From:	Mike Czaplinski [mikec@busworks.com]
Sent:	Saturday, September 15, 2001 7:15 PM
To:	blue_planet@lists.ient.com
Subject:	RE: [BLUE PLANET] - When is the next book due?

At 03:26 PM 9/10/01 -0700, CK Lee wrote:
>How about narwhals.
>
>OK, so they're just beluga's with horns (generally speaking)... but they
>just look so darned cool!
>
>CK

Speaking as the guy who groused so much months ago about the
Belugas being good candidates for uplift (YEAH!  COMPLAINTS WORK!),
I have to say that I can't see the Narwhal surviving into BP's mid- to
late-21st century, mainly because there is no captive breeding population
of them like there is for Belugas.

Of course, you could always include a biomod for a horn as an option
for cetacean characters in ANCIENT ECHOS....

MikeC, OOOh, Beluuuuugas..............

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From:	BIOHZD@aol.com
Sent:	Saturday, September 15, 2001 4:18 PM
To:	blue_planet@lists.ient.com
Subject:	Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Cetation communication

Rusty, 

You have some questions about cetacean interspecies combat and communication:

First, cetacean combat is always common reality. IRL orcas have preyed on 
many species of dolphins throughout their evolutionary history. Dolphins in 
the wild are know to fight often and sometimes even kill members of their own 
species as well as members of other dolphin species. This makes fins one of 
the only species on Earth that is known to kill for reasons other than 
hunger. 

In the fin book we talk about the relations between species. Uplift and 
cultural development has tempered orca predatory instincts and they no longer 
feed on dolphins (though in fin-to-fin combat the odd mouthful is sometimes 
swallowed). There is a racial memory of this predatory past however and orcas 
often use it to their benefit for purposes of intimidation. 

As for communication IRL there is no reason to think that cetaceans have any 
sort of genuine, abstract language of their own. As a result, it is unlikely 
that they have any form, or even sense, of history at all. In the world of 
BP, there are essentially no primal cetaceans left, most having gone extinct 
long before or during the blight years. Hence, there is no special 
relationship between primals and genlifted fins.

Hope this answers your questions, 

Jeff Barber
Biohazard Games  
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From:	Mike Czaplinski [mikec@busworks.com]
Sent:	Saturday, September 15, 2001 7:40 PM
To:	blue_planet@lists.ient.com
Subject:	RE: [BLUE PLANET] - Cetacean Tactics

At 10:14 AM 9/11/01 -0500, you wrote:
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: David R. Crowell [mailto:gpfarm-dave@northnet.org]
> > Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Cetacean Tactics
> >
> > The fastest way to get me to leave Blue Planet forever is to
> > make cetaceans a copy of Brin's. I can't stand them. I have
> > been very glad to date that BP's fins have had a very
> > different characterization.
> >
>I've never read Brin's work but I can say that the material we have on
>cetaceans will be based on scientific data available now and as intelligent
>assumptions as we can make.  Of course who knows what a dolphin *really*
>thinks now much less after she's been uplifted.

In defense of Brin:

The Uplift Universe was created 10-15 years before Blue Planet was,
so naturally it will not necessarily reflect current thinking.

I personally think Brin's take on Cet intelligence is reasonable, and not
incompatible with BP's at all.  BP plays kind of like the way Brin's
phins were in the distant past to me.

MikeC

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