Steve Sloan wrote: > >> This seems unlikely. You can't have "multiple lab-designed >> generations before Great Changes were complete" without >> _someone_ directing those changes. Or could Man have >> conquered death before coming to Stratos? > > They *left* no descendants, meaning there aren't any around by > the time the novel starts. I got the impression that the Founders > reproduced themselves (probably using stored sperm, since there > were no men) for enough generations to succeed at the genetic > engineering. When they succeeded, that last generation quit > having their own kids, and lived out the rest of their lives > raising and teaching the first generation of Stratoins. > This is _possible_, but _improbable_, because which generation would chose to self-extinguish? Lysos and the other Founders were wise enought to predict that their descendents might not be as wise and selfless as they were, and would _cheat_ and try to keep their own [Homo sapiens] descendants on Stratos. The only way that I can imagine that this was possible was if Lysos et al planned to change their own children to become the Stratoin. Alberto Monteiro
