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[Question]
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What could be found underground that would provide fibres that could be turned into textile? The source of the fibres should be found buried in soil, in temperate regions. It also should be something that could have evolved (or otherwise come to be) on Earth. Preferably, it would also be possible to breed this source with technology similar to medieval Europe
[Answer]
There's a lot of options here but it sounds like you wants something farmable. Here's a few that I found around the internet and while some would need you to stretch your imagination others wouldn't.
**Fermented Wine**
Joe is a farmer who many considered mad but when he started burying red wine under the ground many people started avoiding him. Some of the kids who still visited Joe told fantastical stories about Joe turning wine into *clothing* of all things but kids you know? Turns out they weren't wrong.
Turns out Joe had figured out how to use some fancy bacteria, not that the towns folk know what that is, in the genus Acetobacter to make vinegar. On the plus side a side product is fibers that can be turned into cloth. While quite strange it is feasible with medieval european technology and even likely to bury under the wine under the ground to keep it at a relatively consistent temperature long enough for the bacteria to do it's thing. Vinegar was also useful for other things. As for why Joe decided he'd rather bury his red wine instead of do stuff with it? Maybe the price fell. Maybe he was being pressured to sell it and decided to make vinegar instead.
As for how Joe realized he could make fabric out of the wine or even that there was weird stuff, Acetobacter requires oxygen to work best and since Joe was trying for vinegar that would work best. As for why vinegar? Maybe he's mad. Either way he got some wierd fabric out of it at least.
**Spider Silk**
This one will require hand waving and either really weird spiders or giant spiders. Either way we have giant spider eggs sacks that are buried under the ground like turtles for the spiders to burst forth and do spider things. Then we have Maria, who say lives near the woods, and decides to pull a chinese silk farming method (Idk why or how maybe she has spies that told her about silk worms.) and she killed off the baby spiders and used the silk for spider silk. I'm not certain but it's a possibility of digging up spider silk and weaving it.
**Plant roots?**
This one would require more hand waving in my opinion but I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to get textiles out of it. More likely it would be some type of novelty lace that would fade away quickly though.
Sarah the nun was tending to the gardens when she thought to herself, 'You know I bet if I made the soil in weird shapes I could get the roots to make pretty patterns.'
<https://www.designboom.com/art/diana-scherer-manipulated-plant-roots-patterns-01-21-2017/>
This took her a long time, and depending on the level of communication people have and how likely they are to listen to Sarah the low level gardener might increase the field of agriculture, but she could make some pretty patterns and probably sell them about. Maybe even teach a few people how to do it and make it the latest trend. If you hand wave it then the roots could theoretically become short term clothing.
**Strange breeds**
Most aren't aware the bees make silk but they do in order to make their hives. Do some hand waving and you could say that some wild bees made collectable silk that could be turned into fabric with a little bit of work. Include a few bee caves and wabam.
You could also make upside down cotton, or some such thing, that grows a pod underneath the ground to keep it safe until a human comes along to dig it up and gather it. There's a bunch of different options but these are some that I gathered.
[Answer]
King, I feel obliged to point out that the bright white suit you are wearing is pure polyester made from petrochemicals that were found underground in a temperate climate. Those nylon baggies with the rocket ships that you wear as underwear were also made from petrochemicals found underground. But maybe the medievals could not make polyester.
Instead I will reuse this old answer:
[On a frozen world, what would be the thinnest, warmest materials to make clothing from?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/110077/on-a-frozen-world-what-would-be-the-thinnest-warmest-materials-to-make-clothin/110112#110112)
<https://www.asbestos.com/asbestos/history/>
>
> ... because the ancient Romans were said to have woven asbestos fibers
> into a cloth-like material that was then sewn into tablecloths and
> napkins. These cloths were purportedly cleaned by throwing them into a
> blistering fire, from which they came out miraculously unharmed and
> essentially whiter than when they went in. While Greeks and Romans
> exploited the unique properties of asbestos, they also documented its
> harmful effects on those who mined the silken material from ancient
> stone quarries. Greek geographer Strabo noted a “sickness of the
> lungs” in slaves who wove asbestos into cloth... Around 755, King
> Charlemagne of France had a tablecloth made of asbestos to prevent it
> from burning during the accidental fires that frequently occurred
> during feasts and celebrations. Like the ancient Greeks, he also
> wrapped the bodies of his dead generals in asbestos shrouds. By the
> end of the first millennium, cremation cloths, mats and wicks for
> temple lamps were fashioned from chrysotile asbestos from Cyprus and
> tremolite asbestos from northern Italy.
>
>
>
Asbestos is mined. It is fibers and it can be made into cloth. Charlemagne's crew could do it and so can your medievals. Yes, yes, cancer, lung disease etc. We can say your people are unworried about risk - they wear asbestos bikini briefs, refuse the covid shot and smoke filterless Lucky Strikes while jaywalking.
[Answer]
# Bast fibers
I spin yarn, so I have some experience with this subject, or at least with the articles on this subject. One of the most common ways to spin fibers from plants is to ret them (controlled rotting that removes the unspinnable portions and softens the phloem into bast fibers), comb them (on a hackle or other combs), then spin them “wet” (using water or spit on the fingers as you draft).
Most notably, this is done with flax to make linen, but it is usable with the stems of nearly every plant. There isn’t anything I could find that would definitely confirm or deny that this would work with the roots of any plants, so I wouldn’t try this with plant roots. However, if you have a plant with stems underground, you could use those.
The hard part here will be finding a plant that grows underground and has a stem to ret. I’d try any plant with [stolons](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolon) first, which are probably spinnable, though I haven’t tested it.
To ret fibers, by the way, requires a source of stagnant water, in which you immerse the whole plants you’re working with. Then you leave it for a while, and let them rot. Around 2-3 weeks later ([source](https://spinoffmagazine.com/local-bast-adventures-in-wild-retting/), which also provides a decent overview of the process), they should be good to go. This will of course vary based on location and weather and the plants you’re using, but it’s an estimate. Then, you heckle or hackle the fibers to separate the leftover stuff from the bast (you ought to rinse it first, though), and finally you can spin it.
Another source of information on bast fibers, although less comprehensive, is Clara Parkes’ book *The Knitter’s Guide to Yarn*, which is a decent overview of the general process of fiber-processing and covers the details of how, precisely, these fibers feel when used.
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so I'm in the process of creating the map of my fantasy world, which has a medieval fantasy theme. I saw a few posts and videos, such as this one, that talk about using Natural Borders to define my borders: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZJJpy3huLg&t=618s>
Right now I'm adding my mountains before I start adding my rivers. However, I do not want to have mountains that go all the way to the coastlines, like it's on this video, and block regions in strict ways to create my nations. Throughout history, I do want my nations to have wars and have road connections for trade, and be able to travel from one another. And I'm presenting them as kingdoms, not nations.
If I have a situation like this image here:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Mebyo.png)
where the mountains separate two areas, but still allows a comfortable area on one side for people and armies to pass, does it still make sense to have these two regions as two separate kingdoms, with two different cultures? Or does it have to be one big kingdom, simply because the mountains do not completely separate the two and over history, it will make more sense to be unified?
I understand that rivers, resources, and history/politics will also determine what makes a kingdom, but I just want to get your advice from this stage before I make much progress and avoid the need to go back and re-edit the map.
[Answer]
That flatish region just to the south of your Mountain range has a lot of potential. It would likely be an area of contention between the two countries over the course of their histories.
So the Mountain range is the natural border for the bulk of it. That last stub of land is going to create an almost, but not quite autonomous third zone. It is where your neighboring countries are going to mix and mingle together. The accents and language are probably going to be distinct from the main bodies of the two nations because of that intermingling.
Here is how I imagine the history of that region to go. Every hundred or maybe few hundred years, the ownership of the land will wobble back and forth. That area looks like the coast may be good as a harbor, valuable to both nations. It's a natural point of contention.
So one nation attacks along that area to take the Harbor, but probably won't push much farther unless the Lords of that place are particularly aggressive. That is going to push the border back and forth like a pendulum anchored at the southern tip of the mountain range. It might even become a third nation over time. The boundary itself is more likely to be "anchored" to fortified castles or other man made stuff on the eastern side, on and the west, will likely follow that curve of hills.
[Answer]
It can be whatever you want.
Just look at the map of [French mountains](https://www.freeworldmaps.net/europe/france/map.html) and you will see that both instances are possible:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/6s6tu.jpg)
the Alps, the Pyrenees and the Jura separate France from Italy, Spain and Switzerland, respectively, while the Vosges and the Massif Central are internal mountains.
Actually the map you posted look very similar to this latter case.
For an historical perspective, this gif shows how the [borders of France](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_evolution_of_France) have evolved over about 1000 years: you will notice that not always the mountains and rivers have been the borders.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/lubnc.gif)
Mountains and rivers are convenient borders when needed, but not necessarily.
[Answer]
Scale would seem to be your main issue. During the reign of the holy roman empire it was split into little principalities who's princes' were perfectly capable of going to war with each other and did on some occasions. These were almost separate kingdoms with almost the same culture in all of them. (One of these principalities lasted into the modern age for various reasons, Lichtenstein.)
On the other hand, ancient india and ancient persian had extensive trade and some migration, but due to the vast distances involved, and a terrain rather similar to the one you described, they clashed very little both culturally and militarily. Each kingdom developed outwards from some center where the main body of their culture came from, and so they met in trade as two fully developed cultures.
TL;DR: the larger the scale of the kingdom the more sense it makes.
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So, in this history, they just said *"screw it, I'm giving railguns to the army"*, and they added a machine gun like rifle with big caliber, but low recoil, they carry a backpack with batteries and a lot of ammo.
But since I don't really know how much energy a railgun would require to shoot a bullet in the same speed of normal rifles, I don't know how big this backpack would need to be nor if it could be applied to tanks and armoured vehicles.
How much electricity I would require for such?
[Answer]
According to [this research paper](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/364679), railguns can be about 47% energy efficient.
A 'normal' rifle bullet (Winchester .308 firing and 11 gram bullet) imparts some 3551Joule to the bullet.
One energy calculation later:
Your railgun requires 3551/0.47 = 7555 Joule total energy per bullet.
Slightly more than half of this ends up as waste heat in the device.
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I'm somewhat unclear as to how well railgun technology scales down to as small as a single 11 gram bullet, and speeds as low as only 800m/s
The typical railguns are more in the 50 MegaJoule class, firing a projectile of some 3kg
---
Battery size:
A single Li-Ion AA battery stores some 11000 joules.
Given a suitable system to get the whole charge out of it, buffered and delivered in a suitable format for the gun without losses, you will need 7555/11000 = 0.687 of an AA Li-Ion battery to fire one bullet..
At 23g each, and ignoring packaging, wires, etc... **A 1 kg battery pack will allow you to shoot off a 63 round magazine.**
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**This question already has answers here**:
[How would a person see with an adjustable cross-shaped pupil?](/questions/60005/how-would-a-person-see-with-an-adjustable-cross-shaped-pupil)
(4 answers)
Closed 2 years ago.
After watching the science fiction film Chimera, I noticed that one of the main characters (actually a chimera, a hybrid of a human and several animal species) had cruciform pupils and after some thought I wondered how plausible (how well it should work) with a scientific point of view would the use of the cross-shaped pupil by some omnivorous species, like a human?
After all, such a pupil would combine two adaptations of the animal world at once. Horizontal pupils in goats would allow them to orient themselves well on flat terrain, expanding the viewing angle, and vertical pupils inherent in ambush predators would allow them to estimate the distance to the target as accurately as possible.
[Answer]
[Relevant paper](https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/7/e1500391), for those of you who are interested.
>
> Horizontal pupils in goats would allow them to orient themselves well on flat terrain, expanding the viewing angle,
>
>
>
Horizontal pupils are largely (though [not exclusively](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongoose#Characteristics)) found in grazing animals whose eyes *are on the sides of their heads*. Without those side-mounted eyes, there's a much reduced scope for improving fields of view.
>
> vertical pupils inherent in ambush predators would allow them to estimate the distance to the target as accurately as possible.
>
>
>
The theory seems to be that having vertical pupils creates a slightly different depth of field to that presented by round pupils, making it easier to establish distance (roughly speaking, it increases the blurring of out-of-focus horizontal features, things which are hard to calculate distance of using stereo vision alone). The problem is that by adding a horizontal aspect to your newly designed eyes, you've effectively undone the advantage that the vertical pupils may have given you in the first place, because you're partially undoing the astigmatism that the vertical aperture gave you (and maybe introducing some new distortions, too).
Note also that the vertical slit pupil is limited to species who are predators with their faces relatively close to the ground, as the benefit of blurring of horizontal features decreases as the angle between the line-of-sight and the ground increases. That's why birds which might want to ambush ground-dwelling prey without smashing themselves into the ground just go for round pupils, and perhaps why humans have them too.
So, maybe it would look cool, but in practise it seems unlikely to have any particular advantages, and may in fact make vision slightly worse as well as requiring a more complex iris.
[Answer]
Geckos kinda have cruciform pupils:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/08sIR.jpg)
However, this seems to mostly have the benefit of increased dynamic range, not for "flat terrain vs distance". The transition from a wide-open, circular pupil to the small pinhole that a cruciform pupil would provide would likely give a change in pupil area of [300 times](http://26815751_The_pupils_and_optical_system_of_gecko_eyes), compared to normal humans at 16 times. Other reasons given in the paper linked above, and [this article](https://asknature.org/strategy/pupil-enables-clear-vision-in-extreme-light-conditions/), are:
* Increased dynamic range could help see color at night
* Multiple pinholes during the day are under different portions of the lens, giving the ability to focus on multiple depths at the same time. This gives good depth-of-field, even with the small apertures.
* Non-circular pupil is less noticeable to predators.
[Answer]
The diffraction pattern of a cruciform pupil is also cruciform. This could make a cruciform pupil useful to a creature that needs a constricted pupil that also allows it to precisely resolve and locate bright points of light. The diffraction spikes will meet at the location of the geometric image.
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[Question]
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Suppose I am a super-being. From the outside I look and act exactly like an ordinary human. My flexibility of limbs is the same as that of a human so I can't shape-change or bend my arms unnaturally.
My superpowers are strength, speed and endurance. I can move my arms, hands, fingers as fast as I like. My skin is tough so I won't get burned up.
Assuming I have no equipment and am dressed only in an ordinary (but extra-strong) bathing suit, how fast do I have to flap my arms (and or legs) in order to fly? What is the best kind of motion for flight through the air, swimming or flapping?
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**Assumptions**
I am strong enough and fast enough to perform the required movements continuously for say half an hour.
I am not damaged by the stresses and strains of my efforts.
I am of average weight, height build etc. for a human. From the outside, no one can tell the difference simply by looking.
Gravity and other conditions are Earth-normal for me and I have no powers of levitation apart from what I can achieve by moving my limbs.
I can jump for take-off but I can't cover long distances without flapping. I need to fly and maintain constant height and velocity\*\* for at least half an hour and that would be impractical if I simply jumped.
---
**Notes**
In case anyone objects that my super-powers require magic. That may be so but all the magic is contained within my body. I can't reach out and change the forces of nature such as gravity. I can only affect what is inside my skin and I can't change my mass.
\*\* I've recently edited the requirement to *constant* height and velocity for clarity.
[Answer]
>
> My superpowers are strength, speed and endurance. I can move my arms,
> hands, fingers as fast as I like. My skin is tough so I won't get
> burned up.
>
>
>
Why fly at all? Just run and jump. If you are sufficiently fast, and strong, you can just do an extraordinary long jump (take that Olympic athletes) that would look like you were flying to anyone on the ground. But really, who cares if you generate lift? You are effectively flying, because you have cleared buildings and the like and are moving as the crow flies. Of course, this would lead to the consequence of not really being able to change direction once airborne since you aren't an airfoil. And you might smash through some buildings with a poorly timed leap on your way up or down. But let's assume that crashing into and/or smashing through buildings is just harmless fun for you.
But people might still be convinced that you are in fact flying, when in reality you are just falling on a predetermined trajectory. I mean, go watch an airplane, would you know that it was flying or falling unless it did something that would require an airfoil like turning. It could have been launched by a catapult miles away, and going to land miles away for all you know.
[Answer]
## So...you'd need some sort of suit.
I suppose this could take any one of many forms (autogyro, base jump wingsuit, etc.) to change your aerodynamics. Then the flapping or pedaling of arms and/or legs would be used as your source of power. As stated by Ryan, you could also make long jumps and use your wingsuit to direct your fall/glide. This wouldn't be totally unassisted flight, but due to the weight and aerodynamics of a human body, flight is impossible without a bit of help, at least so far as I understand. Unlike a bird, which has shaped wings, our arms have relatively the same shape on top and bottom, meaning that flapping generates as much downforce as upforce-flying with our arms is like lifting yourself up in a bucket by its handle.
IF you must have only a bathing suit: take it off. Free and breezy is the way to go; use that strategically oversized suit to make yourself a small parachute or airfoil. Jump and glide. Repeat. You will be the freshest, least sweaty superhero, even if you do have to suffer the indignity of superhero names like Butt-boy™ or Ballbouncer™.
[Answer]
You can't. Like Mary said in the comments, it's not a matter of strength, it's a matter of aerodynamics.
In order to fly you need to generate lift, and for that you need an appropriate surface. Wings are good for that because they deflect air just the right way. For a human arm, air goes right through it on both sides. The amount of lift is negligible. You could move your arms at supersonic speeds and you'd still be stuck on ground.
A whole human body can have enough lift to stay afloat if there is a very strong wind coming from below. This is the basis for a certain attraction in some amusement parks, called vertical wind tunnel:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/2pLEV.jpg)
You know how that works. In order to fly, your hero would have to generate that amount of wind. No amount of arms flapping will generate that because of aerodynamics, so the next think you consider is blowing down like Superman. Realistically that doesn't work either, because you just can't store enough air in your lungs to pull that off continuously. And if you do it in puffs, you'll be sucking much the same air that you blow.
Alternatively the hero could blow downwards really fast. The same principle of rockets works here - you will have as much momentum up as the momentum of the gas going down. You will see flames or plasma coming out of the hero's mouth, but the hero will go up really fast. That would allow some time for filling in the lungs again, and then another blow in the direction opposite that you wanna go. This would allow for sustained flight.
[Answer]
## Congratulations, You're a Human Hummingbird
Ok, so this idea is plainly ridiculous, but I don't think it's technically impossible. First rule:
1. Humming Birds Flap their wings in a figure eight
That's going to be your MO too. You should expect to do exactly the same thing with your body in the air that you would do in the water in order to tread water, so you're going to be moving your arms in small figure eights at your sides below your shoulders and possibly as low as your waist.
2. Hummingbirds flap their wings up to 70 times per second
That's a lower bound for how fast you have to move your arms, but there's a few important things to remember:
Firstly, your arms are more aerodynamic than a humingbird's wings. How much more aerodynamic is not really something I know enough fluid dynamics to calculate, but I think it's fair to assume that they are at least 3 times as aerodynamic as hummingbird wings as a result of width and shape. Thus, we should triple that speed to 210 beats per second.
Secondly, [wingspan in flying birds typically increases at a rate roughly equivalent to the squareroot of an animal's weight](https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/1/eaat4269). Ok, so a hummingbird has a wingspan of around 6 centimeters and weighs around 5 grams. We'll assume that you have a wingspan of around 1.5 meters (25 times the hummingbird), and you weigh 75 kg to keep the math easy (15,000 times the hummingbird). This means your wingspan is around 5 times too short for the work you need to do. Squareroot that because the area of your wings increases with the square of your wingpan and it's the area of your wings that does the work, and you get a new flapping speed rounded to 500 beats per second.
If you are moving your hands in tiny figure eights at your side 500 times per second, I expect they are moving at least 30 cm a flap, or **150m/s** (335 mph for us imperial measurement fans).
[Answer]
You can jump, and when you jump you don't flap your legs like a fly does with its wings.
Raise your arms once, really slow... Then lower them down fast enough to move more air than you weight.
How fast would it be? Fast enough to create a hole of emptyness in the air where your arms are traveling... So over sonic speed. Your arms will sound like gunshots.
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[Question]
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Okay, I am designing a dragon. The average adult male specimen is about 20 feet long, with an extra 5-8 ft of the tail; females are slightly smaller. Their wingspan is approx. 20 ft. 
The above image is approximately what they look like...
A few things about dragons:
* Since they are so big, they cannot achieve flight without throwing themselves off of a cliff first. Once in the air, they flap their wings to generate lift and they can fly. Therefore, they live in the mountains.
* They are *very* large and need several animals a day (e.g. sheep, cows) for proper nourishment.
* Originally they ate the mountain goats that naturally lived in the mountains, but many years of cumulative hunting drove the goats to near extinction. As a result, the goats are no longer a viable food source. The goats now have fear of dragons and run as far as possible from them.
* Since there are no animals left in their mountainous environment, the dragons are forced to leave their cliffs and go hunt in grasslands for animals.
**My problem:**
To pick up the sheep in their claws and bring them back to their lairs, the dragons must fly very close to the land. However, if they get too near to the ground, there is a chance of them falling to the ground. Since they are specialized for flight, they are very slow on the ground. It would take them several weeks of trekking to walk back up to the cliffs (that is, assuming they have the intelligence to do that). It would be a very tedious hike since they must constantly look for food because the mountain goats are nearly gone.
So, after a few months of the dragons feeding on the grassland, the sheep have learned to hide in depressions in the ground or shallow banks so the dragons would not attempt to attack them for fear of dropping. More and more of the animals are wising up and the dragons are left hungry.
**Assuming that**
* bringing animals back to the cliff and domesticating them is impossible (either because it is impractical or because the dragons lack the proper intelligence, I haven't decided yet)
* Hunting somewhere else is impossible for irrelevant reasons
* these dragons can breathe fire
**How can the dragons hunt in such a way so that they can maximize animals eaten with minimum chance of falling?**
[Answer]
Ever seen a baleen whale hunt? Once they find their prey, they circle it from below and blow bubbles. The bubbles form a wall which keeps the fish trapped, so the whale can snatch them.
Your dragon can do the same thing. Enclose the sheep in circles of fire. Any sheep that hides in a hole should also be torched, to discourage that.
[Answer]
**Scaring them out of the depressions**
This will mostly help for the depressions part. Lots of sheep and such actually live in woodlands, which is much more difficult.
Have the dragon pick up a boulder. Doesn't need to be huge either, as a decent sized stone can already hurt the prey.
Now fly over and drop. The stone will hit a creature or closeby enough to scare them out of a depression. Even humans can do stupid things when fear grips a group. With even one creature running out of the depression in fear lots will follow in a stampede.
Alternatively have the dragon swoop down as if the depression is not a problem. The creatures will flee in fear, as they're not in control enough to understand they're safe. Then it's just picking who you want to eat.
Finally you can use fire. Flame a ridge of the depression and let the creatures run away from it. But this isn't too advantageous, as it'll also potentially burn the countryside. A fire once in a while is good for a land. Constant fires are a blight.
[Answer]
**Like fish eagles hunt.**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/oOWCL.jpg)
<https://www.quora.com/Which-raptor-is-better-at-catching-fish-the-Osprey-or-the-Bald-Eagle>
The dragon will come in fast and low to minimize the time the grazers have to notice it. Justas fish eagles grab a fish from the water in mid flight, the dragon will seize a running animal without stopping, then ascend. The animal will be eaten in the air, whole or nearly so. The dragon can then hopefully make another pass and take another and another until full.
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Side note - it is possible for humans to wipe out prey animals in an area because our populations are artificially sustained through omnivory and agriculture. If a predator population consumes all its prey in an area, the predator population in the area will crash either from starvation or emigration, and the prey population will then start to recover.
[Answer]
Scare the sheep out of the depressions using fire. Also, do you even need to fly? The giant pterosaurs of the Cretaceous period spent more time walking then flying, so you could make your dragons attack on the ground.
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[Question]
[
In particle accelerators, particles are typically accelerated within a vacuum (or as close to it as possible) in order to minimize interference and collisions with air molecules during the acceleration process. This usually isn't a problem as the target of the particles are also contained within a vacuum.
However, if a particle beam were weaponized and intended to be used within the atmosphere then there would need to be a method to maintain a vacuum within the acceleration tube during acceleration, but then allow the particles to exit the weapon. Preferably this method would also need to hold up against repeat firings.
Considering the particles would be moving at a significant fraction of the speed of light if not right up against it, presumably no shutter system would be fast enough to open right when the particles have completed their acceleration to allow them to exit the weapon. Some sort of thin film might possibly be used if you'd be willing to accept some loss of energy to the particles penetrating the film, although the film would become degraded with each firing.
Are there any more sophisticated methods to allowing the particles to accelerate but then also exit a particle accelerator?
[Answer]
Not only is a device that suits your needs *possible*, the idea has actually been around long enough that *it is actually used in industry!* (although it is frustratingly difficult to find decent pictures of)
May I present the [Plasma Window](https://www.techbriefs.com/component/content/article/tb/supplements/etb/briefs/1834). As discussed in that 1998 TechBriefs article, it's basically a small, stubby tube within which you create a dense, hot plasma. The key is to get it to stay in contact with the walls of the tube and fill the space between. The idea is that as long as you pump enough energy in, you can maintain a wall of hot gas that won't move around too easily.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/9JMOH.jpg)
These are actually used in modern niche aerospace industries where someone wants a part to be electron-beam welded but can't put the part under vacuum because it's too big or they can't afford to wait hours and hours to pump out the air or both. In fact, this [Science Direct article](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0168583X05013388) actually states *"Weld quality for the non-vacuum plasma window electron beam welding approached the quality of in-vacuum electron beam welding"*, not only does this device exist, it works *really well*.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Qeq9A.gif)
So, yes, there absolutely exists a real device as to allow a particle beam to transition from high vacuum to regular atmosphere. Just don't make the opening too big seeing as, at a power density of 8kW/cm^2, it's got about double the heat flux of the surface of the sun, but I suppose if you're planning on frying your target with a particle beam anyway, does it really matter if they get a bit roasted from looking at the "lens cap" too?
[Answer]
While accelerating the beam in a vacuum tube and firing through a plasma window is simple enough, you also need to consider the beam's passage through the atmosphere to the target as well. If the beam scatters or "blooms" due to the interaction of the beam with the atmosphere, then you are not going to be able to deliver much energy on the target.
This was actually considered in the 1980's, as one of the possible spin offs of the Strategic Defense Initiative. A warship mounting a particle beam weapon would have a potent method of dealing with incoming anti ship missiles, since the particle beam would deposit both an immense amount of thermal energy on the target, but also a gret deal of radiation that would penetrate the structure and fry the electronics, detonate the fuel or warhead and do other interesting things...
In order for the beam to have enough range to actually affect the incoming missile, the beam projector was teamed up with a laser. The laser was used at low power to identify and range the target, then a high power beam was emitted. This would essentially clear a channel through the air as the energy of the beam superheated the atmosphere along the beam channel, causing it to expand out of the way and creating a local vacuum (or at least region of very low pressure). The particle beam was emitted with the powerful laser pulse, and since the beam would be moving somewhat slower than light, it would be travelling through the channel of lower pressure created by the beam.
While the idea is sound in theory, the Navy began to wonder about the Rube Goldburg nature of the system, and why spend so much money on two powerful beam weapons working in tandem when one could do the job? At any rate the laser and beam technologies of the 1980 era were not mature enough to create a viable weapon capable of working in an actual service environment.
So for a particle beam to work effectively in the atmosphere, some sort of channel must be created for the beam to follow.
[Answer]
**Accelerate the gas out of the barrel first.**
You have some method to touchlessly accelerate the particles that you are using as a beam. Presumably you have conferred charge to them and then electromagnetically accelerated them.
Do that to whatever is in your barrel first. Confer charge and electromagnetically accelerate out the gas. The force behind the accelerated gas will be much more than atmospheric pressure trying to push gas back in and you will have produced a soothing vacuum for your particles. They will learn about the rough world of cold gas once they leave.
You do not need to accelerate the gas as fast as your particle ammo, but you could. I like to think that the charged gas rapidly leaving the barrel will be hot, and so produce a gout of incandescent flame that precedes the stream of charged radon ions or whatever your main particles are. Because plain particles are invisible, and boring.
] |
[Question]
[
Just a few days ago on DeviantArt, I found this map by MoshiDungo:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/LhRqz.jpg)
The title of the map is [What if the Americas colonised Europe?](https://www.deviantart.com/moshidungo/art/What-if-the-Americas-colonised-Europe-849658325) As the title explicitly implies, it shows a pre-Columbian Europe being colonized by American sailors, rather than the other way around. Unfortunately, the cartographer wasn't clear on what the points of departure are to make this possible, which raises the question:
**What point of departure, or point*S* of departure, would I need for Native American tribes to sail across the Atlantic and stake their claims on Europe?**
[Answer]
It depends on two things; their sailing technology, and their geopolitics. If they haven't yet learned how to sail against the wind, they must go with the prevailing winds; meaning they have to sail northeast from the Americas, then turn southeast somewhere near Greenland. If they can sail against the wind, it may be advantageous to take the southern route; if something goes wrong you can turn back and have the wind help you get home.
Their geopolitics matters for the same reasons it mattered to the Europeans in real life. Spanish colonists left from Spain, English Colonists left from England. So to decide where on the east coast of America they leave from, you have to decide which tribe specifically you're talking about. The Huron aren't going to leave from the same harbors as the Aztecs.
[Answer]
They could leave from just about anywhere on the east coast. All they need to do is get far enough offshore to pick up the Gulf Stream <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_Stream> That will carry them to somewhere near the European coast, and with luck they will be close enough to see land. (Or use the flights of birds &c to deduce that land is near.) Of course they will need to pack plenty of provisions, or fishing lines.
For a similar crossing of the Pacific, note how tsunami debris from Japan washes up on the West Coast: <https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35638091>
[Answer]
Many points of departure, but central to the issue is the building of ships.
While the advantages of water-borne traffic are plentiful, the geography of the Mediterranean favored the development of ships. If you perhaps had an empire that was around the Gulf of Mexico the way the Roman surrounded the Mediterranean, that might give them a motive to innovate that no known American culture had, but there was nothing in the history of the Americas to hint that such a thing was even possible. (The Mississippian Mound-Builders only shortly predated the contact with Europe on a historical scale, and all evidence is that the agriculture necessary for even that level of chiefdom was new.)
The subsequent development in Europe turned heavily on trade. Especially trade with the Far East. The motive for the developments in shipping and navigation that made Columbus's voyages possible was to cut out the middleman. The geopolitics of introducing that level of trade would be a large alteration.
Finally, what motive would have they to sail east ? Columbus's to sail west turned on two points:
1. Knowing the earth was round
2. Looking for a cheaper and easier route to the Far East.
Because the Americas run north and south, there is no way they could think that sailing east would be a simpler trade route. Plus the astronomical knowledge
[Answer]
**Anywhere will do**
I asked [a very similar question](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/173173/an-aztec-ship-sails-east-where-does-it-land) before. I had a fixed point of origin (Haiti) and asked for the most likely landing spot. But your question, like mine, does not have an answer. Let's examine the evidence, and take my map of Columbus's voyages from the New World to the Old:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/NiRzf.png)
The different arrows represent prevailing winds (broad grey) and ocean currents (narrower blue) respectively. Columbus' *return trips* are imposed on top. And what you find is that he barely followed any of these 'logical routes'.
From this evidence I have surmised that prevailing winds/currents make a particular route easier, but not any of the others impossible. Your ship heads in the direction you steer it in. Going directly against the wind won't work for a sailing ship, but if you decide a course in that direction, what you do is you alternately go to either sides of that course, so you move in a zigzag pattern and end up going in that direction. That is until the wind changes again; prevailing does not mean exclusive.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/sM2mw.png)
The better the ship, the sharper you can go against the wind, but it's all but requisite for a sailing vessel capable of crossing the Atlantic in both directions to be capable of doing more than just follow where the wind leads it.
So view this from the perspective of your Native American civilisation. Maybe it's Aztecs, maybe it's the Guanahatabey. Whatever their reasoning for crossing the Atlantic; they would have had something they expected to find. And that something would have (theorised) coordinates. So they would go wherever they wished to go, and if that imagined destination happened to be at the place of real-world Europe, then that's where they land.
So a Tupi country (located in Brazil) with legends of great riches somewhere to the north-east would end up in Europe. As would an Inuit trying to find the origin of the Vinlanders. As would an Nahua in search of Quetzalcoatl, and so would a Cueva civilisation that, after a Chinese expedition left them and further communication in that area was blocked by the Hawaiian Empire, realising that the world is round, set course east instead. Whatever reason you imagine for your alt history civilisation to cross the Atlantic, if that reason has them set course for a specific village in Ireland, then do not worry about the currents or their point of origin. If they have the technology to even cross the ocean, then they will end up wherever they want to end up.
[Answer]
***Various theories of contact:***
There is lots of good stuff here, so I'm just adding, not displacing.
* One point of difference is based on the idea that the Egyptians may have crossed to the new world, and it's at least possible. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thor_Heyerdahl> In this scenario, a small group of Egyptians either journeyed to the new world and stayed, stimulating cultural changes leading to better technological developments and a yearning to someday return to the homeland, or they returned but left a lasting impression. Given a few centuries, small details (like exactly where Egypt WAS). would get lost, but the idea of trans-Atlantic travel and a bigger world would be there. I can envision a similar scenario with the Greeks or Minoans (although some adjustments would need to be made for unseaworthy ships) in a kind of Odyssey journey.
* Eskimos traveling along the ice sheets fishing could "find" the 'New East' and bring back word of it's existence. Prevailing winds make the journey there relatively easy, but back kinda hard. Irish mythology suggests a series of colonizations (their early mytho-history is called the book of invasions) and I would imagine Amerind settlements in Ireland as a preview of future colonizing. Tech and cultural influences could be brought back in celtic and Roman times, leading to a flourishing culture in the 'Old West'. What influences you want for a hybrid celtic/Amerind society would be yours, but contact would be at a point where Amerinds wouldn't be overwhelmed by Western technological superiority. Trade would be important and the prevailing winds might mean the Amerinds would settle northern Europe and the Europeans might still settle in South America, but how that would play out is up to you. I imagine a Western Roman empire propped up by trade routes to the Americas standing tall and an Eastern Roman Empire trading with Asia.
* Earlier voyages by pre-Christian Vikings where the Vikings settled further south and established a larger presence would have similarly infused tech and cultural awareness into the new world, but I imagine the Western vikings clinging to their traditional faiths while Euro-vikings went Christian. The two break off relations, and Europe suffers a worse Bubonic plague or Mongol invasion. European diseases sweep the New world early and the American populations recover early. Amerinds have higher tech, so a recovering America with higher tech and a growing population voyages to a depopulated Europe.
[Answer]
Following the arrows on your map back, where do they lead?
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/7vpsb.jpg)
**Greenland.**
And this makes perfect sense. Who has giant ocean going boats? Who is not afraid of cold oceans? Who embarked on a huge continent-spanning expansion by water in the 1200s? The Thule people, aka the Inuit.
<https://www.historicalclimatology.com/features/what-made-the-thule-move-climate-and-culture-in-the-high-arctic>
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/hLVSv.jpg)
Over just a few hundred years, the Thule people expanded from their starting point in Alaska to occupy the entirety of coastal Northen canada, their expansion extending all the way to Greenland.
>
> And if the Thule began their migration only in 1200, it seems unlikely
> they spread east simply to find iron...Instead, the Thule developed a
> thriving, intricate network of settlements across the Arctic. For
> Friesen and Arnold, this is evidence that the Thule expanded in order
> to recreate the ideological and economic lives that they had enjoyed
> in their origins along the Bering Strait. And in just a century they
> did, not only by inhabiting land from the Bering Strait to Greenland,
> but through explorations to the northern edges of the continent.
>
>
>
So really, the point of departure 100 years before was Alaska. But the point for their ocean-spanning voyage of the expansionist Thule people was Greenland.
---
This no doubt what Dailey would call "head canon" but I like the idea that on reaching Greenland and encountering the Dorset people who lived there, the Thule adventurers who continued east to Europe would take some Dorset with them. The Dorset were different.
>
> “The first people were giants
>
> Their chests were broad and their hands could grab seals whole
>
> They walked with spirits on the ice and never fell through
>
> Though they were strong, they did not possess the tools of war
>
> And the new people drove them back from the sea”
>
>
>
>
—Excerpt from “An Oral History of Baffin Island”
<https://greetingsfromthewasteland.wordpress.com/2015/09/18/the-dorset-culture/>
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[Question]
[
So here's the idea, ~35 million years ago Antarctica was still quite habitable. This is far to early for hominids but what if a humanoid species arose in South America and migrated south into Antarctica? What kind of ancestor could work? They would have the look roughly human but don't have to look identical. But from a simple description be mistaken for a human, so no tails but a face like a bonobo could certainly work.
My first idea was take a common ancestor from the capucin monkeys and drag them through the [aquatic ape hypothesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquatic_ape_hypothesis) but there's no way to make that timeline work before climate change freezes over the continent. The goal is them having reach something akin to the bronze age at 35 million years ago, ideally the Antarctic coastline is still tropical.
**So I'm looking for a probable ancestor for my humanoids and what vestigial traits that would force me to incorporate.**
So our requirements are this:
* Humanoid in appearance Hands complex enough for tool manufactering
* Color vision but doesn't need to be identical to humans but something
relatively close
* Human level intelligence in time to reach the late
bronze age before Antarctica becomes to cold to occupy the inland
area.
* Ability to live all over the continent, from the swampy coasts
to the dry inland near the pole.
* Evolved in a place so it crossed into Antarctica from South America, this can technically be from Africa and came during along with the ancestors of the New World Monkeys e.g.
[Answer]
**An early platyrrhine primate like *Perupithecus***
[The oldest known platyrrhines date to 35-38 Ma](http://www.sci-news.com/paleontology/science-fossils-earliest-south-american-monkeys-peru-02486.html). They are thought to have gotten to South America some time before that, [potentially at the same time as the earliest South American rodents, which are about 42 Ma](https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rspb.2011.1732). That gives you about 7-8 Ma to play with, about the same amount of time as it took us to evolve from our last common ancestor with chimpanzees and drop down from the trees. So it's doable.
On top of that South America [experienced opening grasslands](https://ri.conicet.gov.ar/handle/11336/1478) [earlier than other continents](https://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6219/258.abstract) ([though in this case it was more of palmetto scrub and C3 grasses than C4 grasses](https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/51324279/Phytolith_analysis_in_Gran_Barranca_cen20170112-15972-18if08.pdf?1484256908=&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DPhytolith_analysis_in_Gran_Barranca_cent.pdf&Expires=1593210924&Signature=AzhdZ1RouiFZQwwdWA41m6iqWTF-EXND-cGkrcCsxBFlfq%7EoRzUA5Lir5CqjcHqT8jCSWKCJrYLhURJYh2AcKVtsMmIAxpdEUHyt03FmXxjRdsM9k2PZXfq4WQayUpqUdaoa0NS6anKVTP823usXTw6bhL48JLNOocjrnYynq38v5lofTVDDwxCXqN0GC1TyqOjtlV1o2VlJ9LxGIEZIofcFIxDh8kkk9VY7lSSmSEAd7pQ6KF-sI1HMV8pLgSUmOuArFaRTdq8oMnxAtQKGsQca-XzxyHVZ4s9uZjhsmQJHSbqgHhAr6ybDl5Zm0QyOvVaFkiWe4ajs4AOQvCm3dw__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA)), so the selective pressure for a humanoid body shape is there. This started in the middle Eocene (~45 Ma) and continued into the Oligocene. There's actually an Oligocene (~[26](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02724634.1998.10011043?casa_token=6CjT8ub4H_8AAAAA:-UCRRgYNrOJ4oKQpcK0jP8G_JyJbO-9uGBN5xOs8fuEOB4hQycKu2oh3t2a19K57TyHc7CyzQ8tcRQ) Ma) platyrrhine, *Branisella*, [that appears to have been specialized for running on the ground like a Patas monkey](https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4615-1343-8_9). So the environment supports it. Only downside is your humanoids are going to be a bit Sun Wukong-esque and have tails (there is really no reason to get rid of one if you're going straight to ground, apes lost theirs because of their manner of arboreal locomotion). If you don't mind missing the Antarctic glaciation having a lineage of sapient *Branisella* descendents mucking around isolated South America for millions of years might work better.
