I'm not sure that women were the
dominant sex, though I do think they came close to being so given that yes, they believe Oralius is a woman.
However, I'm afraid you misunderstood what happened with the rapid technological development on Hebitia, and I certainly did not fail to think that through. That was the result of knowing they had a habitable planet in their solar system. To put this in Earth historical perspective for you, we went from the age of Jules Verne's writings to a man on the moon in 100 years. Had we, however, had a known habitable planet in our solar system--known by
much more solid evidence than the wild theories people often spouted about Mars, I believe that knowledge would have been sufficient to accelerate technological development considerably. Tehir Mejurak's book, while presumably an inspiration to many scientists the way the works of Jules Verne, Edgar Rice Burroughs'
Barsoom series (which is not so well known these days, but was better-known to some of the first people in space back in the 60's), or hell, even
Star Trek, have been, was more a "symptom" of this development lighting the Hebitian mind on fire. It was not a direct
cause of all that technological growth, though I'm sure it inspired some women...
and men...to take up a career in the sciences.
Edit: Thanks,
Gul Re'jal. You got it perfectly.
