New Utah Founder’s Day Plenary Address prepared for presentation at the twenty-seventh Irregular Meeting of the New Caledonia Chapter, Interplanetary Association of Xenobiology, 2867

I begin this paper with what will at first sound like a digression into some arcane points of New Utah history. Please bear with me: they will, in the end, prove relevant. And, for those of you unfamiliar with our little, far-away, home-grown university, this dip into our admittedly short history may even prove interesting.

Probably the best-known thing about us is the tendency among residents of Maxroy’s Purchase True Church “outback” communities to imagine (and refer to) New Utah as “heaven” or “paradise.” Indeed, this is an oft-cited example of a “Golden Age” mythology, wherein subsequent generations suppress memory of actual hardships and create legends attesting a simpler, more abundant golden age in the past. Kroeber described this phenomenon in Old American Navajo myths that attested “endless flocks” of sheep with “pastures beyond the horizon” prior to European contact—an obvious example of false reminiscence, since sheep did not exist in Navajo lands prior to European arrival.

We have had little to go on in assessing the facts of New Utah’s “golden age” presumption. Two documents existed: the New Utah True Church Founder’s Report to the Elders of Maxroy’s Purchase, filed 300 years ago by the First True Church Colony in New Utah of 2567, and the Imperial Navy’s Initial Assessment Report (IAR), filed at the turn of the following century.

The Colony Founder’s Report refers to New Utah as a land of endless, green bounty, teeming with huntable game. That Colony, founded at what is now the New Utah capital of Saint George, was laid down in the silty plains of the Oquirr river delta. As we shall see, it may well be that, at the time of landing, the plains were covered with bright green vegetation similar to Spartina grasses, as well as animals that depended on those “grasses” for sustenance. Further, at the time of founding, the True Church on Maxroy’s Purchase itself had just withdrawn to Glacier Valley. The expenses of that withdrawal were massive; as a consequence, the Saint George Colony was not well-funded, and the primary goal of the colony was to establish a self-sustaining agronomic base. In short: at its beginning, the TC colony at Saint George was fully occupied with survival, and conducted virtually no exploration outside the Saint George plains. Therefore, the Founder’s Report may in fact be accurate, if it is understood as applying to those plains, and not to New Utah as a whole.

On the other extreme, the Navy IAR reported a planet that, while habitable, was largely devoid of interesting ores, characterized by brown, steppic expanses, and devoid of significant indigenous life. Once again, the context of these fly-bys must be noted: they were never intended as systematic surveys. Conducted by sector patrol ships just prior to outbreak of the Secession Wars, their primary aim was to ascertain what, if any, profitable industries might be quickly established in New Utah’s orbit. The Naval survey was aimed at identifying potential profitable resources for industrial-scale usage in space, not for local development needs. Since New Utah has only one moon—a small, lumpy, rock devoid of metals—and no significant asteroids, it was clear that any industrial resources would need to be planet-based, significantly increasing transport costs for either ores or finished products. Nothing likely to be profitable was identified in the IAR, and the report did not recommend undertaking the expense of more intensive follow-up.

Thus, from the perspective of New Utah colonizers, New Utah was heaven: readily available surface water, arable land, abundant grazing for pastoral production, and sufficient game to see the colony through the first few winters. Further, as compared to the extreme winter temperatures of Glacier Valley, the Saint George climate was exceedingly mild. However, from the perspective of the Imperial Fleet, there was nothing of interest that was not more readily available from (already remote) Maxroy’s Purchase or the recently terraformed planets of New Caledonia. Indeed, at the time, there was a good deal of political pressure to provide justification for the high investment made to terraform New Ireland and New Scotland.