Full disclaimer, there’s no evidence that primates ever got as far south as Argentina until Miocene times, but the good thing about humanoid body shape is that once they achieve it they can spread everywhere in a geologic eyeblink (thousands of years), much like how humans spread out from Africa to every continent in less than 40,000 years.
Humanoid body shapes are tricky. You might be able to get sapience but you probably can't easily force a notopithecine notoungulate or a polydolopid metatherian to adopt a humanoid body shape as easily as you can another primate. Plus most of the endemic South American mammals are as dumb as a sack of bricks, not good candidates for sapience.
The one big problem is your species isn't going to be restricted to Antarctica. If they're present in Antarctica they can just walk to South America and Australia due to the three being connected by land until ~35 Ma, and that's not even getting into whether or not they can build boats. They might lose Antarctica but they will still have significant population centers on two continents, unless you make Antarctica their cradle of civilization or something.
[Answer]
The precursors to primates were also related to lemurs... simians and prosimians. There are intermediate species, of course, of which we only have the tarsier today. Lemurs have grasping hands, females can possess color vision in diurnal species (color vision is only advantageous for diurnal species). Primitive primates existed as early as **65 million years ago** with many of these being closer to lemur than monkey. Subfossil lemurs such as sloth lemurs, and koala lemurs that were **large and ape-like** show in principle that lemur-like primates could occupy the same *evolutionary niche* as larger primates like apes (and by extension humans). For these to reach Antartica, during the warmer wetter period of history, these already rare mammals would have to have lived near the ocean and be swept all the way to Antartica, and have a surviving breeding population group in large enough amounts and in close proximity. This theory may require a **vegetative raft**. Twenty million years is a long time, even in evolutionary terms. The chimpanzee is likely only separated from humanity by about **2 million years**. Now the question is of niche. Diurnal populations that need color vision would need to forage on fruit. Bipedalism is thought to have evolved due to walking across plains (or alternatively, shallow lakes... as in the aquatic ape theory). So to get it right, small patches of productive forest have to be separated by plains, which could seasonally flood. This could have been possible in Antartica. Pressures from the monkeys caused the lemurs extinction, but Antartica was not populated with monkeys, so the lemurs would have survived and flourished in greater variety. Diminishing forests force the lemur-apes to **eat meat**, which lead to **greater brain mass**. Hybrid vigor from closely related lemur apes also contributes to this effect. Eventually, human level intellect peaks with a ***lemur-sapian*** and small "accidents" lead to the discovery of *agriculture* (seeds mixed with kitchen waste, ashes, etc, lead to crops). Soft metals are discovered (because smashing rocks and burning stuff is the way to go if you are an intelligent ape-like creature) and lead to copper, meteorite iron tools, and other cool things. Civilization arises when a pot of grain porridge is left in the rain and ferments, making an alcoholic beverage. The resulting ceremonial liquid causes **settlement** to so lemur-sapiens can grow more grain, and *religion* because alcohol creates otherworldly experiences. All this in the span of somewhere between 20 and 30 million years due to an ***accidental rafting trip***.
] |
[Question]
[
What wing design is best-suited for gigantic flying vertebrates, and why?
The wing designs I'm considering are Bat Wings, Bird Wings, and Pterosaur Wings. I'm leaning towards Pterosaur simply because the largest flying animals ever were Pterosaurs, but assuming that evolutionary lineage was irrelevant and we were looking solely at biomechanics and biological aviation capabilities, which wing design is truly best for something larger than anything ever seen before?
The largest flying animal ever known to have existed was the Quetzequatalus, which was around the size of a giraffe and 550 pounds give or take. Was the wing design truly ideal for a flying animal of that size? Or would a different wing design have been more beneficial?
EDIT: I forgot to mention the type of flight I had in mind, sorry. The mere ability to lift itself off the ground is a good start, and at the least it needs to be able to glide. Endurance flight is a best-case scenario in my mind. It basically would only use flying as a means of a shortcut in travelling.The sheer supposed cumbersome size of this thing would cancel out pursuit and acrobatics of any kind.
[Answer]
# Depends
What does this animal need to be able to do? That's the guiding question. There's no one best style for a wing. Some creatures are built for speed, some for distance, and some barely fly at all.
The [albatross](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albatross) flies over truly massive stretches of ocean. Here's its wing design.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/OaDx8.jpg)
I don't know if you've ever seen a chicken flying but it's less impressive. That's because chickens and other game birds are built for a [different type of flight](https://www.livescience.com/57139-why-chickens-cannot-fly.html):
>
> [Game birds] can fly only short distances. This is because, despite
> their powerful muscles, they have little endurance. Game birds use
> their big flight muscles to take off in a near-vertical, rapid burst
> and fly for a short distance — called a burst flight — allowing them
> to escape predators.
>
>
>
You could design your massive flyer in whichever way the situation requires. Gliding, hunting, soaring, escaping, and foraging all lend themselves to different wing designs. Want a species that can fly across the ocean? It would be a real challenge to make a long-distance flyer weigh so much, but with a large enough wingspan you could make it plausible. On the other extreme, you could make it more like a bird version of a [flying squirrel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_squirrel), which can barely glide and can't sustain flight.
[Answer]
**Let's Compare and Contrast**
* When comparing bone structures, Pterosaurs and Birds have lighter wings than bats because they only have one "finger" instead of a bunch of spread out fingers. Bat wings give more control over the shape of your wing which is good for maneuverability, but bad for weight to lift ratios.
* Pterosaurs have a slightly better wing shape than most birds for being big because their wings have more of a distal tapper. By having more area closer to the body which tappers out to the wing tips, there is less leverage working against holding out their long wings straight. In contrast most bird wings are designed to more evenly distribute lift.
* Birds also have the advantage of feathers which extend the available surface area of a wing while adding negligible mass making bird like wings in many ways ideal for larger animals. (Pterosaurs had feathered wings too, but it is uncertain if they had flight feathers.)
* In a related question: [Could my Wyverns exist?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/167897/could-my-wyverns-exist/168429#168429) I went into a bunch of details about optimizing lift against square cube rule disadvantages, but what it really comes down to is that the bigger you are the more you need to pancake or hallow out your mass to be able to fly; so, while wings shape is important, it is not necessarily as important as answering how you can turn the most mass into wing surface. To this end bat wings may be the best because they unify their arms, legs, and tail into one big continuous flight surface.
So your Best wing shape may actually be to take the best of three worlds. Use the distal taper of the Pterosaurs, the feathers of birds, and the continuous flight surface of a a bat which together will give you something similar to this:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/7ZV1Y.png)
[Answer]
**Yes and no.**
Being a giant predatorial pterosaur that was apparently [able to travel long distances](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/10/101015-science-giant-pterosaurs-longest-nonstop-flight-distance-record/), quetzalcoatlus, as well as other azdarchids, is considered a very successful pterosaur species, with their "reign" over the skies ending with the KT extinction event. With this information, we can clearly see that Quetzalcoatlus had the best wings for a creature its size...which predominantly relied on soaring and very powerful but spread apart flaps of the wings. Their wings were capable of sustaining them during flight, allowed for long distance travel and permitted their lifestyle.
So did the Quetzalcoatlus have the best wing design for a large creature with a lifestyle like quetzalcoatlus'? Yes. Was it the best wing configuration among all possible kinds and superior to any other wing in every way? No. Quetzalcoatlus showed is that pterosaur wings allowed for large flying creatures to exist, but I doubt that quetzalcoatlus would ever be able to catch a flying bat (wild speculation but, yes), because bat wings, with their large amount of articulation, allows their owners to do incredible acrobatic and evasive moves, as well as achieve decently high speeds in certain species, with the Brazilian free-tailed bat being the [fastest flying vertebrate regarding powered flight](https://www.newscientist.com/article/2112044-speedy-bat-flies-at-160kmh-smashing-bird-speed-record/), clocking at 160 km/h.
So that means bat wings are superior? No. Bat wings may allow for decent speed and great maneuverability, as well as high dodging capabilities and some level of hovering in certain nectar-feeding species. But in many cases you'll hear a bat flying by the sound of its flapping motion, something that'll hardly happen with an owl. Owls evolved special feathers that, combined with their slow flapping flying style, makes their flight almost soundless, so by the time you detect it, it'll be to late. Falcons on the other hand went for the "opposite" strategy, you'll hear them coming, but with their body an wings adapted to achieve high speeds (peregrine falcon still holds the record for fastest flying animal with its 320 km/h dives), it'll usually be upon you before you have time to do anything.
So summing up: did quetzalcoatlus have the best wing for a quetzalcoatlus? Yes. Was it the best wing ever? No, it wasn't.
As far as it's understood, what allowed pretosaurs to reach the sizes [azdarchids](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azhdarchidae) did wasn't just the wings, it was about the pterosaurs themselves, their extreme adaptations which resulted in animals the size of a giraffe that weighted less than a black bear and were assumed to [take to the skies like a vampire bat](https://lorenabarba.com/blog/student-guest-blog-post-pterosaur-quad-launch/).
] |
[Question]
[
[Clarification of [an XY Problem](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/171870/magic-proofing-currency)]
I am currently developing a world with a hard magic system based entirely on manipulating the natural order of reality in accordance with physical possibility. As long as the ultimate end-state of a magical act results in a universe that continues to follow physical law, and the intermediate states are well-defined enough to be abstractly formalized, the only barrier to magic is how much energy is expended in the process.
Naturally, simple alchemical processes like the spontaneous synthesis and transmutation of matter is possible in this system, so material currency, especially metal coins, wouldn't be impossible to create from scrap material to a sufficiently powerful mage. The shape and design of such coins could also be flawlessly reproduced for someone who has dedicated enough effort into analyzing, memorizing, and codifying the design as an arcane formula.
My question isn't exactly how to deter, prevent, or detect counterfeiting of currency, but rather a sold-state physical/material question:
**What physical material would be the hardest to synthetically reproduce at an atomic level through physics-based magic**
The factors at play:
* It is physically impossible to create an object through arcana if its composition is not sufficiently well-understood to be codified into a magic formula
* The amount of 'energy' consumed to perform a magic act is linked to the difference of inherent energy levels of a closed system before and after the magical effect is produced: he amount of 'energy' consumed to perform a magic act is linked to the difference of inherent energy levels of a closed system before and after the magical effect is produced: warming a glass of room-temperature water is less costly than boiling it
* If a process is possible without any arcane intervention, the arcane energy consumed by short-cutting the process via arcana is generally lower than trying to produce a non-mundane effect: combining carbon and iron into steel with magic is easier than turning lead into gold, even when the composition of steel and gold are both equally well understood
Given these parameters, what material would be the most difficult to create a facsimile of via arcana, either based on energy requirements or on complexity-based analysis-proofing?
[Answer]
**Organic objects**
These are things like wood, ivory, shells, bone. The first stated rule is: "It is physically impossible to create an object through arcana if its composition is not sufficiently well-understood to be codified into a magic formula." And the composition for organic objects isn't well understood at all. I'd imagine that, in addition to knowing the raw percentages of each element, you'd also need a vague idea of *how* the construction went on. Else you'd run the risk of creating coal when trying to create diamonds.
And when it comes to object complexity, nothing can beat the complexity of an organic substance, artificially made from nature by complex organic processes, made up from organic components that have traces of a few uncommon elements and arranges in unique patterns.
[Answer]
Could you draw some inspiration from computer science, particularly public key cryptography?
Public key cryptographic methods involve some asymmetry - if you have the public key, it is relatively simple to encrypt a message, but decrypting it is computationally prohibitive (at least relative to the encryption process). If you have the private key, then decryption is roughly as easy as encryption.
Suppose your world's governments have access to some kind of "private key" (which forms the basis of the currency-making formula) that makes a pattern that gets woven into their coins as part of the atomic structure. The pattern is sufficiently complex that trying to reverse engineer its shape is possible, but incredibly difficult. However, the public gets access to the "public key", which is something that reacts to the pattern, meaning you can always verify the legitimacy of the currency you have. Maybe there's a simple alchemical pattern that, when applied to a real coin, will make it glow, but if applied to a counterfeit will have no effect.
[Answer]
Composite materials.
As far as I can tell these spells create uniform materials. You can combine aluminum and copper for construction aluminium of a certain %, but it is harder to make the top a different % mixture than the bottom and let these differences flow into each other naturally.
So you introduce a composite material. Like bank notes you keep the exact formula and composition of the paper and ink secret, or as much a secret as possible. The material of the coins is smelted in such a way that the bottom is a different composition than the top. They also all have a specific weight and some features like ribs and edges that increase the time and effort of copy attempts through magic, making it more worth it to try and mint them yourself than to create them.
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Given that alchemy is a bit like chemistry, the answer to what is hardest to create might be the same as it is in chemistry.
Which is heavy elements. To make those crazy transuranium elements down at the very end of the periodic table, they have to bust through the electromagnetic barrier surrounding the nucleus of an atom, which takes a ton of energy and a heck of a shot. We're talking shooting million of pool balls at a target on Mars.
Course, then all your currency is radioactive and explodes instantly. But in theory, the heavier the element, the more complicated it is at the nuclear level and the more energy needed to make it. So you might consider something like Plutonium surrounded by a protective barrier of lead. No one is going to be shaving the edges of THAT coin to make a few extra bucks...
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Imagine an Earth-like world with oceans, some complex vegetative and animal life, but with an extreme low amount of oxygen in the atmosphere, let's say one third of what we are accustomed to, like the death zone of Everest, but on the sea level.
Imagine a ship with colonists from Earth arrives on this world. The atmosphere is breathable but not survivable without taking to the oxygen bottle from time to time (like on Everest). How long would it take their descendants to adopt? People in Himalaya or Peru feel good at 5000 meters, and they likely came there from lower areas. Would their grandgrandchildren be able to live there without an extra oxygen supply? Will they feel ok?
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For humans there is a physical (chemical) limit on O2, CO2 partial pressures and their difference. If these conditions are not met our lungs start to extract oxygen *from* blood *into* the air, which leads to fast suffocation.
And these are fundamental physical limits (based on gases' solubility in water) - you could not overcome it without changing the breath method. This would hardly happen, because it would lead to total "redesign" of all body systems (including nervous, i.e. brain).
This limit is about 8% - that is about 8 km above sealevel, about 1 km below Everest. On Everest you don't need "oxygen bottle time-to-time" - you need it constantly. And if you open you mask you need to keep your breath or you would loose oxygen you have in your body.
As for altitudes less than 8km (5-7) humans can and do adopt by starting producing more blood cells, increasing their lung volume, reducing body mass/volume ratio. But it has its drawbacks (greater risk of thrombus, bleeding is far more dangerous etc.).
And 5km (10%) is an actual limit for quite an interesting reason: this percentage is a *difference* between CO2 and O2. But indoors, some people can easily have their concentration of CO2 rise up to 1-2% (especially if some open fireplace is there). If it happens near the limit at more than 5km height - people will start to suffocate.
So a **stable breathable** atmosphere is about 5 km (0.1 atm of oxygen partial pressure) and some people already adopted to those heights. But they are small, thin and weak, compared to "lowlanders".
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Air at sea level is roughly 20% oxygen. When we hit 16% or lower, our cells physically stop working as well with physical activity. 14% to 10% and we start losing cognitive functionality ([source](https://sciencing.com/minimum-oxygen-concentration-human-breathing-15546.html)). If the oxygen concentration is only a third of what we're used to, that's (roughly) 7% oxygen at sea level-- well below what any human would need to function. There are two ways we can get around this issue in terms of better humans.
**1) Random Mutation**
Do like our ancestors did-- randomly mutate until we have better offspring. Get rid of the idea of monogamy. It's critical that everyone reproduce to the limits of what the colony can sustain! If someone seems to be able to function better with less oxygen, they need to be reproducing more! It's pretty much impossible to know how quickly this will work (or how it would even work) since we obviously don't have any humans that we know of that can survive in such an environment.
**Genetically Modify our new humans**
We can probably do this a bit quicker, though it will depend on some (hand wavey) science to produce new humans. Obviously, the tech to make a human who breathes 1/3 of the oxygen we're used to doesn't exist at this point in history. But we could wave our hands a bit and speculate about it. What traits do we want?
A smaller human will certainly need less to survive. Less food, less water, less oxygen, less everything, really. So that's probably a good start. Then let's study just what makes those humans who live at high altitudes function so well. We've actually [already identified](https://www.livescience.com/38921-genes-for-high-altitude-living-identified.html) some potential genes that would make humans survive better at higher altitudes. Those can be injected into anyone who wasn't already from those mountainous regions to ensure that they could survive on the planet better.
Past that.... it's kinda guess-and-check. We can only come up with so many ideas for how to build a better human before we have to test them. How long it takes in that instance is now up to you.
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At half or lower, it might as well be zero like Mars because no one is going to survive any negative event. Artificial support will be the norm so adaptation won't take place.
Above half normal and there are biochemical rather than mechanical interventions (red blood cell membrane, drugs) to prevent a negative event from being immediately fatal allowing adaptation to occur that naturally incorporate the interventions.
Other adaptations beside smaller size and larger chest/lungs that will occur are loss of muscle mass (assuming gravity permits) and reduced brain mass as these affect resting oxygen demand.
A hibernation reaction might develop where the body basically shuts down to below resting state allowing survival of extended exposure below the new normal. This would probably be a repurposing of the current "keep the core warm by sacrificing the extremities" reaction to hyperthermia
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Assume that the colonists are drawn from high altitude populations, as making use of an existing trait will take *much* less time than depending on a random mutation randomly showing up just in time.
Even with pre-existing traits, it is not guaranteed that humans would ever be able to exist without supplemental O2. If the traits from these three populations did combine in a beneficial manner, it may still only result in just needing much less additional O2 rather than removing the need for an emergency bottle.
For your story, assume that these traits did optimally combine into humans that could breath unaided. It will take quite a few generations for the individual traits to be spread among the entire population, even if breeding was deliberately controlled. Perhaps between 100 and 200 years after initial colonization?
Here is a bit of background on high altitude populations.
O2 availability similar to that at 5,000 meters would still require supplemental O2, but traits existing in the Tibetan, Andean, and/or Ethiopian populations should give your population a jump start on evolutionany processes to reduce the need for O2 bottles.
Andeans have higher hemoglobin concentrations which allows for more O2 to be carried (though it does thicken the blood a bit).
Tibetans increase their O2 intake with quicker breathing, along with expansion of the blood vessels to allow increased flow.
Ethiopian highlanders also successfully deal with high altitudes with minimal hypoxia, but do not have any of the adaptations shown by the Andeans or the Tibetans. So what adaptations have the Ethiopeans evolved to do this?
To quote Cynthia Beall, a physical anthropologist, "Right now we have no clue how they do it."
[Three High-Altitude Peoples; Three Adaptations to Thin Air](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/2004/02/high-altitude-adaptations-evolution/)
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In my setting, there are basically no biological life forms left, as everyone has either been mind-uploaded or is an artificial intelligence. It is supposed to take place at a very distant point in the future post Andromeda-Milky Way merger, so technology has had a long time to develop and the computers people are stored in are at speeds approaching theoretical limits (as set by Bremermann's limit) of 1.36e50 computations a second per kg of material.
What I am struggling with is whether or not everyone would know exactly the same facts and skills as everyone else. If everyone is stored in a separate computer with arbitrarily high computations per second allowed for each individual, I worry that whenever any question comes up they could simply "google" the answer instantly and no one would have any knowledge not known by someone else. Is there any pragmatic reason (not based on personal taste of the individual) for having specializations such as "Scientist", "Engineer", etc. within such a society? What could prevent individuals from all having the same skills and knowledge?
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Let's break this down.
## 1. Knowledge != Skill
You can know everything there is to know about painting, and still be a bad painter. In fact, most critics of any field fall into this category. You can *know* something very well without being able to actually *do* it. Sure, your society is in the far future and we've collectively learnt a lot, but that doesn't still mean individuals being good at something depends on knowledge alone. In this far in the future, we're talking about intergalactic levels of engineering, which will definite pose challenges even to the most advanced, and those individuals will still have to think creatively to find solutions.
## 2. Sometimes imagination is better (powerful) than information
The best example for this is Einstein. All the leading scientists in his time *knew* all the major things about physics and cosmology. But it was Einstein who could actually come up with the Theory of Relativity, which is almost completely a product of pure imagination. What sets him apart? We don't know for sure - yes he's probably more *intelligent* than your average scientist, but what does 'intelligence' mean? It's correlated with information/knowledge for sure, but there's much more to it than that. So in your future, people who could imagine new things are the scientists.
## 3. We can't know *everything*
How far advanced we may be, there's still some knowledge that is likely fundamentally unknowable. For example, take the age old question, *What's beyond our universe?* It may be that we're only one of infinitely many universes, but it could be that because of the limitations of physics we simply can't know anything about what's beyond our universe. And that's jut one example, there could be many more things like that. So even with all the knowledge in the universe, you still can't know everything. In such cases, individualistic abilities to think, imagine, and be creative can be useful.
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Looks like you posited universal sharing of information - does that have to be the case? Even with tremendous computation powers, raw knowledge is still valuable (maybe even more so), so if there are still independent agents with free will, they may choose to control and protect their knowledge for their advantage.
This leads to a question - why cannot everyone gather raw knowledge? Because that is gained from physical interaction with the real world, not from navel gazing. So controlling more physical objects is still a source of power. Those can be thought as extended bodies - but do not have to be physically connected. In fact, it's quite feasible that a single independent mind can control significant armies of distributed "dumb" robots (those without free will). Those private "bodies", coupled with private knowledge (which they help to gain), form the answer to specialization and in fact to individuality.
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Yes, they will have unique skills and even knowledge.
Now, with that said...
Transcended people may reach standards faster than us. And in time they may reach a very similar mindset and even similar skills. But their individual base will always be there, otherwise they aren't different individuals any more, and just components of a bigger single entity. I will elaborate.
We interact with the computers in a very isolated way. We have to move our bodies to operate some kind of input device, and a complex system of layers of hardware and software is required in the middle.
I believe that digitized people still require some level of isolation to prevent malfunctioning and data corruption. So there will be some kind of software driver and probably sandboxing. For example, those people brains are already educated to do something with the signals coming from their senses. The most efficient way is to translate everything to visual, audio, tact, so they can use what they already know. In a sense, they are still isolated, as they accept inputs in fixed formats.
Can they evolve from their biological emulated starting point and begin accept other formats? Probably. But for the current state of their synapses to be useful, you have to emulate senses at least at the beginning. The being can then evolve from there. If your setting already provided the time required for such evolution, then it is believable. You don't have biological beings, but that alone doesn't guarantee there was enough time to digital evolution. Adjust the details for the outcome you want.
When you transcend, what you upload is an image of the current state of your neurons synapses. This allows you to retain everything, knowledge, personality, etc. Or better said, this implies that you get everything, except that your civ knows the brain better than us, better enough to be selective about what they get.
It is not only safer to not be selective but the person going immortal will probably prefer to retain everything. The biological beings that perfected the procedure probably wanted things that way.
The best structure known to store that is an artificial neural network. What is it? Just image a matrix of numbers, representing your neurons weights, and a set mathematical function that rules how a signal propagates through the network and modifies the weights during training, or produces an output.
The beauty of this, is that to learn something new, you don't need to modify the network shape, you just need to expose the network to new stimuli and let the weights adapt.
Different network designs may have different potential, like be able to be connected to different inputs (the senses). To map a human brain those people need to have an advanced understanding of this, superior than the one we have now. Human synapses probably requires a very specific network design.
Now, that's only a simplified approximation. To map a real human weights into a computer there are a series of challenges.
Challenges:
**Precision**: Can a vector of float/double/1024bits\_floating\_point\_data\_type\_from\_future, represents correctly what we have up there? Or the result is a ugly approximation? At which precision it is cost efficient to backup our synapses in a digital format?
Because you may have all the quantum bits based storage you want, but I can be super mean and fill it with a single BMP (version 4986 from future) file containing a photo of my cat saved with an absurdly high pixel precision, and absurdly high resolution, just to full your storage device.
**Artificial neurons aren't neurons**: but at the time Andromeda and Milky Way merged people, if still around, probably have some kind of technological solution. Better artificial neurons, maybe besting the biological ones. I can't imagine how biological ones may have evolved by that time. If those people are doing this, then they are beyond any moral war about using our intellect to decide our evolution. So biological ones may be a thing themselves too.
Extra considerations:
**The perfect robots** are probably... humans. They can use tools, and come with a very debugged firmware that guarantees a natural predisposition to survival and reproduction. When going digital, are we getting a good deal? Only relevant, of course, if they had a choice.
**Why retain individuality?** Except that your civ knowledge is complete, and I believe that just can't be, there isn't absolute answers for everything. So you will need to roll a die sooner or later.
And if your civ is with me in this, they like individuality, and that implies different skillsets, and creative ways to use those skills. Two astronauts with the same training may take different decisions given the same situation, and both may be right or wrong at the same time. One may decide to repair the ship, the other has the same skills, but facing the same situation decides to abandon the ship. And both may survive.
**Your knowledge VS shared knowledge**: our transcended people are past the mechanical layer and can access the Internet faster. But for safety they are still isolated. Their own knowledge (and personality and etc) is the one encoded in their synapses (or virtual emulated synapses), the shared knowledge exists in... HTMLv1024? records in the... Internetv2048? And still need to be accessed and understood. And each individual, digital or not, will understand the records differently.
Of course, digital people can simulate hypothetical situations faster than us. They use faster the same tools (referring to software at least), and they can use some tools made specifically for them, once evolved as digital beings. So standards on everything may be reached faster.
**Digital people may decide to abandon individuality**. People are different, so some may do that. Will this kind obsolete the other? Not necessarily. They may even be inferior in a lot of ways.
**Digital people may be very fragile**. Better that your hardware is super robust. Resistant to radiation, lighting and who knows what. They need to be aware that there is a physical universe out there and have efficient tools that they can operate to continue improving and repairing existing hardware.
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You would need to contact the Space Force by phone or mail and request exclusive access to their mind-upload database. Then you could easily discern whether any unique skills or knowledge have been uploaded or if it truly is just a crapload of artificial intelligence and people pretending to know what they're talking about in there.
Microsoft claims that 83% of user minds are now using Windows 10 to upload their most private thoughts. Data is uploaded at high speeds using 5G and Wifi which can then be accessed by everybody and their brother to take advantage of you more easily.
<https://www.spaceforce.mil/>
<https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-performance/microsoft-telemetry-compatibility/cefa7c8e-49c9-4965-aef6-2d5f01bb38f2>
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So, we have five floating islands in the southern sea. Their surfaces are mainly composed of fields of grass and fruit trees (weeds, non-profitable trees, etc. are disposed of) A dozen or so feet of earth separates the surfaces of these islands from the root cities beneath them. The island cities are close enough to each other that huge root bridges connect them.
The levitation of the islands and their root streets, buildings, and bridges are maintained by magic. To keep the islands floating and the cities intact, the strongest magic users (one for each city) devote their lives to maintaining the spell. When a magic user is chosen for this task, they cannot move until they *‘retire’*. They sit cross legged 24/7, never moving, not to speak, eat, etc.
Centuries ago, these islands were perfectly normal, non floating islands and their inhabitants lived in normal villages composed of huts, but then dragons began to fly over on their way across the sea. They mercilessly attacked the villages and gave no hint for years of ever changing their route. The magic users received visions of some sort, telling them to raise the islands from the sea and create cities from the roots of their orchards. The dragons are mighty, magical creatures that only a being with godlike power could hope to defeat, which is why the magic users chose to follow the guidance of their visions.
In the present day, the dragons continue to fly over the surfaces of these islands. When they do, bells ring once throughout each city and their occupants hurry inside their homes. None of the islanders live on the surfaces of the islands and only a few times a year, on and off for several days, groups are sent up to tend to the fruit trees. Their primary trade is fishing and, thus far, even before the islands were raised into the air, the dragons have not attacked their boats. The root cities are open to the air, composed of several levels of streets and buildings each, all of which have a level that is used as a harbor for their boats. Huge dumbwaiters (not sure what to call these; lifts?) lower boats into the sea just before dawn and raise them back up into the harbors just before sunset.
It occurred to me that the fruit of the trees might be what keeps the dragons flying over the surfaces of the islands, as they might use the fruit as a sort of mid journey meal, but I don’t want them eating all the fruit, because it’s an important trade item of the islanders. Because this was already an established route of travel for the dragons, I’m having trouble figuring out why they would naturally switch their latitude of flight after the islands rose into the sky.
There is a tomb of sorts within the earth beneath the surface of the largest island, the existence of which the islanders are unaware of. Within it, an ancient, terrifying creature guards two enchanted weapons of considerable power. I have trouble with the idea of connecting this to the raising of the islands and the dragons’ changed elevation of flight: Though the entrance is accessible, from the surface of the island, I do not want the dragons taking a mid journey nap in this tomb; besides, it is hidden before the start of the story, which begins a few centuries after the islands began to float. Also, the ancient creature that guards it is primarily a beast, unable to cast spells or think intelligibly, aside from anything pertaining to its goal of killing whoever enters the place. I *can* see how the raising of the islands would be beneficial to the protection of the tomb, as it would be less likely to be discovered. However, the tomb was created by an ancient warrior and a long dead magic user of the island, neither of which would have the power to cast a spell of the caliber required to trick the dragons into flying high (they would’ve had the same limitations as the present day magic users) Besides, as I said, they are both long dead.
Basically, I don’t want the changed course of the dragons to be caused by a spell. There is no one in my world related to this situation that is powerful enough to cast a spell on a dragon and receive anything more than an incredulous scoff (in spirit) for their efforts. Not to mention, the islanders ring bells and hide when dragons fly over, because drawing attention to themselves is still potentially dangerous.
**My question is:** Why do the dragons continue to fly over the surfaces of the islands, instead of flying by the root cities? Why does living beneath the surfaces in these root cities keep the people safe from the dragons? How can I make sense of this?
*If there’s anything wrong with my question or if more info is needed, please let me know.*
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It is a combination of things which result in the dragons not flying below the islands.
firstly, there are roots below, which I am going to assume do not end at the bottom of the ground layer, but hang down maybe 50-100 meters, in a massive tangled mess. This would have a huge risk to the dragons, as if they fly below the island they might get tangled in the roots.
Secondly, there is also no reward for flying below, as those tasty humans are hiding deep within the root system, and there is no way for the mighty dragons to get in there.
Third, many species of birds have a natural instinct while flying, if something larger than them passes nearby, they dive downwards. This is a survival mechanism, as usually the bigger something is a hawk or other predatory bird, and by diving down they might be able to evade it. For your dragons, this might be a residual instinct from when they were smaller creatures. Otherwise, your dragons might be slightly cannibalistic, with the biggest, oldest ones preying on the smaller younglings when times get tough. Alternatively, if cannibalism is not something you want, perhaps there is the Something. Something dark, Something powerful. The old civilizations considered it a God. The Dragons fear it above all else, as it is capable of taking the biggest and most powerful dragons, and making stew from them.
The Islands dwarf even the largest of dragons though, so if they fly below, the instinct kicks in automatically. If they dive down from this low altitude, they will plummet into the ocean, and maybe cannot get airborne from the water, and will drown.
Finally, as a fourth effect, your tomb is on the surface of the islands. While it is hidden, and only found later on, the dragons can feel the effect of the magic weapons, and we all know dragons covet powerful, items of immense value. While they cannot get to the weapons, and indeed, the power that the dragons can feel is only slight, it is enough, in combination with the other effects, for the dragons to rather fly above the islands.
Bonus 1, you can use the creation of the powerful weapons as a plot cause for the dragons to have altered their flight path all those centuries ago.
Bonus 2, the tomb guardian creature, is a baby of the Something godlike being.
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# Because thermals
Raising the islands into the air changed the air patterns over the islands and the coastline. Now emphasised by the expansion from villages, the heat from the cities causes thermals over the islands that the dragons take advantage of to gain extra height as they fly past.
Consider them simply as large flying creatures and a free thermal, whether natural or artificial is not to be refused.
You could equally treat the magic used to keep the islands flying as a massive magical "thermal" that the dragons can use in the same way they'd use a more mundane thermal.
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Usually when you have something created or supported by magic that causes a logical problem like this, it is easiest to just say "because magic".
If the Islands are levitated by a magic force, then perhaps the dragons (being magical creatures) are affected by that force. If they tried to fly below the island the would be pushed up by the force and potentially crash into the islands.
Think of it like a big magnet that affects the dragons and the islands, but not non-magical creatures.
The surface of the islands are fine because most of the "magic force" is absorbed by the island already. The dragons could even use the "updraft" above the islands to feel lighter and rest on their journey.
You could quickly describe this as "the magical force keeping the island afloat prevents the dragons from flying near the bottom of them, lest they be tossed around like a butterfly in the wind."
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Dungeons ~~and~~ because of Dragons.
The entrance to your dungeon/tomb is too small for, or warded against dragons.
But the **dragons are very interested in keeping an eye on this entrance**. If they can't reach the tomb within, no one must reach it.
The dragons fly over the islands to make sure that the Islanders don't reach the tomb, because **the weapons contained therein are the only things on this world that can harm a dragon** (which is why the dragons were trying to take out the human population in the first place).
The Islanders are unaware of the tomb because the entrance to it is in the middle of the dark forest/wasteland/forbidden zone. Some of the more adventurous of them would have gotten there eventually if they were living on the surface.
The reckless hero/s will definitely go to that forbidden zone, where the maps say "here be dragons!", despite and in spite of warnings/laws/common sense. Will they save Skyworld? Will they uncover the horrible horrible truth? Only the sage P. M. B. can tell us :-)
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Maybe the wind currents near large objects are too volatile and difficult to fly in. Have you ever walked by a large building and felt the winds there were churning much more than in the open?
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Is it possible in 21st century Earth for someone to create a small super insulated box to store heat like an "anti-freezer" such as putting lava inside the box and the box not being hot to the touch because it is so insulated yet inside the box contains molten lava?
How small could this box be made and how much would it cost and what materials? I guess the ability to open this box and yet release the heat when desired would be the most difficult part.
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You will need a high-temperature thermos.
@Surprised Dog gave an idea of making the inner part of it of tungsten. This may be good, but may be an overkill - the lava that we see erupting is never even hot enough to melt iron (melting point 1538 °C).
To prevent heat loss, the inner part of the vessel has no air, and reflective coating prevents radiating heat loss.
The big problem with thermoses is that they are designed to keep liquids that don't solidify at ambient temperatures. Even with slow heat loss, the lava inside will eventually solidify, and it would be very tough to get it out of the thermos. To prevent this, you will need a heated container.
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**The box would need to be a box within a box, with a vacuum in the gap but with a couple of layers of photonic crystals.**
Heat transfers through materials via three methods:
* **Conduction** (vibration of atoms)
* **Convection** (energy transfer through gas)
* **Radiation** (infrared light emitted by the hot material)
A vacuum would sufficiently deal with Conduction and convection, depriving the inner box of any direct way to influence the outside. A typical vacuum Thermos uses this method.
However, that does not deal with the infrared radiation, which [Photonic Crystals are designed to absorb](https://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2009-12/photonic-crystals-beat-plain-old-vacuum-insulation/) and/or reflect. Keep in mind the Sun, and how hot it is, is heating up our summer day with just infrared radiation. This would actually now make the box more insulative than space itself, which is only simply a vacuum.
You should then be able to pick up this box with no discernible, or possibly even measurable, heat from inside.
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[Silica based aerogel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerogel)
Withstands temperatures of 1200 C and has very low thermal transmission.
Aerogel would not be durable enough on its own, so you would want to make an inner box of tungsten insulated with a layer of silica aerogel and an outer metal layer for durability. Something like stainless steel or titanium would work well.
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Construct a cooler out of LI-900 tiles. The tiles used on the Space Shuttle for re entry.
They can withstand high heat, 1500 C and transmit very little heat through the tile.
[LI-900](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LI-900)
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The hardest problem with containing lava is finding a container that won't melt on contact. Tungsten is the metal with highest melting point of any element at 3422 degrees C. In fact, Tungsten has such a high melting point that if you [throw](https://what-if.xkcd.com/50/) liquid tungsten into lava, it will *freeze.*
So you will want to make your container out of that. Tungsten is not an insulator so my idea is to suspend the entire box from a long tungsten wire and then entomb the contraption inside a thick stone chamber. The stone will reflect the heat and insulate it from the outside world. Of course, there still will be loses, which is why you will need a small heating source at the base of the tungsten chamber to keep the heat up.
If you need a higher temperature, then you may have to investigate [magnetic confinement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_confinement_fusion), which is how experimental fusion reactors like [ITER](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER) contain plasma at temperatures up to 100 million degrees.
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NOTE: I previously asked the same question regarding wheels, because I thought that the answers would still help me and that wheels were more applicable to a wider audience than propellers. However, I deleted it after realizing it was a duplicate. I should've just asked my original question, since biological propellers have been my goal from the very beginning. After searching, [this post](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/15278/sea-creature-moving-via-rotational-motions/15318#15318) is the closest thing to a duplicate I managed to find.
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> What the heck do you mean, *Anatomically Correct Propellers??*
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So I've been playing around with the idea of biologically evolved propellers for a while now. I got the idea from the [Peahat](https://zelda.fandom.com/wiki/Peahat) from the Legend of Zelda series of video games.
Is there a way for a biological creature to evolve in such a way that they have 'propellers' that allow them to fly around?
One problem would be that the spinning of the propellers would pull on muscles and ligaments until they tear. Think about what happens upon accidentally getting a wire or string caught in something that spins: it just pulls and pulls until the wire or string wraps around the mechanism completely, making it much harder to unravel. Sometimes it will even cause damage to the materials involved.
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For this question, "propeller" can refer to any body part or body parts capable of moving in a circular fashion and that meet the requirements listed below:
* Body parts must spin to achieve enough lift to fly (no vertical limb movements)
* Must not damage the ligaments, muscles, or any body tissue. This includes damage from heat due to fast movements.
* Back-and-forth movement is allowed, but it somehow must meet the above two conditions
* The propeller should be biologically connected to and part of the organism.
Upon doing some basic research, I learned that the structure found in some single-celled organisms, the [flagellum](https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flagellum), is the closest thing we have to this. I'm looking for a large enough organism that could be seen without a microscope or magnifying glass. This range could be anywhere from small and bug-sized to the size of an elephant.
# How might an organism evolve 'propeller-like' body parts that are capable of similar mechanical movements and allow flight?
My current idea involves having several flat "arms" at the top of the organism that can spin around for several revolutions. They tilt like helicopter blades to provide lift and boost upwards, and then straighten out to spin backwards and return to their original position to begin the process once again.
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This is a new **spin** on the [Anatomically Correct Series](https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2797/anatomically-correct-series). Just **roll** with it, it's your **turn** now.
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Simple answer:
Two organisms in symbiosis.
Organism one serves as the body of a biotic airship. It would sprout one (or more) woody or bony protuberances the knobby ends of which serve as a universal joint for the biotic propeller.
Organism two serves as the propeller itself. It comprises a woody or bony "bowl" which grows over the protuberance of organism one. Its many limbs serve to support the propeller and also to drive it around its axis.
The joint space between the two organisms is composed primarily of water with mucus components. Robust mucus secreting pads keep the two organisms from chafing one another while allowing for a rapid spin velocity.
This solves the impossibility of a biological wheel being part of a single organism and also gives you true 360deg rotation without stressing or tearing the tissues.
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Nature has done this with the flagellum on some bacteria and archeae but your probably looking at an eukaryotic [flagellum](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flagellum).
But at the scale of a macro-organism friction will make this impossible, as well as providing nutrients to connective tissue. The most practical design is a flailing jointed appendage. Think of Thor spinning his hammer to fly. It never rotates, just spins around. But even this will create quite a bit of friction, it happens to be the best option however.
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There are only two ways.
You can't have a contiguous cellular mass that freely fully rotate, so there is only two solutions it is not contiguous, which is covered quite well by Elemtilas's answer, or it is non cellular.
The propeller itself is an excreted acellular material like a pearl, they will need to be grown separately then moved into position on a shaft of some kind , something like a horn. Then you need something like a foot or series of feet that "walk" along the propeller, turning the propeller. The problem is this is breathtakingly inefficient.
