The donkey between two equally attractive piles of hay: me, reading a lot of science-fiction

[polaris93]

My growing interest in and study of astrobiology is playing merry hell with my love of science fiction. Deep in Tom Kratman's novel A Desert Called Peace, which is a fascinating story about an earthlike world settled by Earthmen that is undergoing wars much like ours in the 21st century, I am struck by the fact that as described, his Terra Nova

Comments

[anonymous]

Mmm...it has three moons. Venus has none. Is Venus' orbit unstable? It was apparently terraformed by the Noahs to as a refuge for and to support earthlife. If life from the Earth of half a million years ago can eat, because of that terraforming, why not people from this century? There's a map; how much description do you need? And, moreover, the map shows that the continents are roughly like ours - more indications that the Noahs terraformed it.

[polaris93]

Please provide scientifically verifiable data substantiating your claims about "Noahs" and Venus's "apparently" having been "terraformed by the Noahs as a refuge for and to support earthlife." Maps can be faked. Until we have landers that can touch down on Venus and explore that world, there is no way to verify your claims, dammit! You sound as if you are a member of one of the New Age groups that like to make wild, unsubstantiated claims as a matter of "revealed truth" and who expect sensible people to accept those claims simply because you make them. I'm calling bullshit, sweetie.

[anonymous]

Ah. This is Tom again. No, no, no. Your point was that a moon is necessary for a stable orbit. Since Venus has no moon (it did once; said moon crashed into the planet) and is in a stable orbit, I'm not sure where you got the idea that a moon was needed for stability. And, once again, since I wrote the world up, I get to say that the Noahs terraformed it between 500k and 5mil years ago, to suit the animals existing on earth at that time. This should likewise suit us, were it not for the tranzitree, the progressivine, and the bolshieberry that were apparently genengineered and placed there to impede the development of intelligent life.

[polaris93]

Okay, sorry about that. But dammit, I'm working from the best scientific data and models available -- see the comment I just sent to "Anonymous" about Venus's orbit and rotation, etc., in which I referred to a couple of really good books by two highly respected astrobiologists.