From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Fri Nov 05 1999 - 15:05:25 MST
Why a large fungus? I don't see any reason to have a big and massive
fungus. In the environment you describe, mass seems to be at a
premium, so a more likely form would be a broad net of sticky strands
to collect as much matter as possible - it might be very large, but
flimsy. Of course, for your story you might need a massive fungus, but
evolution doesn't seem to favor it. Sending away spores with an
explosion might be useful on the ground, but in the zero gravity
environment of the ring it would be much easier to glide far away from
the mother colony (I would expect some self-propelling spores, a bit
like oceanic plankton).
The space-travelling plant idea has been done several times, maybe you
can invent something stranger? What about some kind of reef-building
creatures with a symbiotic ecology, that break loose chunks of the
spherical reefs to replicate it? That might produce a similar effect.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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