About Me

I first discovered speculative evolution in my freshman year of high school. While spending the pandemic lockdown at home, I happened upon a book, After Man: A Zoology of the Future by Scottish geologist Dougal Dixon. The book is about the kinds of creatures that could inhabit the world 50 million years from now. I had read other books involving fantasy worlds and the creatures that inhabit them, like H. G. Wells's First Men in the Moon, but this was the first book I read that actually attempted to justify the fictional creatures scientifically.

I discovered that Dixon's works were part of a genre called speculative evolution, the art of designing fantasy worlds using science. I was intrigued, and began exploring other people's speculative evolution projects. Eventually, I started creating my own worlds, which ultimately led me to make this website for Melidora.

Speculative evolution is a very multidisciplinary hobby. The name is somewhat of a misnomer, as it is not just about evolution - it involves all science disciplines, especially physics. This is especially true for alien projects, where the process of worldbuilding requires all sorts of orbital mechanics and geophysical calculations.

In creating the Allosapiens, Melidora's sapients, I realized that I had the opportunity to work with another interest of mine: linguistics. That interest has led me to explore conlanging, the art of creating languages. I made sure to connect the conlanging process with science - rather than wildly picking phonemes off an IPA chart, I made sure that the phonemes I selected were pronounceable by Allosapiens, and considered how their vocal apparatus would affect the way they spoke. As an avid birder, I incorporated a lot of avian influences into the design of the Allosapiens, which partially explains their bird-like vocal apparatus and ability to pronounce a wide range of phonemes (certain types of parrots and ravens are excellent at mimicking human speech).

Melidora is far from complete. The website shows a small selection of creatures from the planet, and the Allosapiens need to be developed a lot more (I am thinking about their societies and technological capabilities). I hope to continue working on the project.

I am soon to become a freshman at UIUC, where I will begin my study of computer engineering to prepare for a career in robotics. My dream job is to eventually build robots for NASA, so I can take part in the process of studying other worlds and perhaps even in the search for extraterrestrial life.

- Ananth Ramaswamy, July 2023

Credits

Terence Dickinson's excellent 1994 book Extraterrestrials: A Field Guide for Earthlings is what got me into the study of extraterrestrial life. More recently, another book, Imagined Life by James Trefil and Michael Summers, helped me understand the physics and geology behind worldbuilding. This book taught me about the various forms of ice that can develop under intense pressure, which helped me design the deep-sea Melidoran environment.

Dougal Dixon started the modern speculative evolution movement, and his books have inspired me a lot. I used his general format - of describing speculative creatures in a documentary format - when creating this website. I feel like it makes the speculation more immersive and fun. Another source of inspiration was the Furaha project by Gert Van Dijk. I liked the general layout of the Furaha website, and modeled my website after it. Furaha's many simulators were also incredibly helpful, as I was able to visualize the process of hexapodal motion much better after viewing them. The accompanying blog covered a lot of interesting biomechanics details, which influenced the designs for some Melidoran creatures. Worldbuilding Stack Exchange was great for general questions about biomechanics. In particular, the Skydrifter's design was inspired by a response to a question regarding the plausibility of floating whales.

Fun Fact

Recently, I discovered that Melidora shares its name with a fantasy novel and a hair salon in Czechia. I actually got the name from the scientific name of the Hook-billed Kingfisher (Melidora macrorrhina). I don't think that Allosapiens are secretly running the hair salon. Then again, they do have a filamentous integument similar to mammalian hair, so...

Contact Me

My email address is ananth.r.ramaswamy@gmail.com. Please send me feedback about Melidora, and let me know how I can improve this website.