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Quotes from "Anatomy of a Martian" by I. Asimov; first published as "Anatomy of
a Man from Mars" in Esquire Magazine, September 1965; appearing in the book _Is
Anyone There?_.
"Let us suppose that we are told flatly: "There is intellignet life on Mars,
roughly man-shaped in form."" ...
"Mars is a small world with a gravitational force only two-fifths that of
earth. If the Martian is a boned creature, those bones can be considerably
slenderer than ours and still support a similar mass of material (an inevitable
mechanical consequence of decreased weight). Therefore, even if the torso
itself were of human bulk, the legs and arms of the Martian would seem
grotesquely thin to us."...
"Objects fall more slowly in a weak gravitational field and thus the Martians
could afford to have slower reflexes. Therefore, they would seem rather slow
and sleepy to us." [Recon Mech Pilots]...
"To travel of shifting sands, the Martian foot (like that of the earthly camel)
would have to be flat and broad"...
"The Martian atmosphere, according to Mariner IV data, is extremely thin,
perhaps a hundredth the density of our own and consisting almost entirely of
carbon dioxide. Thus, the Martian will not breathe and will not have a
nose..."...
"We can guess two eyes in front, as in the human being, since two are
nescessary for stereoscopic vision--a very handy thing to have for estimating
distance."...
"It is very likely that the Martian will also be adapted to underground
existance, for conditions are much more equable underground. One ,might expect
therefore that the Martian would also have two large eyes set on either side of
the head, for seeing by feeble illumination" ... "These dim-vision eyes would
be enormous enough to make the Martian face wider than it is long. In daytime,
of course, they would be tightly closed behind tough-skinned lids and would
appear as rounded buldges."
Wow, now we know what those buldges on most Martians are- extra eyes! The LOM
designers really did their research, or a lot of thinking about the same
conditions. I really like LOM now. :)
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