In my novel, Into The Dax, I have a professional class of people called gaiantists. What does that mean? It’s simply a portmanteau. It combines Gaia and scientist.
We all know what scientists are, but what is Gaia?
In ancient Greek mythology, Gaia was the primordial goddess and personification of the Earth, the ancestral mother of all life—Mother Earth.
In the early 1970s, scientists James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis proposed that Earth (Gaia) behaves as a self-regulating organism that keeps the planet habitable for life. Their hypothesis became known as the Gaia Theory, borrowing the name of the ancient Greek goddess.
Today, scientists study core tenets of the Gaia Theory in what they call Earth System Science.
In Into The Dax, the gaiantists of the Atlantic Commonwealth have greatly advanced Earth System Science and have a deep understanding of Earth’s mechanics.
If you’d like to learn more, I recommend reading James Lovelock’s Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth. I found it fascinating and believable. Why couldn’t the Earth be self-regulating? After all, our bodies are. In general, we don’t have to think about breathing, making our hearts beat, regulating our temperature, or producing virus-fighting antibodies. Our bodies do all these things on their own; they self-regulate in order to maintain life. Earth could work the same way.
Find the book here: https://a.co/d/0673ibKI