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The following scenario takes place on Earth, sometime in the next few decades. An unethical biotech company has developed a deadly bioweapon that uses humans as a vector, almost like a suicide bomber strapping a bomb to their chest. A rogue state decides to hire the biotech firm, and use this bioweapon to strike at their enemies, who they can't match up to when it comes to numbers and raw firepower.
Unfortunately, the biotech firm wasn't nearly as good at developing this new bioweapon that they thought they were. Instead of killing a specific target, the bioweapon spreads further than it was supposed to, infecting hundreds upon hundreds of people. Strangely, the bioweapon does not end up killing its victims but it does leave them with some strange physical attributes:
* Poor eyesight
* Aversion to sunlight - active during the night only
* Higher susceptibility to autoimmune diseases
* Physical disfiguration - blackened lips, reddened eyes and prominent veins
* Shortened lifespans - most of the engineered humans have a life expectancy of about 1-2 years after the gene manipulation process
* If they don't die after this time period, they slowly go insane, losing control of their higher cognitive functions and becoming more aggressive, violent and feral
* Surprisingly, they are not sterile and can still reproduce (not exactly unwanted, I suppose)
Given the above factors, and assuming that the "virals" want to keep on surviving and trying to improve their now horrific quality of life - what would they be harvesting from regular, uninfected humans? Let's assume that there are educated biologists and doctors within the ranks of the virals. What can we, as "pure" humans, have that they can use in order to deal with some of their physical issues?
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I think we have to do this in the reverse order. What might they want? Traditionally, *blood*.
What for?
One possible answer is, to tackle two of their problems:
>
> * Higher susceptibility to autoimmune diseases
> * Shortened lifespans
>
>
>
...they need *transfusions*. And quite a lot of them. While they try and develop a working haemodialysis technique (which possibly might work even better), uninfected human blood is the life.
And actually until the haemodialysis gets really cheap, harvesting unwilling "donors" will always be the only resort for the less well-off infected with no access to a blood bank.
In fact, *even if blood transfusions didn't actually work*, all that it would be needed is for the infected to *believe* they did. Rhino horn does zilch for sexual potency, but people believe it does (it's not even *horn*, it's something [between hairs, nails and cemented snot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinoceros#Horn_trade_and_use)), and that was enough for rhinos to get hunted almost to extinction.
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**Going for the obvious: blood transfusions.**
There's a lot of research being done into the question of how blood transfusions from healthy individuals within a species can benefit sick individuals of the same species, including the question of whether or not blood from a younger individual can keep older individuals younger/healthier for longer. (See <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_blood_transfusion> )
As the article states, this is currently considered a pseudoscience--it is not clinically proven to have any benefits, and of course the question of side effects needs to be thoroughly investigated.
But for your genetically altered victims, there could be a whole host of cells, chemicals and/or immune system components that are compromised by the genetic alteration; for which the only simple and effective treatment would be regular blood transfusions from a healthy human with a compatible blood type.
Plus hunting people for their blood is great nightmare fuel for your world.
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For the sane infected, what they would want would be somewhat similar to what sick humans need, they would most likely go for transplanting of healthy organs and blood, to extend the lifetime of these organs and possibly their lifespan.
Laser eye surgery and glasses theft may also occur, in terms of tools that these infected may desire for quality of life (sight).
Once these humans actually do go insane, along with a feeling of desperation for healthy organs and sight, however, there will be a larger variety of things these infected would harvest from humans.
Given their loss of sight and rationality at the same time, the instinct to see again would probably still be present, although it would manifest as infected developing a habit of collecting or eating eyeballs.
Similarly, the instinct of preserving their intelligence may develop into a case of harvesting/eating brains.
Those with the instinct to preserve their lifespan would go after hearts.
These obsessions and the symbolisms are likely to merge into one as they descend into insanity, causing them to treasure and envy the parts the healthy humans have that they do not.
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We actually today have programs to keep an eye out for various rocks in space that may hit Earth.
It's a common sci-fi trope that when one is on course to hit us, we deflect it.
That's pretty much done "using nukes" or in some schemes, ingeniously using some sort of relatively low power rocket-like engine which is bolted on place on the Danger Object and slowly deflects it over a period of time.
All fair enough.
Can we put some numbers on this?
Say there was an incoming Danger Object of mass 1 tonne, 1000 kg.
We have a **realistic "1 or a few years"** to deflect it.
I'm pretty sure that although it might cost the lives of Bruce and Billy-Bob, we could probably deflect a 1-tonne object using current, real, actual technology. Rocket ships, robots, bombs and engines as we know them.
10 tonne .. I'd guess again yes. (But maybe I'm totally wrong, maybe that's hopelessly outside the scales of energy involved.)
100 tonne .. I have no clue.
1000 tonne? A million? 100 million?
**A recent interesting question asked if an incoming *planet-sized* body could be deflected** in any way at all with current actual technology; of course the answer to that is absolutely not.
But it got me to thinking.
In order of magnitude terms, in fact **what is** the biggest incoming Danger Object we could deflect currently?
Has this in fact already been worked out and is well-known by the various danger-object-tracking programs? Can someone here who drinks and knows stuff figure it out with a calculator?
It would seem to be a critical basic info-fact for worldbuilders!
Tag here is hard-science.
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A surprisingly large object, actually, if we decided to dust off an old cold-war era project: [Project Orion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion)). The idea was to use specially designed shaped nuclear explosives which would covert a good chunk of their blast energy into kinetic energy in the form of a wave of superheated gas, which would be used to propel the spacecraft. Given just one year to finish the project, I'm not proposing building a giant ship powered by these things. Instead, I would propose using the nukes themselves on the asteroid, to change its course. Getting a 1-ton nuclear payload anywhere in the solar system is well within our current capabilities; it's just a matter of how many we need to finish the job.
The Wikipedia article on asteroid impact avoidance, if I'm reading it correctly, suggests that you need a very tiny change in an asteroid's velocity to get it to miss earth. The equation given is 0.035/t m/s, where 't' is the number of years before impact the change is made. The article on Project Orion suggests that a 1-ton nuclear warhead can alter the course of a 1,000,000 ton object by about 10 m/s. If we assume that our nuke is only about 10% that efficient, then if we deliver that singular nuke 1 year before impact, that single 1-ton nuke should be able to divert an asteroid of size in excess of 25 million tons.
This sounds impressive, until you realize that correlates to an asteroid that is, depending on density, around 200-300 meters in diameter. City-busting, certainly, but not world-threatening. If we want to divert an asteroid the size of the one that we think killed the dinosaurs; we would need, at minimum, around 100,000 such nukes to divert such an object given only a year to prepare. Needless to say, this is beyond our current capabilities... but not by an insurmountable margin.
If we detected such an asteroid 20 years before impact, and took 10 years to build our response, we would only need about 10,000 nukes to do the job - which I estimate would cost somewhere in the ballpark of 500 billion dollars - and could launch them for (if I'm being pessimistic) a cost of about 1 trillion dollars. Double the cost of the program, and we could divert small-ish planet killing asteroid, given twenty years of warning and ten years to prepare, for about 2 trillion dollars, with the cost scaling directly to the size of the asteroid and inversely to the time we have to work.
EDIT: I underestimated the cost of getting the nukes into space. 2 trillion dollars is optimistic. 5 trillion is more realistic (which is about equivalent to the U.S. military budget for 10 years straight), and 10 trillion is probable. Almost all of that is the cost of the spacecraft. The nukes are a minor expense in comparison.
EDIT2: Man, I messed up the nuke calculations too. Not 500 billion dollars, closer to 5 trillion, for a total project cost of between 10-20 trillion dollars, spread over 10 years. Possible, but a very, very hard sell.
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That depends **strongly** on the warning time we get. Early warning allows smaller changes in the flight path to be effective, and it gives more time to launch and deploy space missions.
Keep in mind that **acceptable risk** is rather low these days. If one in ten, one in a hundred astronauts are likely to die, space agencies would cancel a normal mission. On the other hand, armies and air forces have ordered plenty of operations where the top brass expected 10% casualties or worse.
So, call it a year to get a Saturn-V-capacity launch system into series production, several launches per month. In parallel a modular spacecraft is designed and several units are built. Launch half a dozen, hope that most arrive in orbit, hope that most which are assembled make the flight.
Once at the target, anchor a rocket engine to the asteroid and make a relatively tiny change in the trajectory. 1 m/s delta-V applied half a year before impact would make it miss Earth.
The problem, many near-Earth asteroids are only detected **after** passing Earth ...
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I have a story based around DNA manipulation by biological creatures that evolved into what they are today, but can gain abilities by taking the DNA of other creatures.
The story is set in the present with the current technology we have, with the exception of more human-like robots than we are capable of now.
As the story is in the super powers / mythology genre how can I avoid science-based genetic engineering becoming more advanced than my creature's ability?
If the creature's ability gets into the hands of scientists, I can only imagine with our existing success with CRISPR and other work in the field plus all our other technological advances, scientific DNA possibilities would make the creatures almost pointless.
I'm also trying to avoid the creatures having a need to work with scientists to boost their power or help meet their needs.
So how can I give an almost correct view of our current technological abilities at present but almost ignore scientific genetic engineering maybe coupled with robotics or other technologies as they could easily trump my character?
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# Even in your world with advanced semi-modern technologies, scientists are baffled.
In your world, just like today, genetic modification exists. But even after experimenting and dissecting these creatures, the way they function remains a mystery. Scientists keep trying - and failing. Maybe one day they will finally understand, but for now the special ability of these creatures simply can't be replicated.
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Take a look at today; technology is impressive. And yet, even humans are still being researched, because learning everything about a species is just so complicated. Cancer hasn't been cured. Psychiatrists still struggle with patients. And the world around us continues to evolve, but human-related technologies are evolving much slower.
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The best way to defeat scientific inquiry is with more science.
If your creatures are themselves the product of genetic engineering by a long dead genius who took most of his secrets to the grave, then its genetic code could be both encrypted and artfully designed, with subtle interactions between apparently unrelated genes producing unexpected effects.
Imagine Thomas Edison trying to figure out a microprocessor. He'd probably apply too much juice causing it to burn out, then declare that the purpose of the microprocessor was to turn electricity into heat. If the gap between your current day geneticists and the long dead genius was similarly wide, then the secrets behind your creatures abilities might remain hidden for centuries.
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# Tardigrades and DNA Absorption
Nasty little creatures called [Tardigrades](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade) with almost a sixth of their [dna being foreign](https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/mega-gene-theft-may-explain-why-water-bears-are-so-hardy-0/) - that is, from [both animal and bacteria genes](https://phys.org/news/2017-07-secrets-amazing-tardigrades-revealed-dna.html). One theory is they "absorbed" these genes while in a type of "suspended animation" (these guys can survive in dead space for a short time).
As such, there's a real-world example of a creature which can "steal" genes from both plants and animals. I don't think it's too far fetched to believe a sentient creature could also perform such a function.
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## Magic
As discussed *ad nauseam* on Worldbuilding, shapeshifting is impossibly energetically expensive, and real-time rewriting of DNA doesn't result in the immediate acquisition of abilities. So if your creature can, by sampling another creature's DNA, gain some of its abilities, that's not based on science.
So if the creatures evolved to have a species-wide ability to exercise the magical Law of Sympathy to borrow another creature's traits by sampling its DNA, that's not something that science can duplicate, because it's not something that's science at all!
Scientists can then be baffled indefinitely, because under the existing laws of nature, the creature's ability is *literally inexplicable*. Eventually, someone might codify and make a science out of magic, but if this critter is one of the few things that can manipulate it, that'd be a long, long time coming.
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We had a long discussion in my office about this - if we were in a smallish 500m diameter O'Neil cylinder would hot air balloons work?
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Yes, certainly.
The rotation creates a gravity-like effect for everything that follows the rotation, which includes the air. If the hot-air balloon is lighter than the air, it will rise. Even in so small a cylinder, there will be a small density gradient between the air at the rim and that nearer to the center, since the inner air will not carry as much weight of air as the outer air. This should make it possible to stabilize the hot-air balloon at a certain altitude-
There are some coriolis effects that create wind patterns, which will affect any hot-air balloons: As warm air rises, it moves to regions where the rotational velocity is smaller, creating wind in the direction of rotation in this region. As cool air falls, it enters regions where the rotational velocity is greater, creating wind counter to the rotation. This is likely to result in rolling vortices of air where air rises, moves forward, cools and falls, and moves backwards. The smaller the diameter of the cylinder, the more pronounced this effect will be, though the air will never move faster than the speed of rotation. Around the center of the cylinder, there will be a vortex rotating in the opposite direction as the outer vortices.
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Simple answer: yes. Hot air balloons rise due to their low density compared to the air around them. [Gas centrifuges](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_centrifuge) exist which use centrifugal forces to cause density stratification in a gas (in the case of the link, separating lighter 235UF6 from heavier 238UF6. Uranium gas centrifuges are low pressure, but the technique works for gases more amenable to high pressure work (see [this paper](http://www.mate.tue.nl/mate/pdfs/5250.pdf) on natrual gas/CO2 separation, with a 5 bar fill pressure). Thus, in a spun habitat with an earth-like atmosphere (at least at the outer edge of the volume), your hot air balloon can rise, regardless of whether or not the air pressure is caused by pumping lots of air into a small volume, or by centrifugal effects.
You *may* get some odd coriolis effects (as you move up, you'll appear to be accelerated forwards, and as you move forwards you'll appear to be accelerated down, etc etc) but as the speed of a balloon is usually quite sedate this shoudl have negligible effect.
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As the radius increases though, things start chaning a bit. For example, the flight profile won't be quite the same as they would on earth for various reasons.
From [McKendree's](http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/nano4/mckendreePaper.html#RTFToC18) paper on rotating habitats, section 5.2.3, you get this (not entirely legible) formula for atmospheric density:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/7dV3u.png)
suggesting that the [scale height](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scale_height#Scale_height_used_in_a_simple_atmospheric_pressure_model) of the atmosphere is not dissimilar to Earth., so operating altitudes for a balloon in a large habitat would be similar to Earth. Conversely, in [this Space Exploration SE answer](https://space.stackexchange.com/a/31714/29766) (*Radial variation of atmospheric pressure in rotating O'Neill cylinder-like ship?*, answer by "Atmospheric Prison Escape" who sometimes shows up here) suggests that the scale height is very large compared to the radius of the station, meaning you could fly up Quite High, which will get you interesting gravitational effects.
$$P(r) = P\_0 \exp(-\frac{\Omega\_0^2}{c^2\_s}\frac{r\_0^2-r^2}{2})$$
I couldn't tell you who is right here (though I wonder if APE is closer to the truth due to more sensible handling of the effects of a rotating reference frame), but it seems that modelling of pressure and turbulence in a rotating station hasn't been done, and it isn't clear how hard the problem has been studied, *if at all*. You could, for example, have quite strong rotary winds that would just swing you round and round in a slightly unpleasant way and at mildly alarming speeds. Not like the sort of balloon flights you might get on earth at all.
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Gravity does exist in this world, and so does air and clouds. But this creature only has enough weight to stay in the air without falling or being lifted up. It's big like a whale and it does have mass as in it takes much force to accelerate it in any direction. So it's like in outer space but it's on the planet. It doesn't need to worry about falling or flapping its wings to stay up and stuff like that. It might look different than birds.
I was thinking of giving it appendages that it can use to sail in the air like a boat but I don't know much about sailing and I don't know how that would work in 3D (how does it go up for example?) Although I know sailing can go windward. I know I'm already breaking the laws of physics here but I still want to make it's biology realistic. Maybe no propellers or stuff like that because we don't really see big animals in the real world having anything that rotates like a propeller. If the sail idea requires the creature to be too mechanical like something a man made machine can do then I don't want it. Is a sail viable? Do you have alternatives if it's not?
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Steering in air works mostly on the same principles as steering underwater. You deflect the fluid to one direction with a surface, the incoming fluid pushes the surface the other way.
Notice that some zeppelins float by a principle similar to your creature (being very light so that it floats without need for thrust). In many designs, they have control surfaces which can be used to help steering, such as this tail vane:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/wUjCT.jpg)
If your creature is able to go against the wind, or to propel itself, then it can maneuver like an airplane or a glider. Otherwise, if it does just sail, then check how ships do. Ships have a keel for stability and a rudder which acts like a tail vane underwater.
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Your creature will float along with the air mass like a hot air balloon, and therefore won't see any 'wind' to sail against.
Here's a suggestion for how the creature could work: It has the ability to generate a very light gas like hydrogen, which it uses to fill flotation bladders. When it wants to go down, it constricts its muscles around the bladder, compressing the hydrogen. As it does, the volume is replaced by air around the hydrogen bladder, reducing the overall lift of the creature.
To move against the wind, it has to dive down, picking up speed. If it has enough lift (even just from its body, which could act like a lifting body), it can translate downward speed into forward velocity. Then at a lower level it allows the hydrogen bladder to expand again, making it float.
To further improve its ability to navigate, it would take advantage of the fact that the wind changes direction and speed with altitude, like hot air balloon pilots do. So this thing would be constantly changing its shape to move it from air mass to air mass, choosing the ones that get it where it wants to go with minimum energy. It would be constantly climbing and diving, only staying motionless in the air when the air mass is going in exactly the right direction.
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Your creature can look like fish (or whale), they even have toys work in the same way: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEsOPZDwA0E>
(and it is cheap enough to be available at Walmart)
That toy is basically an small airship, using a helium baloon as the main body. Your (biologic creature can produce methane instead.
The toy flaps its tail to move forward, and yuoru creature can do the same.
Toy uses movable weights and fins to change direction, and a biological creature can to the same.
Just like fish struggle to swim against strong current, your creature will struggle to move against the wind. But it really depends on strength of the wind.
"Sailing" will be tricky b/c sailboats use water resistance (against rudder) to maintain direction. Your flying creature can maybe change its shape a bit if it wants to fly with the wind (round like a ball) or against it (long like a hot-dog)
Edits: answer expanded, e-commerce link removed.
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Yes, it can sail, but only if it is Very Big.
Sailing, particularly sailing against the wind, depends on exploiting the difference in velocity between two media: the air, and the water. The wind pushes your sails one way, the water pushes the rudder and keel in different ways, you can control exactly how you get pushed by turning the rudder / trimming the sails, and the vector sum of those pushes from different media determines your ultimate direction.
For a creature floating in air to sail, it would need to be able to exploit wind shear across different layers on the atmosphere. That means it needs to be Really Big, so it can extend control surfaces (sails and rudders) into air streams moving in different directions at different altitudes. If it is too small, it will be limited to simply being blown along in whatever direction the wind at its altitude happens to be going, like a hot air balloon--and like a hot air balloon, its navigation abilities will be limited to finding an altitude at which the wind is blowing in close to the right direction, by carefully controlling its buoyancy.
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Go like jellyfish, which are mostly carried by water currents (it would be wind in your case) but which, contracting and expanding their body and expelling water (air in your case) can get some mobility.
Being air less dense than water, don't expect extraordinary velocities.
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**Charge-type breath weapon**: Creatures with this type shoot **singular, high-damage, high-precision "charges" of (insert dragon's element here) that explode upon contact.** Examples: Toothless from [the movie *How To Train Your Dragon*](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0892769/) and the [Ender Dragon](https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Ender_Dragon).
Obviously the above examples suffer from problems in the realism department, see [SoyDestroyer.net's article](http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Essays/PlasmaWeapons.html) on that.
I always prefered charge over stream-type as it's both more mass efficient and less prone to causing collateral damage. A fire spreads, explosions don't (usually). Since elemental typing is stupid, we only consider fire and classic explosions.
I think for my dragons a normal explosion (no shrapnel pls) that's able to send anyone within a 2-3 meter radius knockin' on Heavens' Door and burst the eardrums of the rest is strong enough.
**How could such charges work?**
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How to Train Your Dragon did explain that each dragon species has a limited to its shots and each dragon would be "out" of fire for a time period with this in mind and different dragons employed different methods of projection (the Jock Guys was a flaming liquid like an oil, the girlfriend's dragon had a more firework style flame, the twins used a dragon with a separate explosive heavy gas and a spark like flame, both in-effective when used on their own. The Gronkl would swallow rocks and then puke them out with a coating of a flaming substance for an added weight to their shots and were limited by the availability of boulders to use as a projectile. Toothless used a plasma-like burst that complemented its speedy flight and wasn't all that well described. The exact shot limit of the Night Fury as a whole was not documented as their attacks relied on hard fast moving hits).
This has a basis in the real world, namely venomous snakes, who's venom is delivered via hollowed fangs. Snakes have a fixed supply of venom and adult snakes can regulate the amount delivered in each bite, allowing them to conserve the supply to an effective killing dose. Baby snakes don't have the muscular control down and thus tend to inflict a single venomous bite that dumps all of their supply in one shot. This will make them deadlier if you are the first bite victim, but the survival is much better if you are the second and they haven't replenished their venom. Snake Venom is produced in venom sacks located in the upper skull and giving a distinctly wider skull then constrictor snakes, not unlike a "fire sack". Most dragons in Train seem to have two separate mechanisms, a fuel sack, and a heat ignition source, the fuel sack would create a substance with a low combustion threshold, typically a liquid or gaseous secretion. Again, venomous snakes support this in that they are both modified saliva, and different species produce venoms that do different things to kill. They are either nerotoxins (itself with three such methods of disrupting the nerves from sending and reciveing signals from the brain... which includes the "Pump heart", "breath in", "breath out", and "move it you're about to be swallowed whole" signals), Cytotoxins which target other non-nerological vital system (including killing cells indiscriminantly, killing blood cells to stop oxygen distrobution, and killing the heart, stopping blood flow) or a combination of both Neortoxins and Cytotoxins for "nuke it from orbit" levels of assurance that it's dead. This is supported by the description of the two headed dragon's method of flame, which has the ignition source and fuel source in separate heads, allowing for the combustible gas to linger until the ignition source lit the gas (a one headed dragon will likely have control over the ignition source so that it doesn't accidentally light itself on fire on the inside, which also supports the idea that dragons are not internally fire proof, a plot point in the first movie. A dragon sending fire into another dragon's throat could ignite the fuel secretion sack, which may be lethal to the dragons (as it proves to the huge dragon in the climax) but could be survivable (as the tiny dragon merely puffed up and scurried away). It should be noted that the small dragon was not in the act of releasing his fire and probably had a very small fuel sack that would have combusted without lethal injury which, given they tend to scavenge from larger dragons, it could mean that this behavior of killing dragons is used by dragons when fighting one another and would be an adaptation that allowed the tiny dragons to survive a capture, while the giant dragon was in the process of launching a fire attack when the killing blow was delivered.
Again snakes are similarly designed as a venomous snake is immune to self envenoming by biting itself, suggesting it's body adapts to handle it's own venom but not the venom of another snake, which could prove fatal.
It also supports some of the non-fire dragons, as DVD extras suggest there are multiple dragons with multiple heads that comprise of a "mystery class" dragon and they favor deceptive hunting practices to using fire projection as the gas head could possibly create a fatal situation where it's fuel sack is ignited while it is deploying it's gas. In film, I do recall it the gas head closing it's mouth prior to the spark head igniting the gas. Other dragons do not use fire at all as ocean dwelling dragons favor either skalding water, suggesting a modified fuel sac that can draw in water and expel a boiling jet. It might be the ignition mechanism is super heated as cold sea water of a North-Atlantic-esque ocean would be difficult to super heat, but such a heat source would provide body heat in the cold waters. Another aquatic dragon uses concussive sounds (and has a wider jaw than most dragons) suggesting that this dragon could have a fuel that explodes quickly and in cold conditions but is loud enough to break materials while in a gaseous atmosphere and is widely lethal underwater (a concussive force in water is more lethal because living things are made of mostly water.... the force doesn't change it's momentum when it goes through a body... unlike in air, where the body is denser and thus a more effective barrier closer to a comparable blast). This would suggest that certain dragons adapted these methods to better perform in niche environments where they could have an edge over land dragons, who specifically are shown to be defanged when doused with water. Again, similar behaviors can be found in nature. There are frogs that use water to shoot flies out of the air, and the pistol shrimp uses underwater sound to stun it's prey. This sound is so loud that it competes with the Blue Whale for loudest sound produced by a living organism, and the mechanics of the sound generation produce a quick burst of heat measured at 4,700 degrees Celcius, which is about 800 degrees cooler than the surface of the sun. The sheer speed of the whole "click" event prevents it from vaporizing itself because the entire click of a pistol shrimp lasts only a millisecond. The Sound is lethal to fish in a 4 cm radius from the claw that generates the blast.
For your dragon, it could have a fuel source that is flamable on air with oxygenated air. So it doesn't burn it's lungs, the the sack opening is covered by a mucus membrane that is not permeable to oxygen. When the dragon shoots an explosive sphere, this mucas membrane will envelop the fuel, creating a barrier that prevents combustion as it leaves the throat, the final product exiting the mouth would behave like a water balloon, and will burst on impact, causing the fuel to ignite. Since it is compacted, the fuel explodes on impact, splashing the immediate area with flaming residue. The ripped mucas sack could stick , trapping the now burning oily fuel to skin, which would estinguiesh the fuel after oxygen is consumed, but could leak as the body moves, causing slow drip of unconsumed fuel to reignite on contact with oxygen. The sudden light and sound energy released in an explosive ignition could potentially blind and deaffen those out of the "splash zone". As an added fun, since the fire sack is the only part of the dragon that is not fireproof, this dragon would be able to switch from the explosive attack to a wider flame attack by using it's teeth to puncture the mucas mebrane as it leaves it's jaws, (the lack of a single penetrative point would mean this has a less deafening sound that the dragon could tolerate. As a final bit of fun, like a water balloon, the distortion of the sack as it is rotating in the air could cause it to break before impact, creating a wider splash zone as the oil spreads overhead, rather then spashed onto a surface. It could also provide a nice "fireball" effect if the glob starts to break while flying, as small amounts of fuel ignite but lack sufficient oxygen to be explosively lethal.
I'm not sure which specific chemicals would cause this effect if any, but the physics are based on water balloons... but the liquid is much more volatile than water. It's even easier to source if your dragon's element is "acid" because acid secretion is quite common in wildlife... Your own digestive tract contains some of the strongest acids known to science. And human gastric acid is especially potent as humans are omnivores and thus will ingest a greater range of things that need to be converted into energy to fuel the body... and with that are susceptible to a host of diseases that typically don't survive the stomach's acid bath (I so want an Osmosis Jones-esque premise of human body being a cell city... but the white Blood cells lowering a germ into the stomach ala Bond villains, telling the hapless virus "No Mr. Streptococcus, I don't expect you to talk. I expect you to die"). The stomach lining that contains it isn't safe for long and is constantly replaced and the stomach also produces sodium bicarbonate, a base, to regulate the acid strength, with the chemical waste product being dissolved Carbon dioxide that is expelled through the lungs.
For everything else, you should probably list the specific element that is expelled.
[Answer]
So, you want some kind of projectile that appears to be made up of a kind of glowing, fire-like energy that moves forward until it strikes an object, at which point it explodes. Rather surprisingly, there is a real-life, physical phenomenon that fits your description almost perfectly.
May I present the [*plasmoid*](https://www.plasma-universe.com/plasmoid/), a collection of plasma that emits one or more magnetic fields that contain the plasma, allowing it to keep emitting the magnetic field(s) and containing itself. From the linked explanation:
>
> Plasmoids possess ... a measurable translational speed
>
>
>
Possessing a measurable translational speed is a sciency way of saying something moves in a direction. Tada, we have our projectile moving in a straight line. When the plasma hits an object, it will be disrupted, losing its magnetic containment and exploding, fulfilling your "explodes when it hits something" criteria.
Finally, as a cool bonus (also from the linked explanation):
>
> Plasmoids can interact with each other, seemingly by reflecting off one another.
>
>
>
So if two dragons simultaneously try to shoot these "breath charges" at each other, they will reflect off each other and bounce backward. I'm sure you can see plenty of story opportunities from that phenomenon.
Unfortunately, I have no idea how a biological organism could produce a tightly regulated blob of plasma and fire it in a specific direction. That one is a whole other question, and may end up having to be relegated to "they're dragons, so magic". But at least after being formed, your breath charges can follow the laws of physics.
[Answer]
Your dragon evolved so that its fire breathing mechanism shoots inside its throat or stomach, rather than allowing it to go outside in a stream.
Your dragon also has a gizzard where it stores a very sticky and viscous oily secretion. When spitting fireballs, it pukes some of that oil. The oil is lit by the fire mechanism in the throat, so it comes out as a flaming ball of fire.
The ball burns slowly because only the surface is lit. Upon impact, though, it breaks like a paintball shot. That increases its surface area more than a million, maybe a billion-fold. An exothermic reaction, self-sustaining while it has enough reactants, lots of it in a tight space and a superb reaction speed? Textbook explosion.
Once the thing goes boom, the bulk of the oil becomes S2, CO, CO2, CH4 and H2O, all gaseous, leaving very few traces of the original material (other than the smell of chemicals and some charred surfaces).
] |
[Question]
[
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ET4I1.png)
This is a model of Volkshalle, the People's Dome, part of a vision of "Germania" by Adolf Hitler. But the tides of war had washed Germania away, yet this and other architectural plans by Albert Speer were influences of many alternate history fictions, most notably *The Man in the High Castle*.
The one detail that I always get puzzled on is that Volkshalle would be so large that the exhalations of so many people would turn the interior of the building literally into a raincloud. Where did this assumption come from? And if true, could there be some way to counter this meteorological complication without majorly compromising the size of the structure?
[Answer]
There are two buildings that I'm aware of that have significant internal weather problems, [Nasa's Vehicle Assembly Building](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_Assembly_Building) and [Boeing’s Everett facility](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Everett_Factory).
Boeing have resolved this by fitting an air circulation system. Nasa resolved the problem with air conditioning and moisture reduction systems.
Since the reducing the size of the building is not an option in either case, it being a practical issue rather than a matter of vanity, the only real implication is the cost of controlling the humidity in a building of that size.
[Answer]
**Oculus.**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/E4Q7k.jpg)
<https://www.history.com/news/is-romes-pantheon-a-giant-sundial>
Here is the Pantheon, oldest domed building in the world. The Romans addressed your issue by leaving the top open: the Oculus.
It is pretty sweet, the Oculus. They can use the light to produce some cool effects. Underneath it is just a marble floor so I guess they have to mop up when it rains. Another approach would be to have a reflecting pool directly under the oculus to capture most precipitation.
[Answer]
Like other answers, the issue is what sort of air handling system could be installed to exchange the air, ventilate and reduce the moisture content and for that matter, keep the hall at some sort of constant temperature?
With the sort of technologies available in the 1940's this would be quite an intricate problem. A massive air handling unit could possibly be installed at the top of the dome, filling the "Lantern" structure. This would require careful engineering of the dome itself to deal with the weight and vibrations of the machinery, as well as the power and fluid systems running up to the air handling equipment. There is also the issue of acoustics, it is quite possible the rumbling of the air handling units would resonate and the shape of the dome would act like a speaker and transmit the sound to the crowds below.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/SLG7M.png)
*The lantern would need hundreds of these units inside*
Another alternative might be to install a multitude of fans in the base of the dome. Pulling air out of the structure at that level would create air circulation both at the ground level and the dome level, causing warm moisture laden air to exhaust from the building before it can condense. The effect on the structure with so many "holes" piercing the base of the dome, and the possible sound effects of so many fans running are potential negatives to the scheme. At the scale we're considering, the fans would be similar in size to airplane propellers.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/bIEwX.jpg)
*Professor Junkers, now that these airplanes are obsolete, we have another use for the propellers...*
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/866Gq.jpg)
*A few hundred of these fans would do the trick*
A final consideration is due to the sheer size of the structure, the air handling units must be running *all the time*. The janitor cannot just flip the switch an hour before the meeting starts, it could take days to ensure the temperature and humidity was stabilized, and of course before a giant rally the hall would really need to be cooled considerably in order to provide a comfortable environment for the crowd (which would be generating massive amounts of heat) and the Party functionaries at the upper levels.
The \* Volkshalle\* would be a sinkhole of constant maintenance and energy consumption just to ensure the main structure would be habitable. In many ways, it might actually have been easier to roof over the parts of the Nuremberg Stadium than build the *Volkshalle*
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/F4gSa.jpg)
*Zeppelinfield, Nuremberg grounds*
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/MsJJ8.jpg)
*Kongresshalle facade*
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/UIjDe.jpg)
*Kongresshalle inner courtyard*
[Answer]
<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkshalle>
Considering the last paragraph it isn’t unthinkable that condensation of some sort might take place. The warm air raises and cools on the way up. Due to the nature of air the water content in the gaseous phase will drop and condensate. So basically you have to options
1. dry the air by removing water from it
2. Heat the dome and dome walls so that condensation doesn’t happen.
[Answer]
Maybe you might actually want rain inside the *Volkshalle*. Should interior rain be considered a bug or a feature?
**PART ONE: Interior Rain in the People's Hall?**
Other large interior spaces have interior weather and interior rain.
The Vehicle Assembly Building has internal weather:
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> Within the VAB, that warm moist air rises, and rises, and rises. As it does, the moisture condenses. By the time it gets to the top of the building condensation forms on surfaces and a mist is sometimes visible. That condensation then falls down, like rain.
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>
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<https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-scientific-explanation-of-the-Nasa-Vehicle-Assembly-Building-having-its-own-rainclouds-weather>[1](https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-scientific-explanation-of-the-Nasa-Vehicle-Assembly-Building-having-its-own-rainclouds-weather)
>
> The building has at least 40 MW of air conditioning equipment, including 125 ventilators[2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_Assembly_Building) on the roof supported by four large air handlers (four cylindrical structures west of the building) to keep moisture under control. Air in the building can be completely replaced every hour. The interior volume of the building is so vast that it has its own weather, including "rain clouds form[ing] below the ceiling on very humid days",[11] which the moisture reduction systems are designed to minimize.
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> At 3,664,883 cubic meters (129,428,000 cubic feet) it is one of the largest buildings in the world by volume.
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<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_Assembly_Building>[2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_Assembly_Building)
The VAB is merely the seventh largest building by volume in Wikipedia's list of largest buildings.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_buildings>[3](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_buildings)
The largest is:
>
> The Boeing Everett Factory, in Everett, Washington, is an airplane assembly building owned by Boeing. Located on the north-east corner of Paine Field, it is the largest building in the world by volume at 13,385,378 m3 (472,370,319 cu ft) and covers 399,480 m2 (98.7 acres; 39.948 hectares; 0.399 square kilometres).
>
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>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Everett_Factory>[4](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Everett_Factory)
>
> The Boeing factory is so big it that is rains in the factory? True.
> This factory is so massive that when the factory was first built, clouds, the product of accumulated warm air and moisture, actually formed near the ceiling. However, the “weather” cleared when a state-of-the-art air circulation system was installed.
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>
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<https://blogs.mentor.com/jvandomelen/blog/2010/04/15/the-biggest-building-in-the-world-10-boeing-everett-factory-myths-true-or-false/>[5](https://blogs.mentor.com/jvandomelen/blog/2010/04/15/the-biggest-building-in-the-world-10-boeing-everett-factory-myths-true-or-false/)
>
> Rumor #2 It rains in the factory
> The factory is such a massive facility, that could fit 75 American football fields inside. Due to its size, there is a common notion, that it rains in the facility. There is some truth to the myth. In the late 1960s, aircraft manufacturing processes produced warm air and small clouds formed near the ceiling. As one can imagine, water and mechanics are not birds of a feather, therefore, the Boeing Company installed a state-of-the-art air circulation system to avoid the formation of the clouds.
>
>
>
<https://www.aerotime.aero/aerotime.team/12860-the-stories-about-everett-factory-myths-vs-truth>[6](https://www.aerotime.aero/aerotime.team/12860-the-stories-about-everett-factory-myths-vs-truth)
The 17th and smallest building in the list of the largest buildings by volume is Hanger One, Mountain View, California. It is listed as having an interior volume of one million cubic meters or thirty five million cubic feet.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_buildings>[3](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_buildings)
>
> The hangar's interior is so large that fog sometimes forms near the ceiling.[2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_Assembly_Building)
>
>
>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangar_One_(Mountain_View,_California)>[7](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangar_One_(Mountain_View,_California))
So it seems that structures as "small" as 1,000,000 cubic meters or 35,000,000 cubic feet can have interior weather with mists, fog, clouds, and rain happening inside.
I don't know the interior volume of the *Volkshalle* would have been. Wikipedia says:
>
> ...The dome of the Volkshalle was to rise from a massive granite podium 315 by 315 metres (1,033 ft × 1,033 ft) and 74 metres (243 ft) high, to a total inclusive height of 290 metres (950 ft). The diameter of the dome, 250 metres (820 ft),...
>
>
>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkshalle>[8](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkshalle)
Assuming that the room under the dome would have an interior diameter of 250 meters (820 feet) and a total height of 290 meters (950 feet), it could be calculated as a cylinder with those dimensions. Thus it should have a total volume of about 14,200,000 cubic meters, or about 500,000,000 cubic feet. If those figures are divided by about two to allow for the shape of the dome, the interior of the main room would be about 7,000,000 cubic meters or about 250,000,000 cubic feet.
So that would make the main room about 7 times the size of Hanger One, almost twice the size of the Vehicle Assembly Building, and a little more than half the size of the Boeing Everett Factory.
Thus it seems reasonable to assume that the main room in the *Volkshalle* would probably have interior weather, mists, fogs, clouds, and rains, and that some sort of climate control machinery would be needed to prevent or control such indoor weather.
So how should the architects and planners result to the realisation that the *Volkshalle* would have interior weather?
**PART TWO: Throne rooms of Galactic Emperors**
I remember in a science fiction novel, *Mission to the Heart Stars* (1965) by James Blish, the heroes travel to the center of the galaxy, to the capital of the Hegemony of Mallis. When they meet the Hegemon, sort of a galactic emperor, the throne room is described as a very vast and awe inspiring hall.
And then Blish sort of spoiled the effect of the throne room by having one of the characters sort of exaggerate and imagine that the throne room could be vast enough to have its own indoor weather and rain. I couldn't believe that a brilliant writer like Blish could be so stupid. I knew that the Vehicle Assembly Building is large enough to have internal weather and rain. So by having a character merely get carried away by their imagination and exaggeratedly wonder if the room was big enough to have internal weather, Blish was suggesting that a galactic emperor might possibly have had such a modest and humble throne hall that it was actually even tinier than the Vehicle Assembly Building!
Well, I for one, think foul scorn that any science fiction writer could ever imagine any self respecting galactic emperor would ever have such a tiny throne room that it was too small to have its own weather system.
I would imagine that even the small, private, audience chamber of a galactic emperor, a tiny fraction of the size of their medium audience hall, which in turn would be a tiny fraction of the size of their large audience hall, would be many times large enough to have its internal weather.
But how would a galactic emperor's architects handle the problem of it raining inside the throne room?
**PART THREE: An Example from Earth's history**
And I ask what problem?
Khosrow or Chosroes II, King of Kings of Iran and of Non Iran (reigned 590 to 628), built a fabulous and legendary building - a temple, palace, or public building, or maybe some combination - that was destroyed by the Roman army near the end of the terrible Roman-Persian war of 602-628.
As I remember, there was a hall with a column, and a statue of a god or of Khosrow on the top of the column, and there was a dome above the room, and the inside of the dome was decorated to resemble the heavens. And the dome could be made to revolve around the statue, like the heavens appear to revolve around the Earth, perhaps inspired by stories of the rotating room in Nero's Golden House. And as the heavenly dome revolved, it made a noise like thunder, and sprinklers could be used to make it appear to rain inside the hall.
So this hall suggested that the god, or Khosrow, was the master of the universe and could control the weather.
And I can imagine a galactic emperor might have gigantic throne halls of similar design but scaled up many times the size of that room, and use climate control systems to prevent rain when it wasn't wanted and cause rain when it was wanted, and systems to make artificial thunder and lightening.
A galactic emperor would know that their subjects were too scientifically educated to be fooled into thinking they were divine by such effects, but the subjects would probably appreciate the entertainment provided by such effects. And the galactic emperor would probably know that many previous rulers on various planets used such designs even when their technology was much more primitive than the galactic emperor's, so if they do not use a super sized version of such throne rooms they will be failing to keep up with rulers who had less than one subject for each planet that the galactic emperor rules.
