Keith Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
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 startsbuilding 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, frozencarbon 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.
Also remember the premise 'Red Planet' was based on...(minus the killer 'cat robot' thing...)
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.
Man Keith, you said it a lot better than I did...Starting from scratch Vs. Shake and Bake is what I would have said...
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!
LOLI forgot about that one!
-Original Message-From: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of g123curiousSent: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 15:09To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.comSubject: [scifinoir2] Re: "Enterprise" episode "Terra Prime"That revolt on Mars in "Terra Prime" seemed strangely familiar to 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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