Post by redsycorax on Jul 17, 2023 0:21:05 GMT
Why is it that inhabitants of Daxam are so vulnerable to lead? It's a fairly inert substance, so how does this work out in terms of their physiology? There might be several possibilities:
(i) One is xenobiology. Let's say that Daxamites either evolved or adapted to their planetary environment with respiratory system modifications. That could have made them hypersensitive to aerosolised residue from lead, which would rapidly accumulate within their respiratory and cardiovascular systems, producing permanent toxicological responses. As I've suggested in other threads, Daxam may be rare in lead isotopes and may instead use tungsten for the purposes Terrans use lead.
(ii) Lead does have its own radioactive isotopes, although these are waystations as heavier radioactive elements decay over considerable amounts of time. Or at least, they are here on Earth. However, let's say that superearths like Daxam and Krypton have particular electromagnetic and gravitational aspects that we're not familiar with, given the absence of superearth terrestroid planets in our own solar system. One of them, in Daxam's case, might be longer radiological half lives for radioactive lead isotopes, so there's therefore more radioactive lead on Daxam and therefore, Daxamites have developed susceptibility to particular radioactive lead isotopes. When Superboy originally inadvertently exposed Mon-El to the original green painted lead object that poisoned him, let's tweak that account a little. What about Superboy taking no notice of where he got the lead from, and by coincidence, it happened to be an outcrop of the radioactive lead isotopes that Daxamites are vulnerable to? After all, Superboy didn't know that Mon-El had that vulnerability when he harvested the lead, so perhaps he just unfortunately happened on a radioactive lead deposit.
(iii) Dan suggested that Krypton has exotic matter in its planetary composition, which may have particularly affected Kryptonian geology (such as the formation of a radioactive uranium core). If that's the case, it might be due to an adjacent white hole which ejected volatilised exotic matter in the vicinity of Rao's protoplanetary system when Krypton and its sister planets were still forming. Let's say Daxam is either in Rao's interstellar vicinity or adjacent to a different white hole, which ejected different forms of exotic matter into Daxam's protoplanetary environment, which affected the retention of radioactive lead isotopes in its own geological development and evolution and adaptation of its lifeforms. Similar specific outcomes might occur in other contexts.
All of the above are applied scientific inferences. Possibility (i) would mean Daxamites are akin to Doctor Who's Cybermen, whose own respiratory systems are vulnerable to gold. Possibility (ii) takes advantage of gaps in our knowledge of superearths to provide a handy possible explanation, and much the same is true about white holes, which are currently also hypothetical theories in astrophysics and the effects of exotic matter.
(i) One is xenobiology. Let's say that Daxamites either evolved or adapted to their planetary environment with respiratory system modifications. That could have made them hypersensitive to aerosolised residue from lead, which would rapidly accumulate within their respiratory and cardiovascular systems, producing permanent toxicological responses. As I've suggested in other threads, Daxam may be rare in lead isotopes and may instead use tungsten for the purposes Terrans use lead.
(ii) Lead does have its own radioactive isotopes, although these are waystations as heavier radioactive elements decay over considerable amounts of time. Or at least, they are here on Earth. However, let's say that superearths like Daxam and Krypton have particular electromagnetic and gravitational aspects that we're not familiar with, given the absence of superearth terrestroid planets in our own solar system. One of them, in Daxam's case, might be longer radiological half lives for radioactive lead isotopes, so there's therefore more radioactive lead on Daxam and therefore, Daxamites have developed susceptibility to particular radioactive lead isotopes. When Superboy originally inadvertently exposed Mon-El to the original green painted lead object that poisoned him, let's tweak that account a little. What about Superboy taking no notice of where he got the lead from, and by coincidence, it happened to be an outcrop of the radioactive lead isotopes that Daxamites are vulnerable to? After all, Superboy didn't know that Mon-El had that vulnerability when he harvested the lead, so perhaps he just unfortunately happened on a radioactive lead deposit.
(iii) Dan suggested that Krypton has exotic matter in its planetary composition, which may have particularly affected Kryptonian geology (such as the formation of a radioactive uranium core). If that's the case, it might be due to an adjacent white hole which ejected volatilised exotic matter in the vicinity of Rao's protoplanetary system when Krypton and its sister planets were still forming. Let's say Daxam is either in Rao's interstellar vicinity or adjacent to a different white hole, which ejected different forms of exotic matter into Daxam's protoplanetary environment, which affected the retention of radioactive lead isotopes in its own geological development and evolution and adaptation of its lifeforms. Similar specific outcomes might occur in other contexts.
All of the above are applied scientific inferences. Possibility (i) would mean Daxamites are akin to Doctor Who's Cybermen, whose own respiratory systems are vulnerable to gold. Possibility (ii) takes advantage of gaps in our knowledge of superearths to provide a handy possible explanation, and much the same is true about white holes, which are currently also hypothetical theories in astrophysics and the effects of exotic matter.