Cats on Safehold?

Theemile wrote:... Chinese Carp are literally jumping out of the water in the Mississippi river and Chicago river, ...

Those are the rivers where some boaters?/skiers? have been injured/killed lately, right?

mhicks wrote:So what animals are terrain on Safehold?
Gerbils, Horses, Humans, anything else? The bids all have 2 sets of wings an the giant lizards all have 6 legs, cats have 6 legs. You would think someone would stop and wonder why something's have 4 appendages and everything else has 6

Dogs made the trip, and so did chickens (there's references to people eating them). Presumably dairy animals of some sort, given that Nynian "invents" ice cream late in book 10. The pack caribou raised in Raven's Land sound like the Terran species with some adjustments, rather than a Safeholdian species given a Terran name.

It would be interesting to know if the Ark terraformers had stocks of fertilized ova for a wide range of Terran species on hand, just in case whatever planet they picked didn't have species that fit all the "slots" humans would need. For example, if Safehold hadn't had dragons to take the role of land cargo-hauling, the terraformers could have thawed out and grown a herd of modified gaur or bison.

Julia Minor wrote:
Dogs made the trip, and so did chickens (there's references to people eating them). Presumably dairy animals of some sort, given that Nynian "invents" ice cream late in book 10. The pack caribou raised in Raven's Land sound like the Terran species with some adjustments, rather than a Safeholdian species given a Terran name.

It would be interesting to know if the Ark terraformers had stocks of fertilized ova for a wide range of Terran species on hand, just in case whatever planet they picked didn't have species that fit all the "slots" humans would need. For example, if Safehold hadn't had dragons to take the role of land cargo-hauling, the terraformers could have thawed out and grown a herd of modified gaur or bison.

I am interested too in what animals were worthy of saving and introducing to a new ecosystem. International agriculture trade is highly regulated. As the bloke from Australia testified. Could those animals be one more piece of evidence that people came from someplace other than safehold?

Also, another question i had was if the GABA killed off all the humans on earth, did they kill off any other lifeform? Dolphins are quite intelligent. When Humans return to SOL are they going to have to restock animals that once lived on earth but were eradicated?

mhicks wrote:

Julia Minor wrote:
Dogs made the trip, and so did chickens (there's references to people eating them). Presumably dairy animals of some sort, given that Nynian "invents" ice cream late in book 10. The pack caribou raised in Raven's Land sound like the Terran species with some adjustments, rather than a Safeholdian species given a Terran name.

It would be interesting to know if the Ark terraformers had stocks of fertilized ova for a wide range of Terran species on hand, just in case whatever planet they picked didn't have species that fit all the "slots" humans would need. For example, if Safehold hadn't had dragons to take the role of land cargo-hauling, the terraformers could have thawed out and grown a herd of modified gaur or bison.

I am interested too in what animals were worthy of saving and introducing to a new ecosystem. International agriculture trade is highly regulated. As the bloke from Australia testified. Could those animals be one more piece of evidence that people came from someplace other than safehold?

Also, another question i had was if the GABA killed off all the humans on earth, did they kill off any other lifeform? Dolphins are quite intelligent. When Humans return to SOL are they going to have to restock animals that once lived on earth but were eradicated?

I had the impression that GABAbered worlds ended up completely lifeless, but thinking about that am not quite so sure now. In OAR, IIRC the first planet that they encountered was hit with multiple C-frac missiles, so I imagine not much high level life left?

I could imagine that they had a 'billiard ball' approach to earth and other rocky planets in solar system, given the serious resistance they encountered. A bit like Rome and Carthage!

isaac_newton wrote:
I had the impression that GABAbered worlds ended up completely lifeless, but thinking about that am not quite so sure now. In OAR, IIRC the first planet that they encountered was hit with multiple C-frac missiles, so I imagine not much high level life left?

I could imagine that they had a 'billiard ball' approach to earth and other rocky planets in solar system, given the serious resistance they encountered. A bit like Rome and Carthage!

