Post by timebean on Mar 11, 2017 2:59:11 GMT
I used to get annoyed by it in sci-fi, but then I think about earth during the shallow sea period (Cambrian, I think...), when alot of earth was just shallow sea teeming with life. I could see a situation like that being extrapolated to a whole planet, I guess.
One of the things that makes earth so diverse is plate tectonics (ie, both in terms of the latt/long + oceans + mountains = variations in climate, and the impact of past vicariance on gene flow and speciation). If a planet was smaller, had no plate tectonics...I don't know...maybe it would all look the same? But then...it would still have major latitudinal climate variations just from being a sphere with differential heating from the star it orbited, which would make me think very different ecosystems from poles to equator.
Maybe...if the land areas were all along the equator, and the ocean at the poles, maybe you would have the land area being populated by similar species throughout the terrestrial zone? But that would have some weird climate...
This make my head hurt! It's hard to imagine because life on earth is so intimately linked to the diversity of of the physical landscape and the long-term evolution of all the species. I'm leaving it all to the astrobiologists to sort out!
Still...I am cool with it in general in stories and games. It doesn't break immersion for me.
It does remind me...I always wanted to go the poison "eden" planet in the old Star Trek episode. I always wondered if those poor space-hippies could have found a better spot without poisoned fruit had Kirk taken the time to scan the planet! LOL!
One of the things that makes earth so diverse is plate tectonics (ie, both in terms of the latt/long + oceans + mountains = variations in climate, and the impact of past vicariance on gene flow and speciation). If a planet was smaller, had no plate tectonics...I don't know...maybe it would all look the same? But then...it would still have major latitudinal climate variations just from being a sphere with differential heating from the star it orbited, which would make me think very different ecosystems from poles to equator.
Maybe...if the land areas were all along the equator, and the ocean at the poles, maybe you would have the land area being populated by similar species throughout the terrestrial zone? But that would have some weird climate...
This make my head hurt! It's hard to imagine because life on earth is so intimately linked to the diversity of of the physical landscape and the long-term evolution of all the species. I'm leaving it all to the astrobiologists to sort out!
Still...I am cool with it in general in stories and games. It doesn't break immersion for me.
It does remind me...I always wanted to go the poison "eden" planet in the old Star Trek episode. I always wondered if those poor space-hippies could have found a better spot without poisoned fruit had Kirk taken the time to scan the planet! LOL!
