[TML] New 3d computer simulation design: systems and suns

[Richard Aiken]

On Dec 27, 2007 7:44 PM, Timothy Little <tim at little-possums.net> wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 27, 2007 at 02:33:50PM +0100, Knapp wrote:
> > I really can't see 2 planets micro life forms co existing. One will
> > kill the other and take over in almost all cases but perhaps very
> > odd places like what happened with anaerobic things on the Earth.
>
> I could easily see them coexisting.  They probably won't be able to
> eat each other, so most dead Earth organisms (including microbes) will
> provide food just for other Earth organisms.  Even if they can eat
> each other, they won't necessary totally displace each other.  There
> would be substantial disruption, but I expect that millions of forms
> of each source of life would find their own niches.

Lois McMaster Bujold's "Miles Vorkosigan" gives Miles a homeworld like
this.  The native plant life uses a lot of heavy minerals, making it
inedible at best, poisonous at worst.  Earth imports can survive in
the wild (there's a memorable scene in one short story where Miles and
party have to hack through a jungle-like growth of rose bushes), but
they still hasn't completely displaced the native life.  IIRC, the
world's been settled for a few centuries - 3? 4? - at the time of the
novels.

-- 
Richard Aiken

"Never insult anyone by accident."  Robert A. Heinlein