I must have missed that GABA exterminate all life. Well hope they put the right DNA sequence on the ARK for the return trip home. Earth a rocky ball with hopefully water and an atmosphere when humans return. Maybe there is no reason to return to Earth other than to kill the GABA. At this point it would almost make better sense for Humans to never return to earth and only build up a Navy capable of protecting Humans as they explore more planets giving warnings to all to avoid the other systems where GABA are known to be. Hopefully humans could make contact with other peaceful races.

The destruction of Crestwell's World isn't described in OAR; the only indication given is that it was facing a massive bombardment. Unfortunately, the condition of the ET systems that the TFN discovered is never described either, so all we know is that those planets were sufficiently badly damaged to kill off the residents, but not so badly damaged that you couldn't tell they'd existed and get some idea of their cultural level. Which suggests to me that they weren't rendered lifeless - that is very hard to do. OTOH, I can think of several ways that the land surface can be effectively sterilized that would leave major elements of the built civilisation intact - and the description we do get suggests that one of them was being used [which, I have no idea]

Hmmm... although I seriously doubt that a truly aquatic species could develop star-faring technology without external assistance [a la David Brin's dolphins] one does wonder if the Gbabas' standard burn-off techniques would be able to eliminate a race like that.

mhicks wrote:

isaac_newton wrote:
I had the impression that GABAbered worlds ended up completely lifeless, but thinking about that am not quite so sure now. In OAR, IIRC the first planet that they encountered was hit with multiple C-frac missiles, so I imagine not much high level life left?

I could imagine that they had a 'billiard ball' approach to earth and other rocky planets in solar system, given the serious resistance they encountered. A bit like Rome and Carthage!

I must have missed that GABA exterminate all life. Well hope they put the right DNA sequence on the ARK for the return trip home. Earth a rocky ball with hopefully water and an atmosphere when humans return. Maybe there is no reason to return to Earth other than to kill the GABA. At this point it would almost make better sense for Humans to never return to earth and only build up a Navy capable of protecting Humans as they explore more planets giving warnings to all to avoid the other systems where GABA are known to be. Hopefully humans could make contact with other peaceful races.

Julia Minor wrote:

mhicks wrote:So what animals are terrain on Safehold?
Gerbils, Horses, Humans, anything else? The bids all have 2 sets of wings an the giant lizards all have 6 legs, cats have 6 legs. You would think someone would stop and wonder why something's have 4 appendages and everything else has 6

Dogs made the trip, and so did chickens (there's references to people eating them). Presumably dairy animals of some sort, given that Nynian "invents" ice cream late in book 10. The pack caribou raised in Raven's Land sound like the Terran species with some adjustments, rather than a Safeholdian species given a Terran name.

It would be interesting to know if the Ark terraformers had stocks of fertilized ova for a wide range of Terran species on hand, just in case whatever planet they picked didn't have species that fit all the "slots" humans would need. For example, if Safehold hadn't had dragons to take the role of land cargo-hauling, the terraformers could have thawed out and grown a herd of modified gaur or bison.

Which makes the loss of the ARK fleet that much more of a tragedy. These stocks of ova are the last fingerprint of Earth and earth's amazing biodome. As mentioned lower in the thread, the Gabba no doubt handled Earth... roughly, let's say, in their quest to destroy humanity. Virtually every land animal and land flora, and probably most major aquatic species will not survive even a Mild Gabba assault aimed at removing humanity. Life is pernicious, and no doubt something will recover eventually unless the Gabba bring the entire surface of the Earth to 2500 Kelvin before they finish.

Not saying that Cat and Bison - or Chinese carp, Boa snakes and murder wasps - are the correct lifeforms to unleash on any particular world, but the loss of the "recording" of the majority of Earth's species is a crime in and of itself - and one that might cost mankind in the near term future.