By local standards, the New Utah colony was a quick and enduring success. According to MP True Church records, within one decade the Saint George colony not only became self-sustaining, but stockpiled the rotating four-year surplus advocated by LDS doctrine. At the conclusion of that decade, explorers and provisioned settlers had established farmsteads on the fertile plains surrounding what is now Bonneville, and TC tithe-houses quickly followed. Stock-grazing expanded rapidly, and the 20-year report shows in-kind payments of course and fine mohair fabrics made to the Colony Foundation. Urban centers at Saint George and Bonneville grew and, for a time, even thrived, fueled by locally developed energy resources, particularly solar. Although New Utah remained fairly remote, additional settlers trickled in via Maxroy’s Purchase, gradually increasing the urban population. Many of these were non-dogmatic Mormon “Sixers,” excommunicated and shunned by the True Church expansion on Maxroy’s Purchase, who passed through Saint George and on to the Bonneville frontier.

The question then becomes: what happened during the intervening three centuries? Until now, we knew only that the agricultural boom did not last. As early as sixty years after foundation, Saint George tithe records show that net production began to decline. The colony remained “successful,” but remained in stasis. Little or no further exploration was undertaken, and no new colonies were established on New Utah. This trend continued until, at this writing, Saint George crop and livestock production had become completely dependant on rare earth mineral supplements, in particular, selenium. Data are not available for Bonneville, which from shortly after foundation operated its affairs semi-autonomously. If Bonneville filed annual reports with the main Temple at Saint George, they have been subsequently lost.

No doubt the onset of the Secession Wars played a role in this. New Utah and Maxroy’s Purchase were distant even from New Caledonia, and both remained largely neutral. It is likely that no external capital—from either Imperial or Secessionist forces—for further exploration and colonization was available. The True Church did (and does) continue to finance a Mission to Saint George, providing selenium-enhanced fertilizers and nutritional supplements, but New Utah agricultural operations now operate on a break-even sustenance, not a profitable surplus, basis.

More complete answers may lie in private, family records in Bonneville. From the outset, Saint George was a True Church Farm Colony (and protectorate). Farming was conducted along strict doctrinal lines, with emphasis on high-yield production. The colony did not include a geochemist, xenobiologist, xenobotanist, or any other member dedicated to basic science. Although a TC institution for higher education was soon established, its focus was strictly vocational-technical. None of these observations is intended as criticism, rather as a description: this was a working colony, and could not afford much in the way of overhead.

Bonneville, however, was, from the outset, a good deal more eclectic. “Sixers,” while Mormon, are descended from six LDS dissidents of the twentieth century who advocated freedom of rational intellectual inquiry. For them, investigation of basic questions is not merely a matter of interest: it is of a matter of religion. Given the severe limitations on access to information they endured—no Imperial libraries, no Universities, not even access to the True Church Archives in Saint George—most of these personal intellectual quests were at best amateurish.

Nevertheless, amateurs often prove to be very keen observers, and some are even keen recorders. Which brings us, finally, to the crux of this paper. Although we have virtually no official surveys of the flora, fauna, or natural history of New Utah, one such keen observer and recorder did exist there. In the course of his occupational travels, during the first 50 years of New Utah’s colonial existence, John David Swenson, professional provisioner and amateur naturalist, traversed the length and breadth of all inhabited areas. He observed, imaged, and recorded the behavior of dozens of species, but became particularly enamored of a class of animals, now extinct, herein referred to as Swenson’s Apes, in honor of his discoveries.

Swenson’s records might well have been lost to posterity, had they not on his death in Bonneville been ceded to the newly founded Saint George Technical Institute, where, he said in his will, “he hoped they might do some good.” That Technical Institute grew to become the Saint George College of Arts and Sciences, and finally Zion University. During those growth years Swenson’s notes were not in fact doing anyone much good. Due to lack of interest, they were never scheduled for data migration, and so eventually became unreadable. However, during the run-up to New Utah’s 300^th Founder’s Day celebration, for her senior project an industrious Zion undergraduate took it upon herself to dredge up and transfer as many founder’s era records as possible to current media. In the course of this endeavor, she discovered Swenson’s remarkable material, and brought it to my attention.