I would certainly feel humiliated if I described a place and/or throne hall for a galactic emperor and then discovered that it was in any way inferior in size, aesthetics, or technology, to a palace and/or throne a hall of any *imperator*, or *basileus*, or *shahanshah*, or *padishah*, or *huangdi*, or other ruler, in Earth's history.
**PART FOUR: What Would Hitler's Architects Do About the Rain?**
And again I ask: "Why stop the rain?"
If the *Volkshalle* was so large that it might sometimes naturally rain in there, it would be logical to install systems to control the internal climate and weather, to keep it from raining when it was not wanted. But it also seems logical to me to sometimes use those climate control systems to make it rain when rain was wanted. And thus perhaps make artificial rain, thunder, and lightening to put emphasis on the right moments of Hitler's speeches.
But such an artificial weather system might seem too good for Nazis and Hitler. A writer might not want to depict them enjoying such features in their great hall.
But on the other hand, a story where Hitler is accidentally electrocuted by the artificial lightening would be kind of funny.
But on a third hand, you might write a scene where someone has designed such a system for the hall but in a meeting Hitler rejects the idea of installing it, thus revealing how unimaginative he was.
But on a fourth hand, considering all the horror and suffering, death and destruction, from Nazi victories that would be required for the *Volkshalle* to be built, you might want at least a little bit of something good to come from all that evil, and thus want the *Volkshalle* to be as wonderful as possible.
And on a fifth hand, maybe the system would be used only when giving tours of the *Volkshalle* to hordes of school kids with raincoats and umbrellas. They could turn off the rain discouraging system and turn on the rain encouraging system and the kids could watch clouds form and rain start. And they could turn on the artificial thunder and lightening to make it more impressive for the kids.
On a sixth hand, maybe the Nazis only install the rain discouraging and the rain encouraging parts of the system, without the artificial thunder and lightening.
The Nazis could keep it from raining when they don't want it to, but when a meeting is ending or when the building is closing for the night, they could turn on the rain encouraging system so the rain would encourage people to leave.
And if there was a fire in the *Volkshalle* they could use the rain encouraging system like a sprinkler system to fight the fire.
And maybe when they wash down the interior of the *Volkshalle* they would bring in firetrucks with super powerful hoses to spray the floor and walls with detergent and then turn on the rain encouraging system to make it rain inside and rinse away the detergent down grates in the floor (The Pantheon in Rome has grates in the floor for rainwater).
] |
[Question]
[
While thinking about [Starfish Prime's answer](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/153473/627) to the question [Algae using UV light from auroras for photosynthesis](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/153439/627), I considered the possibility of an alternate Earth which has a normal, Earth-like atmosphere throughout most of the globe, but a thin atmosphere at the poles. This would allow for higher amounts of ultraviolet light to penetrate at high latitudes (say, > 60$^{\circ}$ N and 60$^{\circ}$ S). The problem is, I have absolutely no idea how this could happen.
Here are my specifications and requirements:
* It's an Earth-like planet - that means the same mass and mean radius.
* The atmosphere is like Earth's: roughly 78% nitrogen and 21% oxygen.
* At all latitudes of less than 60$^{\circ}$, the atmospheric structure should be identical to Earth's.
* At all latitudes greater than 60$^{\circ}$, the atmosphere should become less and less dense until, at the geographic poles, the [column density](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_density#Column_density) becomes approximately 10% of the normal value.
* The terrain at the poles should be approximately the same as it is on Earth right now. No gigantic mountain ranges, for instance.
* The atmospheric structure should be stable on timescales of a few billion years.
* Whatever mechanism causes the underdensity should be natural (and, ideally, abiotic).
* No magic, please. Let's stay within the confines of the laws of physics as they exist in our universe, too. Please try to minimize or avoid speculation.
Is this weird polar atmospheric structure possible, within the requirements set forth? I'm not *requiring* hard science answers, but answers should be hard science-y enough that they can justify that they meet the requirements - especially the column density.
[Answer]
If you wish for more UV light to reach the poles, you can [deplete the ozone layer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_depletion) over them. This is exactly what happened on our world - ozone depleting chemicals reached the upper layer of the atmosphere and due to wind currents they concentrated over pole over the decades, specially the south pole.
The hole over the south pole is shown as the blue-ish hues below:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/0bwS9.png)
Source: <https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/38835/antarctic-ozone-hole-1979-to-2008>
The ozone layer does not block all UV, and it is not the sole blocker of UV radiation. It does screen out most UV-C and UV-B radiation, which are the most harmful forms for life.
If you wish for a mechanism that does strip the poles of all gases, though, for a lower atmospheric pressure at the poles... I do not think such a thing would be feasible. The difference in pressure would mean wrath-of-god force winds at the polar boundaries. The pressures would either be equaled over relatively short geological time, or the permanent mega-hurricanes would make for a planet possibly devoid of life, with much different geological features due to erosion, most possibly a mix of both.
If you reduce the constraints to allow for planets similar to Earth during planet formation but different from current Earth: maybe a tectonic event that causes the plates on the poles to collapse, for a hadean climate over them. This might be stable for hundreds of millions of years. The exposed mantle would heat up the air above it, causing the air to expand. It will be forced out of the polar regions with a lot of force, which may create a pressure boundary. Where it meets colder air it will go over and above, reducing its pressure over the pole while also maintaining a vortex over the region. Such a planet would be hellish at the poles, so the whole point of the other question about having UV-feeding algae would be lost.
[Answer]
Short answer, no, this is not possible. The column depth of an atmosphere is based on the gravity of the planet and the total mass of the atmosphere. A gas will expand to fill its container (that's the prime definition of a gas), and in this case the container is the extent that gravity can hold it to the planet.
However, all is not lost if you're willing to play with your planet's geology a little.
If you assume that above 60 degrees latitude there is a very large mountain range that increases in altitude until it gets to the poles, it becomes possible to thin your atmosphere out.
This somewhat stretches credibility from a plate tectonics standpoint, but it shouldn't be impossible. What you need to do is have two large plates at either end of the planet, then along the equator have rifts that spread outward. This is somewhat opposite from Earth's plate tectonics, where the rifts and subduction zones generally travel along north-south longitudes, but there's no real reason that you couldn't turn everything 90 degrees and have spreading along latitudes.
On Earth rifts and subduction zones are generally in the oceans, but not always. Iceland is a prime example of where rifts come up onto land, but subduction zones are almost invariably under the ocean (they push down the crust, and eventually it falls below sea level). However, the Himalayan mountains are very similar to a subduction zone, and it's no coincidence that the Earth's tallest mountains are in the Himalayas.
So your planet would probably have the following characteristics:
A large equatorial sea containing a rift zone around the equator of the planet. This pushes new plate material north and south, where it collides with the polar plates at around 60 degrees latitude. Because the collisions happen along the entire circumference of your planet, they push inward on the plate, forcing massive mountains up at the poles. These mountains are extremely tall, perhaps 1.5 times as tall as Everest, but much wider, covering nearly the entire polar continents, so, like Olympus Mons on Mars, you can't really tell you're on top of a mountain at the poles. Because they rise so much in altitude, the pressure drops dramatically. In fact, at 10% pressure it is nearing the Armstrong limit, where water boils at the temperature of the human body (in reality on Earth this limit is around 60,000 feet, so a mountain twice as tall as Everest would be well above it).
Because of the massive subduction zones surrounding your polar continents, the coast lines have a reputation for producing massive tsunamis every few hundred years. Most people avoid living by the seas because of this. Those that do build on high ground and have learned to construct dwellings that can either withstand large earthquakes or be easily rebuilt after them.
The equatorial seas have no real land masses to obstruct winds, so extremely high winds are able to form. Maybe the areas below 30 degrees latitude are known as "The Banshee's Tempest" due to the strong storms that are almost constantly forming. Below 10 degrees latitude however, is the "Central Oasis Belt" where strong storms are unable to form due to Hadley cells and the intertropical convergence zone suppressing them. Since this area is also near the spreading rifts, small island chains would likely form when the rift mountains get large enough to peak above sea level, perhaps resulting in many small island nations around the belt of your planet. Because the islands are bordered to the north and south by the Banshee's Tempests, the island nations are mostly isolated from the rest of the world.
[Answer]
If you want to have a substantial pressure gradient, and you want it stable over geological eras, you need something to oppose the gradient.
What can you use? But of course the planet rotation, which when fast enough will tend to spread liquids, gases and even solids along the equator.
Since you want it to be stable over billion of years, you cannot afford a Moon, since it's tides inducing influence would slow down the planet rotation like it did with our planet.
] |
[Question]
[
Wouldn't it be cool if giant monsters were on giant planets? Of course it would be, but unfortunately physics doesn't really like that idea. Big planets make things on them need more support, so being big *sucks* on big planets. It's alright on teeny ones, but bad on big ones. You'd also probably want high pressure on the planet, and low temperatures, but let's forget about that.
So how could one make it *not suck* to be big on such a planet.
Well....we could make the planet spin faster. Now, these big monsters, effectively, weigh a bit less. They would have to be slow, because the energy to move them (due to inertia) would be the same, so you'd probably looking at creatures with big support structures and less muscle adjacent structures?
**Problem**, of course, people have asked about how fast the earth would need to spin to make things weightless, of course that would destroy a planet...but what if the question was, instead,
Edit: To keep it simple, I'd like to know if a planet could (effectively) offset 10% of its gravity through rotating fast, without flinging itself into a cloud of space dust.
[Answer]
Run to your local used SF book store and find "Mission of Gravity" by Hal Clement.
Meskin is somewhat over Jovian mass, with most of the mass in a relatively small core. The planet spins once every 10 minutes giving it the shape of a poached egg and an equatorial diameter several times its polar diameter. The net result is 3g's acceleration at the equator and 700 at the poles.
[Answer]
**Yes**
Here's the non-mathy version: A planet can spin as fast as gravity will allow. That is, the "speed limit" on angular velocity is the speed at which the outward centrifugal force (rotational inertia for the nitpickers) balances the inward gravitational force. So by definition your condition that 10% of the gravity be offset is achievable and probably doesn't come close to even meeting the caveat below.
**Notes and Caveats**
As a planet spins it will begin to bulge at the equator and squash at the poles (Earth's radius is roughly 20km larger at the equator). This is a consequence of the aforementioned centrifugal force and the fact that planets exist in hydrostatic equilibrium (act as a fluid at rest) over long time spans. The bulging of the equator as angular velocity increases may change the point at which the planet ceases to be a planet, but this will be a secondary effect.
The centrifugal force will be at maximum at the equator and decrease with the cosine of latitude to zero at the poles. This means the apparent gravity will be lower at the equator but this effect will diminish further away. So your creatures may survive in a certain latitude band.
The direction of the centrifugal force will be directly outward at the equator and vary to being perpendicular to gravity at the poles (of course the magnitude of the force will be zero at the poles too - see above note). The most apparent effect of this is that in the mid-latitudes the ground will feel tilted because gravity will be acting downward and the centrifugal force will be acting outward at an acute angle to gravity.
[Answer]
**A thick, heavy atmosphere would do the trick**
You don't need to resort to a spinning planet. If your giants are made of material only marginally heavier than the atmosphere, the atmosphere would support most of their weight, and very large sizes would be possibles. Think of blue whales in the ocean, the largest animal ever in existance, with a mass of up to metric 173 tons (the heaviest reported) or possibly even more.
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[Question]
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If the outer ring of a rotating space station was producing the equivalent to 1G, but a higher G was needed could in small modules, could a bolo-like attachment be included with the ring to accomplish this?
[In the illustration below of a bolo arrangement, artificial gravity is achieved by having two modules attached to each other by long tethers.](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3083132/Nasa-s-vision-future-1970-Space-station-illustrations-reveal-plans-artificial-gravity-space-scooter.html)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Lk8uI.png)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/svQsw.jpg)
[Artificial gravity space station. 1969 NASA concept.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_gravity)
Would it be possible for a rotating ring station to remain stable in such a situation:
If the entire station was not rotating while it was being constructed, then, once the station was complete, ring and bolos alike, were uniformly accelerated, turning about the central axis.
[Answer]
*edit: question clarification meant my previous answer was not as clear as I'd have liked, so here's a rewrite with the same maths but different wordy bits*
Yes, a station could have bolo-like extension*s* (note plural) without any issues. The important thing is to keep the station balanced, and the easiest way to do that is to have multiple, evenly spaced bolos. A single bolo is going to move your centre of rotation away from the centroid of the station's ring, which will result in the force of artificial gravity changing as the station rotates, which will be either slightly annoying (it'll probably interfere with some of your scientific instruments) to actively destructive, depending on various things.
Yes, a station could be spun up with bolos in place. This would be slightly weird, as the most useful thing about having flexible tethers on your bolo extensions is that you'd have the ability to reel the payloads in and out as required. The easiest thing is therefore to reel them out *after* the station has been spun up.
Note that bolos whose mass is *not* small relative to the station will cause noticable changes in the artificial gravity experienced on the station when extended or retracted. Even a bolo wioth about 1% of the station's mass can cause the artificial gravity to vary by a few percent.
---
Now, possibly boring details.
Artificial gravity is provided by the centripetal force that results from the station rotating.
Centripetal force $F\_c = mr\omega^2$, where $m$ is mass, $r$ is the radius of curvature and $\omega$ is the angular velocity.
You'd think that doubling the radius would double the force.
Now, angular momentum $L = mr^2\omega$. Doubling the radius would increase that angular momentum by a factor of 4... but angular momentum is [*conserved*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angular_momentum#Conservation_of_angular_momentum), so if you just reel out a tether you'll find the angular velocity of the object *decreases*. Double your radius with a constant mass and angular momentum means that the angular velocity is reduced to a quarter of its original value.
The bolo speeds up as the tether radius increases because the station can effectively trade some of its angular momentum with the payload. As the angular momentum of the station reduces, its mass and radius remain constant and so its angular velocity must *decrease*. This in turn means that the artificial gravity experienced on the ring will also decrease! So long as the payload is a very small fraction of the weight of the station, this effect shouldn't be noticable, but as the payload gets heavier this will be more and more of an issue. Scientific instruments will be the first to start reading differently, but in the limit people will notice everything becoming lighter and the speed of the starfield/scenery going past the windows will decrease.
Lets imagine a bolo station instead of a ring (because I can imagine it to be a couple of point masses) with a radius of 100m and an $\omega^2$ of 0.1 to give a nice force of 10N per kg. I reel out a 10kg payload from each module of the station to a 200m radius. If each module weighs a tonne, I've moved the effective centre of mass of each module-payload system out by about a metre. To conserve angular momentum $\omega^2$ falls to 0.096 meaning that artificial gravity has reduced to about 9.7N per kg. The payload meanwhile experiences a force of about 19.2N per kg, not quite the two-fold you might have originally anticipated.
This means that for large payloads you will also need to speed up your rate of rotation to maintain gravity in the ring (and then reduce it again once the experiment is over), and suddenly this whole idea starts looking like more of a hassle than it is worth.
---
You can see real-world examples of this on Earth in figure skaters spinning on the spot and speeding up as they pull their arms in, which you can probably replicate by spinning around in an office chair.
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[Question]
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**This is a ludicrous question and isn't meant to be serious. I had an idea of catapulting people with parachutes and thought it would be funny. This was inspired by [Elemtilas answering a previous question I had](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/141723/62335).**
Could a trebuchet deliver a person with a parachute past a 20-30 foot high wall (alive and mostly uninjured)? The person just needs to clear the wall by any distance, although closer would be better.
If there are catapult designs that act better than a trebuchet, feel free to use that instead.
**Note: the previous version of the question was something dumb(er) about parachutes.**
[Answer]
**Can you launch a nuclear weapon horizontally? Sure! Why would you want to?**
* A [counterweight trebuchet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trebuchet#Chinese_trebuchets) can easily clear a 10m wall.
* Silk existed during medieval times, so a parachute could be made.
* Altimeters did not exist during medieval times and could not, so your ~~victim~~ ~~volunteer~~ *conscript* needs another solution to tell him when to pull the string.
What solutions exist?
1. He could pull the release just as he crests the wall. As @StephenG points out, there's a lot of forces at play (g-forces, tumbling through the air, wetting your pants...). But, someone with unusual fortitude and presence of mind could, conceivably, do it.
2. The release could be tied off to the trebuchet or any nearby tree such that it would (a) yank the ~~conscript~~ intrepid hero around and then pull the release. Assuming neither whiplash nor a broken neck occurs, it's likely more predictable and the ~~urine~~ *Jarate* becomes an added benefit to the attack.
3. If you really want points for style, though, drag a grappling hook tied in the middle of a length of rope that lets it grab onto the wall as our intrepid hero passes over, thereby releasing the parachute and leaving the embedded hook with rope dangling *outside* the wall for the rest of the ~~canon fodder~~ infantry.
4. And if you *really* want points for style, tie the warlord's flag to our intrepid hero's ankles. It would not only clearly announce the castle/town's imminent change in loyalty, but would act in a loose way like rocket fins, straightening our hero's flight out at the expense of height and distance. Yes, it would also make him a blooming target, but we're looking for *style,* right?
*And there are thousands of ways to solve the problem of infiltration that are better than this. But they definitely lack style.*
*P.S. Had Terry Pratchett (Discworld) lived long enough, I firmly believe he would have used this idea to get dwarves into troll fortifications. It's definitely* his *style of solution. The 202nd airlifted division, the "Screaming Beetles" having the motto, "Rendezvous with Gold!"*
[Answer]
Amazingly, the answer is almost a yes. The world record for the lowest parachute jump is only 29 meters, although this obviously involved an already deployed parachute in some fashion (I only found the record, not how it was performed.) This would be problematic but not utterly impossible for your trebuchet jumper. Since your jumper would have a horizontal velocity he's going to need a bit more distance but I don't know how much more.
There was another answer who thinks he won't survive the launch but I disagree--since a trebuchet works by a counterweight rather than a spring there's simply a high acceleration, not a huge spike as the spring releases. You can lower the force by increasing the size, if it's big enough the jumper survives.
However, I don't think medieval technology could build a parachute anything like as good as a modern one. How much worse I don't know.
Now, if you want to make it even lower I could imagine a cold-gas rocket assisted deployment. I have a hard time picturing that being even remotely reliable with medieval tech, though.
Note, also, that it's going to be a very dangerous jump no matter what. The jumper will not have any control over their landing spot or time to prepare for a less than ideal landing and most things they might be landing on will be pretty hard.
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[Question]
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I've read a lot of questions about the specifics of meteor impacts on this site, but strangely this one seems to still elude me:
Assume a meteor of sufficient mass and speed to wipe out human life *within a week* (if not sooner) impacts the planet. What does this look like from the perspective of a person on the ground? No real change until instantaneous vaporization? Death by a massive shockwave? Localized devastation followed by a slow collapse to environmental causes?
To be specific: from the *moment the meteor is seen by the naked eye* to the *extinction of life on the surface*, and *from the perspective of a human observer,* what happens in what order?
The impact in question happens over land, and at a roughly perpendicular angle; the observer is able to see the impact site at the edge of the horizon assuming they're elevated no more than a storey above flat terrain.
[Answer]
If you are close enough to see it visually, and you're not in some kind of bunker, you'll die before the information from your eyes reaches your brain. The infrared and visual light from the impact will cook you instantly. You might actually even die before the impact, the asteroid itself will be heated to such an extreme degree it may cook you as it flies overhead.
If you ARE in a bunker, you'll see a blindingly bright flash. Once it dims enough to open your eyes, you will see a huge, white sphere expanding from the impact site at a few times the speed of sound; this is water vapor, condensed out of the air by the shock wave. If you and your bunker survive the shock wave, you'll see a towering fireball at the impact site, with more meteors streaking away from it; these are rocks from Earth blasted away at hypersonic speeds. Some of these will fall back to the Earth and cause their own impact events.
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[Question]
[
I apologize if this question is not written up to standards, I am rather new to this site.
I have been an avid fan of chucklefish's acclaimed sandbox title, *Starbound*, for a number of years now and one question has always stuck in my mind. Is it plausible for the Avian species to exist? The Avians are described as humanoid with strong features from earth's avian species. They are portrayed as possessing beaks upon their faces, with their bodies covered in a thick layer of fur/feathers. Secondly, they appear to possess near-human sizes and builds, with no apparent wings but instead hand-like graspers with talons upon the fingers and feet.
Is it indeed possible for a bird-like species to evolve on another planet, forsaking wings for arms and appear generally more 'human' under evolutionary pressures?
For further context on the species, the official wiki has a good amount on further info on them: <https://starbounder.org/Avian>
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZRO31.png)
[Answer]
Short Answer:
## YES
I don't know anything about *Starbound*, but I do know geopoetry! And I know there are people somewhat like this in my own world, so the obvious answer is *yes, avian sophonts are entirely plausible in secondary / fictional / sci-fi / fantasy worlds.*
Long Answer:
## PROBABLY NOT
In the primary world --- ***EARTH*** --- such a person almost certainly could not exist any time up to the present. Evolution of dinosaurs (as AlexP says, coelurosaurs, whence birds) didn't go this way.
We can speculate as to the future evolution of dinosaurs, and posit that perhaps in a few tens of millions of years, domestic chickens could evolve new characteristics (height and humanoid proportions) and reevolve useful hands and keep their feathers into the bargain.
Plausible? Not really. Possible? Sure --- we only have to wait two crore years (20 million) to find out!
[Answer]
Yes... and no. I have a world-building project including avian/paravian-maniraptorial species and an alien species with avian-generally archosaurian qualities.
To start when it comes to "humanoid" you can definitely have a large bipedal species with a spine angled more perpendicularly like a bittern or penguin. As our friend before has stated archosaurian hands aren't very mobile for manipulation purposes. only really good for climbing, flight, swimming(in some species) and running. That being said the abilities your looking for may be difficult at best- unless your species is a tangent from early on in the archosaurian tree far before the limbs of the saurian became rigid.
Birds and saurischians have vastly different skeletons and muscular proportions to humans. Meaning you will have to manipulate the proportions and make sense of what bones do what and try to make them fit your means. A "humanoid" bird is gonna have a barrel-like chest and a cinched waste compared to a human. the legs will also be very long(especially the shin).
if your looking for human-like facial features id definitely look at how owl, parrots and some galliformes are built and toggle as desired because these animals have heads we are pretty familiar with and may be able to relate to. Of course increase cranium size to reflect intelligence as in primates.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/87BtF.png)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/P0KJ9.png)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/tZczs.png)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/kKXqk.png)
**this will give u a brush up on saurian history-**<https://drive.google.com/open?id=14S60kFAsnMJ4S_WPmBa_EqwZsS8L7jBx&authuser=0>
as far as "one a different planet" I wouldn't count on it. It wouldn't be plausible for me to assume that an animal so close to earth's could evolve millions of light years away unless someone had a hand in it such as genetically savvy alien species who learned how to craft life themselves. You could also do an alt earth project where some extinctions never took place or some did or some other enviernmental factors contributed to a giant manually inclined parrot or other avian species took over a hominid-like niche. if that's the path you choose it could be very interesting.
Id be happy to discuss this further with you if your serious about this- Id type more but I have an art deadline to meet soon.
I think "dinosauroids" is a good starting point for you to look into. this is a long held hypothesis about humanoid or hominid-like saurischians evolving
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/cOQtu.png)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/LJcPC.png)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/o1adv.png)
[Answer]
it seems like that is the Avians from starbound had feathers for fingers......
(in the description of different Tar based items, the avian PC said that it would not risk touching it if it was not important enough.) this indicates that the Avian race probably had their fingers evolved from the Primary Flight Feathers of birds, which is movable in most modern birds(if you have ever handled pigeons before), and that their fingers would moult, and get stuck off by sticky things. also, Avians have tail feathers, as indicated by Caption. This indicates that the Avian race is likely a type of Pssicatine bird that have became domesticated as pets for a long time. (the Avians actually refer to their arms as wings) the color of their pumage is highly variable, which is a sign of domestication; and their shape resembles more of that of parrots with devolved wings (emu-like wings that sticks out of the front of their bodies.) than that of penguins. So, this is PLAUSIBLE for the "Another planet" argument, but is UNLIKELY to happen here on earth.
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[Question]
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Let's say we have the technology to produce all of the human food in factories without the need for land (i.e. [Solarfood](https://solarfoods.fi/), [Memphis Meats](http://www.memphismeats.com/)). Right now, there is about [50% of all habitable land use for agriculture](https://ourworldindata.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Land-use-graphic-01-01-01.png). Also, let's assume we have more advanced technologies to produce our energy needs (fusion reactors + renewables) so we don't need to "cultivate fuel" as we are doing right now with corn and rapeseed.
It would be great if most of this land would be protected to [reduce mass species extinctions](https://books.wwnorton.com/books/detail.aspx?id=4294992776). However, humanity is often foolish and it would certainly go in another direction. Landowners would still own their land and would certainly try to make a living out of it in a different manner and I don't see governments agreeing on a world protection program.
Anyway, what would happen with the freed land??
Thanks for your feedback!
[Answer]
**It will go wild.**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/DLSB9.jpg)
<https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/08/31/new-england-sees-return-forests-and-wildlife/lJRxacvGcHeQDmtZt09WvN/story.html>
>
> In 1850, when only about 28 percent of the land in Massachusetts
> remained in forest, the population of New England was about 4.8
> million. The region’s population has since tripled, to about 14.4
> million. But even as cities and suburbs swelled, rural regions were
> abandoned — and nature famously abhors a vacuum.
>
>
> “It is very difficult to keep trees out of the New England
> landscape,’’ Foster said.
>
>
>
New England used to be farmland. It was outcompeted by the Midwest and New England farms were left to revert to forest. Not everyone likes that; there are programs in a lot of eastern states to encourage people to keep farmland as farmland - both to avoid development and also to preserve the heritage of these states.
So too your society. Farmlands will go back to whatever they were before. I suspect that some of these New England forests are occasionally logged by their owners but you can only do that once a generation.
[Answer]
Eventually civilization would relocate to the oceans (where it's safer and more efficient).
Humans are descended from hunter/gatherers. Those two activities required large expanses of land so we were inextricably tied to it. Eventually humanity domesticated land and the required expanses became much smaller but they still performed hunting and gathering on it -- and called it farming. If food production could be completely industrialized to the point where there was no dependency on land at all, then the value of land for the sole purpose of habitation would diminish greatly when occupying the surface of the oceans is a viable alternative.
Consider this. Cities are effectively artificial islands. The UN estimates 68% of the world population will be urbanized by 2050, up from 55% today. In North America the number is 82% today. This works because to city-dwellers food production and distribution are already industrialized. It demonstrates the proclivity of humans to be drawn to concentrated urban centers when food supply is no longer an issue.
Also according to the UN, 8 of the top 10 largest cities of the world are located by the coast, and 40% of the world's population lives within 60 miles of the coast. Yet the coastlines account for only 10% of the Earth's land surface. Humans are drawn to living near the oceans. Why? It is a source of food sure, but importantly because the oceans are efficiently navigable it is a source of efficiently harvested food, as opposed to the energy it takes to farm the equivalent amount of edible biomass. For the same reason, trade with other population centers is more efficient over the oceans than it is over land. Every great modern city on the coast started as a sea port for trade.
Finally, consider the natural hazards of large population centers located on land. Earthquakes, cyclones and hurricanes, floods and tsunamis, wildfires, dust storms and winter storms constantly plague the inhabitants of land-borne cities and occasionally destroy them. Indeed, land of Earth is not a particularly hospitable place for large human civilizations. But as long as we have a dependency on it for food production we will be stuck there.
With completely industrialized food production it would be much smarter for civilization to migrate to living on the ocean surface on floating urban areas. Land-borne hazards would no longer be a threat. There are areas of the world's oceans where violent storms rarely occur, and without the threat of inland flooding just become wind events. Cities could easily occupy climate zones where energy use is optimized -- no extreme heating or cooling necessary. They could also be relocated over time as needed, perhaps on a seasonal basis. Trade between floating urban areas would be as efficient as possible occurring over water. Population growth would also be more easily accommodated. Habitats would not necessarily have to grow upwards from the surface towards the sky, they could grow downwards into the depths, ultimately helping to float and stabilize the entire constructs. Cities could effectively resemble giant artificial icebergs.
Were this to occur, the abandoned land would return to nature as another poster has commented. The pockets of land-based civilization left would be the crews of mineral extraction operations, the ideological holdouts, the vacationers and adventure-seekers, and the romantics.
It may also be how humanity might survive an extinction-level meteor strike.
[Answer]
**They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.**
Unlimited food!!
Unlimited energy!!
Woo hoo!!!
(What do you mean it's not really unlimited? Shush, you're harshing my feel, or whatever the kids say these days.)
Look at that piece of flat perfect land over there. No rocks, no trees, no muddy swamps. Let's turn it into more housing. We need more housing, now that we have unlimited food and energy, people are having more babies. We gotta put them somewhere.
That field behind it is a school. Oh and over there, the new shopping center. Unlimited fuel (fusion, wind, geothermal, solar) means all those fossil fuels we used to burn for food are available cheap for plastic! And now we have space for the factories, people who need jobs, and unlimited fuel!
We need tons and tons of parking lots. With all that cheap and environmentally safe fuel, we can drive anywhere. Who needs public transport or even taxis? Autonomous driving means even the kids get their own car.
So build all that new housing with extra parking spaces, and charging spaces. And some tracks to have fun. Parking by every school and store. And big wide roads. Asphalt used to cost something but now it's super cheap because we don't need all that petroleum for fuel.
Oh hey there are some old fields by that parkland. More room for parking lots! Gotta get out and see nature, right?
You want the old farmland to go wild you say? Sure, let's find some fields where no one wants to live. Birds are good. Deer are good. As long as they're not in my flower garden ya-know-what-I-mean. And as long as it's not *my* old field you're taking over. Unless you want to buy it. Same price as a parking lot.
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[Question]
[
The title says my question exactly. **Also if another mode of general transportation were invented for a landlocked city, what would it be?** Below are the specific fantasy species that I am dealing with.
Note that these are not all of my species, but they are examples of all the different structures and heights represented among those species. All heights are in feet and inches.
## The Vashnaag
They are winged humanoids. Basically they have wings connected their shoulder blades and tail feathers coming off their tailbone, and their structure is different and the second link give you a decent quick idea of what they look like. This is the stuff I've been going off of for their structure:
[Bone structure](https://www.deviantart.com/blue-hearts/art/Winged-People-Anatomy-Bone-Structure-390427501) / [Modified bone structure](https://www.deviantart.com/blue-hearts/art/SB-New-Bones-577558072) / [Muscle structure](https://www.deviantart.com/blue-hearts/art/Winged-People-Anatomy-Muscles-495419088)
I think they'll be an **average height of 6'2"** but if anyone has a reason for them to be shorter that they can back up with logic I would love to hear that argument.
Something you might ask about the vashnaag is why don't they just fly? Just like we don't want to walk everywhere they don't always want to fly everywhere.
(E.g. It might be raining and they don't want to get wet or zapped by lightning.)
## Elves
A general category representing all the typical characteristics of elves and divided into subcategories based on average height of the various elf populations.
Tall Elves have and **average height of 6'**
Small Elves have and **average height of 4'**
Tiny Elves have and **average height of 2'** (these may not end up in my world)
## Humans
Last I read our average height is 5'3.5" for women and 5'9" for men, so roughly 5'5" overall.
## So Far...
I've come up with different seat types set up in different seating sections, which would work but would severely limit friend groups of multiple species sitting together.
Another option would be to have the subways and trains magically equipped so that each species could change a seat to a different prototype and then adjust the height to fit them specifically. This would definitely work, but I am interested in how an outcome could be accomplished without magic.
If there is any other information that I can provide I would be happy to do it.
[Answer]
Take a look at how subways and trains and the like are already adapted for people of varying sizes and shapes.
Some people stand, some people sit. In some trains, some people sleep.
People range in height from maybe a foot and a half (small child) to 7'. All your averages are for adults. But train cars have to also allow children to sit comfortably and safely.
Some people have luggage.
Some people have canes or walkers.
Some people are in wheelchairs.
How do our current trains allow all these different people to sit or stand? Obviously there's no magic to change the seats.
Well, we have different shapes of seats. Some allow you to hang off the back or sit sideways if needed. Some are against the side of the train and don't allow that. Every train will have places for wheelchairs, generally with clamps that grab the wheels so a sudden jerk isn't dangerous.
For people who prefer to stand up, there are poles in the middle of the car, away from seats, poles near seats, and straps or bars way up high for people who are tall enough.
I've also seen seats that change. For example, a seat with the back against the wall (or it can be perpendicular to the wall), that flips up to create space for a wheelchair or someone's walker/suitcase/stroller, etc.
The descriptions you've given of your various people all seem to me like people who would fit just fine in a modern subway or other kind of train. The winged folks might not do great in a crush of other types of people, but if they are a large part of the population, crowd dynamics will adjust to accommodate them (just like they do for people in strollers, for example).
I don't see any reason for junking a perfectly good transportation system, or for spending a lot of money to create something else. It takes a lot of money to build trains (the tracks and stations mostly) and it can take years or decades to create a train system (my county is almost at the end of this process and it's been years...but it still has a long ways to go in terms of connecting to other systems and getting all the stations built and running, etc).
[Answer]
We really need to look at this question from two perspectives; energy and comfort.
Let's start with energy.
The reason why we have trains, buses, subways et al and we're not all flying around in hover cars is simple - energy. The transport options we have are effective but also energy efficient so it's unlikely that we'll build something 'new'because whether you're an elf, a hawkman, a unicorn or whatever, getting around will still involve the same kinds of infrastructure and methods, so if anything, we'd just modify what we have. Add to that limited space in which to *build* new infrastructure, and the choice becomes obvious.
Now, for comfort.
Take a look at a series of books called [Sector General](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sector_General) by James White. In them he describes the operation of a galactic hospital that caters to sentients of all shapes, sizes, etc. and it does a really good job of explaining the challenges of such. Some of my favourite elements of it is how they fill a cafeteria with chairs suited to all these different species but there's never one suited to you around, so you grab something completely different and just make do. No-one in sector general is ever comfortable sitting down to a meeting, but they're all just used to it.
In reality, something similar would happen in 'public' transport as well in your setting - you might cater for all these different species, but all that's really going to happen is people will just 'make do' with what's free on the train / plane / etc. Otherwise, they'll get their own private transportation.
[Answer]
Locomotion is always a great field for worldbuilding considerations!
In my own world there are winged folk (Daine) and also modes of transport we'd recognise (trams, tricycles, feet, sedan chairs and so forth). They're a little taller than your Vashnaag, generally varying between six and seven feet in height. Some kinds are rather shorter. Men are similar to humans as far as height goes, so close enough there!
There are other peoples who are human enough in basic shape. There are some people who can't leave the water (so, moot as far as public transport goes!). Daine can't fly (that's not what wings are for, silly!), so public transport is a welcome respite for weary feet.
A typical Daine:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/LbCla.jpg)
A typical railway locomotive (broad gauge at eight foot, for those who might be interested):
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/6KPiZ.png)
I would say that the answer to your query will very strongly depend on two things.
* First is who runs the show? That is, who rules the kingdom, who's got the money, who hold the primary stake in your gumbo-pot city or realm?
* Second is who came up with the idea first? Who designed and built the system?
Typical fantasy worlds (and many SF worlds as well) are human-centric. Elves are typically above such mundanities. Orcs are too evil to bother with. Halflings, quarterlings, winged people, taurs, skinchangers -- they're all typically pushed to the sides to give room to Men and their rulership.
Less typical are worlds where humans are *not* the majority or where they do *not* rule. In this kind of world, real consideration of other races will be more likely to take place. My world is of the latter kind: the Daine are in the majority by numbers and in many cases rule and in some places there is more of a gumbo-pot situation.
In these kinds of places, it is common for Daine to be accommodated. Higher ceilings, wider doors, broader hallways, chairs without high backs. Daine, long, long ago before Men ever came on the scene, invented the thaumology that makes the trams and railways go, but it was Men who applied that to a mode of locomotion. For the most part, both races can use the trams in comfort.
Here follow a couple paragraphs from a "day in the life" snippet that are the result of such ruminations:
*...As he sat on the hard oaken bench crammed between one of the purple-clad clerics on one side and an overly talkative blaoman trader on the other, whose carefully wrapped cases marked with dreadful looking runes portending doom and blood-spilling to anyone who opened them, young Hefft Dragan wan Bynganfelds, newly admitted at university and not yet used to the crowds of a big city like Auntimoany, gazed with anxious dread mixed with insatiable curiosity at everything he saw around him...*
*He shifted uncomfortably on the thick wood seat. He envied the Daine girl reclining on the bench opposite him -- her wings of red and blue and green feathers took up a lot of space, and she was not at all afraid to claim the maximum amount of bench space possible. A couple books and a pencil box secured with a leather strap had been carelessly tossed on the bench beside her. She graciously left plenty of room for an old grandmother on her way home from the sausage monger’s to sit primly at the edge of the bench with her cloth sack full of aromatic meats and herbs on her lap. His eyes were drawn back to the girl across from him.*
*Her feet were bare and dusty and she wore only a pair of green but prettily embroidered knee-length britches, tied up with blue cords. A slim scabbard at her narrow waist hinted at a very wicked and very rare iron dagger. Round her neck was clearly a scarf of the blue and white of St. Wantham’s College, exactly like his own. What she lacked in clothing, she more than made up for in body paint and silver rings...*
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I don't think ergonomics are the primary concern here. The way I see it, the odd ones out are the Vashnaag since they're already capable of flight on their own. You're right that they won't necessarily want to fly everywhere, but since flying comes as naturally to them as walking does to us they would have significantly different expectations for public transport.
**Rental jetpacks** would be almost exactly like rental bicycles or public bicycle services for Vashnaag. That's not to say humans and elves wouldn't want to use jetpacks, but for them to learn to fly safely would probably require a lengthy training and acclimatisation period akin to getting a helicopter pilot's license. Vashnaag are already innately able to fly so their acclimatisation period would be much shorter, like learning how to balance on a bicycle. For them, jetpacks would provide the feeling of flying but without the reliance on their own power.
Why would Vashnaag ever want to use subways or regular ground-bound trains though? Probably **socialisation**(or other similar reasons). Trains would probably be better for this, and would need to be reconfigured to include social spaces like lounges or pubs.
**Sky trains or shuttles** are a compromise solution for if the Vashnaag insist on some variation of flight. They may have strong cultural links to travelling in the sky, or taboos against reliance on foot slogging, for instance. Shuttles are pretty self explanatory. Sky trains on the other hand, would conceptually be similar to "space elevators" or an enclosed version of launch rails for catapulting shuttles/missiles. The "tunnel walls" ideally should be transparent so that you can provide the illusion of flight. This would probably require near-future tech levels to implement, but the market appeal is pretty clear.
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I skimmed through the bone and muscle structures. They look ok but even when you try to keep them humanoid and dont add a massive bone extrusion at the chest the wings are still missing the massive muscle they would need to flap them downwards. At minimum they would need something like the illiopsoas, in practice the strongest muscle(s) in the body and used primarily for keeping the body standing. They could be attached to the ribs and the shoulder area's to allow forces to be handled by the rotatorcuff. That means that the pectoral muscles need to be huge to take that force and prevent the arm/shoulder from being janked backwards each time you flap. That's still handwaving it but it without that massive chestbone but much more realistic. Making the angelic smaller will make it more realistic as the square cube law becomes less problematic (which is why things that fly stop at a certain size).
As for the question at hand. Only the angelics would need special seating. Children are well capable of sitting in adult chairs. For comfort you could have chairs of various sizes based on population density (30% are normal sized humanoids? Then about 30% is a normal chair).
The angelics would need a space for their tail feathers, so a gap needs to exist between the seating and backrest where the tailfeathers go. The seat needs to be high enough that most angelics wont have their tailfeathers on the ground. The backrest needs to be lower and only support the lower back so the wings can pass over it. A small space needs to be between the chairs so the tail and wings dont touch those of passengers behind it. These seats would still support most humanoids of sufficient size they wont fall into the tail-gap but be slightly less comfortable as it doesnt support the entire back, but it beats standing right?
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When designing for comfort for mixed races and anatomies, you create a compromise to ensure the best comfort for everyone.
As mentioned, public transport in the real world already tackles this somewhat - by accomodating for different sizes and needs of different humans and various anatomical differences.
