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writerstorm2010-10-19 08:30 pm
melannen) wrote in writerstorm2010-10-19 08:30 pm
What to Bring to a Colony World
Okay. You, and a bunch of your friends, are going off to colonize an alien planet.
You know that this planet has:
Gravity, heat, light, temporal cycles, elemental resources, and weather that are close enough to Earth's that most reasonably adaptable Earth species can survive and breed there.
A functioning carbohydrate-based planetary ecosystem that does basic things like keep the atmosphere oxygenated and soils fertile and dead things rotting and oceans thawed and all the other cycles rolling, and has been around long enough that much of the geology is fossilized (so there are probably coal and petroleum and carbonite deposits, etc.)
A fairly large landmass with a subtropical/Mediterranean-like climate with warm temperatures year-round, no major extreme weather, and ample seasonal rainfall, where you are planning to settle.
However, the planet's biology is not close enough to Earth's that Earth life can interact with it on any complex level. You can count on being able to use native life for things like fibers and building material and fuel and maybe latex and dyes, but anything you want to eat or use for medicine you'll have to bring with you. Along with pollinators and symbiotic fungi and any other life needed to keep that life going. And you're going to need to be self-sufficient within a year or two of arrival, with a fairly small initial population and very limited technological resources. On the plus side, local diseases, pests, and predators are mostly going to ignore anything Earth-based.
If you could have your pick of all species currently alive anywhere on Earth(and maybe a few that are recently extinct, and maybe a few that need a tiny bit of gene-tinkering first), what among Earth life would you bring with you? I am especially interested for species that aren't currently common food products in Europe/North America.
You know that this planet has:
Gravity, heat, light, temporal cycles, elemental resources, and weather that are close enough to Earth's that most reasonably adaptable Earth species can survive and breed there.
A functioning carbohydrate-based planetary ecosystem that does basic things like keep the atmosphere oxygenated and soils fertile and dead things rotting and oceans thawed and all the other cycles rolling, and has been around long enough that much of the geology is fossilized (so there are probably coal and petroleum and carbonite deposits, etc.)
A fairly large landmass with a subtropical/Mediterranean-like climate with warm temperatures year-round, no major extreme weather, and ample seasonal rainfall, where you are planning to settle.
However, the planet's biology is not close enough to Earth's that Earth life can interact with it on any complex level. You can count on being able to use native life for things like fibers and building material and fuel and maybe latex and dyes, but anything you want to eat or use for medicine you'll have to bring with you. Along with pollinators and symbiotic fungi and any other life needed to keep that life going. And you're going to need to be self-sufficient within a year or two of arrival, with a fairly small initial population and very limited technological resources. On the plus side, local diseases, pests, and predators are mostly going to ignore anything Earth-based.
If you could have your pick of all species currently alive anywhere on Earth(and maybe a few that are recently extinct, and maybe a few that need a tiny bit of gene-tinkering first), what among Earth life would you bring with you? I am especially interested for species that aren't currently common food products in Europe/North America.
no subject
I've actually spent quite a while pondering/researching whether allergies would be more or less of a problem with non-Earth-evolved biota.
Most (type 1) allergies are reactions to specific proteins, and if I'm positing alien biota don't use anything that can pass as Earth protein (which seems reasaonable - you need a carbohydrate-based biota to get free oxygen in the atmosphere on an Earthlike planet, but you don't necessarily need Earth amino acids), then the native biota, it seems like, *shouldn't* trigger allergies in humans.
On the other hand, that could be the equivalent of living in a hyperclean environment, and trigger more immune reactions in the humans. And on the third hand, it's possible that with exposure, human immune systems could learn to react with the alien proteins.
SF as a whole seems to be split on the question, and I've never seen a serious discussion of it by experts.
But, anyway, they'll definitely want some kind of anti-allergy drug - an adrenaline like epinephrine or an H1 antagonist like Benadryl, or both. Unfortunately I am having very little luck finding out how you *make* an H1 antagonist; there's always jewelweed and plantain, I guess.
The idea is that nearly all the planets being colonized have those conditions, so we want a basic kit of the stuff every colony ship carries. Most of them will have reasonably accessible and a good variety of mineral resources, though, and you always do a comprehensive mineral survey early on, while you still have aerial/orbital mapping capabilities. So anything that can be mined is there, and they have the know-how to extract most of it, yes.