Swenson’s recordings are nothing less than phenomenal. At the time, these animals were classed as agricultural pests, and subject to local extermination. Swenson saw them otherwise, and became determined to record all he could before they completely disappeared. In addition to his meticulous observations, he acquired many killed specimens, conducted meticulous autopsies, and rendered three-dimensional holographic recordings. He made equally meticulous investigations of their reproductive habits, nutritional requirements, and of the plants on which they primarily depended. In the course of his work, Swenson became convinced that the creatures—or at least some of them—were sentient and deserving of protection. The Church disagreed: his work was ridiculed and suppressed, and thus his work, save the keen perception of one sharp student—was very nearly lost for all time.

In this paper, I will not only present the first summary of Swenson’s observations to see the light of day in nearly 250 years, but demonstrate that they constituted a cautionary tale. Had they been appreciated at the time, New Utah’s agricultural collapse might well have been prevented, and New Utah would not now be dependent upon selenium supplementation from Maxroy’s Purchase. As it is, they attest an exciting and possibly unique biological adaptation to extreme conditions and highly variable climate. I present it here at this conference in the hope that xenobiologists from every world will review this data, as it is directly relevant to questions of how life begins on and propagates across many worlds.

Swenson observed and recorded dozens of now-extinct animals on New Utah, but in this paper I will focus on several related species divided into two groups herein classified as Swenson’s Greater Apes and Swenson’s Lesser Apes. Swenson himself did not refer to them as “apes” at all; he was quite clear that despite their physical appearance, they were not even mammalian, let alone Earth primates. However, their general hirsute appearance, bipedal locomotion, direct manipulation of their environment with arms and hands, and absence of tails made them appear ape-like to early settlers. The chief physiological distinction between the two groups is that the Lesser Ape species are six-limbed and bilaterally symmetrical, with two legs and four arms, while the Greater Apes (in general, as we shall see below) are not, possessing only three arms.

Swenson viewed these creatures directly, as well as conducting detailed interviews with farmers and construction workers. Early observers presumed that there was only one species of Swenson’s Ape, but that it was highly variable in size and color. The presumption was natural. The animals lived in colonies widely dispersed among the vast “grass” marshes of the Oquirr delta, about which more later. Each colony included animals ranging in size from that of a newborn human infant, to some (at the largest) approaching two meters in height. The tallest individuals were generally white in color, and the smallest brown or black, although this was not always the case. Colors included white, brown, black, and occasionally striped individuals, locally called “zebras.”

Interestingly, Swenson soon determined that these size and color variations actually corresponded to separate species, not size and color variations within a species. Further, all colonies appeared to be multi-species, and all apes appeared to live in colonies. Within each colony, one species, brown in color, dug and maintained elaborate tunnel systems, with galleried nesting dens. Another species engaged in rude cultivation, planting and propagating the “grasses” in exposed mud flats. A third species “stood guard” at the colony perimeter, making gestures quickly understood as threatening by early settlers—this species proved most troublesome to settlers, at is possessed sharp, chitonous, cutting spines which it used to fatal effect until colonists began shooting them on site. Another species, more massive than the others, burrowed water diversion channels that created new mud flats for planting. Swenson believed that the two species of Lesser Apes, named Swenson’s Marmosets and Swenson’s Shrews, were commensals—animals that lived only in association with the colonies, but had no specific role within it. Both scavenged food and material wastes and created smaller sub-colonies ringing the main dens. They may have been tolerated for their “alerting” function, as they became quite agitated on the approach of any person or animal. The largest species, usually white, but sometimes black, in color, served no visible function, although it prowled widely within the colony itself and throughout the surrounding “fields.”

Swenson found the apparent stability of this “social symbiot” colony structure to be remarkable, because the colonies were few and far between, none of them large, with most colonies including no more than a few individuals of any one species. How, he wondered, did their populations remain viable?

