From: "Andy Robertson" 
Subject: Re: (urth) contra Summa contra Marcus
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 21:25:30 -0000

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" 
> > It flew in a circle, as Pas/Typhon intended.
>
> Well, this is at least plausible. But is there any _textual
> evidence_ in its favor?



the analogy of Noah's Ark seems compelling to me



> > > II. The genetic objection.
> > > The life forms of Blue/Green are sufficiently different
> > > from those of Urth that some mechanism must be proposed,
> > > and evidence given, for the production of one from the
> > > other.
>
> > The life forms of Blue are edible to those of Urth, and
> > vica-versa.   On a galactic scale this is 99.99 percent
> > smilarity.
>
> While this is clever, it entirely evades the questions
> actually asked about the genetic issues.


A fairer reply would be that the life forms are very similar indeed except
for the limb doubling.

The life forms of Blue are nearly all near - analogs of Urth forms, with the
possible exception of the sea creatures.    This is not true of Green, where
the animals are far more alien, but even on Green the animals can eat and be
eaten both by Blue and Urth fauna.

>
> > > IV. The objection from gravitation
>
> > It is not possible that the Blue/Green system could
> > be gravitationally stable.   Ergo, it is recent.
>
> It is not possible _if_ the distances given are accurate.



Yes it is, anything can happen in a four-body system like
Sun-Urth-Lune-White fountain.



> However, there is no evidence that it is recent, and the
> ability of the inhumi to make the crossing argues that
> the two worlds have been having reasonably near passages
> for -- well, for long enough for such an expensive
> adaptation to have been worthwhile. There are two ways
> out of this:


3)  It is possible that Inhumi are native to Lune and lived there when it
circled round Urth.



> > 1) The large animals of Green
>
> > 2) The vast trees of Green


The trees are specifically mentioned as being **much larger than those on
Blue**.   Ergo, Green has lower gravity than Blue.



    hartshorn





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