Re: planets

abrigon wrote:
> I know in humans we have our brain, but also our muscles have a
> form of memory. So a race that has 6 limbs versus 4, might have
> more brain power, or atleast an additional brain (or
> pseudo-brain).
There's no form of memory in muscles.  Near the base of our spine there
is, I believe, a sort of "pseudo-brain" that co-ordinates various
instinctive reactions (like the knee-jerk reaction).  But that's a
matter of distance, it's too far for the signal to travel to the brain,
register, send a command back, and carry it out.

> Of course what do milipedes have for brains? Mainbrain and ...
> not sure..
Same level of cerebral development as insects, that is, a small bundle
of nerves.  Just because they have extra limbs doesn't require extra
brain power.  They are, after all, co-ordinated, a single command is all
that's needed to move them in synch.

One of the sketched-out alien races in the Democratic Union of Worlds
(capital - Luna, once dominated by Humans, but now Humans are a
minority, outbred by more fertile races) is a symbiotic organism, which
has two brains.  Originally there was a highly intelligent, but
vulnerable and slow-moving, creature that formed a bond with a larger,
stronger, and faster, but of very low intelligence, creature.
Presumably after the symbiosis existed for a while, the less-intelligent
one would lose even more brain power, perhaps retaining only certain
instinctive reactions, or perhaps a low level of intelligence required
to navigate over difficult terrain, while the more intelligent partner
would lose bodily functions, like its limbs might become vestigial (or
perhaps specializing into arms), perhaps it might even lose the
digestive system if it draws on the blood of the less intelligent one.
What think y'all?