Swenson noted that, on various occasions, each species had been observed carrying what were clearly offspring, but no offspring had ever been observed among the “zebras,” which were also least numerous. Swenson initially presumed that “zebras” were sterile hybrids, often called “mules,” the result of a chance mating between two Ape species. However, the fact of interspecies generation of offspring aside, it became clear to him that appellation “mule” was a misnomer— a fact with profound implications for understanding the reproductive agenda of all Swenson’s Apes in general.

Swenson found that “zebras” were not, strictly speaking, hybrids. Hybrids form from the fusion of gametes (egg and sperm) from two species to form a single zygote (fertilized egg) that will develop if and as possible. For example, an actual hybrid mule is the offspring of a male donkey, which has 31 pairs of chromosomes, and a female horse, which has 32 pairs. The resulting offspring has 63 chromosomes. This odd number of chromosomes results in an incomplete reproductive system, which is always sterile in males, and usually sterile in females.

Swenson’s Ape crosses are not “mules” in this sense. Rather, they are chimeras. Chimeras result from the physical mixing of cells from two independent zygotes (fertilized egg cells). “Chimera" is a broad term, applied to many different types of cell mixing. Although cross-species mixing is possible among species that are closely related and share similar developmental physiology, most chimeras result from the mixing of cells within a species. Chimeras can often breed, but the fertility and type of offspring depends on which cell line gave rise to the ovaries or testes. Intersexuality and true hermaphroditism may result if one set of cells is genetically female and another genetically male, and as we will see, this is nearly always the case in Swenson’s Apes.

Nevertheless, we can use the cross-species equid analogy to clarify how chimeras differ from hybrids. As stated, crossing a male donkey with a female horse produces a hybrid mule. That is, one sperm of a donkey fertilizes one egg of a horse, resulting in a mule that shares the DNA and characteristics of both parents. It gets long ears from Dad, a short, glossy coat from Mom, and a DNA test of either its ears or its coat would show DNA from both parents.

A chimerical animal would result if one fertilized egg of a donkey (with both male and female donkey parents) were mixed with another fertilized egg of a horse (which had both male and female horse parents). Such an animal would develop so that some of its organs were “pure” horse (with 32 pairs of chromosomes and 100% horse DNA), while others were “pure” donkey (with 31 pairs of chromosomes and 100% donkey DNA). In addition, depending upon how the growing cell lines migrated, the animal’s coat might have patches of shaggy, grey donkey hair alternating with patches of slick, brown horse hair. A DNA test on such an animal would only show the DNA for the specific cell type and location tested. The DNA for the shaggy, grey parts of the coat would be pure donkey; the DNA for the slick brown parts of the coat would be pure horse. To have the “full” genetic picture for this creature, you would have to draw DNA samples from multiple locations. Notably, in Swenson’s Ape crosses, classic chimerical Blaschko's lines (fur striping) occurs, with the colors showing the boundaries of the cell lines.

Finally, whether a chimerical donkey-horse was interfertile with either donkeys or horses would depend on which cell line comprised its reproductive system. Even if the rest of its outward appearance were that of a donkey, if it had 100% horse cells in its reproductive system, when bred to a horse, it would produce a 100% fertile horse, with a full 32 pairs of horse chromosomes, and no donkey characteristics whatsoever.

Understanding this distinction is crucial for understanding Swenson’s Ape reproductive physiology and secondary sexual characteristics, because Swenson subsequently found that all Swenson’s Ape species are profoundly chimerical. Chimerism not only occurs within and across all Swenson’s Ape species; it is both a usual and an essential part of their reproductive lifecycle.

Most Swenson’s Ape matings result in multiple zygotes (fertilized cells), that is, fraternal twinning. Thereafter, any or all of four types of chimerism may (and usually do) occur. These are: stem cell transfer, tetragametic, germ line, and parasitic chimerism. This means that Swenson’s Ape offspring may inherit multiple cell lines from each parent, and these cell lines may or may not be fused n vivo. In the upper classes, parasitic chimerism results in asymmetry, as discussed below.

