[possible eentsie spoiler for the Piroiad] On Fri, 23 Jul 2004, lazarus wrote: > On Fri, 23 Jul 2004 10:01:14 -0700 (PDT), you wrote: > > > >And I certainly don't see how the calories the plants miss because of the > >overcast can be replaced. > > > >So perhaps that's one damper on the development of Dragaeran society. > > Or perhaps the plants were as manipulated by the Jenoine as the > humans/Dragaerans were, to enable them to thrive under the overcast. > > Heck, we still don't know what the Overcast actually /is/, do we? > What parts of sunlight does it block? How much? I'm under the impression that we know the Overcast is industrial pollution - I think it is observed to recede during the Interregnum. Hence my concern about falling crop yields pre-Interregnum (maybe the new Orb is a cleaner tech, or can be used for sweeping.) In any case, the grains in question may well have been bioengineered but they just can't do as well with less input energy (unless there's some other scare resource which is more available given the overcast - perhaps Dragaera lacks rain but the pollution seeds precipitation.)