Corpse Explorers

[Aeron]

I was thinking of a strange idea involving man exploring space and discovering a solar system of planet sized decaying animals. The landscapes would be made of giant oceans where rotting eyes have dissolved into putrid liquid bodies, cavernous mouthes hundreds of miles wide filled with nasty creatures feasting on the festering gums and towering teeth with cavity holes that reveal labyrinthine passageways into the bones. Yellowing clouds of gas would billow out of volcano like breaks in the skin. Twisted limbs would stretch into outerspace like surreal mountains breaching the crumbling continents of putrified flesh slowly softening and liquifying. Humans would find a way to live and populate these horrible worlds. Resources would be dug out of the meat below and create cities built on god like bones protruding above the wet decay. In the end the giant planet corpses would be crafted into vast crystalized skeletons, the bones covered in ornate architecture from the ever growing human populations scattered across them.

[Steve Dekorte]

I like the concept. Was it inspired by how microrganisms must see us?

It reminds me of how I would have liked "In the Mountains of Madness" to end - with the discovery that the mountains themselves are the giant bodies of sleeping aliens which another party of explorers might awaken.

[waffles]

This sounds like a poster for a future sci-fi-horror flick -

In Space, No One Can Smell You Scream

[Aeron]

Microorganisms but to a greater extent, maggots. I wonder what maggots would do to us if they had our creative abilities and weren't using the dead as a temporary womb but a permanent home.


I also love the idea of a story similar to Angry Red Planet, except the aliens are actually parasites and invading micro organisms upon a giant rotting corpse. I could imagine some truly weird events of humans excavating deep into the body, exploring dripping oozing tunnels of intestinal tracts, grotesque worms rippling through the meat. Ha, the crazy #### that gets my creativity rolling.

Here's a good documentary in association with these sort of ideas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBU6-XK2v54

[trieffiewiles]

I should think that the architectural skeletons that men would hone from the titanic corpse-worlds would resemble to an extent, the work, in particular the sculpture, of Kris Kuski- http://kuksi.com/ .

Were Clark Ashton Smith still alive today, I could easily see him taking this idea and fashioning some grimly ironic story from it.

[starrysothoth]

Sounds like a macabre vision that would convert well into a new illustration!

[Aeron]

Thanks, I could actually picture doing this as a short illustrated book with a few dozen illustrations depicting the discovery of the corpse planets, the exploration of the wretched lands, confrontation of the alien parasitic beasts burrowed thru the flesh, the building of a new world upon the bones and the final surreal depictions of the skeletons made up of intricate civilzations. I imagine the end pages could have a tribute to old high school science books showing a diagram of the solar system with size comparisons and the positions of the various giant corpse creatures with lines pointing out rotation around the sun. And the sun, what strange object would it be in a system of giant corpses? Perhaps an even larger skull of some fantastical animal burning on fire forever.