The train or plane will already accomodate humans of differing sizes with a relatively good comfort and safety. The only race in your setup that would require special accomodation, would be the Vashnaag in this case.
The Vashnaag would require seats that could accommodate their wings and their tails - there might be ways to do this simply by adding holes in the backrest of the seat that can accommodate the wings and tails of this race.
Consider a seat where the lower rear is removed (to accommodate the tail) and the middle of the backrest has an elongated hole (to slot the wings through without ruffling too many feathers). Properly shaped (and perhaps adjustable), the seat could reasonably and comfortably accommodate all three races.
Alternatively to a hole to slot the wings through, create a seat with a *narrow* backrest that supports the spine and neck comfortably, something in the vein of the following:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/GUTnV.png)
Car seats, office chairs and some train seats already have some adjustable properties, like adjustable headrests in order to accommodate many different shapes and sizes comfortably. There are many ways to create adjustable pillows and comfort features, even without magic.
Another option might simply be some kind of bedding or mattress instead of a seat per se, much like the train "seats" in *My Little Pony*.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/dyEgk.png)
Since most of the inhabitants in Equestria are quadrupedal, regular seats would be impractical and even unsafe for them. Allowing ponies to sit like dogs or lie down would with some reason be the safest and most comfortable for them. Bipedal species (eg. dragons like Spike) aren't directly excluded from using the seats - they too can sit or lie down.
Most dog owners also put their dogs in the rear of the car as it's the safest spot for the dog (possibly in a cage or behind a dog net/barrier for added safety), rather than having them sit in the seats for humans.
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[
# Context
I have been thinking about the Pip Boy device from the Fallout series of videogames. It is a portable, wearable computer that can gather a lot of data about the user. It looks like this:
And gives out readings such as this:
Its "home" screen shows the user's medical condition.
The Pip Boy's capabilities are meaningful for the context of the videogames where it exists, but are too handwaved for real life.
# Question
What I would like to know is which capabilities a realistic one could have. I know some wearable devices can measure heartbeat, blood oxygenation, sugar levels etc. I want to know how many more parameter readings we can pack in a portable, wrist-worn device.
# Constraints
Technology level: current or near future - in thid case, what could be reasonably expected to be achieved in the next ten years.
The device should be no longer than 33 centimeters/1 foot, approximately. It is ok for it to be as small as a wristwatch if the technology allows for it, but it should still be able to read out as many parameters as possible.
The device needs to either have a screen with readouts of its own, or be capable of sending data to a smartphone or other smart device.
The device may be able to interface with other sensors, but must be able to work in complete standalone mode (except for the screen, as per the paragraph above this one).
Piercing the skin to collect blood is allowed.
Costs are not a constraint.
# Motivation
I read a book about a guy who built a rowboat and rowed from Africa to South America on his own in a couple months. I think that if adventurers like him are able to have their readouts while doing their adventuring, they can remotely contact a doctor for advice. I am going to use this in a story I am writing.
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A similar device already exists or is in the state of development, if you believe an article in [medical design briefs](https://www.medicaldesignbriefs.com/component/content/article/mdb/features/27320). Some medical parameters are mentioned there already I want to repeat and add to that list. Possible candidates I can make out:
1) **patient-related data**
* Cardio-vascular data (blood pressure, pulse etc. as sports devices
already do)
* body temperature
* diabetes-related data (blood glucose level)
* electrolyte levels
* analysis of Na+, Ka+ etc. levels in sweat
if you actually penetrate the skin and collect blood samples a lot more like certain
* disease markers (inflammation present),
* pregnancy,
* hormones,
* allergy markers,
* oncological markers
is possible
2) **environment-related data**
* step-counting, analysis of movement-level
* UV-measurement
* radiation measurement
* presence of breathable allergenes in the air
[Answer]
(partial frame-challenge) If you allowed for it to interface to implanted devices, plenty more could be detected.
An external device which collects blood provides a continuous source of discomfort for an active adventurer (particularly on a very mobile and exposed place like the arm), and risks infection or trauma if the device gets knocked whilst it's got it's needle in you. This isn't great for an adventurer away from medical supplies.
Realistically, it's more likely that if such a device were built, it'd work with implanted sensors. More likely is implanted sensors (good for many years), supplied with power / charged inductively from the arm-mounted device.
This is also how current devices such as implanted diabetes monitors work.
This would allow much more monitoring of stats from different parts of the body.
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I will add that, in addition to all the Western Medical readings you can have, you can also do ones from Traditional Chinese Medicine. The pulses provide a lot of information about the state of the body, though the diagnoses do not neatly map on to Western diagnoses. There are 3 positions on each wrist (with some variation of position I think) and each position can be classified in various terms, such as slippery or taut. Then there is speed, strength, depth, and measurements relative to the other pulses. All stuff a human can fairly easily be taught to read. Then you use a database to interpret the results.
Pulse isn't the only diagnostic tool in TCM, not by a long shot. But then vital signs and bloodwork aren't the only Western Medicine tools.
While there exist devices that can find acupuncture points on any given body (not sure what they're measuring but it's differences found by placing/moving the device on the skin), there is not—as far as I know—any sort of device for giving TCM pulses when placed on the wrist. But I can imagine it being done with technology either available today or within the next 10 years.
Just an idea for something a little different, if useful to you.
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In the world I'm constructing, I have equine centaurs. I was going over my research and my notes for centaurs, and I realized that most horses are put down when they break a leg. Now, these centaurs live in a society on par to ours, and they wouldn't let someone die for such a simple injury, especially not when the humanoids are barely bothered by it.
I was thinking that maybe the centaurs could use canes, crutches, or walkers, due to the fact that they have a humanoid torso. However, I need some help with the design. Whatever you design, it needs to let the centaur walk without putting pressure on that last and it needs to let them heal properly. Please remember that they have difficulty reaching their back and back legs, but others could most certainly help them.
Their technology is at the same level as ours, save the fact that it's a touch more advanced in recycling and clean energy. There's also a ton of plastic, so you can definitely use that as a material if you want to.
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Depending on the location of the injury (which leg and where on the leg), a knee walker or knee scooter might do the trick. Obviously it would be built to hold a LOT more weight and to work with the centaur's physique.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/UjDsy.jpg)
For injuries where something like this won't work, you may have to treat it the way a spinal injury is treated. With a traction device in a hospital with staff to help out. Only instead of an actual traction device, it's a sling system that allows the centaur to be in a standing position without putting any weight on the healing limb. These exist now for horses but are simple and made for barns. They wouldn't have all the bells and whistles you'd expect for a human-like creature. And they'd have to be built for a centaur shape and needs.
It may not be possible for the centaur to be mobile during recovery. Though another possibility is a sling system that works in a van or electric cart, much like some are adapted for the use of drivers in power wheelchairs. A regular wheelchair wouldn't hold a centaur, so it would have to be at least as big as a golf cart.
[Answer]
Crutches are probably out except for very short term. The torso muscles just aren't strong enough to hold up the front of a horse (horses are heavy).
We currently have two wheeled carts that can be positioned under either the front of the back of a 4 legged animal. So those should work. The wheels for the front will be difficult to design since all that weight supported by the (horse) chest will interfere with breathing. The back end carts will be much easier.
Take a look at [handicappedpets.com](https://www.handicappedpets.com/adjustable-dog-wheelchairs/) for designs that are made for dogs.
[Equus Magazine](https://equusmagazine.com/blog-equus/slings-horses-history-hope-equine-support-system-32212) has an article on slings for horses. Note that due to the horses great weight, everything has to be much more robust than the equipment for dogs. Also, the devices for horses are more about immobilizing the horse while the bones heal than allowing movement.
Given the horse's non-sapient nature any horse that is valuable enough to not be put down for the broken leg is simply kept still. With centaurs, they would likely put the effort into being mobile. So a beefed up set of dog wheels will likely result.
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**Real horses are prey and did not evolve to be treated by humans and will re-injure themselves even when treated**, however Centaurs being intelligent beings with a heavy-muscled torso will be able to use [simple axillary crutches](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crutch#Underarm_or_axilla) when injured at the forelegs during the day to shuffle around:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/WsAUH.jpg)
But they will have to use [slings](https://www.paulickreport.com/horse-care-category/hoof-care-category/surgery-sling-help-rescued-donkey-beat-laminitis/) to cure their hind legs or when resting at night for both fore and hind legs:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/hciFQ.jpg)
(example from a donkey taken as donkeys are much smarter than horses and are more likely to survive this process)
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On 20 October 1861, while in Paris, [Ferdinand Maximilian Joseph Maria von Hapsburg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximilian_I_of_Mexico), brother of the Emperor of Austria-Hungary, received a letter from [Jose Maria Gutierrez de Estrada](https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Mar%C3%ADa_Guti%C3%A9rrez_de_Estrada), a Mexican nobleman, inviting him to take the long-vacant throne of Mexico. The future Maximilian I, Emperor of Mexico and his wife eventually arrived at Veracruz in 1864 with the support of Napoleon III of France. Their reign was short, and Maximilian was killed in 1867.
What is the minimum change to history that would allow Maximilian to survive as Emperor, and for his dynasty to last in Mexico until at least World War I? (Hint: so Mexico can go to war with the US in that conflict!)
Changes can take place anywhere after 1861 (and presumably before 1867).
[Answer]
1. 1862: Jefferson Davis petitions Maximilian for help in the US Civil War.
<http://madmonarchist.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-austrian-empire-and-confederacy.html>
>
> Such a thing would have, inadvertently, greatly expanded Austrian
> influence in the New World given that the establishment of a Habsburg
> monarchy in Mexico (or rather the ‘reestablishment’) would have given
> Austria a sort of foothold in the region. Confederate President
> Jefferson Davis was certainly aware of this and tried to enlist the
> Prussian observer, Captain Justus Scheibert, as an envoy to Emperor
> Napoleon III of France. He proposed a sort of Franco-Confederate
> alliance, pointing out that in the Mexican War (of which Davis was a
> noted veteran) the U.S. had defeated Mexico with only 12,000 men and
> that if Napoleon would lift the Union blockade of the southern coast,
> which Davis believed could be done with ‘the stroke of a pen’ and
> would ensure a Confederate victory, he would supply 20,000 Confederate
> troops to aid the Emperor Maximilian of Mexico, explaining that
> southern troops were adjusted to the climate and familiar with the
> fighting style of the Mexicans.
>
>
>
2. Napoleon is unwilling to battle the Union to lift the blockade, but agrees to supply the Confederates via Mexico through Texas.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas#Civil_War_and_Reconstruction_(1860>–1900)
>
> While far from the major battlefields of the American Civil War, Texas
> contributed large numbers of men and equipment to the rest of the
> Confederacy.[112] Union troops briefly occupied the state's primary
> port, Galveston. Texas's border with Mexico was known as the "backdoor
> of the Confederacy" because trade occurred at the border, bypassing
> the Union blockade.[113] The Confederacy repulsed all Union attempts
> to shut down this route...
>
>
>
In their role as Confederate allies, Texas hosts an increasing Mexican presence. Davis is good on his word, and early in the civil war a large contingent of Texans and Confederates march into Mexico, routing the domestic opponents of Maximilian.
3. Mexico resurgent. With the fall of the Confederacy, Texas risks chaos. The occupying Mexican armed forces present prevent this, keeping order and repulsing Unionist opportunists seeking loot. The Texans are appreciative and rather than slink back into the Unions as conquered foes, Texas chooses to rejoin the Mexican state. Mexico then claims back the territories it lost in the Mexican American war. The weary Union does not resist.
A flood of refugees from the fallen South enters Texas and the reclaimed Mexican states. Among them are the elite of the South. These take their place as the aristocracy of the West. The European-leaning elite of Mexico is invigorated with this new blood, and Mexico benefits from the skills of the refugees.
4. 1867: Having avenged Mexico's honor against the Americans and restored her lands, Maximilian is loved by his people and respected by the European powers. 50 years later when the equivalent of the Zimmermann telegram arrives to invite Mexico to ally itself with German and Austria-Hungry, Maximilian II does not hesitate.
[Answer]
If you're looking for something Maximilian himself could have done differently, either make the concessions to Juárez even better, or withdraw them once Juárez rejected them. Every other major choice he had seems like it would be too little, too late.
But the biggest factors in his defeat all come down to the USA: Lincoln's open secret program of "losing" munitions at El Paso del Norte, which evolved into Johnson openly arming Díaz's partisans; Seward's hardcore diplomatic pressure on France to withdraw and other countries to stay involved (according to Empress Charlotte, although this may have been partially paranoia on her part, "Everywhere I turn for aid, Seward has been there first, and doors shut in my face"); rumors that Johnson was seriously considering an invasion on behalf of Juárez… there's just no way to win with all of that happening. So, the key is to keep the USA uninvolved.
The easy way is to just push the Civil War back a couple years; by 1867, the Empire could plausibly have been a fait accompli.
The more interesting way is to change US interests just enough to prevent that involvement. Which is challenging, but not impossible.
---
It all starts with the Cotton Embargo.
* In April 1861, the CSA began a voluntary embargo on cotton exports. The theory was that this would drive Britain and France to the brink of a depression, they would blame the Union blockade, and sweep the seas of the Union navy. The historical result is that it was laughably ineffective, and only managed to mildly annoy the French.
* The first problem was that the CSA started the embargo too early, before the Union blockade was even set up, so nobody would have blamed the North if there were a problem. Leave that the same in your history.
* The second problem was that France had their second year in a row of massive crop failures, meaning wheat and corn imports from the North were far more important than cotton. At the same time, England's Egyptian cotton plantations had a bumper crop, and were able to massively expand operations.
* Reverse the two, and France really would have faced serious economic hardship, and blamed it entirely on the CSA.
---
When Seward makes his declaration that anyone who aids the CSA is at war with the Union, instead of ignoring it (but doing little to aid the CSA), Napoleon III, to spite the South, wholeheartedly agrees, and insists that all European states remain neutral.
Instead of spending the rest of the war alternating between veiled and open threats to keep Europe out of the war, the US State Department begins cultivating friendly relations. When France has a crop failure in 1862 instead of 1861, Seward takes advantage of the trade agreements to strengthen the positive ties. Of course the French still aren't going to back the Union, but their diplomatic position is far more pro-North than it would have been, and that carries a lot of weight in the rest of the Europe.
---
* By 1863, rather than unilaterally declaring a Mexican Empire, Napoleon III encourages Maximilian to bring the USA in to arbitrate.
* Being still busy fighting the Civil War, there's little the USA could practically do if they turned this down, so they accept.
* The Seward Compromise is Juárez as Imperial Prime Minister, and a pledge to continue his social programs (that Maximilian wanted to continue anyway). In exchange, both France and the Union pledging to support the compromise government, and France promises only limited troop deployments.
* A group of Maximilian's Conservative backers announce they will withdraw support if he agrees to it—but he agrees anyway.
* Now it's down to Juárez. It's basically the same deal he turned down historically—but getting the deal from the USA rather than from Maximilian makes a big difference, and Maximilian being more cut off from both native and French support makes it a lot easier to trust him to keep to his side.
* Juárez, despite being reluctant and wary, sees it as the best option, and signs.
---
* Juárez gives a famous speech, known as Los Cien Días, asking the people to give the new government 100 days before passing judgment.
* Porfirio Díaz refuses to join the government, or to merge his army with the Imperial army, but agrees to the 100 days.
* For 50 days, everything seems to be going well. Maximilian keeps his word, allowing Juárez's reforms to continue. Napoleon III keeps his word too, sending only limited troops.
* Then comes the Hacendado Coup. A group of Maximilian's original strongest supporters, together with some retired French and Austrian officers, capture most of Mexico City, and announce the dissolution of the government. They claim they're doing this for the benefit of the Emperor, but Maximilian announces that he remains faithful to the government, and calls on all of the people of the Empire to support him.
* Díaz quickly moves to retake the city. The French troops, after a tense standoff, withdraw to the port to avoid taking sides. Díaz quickly restores order, and Juárez welcomes him in the name of the Emperor.
* A few months later, the American Civil War ends, and Lincoln is shot. Johnson isn't very happy with the Empire next door, but there's not much he can do about it. Maximilian and his government are successful and popular, the key revolutionary figures have been co-opted.
* The USA begins a policy of trying to sway Mexico closer to their side, but it has little effect. While Mexico does drift away from France, especially after the Third Republic is declared in 1870, the main beneficiary is Austria.
* In 1900, after a long and mostly successful reign, Maximilian is succeeded by his nephew, Otto Franz.
* In 1914, Emperor Otto I's older brother Franz Ferdinand is assassinated, and Mexico is the third country to declare war on France.
* In 1917, Germany decides it needs to resume unrestricted submarine warfare, even though it will probably draw the USA into the war. Their allies in Mexico preemptively declare war and launch an immediate invasion.
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Perhaps it is not the minimum change, but certainly it would be a sufficient change. I suggest that the continuation of the American civil war for perhaps another four years would do it. France would have stayed interested in the American political scene, and America would continue to be distracted. Ferdinand would have continued to receive French support.
Also recalling that the US annexed Texas only 20 years earlier, had Mexico persevered and won border concessions, keeping larger parts of New Mexico and Texas itself, would there have been more support for Ferdinand? Mexico would have been far stronger economically. Certainly if Mexico had declared war with America over the annexation, all bets would be off.
There can also be no doubt that if Texas had not agreed to its annexation, America would not have been strong enough to interfere with Mexican affairs.
But the least change? Had Ferdinand executed Juarez early in the process, instead of negotiating with him, and all of his immediate leadership, he might have survived. Either that, or Juarez agrees to join Ferdinand's government, instead of rejection the offer, the internal civil war might have ended.
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I'm designing an alien creature that has a similar body structure as a theropod. Now one thing about this creature is that it lives near bodies of water like lakes or shallow seas because that's where its prey lives. However, it does not prey its victims outside of the water but rather going inside tge water to chase them. It doesn't exactly swim though the water though. When it chases its prey it looks more like it is running at the bottom of the sea/lake. Now I got this idea from how hippos are capable of walking underwater, but there are lots of things that are different here. For example, hippos walk underwater not run, plus hippos are big stalky tetrapods while the creature I'm designing is a bipedal theropod. So my question is, what changes should I make to my creature in order to be capable of bipedal running underwater? And also, is such a creature possible?
[Answer]
Expanding on @Renans comment, when trying to walk underwater the biggest problem you have is providing motive force without simply pushing yourself off the ground. To combat this you need a lot of downward force that can be gained in two ways: Density and Power
*Density* is obvious. *Dense* things sink, and so they can push off the floor and forward to their prey. The downside, of course, is that you have more weight to move around.
Power is less so, but basically if you swim downwards constantly you can exert force against the floor and use it to push off.
So, to your beasties. They are very muscly (dense), powerful creatures with powerful tails. When chasing prey they use powerful tails to push themselves both forward and down (powerfully), and then use powerful legs for explosive bursts of speed and dangerously fast changes in direction. ‘Walking’ on the bottom gives them an advantage in leverage when it comes to combat manoeuvres, allowing them (with clever use of grasping limbs and positioning) to best theoretically ‘stronger’ prey. They should also be able to burst up to the surface and snatch prey on the surface, or just use that to escape from the seabed should they need to.
Of course, all this requires relatively sturdy ground. No point in using the ground for leverage if it’s made of sucking mud or sand, so places where the waves or tides have exposed bare rock would be best.
I’m envisioning smart ambush predators that prey on creatures trapped in large tidal pools. Basically aquatic raptors...
I may never swim near the coast again.
[Answer]
For speed underwater, if you're going to insist on bipedal motion (or really any motion that isn't swimming) you're going to need to overcome a couple blatant obstacles.
* Water is dense and relatively uncompressible. As a result, it's less able to 'get out of the way' as your creature (which is more dense) moves through the space it so recently occupied.
* Water is under pressure, the deeper you are, the greater the pressure. As you move out of a space, you leave a 'hole' that the pressurized water will quickly move to fill. This water includes the water immediately in front of you (this btw, is how airplane wings work in principle, by creating a lower pressure zone above the wing)
That being pointed out, there are ways to get bipedal underwater sprinting to be a thing that actually happens. Your creature will resemble a tapered wedge at both the front and the back, and the bipedal limbs will resemble (jointed?) oars, able to have a flat, gripping surface that can be turned sideways to minimize drag on the fore-swing. Basically imagine a flatfish with articulated flippers that function like tentacles but are shaped like, well, flippers.
The gradually tapered front gives a aquadynamic design for parting the water, the reversed taper at the back allows the water to be easily and gently "unparted" to prevent the creation of a low pressure zone (or at least minimize the pressure difference). The articulated flippers give the ability to adapt to the underwater terrain without introducing too much drag.
The **serious** downside to such a design comes with the underwater currents common to essentially every major body of water. One cross-current and your creature is helplessly dragged sideways, due to the almost sail-like form of its body.
As a joke, you could also just chop all but 2 tentacles off an Octopus and hope for the best.
[Answer]
To those who would say a tail is better, remember that evolution
1 Has to work with what it has. A biped can't give birth to a fish.
2 Can only select individuals that make it work *in their lifetime* and survive to breed. Doesn't matter if an individual represents a step towards the perfect solution if the intermediate steps aren't survivable.
So what would happen here is a bipedal animal that hunts by running on land finds itself low on land-dwelling prey, and faces a sudden pressure to hunt some water-dwelling prey. The individuals that survive the first wave of land-prey-famine do so by running through the water. It's awkward but it works. Individuals that start down the path of becoming fish (webbed feet, legs start to fuse together) are neither good at running anymore, nor good at swimming yet, and die. Running works though, and those individuals live. Although we could see a better solution, the sudden change in selection pressure makes natural selection myopic. It can only see what works right now.
You'd need to be significantly denser than water so that you sink and land on the bottom with weight on your feet. Your feet need weight pushing them into the ground so you can get traction. So your biped is lean, and either has dense bones or something like scales or a shell that doesn't float. As it adapts to running underwater its limbs become very narrow and streamlined. It probably hunches over so that the length of its torso is aligned if the direction of motion. So maybe the first individuals to go in the water were awkwardly hunching themselves over like a bicyclist and then maybe this led to adaptation to a posture more like a T-rex in later individuals.
So maybe like a T-rex with legs that are wide back-to-front with muscles for running, but narrow side-to-side to slip through the water, and a streamlined head like the front of a fish to slip through the water. The smaller muscles on the side of the legs would be OK underwater where it isn't as easy to topple over, but eventually your creatures might find that their legs are no longer suitable to balancing their top-heavy bodies on land.
[Answer]
I like Joe Bloggs' answer, but since I can't give that one anymore, I'll offer a slightly more exotic one (especially since you said "alien" in your description).
Your creature has developed a beneficial, almost slightly symbiotic, trait which allows it to not require massive amounts of power or weight to run underwater. Imagine it has developed something similar to the hook part of Velcro on its feet. The lake bottoms around it are covered with a strongly rooted plant which resembles the loop portion (it may also gets= most of its nutrition from the scattered remains of your theropod's prey which meets its end underwater, symbiosis is always interesting).
This allows your creature to still move forward as the hooks all point backwards on its feet, something similar the special skis people use to actually walk up mountains and then ski down ([Ski skinning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ski_skins)). But instead of retarding rearwards motion, the hooks and loops combine to prevent upwards motion. Your creature is still free to 'run' forward using leg power alone.
If your creature can control how these miniature hooks on its feet come out, it can change directions quite easily or release itself in case of entanglement.
Just a more off-the-wall idea (which can likely be built on) if your world allows for such things.
[Answer]
Hippos are fast underwater because of their low centre of gravity, their sheer weight and their special skin. A therapod could angle down on all fours and push forwards. Smooth skin, and as others have suggested a powerful tail would help. Penguins are modern therapods... Perhaps your therapod has wing like powerful forearms the work well under water?
[Answer]
Dreamworks got around a similar problem by making one of their dragons - in How to Train Your Dragon's television series, the speed stinger grow webbed feet so they could actually walk on water. I mention this because the speed stinger was also a wingless therapod. I direct you here: <http://dreamworks-dragons.wikia.com/wiki/Speed_Stinger> hope that helps :-)
[Answer]
You can't. Water is dense: it provides bouyancy and considerable resistance to motion. To even walk underwater, your creature first has to be a good bit denser than water, otherwise the force of a leg against the bottom will simply push it upwards. That means that at best the motion will more or less resemble astronauts moonwalking rather than any sort of running.
Now once we get that moonwalk going, realise that in water the legs have to swing back and forth against water resistance. This uses energy, and probably more energy than could be obtained from prey, so your creature starves and becomes extinct.
That's not the biggest problem, though. Even if we overcome the first two, the creature is trying to move its upright, unstreamlined body against water resistance. This means that it will be very slow (try it yourself if you have a pond or stream handy), and will not catch prey. Thus it will starve, and again, the species becomes extinct.
Really, there's a reason why things as diverse as dolphins, tuna, ichthyosayrs, and submarines all have the same basic shape: physics dictates that that's the shape you must have if you want to move at speed in the water.
[Answer]
A fish hook with legs...
No, but seriously; there are many fishooks that are shaped so that they will dive into the water when you reel. See <https://www.google.com/search?client=ms-android-samsung&ei=aox-W8_eE9nF0PEP64WWwAk&q=diving+lure&oq=diving+lure&gs_l=mobile-gws-wiz-serp.3..0i71l5.0.0..30138...0.0..0.0.0.......0.kyE5YgwE8PA>
In order to go faster in the water your creature needs to stay low to the bottom so it can push against the ground and gain momentum. It will probably have strong legs, small, fined arms that either pull against the body or streamline behind it, and a tail with webbed spines to give it even more momentum.
Another part of going fast underwater is being very streamlined. There's a reason almost all fish look like rounded arrowheads, and that's because they evolved to be streamlined. Your creature will need a narrow, tube like body if its to keep up with anything underwater. It's already at a disadvantage with legs, since they have drag, plus it will need a head shaped like a wedge to keep its feet properly pressed against the bottom, which also generates drag.
All in all I would make this creature closer to a lizard than a theropod, a frilled neck to act as a wedge and keep it low, webbed feet that work similarly to a frogs in that they stay under and beneath its body, minimizing drag, and a strong thick tail that has a fin on the end made of webbed spines that can be flattened on land, which it uses to gain an additional burst of speed when catching prey, and also as a counterbalance on land to keep it on two feet. It catches prey in its mouth and then takes it back to land to eat so it can spit the excess water out.
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[Question]
[
## Premise
[Ahkenaten](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akhenaten) was a bit of a heretical pharaoh in ancient Egypt. While it was customary at the time for the pharaoh to choose a god to be associated with, Ahkenaten went further and proclaimed his chosen god to be the only true god and disenfranchised the worship of other "old gods" such as Ahmun. The god who Ahkenaten adopted was Aten. Previously an aspect of Ra, Aten is depicted as a sun disk:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/lxreb.png)
I would like to propose an alternative historical narrative in which [Atenism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atenism) is widely embraced. Ideally it should be accepted by Egyptians as a monotheistic religion, because archaeologists already consider Atenism to be a henotheistic religion (belief in one god but acknowledging the possible existence of other gods).
## My Research
I have given much thought to this period in Egyptian antiquity; it's a very mysterious and fascinating time. To help understand the challenges of a decree that would disenfranchise an existing polytheistic belief system, I tried to look for a historical analog. One of such analogs I thought was compelling was that of Christianity spreading to Rome. While the situation is not a carbon copy of the situation that Ahkenaten faced, it still provides a few interesting insights. Namely:
* **Lead Time:** While Constantine is often accredited for much of Christianity's spread, Roman territories have had exposure to Christianity for roughly three centuries. While they were occasionally devoured by lions, the Christian base still saw modest growth prior to Constantine. So, in my view, this lead time to the official degree could have made a big difference.
* **P2P:** Also noteworthy in my opinion is the nature of the conversion. Beginning with small missionary work by Paul and later followers, the spread of Christianity can be somewhat likened to a grass-roots movement, something that was more organic in its social organizational structure. A P2P network if you will.
* **Hierarchical:** In contrast, Ahkenaten was not grass roots at all. This was a centralized, top-down, chain of command type of conversion. He was basically shoving Aten down the throats of the polytheistic people of ancient Egypt and the clergy.
* **Timing:** At this time in the New Kingdom, Egypt was still reeling from the recent invasion of the Hysksos. Ahmun was the deity of the region that ultimately expelled the Hyksos from Egypt. And so by disenfranchising a god that was still in such high graces, Ahkenaten had his work cut out for him.
## Question
How can we maximize the acceptance of Atenism to replace Egypt's existing pantheon of gods as a monotheistic religion? Would my P2P, grass-roots movement as theorized above be a good start or is there a flaw in my logic? (I'm just out to maximize conversion rate, you may scrap my theory if you have something more effective)
**Quality Metric:** The larger the population that embraces Atenism, the better. (This addresses some loopholes/corner solutions in which all non-believers are executed). Atenism should have a trajectory to last through multiple dynasties (not die out immediately after Ahkenaten's death like in our version of history).
**Potential Areas of Interest**
* Policies
* Demographics
* Financial incentives
**Assumptions:**
* **No plague** - There was a plague coming from the East during this time that ultimately affected Egypt and Ahkenaten personally,
claiming the lives of his wife and children. So with Nefertiti and
his daughters still alive, Ahkenaten will hopefully be more
psychologically robust to deal with the task at hand of converting
Egyptians to Atenism. We'll try to give him the best chance at it.
* Everything else in this alternate history is assumed to be the same
[Answer]
# Play politics
### Hijack other support base
Instead of creating a whole structure out of nothing that will compete with the previous cults and temples, use one (or, if available, some) of the already established cults. Give them something good so they get something out of supporting you.
For example, you appear by the temple of Amon/Ra and inform the High Priest that the gods have talked to you: Amon/Ra has just become greater and now the other gods are just parts of it, its new name is Aton. Since now Amon/Ra is the "head" god, all of the temples and High Priests dedicated to other gods may survive but they must submit to the authority of Amon/Ra's High Priest. Amon/Ra's High Priest will see that this is clearly what Amon/Ra wants him to do, and hey, if Amon/Ra now wishes to call himself Aton, who is the High Priest to say otherwise?
### Weaken your adversaries
Phase two of the plan is to make other temples and cults less important. The measures can differ:
* At a symbolic level, the Pharaoh now will only attend ceremonies at the Aton temple.
* The Aton temple will progressively take over of the important rituals (asking the gods for the Nile waters to rise, asking the gods for the Nile waters to lower, begging forgiveness to the gods for never being happy about the Nile water level...). It makes sense, as it is the only temple the Pharaoh will assist.
* At a more practical level, remove the temples from the administrative and political life: The temples of Tot were used to store records? Not anymore, those go to Aton's temples or even to a civilian office1. The temples used to collect taxes? Not anymore, thank you. Of course, it is best to apply the pressure gradually, as to never cause the temples to openly revolt. For example, you compensate the temples lost tax revenue to ensure that you will provide them with food and money2.
* Make it easy for ambitious and capable priests of other temples to move to Aton, so that the other temples get a) manned by less capable and ambitious people b) demoralized by the desertions and c) unable to organize an uprising without worrying about someone deserting them to go to serve Aton's will.
### Control your "friends"
Use all of the influence that you are willing to give to Aton's temples to get them to allow to its control. Make them give you veto power over who can advance in the higher ranks. When you can control the candidates, you can make them agree to new concessions in exchange of your support.
### Bid your time
These things need a lot of time. A lifetime, or even more. Do not rush. For example, in the "control Aton's temple" line, you probably start with asking power to veto middle level priests, but leave the higher priests independent so they do not feel threatened. But when they want your support to help their protegés, now it is time to increase your control but just a notch or two, by forcing them to elect the High Priest in your name (but no actual input). Another notch, you can dismis middle level priests for impiety. Another notch...
### Stay alive
Even if you are a cunning politician and do all of the above perfectly, resentment is going to appear. Having Aton's blesssing descend upon you is no good if you end with a dagger stab at your back.
You want to keep your inner circle outside of the priests influence, and that can be difficult. Try to ensure your men's loyalty. Some kings have used foreign mercenaries for their protection, but that is usually seen with hostility by the rest of the court and it has its own risks attached.
---
1It is convenient to attempt not to give too much power to Aton, either.
2Well, at least, *for the time being*. We will see what happens once the temples have lost all of their power.
[Answer]
# Top down works, too
Christianity spread as a grass roots religion throughout the Roman Empire (and Persian one, too!) until it was strong enough to co-opt an Emperor (with [assist from the man upstairs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Milvian_Bridge#Vision_of_Constantine)) and establish itself as a state religion.
By contrast, the other universal monotheist religion spread by the sword of the Caliphate, from Spain to Kashgar. The conquered were not *required* to convert, but there were penalties for not submitting, such as taxation (Christians and Jews) or death (Hindus, if the ruler was particularly bloodthirsty, and assorted pagans/others).
Ahkenaten's religion crumbled mostly because by the time he died, not enough people were invested in its success. The priests of the old gods opposed him and his successors were ineffective. He was succeeded by a succession of women and/or young boys. There were [Smenkhkare](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smenkhkare), [Neferneferuaten](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neferneferuaten), and famously [Tutankhamun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutankhamun), originally Tutankhaten, who ended worship of Aten.
By contrast, if Ahkenaten had turned Egypt over to 50 years of the iron fist of Rameses or Khufu, the monotheism would have been much more permanant. The old priests would have been stripped of their lands. Anyone who worshipped the old gods would have been dead by the end of a 50 year reign. Who would oppose Pharoah then?
I think the most likely way to maximize Egypt's acceptance of Aten was to have a succession of strong Pharaoahs enforce religious orthodoxy.
[Answer]
A method that has worked in the past is to co-opt other Gods. For example, when Spaniards came to the Americas and brought Catholicism, some native deities turned into Saints or the Virgin Mary, etc. Plenty of other examples. So you don't discount other Gods, you simply demote them. Bonus points if you keep all the old holidays and rebrand them. Christianity did this to Celtic paganism, for example.
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[Question]
[
As requested by [JBH](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/40609/jbh), I edited this question to fit the [Anatomically Correct Series](https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2797/anatomically-correct-series).
The classic zombie is no mystery to anyone: undead, eats people and multiplies by biting humans. Could they ever evolve in nature?
A few rules I would like you to follow:
* They have to be their own species rather than a human turned by a bite;
* You have to explain why their bodies are in decomposition (or why they *look* like it);
* What is their "set of abilites"? Can they run? Are they guided by smell? How strong are they compared to humans? Do they have some degree of intelligence? You are not obligated to answer *these* questions specifically, but give me some answers in this line of thinking.
* And last but not least, you have to answer my [original question](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/posts/119299/revisions): What is their diet like?
[Answer]
## Could they ever evolve in nature?
First, we need to define what is a Zombie and for this, there are some possible theories:
1. Human-being infected with some kind of virus, fungus or bacteria that kills the host and raise a new being, the Zombie. (Most of my answers will be based on this variant theory)
2. Variation of the Human race that can infect their similar species and transform us into one of them.
Then, I will answer it by the end of my text after some very important context information explained on the following questions.
## Are their bodies in decomposition?
No, this is a common mistake associated with the decomposition odor they emanate. The real answer is that the parasite (virus, fungus or bacteria) is actively controlling the body by providing the electrical impulses that activate the muscles created by a chemical reaction that smells like decomposing bodies.
This is important because the Zombies does not always respond to a single centralized Brain, like for example, a limb cut off will still move for a while before the parasite loses the energy material for the reaction that causes the electrical impulse and the limb will enter in hibernation.
The problem with that is if a limb is stitched to another Zombie, it will be fully operational once the parasite can link both parts.
**But if so, why destroying the Brain is the fastest way to "kill" a Zombie?**
The Brain is the perfect habitat for the parasite, it has all the nerve system at hand and the skull provide the best protection they could ask for the initial phase of infection.
Disabling it will eliminate the Control Center of the parasite and the body will start to decay, killing slowly the parasite.
## What is their "set of abilities"?
**How strong are they compared to humans?**
About the strength and fatigue the fact the zombies feel no pain, an excess of lactic acid will not bother them nor make them stop using their muscles.
Basically, a regular person will stop overusing their muscles as a reaction either to the muscular pain or the censorial pain related to the pressure applied to their fingers when pressing an object as an example. None of these will stop the zombie.
They will use the original body strength without restriction, what would make them "stronger" than before, also the more they use it, stronger they become and more hunger they will have.
Finally, this hunger will press the adrenal glands to produce adrenaline or epinephrine that will increase the blood flow to muscles increasing the muscular capacity to incredible levels not possible to the Human host before getting infected.
**Can they run?**
The other aspect is that there are some "exercises" that are aerobic (uses oxygen) and others anaerobic (uses no oxygen).
Zombies will not be able to run a marathon, but they can flex their muscles until its rupture.
Since there are two different types of Muscular fiber in a Human body, the red and the white ones.
The White is used for long-lasting movements like marathons, while the Red is for a fast reaction like 100 meters sprint. A Zombie will exceed in Red fibers and they will be able to run very fast but only for a small amount of time (few seconds) and then they will need to feed.
This characteristic is based on the predator and prey nature model for carnivores, where an animal like a Jaguar can outrun their prey but not for very long.
**Do they have some degree of intelligence?**
The Zombies will not have Intelligence on their own, but the parasite will be connected to a hive mind, like Bees or Ants and they rely on the smell to send and receive messages and to identify other infected beings.
While having a human covered with blood and gore from a zombie will mask the human smell and make them identify the human as one of them, the decay of the parts will kill the parasite and the characteristic odor will diminish making it possible to differentiate the human smell after some time.
An unconfirmed theory seems to point that Zombies having a hive mind, responds to a Queen-type entity with a higher degree of infection capable of some basic thinking on top of the basic predator instinct.
**What other characteristics are important to mention?**
When a Zombie needs the extra energy, they will produce adrenaline as mentioned before, this will cause pupil dilation and with that, they will have an increased light sensitivity and better nocturnal vision.
This makes them very active during the night time or really dark ambient like caves or sewers and very slow reactions during the daytime.
## What is their diet like?
**Zombies eat bloody meat and Brains, but why?**
* They do not convert aliments into energy like regular Humans;
* Due to their unstable state, they need to keep feeding without a break or they will either perish or enter in hibernation
Since they need to keep eating, they will always seek for the meal that acquires the best resources they need the most.
To regain the used chemical elements, their hunger for bloody meat and brains is the fast way to absorb it from another being that is chemically similar to them.
Roughly they see us a powerful electrolyte and blood meal.
**What happens if they do not absorb the chemical elements that they need?**
Missing calcium: The low blood calcium level, aka hypocalcemia, causes muscle irritability. This is the cause of muscle cramps and twitching of your muscles.
Based on it, the characteristic twitching muscles and erratic movement of the zombie can be defined by their super low diet of calcium.
If they fail to acquire the necessary amount of meat, blood, and brains, they will enter a critical state that can put them in hibernation.
## Zombie evolution
Please consider this part of my answer as possible outcomes, none of this has been proved so far.
To answer the main question, now that we have the basics, it is possible to understand how they can evolve:
The parasite will duplicate in a fast rate depending on the ingestion of more organic material, this will cause it to either jump to another host (infection) or add more organic material to the original Zombie.
When they infect another host, the same parasite will occupy more than one host, what is, in fact, a single organism spread in multiple "Zombies". This allows the hive mind to operate.
To add organic material, the parasite needs to have a established control of the host, this means months or years of infection and the degree of infection will raise.
That effect can create a growth on some parts of the host, creating a new category of Zombie.
So far the common type is the "Worker" like in an Ant society. Then some more specialized variations will appear, the "Carriers", the "Soldier" and "Matrons" with some variants.
* Workers will just search for more organic material and hunt for preys (Humans are the preferred meal)
* Carriers are the heavy lifters, they are super strong and can carry very heavy weights, they are powerful, can break strong materials but they are very slow, because of that is common to see the Soldier type protecting their carry activity from other parasite hives.
* Soldiers are fast and strong, some limbs got a shell type cover that they use as weapons, they usually protect the Carriers when they are moving big loads of organic materials for the nurseries.
* A variant version of the Soldiers is called Elite soldiers, they have the duty of protecting the Matrons and the big difference is the body armor made of the same shell cover than the limbs. They are a clear evolution of the infection phase. They also rely on other forms of communication for faster response (some kind of sound frequency).
