Sci-Fi scenario - aliens evolve limited reality warping.

[SpaceMarine93]

I am curious - what kind of environment, hellish death world like conditions or otherwise, would result in a hypothetical extraterrestrial species evolving limited ability to alter the laws and constants of Physics, reality in general, just to survive? Say something like e.g. locally alter probability, telekinetic manipulation of energy/matter, locally slow down time, ability to sense movement/position of particles (Usually impossible due to Heisenburg Uncertainty Principle), teleportation, manipulate gravity or mass via manipulating gravity or Higgs field, etc.

Of course, the effects are limited by range, by the length of time, by the way it is projected, by uses etc.

What conditions might result in an alien species developing such powers? How could they use it? What possibilities and potential are available for that species? Or is it all just plain stupid (no reason not to think so)?

[Imperial528]

I'd say the most likely result of directly attempting to change the laws of physics would either be a massive waste of time and energy for nothing, or the creation of a vacuum bubble that will eventually kill us all. Kudos to them for actually managing to make such a thing and being able to "bend" the laws of physics, but their success will be short-lived because the bubble will expand at the speed of light and destroy everything it touches.

Now, if you're not in the business of caring how they do it, you just want to know what they will do, how the fuck should we know? Maybe they use it to make hovercars that actually work. Maybe they make plasma weapons that aren't useless at more than a foot's range.

Or maybe they kill themselves with their new-found power after genetically engineering an army of rabid shrooms and we get a nice short story about aliens and responsibility.

[TronPaul]

Such abilities would not necessarily need a "hellish death world" to occur if such a thing were possible. If those abilities gave those with them an advantage over competing organisms that didn't, then the abilities would most likely be passed down and spread throughout the species.

[sirocco]

With even a little set of those abilities, you should be able to walk the universe, win every game in every casino of every alien version of Las Vegas and finally (s/f)*ck all the beauties of the world.

Or if you're a bored extremist, go all Vorlon or Shadow i.e. shape lesser races in whatever you want them to be.

In both scenarios, whenever you encounter an unsolvable problem, you can always rinse and repeat. Literally rinse and repeat.

[lordofchange13]

For a species to be able to warp reality, there must be some way to warp reality to begin with. The best plan would be have these creatures develop in another dimension.

[Imperial528]

It appears that I misunderstood the OP upon my initial reading, my mistake. So disregard my post.

Although I do wonder what would happen if a species evolved naturally to be able to manipulate vacuum bubbles.....

[Lord of the Abyss]

I'd say the most likely result of directly attempting to change the laws of physics would either be a massive waste of time and energy for nothing, or the creation of a vacuum bubble that will eventually kill us all. Kudos to them for actually managing to make such a thing and being able to "bend" the laws of physics, but their success will be short-lived because the bubble will expand at the speed of light and destroy everything it touches.

That's a consequence of us living in a false vacuum; if we aren't in a false vacuum that shouldn't happen. However in some cosmological inflation theories regions with somewhat different laws of physics can exist in the same universe, although they'd be separated from each other by "domain walls". Like the membrane separating bubbles, except they'd be supermassive two dimensional spacetime defects.

So probably they wouldn't need to worry about a universe destroying expanding bubble; just about they and their homeworld being sucked in and crushed.

[Shroom Man 777]

A tranquil fluffy garden world where no bad things happen and where butterflies and rainbows sparkle in the morning sunshine.

With such a perfect world, the sentient species that evolved there no longer need to waste time on such petty concerns such as killing things for food, and instead they spend their days meditating on the true nature of reality and the composition of the cosmic ether. As the eons pass by, they develop a greater awareness that transcends the limitations of the material world, enabling them to see the very strands of fate that bind all of us to the destiny of the universe. After spending one hundred thousand years in contemplation of the inconceivable trans-yuggothian vibrations they behold in the maw of that great void, they develop the esoteric abilities to strum these chords and manipulate the very music of the spheres - adding their own chorus to the eternal symphony.

Think of it as not a hellish death world, but a utopian Tibetan temple planet, and where the creatures living there naturally evolve Buddhism and the highest form of organism naturally attains nirvana.

[Simon_Jester]

I like this so much better than the hell-world idea.

Hell-worlds lend themselves to evolving big muscles and acid-proof skin and the ability to see in the firedark or whatever. They don't lend themselves to a lot of other things, even the emergence of intelligence.

[Shroom Man 777]

Maybe it can be a hellworld, but not in the traditional definition of mutaloid monsteroes stalking in the acid swamps and other stuff no doubt conjured in SpessMareen's brain.

It can be an arid hole devoid of life. A dying world. Think of our ancient homonid ancestors, and think of the world they lived in. Except, the ice age never ended. Imagine, the ice age becoming even icier and agier. So the homonid ancestors, without the physical superiority of ruthless predator species or behemoth preyforms, with only their primitive rudimentary apeman intellects and tool-skills, have to subsist in this terminal environment. Yet it's dying at such a rate that they can't develop any agriculture or wheels or maybe even fire. And they've specialized into intelligent apes to such a point where they can't evolve to be more musculated or stronger or faster.

So their primitive homonid minds are strained to become even greater. They survive because of their intelligence. Because of their knowledge. Adaptive thinking suited to preserving foodstuff in winter, anticipationary and preparationary instincts, and communal pack-behavior to ensure group survival, becomes the foundation of this primate newtype intellect. They are not merely at war with predators, they are not just hunting mammoths, they're also fighting against the elements themselves.

To survive all this, their mentallic development, their neuro-intellectual evolution, begins to take them to places no other creatures before them have reached. They no longer rely solely on physical attributes to withstand the cold and the wind. They also rely on will. The primal drive to live, etched in their ape-minds, enables them to endure harsh environmental adversities that would be physically impossible for even creatures physically adapted to blizzard environments.

Their minds somehow tap into the fundamental laws of nature that enable the manipulation of constants. At first, it is in but a rudimentary form. They huddle in groups, afraid of cold, afraid of death, yet their pack group instincts allows them to take emotional solace in the fact that they are together, and they attain a state of calmness. Their thoughts of individualistic fears and anxieties and other non-important things give way to a kind of meditative trance state. Their minds focusing on the mere act of living and nothing else, no extraneous thoughts. This animalistic mantra of survival, acted upon by the family group of these creatures, somehow similar to Oriental chi-harnessing methodologies, allows their bodies to spontaneously generate heat - yet while their basal metabolic rates remain at their constant levels, or at even sub-normal levels, meaning that it is not the body's physical activity generating this body-heat. This heat is from the mind. Their minds, in group harmony, acting as one, focused on the mere act of survival, somehow taps into an energy that is not entirely physical - all so that they can live.

Yes. To survive their merciless environs, these apes do not resort to brute methods involving killing other organisms to subsist on their desecrated viscera. They do not go into conflict with their fellow life forms. To survive, they must turn inward, to themselves, and also live in harmony with each other, to embrace each other and go into a metaphysical communion to touch into heretofore unknown principles and give each other the life force needed to prevail against death itself.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Well damn it Shroom. Just when I have you figured out you post a lengthy post of awesomeness like this.

[O Wildish]

Why am I thinking Time Lords?

[Xon]

The proto-Xeelee where like this. They lived as a peacefull federation in the quark–gluon plasma in the after-glow of the big bang. Faced with a war with unstoppable creatures from beyond thier 'light horizon' they inflicted run away inflation onto the universe as a last ditch desperate measure to survive the war by putting more "space" between them and thier enemies.

In the now hostile universe, which has cooldown to allow matter to exist, there are remnants of these proto-Xeelee who still exist dashing from one oasis of 'warmth' to another to keep living.