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Teegarden's Star and its two planet candidates
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Maybe on the ocean planet, there are a few whale-like creatures, call them Hwaets.  The creatures are so huge, they are like islands, many kilometers across.

They are peaceful herbivores.

Another group, similar to sharks, call them Hsaiks, are the constant enemies of the Hwaets.

Most other life is somehow connected to one of those creatures.  What they do is either parasitism, symbiosis, mutualism or commensalism.  

Other species, even the plantlike life, tend to gravitate toward either a Hwaet or a Hsaik for protection.  (That doesn't really work very well, since the predators are going there, too.)

A few other species have no interest in either, and they are the main food of the Hwaets and the Hsaiks.  Examples are seaweed kilometers long, life similar to plankton, flying electric eels, aggressive sea anemones and swimming coral.

Occasionally one might catch a glimpse of chemosynthetic tube worms a kilometer long/tall, some of which have detached from the ocean floor and began to float.  Some are using compressed air or methane for propulsion and/or defense.  

Another flying creature reproduces with eggs.  But there's no land, and the eggs might get eaten by the creatures living in/on the ocean.  So the eggs have glider wings, and float in the air for days.  They aren't released from the bird's body until they're almost ready to hatch.  So the eggs float in the air until some ppredator tries to eat it.  The egg hatches and the baby eats the predator from the inside.  I guess that would work just as well if the eggs were laid in a nest, but I was trying to excuse the floating/flying eggs.

Most of the planet is ocean, and the gravity is higher--two factors which inhibit spaceflight.  But the sentients' astronomy is very good, they know about Sol's planets and hope somebody will come help them leave their planet.  

Maybe the reason they can't leave is the Hwaets and the  Hsaiks are the sentients.  It would be an interesting and enormous task to get them into orbit.  
Their relationship could be a Cold War, very civil to each other, but using spies and proxy wars.

I've read that a denser atmosphere is more significant than a lower gravity, regarding whether creatures evolve flight.  But this ocean world has several moons which drew away some atmosphere, so the atmospheric pressure is the same as Earth's.  So they don't have balloons or large flyers.  The tides will be complex, so swimmers will have to develop the intelligence to adapt to the tides.

In Orionsarm, is there a description of launch platforms on water instead of on land?

I have another crazy idea.  Planets can have continental plates which move around.  Maybe gigantic scaled creatures can have scales which for some reason move around like continental plates, I don't know why.  And instead of pimples, they have something like volcanoes which spew forth stuff...I hope you didn't mind reading that
 suggestion! Blush Big Grin Tongue Rolleyes
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RE: Teegarden's Star and its two planet candidates - by sandcastles - 06-19-2019, 01:45 AM

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