Chapter 375: The Origin of Life in the Mo Civilization

The Mo Civilization's Science Participation was also candid about its own origins:

"We were born from this black mist, where most of the material is not actually gas, but nanoparticles that exist between liquid and solid states.

Our life form is 'membrane,' resembling a massive canvas that, when unfurled, spans tens of thousands of square meters, comparable to the area of your large sports stadiums.

This 'membrane' is not actually a surface, but comprised of countless tiny 'threads,' which constitute our bodies.

We are boron-based life, life forms assembled from boranes and their derivatives. You must have some speculations about boron-based life.

But the abundance of boron elements in this galaxy's black mist is very high, which is the foundation for our birth."

Chu Yan: "We have certain speculations about boron-based life and even believe that many properties of boron are superior to those of carbon.

However, we still think it's unlikely that boron-based life would emerge in the universe since the cosmic abundance of boron is too low to create conditions conducive to fostering life.

Although the proportion of boron here is relatively high compared to other elements, the elemental richness here is still pitifully low, to the extent that it's almost no different from a vacuum.

In such a thin black mist, with virtually no material, and devoid of sunlight, gravity, pressure, or even wind, we can hardly even speculate how you move.

Everything here is in a state of deathly stillness. How could you have been born in such a place?"

The Science Participation spoke slowly: "Everything here is immersed in silence and Chaos. It took us eons to gradually become aware of the existence of matter.

There is no wind in this seemingly motionless black mist, but there are still disturbances.

This galaxy has three stars whose irregular motions have become the main source of disturbance in our world. Perhaps it was these disturbances that shaped the unique pattern of material convection in our world.

In fact, a substantial amount of a material crucial to us has also formed in this black mist—the boron magnet, which constitutes the cornerstone of our life.

Boron itself is not magnetic, but it can cleverly assist in constructing polyhedral crystal cell structures. When these structures incorporate iron, the magnetism of the iron is greatly enhanced. The crystal cell structures can also change and lose their magnetism when electrified.

Furthermore, boranes can form complex compounds with metal ions. They can conduct electricity and form large boron chain skeletons.

There is a variety of boron compounds, including some borane derivatives that have formed boron nucleotides, playing a key role in our energy metabolism.

By some chance, the boron chain skeletons, like threads, combined with the boron crystal cell structures, and with the action of boron nucleotides, our earliest life forms came into being.

The structure of this life form is quite similar to your early relay computers.

It uses boron-iron polyhedra as 'relay' units, with long, web-like boron chain skeletons forming 'circuits.'

In this charged black mist, our initial life forms had an important characteristic—they were able to adsorb nearby material and gradually grow.

Subsequently, this life form continued to evolve, and a second form was born.

Our sole source of energy is the plasma 'Fire Wall,' which emits faint electromagnetic and thermal radiation, and we rely on this energy to sustain life.

However, this radiation also produces a slight pressure that could potentially blow us away from our energy source.

Therefore, we gradually evolved into a sheet-like shape, at the same time being able to adjust our posture.

So, the second form of us gradually became sheet-like, while also being able to regulate our own posture.

"Your sailboats on Earth can sail against the wind by adjusting the sails, and we use the same principle to ensure we are neither too close to nor too far from the 'Fire Wall.'"

"This was also the only way we could move in the early days."

"In this form, we would continuously absorb and utilize the useful substances in the black fog, gradually growing larger."

"In this form, we kept on absorbing and utilizing the useful substances in the black fog, continuously growing."

"When we grew to a certain stage, we could no longer control our entire body, and would split apart. At the right time, we could also recombine."

"Gradually, our life form became more and more complex, eventually evolving from 'sheet' to 'membrane', and even a 'nucleus' appeared within the membrane, marking the birth of our third life form."

"This life form also possessed a weaker thinking ability, which was the starting point of our intelligent life."

"The basic units of our thought structure are biological macromolecules, which select the 'circuit' direction through 'relay' units. Compared to your neuron cells, our thinking units are countless times smaller and countless times more efficient."

"Even your 1-nanometer integrated circuits are far behind us in computational power; our 'relay' thinking units are at the angstrom level."

"In this way, after billions of years of evolution, we reached our current life form, a life form that exists between the material and energy states."

"It is now extremely difficult to discover us, though we still need to rely on boron-based material, but only a small amount is needed, which almost blends in with the surrounding black fog material."

PS:

Boron has many properties similar to carbon, including the ability to extend itself indefinitely, and its hydrides are stable regardless of the number of atoms; it also has a greater bonding diversity and stability than carbon.

Although boron is not as suitable as carbon to support biochemical reactions and its compounds' polymerization capability is not as good as carbon compounds, most of the material forms of carbon-based life can be substituted by boron-based materials.

Conjectures about Boron-based life:

Carboranes and carbonitride boranes based on icosahedral structures might serve as carriers of genetic information, similar to purines and pyrimidines in carbon-based life.

Boron-based life could also participate in metabolism using polysulfide as a substitute for oxygen. The sulfur hydrogen (H2S) or organic sulfane (RSH) produced by the reduction of sulfur elements could then go through a cycle of turning back into polysulfides or sulfur through plant photosynthesis.

Whether it's proteins, which are the main bearers of life activities in Earth's carbon-based life, or DNA, which is our genetic material, they are both actually made of very simple molecules—amino acids and deoxynucleotides. It is not hard to create borane derivatives with similar functions to amino acids or nucleotides.

Regarding these conjectures, this book hasn't used any; the boron-based life in this book is created based on neuron thought processes and computer operational mechanisms.

As for sailing against the wind using a sailboat, it involves utilizing the resistance of the water and tacking a zigzag course, thus managing to sail against the wind, a concept learned in middle school.

The Mo Civilization also utilizes the resistance of the black fog and the radiation from the Plasma Fire Wall to adjust their position.

Generally speaking, the magnetism of a macroscopic magnet comes from the sum of the orbital angular momentum magnetic moments and intrinsic magnetic moments of all electrons inside the magnet.

Understanding the principles behind the creation of magnetism is quite difficult, involving quantum mechanics and the Pauli exclusion principle. We don't need to comprehend all that detail; it's generally known that electrons are arranged in pairs around the nucleus and the magnetic moments produced by the electrons cancel each other out. Significant magnetism manifests only when there are unpaired electron orbits and the magnetic moments are aligned in a specific direction.

All boron cells containing iron control its magnetic strength, which is entirely possible. The strongest magnet we commonly refer to is the neodymium magnet, which is actually called the Neodymium Iron Boron Magnet. Although boron content is low, its role is significant.

Boron forms a tetragonal crystal structure at the molecular level, which enables iron to produce a tremendous magnetic energy product effect. Boron could be considered as the frame of a building and iron-rubidium as the bricks and cement.

About relay computers, it's true that human relay computers are very large and not practically valuable, but for the Mo Civilization, the biological macromolecule relays are tiny."