BLOOD OCEAN

The alien ocean in Solaris remains beyond human understanding at the end of the novel.  The ending of Neon Genesis Evangelion is also beyond understanding; this is not a coincidence.

Physical Composition

“The conditions that obtained when life had not yet emerged from the oceans have not subsequently changed a great deal for the cells of the human body, bathed by the primordial wave which continues to flow in the arteries.  Our blood in fact has a chemical composition analogous to that of the sea of our origins, from which the first living cells and the first multicellular beings derived the oxygen and the other elements necessary to life…The sea where living creatures were at one time immersed is now enclosed within their bodies.”

Italo Calvino, Blood, Sea

Kelvin and the books he reads repeatedly make clear that the Solarian ocean is composed not of saltwater but of “plasma”.  Apparently even an initial analysis of the ocean’s contents indicates it is clearly an “organic formation”.  Elsewhere, especially right after Kelvin arrives at the station, he describes the ocean as reminiscent of blood:

“The ocean, which, sunlit on this side, shone with an oleaginous gleam, as though the waves secreted a reddish oil.”

“”Thick foam, the color of blood, gathered in the troughs of the waves.”

Anyway, the ocean is obviously a “primal organic fluid” of some sort, like blood plasma or protoplasm.  This is the same thing as the LCL in NGE.  Originally LCL is only seen inside the Evangelion entry plugs, although at the end of the series all human life, if not all life, on Earth is converted/reverted to LCL.  Although the total biomass of the Earth is nowhere near enough to actually fill an ocean, some handwaving about Second Impact and artistic license gives us the “LCL Ocean” seen at the end of end of the series.

LCL pours out of an entry plug

Behavior

The Solarian ocean extrudes various cryptic objects as part of its inscrutable existence:

“About an hour beforehand, an area of tens of square miles of ocean vitrifies and begins to shine…the gleaming sheath of the ocean heaves upwards to form a vast ball that reflects sky, sun, clouds and the entire horizon in a medley of changing, variegated images.  Diffracted light creates a kaleidoscopic play of color…The immense flaming globe has scarcely reached its maximum expansion above the ocean when it bursts at the summit and cracks vertically…The membranous arches soaring into the sky now fold inwards and merge to produce a thick=set trunk enclosing a scene of teeming activity…the mind=bending architecture of this central pillar is held in place by vertical shafts of a gelatinous, almost liquid consistency…’illustrating’, sometimes contradicting, various laws of physics…The interior of the symmetriad becomes a factory for the production of ‘monumental machines,’ although they resemble no machine which it is in the power of mankind to build…”

“Protuberances that reach as far as two miles into the atmosphere…”

“The extensor appears to be an independent creation, stretching for miles between membranous walls swollen with ‘ossified growths,’ like some colossal python…this inflated cylinder, reaching from one side of the horizon to another, is bewilderingly alive with movement.”

Sounds familiar

But that’s nothing:

“I noticed a pale, almost white, object floating on the surface…A child.  I realized that it was no ordinary child…This child was extraordinarily large.  Enormous, in fact.  It was naked – completely naked – like a new=born baby. ..it was making other movements, and they were horrible.

Wow, where else have I seen something like that?

Both oceans also have some effect on local astronomical phenomena, although maybe less so in NGE (the Solaris ocean makes adjustments to its planet’s orbit and can influence solar activity).  Then again, the LCL ocean is a very new creature.

As suggested above the Solaris ocean and the LCL ocean can both “absorb” humans in a way that preserves in some way their memory and psychology, although Solaris never resorts to anything as proactive as the Third Impact.

Subjective Experience

The subjective experience of the living ocean in both cases lies outside human understanding.  Certainly it has little in common with the ordinary experience of being human.  The origin of the Solaris ocean is totally mysterious, lacking even two dozen episodes of anime to enlighten the reader.  But the LCL’s origins and experiences would certainly present almost as much of a mystery to later human explorers, never mind extraterrestrials who arrived on Earth after eons.