On 19 Dec 2008 at 18:45, Jeff wrote:
> - Virus hit the planet and triggered some kind of planetary-scale
> ecological disaster, such as a series of 5-10 Chernobyl-scale nuclear
> meltdowns, a massive toxin release into the oceans, etc.
You don't even need Virus.
Just a badly damaged ship fiull of refugees that has a catastrophic
failure during approach and crashes into an ocean.
That releases something that'd been growing in the ship (all sorts of
crud will grow if the life support system is way overloaded).
It *likes* the oceans. Grows well. Alas, it's displacing the algae.
And feeding off darn near anything organic that'll sit still (think
of it as a fungus. So it "grows" on the animal and plant life it
encounters).
So it's royally messing up the oceans. Including killing off the
algae that have been making most of the oxygen. It blocks sunlight
from the deeper water, so the plants there die. And the animal life
is starting to die from lack of oxygen as the slime mats spread.
Probably won't spread well up rivers and streams and not at all well
on dry land. Marshes it'd like. And it will *slowly* spread along the
edges of those rivers and streams.
The locals may not notice until the O2 content of the air starts
dropping. And by then, it's too late.
--
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
shadow at shadowgard dot com
> - Virus hit the planet and triggered some kind of planetary-scale
> ecological disaster, such as a series of 5-10 Chernobyl-scale nuclear
> meltdowns, a massive toxin release into the oceans, etc.
You don't even need Virus.
Just a badly damaged ship fiull of refugees that has a catastrophic
failure during approach and crashes into an ocean.
That releases something that'd been growing in the ship (all sorts of
crud will grow if the life support system is way overloaded).
It *likes* the oceans. Grows well. Alas, it's displacing the algae.
And feeding off darn near anything organic that'll sit still (think
of it as a fungus. So it "grows" on the animal and plant life it
encounters).
So it's royally messing up the oceans. Including killing off the
algae that have been making most of the oxygen. It blocks sunlight
from the deeper water, so the plants there die. And the animal life
is starting to die from lack of oxygen as the slime mats spread.
Probably won't spread well up rivers and streams and not at all well
on dry land. Marshes it'd like. And it will *slowly* spread along the
edges of those rivers and streams.
The locals may not notice until the O2 content of the air starts
dropping. And by then, it's too late.
--
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
shadow at shadowgard dot com