Saturnians are a sapient species from the planet Saturn.
Biology[]
Saturnians have thin spidery legs that allow them to walk among the matted vegetation and bulbous plants floating over Saturn's liquid "surface". Their bodies are supported by a light skeleton and mostly made out of spongy gas-filled cells. They also have thick leathery skin and tentacular arms, and are capable of great speed and agility. Their diet is herbivorous, consisting of the fruits of the buoyant gas-plants they live among. The protuberance on the top of their bodies is a sensory organ that detects heat. Their respiratory system is naturally equipped to filter out toxins in the atmosphere, and their bodies have internal spaces that store oxygen.
Saturnians are born from eggs that the females lay in the viscous ocean, apparently practicing no parental care. They are born as aquatic larvae.
Culture and society[]
Most Saturnians live solitary and nomadic lives, due to the ever-shifting unstable "landscape" of their world preventing any other kind of existence. However, some cities are known to exist, built inside volcanic craters and heated by geysers. Chief among these is Saturn's capital city, Crisium.
Notes[]
- Created by science fiction illustrator Frank R. Paul, this Saturnian species was originally featured in Fantastic Adventures, November 1939. Although the original article, titled "Life on Saturn", suggested that the Saturnians were at most semi-sapient and had no kind of civilization whatsoever, this was retconned in the following article, "A City on Saturn", which appeared in Amazing Stories, August 1941, and depicted their capital city.