So, to recap: we’re playing through the Phil Eklund games Bios: Genesis and Bios: Megafauna, with the intention to use the results to inspire the design of an alien world (and possibly a sentient species) for use in some SF writing.

So far, we’ve worked through roughly a billion years of the world’s history. The planet has a large moon, rather like ours. It also has extensive oceans. In fact, the planet has yet to develop active plate tectonics, so it’s in a “tropical waterworld” state, with lots of small islands – many of them volcanic – but no large continents.

I’m playing all four positions in the game. So far, three players have developed at least one micro-organism that’s alive and active in the planet’s oceans. Rather than use the lengthy scientific names for these organisms (derived from their primary metabolic pathways) we have shorthand names based on their places of origin:

• Player Yellow – “Space Bug,” originally developed in a substrate of organic-and-volatiles-rich dust, left over from the proto-planetary nebula. Also the “Gamma Bug,” a new organism that recently arose from radioactives-rich beach sands.
• Player Red – “Mars Bug,” originally developed in an outer planet’s cool oceans, and delivered to this planet aboard meteorites.
• Player Green – “Smoker Bug,” which originated in the “black smoker” vents in the depths of the global oceans.

Player Blue hasn’t developed an organism of his own yet, but through some careful investment and the deployment of viral parasites, he has managed to earn a stake in the Space Bug and will be helping Yellow to build that up.

One note about Player Red: his Mars Bug is particularly well-suited to generate lots of Catalysts, the currency of the game that can be used to purchase improvements. (In game terms, it has lots of red cubes, indicating a very active and productive metabolism.) On the other hand, no other player has any stake in the Mars Bug, which means Red is effectively limited to buying only one improvement per turn. Since random events tend to wear away at every organism’s status, this means Red may have a hard time actually putting that wealth of Catalysts to good use.

Okay, with that summary behind us, let’s move on.

Turn Six (1.0 – 1.2 billion years)

The event this turn is Supercontinent Ur, indicating another consolidation of what continental land-masses there are on the planet – there probably aren’t very many, since the Tropical Waterworld condition is still in effect. Ocean and Coastal landforms are active, and two new refugia are deployed. The Pumice Raft represents floating collections of porous volcanic stone, another place where cell structures might easily form. The UV Irradiated Ocean represents open water in which chemistry is being driven by high-energy sunlight. Earth is still in a Warming period.

Most players leave their existing investments in place, although Green places an investment in the Alkaline Seep refugium that appeared last turn. None of the autocatalytic rolls generate significant results.

During Darwin rolls, every organism generates at least one or two Catalysts. Red’s Mars Bug generates a pile of red disks, so many that Red maxes out on how many he can hold. He takes several yellow disks instead. The Gamma Bug suffers the loss of one cube for the lack of enough genetic code to prevent replication errors.

During purchases, Yellow’s Space Bug makes great progress. Since three players all have a stake in the organism, each of them can spend some of Yellow’s disks to improve it, and they do. At the end of the turn, the Space Bug is so advanced that it’s ready to make the jump to multicellular status. In the process, the Space Bug releases another oxygen spike that’s strong enough to wear away some of Mars Bug’s progress. Grumbling some more, Red spends disks to purchase Chloroplast Symbionts for the Mars Bug, giving it more ability to deal with oxygen in its environment.

Turn Seven (1.2 – 1.4 billion years)

The event is Huronian Snowball. With photosynthesis slowly filling the atmosphere with free oxygen, any methane and carbon dioxide is being drawn down, plunging the planet into a deep freeze. The oceans are freezing over, almost down to the equator. The Cosmic landform is active. The Continental landform would also be active, but the planet (still) has no continents. No new refugia turn up. A weak global oxygen spike occurs, but all existing organisms have enough protection to avoid taking harm. Earth is now (obviously) in a Cooling period.

Most players leave their investments in place. Blue takes another try at the parasitic gambit, this time attaching a Viroid parasite to the Gamma Bug and stealing one of its green cubes.

Autocatalytic rolls are mostly unproductive, but Blue gets a little luck and manages to finish organizing all the available manna at the Clay Mound refugium. He takes the opportunity to create a new organism, based on glycol nucleic acid or GNA. We’ll call this one the Mud Bug.

