翻译:dannysunny
老美科学家对生命之花的理解


    (1)Zor:看看这些种子!这些神奇而纯净的能源---它从为染我失望。每一粒种子的分裂都是那么的不易---但是一旦被放置于压力囊里,制动其mid-分裂(有丝分裂一类)...只要精确的控制这压力,这些种子就会辐射出热量,而我们可将其最终转化为能源。可惜,这些能源用语战争真是白瞎了。
    ——摘自 创世纪:ROBOTECH(作者MIKE BARON)
    (2)“生命之花是invid人的故乡---Optera星球上特有的原产植物。它在invid人食物链上的重要性在于其果实是他们能量的唯一来源。然而,事实远非如此。它不仅是invid人的牛奶和面包还是他们的圣经。吃它的果实成了一种宗教体验。它拥有让invid人不断进化的神秘力量。不过,invid人饭量不大,他们只吃一点点,而大量的营养是来自于天然(???),他们大多时间泡在用成熟的生命之花提取的溶液里。一旦这些植物无法结果了,他们就把它捣烂并蒸馏,这样他们就可以象古罗马人那样洗澡了。(有点怪,不知是不是我误会了)
    生命之花对invid人以外的一切生物都是有毒的。它们通过optera特有的小动物CHA-CHA或者叫“zor的孩子”(天,谁知道是什么请告诉我)来传粉。发芽的种子也是史前文明能源的基础,进而构成了robotech科技的基本能源系统。再一次探险中Zor在fantoma星球唯一开垦过的卫星发现了生命之花的奥秘。原来Zor人是一个科技型的种族。这些高智商的空间航行者唯一的生活方式就是不断从周围的星球上采集科技和能源以为其所用。Zor还发现当生命之花发芽的种子置于一复杂的流质母体时(complex matrix是复矩阵,这串名词也许有专门叫法)会发生有机聚合,正是这种聚合形成了史前文明爆发的基础。
    于是,他的主人命令他完全干掉optera这个唯一生长着生命之花的星球。Zor被要求采集所有结果的植物并摧毁这个星球上剩下的全部植物形态生命。而最初对这些“科技航行者”抱着欢迎态度的invid人现在一无所有了。没有了这种植物特殊的果实,他们开始退化,其进化了的形态已近似于一副躯壳。惟有“摄政者”保持了invid社会原本庄严而谦逊的姿态。其他人的生活方式则根本的改变了。他们由相对和平的种族变为好战人种,一心只想向夺去了他们宝贵的生命之花的人复仇……
    zor也带走了传粉者(应该是那些动物)。他对其主人隐瞒了他们的功能,作为他的杀手锏。
    ——摘自(作者Carl Macek)

    下面终于到了他的看法:

