The Road was created to enable humans to survive on the planet, as its native life is not nutritious to Earth life—and vice versa. By sterilizing a peninsula with the ship's fusion engines and seeding the cleansed ground with Earth plant life, along with the burials of dead colonists (colloquially known as "lifegivers", as they were always buried with a tree as a headstone), a self-sustaining near-analogue of Earth's ecosystem was created. At first, the colony prospered. Native viruses and bacteria are unable to infect colonists; disease is nonexistent and wounds cannot become infected, resulting in longer lifespans. Sea life quickly recovered and is consumed by the colonists as a "diet" food, as their digestive systems are unable to metabolize it into fat.