Re: [VV] Meran Cluster

G'day,

One last hurrah via Derek's email...

John Atkinson wrote:

> In the space of less than six hours, a toxin of some sort was
> released across the planet Mera which managed to kill over 99%
> of all lifeforms with a central nervous system.

I haven't done any epidemiology models in 10 years but I doubt much has 
changed in the mixing models in that time, so you'll have to come up 
with a very nifty explanation for the planet wide dispersal of a toxin 
on that time frame. Days I'd believe hours is pushing the credible a 
fair bit.

Did you also intend to wipe out absolutely everything except bacteria 
and wind/water dispersed plants like grass/seagrass?  Taking out  nearly

everything with a central nervous system means not only no vertebrates 
but no insects, crustaceans or any other animal invertebrate with more 
than a handful of cells. The fungi would be ok as they're mainly wind 
dispersed, but most plants would also die within a year or two with no 
means of dispersing seed (if they got pollinated in the first place). 
That leave of destruction is fairly major. Its also fairly unlikely 
unless the make up of the life in the cluster is a lot more similar than

on Earth. There is no existing toxin that we know about that could come 
anywhere close on Earth. I'm not a chemist so I can't think of one that 
would kill more than about 10%, a chemist could probably make it 30%, 
but not much more I'd reckon.

Nothing wrong with the catastrophic attack premise in principal, you may

just want to modify some of your numbers a bit.

Cheers

Beth