There was a surprising amount of orthodoxy when it came to xenobiology in the triad.

For a very long time, the only version of life scientists were willing to talk about was the same model we're all used to.

Organic compounds in, waste out, all of that fueling a centralized neural

cluster. Now, never mind that there were already examples that contradicted that model. You're in

the same room with one of them right now. Hi there. Babians have a central brain like you do, but further

down the abdomen are two sub-brains that help coordinate the additional appendages

and can take on additional workload in times of high demand.

Octopuses on your planet are the same way.

But the orthodoxy continued on for many a cycle,

and any xenobiologist who dared to challenge it

was summarily sent to the fringes of the science.

It wasn't until an unauthorized treatise written by a xenobiologist,

known only as the gentleman,

began to circulate through the community that minds began to change.

In the treatise, it's proposed that there was a viable alternative

to the organics in, organics out model.

It was called the energy accumulation model.

Energy is everywhere to be harnessed.

It need not be through biological processing that complexity be achieved.

It reads, here we stand, my fellows, with advancements our ancestors could not dream of.

And still, life.

The simplest thing.

...