Ambrosia in Homer's poems nectar is usually the drink and ambrosia the food of the gods; it was with ambrosia Hera "cleansed all defilement from her lovely flesh", and with ambrosia Athena prepared Penelope in her sleep, so that when she appeared for the final time before her suitors, the effects of years had been stripped away, and they were inflamed with passion at the sight of her. On the other hand, in Alcman, nectar is the food, and in Sappho and Anaxandrides, ambrosia is the drink. A character in Aristophanes' "Knights" says, "I dreamed the goddess poured ambrosia over your
Food for the Gods world, presumably in the Alpha Centauri star system. In the story, the Kyontawa are the descendents of a highly advanced Asian civilization from Earth's forgotten history, which established a deep-space settlement on what is now Sheenyana's planet. Clearly, that high-tech civilization is no more and the Kyontawa's knowledge of it is limited to their religious mythology of "Bird Gods" who seeded their people from the sky. Their language (subtitled in the film) has similarities to Asian languages of Earth, particularly Japanese. After a NASA expedition lands in Sheenyana’s forest, Sheenyana saves the life of American astronaut Lt. Richard O’Conner (Danny