* Matrons are the ones that produce the organic material that transform the soldiers into Elite Soldiers and Workers in Matrons, they are a big larva-like creature that ingests big quantities of organic material and transforms to smaller and super-concentrate orbs of energy (a human in contact with this product can be infected just by touching it) they are the workers of the nurseries.
* Another possibility is the Queen-type Zombie, that orchestrate the work of all the others and can explain the origin of the Host Zero.
[Answer]
So you have this species of apes forced a long time ago by predators to live underground where there is almost nothing to eat except mushrooms.
These mushroom were not enough to have all the nutrients they needed to function properly and at some point they realized those who were infected with a flesh-eating fungus were more apt than the other ; the flesh-eating fungus supplied them with the nutrient they needed to thrive despite slowly eating them alive.
They started to infect themselves on purpose to satisfy their needs of these specific nutrient. Soon they also discovered they could increase their nutrient intake by eating each other this was not detrimental to their survival since they had a high reproductive rate but kept their population in check
Not so long ago, a new lineage of zombies that respect each other appeared. Accustomed to eat flesh infected by the fungus, they now have to hunt other species to grow the fungus and satisfy their needs.
Since they have a high reproductive rate they need a lot of flesh, and humans are part of the meal.
So I guess they are ape like in their capacities with limited problem solving, stronger and faster than human.
They have a high reproductive rate and an instinctive symbiotic connection with their flesh-eating fungus. When they have consumed enough fungus, they are stronger and more intelligent.
Since they instinctively infect themselves with their fungus, generally the older they get the more decomposed they are, but it also means the fungus is well ingrained in their body and provides them with enough nutrients to function naturally.
TL;DR Apes breeding like rabbits infected with a flesh eating fungus providing an essential nutrient.
[Answer]
* **Is calcium really that crucial to muscle movement?**
Answer: yes, absolutely. You can think of the way muscles work as two workers walking towards each other along a defined path while pulling the walls of the muscle cell together to cause the muscle contraction. The workers in this analogy would be the myosin in the muscle, it wants to bind itself with the pathway (actin), however when at rest the actin is covered by another molecule called tropomyosin. Essentially the myosin worker can't attach to the pathway to cause contraction until tropomyosin is moved.
This is where calcium comes into play for muscle movement, calcium binds to another molecule on the actin pathway called troponin which activates it and pulls aside the tropomyosin allowing the myosin to step forward. The calcium later gets released during relaxation again.
This process in muscles is by no means done individually, there are numerous myosin workers and actin pathways that work simultaneously in each muscle cell and this process of uncovering the pathway and stepping forward is repeated many times for full contraction.
* **How much would they have to eat in order to survive? Take human parameters as a base and consider that they would have to hunt their food**
According to [here](https://www.ucsfhealth.org/education/calcium_content_of_selected_foods/) the average adult needs between 1000-1200 mg of calcium per day. However on further searching it seems 99% of that is actually used for bones and teeth, see [here](https://healthyeating.sfgate.com/role-calcium-bodys-nutrition-1265.html).
* **What alternatives to meat that are bigger on calcium and as abundant as meat are there?**
Dairy and soy would be the best sources typically but as you can see in the first link there are a variety of fruits, vegetables, legumes, grains, nuts and fish that can contain a good amount of calcium as well.
>
> It would actually make more sense for them to go straight for the bones, right?
>
>
>
Unless your zombies develop new enzymes to help digest bone the bio-availability (which is a measure of how much of a nutrient can be digested, not just how much there is in total) of calcium from bone is extremely low, there's a reason bone isn't part of our normal diets. I think it more likely if zombies primarily consume humans that they would get most of their calcium from the contents of our stomach and guts.
[Answer]
>
> They have to be their own species rather than a human turned by a bite;
>
>
>
Very well. *Homo zombus*, commonly called "Zombies," are hominids distinguished by their small snouts and fungal and bacterial growths that cover their skin.
Internally, several organs are smaller than in comparable hominids, as their functions have been taken over by symbiotes.
The fungi, commonly referred to as "Ghoul Dust," are in fact several species of yeast that have formed a symbiotic relationship with *H. zombus.*
>
> You have to explain why their bodies are in decomposition (or why they look like it);
>
>
>
They do not look much like their bodies are in decomposition, but they definitely smell like it. The fungal growths on their body produce putrescine, methane, and other gases emitted by the Ghoul Dust. The Ghoul Dust also produces several toxins. Some of them act as antibiotics that aid the zombies' immune systems, while others are used as poisons for anything that touches a patch of ghoul dust. This includes decomposer insects, who are attracted to the gasses. Healthy Ghoul Dust is sightly sticky, letting it hold onto insects that land on the patches and digest them.
The flattened snout, on first glance, will appear to a human as a nose that has rotted away. The white of Ghoul Dust and the green of photosynthetic bacteria make zombies appear to be rotting at first glance. This, combined with their corpse-like smell, made the first people to discover them think they were walking corpses.
>
> And last but not least, you have to answer my original question: What is their diet like?
>
>
>
They are pursuit predators and scavengers. The scent from their fungi makes stealth impossible, but as hominids they would possess similar features to what made humans effective pursuit predators. Scavenging is a no-brainer; their own microbiome will kill or assimilate anything harmful in the rotten meat.
>
> What is their "set of abilites"? Can they run? Are they guided by smell? How strong are they compared to humans? Do they have some degree of intelligence? You are not obligated to answer these questions specifically, but give me some answers in this line of thinking.
>
>
>
1: Running: Like humans, they are decent at short range, but can keep going far longer than anything else.
2: Smell versus sight: Zombies rely more on smell then sight, as changing fungal/bacterial growths make sight-based identification less likely to develop.
3: Intelligence: Zombies are less intelligent than humans, but more intelligent than apes. They can create simple tools, are social, have theory of mind, but their communications do not have grammar. Zombies cannot develop clothing, as the restriction of airflow plays havoc with their microbiome, with something like athlete's foot being a major disruption, as opposed to the annoyance it is in humans.
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[Question]
[
The multiverse is made up of different realms, each with their own human population. These realms are planet sized, and have their own cultures and traditions. Realm gates exist in each of those realms and connect them to each other. The church of an organized religion control these gates and are the glue that bind these populations together.
Members of this clergy are the only ones who can use these realm gates to traverse the realms. Each realm worships the same deity, but have different perspectives regarding his nature, with some being polytheistic, monotheistic, or others. In realm A, there are multiple gods with the main god at the top ruling over them. In realm B, those multiple deities are simply smaller aspects of the same god. In realm C, god is a single monotheistic deity. And so on. Regardless of how it is represented, this god exists in some form across this multiverse with this church as administers of the faith. This God is unable to interact directly with these realms after creating them due to reasons, and is unable to communicate with these worlds directly. Therefore, this organization is responsible for watching over the realm and protecting it from external threats.
How can a church exist across the multiverse with different perspectives on its god without causing a schism? What's the best way for it to maintain control?
[Answer]
When the multidimensional clergy would accept that each dimensional sub-branch of them has the right to their own theology and when they agree that each branch is on their own when it comes to enforce their dogma, then there would be no reason for them to argue about their theological differences. There is no conflict.
Also, if they have a general policy of non-interference between the branches, then there would also be no reason for them to cooperate. Large organizations exist so they can pool their resources to solve local problems. When one region of a unified religion experiences a spread of heresy, they can ask the central church to divert money and resources from other regions to them until the problem is solved. But when the interdimensional clergy doesn't do that on principle, then there would be no reason for it to exist.
But while the interdimensional clergy couldn't exist as a religious organisations, there could be other reasons to justify its existence:
* Maintain and administrate the gate network
* Actively prevent religious interference between universes (if anyone tries to proselytize in another universe, they put a stop to it)\*
They would have a similar role to the United Nations on Earth. They don't get involved in the internal affairs of their members, but if anyone disturbs the peace, they try to prevent that. Whether your organization is actually effective at this or bound by institutional barriers like the UN on Earth is up to you.
\*this point especially has potential for some interesting stories to tell. If there is a spread of heresy in universe A which seems very similar to the religion of universe B, then the high priest of universe A will ask the interdimensional clergy for assistance. But in order to get that assistance, he needs to provide proof that the heresy was actually caused by interdimensional interference and that they didn't come up with it on their own.
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What you are describing is a form of Omni-Theism. A belief system which supports the importance of belief in a higher power without getting too tied up in the details of what is actually believed. Modern Wicca works that way as do many "Coexist" and "All Attempts To Reach God Work" theologies.
Given any group of religions, the truly devote of each faith have more in common with each other than they do with the less devote, more secular members of their own faith. There can be a unifying force to serving a higher purpose which can foster a friendly rivalry between the ministers of each faith.
There are many campuses around the world which host seminaries for multiple faiths on a single grounds. In these places, coexistence, communications and tolerance is encouraged. The governing body of such a campus could be seen as a single clergy serving the needs of students of many faiths.
Your divergent faiths need some central belief to bring them together; a seed of cooperation, a single belief which they can all share. The existence of a supernatural portal system seems like a good starting point for such belief.
The portals are more proof of transcendence than our "real" world faiths have ever had. If they are identical on all worlds and bear none of the religious markings of any of those world's existing faiths, then they must be a gift from an even higher power, a physical unification device to allow a peaceful and cooperative spiritual unification to take form.
The biggest threats to this unification are fanaticism and dogma. These threats manifest themselves in the form of holy wars and crusades. Why not give your gates a pacifying function to help avoid such unpleasantness? If only one person can pass through a gate at a time and if all blades which pass through with them are dulled, all explosives nullified, all plagues and poisons cured; then it will be exceptionally difficult to conduct a holy war across dimensions.
The gates don't have to just be a means of transportation, they can also be an extremely unsubtle demonstration of the higher power's peaceful plans for the multiverse.
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> How can a church exist across the multiverse with different perspectives on its god without causing a schism? What's the best way for it to maintain control?
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# As described, it's unlikely.
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> In realm C, [G-]d is a single monotheistic deity.
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This part right here is the problem. You can have a vast amount of **[religious pluralism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_pluralism)** and **[syncretism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_syncretism)** *among polytheists*. Some will draw all the clergy under a single wide tent, viewing the myriad gods as facets of the transcendent in the manner of India's **[Dharmic faiths](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_religions)**; others will maintain separate clergies, traditions, liturgies but consider their various storm, fertility, virility, love, spice, toilet, and wombat gods and goddesses interchangeable in the manner of the Roman **'[Greek interpretation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretatio_graeca)'**.
In either case, **[syncretism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_syncretism)** will cause them to share various traits but you'll still get the variety of practice and doctrine that you were looking for.
**[Exclusivist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclusivism) monotheism** and hostile **[ethnic faiths](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_religion)** are precisely who your clergy would be defending *against*, at least from the inside. The heretics to the greatly tolerant are the intolerant who insist upon their own way and refuse to respect and play ball with the rest. Witness the Roman treatment of the Jews (ethnic monotheist partisans of 'Jupiter') or Hindu spats with the Buddhists (whose founder rejected the importance of gods to personal salvation and became a Hindu avatar of deception and Satanic faith-testing for his pains) and Muslims, who permit predecessors of their faith for a fee but have religious injunctions against permitting idolatry.
Thing is, though, intolerant faiths are much more marketable to powerful secular rulers. If they have enough adherents to ride out the civic unrest caused by changing faith, their tenets give such rulers complete permission to exploit their power against weaker neighbors in the name of spreading the One Truth and immortality as a holy men for their troubles. People around the world still praise and remember David, Asoka, Constantine, Charlemagne, Muhammad, Vladimir, & al.
When such faiths are strong, even such notionally pacifist strands as Christianity and (e.g. Japanese & Sri Lankan) Buddhism will feel a divine right to expand; indeed, the clergy will tend to speak of a divine *duty* to expand, to save the souls of the as-yet-unborn children of the heathens and benighted. When such faiths are weak, like the Jews under Rome or the Palestinians under the Jews, they will view their neighbors as illegitimate and resistance as a test of their faith.
# Plausible options include
* Such faiths existing and in uneasy pluralist participation with the rest because we're coming in just after **they've burnt themselves out** on decades to millennia of crusades, jihad, and wars of religion. You'll see 'culture wars' similar to modern America as stalwarts aim to resist tolerance of everyone else's 'decadence' and 'immorality'
* **Such faiths exist as nuisances, terrorists, and wasteland enclaves** (think Utah) but are not part of the interplanetary religious order you're describing. The official faiths might suppress them as a matter of policy or attempt to ignore them in the name of upholding personal conscience... until a certain threshold of insubordination or political power is reached, at which point the gauntlet comes down (think Roman Judea or the entire religious history of China).
* Revealed, exclusivist monotheism as such does not exist or has just begun, but some [**philosophical monotheisms**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monism) on the Socratic or Deist model exist, either as the usual mindset of secular university faculty or as the leaders of separate realms. They would consider their single deity to be identical with existence (or nearly so) and accessible to trained reason; they would consider their polytheist neighbors less refined; but they wouldn't see any need or sense in going to war over the topic.
* **The polytheists are just *right***. (Hey, those gates didn't build themselves and you're talking about their being maintained by clergy, not engineers.) In your universe, there actually *are* divinities or divine emanations and it's unquestionable that they have and provide spiritual power (basically, magic) and the monotheists, if they exist, *don't* or are just on par with some of the more powerful gods. They could even spring from separate vain and upstart gods (basically, Lucifer).
# Regardless,
I'd consider that some major tensions in your societies are going to be how monotheists fit in (if they exist); how the clergy deal with the secular and military powers in their realms; and, if they *are* the secular and military powers in their realms, how they avoid *using* that power in ways self-destructive to the social order.
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One method would be to treat the clergy of different universes as though they were from separate orders. A real-world example of this would be the various orders of the Catholic church. A Benedictine monk will have slightly different rituals and practices from a Fransiscan, but they are still considered to be members of the same religion. Your multiverse has more differences within the religion; however, this approach may still work. The Order of Universe A will have similar-but-different beliefs from those of the Order of Universe B, but they will be able to work together.
In terms of the different interpretations, it seems that the most important thing is that all the Orders believe that they are part of the same religion. If the clergy of one universe adamantly believe that their's is the one true faith then they will not be able to cooperate (unless they take a mercenary viewpoint and only cooperate because it gives them power). If all the clergy believe that the different universes are differently-correct then cooperation will be more possible. This raises an extremely important question: are you sure that every single universe is following the same religion? Is there a universe where the clergy refuse to believe the other universes follow the same faith? This could be a different issue to explore in your story.
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We have a regular Earth as we know it, but instead of humans, there is this worm-like race, intelligent similarly as nowadays humans.
Their inner physiology is different from our worms (and not important for the question) but from outside they're the same as worms [as we know them](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumbricus_terrestris) here on earth, but bigger (average length circa [150 centimetres](https://www.google.cz/search?ei=cfwDW_KSMs2RmwWl-4GgBw&q=150+centimetres+to+inches&oq=150+centimetres+to+inches&gs_l=psy-ab.3...19021.19399.0.19734.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..0.0.0....0.DIcMDesIuJo)).
That means no arms, no legs etc.
The question I really **have** is what machines **would** they built, but that is too broad and probably also opinion based.
**So the question I REALLY ASK is if this race COULD build the same machines we currently have (in similar time) and especially I am thinking about COMPUTERS.**
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If they are smart (worms on earth don't really need much brain power) they might build advanced [water based computers](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/44691/water-based-computer) using only tunnels and values, which probably is within the scope of worms. Further if they can use [conductors](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/worms-use-of-copper-could/) they could possibly create electronics. These might be helpful in coordinating [geo-engineering](https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10530-017-1642-7.pdf) projects.
With patience and coordination groups of worms might be able to shape and manipulate [things](http://mygarden.rhs.org.uk/blogs/miranda_hodgson/archive/2014/04/22/worms-have-been-moving-stones-in-the-garden.aspx) which is all you really need to start working on the long chain of making complicated tools.
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It seems that technology is developed because a species uses tools and can develop more complex tools. I've never heard of e.g. a snake using something as a tool (e.g. a stick).
In principle I suppose an intelligent species of snake- or worm-like creatures could have enough flexibility to grip objects and manipulate them, which is just about enough for basic tool use. From there, again, in principle, they could build better tools with the tools they have. As the late Douglas Adams would have said, humans are basically apes who figured out how to hit rocks together.
Two issues arise. 150 cm is small for a body that needs a brain large and complex enough to develop intelligence. I'd suggest larger is better. Also the question of communications as it does seem that developing the ability to communicate in a language (can be signed, movement based, color, anything) is required to develop sentience. Your species requires a need for social grouping to have a purpose for communication and develop a concept of shared effort and resources.
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Given the above they could develop computers (which is essentially down to having the idea and being able to build tools to do it), but they'd have a harder time as manipulating tools without something equivalent to hands (multiple appendages) is going to be more difficult. I'd suggest they "evolve" some kind of additional appendages (e.g. small tentacles).
Using any complex device without additional appendages would be very limiting. What would be the equivalent of a typewriter keyboard or a mouse for a race with only their body to manipulate things ?
Additional appendages are going to be needed.
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**Yes.**
Building complex machines-- or even simple machines, really-- takes not only intelligence, but the physical capacity to assemble them. However, this may not be as big of a problem as it seems at first. Humans with no functioning arms or legs can do a surprising number of tasks (Stephen Hawking could move and write books, comedians like Nick Vujicic give speeches, some can even drive cars). Of course, that's with the assistance of machines that were built by lots of other people's fingers and thumbs, but it can be done.
The way I see it, an intelligent worm would have two ways of manipulating objects: by mouth and by tail, assuming their tail is prehensile. (Even if it wasn't always, it likely would have evolved to be.) With these, several worms working together could assemble some fairly complex gadgets, which could then be used to assemble even more complex gadgets, and so on. By themselves, worms would *not* have the fine motor skills to assemble a computer-- but then again, if we're talking about today's computers, neither do we. The components of a modern motherboard are much too small for human hands, and are built by machines. It may take your worms a lot longer to reach that point, but I think it's conceivable that eventually they could.
So what would worm tools look like? **Tail-attachments and mouth assemblies.**
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The main problem I see is that one of the reasons (not the only one, of course) we evolved so much was our opposable thumbs that made easier for us to grab things and develop tools. With giant worms, you need to be highly creative to think how did/do they use/create those tools. Some ideas:
Maybe their mouths are really useful and act like our hands.
Or they can manipulate threads... and get really good at playing with the yoyo.
Once the basic tools are created, I'm sure they could develope something similar to a computer with the time.
We started developing faster and faster when we created methods to preserve our findings and accumulate knowledge (history started with writting for a reason). Another thing that seems important in our evolution is that we live "long" lifes and get the chance to pass our knowledge to the future generations. Some scientists have theorized that octupuses could be as developed as us if their lifes were longer (their tentacles are really useful and they are highly intelligent).
Conclusion: really difficult but I wouldn't say imposible.
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If they can figure out how to make a screw driver, they can probably get the rest of the way to a computer. Perhaps they can hold one thing in their mouth and another in their anus. Instead of chairs, they could wrap themselves around a cleat to gain purchase.
Humans are arguably intelligent and definitely worm-like - and we managed.
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If they *can* build a given machine, as in have the resources for it, ***and*** they have a use for it, it makes some part of their lives easier or makes possible useful processes not previously available then they will. A single worm has a suction grip called a mouth and can use it's body, when partly buried, as a very strong anchour to support effort, what they don't have is much body rigidity, this limits the relative weights they can move without mechanical assistance in the form of levers and/or ramps. So really the question is what technologies and machines does a worm have use for? And the answer is; sod all. There just aren't many things that can make a worm's life any easier, cutting tools to help break down organic matter for food, something in a shovel arrangement for boring tunnels quicker and easier. That's about it and those can be made in stone and there's no reason to make them in anything else.
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**None.** The only reason we have tools of any kind is because we have opposable thumbs.
If you can't grab a rock or a stick you never use it and never wonder how to make usage of it better. Stronger, faster.
If you don't have the technology you invent it.
And because they wouldn't have need for tools (or even idea of tool) they would not create any technology. In the end computers were made only to throw rock at longer distance with better accuracy. and why would you need to throw anything if you get all your nutrients from munching on soil?
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**This question already has answers here**:
[Probable criteria for Ramming to become popularized for Space Combat](/questions/45641/probable-criteria-for-ramming-to-become-popularized-for-space-combat)
(21 answers)
Closed 5 years ago.
This is a fairly simple question, and the heading is pretty self explanatory, but I have a feeling there are a lot of implications to it that I haven't thought of. To be more specific, would it be possible to have warships in space that did NOT use the traditional lasers/missiles/projectiles usually depicted in space combat, but instead rammed each other, in the classic greco-roman trireme style? If so, how, and what would be needed to pull this off from a technological/structural standpoint? If not, why?
Once again, I'm essentially envisioning spaceships with the ability to ram each other (instead of shooting each other), thus destroying enemy ships, either by loss of air, severe structural damage, or both.
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The reason why people developed ramming as naval battle technique is pretty simple: there was nothing better at the time, and waiting for archers or sling shooters to be in range and kill the enemy crew would have turned the battles into a boring spreading of arrows and stones into the sea.
Now, I have a hard time imagining a civilization being able to build space ship but nothing better than bows and arrows or slingshots as weapons.
Also, considering that space navigation is bound to orbital mechanics, I see it pretty hard to set up a collision course.
Moreover, ramming can be pretty dangerous for the hitter, too. And space allows no room for failures. Better off giving an unmanned object the task of damaging the target.
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**Space is big!** So the closer your world observes ours the more your answer becomes *no*. Basically the problem is that missile in space generally do not need explosives in them. The kinetic impact is enough. The lack of drag gives any missile a huge advantage over ships namely the have a lots of room to accelerate (because engagement distance's are large) and unless everybody was in the exact same orbit the relative velocity will just exponentially make the impact bigger. And also missiles are by definition smaller than the ships they're fired from and there is just no dodging a guided missile. And is simple a question if your counter measures are better then theirs. So long range fight will be the norm in most relativistic space sages. They spot a dot on the radar, so they fire missiles; They observe fast moving stuff being fired back and they will probably deploy some decoys. A few hours later there might be confirmation on a hit or miss.
**Space bubbles** is one way your setting can solve this issue of space being big. Make everyone travel faster than light in a smaller subspace.
Traveling in such a subspace might require a ship to make a bubble of real-space inside this subspace, everything outside said bubble's boundary gets disintegrated.
So shooting projectiles and missiles will simply be impossible unless they have their own bubble generator.
Perhaps ramming the front of your bubble in the side of the enemies will weaken their's more than yours, perhaps forcing them back into real space. Whilst your ship can then drop a nuke 500 meters from their point of entry into real space.
So other options would be.
* Colliding warp bubbles will merge into one big one. Therefore you just suddenly appear 50 meters away from their port side with some initial ramming velocity.
* Both ship appear in real space with relative speed intact so yeah the ships will collide just not at mutual disintegration speed.
I would imagine if a observer in real space would observe a battle in sub-space as follows.
First contact would be the galleys when they ram each other head on and both appear in real space only 10 meter apart. After the collisions, smaller corvettes might phase-in and out into real space near those galleys to try and do hit-and.runs. Of course for fear of friendly fire no nukes are used. The galleys will try get clear of each other to phase back into subspace. Leaving possible nukes and mines behind. Or go for a old fashioned boarding.
Ship of lines might take another approach the could try and extent their bubble and make it larger. When the bubbles collide the ship will fire a salvo of kinetic weapons then accelerate passed the other ship and phase back into subspace in a attempt to dodge counter fire.
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As I see it, the main problem with ramming another ship is that both ships would have to slow down enough to allow one of them to ram. The reasons for this are two-fold.
First, it's extremely difficult to ram another ship that is just in a stable orbit going at orbital speeds. This is due to orbital mechanics being extremely complex and spaceships being very small compared to space.
Second, if both ships were going at orbital speeds, then one of them hitting the other would destroy both. Not a good outcome for either of the crews. :(
And when I'm talking orbital speeds, I mean everything from Earth orbit, to the various solar orbits needed to get from planet to planet.
To help in imagining the damage a ramming space ship can do to itself and the other ship, just look at the accident reports on an interstate highway during icy conditions. Often times both cars involved in a collision are totaled, along with the people inside them.
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In the year 2340 on the planet Ionia, a small colony of about 20,000 people was founded. They were camped out near a small lake between two canyons. The colonist all came from advanced planets like Earth and Andon, and their colony was equally advanced.
They had fusion generators and cloning technology, hydroponic farms, and even had a small zoo with animals like horses, tigers and apes. They lived normal lives until something knocked their civilization back to the Stone Age.
My question is, what scenario could cause that?
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This will sound facetious. Sorry about that, but it is intended to be logic and fulfill the conditions for this scenario as set out in the question.
The entire twenty thousand colonists, partly because they live near one another, decide to go on a picnic to celebrate the anniversary of their arrival on the colony planet. After the picnic they return home only to find the robots have locked them out. Without the necessary tools and equipment they cannot get back inside the colony's buildings.
The colonists are now forced to survive without tools, machinery, and access to their advanced knowledge. They have to survive in the most basic way. Since they never recover their technology nor return to their colony's infrastructure they must live lives similar to Palaeolithic humans. They naturally survive about the population of the colony has been reduced to a Stone Age existence. And so on, for succeeding generations.
Sadly things don't well for the robots. Without humans to supervise their maintenance the robots progressively malfunction and break down. Perishing inside the confines of the colony's built environment. While outside the plucky humans adapt, survive and flourish in adopting their ancient way of life.
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There are 2 things needed to revert a civilization back to the stone age, loss of equipment and loss of knowledge.
**Loss of equipment:**
An EMP won't be enough as mechanical devices are unaffected by it (water wheel, gun, old non electronic car engines) so it has to be something that actually destroy all of the equipment around all the civilization, chances for that happening naturally without it also killing everyone is slim to non so most likely it was planned somehow, could be a religious as the colony was overtaken by a cult convinced that all off world tech is evil or could be just a mad scientist created a gray goo nanobot to eat everything man made.
**Loss of knowledge**
Even if you all of your colonists woke up in the morning to find out all their stuff is gone (don't ask me how their bed vanished without them waking up) they are colonists, they must be used to hardship and have tech knowledge enough to build some tools from what's available in the woods, I'm positive that out of 20,000 at least one person knows some bushcraft which already puts him ahead of anything that can be considered as stone age, I've seen bushcraft buildings being created within a couple of weeks that included rain collectors and fireplaces (with chimneys) made without any real tools and only from materials gathered, that means that people knowladge also has to go, either you mind wipe them to forget everything (and I mean everything, if even one person remember a book he read in the past then he remembers what writing is which is already ahead of stone age and can be simply replicated with a pointy stick on a piece of wood) or you kill off everyone with any form of knowledge leaving only the babies around to start from scratch, you will have to find some way to care for them without them learning anything more advanced then stone age tech in the process so maybe AI robots designed to look like caveman that are also programed to hide the fact they are robots from the babies until they grow to a point where they can take care of themselves at which point the robot goes to "hunt" and never return?
Bottom line is there is no realistic way of having an advanced society return to be stone age without the society (and I mean everyone in that society) choosing to revet to that stage, we simply learned too much since then and even a tiny bit of that knowledge remaining will put us ahead of stone age tech.
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**Adults are gone.**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/RXT1b.jpg)
If the only survivors are preliterate kids, they could grow up in the ruins of their civilization. On a hospitable world (like the island in Lord of the Flies) they might not die of disease or the elements. But they would not be able to recreate the technology which slowly crumbled around them and it is very plausible they might not learn to read.
This would especially be true if the kids were refugees of some sort - again a Lord of the Flies scenario. The kids are away at camp and while they are gone their colony is nuked. The camp kids are the sole survivors of their civilization. Commenters (you know who you are!) please do not point out that there would be a counselor with those kids - yes there would, but she ate a bad taco and died before she could teach them to read.
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I am trying to write a TV series based on the ""virus kill all adults" popular premise.
The difference is that it should be very realistic and based on research in biology, sociology etc.
The second thing- the plot location is in the border between Israel an Gaza dealing with the Arab -Israeli conflict.
In this apocalyptic situation would the two societies of children still conflict ?
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## It could go either way, but I'd lean towards cooperation.
I saw a documentary a few years back (which I unfortunately can't find at the moment) about a group of Israeli and Palestinian kids who were brought together for a while. As best I remember it, the kids entered with the prejudices they inherited from their parents, but upon meeting each other they abandoned them pretty quickly and became friends.
I don't remember if any of the kids had been directly impacted by the conflict. I also don't remember the ages of the kids.
What I understood from that was that the hatred and prejudice that fuel the conflict are taught to the youth at a very young age. But at the same time they are more flexible and will more quickly forget their differences than adults would in the right circumstances. And external threats are excellent at uniting people.
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**superstition supplants science**
Imagine if there was nobody around to teach a kid that there isn't a monster under their bed. Instead of mom or dad demonstrating that there is no such thing as monsters and providing a sense of security and control to soothe the child and allow them to develop past the fear and paranoia there is nobody there except other kids who also believe there is a monster under the bed. The monster eventually comes to be an evil spirit responsible for taking children away in the dead of night that must be appeased with regular and brutal sacrifice. They come to earnestly believe that the world is filled with spirits and monsters and demons, and honestly and fully believe that only the crude totems they wear and odd rituals they perform are all that stand between them and the ravenous darkness.
**"Societies" Become Highly Tribal**
People like to say that humans are a herd animal, but that's not quite right, humans are in point of fact a *tribal* animal. criminal Gangs, sports fans, political groups, friend cliques, these are all just expressions of human's instinct to gather together around something in common and enshrine it within a system of totems and rituals. Think sports fandom redone a bit more simply "The clan of Sea-hawks of Seattle are to be in combat with the tribe of the Broncos of Denver, let us consume alcohol and begin the chants of victory as our chosen champions do battle!" Ditto for your orphaned young-un's. They will not be a society or civilization as we know it, but rather a chiefdom of primitive living tribes probably loosely organised around a constantly changing power structure of competing strong-men and warlords who hold power only for as long s they can defend it or provide prosperity. Think if your society was governed by a king of the hill game. Chiefdom's are not quite kingdoms, they are too small and tend to only be bit bigger than how far a strong-man and his warriors can walk in a few days containing only a few thousand individuals at best.
**It Remain's Primitive For Quite Some Time**
All of this wonderful technology exists because we have a lot of resources and free time. I don't have to build my own house, fashion weapons to defend it, grow or hunt all of my own food, etc etc so I am able to specialize in a task that does not concern food, water, shelter or security. When society is taken back to where these 4 basic human necessities are the primary concern of day to day life it tends to create a scenario where you are so busy being concerned with ensuring day to day existence that you cannot stop and ponder anything but those necessities. Finding or growing food and not getting attacked by somebody else equally hungry whilst trying to build literally every tool you need will be what the majority of everybody's time is spent on. This will ensure that technological or social progress is stunted fairly significantly. Your children survivors and their descendants will basically have to rebuild human progress starting from the iron age or possibly even further regressed.
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How would a horizon inside of a ring or a toroid look like?
As if a planet's surface was concave, instead of convex, how far away would the horizon appear? Im trying to get a handle on what the inside of a ring, or a toroid would look like.
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How far the horizon appears does not depend solely on the shape of the planet you are on. It also depends on its size. If you are also considering shapes that are not spherical nor spheroids, then the actual shape also matters.
For a ring world, there is a question about the visibility among inner points of the ring. It also applies to a hollow world:
[Visibility in a ringworld atmosphere?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/45087/21222)
For a toroidal world, the distance to the horizon would be pretty much like that on Earth... Just consider the radius of the cross-section of the ring to be like the radius of a planet, and then calculate accordingly. The usual formula is, [according to Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizon#Geometrical_model):
$$d = (2Rh + h^2)^{\frac{1}{2}}$$
Where `d` is the distance to the horizon, `R` is the planet (or torus cross-section) radius and `h` is the height of the observer above the [mean altitude](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level#Dry_land), which happens to be sea level on Earth. For other planets, specially dry ones, consider this (taken from the link):
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> On other planets that lack a liquid ocean, planetologists can calculate a "mean altitude" by averaging the heights of all points on the surface. This altitude, sometimes referred to as a "sea level", serves equivalently as a reference for the height of planetary features.
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I don't horizon is applicable. If you are on the inside (concave surface) then either you can see the entire interior for small structures, or your visual distances limited by the transparency of the atmosphere.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/0BaHD.jpg)
Niven's Ringworld had a thin atmosphere, which allowed you to see the rest of the ring once you were far enough away. The illustration isn't right, as you wouldn't be able to see the start of the curve.
Locally you would see just the surface vanishing into the haze, then "The Arch of Heaven going from one side of the sky to the other.
Ringworld had thousand mile high mountains on either edge. Once you were far enough from the rim that the slant path through the bottom half of the atmosphere (18,000 feet on earth) was more than about 50 miles, the mountains would be invisible. Call it somewhere between 100 and 300 miles depending on the transparency.
This does NOT address a torus. This is the inside of a ring.
If you were on the inside of a torus you have a different set of circumstances:
* If the torus is spun for gravity then there is a ceiling horizon. This will block vision of the floor further ahead. Note that in this illustration, you can see some of the distant view through the myriad windows on the 'ceiling'
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/s26oC.jpg)
If it's not spun, then the you can stand on the inner surface of the 'donut hole' In this case you would have a conventional horizon dipping down in two directions, and side walls on the other two directions.
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Could a small isolated island without trees yield alternative resources that enable Polynesian-level seafaring technology?
The island of [Rapa Nui](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Island) (known as Easter Island in English) had an overpopulation problem. They also didn’t have any pigs, so a major source of food was deep sea fishing. So, when they ran out of trees they lost the ability to build fishing boats and lost access to the tuna and dolphin prey. This greatly amplified their resource problem.
Supposing they had gotten a handle on their *social* problems, controlled the population size and worked together. Alas, this new social order emerged from the crisis, so all the trees were gone before they got their act together. Into this culture was born a genius, capable of design and innovation.
How could they have regained access to seafaring technology? First of all, what alternative construction could be used to build boats? Before the existing boats wore out, they could be used to bootstrap the replacement resource usage. And more generally, what marine-based resources *could have* been used to supplant their technology and replace the traditional Polynesian methods?
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Note that the island is [*so* isolated](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Island#Geography) that any expiditions to even *rediscover* other lands would require rebuilding the height of their technology first, and decades to acheive.
They must get what they need from the remaining life on the island, the paultry off-shore resources, and the deep sea.
[Answer]
Boats can be constructed using leather or skin stretched over a frame constructed of (drift)wood, bone or other materials (metal, for example). The Aleuts lived in a situation similar to or worse than the one you describe and were successful sea-farers (see [Aleutian Kayak](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleutian_kayak)).
[Answer]
I think the most likely answer would take the form of the [reed boat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed_boat) similar to the ones used in Egypt for a time and by just a new design to make sturdier hulls by changing up weaving process. Of course this could also be done with different types of grass or maybe even crops grown and selected for that purpose.
[Answer]
Boats are either built using wood or metal, at least for their chassis/frame.
If we rule out wood, since the island lacks trees, we are bound to use metal. But smelting and forging metal requires heat, which in turn requires wood or coal.
However, since the buoyancy is given by the volume of displaced water, they could have figured out a way of optimizing the wood usage, like building a frame with wood and use some other material to shape the shell. In this way with the same amount of chopped trees more boats could be built. If this was done before they chopped off the last tree, it could have helped them in better managing the local resources.
Another option could have been importing bamboo like plants, which could have been used to build ships like the Egiptians did (they also had no trees in the desert, but managed to navigate).
[Answer]
An alternate technology path for boat building that comes to my mind is the use of ceramic materials.
Limestone should be readily available on your island either as geological deposits or by directly harvesting coral. Using limestone or other mineral sources it shouldn't be to hard to construct a binder material to make a form of concrete. Limestone does have to be heated to make Portland cement, and lacking trees for fire this might present some difficulty, luckily most islands in the pacific, including Rapa Nui, are volcanic providing a potential supply of heat for baking lime.
Additionally the volcanic island contains very porous [pumice](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumice) deposits. Pumice rocks will in fact float on water possibly leading your innovator genius to develop them for boat building. When used as an aggregate in concrete, pumice makes the finished product much less dense, helpful when constructing a boat.
Since concretes rediscovery and refinement in the 1800s it has actually been used many time as a cheap material to construct barges and ships, specifically during World War 2, when faced with resource restrictions.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete_ship>
The larger concrete boats have been built using steel reinforcing which is not likely to be readily available on your lone island, but the American Society of Civil Engineers hosts a yearly college contest to build concrete canoes with minimal to no steel reinforcing material, proving that it is at least a possible technology path to pursue.
<http://www.asce.org/event/2017/concrete-canoe/>
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/n0TiR.jpg)
[Answer]
# discovery of stone boats
From the [Wikipedia section on geology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Island#Geology): (emphasis mine)
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> [A]ll of the great images of Easter Island are carved from the **light and porous tuff** from Rano Raraku. … The Puna Pau crater contains an **extremely porous pumice**, from which was carved the Pukao "hats".
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Presumably hats were not invented for the statues — people made regular hats for themselves, perhaps as sunshades. They will have noticed that an upside-down hat is like a bowl, our genius realizes the similarity in a concave shape with the dugout canoe.
They would also know, from living there and having lots of rock fragments from the quary industry, that some kinds of rock floats.
So, the stone hat becomes a prototype for a stone boat. The rock is not “closed cell” foam and becomes waterlogged after a while. So they would need to coat the surface or make a skin boat over a stone frame. The latter proves fruitful as they no longer need a solid bowl but meerly a frame.
The return of deep-sea fishing brings the resource of animal skins that they use in more advanced designs. Early fat/mud coatings helped them bootstrap the industry, at least supplimenting the remaining wood boats and taking on seconary roles thus freeing the old boats for deep hunting.
# sea farming
There is no reef system, so not much life in the shallows. They did have *some* shellfish though.
Why not farm the sedentary shellfish? Modern farmers use dangling lines from a floating platform. If they figured out something like this, they could position them for prime feeding, move them in during bad weather, keep other animqls from preying on them … in fact, attracting other wildlife will become another resource rather than a pest! They are in fact starting an artificial reef! The open fields of shells are *bait* for the fisherman.
## leads to calcium
Now this influx of shellfish has a second effect: *shells*. There’s no limestone or coral on the island, but shells can serve as the basis for making [quicklime](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_oxide).
Having this cement will be useful in their technology and industry. But, it’s not waterproof. The Romans made concrete by discovering volcanic minerals including fly-ash. This is a volcanic island… without digging into the actual composition myself, let’s presume they could find something that, ground up and mixed with the shell, produced a somewhat-useful water-resistent cement upon cooking.
## leads to iron?
The idea of cooking rocks leads to the discovery that their island is a rich source of iron ore.
The problem is, they need **energy**. Without coal, and without trees to make charcoal, their knowledge will exceed their industry at this point.
# dirt farming
The nearby islets covered with birds and lush growth — unlike their ruined land — might lead them to discover guano as a source of nitrogen fertilizer. The idea of *farming* is already established, so they encourage the plants they want, tending them and getting yields greater than the wild.
By this point, they know they want resources for other technological uses, rather than just direct personal consumption. So they grow crops for feeding animals, for use as fuel and building material, etc.
[Answer]
**Well there was one tree left on Easter island.**
A single native large tree did survive on Easter island it was however so hard to get to no had succeeded until modern equipment became available. Thor Heyerdahl collected seeds from the last remaining *toromiro*. A group of islanders could make a great endeavor to reclaims seeds from the one tree left on the island. There is one tree that was left on the island it is on the far side of a volcano on a tall rocky spire, that would have killed most of the people trying to get to it.
from that they would need a very strict form of tree farming and lumber control laws like the Japanese had. Of course they would also need to wipe out the invasive rats on the island, which are what [prevented new seedlings](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440309003732) in the first place and were a major contributing factor in the deforestation.
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[Question]
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I've done a question about [Aerial battle of knights riding flying creatures... How would they fight?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/79065/aerial-battle-of-knights-riding-flying-creatures-how-would-they-fight), that was put [on hold] for being too broad. So I'm splitting the question into a series.
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The context: In my world, we have two cities, each on a high mountaintop, separated by a vast valley. In order to wage war, the warriors of each city bridge the huge gap between them by using flying creatures.
