A Cognitive Weather System

Before I was a linguist, I was a meteorologist for about 10 years. I was recruited into the Air Force at 24, worked weather for about a decade, then got the fuck out and went right back to college for my linguistics degree. I've always wanted to create a weather system that had some form of cognition. Thankfully, my linguistics degree involved far more cognitive theory than I anticipated.

However, I just about failed chemistry sophomore year of college (how does a meteorologist almost fail chemistry?), so it makes sense that I would try to make a lifeform whose cognitive modules are based on atmospheric fuckery. Sure, all life is biochemistry. But let's throw some weather in there, too. If someone is capable of checking my math/chemistry, please do so.

In the meantime, let's do this.

What Is It Like? 

The planet is ungodly cold and covered in total, perfect dark. EM waves pulse through the atmosphere, and frequent lightning transforms mercury vapor into a drifting white powder called mercuric chloride. Liquid ammonia pours from the sky in torrential downpours. Chlorine tornadoes swirl across the surface with no apparent fore-warning. The weather is deadly and alive - the mere act of the entity thinking brings about calamitous weather that can destroy a ship in the blink of an eye. High barometric pressure on the surface wrecks havoc on human and android bodies alike, and will kill them over time if they aren't smart.

How Does the Entity Work?

The bulk of the entity is contained in the atmosphere. The entity is the atmosphere. Every cognitive function happens from the surface to 36,000 feet AGL.

The atmosphere is composed mostly of mercury, chlorine, ammonia, and silicon. The surface of the planet is cold as fuck and dark as hell. Ambient temperature is -89.41 F (-67.45 C). There is a constant layer of stratoform mercury clouds from 3,000 feet AGL to 15,000 feet AGL. Several types of cumuliform clouds appear at what is considered the mid-etage for this planet (5,000 - 9,000 feet AGL): cumulus, towering cumulus, and cumulonimbus (5,000 - 30,000 feet AGL). Occasional alto-stratus standing lenticular clouds cap mountain tops or appear in areas of high turbulence (lower- to mid-etage: 3,000 - 10,000 feet AGL).

No sunlight pierces the upper stratus layer. Cumuliform clouds are visible only by flashes of frequent lightning that occur once or twice per minute. The troposphere of the planet is on average 383.00 - 253.16 inHg, which keeps free-floating mercury in a constantly vaporized state unless adiabatic temperature processes cause the mercury vapor to radiate out. The surface pressure is about 500.00 inHg (give or take 50-100 inHg, depending on the movement of low or high pressure systems). This is equivalent to about 16 standard atmospheres. Gravity on the surface is roughly 1.5x that of Earth's gravity. Movement is slow and exhausting.

For perspective, the average surface pressure of Earth is 29.91 inHg (1 standard atmosphere). The Mariana Trench (Challenger Deep) is about 32,000 inHg (1,071 standard atmospheres). The top level of Earth's troposphere (~36,000 feet) is 6.73 inHg.

Needless to say, this is a dense atmosphere and high pressure surface. It's not bottom-of-the-ocean deep, but it's certainly not survivable for long. How this affects players is discussed later.

Mercury vapor and chlorine permeates the air, and there's a constant drizzle of liquid ammonia that occasionally transitions into a torrential fury that floods low-lying areas. During these torrents, players can easily find themselves trying to survive against ammonia flash-floods and mercury-waste/silicon mudslides.

Once or twice per minute, a bolt of deep blue lightning rips through the air, spiking the surrounding temperature to 18,032 F (10,000 C). Massive amounts of UV radiation are released in the immediate area. The temperature increase bonds mercury and chlorine to create HgCl2, mercuric chloride. This creates a band of mercuric chloride powder that slowly floats down to the surface. The HgCl2 settles on the planet's surface where it mingles with ammonia rain, creating 1) white precipitate mercuric amidochloride, and 2) amalgam of aluminum. The amalgam of aluminum settles into the soil on the planet's surface and decomposes into mercury waste and amines. The mercury waste is recycled back into the atmosphere, while the amines coalesce with silicon to create silica DNA structures. These amine structures are composed of pairings of N, H, Hg, Si, and Cl.

Silica DNA creates cells that reproduce via explosive fragmentation. The energy released by the explosive fragmentation reproduction cycle fuels cellular reparation via binary fission. These cellular structures are the foundation for a complex web of neurons that lie within the stratoform mercury clouds that cover the entirety of the planet. The web is microscopic and quick to repair itself. A ship flying through these clouds will likely pass between dendritic regions or axons without coming close to them. On the off-chance neuronal structures are damaged, the structure is distributed enough that other areas are able to compensate for the destroyed region until it repairs itself through binary fission.