Stem cell transfer occurs via cross-placental blood-vessel connections between twins, and is especially common for stem blood cells. In this case, the individual’s bloodstream, immune system, and bone marrow will have different DNA from other parts of its body.

Tetragametic chimerism occurs through the fertilization of exactly two ova (two gametes) by exactly two sperm (two more gametes), followed by the fusion of the zygotes (the two fertilized eggs) at a very early stage of development. This results in an individual with intermingled cell lines. That is, the chimera is formed from the merger of two fraternal twins. The resulting individual can be male, female, or both. In Swenson’s Apes, for reasons as yet not well understood, both is most common.

Similarly, germ line chimerism occurs when multiple ovi are each fertilized by one or more sperm. The fertilized eggs then divide, and the resulting blastocysts (cell clumps) may or may not fuse to form one or more chimeric embryos. These embryos exist for a fairly extended period prior to implantation, and then may attempt to implant at the same hemophore (blood vessel node.). In this case, the embryos merge. If this happens, one embryo atrophies, except for the reproductive cell lines, which complement those of the other embryo. The twin then develops normally, except that it bears the reproductive cell lines of its sibling. If the merged embryos were of opposite sex, this results in a truly hermaphroditic individual. Again, in Swenson’s Apes, for reasons as yet not well understood, this is the most common outcome.

Parasitic chimerism occurs slightly later in embryonic development, when a “male” embryo attaches to a “female,” eventually fusing into a single, hermaphroditic individual with a shared circulatory system. “Male” and “female” are indicated parenthetically, because at this stage of development, the embryo consists of little more than an undifferentiated alimentary canal, with no developed digestive capacity or limb differentiation, and either or both embryos may already be stem cell, tetragenetic, or germ line chimeras.

In a further elaboration of this trend, all asymmetric Swenson’s Apes (that is, classes excluding Swenson’s Marmosets and Swenson’s Shrews) are chimerically hermaphroditic, and are formed in vivo from the “parasitic” attachment of a “male” germ line embryo to a vestigial genital pore formed at the side of the head of a “female” germ line embryo. On contact, an enzyme digests the lips of the (attaching) mouth and the (attached to) pore. At this point, as blood vessels form, the circulatory systems of the pair fuse.

“Male” development then continues as follows: First, the attaching embryo forms and injects male gonadal stem cells, which migrate to colonize the (female) birth canal. Given appropriate hormonal triggers, these gonadal colonies form multiple testes, one or more of which may or may not produce viable sperm, and may or may not descend, depending upon various factors that affect hormonal regulators, including rank, age, courtship rituals, and nutritional status. Most commonly, multiple testes produce sperm, but none or one testis descends. Second, in response to hormonal and enzymatic triggers, the axial limb buds migrate dorsally, and continue growth as the “gripping” hand and arm—creating the “asymmetrical” physiognomy of the “upper” Swenson’s Apes.

Under specific circumstances, reproduction within a caste may proceed sexually, asexually, and/or chimerically. All Swenson’s Ape matings are spermatozoically competitive. During mating, the hermaphroditic pairs exchange sperm packets. Because of the chimerically redundant testes, these sperm packets may (and usually do) contain sperm from multiple germ lines. Sperm may be stored in special ducts for long periods, perhaps even years. This means that once a Swenson’s Ape has mated, under some conditions it is capable of continuing to bear offspring until its stored sperm is exhausted or dies. Because of the prevalence of hermaphroditic chimerism, all fertile Swenson’s Apes are also capable of self-fertilizing without ever mating at all, although this seems to be rare and has not been observed in the upper castes.

An additional factor accounts for previous reports of so-called “sex changing” in Swenson’s Apes. In the case of sexual reproduction, two Swenson’s Apes initially engage in elaborate courtship ritual and display, which stimulate associated hormonal production. At the end of this first phase, a bank of highly muscular sacs are excited and contract. These eject up to 144 chitonous “love darts,” similar to those produced by common land snails. Thereafter, sperm packets are exchanged.

