Not an
inconsistency. They were using "traditional" terraforming methods. Those include
introducing water to a planet that lacks it (I assume that comet that was being
steered into the north polar region was composed of water-ice for that reason),
oxygen (through simple plants such as algae that break down carbon dioxide into
that life-giving gas) and other gases such as nitrogen (to dilute the oxygen),
ozone (protection from space radiation). Giant factories could be built to
process existing minerals in the soil and produce some of those gases I just
mentioned. Say the planet soil has lots of silicon dioxide (sand) and even
nitrogen compounds, those could be processed to produce nitrogen, oxygen,
ozone. Carbon dioxide, needed for those simple plants to produce oxygen,
may be low in the atmosphere, but it could be found in dry ice pockets which
would be melted into the gaseous form. Also, increasing the carbon dioxide
levels starts building up the Greenhouse Effect so the planet could hold in
more heat, rather than radiating it back into space at night and yielding
dangerously cold temperatures. And again, comets are thought to consist of
water-ice, frozen carbon dioxide, and in some cases organic compounds
that'd be beneficial introduced into the ecosystem. So you go out to the
outer Solar System, grab a view, and shoot 'em toward Mars. They blow up
and fill the atmosphere with water vapor and other needed
gases.
We
could terraform right now, assuming we could reach the planets. It'd probably
take a couple hundred years to see results, but we could do it. Indeed, some of
the methods used to make deserts or ice-bound places habitable here on Earth are
examples of the process. The Genesis Effect was completely different,
something that didn't depend on any standard theories of utilizing existing
resources, but literally performing an alchemical change to convert substances
from one element to another.
This
traditional method of terraforming is obviously labour intensive, especially if
all the needed elements can't be extracted from the planet's own soil, ice, or
underground reservoirs of liquid water. Then you have to go deeper into space to
find what you need. But even then you have potential sources of organic
compounds from places like Jupiter, Saturn, and their moons. It's also
something that takes decades to yield permanent results. Remember on TNG there
was an episode where they encountered a planet that was being terraformed. The
group doing it commented on how it would take decades. That was the episode that
yielded the famous "ugly bags of mostly water" quote!
-----Original Message-----That revolt on Mars in "Terra Prime" seemed strangely familiar to
From: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of g123curious
Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 15:09
To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [scifinoir2] Re: "Enterprise" episode "Terra Prime"
the Mars Rebellion in Babylon 5. The only 2 differences, one had
terra-forming and the other didn't. One had the actress Marjorie
Monaghan's character (who Dr. Franklin later hooked up with in a
later ep) and the other had (sadly) Colonel Green.
Nit-picking: so how eactly did this ep of Enterprise have terra-
forming while 100_ years later David and Carol Markus (Kirk's son
and ex-wife) hadn't yet perfected the Genesis Effect? This seemed
like an inconsistency to me.
George
--- In scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com, Astromancer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hmm...I would love to see an elaboration of this Colonel Green
character...It would give me some more insight in the that last
story...or maybe not...
>
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