The entire planet is covered in a single weather system, but to a casual observer appears to be multiple, distinct pressure systems. Each of these pressure systems acts as a cognitive module.

The upper-most layer, the stratoform layer, is the base layer of cognition. It's responsible for autonomic responses, instincts, information encoding, etc. Other pressure systems, such as low-pressure mercury thunderstorms, ammonia rainstorms, chlorine tornadoes, mercuric chloride dust-storms, silicon cyclones, hurricanes, etc., are all responsible for other cognitive functions (decision-making, language processing, "visual" processing, sensual output, etc.). These systems move according to autonomic requirement. This means that its cognitive processes are not truly modular, but are linked by a central cognitive module (the stratoform layer). However, each higher-functioning module beyond the base-layer is distinct from one another. Information is not shared between modules outside the stratoform layer.

Beyond the stratoform layer, I'm not going to assign a 1:1 cognitive module per pressure system. Instead, I'm going to advise Wardens to think of this intelligence as an inward-facing intelligence. It is only aware of what happens within it, and has no awareness of an outside space. It still contains hallmarks of cognition as we know it (deductive reasoning, memory, etc), but they are all geared toward an inner-world or inner-model of itself that is not based on outside stimulus.

There is no universe outside itself because it has no sense capable of detecting anything beyond its atmosphere (which is the border of its self). Instead, it is its entire universe. What happens inside of it is the only thing that it's aware of and therefore the only thing that exists. If you haven't read my post regarding how the language of thought can affect our personalities (and if you don't feel like reading it), you may want to read up a little bit on the language of thought hypothesis. If you don't want to read that either, here's the extreme base of what you need to know: every living organism has some kind of language in their own head that is different than their primary language. You think in a language that is not at all the same as the language you speak. Information is encoded in this language, and when necessary, translated into your primary language. Whether that encoding is image-based, propositional, both, or neither is very hotly debated (1, 2, 3, 4...just to list a few, there are hundreds...), so how you want the entity's language of thought to work is up to you, and you probably won't be wrong.

Keep this in mind when considering the entity. If it has no way to interact with the outside world, it would have nothing but its language of thought. It would have no concept of language. How can players communicate with the entity? How would an intelligence like this react when beings (such as your players) suddenly land on the surface and start fucking around? Will it view them as obtrusive thoughts? Will it view them as some kind of viral infections?

Consider the Chinese Room thought experiment as well. Can the entity even understand the players, or does it merely learn how to react to them? Is understanding required to react appropriately?

Can Players Speak to the Entity?

Warden's choice. Personally, I would advise against it. The entity is too alien for there to be a common reference from which a language understanding could form. Does this thing even have communicable language or a language apparatus? Personally, I think not. The idea of communication involves having a concept of something outside yourself, and the entity just doesn't have that. It has its language of thought that it uses to encode information and communicate between cognitive modules, but it has no concept of external communication, and therefore no concept of language.

Besides, is this thing even alive? You could argue for or against it. Is it intelligent or simply responding to stimuli? An old-school, mercury thermometer responds to stimuli, but nobody would argue that it's alive or intelligent.

What Happens on the Surface?

Remember, there's high barometric pressure on the surface and that's going to work chaos on humans and androids alike, along with increased gravity (1.5x). Human players can survive on the surface of this planet with simple vac suits for short bursts of time. Movement will be exhausting over a shorter period of time than they might be prepared for. Androids don't need a vac suit per se, but I can't imagine it's good for their circuitry to be walking around in ammonia rain, mercury vapor, mercuric chloride dust, etc.

In any case, I recommend keeping it limited to vac suits (optional for androids, but I would require it for the above stated reasons). I also recommend against giving your players crush suits (armored vac suits will have no bearing on their ability to withstand pressure), because crush suits will take all the fun and stress out of exploration. Lean into how horrible this place is to explore, but its alien atmosphere should hint at a tantalizing wealth of exotic data to sell. Besides, who carries suits rated for crush depth on a fucking space ship? No. Vac suits only. Here are the effects of extremely high barometric pressure on a human:

Every hour, roll d10 stress equal to the number of hours they've spent on the surface. Additionally, roll a d10 to determine...

High Pressure Effects (not to be confused with decompression sickness)

After 1 hour:

1-2: Delayed response to visual and auditory stimuli.

3-4: Decreased reasoning and short-term memory function.

5-6: Calculation errors and judgemental errors.

7-8: Idea fixation.

9-0: Overconfidence and sense of well-being.

After 2 hours:

1-2. Sleepiness and confusion.

3-4. Hallucinations.

5-6. Severe delay in response to signals, instructions, and other stimuli.

