Cats on Safehold?

mhicks wrote:SNIP But i like the idea of fumigating everything before it gets onto or off the transports. That would make smuggling a PICA that much harder to conceal.
-"we need to open the box to fumigate this container...Before we do, do you have any Fruits or Vegetables to declare?"

IIRC they took the PICA openly into the transport ship in its container, they just [I presume] sent the empty container back to the warship with Nimue - so no smuggling involved

People who like Felis Catus like their animals to the tune of feeding and supporting feral animals and fighting any attempt to treat them like the invasive species they are in most places. There is absolutely ZERO chance that not even one person in operation ark would have gone to whatever lengths were necessary to bring them along. Unless after the Federation cured toxoplasma gondii most cat people lost their fixation with the breed.

mhicks wrote:
I always thought that the prosses they did to terraform Safehold was that they took a planet in the Goldie Locks zone and made it like earth, then populated it with animals and plants and as the plants and animals grew on the planet, they mutated into the forms we get. I always thought that the lizard cats were Terran cats that due to the effects of the terraforming process grew an extra set of legs and that many animals did the same. I guess I need to read the first book again.

If memory serves, the terraforming process didn't take long enough for natural mutation to give us fire vine, dragons, and all the other Safeholdian plants and animals. Wasn't it just 50 years or so? (I got a new Kindle this fall, and am still re-downloading everything to it.)

Ten years, I believe. Not long enough even to manufacture the Safeholdian fauna from terrestrial forms - and why would anybody even want to?

In any case, I would doubt that any amount of evolution, or deliberate tinkering, could generate hexapods from any chordata, never mind the vertebrates. The chordates seem to be exclusively built on no-limb or 4-limb body plans; since it's the no-limb plan that seems to be common to ancestral bilateria, 4 limbs probably evolved within the chordates after they split from their near relatives - and that leaves no room for 'backing up' to a six-limb plan. It's simply not there on the genetic tree as a fork to back up to.

Julia Minor wrote:

mhicks wrote:
I always thought that the prosses they did to terraform Safehold was that they took a planet in the Goldie Locks zone and made it like earth, then populated it with animals and plants and as the plants and animals grew on the planet, they mutated into the forms we get. I always thought that the lizard cats were Terran cats that due to the effects of the terraforming process grew an extra set of legs and that many animals did the same. I guess I need to read the first book again.

If memory serves, the terraforming process didn't take long enough for natural mutation to give us fire vine, dragons, and all the other Safeholdian plants and animals. Wasn't it just 50 years or so? (I got a new Kindle this fall, and am still re-downloading everything to it.)

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

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

God/The Angels made it that way. Stop questioning it you vile heretic.

Basically. Although one assumes that the actual explanation is far more rational than that.

It's part of the whole consecrated/unconsecrated lands routine enshrined in the Writ. It would be interesting to know what the explanation is, although I would guess that it's something along the lines of 'God and Langhorne wanted men to have a part in the Creation, to make it truely their own.'

zyffyr 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

God/The Angels made it that way. Stop questioning it you vile heretic.

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

Most likely there are comprehensive explanation in Holy Writ - like different Angles worked on different creatures. Some were created by Archangels (like horses, dogs, ect.), and that's why they so refined and useful. Some were created by lesser Angels (most of local life), and that's why they are more awkward, less useful, or dangerous. Maybe even some anekdotes, how lesser Angels tried to make a bigger horse, but was unable to make it stand properly on four legs, and were forced to add another two - that's how dragons were created.

Let's not forget, Holy Writ is extremely comprehensive book. It was written by geniuses, and most likely was rewieved by AI's for ANY possible logical contradiction.

isaac_newton wrote:IIRC they took the PICA openly into the transport ship in its container

IIRC the PICA was part of Nimue's luggage allotment... It just got lost at some point due a cleck error and wasn't sent to the correct ship when Nimue moved there.

mhicks wrote:an the giant lizards all have 6 legs, cats have 6 legs.

RFC seems fond of 6 legged things, especially of the (not really [glare at the racoonish treecat]) feline kind... like Treecats, Hexapumas, Cat Lizards and so on... I expect everyday to encounter a 6 legged tiger ( or panther, or any other terran feline ) getting the 6 legs treatments in one of his book.
And honestly, I won't blame him as each time they actually make sense in the universe they are inserted into.

Daryl wrote:Predators tend to be the worst ecological vandals.
Humans obviously, but our country has had its share. Cats, foxes, dogs, pigs, rats, cane toads are all big problems. Then yes, grazing animals are also a problem, with feral camels, horses, donkeys, rabbits, hares, and more causing big problems. At one stage a big proportion of our arable land was overrun by prickly pear cactus, which was only beaten by a risky biological agent (cactoblastus grub).
Those in long established northern hemisphere countries can't comprehend just how dangerous introduced species can be.

Trust me, we have issues too. Recent Chinese pests introduced to N. America have caused havoc on ecosystems here. The Zebra muscle, introduced by the purging of Ocean going Ship's ballast tanks, have completely changed the ecology of the Great Lakes. They killed off several species, and now are clearing the water of sediments - that sounds good, right? However, it allows sunlight to penetrate further into the water and fosters algae growth. The local Blue algae, usually kept in check and growing in small amounts, now form massive blooms in the summer, releasing dioxin toxins into the water making bathing or drinking the water dangerous.

The Emerald Ash borer has killed off most of the Ash trees in the effected areas N. America (The Chinese Ashes can surrive them). Dutch Elm disease did the same for most N. American Elms in the 70s and 80s. Chinese Carp are literally jumping out of the water in the Mississippi river and Chicago river, after killing off the local carp and breeding out of control after some escaped captivity from experimental fish farms in the 60s and 70s.

The list goes on and on. Australia isn't the only place such impacted.