Forums » Smalltalk » Wanna Chat About a Planet Healing?

For anyone whom has watched the movie, "Wall-e," remember the mess Earth was in the beginning? Has anyone thought about the theoretical process of a planet healing after heavy pollution, radiation, and other nasty things? Please tell me I am not the only one!

I had gotten the idea to explore it a while back ago when I watched "Wall-e," but after touching it, I got into another story idea and kind of left it hanging. I had intentionally wanted to do drawings and short stories through the eyes of my character to explore the theoretical changes. What permeant scaring would there be? What "animals" and "plants" would show up?

Here is the basic timeline I have:

Civilization

Pollution makes everyone leave

Prison planet with factories

Radiation and pollution get bad enough for prison to be shut down. Everyone leaves.

Scientists and Scavengers are sent periodically to gather supplies and materials

Used as trash planet, still sending Scientists and Scavengers.

A couple whom are Scientists are sent to the planet. That last two sent due to increased radiation.

They have a daughter. Find out they are abandoned on planet by the world's version of NASA.

Radiation and air toxicity make the parents slowly go insane and die. Daughter, however, has immunity and lives.

"NASA," sends unwanted officers to die on planet. (Possible "no retiring" program?)

Daughter (my character) lives on the planet (no one knows she exists) and notes everything as the planet changes.


Sorry to bore you guys with that. Back to the main point of the thread. I do know the following would become life on the planet:

Single celled organisms

bugs, mainly cockroaches

possibly lizards?


Possible permanent scaring thoughts:

Permanent oily sheen and feel, especially in the water

Planet looks like a rocky desert with little "plant life" and splashes of lakes and ponds.



What do you guy think?

I think this could very easily become an interesting story!

But are you asking for the sake of looking for an RP?

No rp, just looking to chat about the theoretical process.

I just tend to ramble....

ah, that's fine, np, I do that a lot, too!

Hmmm. you'd probably still have some life that lives deep down at the bottom of the oceans, too, depending on how badly they were polluted. Perhaps around places like the Marianas Trench, and where thermal vents are plentiful.

hmmm.... interesting. Would there still be oceans though? Increased heat and radiation may make the oceans smaller and more into seas?

I think there would definitely still be oceans. I mean, we wouldn't have glaciers anymore and that would add to our ocean levels rising (as they are now). And take into account that the majority of our planet's volcanic activity happens in our oceans, and those are extremely hot. We also have hydrothermal vents that house millions of extremophiles (animals that live in extreme heats). So, that being said, I believe we'd probably have extremophiles as well, despite the horrid condition of our Earth.

Really awesome topic, by the way! Totally digging this.

I agree with those critters still being around. (my eyes are being a pain so I will not type that word tonight.) If the planet surface is basically, rock, sand, and bodies of water, would the rocks and sand heat up as well? Some water levels would have gone down, so rock would be over the vents and heat up?

Plus, with all the crap on the surface, the land surface may increase, maybe cutting oceans into smaller bodies of water? Some of the crap would turn to rock or sand and continue to pile?

That could very well be--a hotter atmosphere can hold more moisture, too, so you'd probably have a very wet atmosphere on top of the pollutants. You would probably have almost constant fog/steam on top of or near the remaining bodies of water, And of course Antarctica would be pretty much gone as a large portion of its' present landmass is actually ice, not earth.

The skies would probably be completely obscured with clouds of fumes/water vapor, so you would get little if any sunlight on the surface. Huge storms could definitely be a possibility due to huge temperature differentials between drier and wetter areas.

Because the composition of the air will change significantly with a decrease in oxygen levels, anaerobic organisms would multiply, especially those resistant to pollutants. To illustrate, behold this cute (and real) illustration of something microscopic called Loricifera living more than 3,000 meters down:



(Illustration by Carolyn Gast, National Museum of Natural History)

As the planet breaks down radiation and all the other crap, what "life" would start to show. We have already established microbes. Would there still be bugs, like cockroaches? For some reason, I keep thinking lizards and some reptiles, but not 100% sure. Maybe they would be hitchhikers from trash (if the planet was used to dump trash).

Also, is large one-celled organisms just my head or is it possible? I already know there might be animals similar to the tubes you see at the vents.

In a fantasy world, I would say "yes" to a large, unicellular organism, but realistically: it's not really possible. Cells are too small to be big enough that we might have a two-foot-long amoeba just inchin' around town. However, you could consider the possibility of clusters of a type of unicellular organism, maybe one that's been altered by the radiation and is sort of a Hive Mind sort of thing? It could also grow primarily in cultures, like bacteria, but it's highly unlikely there would be a unicellular organism large enough for a human to see.

Also, in my very quick research, cockroaches and wasps can survive nuclear fallout/radiation/that general type of thing. To what degree, I'm not sure, but I would expect that some creatures that are far enough away from the radiation (maybe like polar bears???) that they could mutate. You know, that classic nuclear sci-fi ish.

This is just me thinking with very little research, so if I am wrong, please correct me.

I am going with there is radiation and crap all over the planet. Think Earth from "Wall-e."

With mutated animals, how mutated would we be talking? Extra limbs, different colors? What?

Also, love the hive mind idea!

I mean, it can be as mutated as you want. But, from a biology standpoint, the creatures' mutations could fall into two categories.


1. The Crazy and more Sci-fi-esque
2. More Realistic (??)



Mutations don't have to mean that horrifying stuff we see so tied to the word "mutation." It depends on how you'd like to take it, but I'm sure both could show up; it just depends on the creature and the area and all those other factors.

I am looking chat about both realistic and fiction.

Aye, a single cell large enough for the unaided human eye to see would collapse under its' own weight, cells are not made to be that big, it's not healthy for them--that is essentially what cancer cells are, cells that grow big but don't divide.

However, speaking to clusters of unicellular organisms...fungal life would be perfect for that, a lot of funguses work that way already--the largest organism on earth is a giant mushroom growing in the blue mountains in Oregon.

So it's not out of the realm of possibility that you get fungal life adapted to a more polluted environment to feed off the waste.

That would mean there would be colored fungus. Purple. blue, ect… colors represent what they feed on?

That is a reasonable supposition, yes.

I mean I know this maybe is not what this thread is for but I cannot resist saying this....

If you ever want to turn that abandoned daughter on a radioactive trash planet into an rp....look me up because I'm already interested (or a book...I would read a book about that also)

I am thinking of putting her up as a character, but I will need to write out her's and the planet's history on paper first.

That's fair

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Also, like in Wall-E, you also might have artificial life of some sort, too.