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Originally Posted by Cannon_Fodder
They could be silicon based I think
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Whilst some types of life use silicon based reactions, the range of reactions which silicon can undergo is so much smaller than that of carbon that silicon-based life could not create anything with a complexity similar to that we see of this planet's carbon-based life. For example, silicon cannot create six (or more) membered rings in the way that carbon can. Silicon cannot create long chain molecules, whereas carbon can. Silicon cannot easily bond using its pi orbitals, meaning that it cannot have double and triple bonds in the way that carbon can.
There are, of course, additional, yet more specific and in cases trivial, objections to it, such as the lack of an analogy to the carbon cycle (the one in plants/whathaveyou, not the theorised method of fusion).