"While men and Ythrians could eat many of the same things, each diet lacked certain essentials of the other. For that matter, native Avalonian life did not hold adequate nutrition for either colonizing race. The need to maintain separate ecologies was a major reason why they tended to live apart." (pp. 318-319)
The two species had seemed to be practising segregation but this was only a preliminary, albeit long-term, precaution. The Wyvan of Stormgate says:
"'Indeed, the time is over-past for our two kinds to intermingle freely.'" (p. 322)
Indeed, later, human beings will join choths and many from Gray, when it exists, will join Stormgate.
Was Jack Birnam unwise to hike alone in the Weathermother? By our current rules, yes. The story shows that high tech can minimize but maybe not eliminate the dangers. Ayan, the Wyvan, scouting their new territory for his choth, had not known that it was wrong for an individual to venture unaccompanied under ironleaf trees which impede emergency calls by absorbing radio waves. The trees draw metal from the soil and concentrate particles. Thus, their leaves shine and attract bugs. Evolution finds a use for metal.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I should have stressed as well it was unwise of Ythrians to fly alone over virtually unknown wilderness. Because something dangerous might happen--as it did!
Ad astra! Sean
"For that matter, native Avalonian life did not hold adequate nutrition for either colonizing race."
In the SF of Lois M. Bujold Barrayar is a planet earthlike enough for humans to live on, but the native life is not nutritious for humans. In one of the novels set there (A Civil Campaign) a subplot involves 'butterbugs' a GMO organism that eats eg: cellulose and microbes in the gut produce 'butter' which is nutritious for both the bugs larvae and for humans. One thing the developer of the butterbugs is working on is a variation that can eat native Barrayaran vegetation & make humanly nutritious 'butter'.
Life that evolved on another planet is likely to use a different set of amino acids and something like the 'butterbug' would be a *big* help for human colonists.
Kaor, Jim!
Something like the "butterbug" would indeed be useful. I also think, as did Anderson, that human colonists would introduce, where possible, Terrestrial plants and animals for correcting any nutritional deficiencies.
Ad astra! Sean
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