7-8. Uncontrolled laughter, hysteria.

9-0. Terror.

After 3 hours:

1-2. Loss of short- and long-term memory.

3-4. Hyperesthesia (increased intensity of vision and hearing).

5-6. Manic or depressive states.

7-8. Disorganization of the sense of time.

9-0. Blackout.

For each incremental increase in hours, roll on the subsequent table in addition to all previous tables. So by hour three, you'll be rolling 3d10, with each die representing an effect from one of the tables. Effects stack, things that seem contradictory are experienced in rapid fluctuation (for instance, a player can feel both a sense of well-being and abject terror by having their emotional state rapidly fluctuate between the two...go ahead and roll Fear and/or Sanity saves if this happens). You don't need to tell them outright that it's because of high barometric pressure. If they're not ambitious enough to devote some time to studying it, they don't deserve the information.

After three hours, just keep rolling those same tables. Your players should wise-up long before then and realize they need to go back to the ship to de-stress, or they'll just die of stress effects. Neither one is your particular problem.

When players return to the ship, they need to spend a few hours in the airlock slowly re-pressurizing, or they'll suffer from decompression sickness, probably go insane, most likely die. If they don't re-pressurize, take them through this accelerated timeline of the stages of...

Decompression Sickness

Stage/Hour 1: Fatigue and muscle pains.

Stage/Hour 2: Itching around the neck and ears.

Stage/Hour 3: General numbness in fingers and toes.

Stage/Hour 4: Headaches, vertigo, vomiting.

Stage/Hour 5: Leg paralysis.

Stage/Hour 6: Seizures.

Stage/Hour 7: Unconsciousness.

Stage/Hour 8: Death.

Stages can be reversed and decompression sickness cured at any point by undergoing re-pressurization treatment. Any airlock should be capable of being repurposed for re-compression treatment as a high-oxygen hyperbaric chamber. Time in a hyperbaric chamber is equal to the number of hours spent untreated.

Note that decompression sickness doesn't really come in stages, but in severity based on pressure and time spent at pressure. However, use the Stage/Hour progression as a simplification of this.

The idea is that players need to chunk their explorations into manageable portions. They need to approach exploration with a plan, and make incursions onto the planet. Getting out once and taking a stroll isn't going to cut it. They need to be prepared.

Finally, their equipment isn't made for this. It should start to deteriorate, forcing repairs (this can also be another clue that the barometric pressure is fucking with them). Let their suits malfunction out in the field. Roll a d100. 10 or below, there's a malfunction, roll on the malfunction table. Most of these malfunctions also work for androids who aren't wearing suits. Some, like the O2 leak, won't have any effect on an android. Chalk it up to the perks of being an android, or cycle to the next closest threat. Warden's choice.

Every hour after the first spent on the planet's surface degrades their equipment by 10%. So after two hours, roll a d100 and on a 20 or lower, roll on the malfunction table. Hour three, 30 or below; hour four, 40 or below, etc. If someone is skilled enough (Warden discretion), they can preemptively repair their suits back to "full," thus resetting the % degradation (default "full" is rolling a 10 or below on a d100).

Every malfunction forces a Fear/Sanity save, and the malfunction is permanent until the suit is repaired. If a suit malfunctions, a Crisis 2 check is required to repair it: the first success repairs the malfunction, the second restores the % degradation back to normal (rolling a 10 or below).

d10 Vac Suit Malfunctions:

1. False readings. Suit shows increase in heat-rate, blood pressure, or other vital monitoring, even though you feel fine. Death might be imminent, it might not. Who knows? Certainly not the suit. But the constant alerts and screeching alarms are driving you and your crewmates crazy.

2. Temperature malfunction. The heater goes out. The temperature in the suit slowly drops. Your helmet fogs over, and ice crystals crawl across the glass. Hypothermia begins in d10 minutes.

3. Radio-to-radio short-out. The voices of your crewmates fall silent. All you can hear is your own heavy breathing and the lonely wind of this strange planet. Hopefully, your crewmates are close enough to hear you scream.

4. Navigation software error. It directs you the wrong way towards your destination. It reports the ship to be somewhere else. Who is right? You or your crewmates? How do you know your crewmates' suits haven't broken, and yours is the right one?

5. Audio render hiccup. Just a long, loud static scream in your ear. Is that a voice on the static or just your mind trying to make sense of the white noise?

6. Oxygen leak. Hypoxia in d10*10 minutes. Oxygen is used up in half the time on a failed Fear save (hyperventilate) unless your crewmates can calm you down.

