--- On Sat, 2/27/10, Onno Meyer <[email protected]> wrote: > From: Onno Meyer <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [gurps] Biological terraforming revisited > To: "The GURPSnet mailing list" <[email protected]> > Received: Saturday, February 27, 2010, 1:06 AM > Susan replied to me: > > But you can plant seedlings for trees - there are > already ways to replant > > forests by dropping 1-2 year old spruce treed from a > low flying plane. > > There is also the time factor of growing things. Drop or > plant > trees, and you'll have a forest in a century. Drop grass > seeds, > and you have the beginning of a meadow in a year. If the > grass > is then used to feed a herbivore, tree seedlings might > suffer > in the process.
Not usually depends on the size of the seedlings... as I mentioned before this is how they replant some clear cuts. Small trees are often eaten around if there is better tasting grass for a herbivore around. Also there are a number of trees that grow tremendously in a year - poplars are actually harvestable on a yearly basis. > > [...] > > Besides to start off with you need to seed things in > > order - so when you put the plants down generally > nothing will prey on > > them until you put either the fungus, insects or > herbivores down. When > > you put the herbivores down then they won't have > enemies for the first bit > > (which is what makes invasive species so problematic > in today's world). > > For a barren world, I could see a spiral. First grass, then > > insects, then rabbits, then foxes, then bushes, then goats, > > then wolves, then trees, etc. > That's not a bad plan. > > It also has a lot to do with the ecology of the world > you are starting > > with - is it bare rock or is it a planet with it's own > ecosystem? > > For a lifeless rock, the first stage would be gross > mechanical > terraforming, like dropping comets or spreading black dust > or > black algae over the pole caps. That calls for a factory > ship > to support lots of robot tugs and shuttles. > > When that is done or not necessary because of native life, > the > ecoformers go in. Doing it to a fresh world is a setting > for > man-against-nature adventures. Doing it to Earth or the > home > of nice cuddly teddy bears brings real drama. I'm giving > the > 15-megaton Terraforming Support Ship point defense xasers > in > the 360 MJ range. > Lifeless rocks still have an ecology in mineral terms - but it sounds like you're looking more at the barren rock scenario then the introducing bacteria to an anerobic ecosystem that produce oxygen and cause a mass extinction in the process (which was the first known mass extinction event on earth) type terraforming. _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
