star wars - How does the Space Slug (Exogorth) breathe in the vacuum of space?

Whilst answering this question, an interesting question came to mind.

In the chase through the Hoth asteroid field in The Empire Strikes Back, the Millennium Falcon takes refuge in a cave, which turns out to be the belly of a Space Slug (Wookieepedia tells me that this creature's proper name is an Exogorth).

I never really thought about it before, but how does this creature breathe? Wookieepedia mentions how it gains nourishment

They fed on the minerals of asteroids, various stellar energy fields, mynocks (another silicon-based lifeform), ships, and other unfortunate creatures that unknowingly passed into its mouth.

but school biology teaches me that all living things need to breathe.

Since Wookieepedia is normally pretty good at collating any ridiculous explanation that might have been given in any form of canon and I don't see anything specified, I fear there may be no answer, but I am still curious.

Answer

Presumably, they don't need to.

As your excerpt hints at, at the Wookieepedia clarifies, the Exogorth is a silicon-based life form.

All of your biology lessons will have been given based on knowledge of terrestrial, carbon-based life forms. Oxygen is used in our physiology as part of a complex process, which includes the need for a highly electronegative element.

If a similar process is needed in this silicon-based lifeform, then in all likelihood they use a different element or molecule that's found within the asteroids, and process it in such a way that:

Allows them to use it for their respiration-equivalent process (notice the anatomy picture in the wiki includes no lungs, so they breathe different than many Earth animals)

Allows them to store it for long periods of time, as the resource may be hard to find through their limited asteroid-hopping.

However, silicon is a fairly boring element, so far as we know, and doesn't form bonds like our organic chemistry does. In all likelihood, the physiological processes required to sustain such silicon life won't have direct parallels on the microscopic scale.

Comments

Did the gatekeeper and the keymaster get intimate in Ghostbusters?

According to TVTropes ( usual warning, don't follow the link or you'll waste half your life in a twisty maze of content ): In Ghostbusters, it's strongly implied that Dana Barret, while possessed by Zuul the Gatekeeper, had sex with Louis Tully, who was possessed by Vinz Clortho the Keymaster (key, gate, get it?), in order to free Big Bad Gozer. In fact, a deleted scene from the movie has Venkman explicitly asking Dana if she and Louis "did it". I turned the quote into a spoiler since it contains really poor-taste joke, but the gist of it is that it's implied that as part of freeing Gozer , the two characters possessed by the Keymaster and the Gatekeeper had sex. Is there any canon confirmation or denial of this theory (canon meaning something from creators' interviews, DVD commentary, script, delete scenes etc...)? Answer The Richard Mueller novelisation and both versions of the script strongly suggest that they didn't have sex (or at the very l...

Why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize Missy right away?

So after it was established that Missy is actually both the Master, and the "woman in the shop" who gave Clara the TARDIS number... ...why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize her right away? I remember the Tenth Doctor in The Sound of Drums stating that Timelords had a way of recognizing other Timelords no matter if they had regenerated. And Clara should have recognized her as well... I'm hoping for a better explanation than "Moffat screwed up", and that I actually missed something after two watchthroughs of the episode. Answer There seems to be a lot of in-canon uncertainty as to the extent to which Time Lords can recognise one another which far pre-dates Moffat's tenure. From the Time Lords page on Wikipedia : Whether or not Time Lords can recognise each other across regenerations is not made entirely clear: In The War Games, the War Chief recognises the Second Doctor despite his regeneration and it is implied that the Doctor knows him when they fir...

story identification - Animation: floating island, flying pests

At least 20 years ago I watched a short animated film which stuck in my mind. The whole thing was wordless, possibly European, and I'm pretty sure I didn't imagine it... It featured a flying island which was inhabited by some creatures who (in my memory) reminded me of the Moomins. The island was frequently bothered by large winged animals who swooped around, although I don't think they did any actual damage. At the end one of the moomin creatures suddenly gets a weird feeling, feels forced to climb to the top of the island and then plunges down a shaft right through the centre - only to emerge at the bottom as one of the flyers. Answer Skywhales from 1983. The story begins with a man warning the tribe of approaching skywhales. The drummers then warn everybody of the hunt as everyone get prepared to set "sail". Except one man is found in his home sleeping as the noise wake him up. He then gets ready and is about to take his weapon as he hesitates then decides ...

warhammer40k - What evidence supposedly supports Tau as related to the Necrontyr?

I've heard of rumours saying that the Tau from Warhammer 40K are in fact the Necrontyr. Is there anything that supports this statement, in WH40K canon? I just found this, on 1d4 chan 1 : Helping Necrons? Or are they Necrontyr descendants? An often overlooked issue is that Tau have no warp signatures, just like Necrons, hate Warpspawns and Warp in general, just like Necrons, have the exact same skull shape,stature and short lives, and the overwhelming need for Technology and beam weapons, JUST LIKE NECRONS. GW may have planned a race that simply prepares a pacified, multiracial galaxy for Necrons to feast upon, supported by Ethereals that have a C'tan phase blade. Then there is a reference of "dark seed in east" by the Deceiver, so the tricky C'tan might give Tzeentch the finger in the JUST AS PLANNED competition. Or maybe GW just has so little creativity that they simply made a new civ conforming to an Old One's standards without knowing it. Is this the connec...

Blog

Search This Blog