7. Cracks skitter across your visor, web-like. Your visor implodes in d10*10 minutes, sending glass shrapnel into your pretty, pretty little face. If it implodes, Body save or lose an eye to glass shrapnel. Then, Body save again every 10 minutes. For each failed Body save, toxic air starts killing you. 3d10 damage (these Body saves can be grouped, so if you determine it will take the player 30 minutes to get back to their ship after their visor implodes, just roll three Body saves, and 3d10 for each failed save to determine how much total damage/stress they suffer on the way back).

8. Wideband malfunction. Suddenly, your radio picks up everything. Every bolt of lightning emits a static shriek, every surge of radiation blares pink noise. EM pulses in the clouds thump like the beating of your heart. Crewmates' voices are fed back to you over and over again, overlapping one another like some demented choir. You can't turn it down, can't turn it off, can't understand your own thoughts above the cacophony.

9. Electrical short. All lights shut off. You can't see jack shit in front of you, only the light of nearby crewmates, if any are around. If not, you are entombed in utter darkness.

0. Over-pressurized water supply. Your drinking tube starts spraying out water into your helmet. It won't stop. You try to drink, but can't drink fast enough. Drown in d10*20 minutes.

These malfunctions, combined with High Pressure Effects, can very quickly create a fatal situation. Teamwork and caution is essential for crewmates to keep one another alive.

Finally, the lightning mentioned earlier. It happens all the time, everywhere. Roll a d100 whenever you like. On a roll of 1, a player gets struck by lightning. Do with that what you will. Lightning here is quite a bit colder compared to Earth (Earth is about 50,000 F, here is about 18,000 F). People survive lightning strikes all the time, it just fucks them up real good for a little bit.

If someone gets hit by lightning, I advise 2d10 stress for the struck player, Panic check for everyone else. Also, roll a vac suit malfunction or two for the struck player and 3d10 damage.

How Can Players Study the Entity?

Players can take observations, samples, and data to learn about the entity. They can study it from orbit or on the ground. They can take ground samples, air samples, or try to sample directly from clouds if they're feeling froggy. Give them information that slowly reveals the entity described in the first section. Reward curious and scientific study with information. Reward exploration with data samples and observations.

Pressure systems don't work the same way with the entity as they do on Earth. On Earth, weather is dictated by heat exchange and Coriolis (among other factors). On this planet, the entity affects heat exchange in order to influence the movement or formation of pressure systems, because those are its cognitive modules. The act of the entity "thinking" is what causes the weather to change.

The entity should react with consistent pressure systems (ie, thunderstorms, hurricanes, tornadoes, dust-storms, derechos, etc.) depending on what the players are doing and what the entity is trying to do to (or determine from) the players, or what it's thinking about. Is the entity trying to deduce what the players are? Well, if you've decided that tornadoes correspond with neuronal activity associated with deduction, then maybe the players will have to suffer through or flee from numerous tornadoes. If the entity can "hear" what's happening on its surface, and you've decided that dust storms correspond with the cognitive module associated with auditory input, then if the players make a lot of noise, there should be a proportional uptick in dust storms.

Players can also collect surface samples to make conclusions regarding the entity's composition. A sufficiently skilled Scientist should be able to figure out from soil samples that there's DNA within the soil. Atmospheric samples can provide the same data.

Electro-magnetic or heat-map observations of the stratoform layer should reveal networks that correspond roughly to dendritic regions of living beings (but will reveal nothing about its intelligence capabilities).

Energy needs to flow in and out of these regions. For known living beings, that energy takes the form of oxygenated blood. For the entity, it takes the form of ammonia hailstones. The collision of hailstones releases large amounts of energy for the entity. This also causes massive bolts of lightning to leap within cloud (not cloud to surface). Players should see, either via heat-map or direct observation, that ammonia hailstones are directed to specific areas that correspond with cognitive module function, and bursts of lighting associated. For example, if players send probes to the planet that send radio signals back to the ship, those radio signals should have a mild cognitive effect on the entity's neuronal network. Hailstones and lightning will be focused on the areas through which the radio-waves pass as the entity attempts to analyze the radio-waves emanating from its surface.

Players choose what they do with the data they collect here. Will they protect this strange entity, or use it to escape the horrific debt that suffocates them? Preservation or exploitation? I'm certain some corporation or government would gladly purchase the preliminary findings and system location for 100mcr or more, depending on how rare comprehensive studies on alternate lifeforms are in your universe (they are quite rare in mine, something like this would be worth an untold fortune in discovery alone, never mind publication rights, talk show circuits...I really do wonder how far players will go to milk it for cash). I'm also sure that some socially conscious group will not be happy if they decide to simply sell this information to the highest bidder.

Everything has consequences.