Under The Iron Sky.

One prevailing idea about the nature of life in the universe is that it requires liquid water to survive. Planets that have liquid water are often considered the most likely places to have some form of carbon-based life.

I like to broaden my horizons on this one a bit, and state that life (life as we know it anyways) really requires a few simple things. A source of energy, the ability to convert that energy into "food" and an ability to procreate within the parametres of your own species.

This led me to think about a planet that had an elongated elliptical orbit around a hypergiant star named VV Cephei A. Let's call the planet "Fe". Fe's orbit around the unimaginably massive star took 800 years, but as a result of the elliptical orbit, the nature of Fe changed greatly through this near-millennium. At the apex of the orbit, while it was furthest away, Fe was a solid rock of superdense material. Kneaded by the push and pull of its strange orbit, the rock that composed the planet's surface and mantle had been compressed and forced to create a shell that made it very hard. On the surface of this planet are hollow, bowl-like stalagmites. During the coldest season, while Fe was furthest away from VV Cephei A these stalagmites are filled with solid iron. For almost 100 years the iron remains this way until Fe gets close enough to the star it orbits, and begins to heat up. While the surface remains unchanged, the iron softens and a strange occurrence begins to take place. As a result of the massive magnetosphere that is formed between Fe and Cephei the iron is charge with both magnetism and electricity. Not unlike our own brains, this "spark" gives birth to consciousness.

This is where it gets a bit more sci-fi.

The idea is that the consciousness that befalls these iron pools is laden with the consciousness of eons of life. The creatures of Fe, Ferrans as I'll call them have traveled around Cephei for millions of years going all the way back to the time when the first of them gained consciousness as a result of the magnetosphere. Their "lives" exists for several centuries, as they thaw and "wake up" from their solid states. As Fe hurdles closer to Cephei, the Ferrans step out of their stalagmite cradles and onto the surface of their planet where they observe their solar system through an orange-hued sky, just barely screening the expanse of the universe. Like delicately created tuning forks, the Ferrans have no eyes, no ears, rather they pick up on the most minute of vibrations that emanate from both their world and their solar system. They turn these vibrations into information which is stored in their iron minds.

As Fe gets even closer to Cephei, the Ferrans density begins to lessen. They are now fully liquid and unable to record as finely as they once could. Instead their physiology has metamorphosed into something like that of a plant. With Cephei so close, they spread their forms out across the surface of the planet so that all of Fe is covered in a slightly glowing iron ocean. They absorb the heat and light from the star, and convert this energy into further data about the current temperature of the star as well as the size and density therein. This information is calculated and the Ferrans figure out (collectively) how much time their star has left, down to the minute.

Fe, now finally as close to Cephei as it will be in this orbit is intensely hot. So hot, in fact that the Ferrans have dispersed into an iron gas that envelops their world. This is the stage in which the Ferrans "procreate". Their material is scattered and mixed with that of all the others of their planet until it is impossible to tell where one Ferran ends and another begins.

As Fe begins to orbit away from Cephei at a higher velocity than it approached it, subject to a slingshot effect the planet begins to cool quickly. The Ferrans rain down upon their planet and begin to fill the stalagmite cradles from whence they came. In the few minutes it takes for them to fall from atmosphere to surface, there are large cracks of lightning that arc across the planet. This will be the last communal sharing of information between the Ferrans for another 400 years. With it, they record the ambient temperature of the space above the planet and the density of the atmosphere they compose.

As the stalagmites are filled with liquid iron rain, the Ferrans are new beings, the result of the gaseous state they were in, each of them now contains more memories, more information than they had previously contained when they neared Cephei. The solidification begins to occur, and the last few drops of liquid iron travel up the stalagmites to join their whole. No gram is left behind and once again Fe is quiet. The Ferrans have solidified and gone dormant once again, preparing for another trip around their hypergiant star.

If life can exist in the extreme depths of our oceans, and at the superheated vents along the tectonic boundaries, then surely it can exist anywhere.