dark teal. the first version of the flag lacks any symbols and the second version has a DNA symbol inside a circle in white with a thin black outline. end ID]

requested by @revenant-coining

[TS: do not reupload anywhere public unless Im informed and credited. pretty please? end TS]

[saurosapient]

I’ve made a list of speculative evolution stuff you can find on the web for free :) Will be updated as I find more! Let me know if any links are bad or don’t work for you.

Last updated 10/26/21

General communities & websites > r/SpeculativeEvolution  > r/SpecEvoJerking (memes) > SpecEvo forum > Speculative Evolution Wiki > Speculative Evolution dA group > Alien Species Wiki (general aliens, but includes otherworldly spec)

Online-based works > Serina by sheather888 (personal favorite) > Amphiterra by Javier Valdez > Snaiad by C.M. Kosemen > Sagan 4 by Hydromancerx > Nijin-Konai by Vamizhi > Planica: Life in 2D by OmnipotentSpaceBagel > Chronicles of Chiirah - a strange example as it’s actually a Discord RPG! > Nereus by Evan Black > Bufimundi by More_Ad4961 > Anthropomundus by Kyre Fiskrof

PDFs and things like that > All Tomorrows by C.M. Kosemen > After Man by Dougal Dixon > The New Dinosaurs by Dougal Dixon > Man After Man by Dougal Dixon > Expedition by Wayne Barlowe > The Snouters by Gerolf Steiner > Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon

Mockumentary uploads > The Future is Wild > Alien Planet (based off of Expedition)

[kiruliom]

oki spec bio reqs :3

a gender connected to the game Horizon: Zero Dawn from a speculative biology standpoint.

a gender connected to the speculative biology project The Cluster by Charlotte Veldhuizen.

a gender connected to the game Spore from a speculative biology standpoint.

a gender connected to the speculative biology project Nijin-Konai by Lorenzo Battilani.

a gender connected to the speculative biology project Exobiotica by Michael Beaudry.

thank youu in advance :]

@revenant-coining

all posted/queued!! thank you for requesting, it gave me a chance to research something new and I dont believe itll become a general interest but it was really fun and enjoyable regardless >:D