> >> 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.
No, it's easy enough. The lab-designed generations
would have had much of their genome from the Founders, so the
Founders would have had a genetic investment in them (probably
collectively) as descendants. And the changes to their genes
would have greatly increased their fitness to survive on Stratos.
(The kidneys were already mentioned, and there are other examples
later.)
As a Founder, the only place for your actual (and
therefore unmodified) children would be off-planet. Maybe
some of the Founders and their actual descendants DID leave
Stratos, and it just never gets mentioned in the book.
---David
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