Darwin rolls are a mixed bag, although they produce plenty of Catalysts for everyone to spend. The Smoker Bug takes a lot of errors, losing all of its Mutations and even one of its basal cubes. Blue continues to have a run of bad luck with his parasites, as the Viroid loses its stolen green cube to a replication error.

Yellow begins purchases by spending a green disk and promoting the Space Bug to multicellular status, producing Flatworms. The new macro-organism is fairly robust, with two endosymbionts (including an algal symbiont that gives it some photosynthetic ability) and a functioning blood network driven by a primitive heart. The flatworms are at the bottom trophic level in the early marine ecology.

According to the rules, the appearance of the first multicellular organism means an “oxygen crisis” that brings the Archaean Era to a premature close. The last two event cards for that era are discarded, immediately sending this planet into its equivalent of the Proterozoic Era.

Notably, one of the events thus passed over was the Late Heavy Bombardment (LHB), a late episode of frequent asteroid impacts on the inner planets. This would have been difficult for our organisms to survive, but would also have broken up the Tropical Waterworld condition.

Worldbuilding Notes: Astronomers are actually in debate over what caused the LHB, or even if the LHB really happened in the first place. It’s possible that the LHB is nothing more than an illusion, a statistical artifact created by the very small sample size of our Lunar rock collection. If the LHB did occur, the leading theory is that our solar system went through a period of orbital instability among the gas giant planets. This “unpacked” their orbits, badly disrupting the Kuiper Belt of leftover comets and planetesimals. Let’s run with this, and assume this alternate Earth’s solar system underwent no such event. Any gas giant planets are in closely packed orbits, probably in a 1:2:4 Laplace resonance, and the Kuiper Belt is very dense compared to Sol’s.

Yellow also spends a blue disk to purchase mRNA for the Gamma Bug, acquiring the “Red Queen” ability that might enable it to absorb its viroid parasite. Other players make small investments in their organisms. Blue is unable to purchase anything for the Mud Bug, having only one blue Catalyst disk and no blue cards currently available.

Turn Eight (1.4 – 1.6 billion years)

This turn’s event is the Cryogenian Snowball. Even more extreme weather conditions than last time – the dramatic draw-down of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is causing the oceans to freeze over. No landforms are active, and no new refugia appear. The deep freeze is causing enormous drought conditions on what few land-masses exist, but there are no terrestrial organisms yet to suffer harm from it. Another global oxygen spike occurs, this one stronger, enough to destroy Mutations carried by the Smoker Bug and the Mud Bug. The Viroid parasite attached to the Gamma Bug is also wiped out by the oxygen spike. Earth remains in a Cooling period.

Blue is the only player with a free investment to make. He tries one more time to attach his Viroid parasite to the Gamma Bug, stealing yet another green cube from it. Yellow is beginning to get annoyed – if he has to put up with parasites, it would be nice if they would last long enough to become symbionts and actually contribute something! Blue and Green each invest spare Catalysts in their existing organisms, placing them as antioxidants that might defend against any further oxygen spikes.

The autocatalytic rolls are uneventful. Darwin Rolls produce a few disks, and no errors that can’t be covered by anyone’s blue chromosomes. Nobody but Red has a lot of disks to spend, and of course Red has no symbiont partners to help his spend his disks, so the purchase phase is slow too. Yellow gives Blue a mild glare and activates his Gamma Bug’s Red Queen ability, stealing the green cube back.

Turn Nine (1.6 – 1.8 billion years)

The first event is Oceans Rust Out, which is an Aftershock event – the Tropical Waterworld condition is finally broken, and plate tectonics are under way again. The follow-up event is Medea’s Revenge. Lots of oddness taking place here. The increasing load of oxygen in the oceans has reached a tipping point, in which a great deal of dissolved iron precipitates out and forms banded iron deposits on the sea-bed. Meanwhile, the anaerobic ecology’s last hurrah belches lots of methane, carbon monoxide, and other nastiness into the atmosphere, possibly messing up those organisms that were just getting used to free oxygen in their environment.