Received packets are “split” by an enzymatic process that both triggers ovulation and dilates storage ducts, releasing stored sperm. All sperm—the recipient’s own, plus all lines within the received sperm packet— then “compete” to either re-enter storage, or ascend the birth canal and fertilize all available eggs. Sperm that do not reach the “safe haven” of a storage duct or an egg are scavenged by digestive enzymes. Conception normally results in multiple zygotes, for both parties.

However, the mucous coating on the “love darts” contains a powerful hormonal cocktail that blocks further production of androgenic (male) hormones and excites production of oogenic (female) hormones. This leads to retraction of the testis and growth of a placental bed, enabling embryonic implantation. At this point, given sufficient hormonal injection, a “darted” Swenson’s Ape becomes “female” for the purposes of gestation and birth. It is therefore theoretically possible for both Swenson’s Apes to become pregnant as a result of mating, but this has not been observed. The prevailing theory is that Swenson’s Apes sequester a significant proportion of available oogenic (female) hormone precursors in love dart mucous, thus rendering their bodies so depleted that they are unlikely to “receive as much as they give.” Thus, it may be a matter of chance that one or the other Swenson’s Ape will have further developed “love darts,” and thus have give up the chance at “being female.”

At this point, we might well note: these creatures have a bizarre reproductive physiology. We might indeed ask: why!?

In the absence of any physical specimens, I can only speculate, but speculate I will. To begin, we must turn back to that basic foodstuff of the Swenson’s Apes: the “grasses” distributed thickly on the mudflats of the lower Oquirr delta. As is well noted, vegetation on New Utah is now sparse, but on first arrival our Founders reported vast, lush, green fields, glinting “almost aquamarine” in the long, sunny days. The “pastures” nourished man and beast alike: among its other ingredients, an old Founder’s soup recipe calls for “one measure marsh grass, dried and powdered.”

In fact, those pastures were not grass at all; they were the tall stalks of a semi-terrestrial plant, more closely akin to so-called blue-green algae (cyanobacteria), that survives its march up out of sea water by forming dense, root-like, rhizomous subsoil mats that wicked water and dissolved nutrients upwards from the (saline) water table. In a unique adaptation, excess salt is excreted in small beads that form at the tip of each stalk. Almost no stands now exist, because under True Church direction, all of the Saint George plain and most of the Oquirr delta were quickly put to the plow, followed by pivot irrigation and drainage systems to combat soil salinization. Once the rhizome mats are destroyed by plowing, stands do not regenerate.

It was the plowing of these algae fields that led to the first contact (and conflict) with Swenson’s Ape colonies. Early on, construction and agricultural activities in close proximity to colonies themselves did not seem to result in anything but excitation among the Lesser apes. However, the first team to run gang plows through adjacent “grass” stands met with a quick and bloody end. Swenson was fairly certain that this algal grass was a primary colony food source, and that the attacks on humans had been made in defense of “colony-owned” fields. Thereafter, colony clearances were conducted as part of plowing operations. Colonists were quick to identify and pick off the “watchdog” species; thereafter, the other Greater Apes generally fled. The commensals were more problematic: colony clearance was generally followed by a local population explosion. Considerable effort went into their subsequent extermination, generally by gassing and poisoning.

This provided Swenson with hundreds of specimens of Lesser Apes for dissection and analysis, and he came to a startling conclusion. In brief: primitive blue-green algaes require and utilize selenium and iodine as powerful, highly-soluble antioxidants, readily available in sea water, to excrete excess oxygen during photosynthesis. However, this becomes problematic on land: because it is highly soluble, selenium quickly leaches from soils, especially under conditions of high rainfall—or artificial irrigation.

