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by __MatrixMan__ 830 days ago
I wonder to what extent they'd need to compete at all, they'd probably have a different diet. Maybe there are carbon life forms out there living mutualistically with boron-nitrogen life forms.
1 comments

I don't expect a mix of Boron and Nitrogen. Only Boron in some planets and only Nitrogen in another planets.

We [1] can eat things with Nitrogen, so I expect a competing form to be completely eaten if they are less effecient.

I don't know enough about Boron chemistry, but if there were enough of them we will eat them too, unles they eat us first.

The first stages of living things are probably very ineficient. If you need a year to make a viable copy, a previus life form will probably eat you before that. I think that two independent origins of life in tha same planet are impossible.

[1] If you include bacteria and archea in "we". And even we (humans) can eat some compound with nitrogen, in particular proteins that mix carbon and nitrogen.