Oceanic, Coastal, and Continental landforms are active, and the last Oceanic refugium comes into play (the Green Rust Fumarole). Yet another strong global oxygen spike takes place, damaging the Mud Bug and driving the Viroid parasite into extinction (again). The surge of carbon monoxide in the atmosphere damages all of the active refugia, although none of them are destroyed. The Flatworms are forced to make their first Cancer roll and come through with flying colors, generating several Catalysts for Yellow and taking no errors they can’t deflect with blue chromosomes.

Blue is still the only player with a free investment. He doesn’t like his chances in any of the existing refugia, so he tries the parasite gambit one more time. Deciding that pestering Yellow would be a good way to get hit over the head with the rule-book, he attaches the Viroid to Red’s Mars Bug instead, stealing a green cube.

Autocatalysis rolls are uneventful. Darwin rolls likewise, except that the Mars Bug takes an error that it can’t cover with blue cubes, and is forced to give up the Quorum Sensing mutation it purchased last turn.

This purchase phase is notable for the fact that Yellow’s Flatworms acquire the last of their organs, automatically promoting them to Earthworms. The first precocious animal life has crawled onto the land, strikingly early in the planet’s history. Notably, no other families of land animals will appear for over a billion years.

Worldbuilding Notes: Here we have a water world, just beginning to generate continental landforms for the first time. There’s nothing but simple plant life and the equivalent of earthworms to form a simple ecology on land . . . and that’s how the situation remains for whole geological eons. It’s as if the planet is stuck in evolutionary stasis for a very long time, all the further progress taking place underwater.

Otherwise, the players make routine progress on their existing organisms. Red activates the Mars Bug’s Red Queen ability to steal back the green cube from the Viroid. Red is really hoping that the Viroid will last long enough to be absorbed as an endosymbiont in the Mars Bug – he would like some help spending all those Catalysts he’s accumulated.

Turn Ten (1.8 – 2.0 billion years)

This turn’s event is the Nitrogen Famine. This is a major development, a hypothetical period in which most of Earth’s nitrogen budget is lost, becoming nearly-useless molecular nitrogen in the atmosphere. This leaves almost no nitrogen for organisms to use in their metabolic pathways, until life develops the ability to “fix” nitrogen on its own.

This card triggers a massive “Smite” event, destroying all of the existing refugia except for the Deep Hot Biosphere. Generally, after the Nitrogen Famine, Earth is a lot less likely to produce new micro-organisms. Fortunately, an associated extremophile event and oxygen spike are both too weak to harm any existing organisms. Oceanic and Coastal landforms are active, and Earth remains in a Warming period.

With no refugia to invest in (aside from the Deep Hot Biosphere, which is unattractive since Red has a dominant position there), the temptation to indulge in parasitism becomes irresistible. Green gets into the game by attaching his Cyanobacteria parasite to the Mars Bug, displacing the weak Viroid parasite there and stealing a blue cube. Blue responds by flipping to the Virus version of his parasite card, attaching it to Green’s Smoker Bug, and stealing a green cube.

The autocatalytic roll in the Deep Hot Biosphere makes incremental progress. Darwin Rolls produce plenty of disks for everyone but Yellow, who instead loses one Mutation from the Gamma Bug.

At this point, Yellow is actually starting to feel the converse problem of Red’s. He has plenty of symbiont partners to help him spend Catalysts, but the Gamma Bug just isn’t generating any income for lack of an active metabolism. Yellow has attempted to correct this, but the cost of dealing with Blue’s parasites has held the Gamma Bug back, and now his stock of disks is depleted. Unless Yellow finds a way out of this bind, his further progress is likely to be stalled.

Purchases are uneventful. Both Red and Green activate their organisms’ Red Queen genes to steal back cubes from the parasites. Blue and Green make progress advancing their micro-organisms.

Interim Comments

We seem to be moving into a period that’s sometimes called the “boring billion,” a time in Earth’s history where geology, climate, and ecology were all remarkably stable. With the Nitrogen Famine in the past, and almost no refugia available for investment, every player is in a position of just trying to stay ahead of chaos. Who else is going to be able to produce multi-cellular life, and follow those earthworms onto the land? And will anyone be able to get something out of the exercise of parasitism? Find out next time . . .