(urth) do the Hierogrammates *care* about the megatherians?

[Jeff Wilson]

On 5/18/2011 6:44 AM, David Stockhoff wrote:
> We don't know (a) how much pressure Abaia or Erebus' bodies can
> stand---we know zero about their physiology or technology (b) whether
> the flooding comes from plate shifting or rising water---but where else
> would all that water come from? (c) how high the waters got---did they
> overwhelm the Tibetan plateau? (d) what the effect on nonhuman land life
> is to be---presumably (from UotNS) everything but plants, some birds,
> and simple or numerous marine life (and maybe some mountain goats) is
> gone. The planet is still very alive but empty of advanced life.

c) The selection of the Himalayas was just for illustration of the 
variety of environments technically on land. I don't have any reason to 
think that the oceans would slop up that high.

b) I doubt that much plate-shifting is intended to have taken place or 
there would have been some hint of major vulcanism that would result. 
"New continents" might be a subtle play on the watery connotations of 
incontinence rather than a literal prophecy. Rising water could be 
driven by undermined and collapsing icecaps (which extend past Tierra 
Del Fuego in Sev's time), though I think that would arrive as a series 
of tsunamis rather than creeping floods or rivers topping the levies.


-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
Computational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana
< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >