RE: Cannibalism (and yes it is on topic)

The amount of energy used by the bioships for maneuver alone indicates
that
they would have to have some way of converting matter to energy. 
Anybody
want to speculate on an organism that incorporates cold fusion into its
metabolism?

Andy A

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-gzg-l@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU
[mailto:owner-gzg-l@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU]On Behalf Of
KH.Ranitzsch@t-online.de
Sent: Tuesday, June 27, 2000 4:34 AM
To: gzg-l@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU
Subject: Re: Cannibalism (and yes it is on topic)

> Imre wrote:
>  >And don't forget the laws of Thermodynamics.  Eating another ship
>  >would not be 100% efficient.  There would be some waste.  So,
>  >eating a mass 12 ship might only give you 6 mass toward a new
>  >ship. (I'm pulling numbers out to the air here, but you get the
>  >general idea.)

Beth wrote
> Actually it be closer to about 2-3 mass if they're anything like
> terrestrial life which only have efficiencies of about 20-25%.
>
> While I don't mind the principle of Imre's idea, I do think its more

> a strategic time-scale thing (so the only time you'd see it in a
> battle would be if you stumbled across it mid process say). This is
> not only for ecological reasons (ingestion and breakdown on such
> grand scales isn't going to be fast), ...

Overall, I consider the concept of bio-organic spaceships (especially
if they are supposed to have evolved naturally) to be so far out that
discussing them in the same paragraph as the laws of thermodynamics
doesn't
really make sense.

Still, FWIW:
1) IIRC the efficiency in converting food into body mass of terrestrial
life is markedly different for warm-blooded and cold-blooded animals.
Which class do the Savasku belong to ?
2) The laws of thermodynamics don't deal with the conversion of
materials, but with the conversion of energy. The main source of waste
in
biological is the need for energy, which is obtained by chemically
converting
high-energy-molecules (sugars, fats etc.) into low-energy 'waste'
molecules (carbon dioxide, water) which are of no use and excreted. If
the
Savasku have available 'unlimited' energy (from a biological
fusion-reactor, say), they may be able to make use of all the target
ships'
mass.

Greetings
Karl Heinz