Now, these flying creatures are of various natures... Some are dragon-like pterodactyls, others are giant eagles. But each one can carry only one warrior and his gear. The warriors saddle and mount the beasts like they would do with horses.
Their technology is on the medieval level.
[I have asked on a separate question what the best weapons would be](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/79255/aerial-battle-of-knights-riding-flying-creatures-preferred-weapons-for-the-war), and I've arrived at these conclusions:
1. "Long" range: Composite Shortbows and Crossbows (namely a kind of the chinese repeating crossbow)
2. Medium range: Grappling Hooks, Kusarigamas, Bolas
3. Short range: Whips, light Spears, Scythes, Naginatas; At this range we could also use the claws and tallons of the flying creatures themselves.
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Now, since these battles never existed in real life, I'm a little overwhelmed at how these battles play out. On the one hand, I'm inclined to base myself on real medieval calvary battles, since we're dealing with knights riding living creatures. On the other hand, the specifics of these creatures make me feel tempted to base myself on real aerial WW2 battles to know how they would move in battle and keep formations.
So, my new question is this:
**Given the above, how would the military formations be while on air? How would the warrior better position themselves in order to maximize their offensive potential? And what manoeuvres could they do to evade attacks?**
*Note: I would like these series to focus on the warriors, not the creatures. I'm not interested on the feasibility or the anatomy of the flying creatures, just about the feasibility of each combat mode*
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PS: Links to the other questions for this series:
1. [Aerial battle of knights riding flying creatures - preferred weapons for the warriors](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/79255/aerial-battle-of-knights-riding-flying-creatures-preferred-weapons-for-the-war)
2. [How can a city protect itself from the invasion from knights flying riding creatures?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/79481/how-can-a-city-protect-itself-from-the-invasion-from-knights-flying-riding-creat)
[Answer]
**En-route** to the battle, formations would likely mimic that of birds (or the natural formation of the species): the classic V. It helps to minimize air resistance and means your mounts are less weary entering into battle (on that note, there might be refueling/rest encampments within the valley, similar to carrier ships employed in WWII)
The **actual** **battles** themselves partially depends on how long these methods have been in use. Tactics evolve over time, especially in response to enemy tactics. Example: the US civil war, British regulars were accustomed to walking up to the battle field in rows (firing over comrade's shoulders and dropping back to reload) however the vastly outnumbered colonists took to more guerrilla warfare in response.
It seems likely that **initial battles** would be very straight-forward "charge'em boys!" tactics, potentially similar to jousting (if they had a cultural predecessor and little experience with mounted projectile launching), or highly disordered attempts to pick off enemies at-range (which is probably more likely if they live on mountain tops).
Over time **tactics would evolve** (and mounted pairs would have time to drill and develop maneuvers) probably similar to [aerial dogfighting tactics](http://start-end-with.blogspot.com/2011/12/dogfight-maneuvers-with-illustrations.html). HOWEVER, it might pay off to factor in the **biology** of the mounts themselves, pterodactyls and other dino-based flyers tend to be more glidey in their flight patterns, similar to modern planes, but birds on the other hand (hawks especially) are better at pin-point turns, and this will effect how they fly and attack. The mounts could also flip upside down (claws skyward/rider downward) although they may rapidly loose altitude. A lot of this is due to the way the joints/[wings](http://www.acsedu.co.uk/Info/Environment/Environmental-Science/Bird-Wings.aspx) are structured, which has a lot to do with where the creature lives and what they eat.
and here's **videos** of a [hawk getting mobbed by crows](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zqnen3aToK8) and a [hawk hunting a pigeon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXxX-vtYErw).
[Answer]
Look at WWII fighter combat.
Most of the factors that affected aircraft will affect flying creatures.
* It is easier to lose altitude than to gain it so the high position
will be sought.
* It is easier to fire in front of you (where you are presumably
looking) than behind you. So, you will still want a "wing man" to
discourage people from hanging on your tail.
* It is easier to keep an eye on your companions and to concentrate
force of you can see everyone so horizontal formations are still
likely.
* It is easier to surround an individual than a group. So, formations
are still a good idea.
The main difference is that it will be advantageous to pass under your opponent instead of over them since a bow can shoot upward. While the distance is vastly reduced, it would be nice to get free shots while your opponent's ride is blocking their return fire. Of course, if their ride can dive down and rip you out of your saddle, it is a bit of a risky maneuver.
[Edit: for clarity]
My general assumption is that any mount big enough to have a distinct advantage in a melee engagement is too slow and unmaneuverable to catch the smaller opponent.
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[Question]
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I'm trying to think about the anatomy of a snake-like creature that would be maybe 2 or 3 times as long as a blue whale. I would also like for it to be able to lift its head and neck above the water. How can I not have its bones break from the pressure? And how would I solve the problem for blood flow? Basically how would it survive?
[Answer]
You'll want to look at the sub-family of [Hydrophaniiae](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrophiinae) and the biological changes made in order for a snake to be underwater. Most of these are highly venomous, with paddle-like tails, and surprisingly, they still breathe air. What they don't have is extreme size.
Snakes are reptiles. You'll notice that reptiles generally get big in places that don't get really cold, and they stay small in places that do. Water causes heat loss, so they would have to stick to fairly shallow water which was pretty well heated. Snakes of great size in water? Past 10 feet? It doesn't work because of their inability to retain heat. UNLESS--you wanted something that just *looked* like a snake, but wasn't actually the real deal. So **maybe not a reptile**--something closer to an eel.
The size you want is extreme. Nothing in the fossil records regarding this comes close. On land, the longest snakes, even in fossil records, go about 40-50 feet, and right now nothing on earth that's a snake is that long. A blue whale is like, what 80 feet? So you're talking about 250 feet, give or take for your monster. That's 5 times the largest snake on record.
Again, maybe you want to modify something else and make it snake-like, rather than sticking to the reptile model.
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If the thing breathes, it's going to have to do so anyway. Whales, for example, do come to the surface, and their bones don't break, so it would definitely be possible. I have a feeling though, when you say you want it lift its head and "neck" (snakes don't actually have a defined "neck" they seem to be all neck) above the water, that you may mean in some kind of attack posture. That would be more difficult logistically, although I do think you might want to look at [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awKf-WfCd58)s on YouTube of snakes swimming on top of the water. They do hold their heads up a bit and their body is laid out just under the surface of the water.
As far as pressure is concerned, under the water, actual sea snakes, the smaller ones, have been known to dive as deep as 300 ft.
Here's an except from the wiki on them, and by golly this seems like 27 times scarier than one giant snake:
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> Sea snakes have been sighted in huge numbers. For example, in 1932, a steamer in the Strait of Malacca, off the coast of Malaysia, reported sighting "millions" of Astrotia stokesii, a relative of Pelamis; these reportedly formed a line of snakes 3 m (9.8 ft) wide and 100 km (62 mi) long.[27] The cause of this phenomenon is unknown, although it likely has to do with reproduction.[2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awKf-WfCd58) They can sometimes be seen swimming in schools of several dozen, and many dead specimens have been found on beaches after typhoons.[7]
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The size you're talking about though, it's just far too massive without getting magic and hand waving involved. as long as it's consistent in your world it should be possible, but as far as science is concerned, a 250 foot long water snake is just too long.
You can solve the heat problem by putting them near thermal vents, but they will be eating SO MUCH at that size that you really have to build a whole eco-system around it. A blue whale can eat up to 7,900 lbs in a day. I might use them as a baseline, because while they are shorter than your snakes, they are rounder. Your snakes are going to need a plentiful food source. Unlike a blue whale, they can't count on krill.
I would actually look at Killer Whales as your model for food intake per day, if you are going with NOT making them a reptile. You'll first have to determine how much your snakes weigh (precisely! and exactly how long they are). Killer Whales are about 25 feet or so, and they can weigh between 3-4 tons, (the largest come in at more like 32 feet, and 6 tons)
Let's take a quick look at [Titanoboa](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-titanoboa-the-40-foot-long-snake-was-found-115791429/), though. It's terrestrial, and was likely somewhere between 40-50 feet long. It could weigh more than a ton. That's 2,000 pounds.
That's about as much as a largest saltwater croc. If you want to keep them cold-blooded, you can build them like crocs.
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> Growth rates of crocodilians are rapid during the first few months of life and require feeding at least 6-7 times a week (Whitaker and Andrews 1998). Once individuals reach sub-adult size they only need to consume 8-10% of their body weight a week (Whitaker and Andrews 1998). However, size, body condition, species, age, sexual maturity, breeding condition, and season can all influence individual requirements. [SOURCE](http://www.zutrition.com/crocodile-nutrition-guide/)
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Do look into the environment of this giant snake. It was warmer--there were lots of other giant things to snack on.
[Answer]
There were some enormous reptiles in the seas in their time. Not snakes that we know of, but certainly reptiles approaching the mass of your snakes. There are several problems your snake faces, but they don't seem impossible.
**Cold** The best way to solve this is by having a layer of fat between the body of the snake and the skin. Large mass is better for heat retention. So fairly chunky snakes would be best, not long skinny ones. If you want them to be able to spend at least some time on land then you wouldn't have your normal flattened sea snake (better for swimming), but a more rounded one and there are a few species like this. Add to this the ability to generate some heat from the internal organs like giant reptiles are thought to have and the cold problem is solved or even the ability to retain heat that Tuna today have. The constant swimming itself would generate some heat energy. But there's all sorts of ways the animal could get the heat and I see no reason it couldn't get all it needs from the sun.
**Movement** This is solved by having a flat tail like sea snakes today. I don't see a problem with your snake lifting it's head, so I won't discuss it.
**Food** They don't eat anywhere near the amount mammals need, because they don't have to fuel mammalian processes like generating heat internally. Large snakes may eat once a week or once in several weeks. Your mega snake might only eat once a month or once in several months. So as long as there is some sort of prey for them, they have plenty of time to catch it.
**Bouyancy and breathing** Sea snakes have huge lungs which extend throughout most of their bodies. In addition they can respire about 20% of their oxygen needs through their upper skin despite having scales. Sea snakes have different sorts of scales than land snakes anyway. They don't overlap because they don't need to.
All in all it should be possible to have snakes that size just by scaling up a sea snake with a bit of imagination, some artistic licence and something for it to eat.
[Answer]
Does it have to be a snake? Can it be a whale? I have been struck before by how elongated blue whales are. They are actually pretty slim.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/DQW63.png)
Also no self respecting snake would be a filter feeder. So keep the mass of the blue whale the same, stretch it out from 100 to 300 feet and decrease the diameter. You can have its big chin pouch still puff out when it feeds or if it is bloated and dying like this one.
Pressure is no more of an issue for this beast than for the whale. Lifting head out of the water would be easier than for a whale (many of which can lift their heads out of the water) because it would have more surface area than a whale and so more leverage.
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[Question]
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The dominant species on this alien planet are sapient, somewhat monstrous bipedal creatures. They possess no eyes at all, are completely blind, and have no concept of vision.
Other senses are as follows:
* Touch: Their tactile senses are equivalent to a human's.
* Hearing: They have sophisticated hearing organs slightly more powerful and capable of more nuance than human ears, especially underwater.
* Smell & Taste: These senses are incredibly powerful and are their primary method of information-gathering. Their entire "face" opens into a fearsome maw (actually a combination mouth/nose orifice) through which they can rapidly sort out detailed information from particles in the air, in a manner akin to the [flehmen response](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flehmen_response), only turned up to 11. They can also derive information underwater by filtering through chemicals in the water ([as fish do](https://australianmuseum.net.au/do-fish-smell)), without drowning.
For all intents and purposes, the planet is oceanic, with huge diversity of sea-life, and most landmasses having a tropical biome. This species feeds entirely on fruit, vegetables, and seafood.
Civilization is at a [tier 6](http://scifiminibuilders.wikia.com/wiki/Technological_Achievement_Tiers#Industrial) level, although [this answer](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/29409/34894) notes:
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> . . . the question of discovering mining, chemistry, medicine, etc. is much harder if not impossible if everyone is blind.
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So mining, metalworking, and by extension, coin minting is likely to be underdeveloped at best, and nonexistant at worst, unless some condition reasonably exists that could outweigh the developmental hindrance of being blind. (I'm hesitant to just handwave it.)
**Under these conditions, what would be a reasonable, reliable form of currency?**
Paper notes would be out, as they're primarily vision-based currency. Coins could work, but, as stated above, I'm not sure if their development could be reasonably justified. I've also considered something like shells or coral, but they seem like they'd be too fragile for everyday use.
In summary, the currency needs to be:
* Reasonably obtainable, but not overabundant
* Portable
* Waterproof (Bonus points if it's buoyant, though that's not a necessity)
* Durable enough for everyday use
* Be reliably distinguishable without sight
* Have enough variability for denominations
[Answer]
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> Salesman #1: You're crazy with the heat. Credit is no good for a notion salesman.
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> Salesman #2: Why not? What's the matter with credit?
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> Salesman #1: It's old fashioned. Charlie, you're an anvil salesman -- your firm give credit?
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> Charlie: No, sir!
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> Salesman #1: Nor anybody else!
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> *The Music Man, "Rock Island"*
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Writing is believed to have been invented originally for goods logging and tracking for commerce. I believe your best bet would be for your society to have bypassed directly over "hard currency" to credit.
The problem with hard currency is the need for it to be intrinsically valuable. A bauble of silver for a cubic meter of seaweed, or whatever. The problem, as you state, is the unlikelihood of metal working to be feasible underwater.
This is a different dimension of a problem experienced by the Venicians in the Middle Ages; responsible for handling thousands of "pounds of silver and gold" worth of trade, they needed a method to keep track of goods without actually counting out hard money over and over again.
They invented the cheque. (Muslim traders used a form of cheque as well, and JewishHistory.org claims Jewish traders invented the cheque. The Dutch Republic in the 1500s had professional "cashiers" who handled cash for citizens, charging a fee; they provided additional services, including cash-on-demand to anyone bearing a written order. But I'm going to credit Venice today.)
Cheques, promissory notes, bills of exchange; these negotiable financial instruments were all about notating a large value worth of goods onto some recording medium, and then using that recorded value in place of the goods themselves. The bearer of the instrument could then extract the value on demand.
This was the bases of money in the world from the middle ages 'till Nixon killed the Bretton Woods system, and Federal Reserve Notes could no longer be converted to hard currency. Yes, pre-Nixon you were still spending gold and silver, you were just using paper certificates to do so.
**Your underwater civilization just avoided the hard currency middle-man.
From the beginning, they either did hard-barter with goods, or traded negotiable financial instruments.**
Perhaps they started using shiny rocks, or pearls, or volcanic rock pulled up by "miners" who could swim down to the lowest depths of their ocean, but for underwater critters these goods would be even less convenient than they would have been for us.
So from the beginning, they would have come up with a system of trade involving negotiable instruments, payable to the bearer on demand. A group of critters farming fruit would trade an invoice for fruit in exchange for some good they needed; that instrument would be further traded until somebody needed some fruit, at which point they'd bring the instrument to the fruit farmers to demand their goods.
**Now, negotiable instruments are much easier to counterfeit, in theory, than hard currency, which is one of the many reasons why hard currency remained popular until even today.** So your critters would need some way to validate these negotiable instruments.
* *Do they have a form of writing?* This would essentially emulate the early banking systems on our world; an instrument would be written by the possessor of a good, and countersigned by trustworthy individuals to prove the value of the note, which could then be traded freely.
* *Even without writing, verification is possible.* The "split tally" system was very common in the middle ages amongst predominantly illiterate society. A stick would be scored with a system of notches showing taxes owed and then split lengthwise; each side of the deal would receive one piece of the stick. You could then validate the document by putting the sticks together; while you could modify your stick, you couldn't modify the other stick without possessing both, proving that some change had been made.
**Here's a really, really crazy idea: Underwater blockchain.** Bitcoin works by keeping a long, immutable ledger, distributed around the world known as the blockchain. The mathematics involved allow you to prove the correctness of a ledger. New transactions are added to the blockchain in such a way that they become a permanent records. **What if your critters used something similar to record transactions? ...and what if the blockchain was actually whalesong?** Let's assume that whales on your planet are not sentient... or at least one species known for it's song isn't. A group of your critters learn how to interpret the whalesong, and how to encourage these whales to modify the song. Let's handwave that the whales have "photographic" accoustical memory, that they refuse to change songs they have learned, but learn new songs easily. You now have an underwater banking system whereby transactions are recorded by "tellers" who literally "tell" the transaction to a local whale, who then weaves that transaction into the songchain it sings. Other whales hear the new song and share it. Anyone who wants to retrieve a transaction "hums a few bars" to the nearest whale, who then gladly sings the rest of the song. Because songs can only be appended to, never modified (the handwave), by listening to the song you can verify that the bearer of a financial instrument actually bears the legitimate instrument, and can then provide them with the good (logging it into the songchain, of course).
We can further stipluate that whalesong is generally at the lower range (or upper range) of the frequencies our critters can hear; in general, it's just the normal background noise of the ocean. But a specially trained critter can listen to the chainsong and interpret it, and encourage local whales to append to the chainsong. The whales just do what they have always done: share songs with each other. Their song carries for thousands of miles in the ocean, ensuring that every transaction is eventually recorded everywhere in the world, allowing you to "spend" your instruments anywhere where the song has been recorded.
**Now, I'm sure somebody with a background in information theory could prove that the type of whalesong which travels such long distances conveys too little information to be able to log EVERY transaction on an entire planet,** but if we're willing to suspend disbelief a little bit, the songchain would only be used for large, interocean transactions. Local networks of trust would be good enough for day to day operations, with enough signatures on an instrument or a tally-shell business works fine. Long distance trade could be handled by songchain however.
[Answer]
I suspect that I don't know nearly as much about microeconomics as the other respondents, so there could be some significant problems with my suggestions, but I thought I'd give it a shot.
## Pearls
They're reasonably small, fairly durable, and since they're produced by oysters they don't require advanced technology to obtain. They're also somewhat rare because they take time to produce and are difficult to imitate convincingly. The difficult part would be creating different denominations - perhaps they could distinguish them by size, or introduce some factor during the cultivation process that would give them a distinct smell or texture (perhaps by using different species of mollusks or by feeding them differently).
## Hard Spice
I'm envisioning something along the lines of rock salt, but much more resistant to erosion by water - something with a distinctive taste that generally wouldn't break. Different denominations would be represented by different spices, each with their own taste. It probably shouldn't be something that they'd actually want to eat, just something that was distinctive and non-toxic - you don't want the whole market to crash because someone discovered a popular new recipe that uses cumin.
[Answer]
## Trust
Is the most valuable currency. No matter the proposed value of an object, if you do not trust that you can change bank notes / coins / gold / platinum / diamonds / etc for something else, you will not trade.
One of the useful parts of currency is that you don't need to keep translating two chickens into 50 kilo's of apples. And 10 thousand apples make one cow. Etc.
So if your creatures have very good memories, what they probably need without active sensory input, as hearing and smell are passive, you need to remember where (your) stuff is.
If that is to much for you, use shells from certain [snails for currency](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency#Early_currency). Just got to make sure they are hard to [forge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rai_stones).
---
To clear it up a bit. Every one has a [running tab](http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/25/messages/173.html) when you buy from one another. Or better yet, [a very broad system of non-enumerated credits and debts](http://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/How_Barter_Followed_and_Did_Not_Precede_the_Creation_of_Money).
So let's say I like to drink a beer and I go to the pub a few times a week to do so. The bartender knows me, and I have no easy way of buying each and every beer, so I have a tab running. Either he remembers, or notes it down. Now, sometimes the bartender will need to close the tab with me. Let's say he does so every month. 4 weeks \* 5 evenings \* 3 beers = 60 beers. Let's say that is worth 2 chickens. Or he clears the check ones every year. That might be worth a sheep. But if that sheep is worth 13 months of beer, I just have pay for a new month already.
---
Recommended reading: [Debt: The First 5000 Years.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt:_The_First_5000_Years)
] |
[Question]
[
Imagine a pair of black holes in orbit around each other. I'm wondering how this would distort their mutual event horizons. In fact would it be possible to "break" the event horizons by reducing the escape velocity below the speed of light at the point in between the two holes.
If my mental model is right there would be a saddle point in between the two holes. In theory you could climb out of the hole up to the mid point of the saddle where the red dot is and then turn and climb up the ridge to escape entirely.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/I4jIt.png)
Would this work given the right pair of black holes in the right circumstances?
If not then what stops it?
[Answer]
So . . . modeling the space near two close black holes is actually a really, really tough task. Numerical relativity is extremely challenging; a good example is the intense computations it took to finally create an excellent simulation of [GW150914](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_observation_of_gravitational_waves), the source of the first directly detected gravitational waves. Therefore, determining the exact behavior of the event horizons quantitatively is a non-trivial problem.
That said, it's certainly not an impossible problem, and numerical relativists have performed simulations of [the shape of binary black hole event horizons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_black_hole#Shape). A good set of visualizations is given in [Cohen et al. (2011)](https://arxiv.org/abs/1110.1668v1). See, for instance, Figures 8 and 9:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/sNB1G.png)
The caption for Figure 8:
>
> A snapshot of the geodesics being followed by the event horizon finder at time $t/M = t\_{\text{merger}}/M − 0.067$, for the equal-mass inspiral. The small dots are geodesics currently on the event horizon. The larger points, either crosses or circles, represent geodesics in the process of merging onto the event horizon. Crosses represent points merging through caustic points, while circles represent points merging through crossovers. In this slice, the cusp on the black hole is linear, and composed of crossover points with caustics at the end points.
>
>
>
Figure 9 shows the geodesics at $t/M = t\_{\text{merger}}/M$, where $M$ is mass and $t\_{\text{merger}}$ is the time at which the black holes merge. These simulations show how distorted the event horizons become as they are elongated until they form a thin bridge. Merging and [ringdown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_black_hole#Ringdown) soon follow.
What I *think* you're suggesting is that at precisely $t = t\_{\text{merger}}$, there is a point where the event horizons touch, and that at the point it may be possible to travel on some other path and avoid both black holes entirely. The literal answer is that this is impossible.
Remember that an [event horizon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Event_horizon) is a region of spacetime from within which no event can be causally connected to any event outside the horizon. You'd have to travel faster than the speed of light to escape, and, of course, that's impossible. If an object is on or inside the event horizon, it doesn't matter whether it's on some saddle point, as you called it. There's no way out. That node is still, as perhaps [Admiral Ackbar would put it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4F4qzPbcFiA), a trap.
Obviously, if the object begins at that point *before* either of the event horizons reach it, then the answer is trivial: Yes, it can escape. It would just have to go really, really, really fast (subluminally). But the event horizons would not be "broken".
A very similar question on Physics Stack Exchange is [Event Horizon violability?](https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/1134/56299) See also [Is it possible for one black hole to pull an object out of another black hole?](https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/39253/56299).
] |
[Question]
[
My bureau has recently been provided with a city charter and the plans to develop the colonial territory of Endrast into an urban center befitting the dwarven people, but after reviewing the documents I am concerned by the possibility of suffocation.
Mr Grin, the lead architect on this project, has assured me that the subterranean city he envisions will be adequately ventilated by a novel (by which I understand he means 'untested') technique of his own design. I disagree. Alas, for reasons ostensibly of national security (but more honestly of bureaucratic red tape), I am forbidden from submitting the blueprints themselves for your review, but I shall attempt to summarize his plan as best I can.
He proposes, essentially, that from the walls and floors of the city should be carved a network of ventilation shafts converging on an isolated cavern wherein enormous fires shall burn at all times. Above these fires would be great chimneys cut to the open air at the mountain's peak. The premise is: the fire would draw from the city a constant stream of air, which in turn would draw fresh airflow from the surface downward into the city.
As I say, Mr Grin assures me this will provide the citizens of Endrast a constant supply of fresh, clean air. I remain unconvinced. All prior experience has led me to understand that burning a fire in an underground dwelling is an excellent way of *suffocating* everyone inside. I have never heard of it *improving* the flow of breathable oxygen.
Furthermore, these fires would surely burn only as long as there was a sufficient surplus of oxygen being drawn from the tunnels. In other words, the vacuum would need to be strong enough to draw enough air from the surface to exceed the city's need for fresh oxygen by a broad enough margin to fuel the fires by which the vacuum was generated. Is that even possible?
In short, I have come to ask: has our architect lost his mind, or am I mistaken? Could this principle actually work? If not, is there any way it might be salvaged? I must be absolutely sure of this - the last thing my bureau needs is another Inbad Incident.
[Answer]
Kudos to you for focusing on *infrastructure*! (Something old JRRT gave short shrift to.) Assuming gravity and gasses work in your world as in ours (PV = nRT), heat-driven convection can cause the airflow you're after, though there are potential hazards, as you're clearly aware.
If you can arrange it, you'll probably be happier and safer with a non-combusting heat source heating your ventilation chimneys. A fire Elemental would work, if you can get one to cooperate. (Personally, I wouldn't trust a dragon farther than -- but I digress.)
If there's a *dormant* volcano in Endrast, that would be a good site (other things being equal) -- provided the volcano *remains* dormant!
I suggest you consult your local Mages on that. Chimneys above the living/working quarters. Anti-backflow valves (at least one per chimney) would be a great help, especially if you have to settle for a conventional (wood, coal) heat source.
[Answer]
Yes it would work, with some care and protection measures as Catalyst says. Similar techniques were historically used to ventilate mines; see for example, ["A Brief History of Mine Ventilation"](http://web.mst.edu/~tien/218/218-VentHistory.pdf) by M.J. McPherson (in *Subsurface Ventilation and Environmental Engineering*).
On the other hand, it may be more energy efficient and much less dangerous to use traditional fans driving air into ventilation ducts. Mines and tunnels were and [are ventilated](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_mine_ventilation) by fans moving air in a carefully designed system. Even in the Antiquity they used (muscle powered) centrifugal fans to force fresh air into the ventilation ducts.
[Answer]
This will only work if you have sufficient ventilation openings into the city to allow enough make-up air to reach the city from the surface.
If there are insufficient ventilation openings for make-up air, or the openings somehow get blocked, lighting the fires would cause a pressure imbalance lowering the air pressure in the city preventing the fire and smoke from being effectively drawn up the chimney and filling the city with smoke, and suffocating the fire as well as everyone in the city.
] |
[Question]
[
One of the many empires to come from the Roman empire, the Frankish Empire was the territory inhabited and ruled by the Franks, a confederation of West Germanic tribes, during Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/LkCJI.gif)
In 843, it was succeeded by East, West and Middle Francia which would eventually form the Carolingian Empire. With a size of 1,200,000 square kilometers, it would be the 26th largest nation on Earth, but could it survive? Let's say that for some reason, I want to prevent the collapse of Francia, how can I do it? What is the smallest change I can make to history to allow the continuation of Francia? There are only two constraints,
1. The change must be realistic, no mind control, no super weapon, etc.
2. Francia has to be able to remain a superpower through and including modern day.
[Answer]
### Either give the rulers hereditary diseases, or put the Empire under siege.
I'm choosing to focus on the later period of Francia, during the Carolingian Empire.
The major issue with states in the 6th to 11th centuries was that the very idea of a state was not at all common. The Carolingians - though, starting with Charlemagne, carrying the title of Holy Roman Emperor - came from societies which had "barbarian" (i.e. non-Roman) origins, dating back many centuries. The "barbarian" cultures were held together through kin-groups and personal loyalty to a particular king, not to some abstract entity like a country. Enduring state-building in Europe was not a result of the Greeks or the Romans, but of later times. States that would survive the reigns of many rulers fully intact were not to be, during the Carolingian Empire (or the Frankish Empire, as you called it).
You might doubt this, given the fact that such an empire was even able to form, but I'd point you to three important dates:
1. **800 A.D.** [Charlemagne](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlemagne) is crowned Holy Roman Emperor, the head of the new Carolingian Empire. This was mainly symbolic, but it is important that Charlemagne had been able to unite disparate small kingdoms which had been constantly divided up between members of the Carolingian dynasty, comping together and falling apart as people lived and died. 800 symbolizes start of a brief period of unity.
2. **814 A.D.** [Louis the Pious](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_the_Pious), one of Charlemagne's sons, takes full control of the Empire. Charlemagne previously let all his children have positions of power, which could have led to another division of territory, but the deaths of Louis siblings later in life gave him full control.
3. **817 A.D.** Louis the Pious gave his three sons ([Lothair](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lothair_I), [Louis the German](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_the_German), and [Charles the Bald](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_the_Bald)) partial control of three separate thirds of the Empire, inadvertently ensuring that when he died, there would be brutal fighting. In fact, the civil wars began much sooner, and lasted intermittently for several decades, even after his death in 840. Only the [Treaty of Verdun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Verdun), in 843, stopped the fighting - but divided the Empire.
In this period, you *cannot* have a lasting, stable state if your rulers continue to produce plenty of children - which the Carolingians seem to do, at an unfortunately large pace. We saw that Louis the Pious only kept the Empire together because his siblings died. I'd argue that any of *his* sons could have done the same, had the other two died.
Essentially, you need to have a family tree with only one or two heirs per generation which survive. There are a couple ways you could do this:
* **Disease.** Notably, [European royal families were stricken by haemophilia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haemophilia_in_European_royalty), a problem that was exacerbated by continuous intermarriages between different royal houses. "In-breeding" among the dynasty, so to speak, could keep some rare genetic trait within the family, and perhaps could lead to high enough mortality rates to kill of most of the children.
* **Constant external warfare.** You can't afford to have a weak, divided state (or states) if there are powerful forces attacking from the outside. [Moors were in the Iberian peninsula](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moors#Moors_of_Iberia) around this time period; perhaps constant strong pressure by them against Frankish forces could make union the only viable option for survival. Additionally, Slavs were (I believe) creating some problems in the east (although the Huns were not problematic at this time; perhaps if they were still around, you could see some interesting developments).
[Answer]
Give Charles the Fat an ambitious heir early in his life. Have the heir murder him and establish a better succession law. Everything else will take care of itself.
# Historical Collapse of Francia
The last time Francia was united was in 884 when Charles the Fat had inhreited control over the pieces of the Empire that were given away to other branches of the family. But it was not to last, because he was incredibly unpopular, cowardly in the face of viking attacks, and also epileptic. Charles died three years after the empire was reunited, and the different lands all went to different people.
# How to avoid the historical collapse
[Don't split the party.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waa2ucfgVgQ) Francia should maintain a single, hereditary Emperor, in the style adopted by later monarchies. This can be accomplished by sufficient brow-beating of the younger heirs (enough to pass a new law and have it be honoured), or having all but one male heir die of disease.
In Charles the Fat's case, he needed to have an heir. Since he died at age 49, he could easily have produced one or more male heirs, and with luck on his side, that man would be a strong enough ruler to suppress the revolt of Arnulf of Carinthia (or assassinate him). Ideally, he would also assassinate his own father before 885, and consolidate power in time to repel the [Siege of Paris](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Paris_(885%E2%80%9386)). Historically, the man who tried to defend Paris (Count Odo) was the one elected King of the Franks after Charles' death, so resisting them (even if unsuccessfully) would have been a huge crowd-pleasing move.
# And after..?
Given that it will become increasingly difficult to maintain such a large empire, our hypothetical continuation of the Karling line would be well-served to turn his Francia into an absolutist state like the Russian Empire, where the autocrat's will was law and secession was unthinkable. Consider how many royal dynasties Russia had (two) compared to England or France (loads). Since dynastic change will often mean territorial change at a time when the idea of nation-states does not exist, you really want to prevent it.
[Answer]
**Adopt The Saudi Arabian Pattern Of Succession**
*A Large Pool Of Potential Future Kings Related To The Dynasty Founder*
In the [Saudi Arabian succession system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Succession_to_the_Saudi_Arabian_throne), all adult male descendants of the founder of the dynasty are eligible to become king someday, and there are lots and lots of descendants (in the Saudi case, due to a combination of polygyny and successive marriages and high fertility for nobles). There are basically basically no "cadet" lines with only a remote chance of succession if lots of unlikely deaths occur no matter how distinguished their own efforts may be.
*The King Has Great Freedom To Hire And Fire Royals From Powerful Posts*
In the English hereditary monarchy, most of the sub-posts were also hereditary under a primogenitor system, creating many points where incompetent aristocrats could weaken the kingdom. This is not true in the Saudi system.
The sitting monarch can name a Crown Prince and other senior cabinet members from the most trusted, capable and competent of his adult descendants whom he interacts with regularly.
Less trusted, less capable and less competent descendants of the founder of the nation are given posts commensurate with their abilities. One might be given charge of a minor government ministry, another a governorship of a province or a mayorship of a city or village, or an officership in the military as high as the descendant can handle, or a chancellorship of a college. Black sheep might be given an allowance but no responsibilities at all - but denying them any benefits of their royal blood could breed dissent.
All lesser officials would serve at the king's pleasure, rather than for life, creating stronger incentives, allowing the king to rotate promising candidates through different parts of the kingdom and different experiences to become qualified, while also preventing any royal from consolidating too much power that could be mobilized against him.
*Succession Is Decided By A Council Of Senior Royals*
A council of royals who are senior officials in the regime, like a board of directors, would have formal power to appoint a successor king without regard to whether or not that person was Crown Prince, although the Crown Prince would be favored. The size of this council would vary over time based upon the monarch's wishes.
If the Crown Prince position is vacant when the monarch dies, or the Crown Prince has lost support from his kin, the senior members of the ranks of potential heirs choose someone, usually one of their number, to be the new monarch.
If the sitting monarch has chosen wisely, the most qualified member of the royal family will already have been named as Crown Prince and the succession will be seamless.
But, if a demented old man who named a flatterer with a rotten heart to be Crown Prince, the empire is not lost. And, because no one has a true right to be the next king, even the Crown Prince, it will be hard for a disappointed contestant to mount a contest to the pick of the senior eligible heirs and unwise when the disappointed contestants are likely to get some of the most senior posts in the new regime.
**Benefits Of This System For Francia**
This still provides some of the key benefits of a monarchy to a medieval state:
(1) if you don't have the resources to groom even 1% of the population with the training and opportunities necessary to prepare them to lead the country, by limiting scarce training and education resources to descendants of the founder, you can get a qualified leadership elite (e.g. mostly literate and training in riding horses and war) with a minimum of expenditure of resources in a desperately poor society.
(2) it provides clear lines of authority direct from the king to organize and mobilize the country which fits with the very direct managerial authority that Charlemagne exercised over his vassals in the early kingdom - with a traveling court that regularly visited every place in the domain; he could bring unassigned royals in his entourage to be dispatched to new posts as the need arose in the circuit of his traveling court, replacing incompetent officials who were discovered en route,
(3) it provides for rapid succession that is not subject to dispute and provides a clear outcome (often monarchy is justified on the ground that avoiding civil wars of succession created by uncertainty is more important than the quality of the king), and
(4) it would protect the nation from the mishaps of a purely hereditary succession system with no regard to merit. The selection of a monarch and senior officials based upon merit within the class of descendants of the founder avoids the elevation on monarchs like Charles the Fat who could end a dynasty.
This system also creates a way to reward and incentivize otherwise lazy aristocrats to perform in order to gain more power.
Since 98% of them would have no shot at real prominence and power in the European style primogeniture system, there is a large corps of powerful people who are better trained and educated than anyone else in the kingdom to have a vested institutional interest in supporting this alternative approach and the monarch it selects, even if they don't personally get the top jobs.
Those who come out on the bottom in this quasi-merit based system are the least qualified to mount a regime changing coup.
It also divides up power, in so many ways, among so many people, that no one descendant can consolidate enough power to split the empire and create an independent region if it is managed well by the monarch.
**Family Dynamics In A Francia's Version Of This System**
In Francia, it wouldn't be necessary to have formal polygyny.
It would be enough to abolish the succession distinction between legitimate and illegitimate descendants of the founder of the nation to get a sufficient pool of eligible descendants to find a few worthy of responsible positions in the empire. Royals would have no trouble producing many descendants if their children, marital and non-marital alike, had such promising futures.
Also, if a woman lied and said her child had a royal father when the father was actually not royal, and was believed, there would be little harm to the kingdom - if the child was competent he would serve the empire well; if not, the cost would be little more than the cost of a modern society to reward the occasional lottery winner who doesn't really deserve the prize. Relying on the royal parent's declaration to determine paternity while ignoring commoner testimony would encourage people to try to win the favor of royals they were in close relationships with, lest their children be disowned.
This system would also provide a means by which promising non-royals could join the dynasty, marrying (or merely mating) a royal family member and having children with them who would be royal descendants too. These marriages might be subject to approval of the monarch, and would provide a means by which the empire could co-opt anybody who might otherwise lead resistance against the regime.
**How Would The System Be Imagined?**
The system could be implemented by Charlemagne, perhaps consciously adopting pre-House of Saud Bedouin traditional leadership succession practices he learns about from spies and captives in his war with the Moors (figuring he must copy the techniques that give them an advantage, while adapting them to his own world), and followed by his successors, perhaps with the support of a prescient Pope who sees the perils of the alternative that was actually followed in our world.
Other examples of similar systems might also suggest it.
One would be the Roman Catholic Church's [College of Cardinals](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_of_Cardinals) (a group of Bishops hand picked by the Pope to vote on a successor to him).
Some nominally democratic Northern Italian and Swiss cities states called [communes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_commune) operated on something reasonably similar to this basis from the late middle ages until the 19th century. As Wikipedia explains:
>
> During the 11th century in northern Italy a new political and social
> structure emerged and the medieval communes developed to the form of
> city states. The civic culture which arose from these urbs was
> remarkable. In most places where communes arose (e.g. France, Britain
> and Flanders) they were absorbed by the monarchical state as it
> emerged.
>
>
> Almost uniquely, they survived in northern and central Italy to become
> independent and powerful city-states. The breakaway from their feudal
> overlords by these communes occurred in the late 12th century and 13th
> century, during the Investiture Controversy between the Pope and the
> Holy Roman Emperor: Milan led the Lombard cities against the Holy
> Roman Emperors and defeated them, gaining independence (battles of
> Legnano, 1176, and Parma, 1248 - see Lombard League). Meanwhile the
> Republic of Venice, Pisa and Genoa were able to conquer their naval
> empires on the Mediterranean sea (in 1204 Venice conquered one-fourth
> of Byzantine Empire in the Fourth Crusade). Cities such as Parma,
> Ferrara, Verona, Padua, Lucca, Mantua and others were able to create
> stable states at the expenses of their neighbors, some of which lasted
> until modern times.
>
>
> In southern and insular Italy, autonomous communes were rarer, Sassari
> in Sardinia being one example.
>
>
> In the Holy Roman Empire, the emperors always had to face struggles
> with other powerful players: the land princes on the one hand, but
> also the cities and communes on the other hand. The emperors thus
> invariably fought political (not always military) battles to
> strengthen their position and that of the imperial monarchy. In the
> Golden Bull of 1356, emperor Charles IV outlawed any conjurationes,
> confederationes, and conspirationes, meaning in particular the city
> alliances (Städtebünde), but also the rural communal leagues that had
> sprung up. Most Städtebünde were subsequently dissolved, sometimes
> forcibly, and where refounded, their political influence was much
> reduced.
>
>
> Nevertheless some of this communes (as Frankfurt, Nuremberg, Hamburg)
> were able to survive in Germany for centuries and became almost
> independent city-states vassals to the Holy Roman Emperors (see Free
> imperial city).
>
>
>
In the later stage of the commune system, they started to resemble the political system of the House of Saud. Council members generally served for life and only aristocrats had any political say. Per [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Modern_Switzerland):
>
> During the 17th century seats in the councils became increasingly
> hereditary. There were between 50 and 200 families that controlled all
> the key political, military and industrial positions in Switzerland.
> In Bern out of 360 burgher families only 69 still had any power and
> could be elected by the end of the 18th century. However, the
> aristocracy remained generally open and in some cities new families
> were accepted if they were successful and rich enough.
>
>
>
A less likely contemporaneous example, but not impossible for him to learn about would be a [Hindu joint family](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_joint_family):
>
> Historically, for generations India had a prevailing tradition of the
> joint family system or undivided family. The system is an extended
> family arrangement prevalent throughout the Indian subcontinent,
> particularly in India, consisting of many generations living in the
> same home, all bound by the common relationship. A patrilineal
> joint family consists of an older man and his wife, his sons and
> daughters and his grandchildren from his sons and daughters.
