From: William Ansley <wansley@warwick.net>
Subject: Re: (whorl) Crocagators
Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2001 22:31:37 

At 5:30 PM -0400 4/25/01, mark millman wrote:
>At the risk of being obvious, allow me to point out that, unlike the
>inhumi, wolves, bears, sharks, snakes, crocodilians, and the like do
>not preferentially target humans as their prey.

I don't think that "dumb" inhumi would preferentially target humans 
as their host. As I read the text, it was just an accident that the 
inhumi first fed upon the Neighbors and became sentient.

At 11:03 AM -0700 4/25/01, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:
>(As a side note, how many people are _actually_ attacked by alligators
>and the like in a given year? I presume that proper precautions could
>make the threat from non-sentient inhumi no greater than that from
>crocodilians.)

At 12:58 PM -0700 4/25/01, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:
>Which was pretty much my point. Assuming per argumentam the
>"Golden Rule" theory of the Secret, _and_ that the human
>colonists somehow manage to implement it, then the inhumi
>become "something we can live with," either as benevolent
>sentients or as dangerous but mindless giant leeches.

I think "mindless giant leeches" *that can fly* would be a much 
greater threat that crocodiles. It is easy to stay away from 
crocodiles, you just don't go near the river/lake they live in. 
(Unless, of course, it is your only source of drinking water.)

Inhumi, on the other hand, can fly so you can't avoid them. I would 
think, although I can't recall a specific example of this, that they 
could also squeeze through very small openings, since they have no 
bones.

Certainly, dumb inhumi would be orders of magnitude easier to defend 
against that smart ones, but I think it would be more difficult than 
you suggest.

William Ansley

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