In general, terrestrial plants cope with the absence of these antioxidants by manufacturing their own, such as ascorbic acid, polyphenols, flavonoids, and tocopherols. However, some terrestrial plants, like aquatic seaweeds, actually accumulate and store selenium and iodine, and the New Utah algal grasses are among these. In these “grasses,” selenium uptake is regulated in the rhizome mats. Hence, when the mats are destroyed, so is the uptake mechanism—and thereafter selenium is quickly leached from the soils.

Also in general, terrestrial animals can and do utilize many antioxident forms, as well as sequestering trace amounts of selenium and iodine in the thyroid gland, or its equivalent. However, in the case of Swenson’s Apes, or, at least, in the case of the Lesser Swenson’s Apes, selenium deficiency resulting from collapse of access to the algae fields was especially dramatic in its effects on reproductive hormonal regulation. Absent selenium, “love dart” manufacture all but stopped. Initially, this resulted in increased oogenic (“female”) hormonal levels and “feminization” of the population (since no female hormones were being withdrawn from the body for dart manufacture). At the same time, reproductive drive increased, as did copulation rates. Given the total number of live births, Swenson postulated that hermaphrogenic reproduction also took place, but he was unable to prove this. In any case, the immediate effect was a local population explosion. However, the second consequence of selenium deficiency became manifest in isolated individuals: spontaneous, habitual abortion and miscarriage. Outwardly, apparently “female” Swenson’s Apes gradually sickened and died, as internal egg and sperm stocks were repeatedly fertilized, aborted, and reabsorbed.

So again, why this bizarre reproductive physiology? Our research resources here on New Utah are, to say the least, limited, and I am more historian than xenobiologist, but I will draw some tentative conclusions from what I know of old Earth specimens.

Chimerism and hermaphroditism are most common in (especially) aquatic species characterized by low population densities and high potential birth rates. These include angler fishes, marine and terrestrial mollusks, and other animals that live in isolated populations that rarely encounter one another, including some of the lower primates. In these animals, chimerism and hermaphroditism ensure that multiple germ lines are carried within each individual, maximizing the potential for genetic diversity with each “chance” encounter—or, in the absence of an encounter, via hermaphroditic reproduction within the “individual” itself. A Swenson’s Ape colony is, in effect, a “gene bank,” representing germ line biodiversity far beyond that of the number of its members.

The prevalence of these modes of reproduction in Swenson’s Apes, plus their apparent dependence on selenium for efficient reproductive regulation, suggests two things. First, that we might well search for maritime origins for this bizarre set of creatures. Their physiology is certainly more akin to that of widely-dispersed benthic mollusks than that of terrestrial mammals. Second, that these animals are reproductively adapted to extreme and variable conditions.

The paucity of indigenous flora and fauna on New Utah has been the subject of much conjecture, but little science. We suspect that we may now be experiencing a climatic optimum, but we have no way of testing that assumption. Basic geology has not even proceeded to the point of developing local radiometric curves. We have insufficient samples to establish normative carbon isotope uptake and decay, so we cannot validate radio-carbon curves for carbon dating. Similarly, we have not yet established local thermo-luminescence norms. Even if we could, we have virtually no paleontological record to draw from—let alone any archaeological record or deep-time historical sources. Thus, we can only construct a circular argument: we presume that climate in the past has been subject to extremes, in part because Swenson’s Apes’ reproductive physiology is so well suited to surviving them.

More importantly, we might well take a lesson from what we do know: the observed practices of Ape colonies. We should investigate methods for re-establishing selenium-concentrating algal fields for livestock forage and local nutritional supplementation. Doing so would eliminate New Utah’s dependency on imported fertilizers and vitamins.

And lastly, we might well ponder: Swenson insisted that these were not mere animals, but sentient creatures like ourselves. When faced with destruction, some Swenson’s Apes fled. Where did they go? So much of New Utah remains unexplored by science that perhaps, one day, we will be able to ask them ourselves.