    1. 我假设所谓“过多的衍生”只是 invid人的看法。(”more volved???)
    2. 从动画中我们可以看到:少量的芽孢对人类并无致命的危险,而只不过引起 symbolically-driven prescient dreams(my gooood,不知道这是什么)。
    3. 在“invid人的入侵”和“沙尘暴”关于potera的场景中,传粉者看来不象我们所见到的那种生命形态(言下之意在哪见过),或者可说根本象invid人????(不理解)。可能由于optera生物圈的有机体变程(应指有机体的存在形态上的差异范围或变动范围)在形态学上极为不同,结果,我们所见到的这个星球不象是invid人的家乡(又不懂了)。此外,invid人与生命之花的共生性是纯粹的寄生关系。Invid人自己就是天生的传粉者,而cha-cha只不过是基因工程的仿invid生物。
    再看看 Waltrips的“创世纪---zor的传说”,里面透露了这些似乎于预置于我脑中的想法。
    4. 对于除了“摄政者”以外的所有invid人都转化了的说法,我发现并不可信。相反,我把孔武的武士种性置于invid人的社会结构中,他们是“蜂巢”(?)食物供给短缺的生物反应的产物。在zor到来之前,optera一片繁荣,因而,大多数武士种姓很早就退化了,直到invid人感到失去了生命之花才使他们转移(也许是指生物上的变异),这又一次依靠了他们可靠的洞察力。此外,这不同与一般认为的但却是错误的关于进化的看法---既进化是以线性从低级形态到高级形态演进。但是,生物学家说了,这是rubbish。
    综上,我对我早期的推测有如下引申:
    原始文明是指从生命之花的种子释放的热量中获得的能量,是加压强制种子无法自繁殖时产生的。当锂和氘的富液浸透种子及其周围,这种能量便生成于一低温聚变过程。这些锂-6和氘原子是种子中紧密的蛋白链自己“榨”出来的,并伴随着波色子的产生。这一过程不受Pauli原理有效斥力的影响,所以,聚变只需克服静电阻限。溶液中还包含一定数量的营养物以供种子生存,所以他们被成为原始文明的母体。(哇,神奇)
    当这一过程进行时,这些种子破坏了自身并且消耗掉了存储的锂和氘。如果你想得到大量能量而不在乎他们的死活,你可以富集大量富液(这是一个石油专有名词)并且加大压力。当你榨取了他们所有的能量,这些所谓的原始文明细胞就翘辫子了。
    假如你需要的是缓慢而持久的能源,你可以不断的泵入些许富液并保持温和的压力条件---这就是原始文明发生器。这有个问题:最终,由于聚变,燃料溶液将充盈着碳元素,种子由于有了充足的营养而发芽,生长为花,因此,花将消耗掉母体的能量。
    关键是,如果没有invid人或者传粉者把新的植株从培育容器中萌发出来,这些新的植株对于能量的生成是毫无用处的。比如,就masters而言,他们无法使寄生植株繁殖,因而这些植株对于获得能量是无用的。
    总之,如果没有使植株生产新种子的方法的话,尽力使种子活的长点才是明智的。
    (完毕)


    后记:
    哇,终于知道阅读和翻译是两回事,也对各位长期从事堡垒翻译工作的前辈们肃然起敬,呵呵,这算是我的入行作品,限于英语,尤其是科技英语水平和背景知识。还请大家多多指正。
    里面的科技术语谁能解释一下,谢谢。

原 文


    Here's an old document I dug up on the subject, wherein I quote some of Macek's remarks on the subject and add a few speculations of my own...


    From _Genesis: Robotech_ by Mike Baron (w/ Carl Macek), page 2:

    Zor: But look at these seeds! The miracle of clean energy -- it never fails to astound me. How each seed strives to divide -- but when placed in a pressurized chamber, is arrested in mid-division... so long as the pressure is precisely maintained, the seed radiates heat, which we ultimately convert to energy. I have always thought this too great a gift to squander on war.


    From _Robotech Art 3_ by Carl Macek, page 143:

    "The Flower of Life is a unique plant which was native to the planet Optera - the homeworld of the Invid. It is the most important item in the food chain of the Invid - The fruit of the Flower of Life is the only food which can give strength to the Invid. But the Flower of Life's importance goes beyond the obvious. It not only serves as physical nourishment for the Invid - it also serves as a means of psychic enlightment. Eating the fruit of the Flower of Life becomes a religious experience for the Invid. It is a plant with mystical powers and the more fruit which is consumed, the more enlightened or evolved an Invid can become (1). The Invid do not need to constantly eat this food for life support - the Invid can live with little food - most of their nourishment comes from living most of their life in a solution made from the actual plant material of matured specimens of the Flower of Life. Once the plant is not able to bear fruit, the plant is mashed up and distilled into a liquid which the Invid bathe and travel in. The Fruit of the Flower of Life is poisonous to all but the Invid (2). The plants are germinated by pollinators known as either Cha-Cha or "the children of Zor," small creatures which are also native to Optera (3).

