Re: [SG,DS, Colonial] Invasive Species

On Fri, 5 Feb 1999 devans@uneb.edu wrote:

> The beasties would be there if the ecology itself were terribly
competitive; no
> need for hive mind in such a case.

this bugs me; what is it that makes en ecology competitive? it's the
organisms that live in it, surely. thus, you get nasty beasties if there
are other nasty beasties, a sort of evolutionary arms race, much like
the
one which produced the dinosaurs. i suppose this could indeed produce
some
fearsome animals, but just you wait until the next ice age / big rock
from
space ...

> While the quote involving fleas having fleas having fleas resonates in
my mind,
> there may be no micro-organism to become a threat to humans, or the
body
> chemistry may be so different as to make infection impossible.

this is true; in fact, i've argued that myself many times. still, i'd
have
thought metal and plastic would be vulnerable, even if the colonists
weren't.

> Large, established colonies would seem to require the terraforming
you'd
> suggest, but the smaller ones oft mentioned in GZG, either nascient or
> speciality-driven, would tend to take what they find.

ah, the big metal/glass dome approach. fair enough. these places might
well have to put up with uppity locals.

Tom