I don't recall Evolution being any part of what we are told about the Writs. It doesn't exist. Not going there, you know where you came from and you know when and there is NOTHING in the geological and topographical records that says differnt. Everyting -if you develope something like archialogy (and why would you) there is nothing to find other than what Langhorne and the Arch Angels put on Safehold in preparation to support his creation the humans. Canals....Langhorne's doing, you have to keep them clear. No ancient ruins, no ancient anything.

Essentialy, it says that "god" created the world and everything in it. Period.
There is NO pre-history, Langhorne made everthing including the "Adams and Eves" and that is where humans come from. The local humans have NO understand of that term Adam and Eve except in the context of they were created by Langhorne.
Sure, there was some tiny slippage as some of the people involved on the side of the Arch Angels had to have various skills reserected from their (otherwise) non-existant past but it isn't till Nimue is awoken and comes out into the world as Merlin that any but a tiny tiny fraction of the population has any idea that something is subitly wrong with the world and how things are structured.

Langhorne and the Angles made things the way they were when the Adam and Eves woke up and found it. HE had his reasons and there has never been any reason to think that anything was different. And Langhorn does't bother with explinations, his Archanges give his rules and whatever reasons or explinations you need.


Most of the animals you mention that are clearly Terran in origin are things that have been used as food for humans in the past. Yeah, people ate dogs, still do in some places. The rest, even horses are just find for human consumption. So bringing those (and chickens and hamsters) along gives you a running start in your Terriforming process once you have things that these mostly grazers can eat and turn into protien that humans can use.

As for the rest? Well that's what Langthorn give us. All that "unconsecrated" ground is really only space which God's children must work to consecrate and bring into use for farming etc. They have to work at it....hard work and long work, to literally change that land to be ready for consecration by the Church before people can expand into it.

Two legs, four legs, six legs.....that's just the way it is. Can people eat draft lizards? I don't recall. Not exactly sure what from the seas they can eat but it would depend on just how differnt the "native" biology was when the fleet showed up. Oh they can use Doomwhale oil for lamps and apparently Kraken are happy to eat people but that doesn't mean that people can sucessfuly eat them and prosper (versus dying horribly from poisoning or alergec reactions). Probably a great many proginal things can't really be metabolized by humans and those that tried were "not sucessful in living to breed" if they didn't switch back to the stuff Langhorne and the Angles said were good to use.

People probably don't even try to eat Slash Lizzards as humans seem to have tended not to hunt or use preditors for food. Ok, dogs or at least their wolf ancestors and wild predator distant cousins of wolfes are an exception.

As far as what is left of life on worlds the GABA had wiped of their intelegent creatures, all you have to do is consider how long it is though to be that things rebuilt as far as plants, animals and sea-creatures after Chixalube impact. The GABA don't have to try and grab a 11+ km astroid and send it at Earth, they can take a whole bunch of smaller ones and rain them down. How many of them would "do the job"? 15 or 20 in the 1 km size range and scattered across the major land masses and in the oceans and, well, things are going to be downright inhospitable to anyting larger than a rat for a while.

Besides, Langhorn probably didn't like Terran Cats and ordered that both none were releases or grown from embryos right from the start. Just get rid of the "cat" genetics and spare Safehold a really independent minded Terran predator.

Brigade XO wrote:
Two legs, four legs, six legs.....that's just the way it is. Can people eat draft lizards? I don't recall. Not exactly sure what from the seas they can eat but it would depend on just how differnt the "native" biology was when the fleet showed up.

We have textev for people eating dragon, but I don't recall offhand whether that's just sea dragons (which were already being hunted for oil, so personally I'm just as happy they're using the meat as well) or if draft dragons are also on the menu.

Roast wyvern is a thing. Texted of draft dragon being consumed in green valley’s winter march. I suspect that one of Shan-Wei’s terraforming jobs was to determine what locally produced foods either were already or could be tweaked to be edible and tasty. Thereby increasing the food options and decreasing the possibility of failure due to the loss of a limited (terran) food resource due to failure to adapt or a disease.