    The germinating seeds of the Flower of Life are also the basis of a power source known as protoculture which is the basic energy system of a technology known as Robotechnology. A scientist calling himself Zor discovered the unique property of the Flower of Life on an expedition originating from the only populated moon of the planet Fantoma. Zor's people were a race of techno-voyagers. The lifestyle of these intelligent space voyagers was simply to gather up the technology and resources of surrounding planets and exploit it for their own use. Zor's discovery of "organic fusion" which took place in germinating seeds from the Flower of Life when held in a complex matrix of fluids formed the basis of the protoculture explosion. News of this discovery caused his elders to order the complete defoliation of Optera - the only place in which the Flower of Life could be found. Zor was ordered to gather up all the fruitful plants he could find on Optera and destroy the rest of the plant life on the planet. The Invid who initially welcomed the techno-voyagers were left with nothing. Deprived of the special fruit of the flower of life, the Invid began to degenerate into hollow approximations of their true evolved selves. The only Invid who retained any modest visage of the original grandeur of Invid society is the Regent. All of the other Invid became grossly mutated (4). The lifestyle of the Invid changed radically. They turned from a relatively peaceful race to a race of warriors bent on exacting revenge on those responsible for taking their precious Flower of Life from them [...].

    Zor also took with him the pollinators. He kept their function a secret from his masters. It was his trump card.

    (1) I qualify this by assuming that this "more evolved" is from the Invid's perspective.

    (2) But it's clear from the show that the spores - in small quantities - are not fatal to humans, but cause symbolically-driven prescient dreams.

    (3) We some scenes from Optera in "The Invid Invasion" and "Sandstorms", and the pollinators look nothing like the lifeforms we see there, or at all like the Invid. While a biosphere may have a range of organisms of wildly differing morphologies, Optera - what we see of it - simply doesn't look like their homeworld. Furthermore, we are told that the Invid have a symbiotic relationship with the flower - but the above relationship is purely parasitic. By making the Invid themselves the indigenous pollinator, and the Cha-Cha genengineered artificial Invid, I think I have addressed both concerns. Although I have long thought that this was my own idea, review of the Waltrips' comic "Robotech: Genesis - The Legend of Zor" revealed that this notion predated my thoughts on the subject (and probably planted the germ in my head). Since the Waltrips generally are dependent on the McKinney novels, it is likely that this first appears in the novels.

    (4) I didn't really find this credible - that all Invid devolved but the Regent. Instead, I added the dim-witted Warrior caste to the Invid social structure I hypothesize, who exist as a biological response to shortages of a hive's food supply. Because of the prosperity on Optera before Zor arrived, the Warrior caste had been mostly unheard of for millenia - so the Invid perceived that the loss of the Flower made them devolve, again, would be true from their own perspective. Furthermore, it gets away from the popularly fallacious notion of evolution - that evolution is a linear chain going from worse ("less evolved") to better ("more evolved") forms of life. As any biologist can tell you, this is rubbish. The Regis may believe in it, but we shouldn't.


    From all this, I developed my earliest speculations:

    Protoculture is the energy derived from the heat given off by the seeds of the Flower of Life when prevented from reproducing by pressure. The energy is produced by a process of cold fusion, when a Lithium and Deuterium rich solution permiates the seeds and their environs. A protein chain within the seeds themselves can squeeze the Lithium-6 and Deuterium atoms in close proximity, and being both Bosons, are not affected by the effective repulsion of the Pauli principle - only electrostatic barriers to fusion need be overcome. This solution, which also includes a number of nutrients to keep the seeds alive, is called the protoculture matrix.

    As seeds do this, they damage themselves and deplete their stores of Deuterium and lithium. If you want to get a lot of energy out of the seeds, but don't care how long they last, you make a really rich solution and ramp up the pressure. We call these protoculture cell - and by the time you've gotten all the energy out of them you can, the seeds are dead.

    If you want a slow continuous source of energy, you constantly pump in a less rich solution under more mild pressure conditions - and this is a protoculture generator. The problem with generators is that eventually the fuel solution becomes rather rich in carbon from the fusion, and the seed has enough food to germinate into the flower - hence the flower is 'consuming' the matrix. The problem is, without the Invid or Pollenators to make the new plants sprouting from the containment vessels fertile, the plants are useless for energy generation. All they are, as far as the Masters are concerned, are infertile, parasitic plants, useless for energy. Without a means to make plants fertile to produce new seeds, you want to keep the seeds you have lasting as long as you can.

 
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