>
>
> The family is headed by a karta, usually the oldest male, who makes
> decisions on economic and social matters on behalf of the entire
> family. The patriarch's wife generally exerts control over the
> household and minor religious practices and often wields considerable
> influence in domestic matters. Family income flows into a common pool,
> from which resources are drawn to meet the needs of all members, which
> are regulated by the heads of the family.
>
>
>
There was trade between Italian states and India during this time period, so it is not entirely far fetched that Charlemagne might learn about this system.
Another more familiar frame for the concept (although unlikely to be an inspiration for Charlemange) would be a family owned business corporation in which all family members in the bloodline own shares that provide them a modest stream of dividends, the CEO engages in lots of nepotism to hire family members for key posts, and a board of directors (de facto appointed by the CEO from the ranks of adult shareholders) chooses a successor CEO, instead of having his CEO post pass by intestate succession (which is essentially what the European hereditary model involves).
] |
[Question]
[
What would happen to occupants of an [O'Neal Cylinder](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O'Neill_cylinder) if it suffered a massive hull breach on one of its ends i.e. the base of the cylinder? Specifically, those nearer to the breach.
If the breach occurred catastrophically (explosion or some kind of hull failure) what would those near it experience? Say the failure occurs at "ground level" of the station and is a hundred or so meters across and a few dozens high.
* Would there be a real legitimate risk of being violently sucked out as so often inaccurately depicted in movies?
* In the violent outrush of air how severe would the pressure drop be?
* Would that outrush of air reach supersonic velocities?
* What would happen to a lake or ocean located nearby?
* What other effects, if any, can be expected?
I know due to the massive size of the station it would likely take a long time to vent atmosphere through a breach even a hundred meters across. For the majority of the population, there would be plenty of time to get to safety or a repair mechanism to close the breach. I'm only concerned with those unfortunate souls near by.
**Edit:**
Links to resources that can help me find the answers are perfectly acceptable.
[Answer]
So for my rough estimate I'm going to use [Bernoulli](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernoulli%27s_principle) to approximate, as outlined below. (This assumes the fluid is incompressible which doesn't really apply to air terribly well, and assumes a steady state of flow which given a large enough O'Neil Cylinder and a small hole would likely apply.)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/M9gpQ.png)
Using derivation 4, assuming initial velocity is zero, air density and initial pressure are Earth normal (1.225 kg/m3 and 101 kPa) and final pressure is zero (vacuum of space) we can find the final velocity is calculated to around 400 m/s or 900 mph.
This is a really, really fast wind speed, faster than hurricanes (74-160 mph), even faster than tornadoes (upper end around 300-400 mph) and faster than the speed of sound at sea level pressure (768 mph)
**Now this would not actually happen**, if we look at our assumption, we assumed air was incompressible, it is compressible. **The limit to how fast air would move is the speed of sound**, waves won't go faster than that in air without something directly pushing it. 768 mph is still pretty amazingly fast, not something you would want to be too near (wind speed would drop off farther from the hole.)
This would definitely be fast enough to suck people out. From [XKCD's what if series](https://what-if.xkcd.com/66/), in wind speeds over ~120 mph it's impossible to stand and you would started sliding and getting pulled out the hole.
Other than the high wind speeds, air pressure would begin to drop in the cylinder around the hole, temperatures would lower, clouds would form, it would be very similar to a large low pressure storm system on Earth.
Larry Niven's original Ringworld novel featured a hole into space which caused a constant storm centered on the hole.
With regards to local lakes or oceans, they would either freeze from the temperature drop, or boil from the pressure drop depending on how far from the hole they are (boiling closer to the hole and freezing further away and generally getting blown around by the giant winds, it might look a little like a giant snow globe.)
Depending on the relative sizes of the habitat and the hole this storm could last for a long time or immediately suck the entire atmosphere out in one blast at the speed of sound. Either way definitely a bad day.
[Answer]
Josh King gave a good answer about the air, but a more pressing problem might depend on exactly where the hole is in relation to the spin axis of the cylinder.
The Island 3 configuration is actually two counter rotating cylinders to maintain their long axis pointed at the sun to gather solar energy for industry and agriculture. if one cylinder is breached off axis, the cylinder will be unbalanced and begin to wobble or precess around its spin axis, putting considerable stress on the cylinder itself (a composite construct of concrete, glass and reinforcing steel cables under tension, much like a suspension bridge). Since the cylinder is relatively long and slender, the sudden torques caused by precession around the axis could conceivably buckle the cylinder, causing catastrophic failure.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/4ltDY.jpg)
*Island 3*
Even without a catastrophic failure of one of the cylinders, the unbalanced cylinder will be putting a tremendous amount of stress on the coupled cylinder and the mechanisms which link them together. The inhabitants will be feeling a "spinquake", which will be somewhat like having an unbalanced load in a conventional top loading washing machine during spin cycle. Depending on the structural details of internal fittings, buildings etc. there could be a lot of internal damage as things are shaken apart.
The emergency procedure if one of they cylinders becomes unbalanced might well be to cast off the second cylinder to isolate it from shaking forces, and hope that the stricken cylinder does not fail catastrophically. If it does, large pieces will be propelled at high velocity into the other cylinder, destroying exterior fittings as a minimum (the large mirrors and agricultural cylinders on the outer rings) and potentially breaking reinforcing tension hoops and breaching the structure of the cylinder itself as a worst case. Given the size and mass of each cylinder, it is safe to assume there is no way even a decoupled cylinder could move far enough away to avoid being destroyed in the hours or days it might take for the first cylinder to shake itself apart.
So the true threat to the colony could well be mechanical failure as the system becomes unbalanced.
] |
[Question]
[
I checked yesterday the movie [The Purge: Election Year](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Purge:_Election_Year) (American Nightmare in French, which does not make sense because the title is already in English but nevermind), and I found it to be a correct entertainment film. Nothing surprising about the acting or script, *kinda predictable* but OK as a middle-range movie in the spectrum of quality.
**However**, the behavior of the people there, in my opinion, cruelly lacks accuracy. I do not think people would behave as such if The Purge really existed. Roaming into the street with weapons, people beheading others, making noise, drinking and such, playing all mighty while being exposed to any gunshot ... Do you have any historic examples about something similar happening, being in the US or elsewhere? I'd like to know. My main question is:
**How would the society behave, and what would it become, if this day really happened?** Here I try to get some elements of answer about logical, technical reasons for it to evolve. In a good, or a bad way? What about economics? Racial clustering? View from the rest of the world?
As mentioned before in comments, to be not opinion-based, I'm trying to get **logical**, **technical** and/or **historical** accuracy about your answer. The **Why** does it behave / become the way you describe it.
---
To refresh your awesome memories, here are some hints about what the Purge is:
* For 12 hours, counting down to sunset, every crime, including murder, are allowed and not punished. Steal, racism ...
* Nothing is said about pedophilia, incest, or even rape, because it is a movie which must be watched by a maximum of people, but here we talk about it: it is allowed.
* It lasts only 12 hours, and is set one precise day of the year.
* For this episode, diplomatic immunity isn't allowed to the government members (essential for the plot of the film, not here.)
* Basically everyone wants to shoot everyone else, if you believe the film.
To your keyboards, you have 12 hours.
[Answer]
I believe most people would go on about their daily lives as they normally would, or depending on the outcome of previous years, possibly lock themselves up or hide in other ways.
I think it would also shift, or concentrate, the crimes that we already have today to around this date. Most crimes would most likely happen as they do today, but the closer to this date you come, more of them would happen on this date to play it safe. However, since a lot of crimes are not well thought through, it would probably only affect petty crimes slightly.
Also I think we would see a lot of large scale crimes be planned out through the year, only to execute on this date. Maybe a few "heists" but mainly bigger illegal corporate actions, fraud, hacks, organized crime and things that would normally lead to a huge lawsuits for companies.
To be honest though, in my opinion it's not a very plausible scenario since it would contradict so much of the system in other ways. Could you for example be charged for planning out a murder before that date, even though the execution is on that date?
[Answer]
There would be two factions. Those who avoid trouble, and those who are looking for it.
The ones who avoid trouble will stay at home, arm themselves, barricade their homes and invest in defences, form communities sworn to help each other on the day, move to safer areas, take lengths to ensure their safety. Some might not go to the necessary lengths, underestimating the trouble or overestimating their measures. The measures taken depends on the severity of the gangs.
In a good case, if the people didn't overthrow the government and stop the stupid law, they would set up their own sub government that would operate on the purge day, ensuring their safety with military discipline. This may lead to the purge being less dangerous than football season in Poland, with a declaration of martial law, but not too many murders that aren't found out. You may see systems like, if you murder someone during the purge, you're marked for death when the next one rolls in.
If things go well, you get a positive influence every year, the danger of the purge decreasing. Realistically, it would not go as well as this.
---
The gangs, the group looking for trouble, their activities will also vary. If they're strong enough... it won't be one day of the year, the gangs will turn the place into Mexico every day of the year, forming their drug syndicates and increasing their influence over the city. If there isn't a strong criminal element in the city, things will be far milder.
Loads of murders will be focused on that one day, as gangsters openly go to each others' houses (and gangsters will be the main targets) and kill each other in broad daylight, feeling free to boast about it later. People will break open shops and steal stuff, some might try to rob banks or the like. Each successive year, the criminal would get bolder, unless resistance to them got bolder in turn.
Whether things were bad to start with, or whether they got worse, you'd start to see murderous gangs attacking random people just for the heck of it, or going into houses and slaughtering everyone just for the heck of it. These would be far from a majority, but even 1% of the population doing this will make things pretty hellish for any stragglers.
As severe crime gets worse, petty criminals will decline, hiding at home or joining a gang and becoming more extreme. A lot of petty crimes will still be committed on top of the atrocities, but those will be the least of the problems.
I'm not sure what it's like in the film, but things would start to get very bloody. The gangs would also survive past the 12 hour mark, not openly killing people on the streets, but forming more violent drug syndicates and the like. Eventually, this spiral of lack of control will lead to (if it didn't immediately) the city being ran by gangs who will abolish the silly law (as you can kill people whenever you want... if the Don permits it).
[Answer]
Our first instincts about what could happen are typically based on what we believe humans are like. However, if this Purge has been going on for a long time, the way humans approach their world will adapt to the existence of the Purge. It is actually no implausible that this could lead to the rampaging crazyness that we see.
For justification of my claims, consider sports fans. There is a subset of sports fans who are willing to set fire to buildings and flip cars when their team loses... or when their team wins (strangely, it seems to happen more when their team wins). Why do they do it? I'm certain you wont get a complete answer from any one of them, but it does occur in our world. It occurs in response to sports games. If it can happen in our world for such an apparently frivolous reason, why would it be surprising if it could happen in response to an event dedicated to causing such behaviors?
[Answer]
IF society really did embrace a day of Purging, the changes would be steady and swift.
We know what happens when Authority tells a person to kill another person from the experiments at Yale by Stanley Milgram.
From the Stanford experiments we know what the group will do.
65% of people will follow Authority to commit homicide and the majority of the group will become aligned to the conditions created by Authority. The testing of the strength of the fabric of society will begin.
Maybe it can take 12 hours annually of Purging but most likely it is a catalyst for significant prolonged confrontations. The unrest inherent in society and the pressure of conformity the government has to impose upon it would be removed and reset each year.
The empowerment of individuals with the idea to 'make a few changes' would be a concern. How could authority stop this? Take advantage of the window of opportunity itself.
It would be a slippery slope. Soon the pensions would be removed with sanctioned hits as would the people still receiving any sort of government assistance past a set duration. Prisons would empty of those on death row but progressively move onto shorter sentences as savings are considered profits. Dissenters of the practice would only voice it a year at a time. Any journalist would likewise be dealt with.
How did it come to this? Its legal. The government allows it.
[Answer]
I will try to post my own answer, as it really questionned me on this topic. Note that I will take some elements from other answers, and will try to add some of my own imagination and deduction spirit.
---
First and foremost, I think it would become a worldwide event, followed around the world. Knowing our current society, I think it would become **the** event to follow every year. Televisions and media would send journalists and special reporters to cover the event. More gruesome, we would even have people sent there in order to make TV ratings. Just imagine the show:
*16 people, from around Europe, will be sent in the almighty USA ... **During the PURGE!** There can only be one survivor, who will it be? Vote for your favorite contestant, and througout the show, they will be helped by our team!*
As [Eristyk](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/28697/eristyk) mentionned, with [his great reference](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/59761/21011) about the Milgran Experiment ([Wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment) and [SimplyPsychology](http://www.simplypsychology.org/milgram.html)), a lot of poor people would die if any authority was about to tell them to kill. Here, the Purge **allows** them to kill without sanction, but doesn't **tell** them to do so. They are just free to do it. The [answer](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/59635/21011) provided by [J. Doe](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/28540/j-doe) makes here an interesting note about gangs roaming larger and larger. A human, before anything else, can recognize his own good in either isolation or clustering, and I think gangs may become more and more organized, not only to survive the Purge, but also to take advantage of it. The government would have to take a course of action about either collaborating with them (obviously not) or destroying them (obvious).
The aftermath of the Purge would be, from [the answer](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/59684/21011) from [Cort Ammon](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/2252/cort-ammon), an acceptance of the Purge. People would think it is normal. Social media would cover the event, but as the fact that [some rich people own more than half the world together](http://publications.credit-suisse.com/tasks/render/file/index.cfm?fileid=C26E3824-E868-56E0-CCA04D4BB9B9ADD5), it would become normal to watch it. Violence would be less censored and I will make a future question about how society would evolve if extreme violence was really that basic.
The world itself would be split in half: governments that allow the Purge and support it, and governments that are against. And I think we here have a pretty good reason to start a global war: *people from my country are dying in yours, and you are allowing it! You'll pay for it!* In the very long term, we'll be in a real movie: evil **VS** good, pro-purge against anti-purge, allowing people to clean themselves from their fury and exterminating poor people or protecting them by letting them come during the massacre ... What will you chose?
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About the film, it makes this way too much of a fuss. First, people roaming free and shooting at each other without consequences. In the street, no one would be fool enough to run freely, armed or not, without cover or proper preparation. Streets, I think, would be waaaaay quieter, with some gunshots from time to time. You would not go out, and door-to-door crime would be the prime objective here: take a car, drive fast, stop at a door, knock it out, rob, steal, rape, etc. ... And go away as fast as possible. The problem is, people defending, too, have the right to defend themselves. Hard choice. Better come prepared.
And I won't talk about free roaming of masked people, public beheading by small groups or other demonstration shows. Even if humanity was driven crazy by the annual Purge, it would not seem this ... 'American'.
[Answer]
Security officers & Cops, during the Purge, would be paid boatloads of money to protect places, people, and items from the Purge.
If indeed the world went crazy during the Purge, there would be places that want to "opt out" of the insanity. And, if they had enough money and such, those folks would guard their area with snipers that they pay.
The thing about the Purge is that in real life, there's going to be plenty of people this does not work for--and they will find ways to "fight" it--those ways might be violent.
There could be companies whose sole purpose is to shoot anyone who comes into your neighborhood after a certain time during the Purge.
While there might not be legal consequences for your protectors turning on you, their reputation as to how they protect those they are paid to during the Purge would matter.
Notice that people wear masks. If it's all allowed and legal, why do they do that? Is it because they fear what might happen to them the next Purge--and because legal doesn't mean consequence-free. If you kill your wife during the Purge, what then? If everyone knows, that is?
I do very much think there would grow up "Protectors" who will put themselves front and center against those who would destroy, kill, and rape--for pay or not. The fact that the purge allows them to protect and defend with extreme prejudice is just a bonus. One single sniper and a good spotter could likely clear out an entire street. Then you put up a sign "Sniper on duty. Put a brick through a window at your own risk. Walk down this street at your own risk. Please show the prearranged signal if you belong."
I can see cheaper "safe house" places that have paid guards with a wall, where families of lower incomes huddle for the time. Yes, there's a purge, but no one inside wants any part of it. And if someone does, the guards are paid to take care of that.
[Answer]
What would happen if the purge was a really thing? Well... Probably the same things that usually happens when the authorities temporarily lose control. Rioting, looting, vandalism, and arson... The occasional assault, but probably comparatively little serious violent crime.
These scenarios play out fairly often in the real world in the wake of natural disasters and political upheaval, but it isn't as though people go completely feral at the first sign that they can get away with it. They're still human, and most humans have some level of empathy, respect for human life, and dignity. There's also the awareness that this is a temporary state of affairs, in 12 hours you're going to have to live peacefully with these people again, probably best not to attack the neighbors.
So... I'm thinking that you're likely to see a lot of property crimes, mostly directed at larger businesses, so that people feel like they're committing "victimless crimes."
On the other hand, you're always going to have a few "bad apples," the sort of people who would have committed horrific crimes with or without a purge... But I strongly suspect that this sort of person is the sort of person who wouldn't be capable or careful enough to wait for a purge, and given that they're a really small portion of the general population, they'll probably get wiped out pretty quickly by an outraged majority.
Over time the purge may even devolve into another Halloween like holiday where people throw wild parties and engage in silly mischief and pranks. Most people really don't have the stomach for real world violence...
] |
[Question]
[
I'm looking for biological explanations for some traits I want to give to an alien creature.
**Description of the Creature**
It looks like a five foot tall praying mantis, or perhaps a centaur. It has six limbs: Two big hind legs bent like a grasshopper's, along with two cat-like legs, on its lower body; and two forelimbs with huge horn-like claws coming from its upper body. It is covered in armour plates, and it runs freakishly fast (probably in the pattern of a cheetah). The creature also has three eyes on its head (two major and one minor), and two or more light-sensitive spots or demi-eyes on its torso that give it great situational and physical awareness. It is a herbivore and primarily a flight creature. It has some intelligence and tool use.
*Environment:* The creature lives in a temperate area of its planet, where the vast majority of creatures use toxins for defence and hunting (stingers, spit, squirters, even breathers). The armour is to prevent creatures injecting it with poison, and the speed is outrun various other predators which sometimes use enveloping tactics.
**The question:**
There are various questions I have for it, but the one I'll focus on for now is: I was thinking it would have a very stable upper body when it is running.
Later on, people attach some guns to its foreclaws, and find the creature is very good at running and shooting with them. But I wasn't sure **why** and **how** is the best justification for this upper body stability while running.
**Possible Explanation**
My first thought: It has very strong muscles up its back, and possibly air pockets particularly where the lower and upper body meet. These act as a shock absorber, and the creature keeps itself stable even while sprinting wildly.
The question being, why so much trouble to keep itself upright? An idea I considered, was if the creature was able to throw rocks with its claws. The idea is, its claw is the shape of a crescent. The creature holds the stone at the base of its claw, then as it lets go of the rock, it swings its arm up and forward. The stone is accelerated along the crescent, coming off at the end and speeding towards the target (if done while the creature is sprinting at over 40mph, that rock is going to pack a lot of punch). The claw may need a shallow indentation along the inside of it, so that the rock doesn't slip out of the claw.
That motion seems really tricky to pull off, but it's possible the creature, having claws all its life and practicing it, may eventually pull it off consistently. I thought I recalled some weapon that worked like this, but I cannot find it. The creature could use this to ward off predators and other threats/rivals from a safe distance, without risking damaging its claws (which it needs to cut trees and drink their sap).
. . .
This could explain the need for a stable firing platform, and its skill with firearms when they are introduced to its world, perhaps?
I would be interested in correcting this explanation, or hearing an alternate one.
**Additional Creature Information**
Here is some optional information about the creature not directly relevant for the question I asked, as it may be helpful. I'm quoting my comments form a conversation from a kind member who gave a detailed reply to my creature concept.
It seems it was necessary to clarify. The creature looks like an insect, but it isn't actually an insect. The forelimbs aren't really that heavy. The large claws are probably about a 15 inches long, so they won't be heavier than a bull's horns. The arms themselves aren't that special. The upright body gives the creature some forward weight, which might be a concern to gait. The grasshopper legs were intended for a powerful, sudden start to the creatures run, with the legs being so nimble they could get back into position for another spring in time with the front legs.
Potentially more importantly, part of the reason for the grasshopper legs was so the creature could scuttle while lying prone, exposing only its weird knees in the process. This is important for tactical reasons at one point in the story. Now, reverse grasshopper front legs may work as you suggest, and may well be a capital idea. I thought it may not be necessary, but the creature is meant to run like a devil so it may be just as well.
The tool use isn't anything to write home about. They throw rocks, and use sticks, and perform various acts similar to monkeys and crows. They can do more than would be expected with the claws, but they are still highly limited in applying their already limited intelligence. Its claws are like horns, they're only sharp near the tips. In the creature's case, they are important to its survival, it will have to rely on others of its species (who won't want it hanging around) to eat if its claws are broken. Also, they just aren't that aggressive, throwing rocks from a distance suits them better.
I can add the information. Didn't know how deep to go into the creature's physiology. The creature only cuts through a thick layer of bark to get at the sap of the trees, it doesn't cut trees down. Also, on the rocky throwing thing, it's mostly my idea for how they have these traits that become useful to the story, other alternatives are welcome possibilities.
[Answer]
Let's dissect what you've written. Even though this will stray outside the "question", several other problems could arise from a creature like this. You wanted a trait explanation, so I'll give you a full one :)
**Two big hind legs bent like a grasshopper's, along with two cat-like legs, on its lower body; and two forelimbs with huge horn-like claws coming from its upper body.**
* The grasshopper legs seem plausible, and they could evolve with relative ease. Sounds good.
* Your organism may be prone to falling forward if it has huge legs in the back and smaller legs in the middle; it would help when it started running, but it would hinder the running motion itself to always fall forward
* This could be solved by swapping the cat legs for multiple sets of legs. [Some pictures might give you ideas](https://www.google.com/search?q=scorpion&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwia-t-qkOjPAhXLLSYKHVN6A5AQ_AUICCgB&biw=1920&bih=964)
**It is covered in armour plates, and it runs freakishly fast (probably in the pattern of a cheetah)**
* Armour plates seem realistic for an insect-like organism. Sounds good
* The cheetah pattern with over four legs, as I suggested above for weight distribution, would not work. There are two solutions to this: A) The organism scuttles very quickly with its six to eight limbs, which may be opposed to the hind limbs for locomotion. This is not a cheetah pattern, but it can still be fast, and it uses the most realistic body arrangement. B) Scrap the extra limbs, and replace your original catlike limbs with limbs of equal power and size to the back ones. Make them opposed to the back so it can run similarly to a cheetah.
* Either way, while your creature will be able to run at decent speeds, hopping may also be plausible. Grasshopper legs may still be acceptable for leaping large distances.
**The creature also has three eyes on its head ... It is a(n) herbivore and primarily a flight creature. It has some intelligence and tool use.**
* This all sounds fine, and the grasshopper legs could help it escape predators.
**Environment** sounds fine
**Possible Explanation** has room for discussion
* Strong muscles would help, but shock-absorbers would only matter for the cheetah style of locomotion. If you opt for adding more limbs and have your creatures scuttle, absorbers will not be needed
* You mentioned that your organism prefers to flee, and it's built to flee pretty well, so the whole rock-throwing idea is probably not necessary for its evolution. Still, it's possible.
* *Added:* Additionally, rock throwing at a high speed may not be easy with a claw designed to puncture trees, i.e. serrated edges would inhibit that motion. You could consider two claws of different sizes and functions, one specifically designed for projectiles and the other for breaking plant matter. Some crabs in real life have evolved non-symmetrical claws which would support this evolution.
[Answer]
As always, please read [On Being the Right Size by J. B. S. Haldane](http://irl.cs.ucla.edu/papers/right-size.html).
[Here's a cheetah.](http://gph.is/YZDaW6)
[Here's a pronghorn, the third fastest land animal.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYoQnFFnr-0)
[Here's a springbok, the fourth fastest land animal, running from a cheetah. Also includes a spectacular skeletal view of the running cheetah.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iarsmqA3dck)
Number two is the [ostirich](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1r-b8uY7C9E), but we're talking about running on four limbs, not two.
Examine all of their gaits. Despite the pronghorn and springbok being hooved with narrow legs and the cheetah being a large cat with thicker legs and powerful paws, they all have the same running gait: front legs move mostly together, back legs move mostly together. Stretch everything way out, pull the ground with the front legs while bringing the back legs forward, then push off with the back legs while stretching the front legs forward. The whole idea is to provide *continuous running force* so that they never slow down despite the incredible air resistance they experience. In the springbok-cheetah video, pay particular attention to how the cheetah's spine moves; it's not running with just its legs, it's running with the force of its *entire body*.
[Here's some grasshopper legs in glorious slow motion action.](https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B13UzkNJ7XY9QmpWaWxJRGxnaHc)
Swapping out the front legs for cat-like legs is certainly a move in the right direction, but only if the second move is to swap out those back legs as well. You can't run like a cheetah with jumping-designed back legs. The back legs would have these gigantic pushes which would make the front legs either:
1. Take many steps to the back legs' single push, which would ruin your ability to have full-body running and thus slow you down.
2. Take one step with the back legs' single push, essentially making it a jumping-then-landing motion, which would make the front legs bear the brunt of the landing, which goes completely against a fast forward velocity. Additionally, you lose the *continuous running force* and lose a lot of velocity to air resistance while your legs are off the ground.
And this is your smallest problem. Let's talk about knees.
Grasshopper legs move in [kind of a special way](https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~wjh/jumping/legwrk.htm) (bottom left picture). This is entirely due to their shape driving their muscular requirements. If you tried to make a human-shaped knee withstand walking pressure while bent like a grasshoppers, it would put all the pressure on the tendons. As anyone with a torn ACL can tell you, you don't want to put all the pressure on the tendons. So, you're stuck with a pin joint knee.
The problem with pin joint knees are that they put all the pressure on the pin. And pins are pretty small relative to the rest of the creature. This matters less in insects (which are full of pin joints) because of the [square-cube law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square-cube_law). Basically, as you increase in size, your *pin* is going to have its cross-sectional surface area *squared*, but the mass acting on it is going to be ***cubed***. This kind of exponential imbalance is going to start shearing your pin before you get above house cat size.
[Answer]
Surprising that this creature would be a herbivore. Large front claws are typically a predatory adaptation (this creature's design overall seems like a cross between a cat and a praying mantis, both of which are predators) The ability to run fast as well as having long claws that it can use independently of running seems like it would be an excellent design for a predator that chases down prey while slashing at it. If it was a herbivore, I would expect it to be one that fights its predators head-on using its hands, rather than running away.
It is possible that these creatures use their front claws for fighting among each other for social dominance. Lots of four-legged animals rise up on their back legs to give them additional weapons when fighting (bears, horses, gorillas) and having an upright body already can make this easier.
There are other uses for long claws though. Some prehistoric semi-bipedal herbivorous mammals had claws that they probably used to break branches or strip bark off of trees. This is the inspiration I would go with: your creatures are (or were) tree-browsers. The reason why they have an upright torso is to grab the best branches from the top of the trees.
] |
[Question]
[
If there is a planet whose atmosphere consists of :
* 30% methane
* 70% oxygen
Then, can we land on it? If yes, then how, and why would it not explode? Also, can such a planet exist for a long time?
[Answer]
# Only if you have a serious death wish
Take a look at this...
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/A4Ib7.png)
At 30% Methane, 70% oxygen and 0% of everything else, you have a near perfect mixture to go **BOOM**.
It is a pure miracle this place has not gone up in literal flames by now... the first meteor that comes along will make the entire atmosphere burn up. Do you need any more motivation to stay far, **far** away?
] |
[Question]
[
Can you make devices that produce and use electricity like power supplies, motors, light bulbs, etc. in a society without metal? Not just metal isn't in the device, you can't even use metal in the production process.
Edit: There is enough trace metals for human biology to work, but not enough for metallurgy.
Could static electricity generators(made from just rubbing, so metal not needed) or electric fish become feasible power supply replacements for batteries?
[Answer]
Practically no, theoretically *maybe*. That theoretical *maybe* is, when you already have non-metallic electricity conductors and batteries available. But it is impossible to *have* non-metallic electricity conductors and batteries without first having metallic conductors and batteries.
Apart from the practical issues about devising precise and accurate things such as an electric motor (all electric generators are just motors, used in reverse direction), you also have a serious epistemological issue.
How the heck do those people (living in metal-less world) get an idea of *electricity* and *magnetism* in the first place? Here on Earth, folks have been able to build primitive electric motors because magnets exist naturally and so do metals. It was also a natural observation that turning an electricity conductive coil (always made of metal, in the experimental days) in a magnetic field induces electric current in that coil. Devoid of metals and natural magnets, your people would **never** get any idea about electricity or magnetism at all.
Science is primarily based on the study of natural phenomena. In a metal-less world, there would be no natural phenomenon hinting at flow of current and magnetism, so there would be no idea about things such as conductance or motors or coils at all.
It is impossible to generate and use electricity when you do not know what *electricity* is, in the first place.
[Answer]
# You can but it will be a pain in the rear end.
To make electricity you need to run an an electric conductor through a magnetic field. There are plenty of non-metallic conductive materials. The trick is the magnetism. To get the "bootstrapping" current to get a [generator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_generator) going you may need to use batteries for the magnetic coils. Non-metallic batteries are possible, just not as easy as metallic ones.
You can make machines out of things other than metal, but you will be limited as to how hard you can run them compared to metal.
[Answer]
I'll briefly address three common concerns when it comes to electricity:
## 1- Electrical conduction
If they have access to salty water, which conducts electricity decently, they could perhaps use water "pipes" to conduct electricity. Through years and years of experimentation and improvements, I imagine they could get at least somewhat effective pipes.
## 2- Electricity generation
Electricity can also be generated from friction. It is easy enough to create a purely mechanical device that would cause *something* to rub against *something else*.
There's also other, more biological, examples of electricity harnessed from potatoes, lemons, etc.
## 3- Electricity storage
I would rely on some biological element, again, to store the potential.
As for your light bulb example, nature already has bioluminescence (not through electricity, though). Just keep thinking out of the box, verrrryyyy out of the box ;)
[Answer]
Graphite conducts and is a natural mineral. So does charcoal to some degree, and eventually graphene and nanotubes.
I think they would work with biological materials and discover ways to treat and preserve tissues that act as electric components, and then mimic them with more synthetic forms.
Look at the experiment with the dead frog twitching. If the metal in the experiment was rare and expensive so wires and probes were not commercially practical to develop, he would have focused his attention on the dead frog.
[Answer]
Electricity and magnetism are both present in biology (eg, see [Biomagnetism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomagnetism) and [Bioelectromagnetics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioelectromagnetics)) .
Organic computers (brains) and machinery (muscles) and energy storage (food/electrolytes) are all around us.
Non-metal conductive and non-conductive materials exist in gas, liquid and solid states (eg, water, ice, silica). Capacitors can be made with oil.
The main issue is predicting the difficulty of bootstrapping scientific discoveries in biology without scientific knowledge and equipment based on relatively simpler metal-based technologies. You might be able to replace simple tools like scalpels with sharp mineral-based objects (ie flint, ceramics, plastics) but how do you invent the stethoscope, or heart-monitor, or electrical probe, or wires or any number of tools used in biology that currently require metal?
My feeling is that given enough time a scientifically curious race would develop sophisticated bio-machinery as an offshoot of primitive breeding and genetic technology but would probably require at least 50K years to get there. If you want a real twist you could even argue that humanity or Earth itself is the product of such technology seeded by an advanced biotechnological race with space flight and extreme longevity.
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God this sounds like a horrible way to develop electricity. First of all, it's nearly impossible to harness and use electricity without any metal. You can conduct electricity with carbon or silicon, but generating it would be honestly near impossible on any meaningful scale.
If you use a loophole like salts to abuse sodium and lithium, you may be able to at least produce something, though it's definitely going to be very difficult. Maybe you can use bone powder as calcium and lithium salt along with silicon to make a makeshift battery, though I'm basically guessing at this point. Turns out metals are so good at doing what they do that we don't typically mess around with trying nonmetals.
If you can somehow get your battery working you can make an electromagnet, and now you're capable of making a generator. Only instead of having the electrons provided by metal, you have something idiotic like salt water filled pipes that you have to try and generate an electrical current with. Maybe silicon or carbon would work better than salt water, but again, so little research that I can find that I straight up can't tell you for sure.
Anyways the point being is it isn't disproven yet, but the components are all so vastly inferior and hard to identify that a society with no free metal at all would most certainly never develop it. They would be hard pressed to even develop something like a steam engine, given how metal is our go too material for making it. maybe someone could do it with shale plates and wood tubes and rubber stoppers, but it's not going to be very efficient and will take a long time to harness efficiently, if it ever happens.
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[
I'm writing a setting for some fantasy novels, and came up with an idea about weather and climate.
The world I'm imagining has an elliptical orbit around a binary system, giving it basically 2 stars. My question however regards the seasons cycle. The way I've drafted it is that such a planet would perform a complete orbit around the stars in 4 years.
By year, I mean a cycle of 12 months, with 4 seasons.
Now, as the planet reaches apoapsis it would enter a "winter year", meaning a year with 4 season, but far colder, and as it reaches periapsis it would enter a "summer year", a year with higher average temperatures, and inbetween those years, a spring and fall years, in which temperatures get progressively warmer and colder respectively.
Would such a setup be possible?
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**No, the length of the year has no effect on the seasons other than their respective duration.**
Seasons are caused by the [axial tilt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_tilt) of the Earth, not by the length of the year. The length of the year only determines how long the seasons are in absolute terms, but their relative duration would still be the same. Spring would still be a quarter of the year, same as summer etc.
That being said, Earth's axial tilt does vary over time, on a ca. 40,000 year cycle, with the moon acting as a stabilizer. If you design a world with a much longer year and a much shorter axial tilt cycle, you could make your variable seasons per year work.
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yes you can have something like that. they are called **superseasons**
We have them on [Pluto.](http://klotza.blogspot.it/2016/02/super-seasons-on-earth-and-pluto.html) Also [here.](https://blogs.nasa.gov/pluto/2015/10/23/a-planet-for-all-seasons/)
It's basically what you describe; you have seasons within seasons, like a "cold winter" and a "hot summer" etc. Both tilt and distance affect seasons on Pluto.
I think it's going to be hard for you to have something like that for a planet in the goldilock zone; its orbit would have to be extremely elliptical (something unusual for an inner planet).
But maybe you can have the same effect with a different solution. Change your planet into a moon! If your planet is a gas giant moon its axial tilt can cause the "miniseasons" that last maybe 1 month, and then either the distance from the star or the seasons (determined by the axial tilt) of the gas giant can be the "superseasons"
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First, with the reality-check tag, I'm not sure you could have a 4-year orbit around a pair of stars and still be within the "Goldilocks Zone" of the system.
Here is a rough set-up that could allow multiple groups of seasons within the same solar year. This does require the suns be far enough apart for their mutual orbits to have a period a significant fraction of the orbital period of the planet. The set-up is much easier to visualize if the periods are in resonance so that each planetary year matches up with a set configuration of the suns during its orbit. Distance from the suns may have a slight effect on seasons, but the primary driver will be the regular eclipsing of each sun by the other. I believe this would be most visually distinctive with two suns of about the same size, but of slightly different colors.
Your planet is in a significant elliptical orbit around the stars. Start its orbit at the apogee and sync up the suns so that one is eclipsing the other (only one sun in the sky). Also have the tilt of the planet align with the suns. For the hemisphere tilted away from the suns (call it north), this will be your coldest time of the year. The hemisphere tilted towards the suns (south), though technically in "summer", with only a single sun in the sky it will be relatively cold.
Move the planet 1/8 of its orbit. There are now two suns in the sky at their farthest visual distance from each other. This is summer. Two suns in the sky warm the planet more than a single sun, regardless of axial tilt.
Move the planet 1/8 of its orbit. The suns are in eclipse again and winter is back.
Another 1/8. This will be the "hot" summer for the north with 2 suns, closer orbit, and tilting towards the suns.
Another 1/8. The perigee of the orbit, with the north tilted directly at the suns. Luckily the suns are again in eclipse, so it is winter, but a "warm" winter.
The next 4/8 will be a mirror of the first, moving back to the apogee.
You could introduce additional differences by having one star emit more infrared or ultraviolet and note the differences that would make when one would eclipse the other.
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I have an alternate-history story taking place during an extended end of WW2.
For [naval mines](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_mine), I need them to be disarmed if a 'friendly' ship (let's say Axis) bumps into them, but detonate if the Allied ship hits it.
We have all sorts of GPS, etc., if we cared to make underwater mines today; but I have a sneaking suspicion a mine could be 'smart' with technology from 1950 (yes, my war is extended). **Between the ship and the mine, something must ensure an Axis mine must not detonate if an Axis ship contacts it; but otherwise explode when another ship contacts it.**
There are two parts to the question that must be solved:
* What could make a mine 'smart' to detonate / not detonate (mines were
simply made to detonate when there was contact).
* How could a mine
understand whether it was an Axis-friendly ship?
This is tough and is science based, although the best answer may use a bit of "near future," technology as in, this is five years on during WW2 (1950), so I will accept a *little* bit of extra technology due to rapid development during a war. I hesitate to use the near-future tag, because near-future is after 5 more years of rapid development, but only from 1945-1950.
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IFF technology was developped in WWII. Basically, a transmitter asks for identification, receiver answers and if it checks out, congrats, you're a friendly. It only detects friendly unit, the rest is likely assumed hostile. It seems to me like the best way to approach this without resorting to future tech.
IFF in aircrafts use radio waves for transmission. Water, however, is not air and radio waves have much more limited range. That's why ships use sonar (sound waves) rather than radar for underwater detection. However, the need for sonar is simply because your average ship needs to detect other ships, which are typically far away, or at least much further than the range of an underwater radar.
In this case, you only need to detect mine before contact, which may be only a few meters. So reusing the system as is *might* work. I can't really help you if you need technical details of what wavelength to use, that's out of my realm. I can't see why the system couldn't be adapted for underwater use though.
Bear in mind, you'd need to power your IFF somehow. I'm not up to date on the history of batteries or wave power, so that's a thing you should look up too.
Now assuming your mine can identify friendlies, all it would need to do is not explode when receiving IFF signal. I would suggest preventing detonation by physically locking the mechanism. That would mean receiving identification *before* contact.
It wouldn't be flawless however.
* Mechanical malfunctions preventing the locking mechanism from locking. The mine would always explode. It will happen and you can't do much about it.
* Mechanical malfunctions preventing the locking mechanism from unlocking. The mine would never explode. It will also happen and you can't do much about it either.
* Failure to identify properly. The mine wouldn't see a friendly as such and explode. Likewise, unavoidable.
* Ship moving too fast so that contact came before any hope of identification, kaboom. Could be prevented by limiting speed in mined waters. You should know where you put your mines after all.
* Friendly and hostile units within range, the mine would lock and not explode on contact with enemy unit. However, depending on the detection range, it actually might be a good thing. You likely wouldn't want your mine to take you out with the enemy.
* Enemy figures out how to fake IFF signals, your mines are worthless. I can't see a solution to that except replacing/updating mines regularly.
Mines should also be booby-trapped to prevent enemy from capturing and studying them.
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In our world, the [transponder](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transponder_(aeronautics)) was invented sometime in the 1950s, so it is not hard to imagine it coming earlier in your accelerated-development-due-to-extended-war scenario. Likewise, the [Gertrude](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwater_telephone) underwater telephone was developed in 1945.
In addition to its load of explosive, the mine needs to have a passive sonar and a small Gertrude radio. When the sonar hears a ship within the mine's effective range, the Gertrude sends a signal every few seconds. This is essentially an electronic "Halt! Who goes there?"
In turn, each ship must carry a Gertrude transponder in its hull. When this transponder receives the signal from a mine, it needs to answer back, "It's a friend, and today's passcode is 123456."
Give the wrong passcode, or fail to answer at all, after several interrogations, and BOOM!
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Curiously "The Wabbler" by Murry Leinster, *Astounding*, 1942, featured a robot naval mine with a computer brain in an unidentified conflict that many readers probably supposed was the current WWII, thus imagining that such technology was in their near future. I don't know if any discussions of its feasiblity were ever done.
here is an online copy of it.
<http://find-book.org/reader?file=253132[1]>
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**No radio**
The problem with making radio contact with the mine is that in seawater the effective range is very small. At 1 MHz an attenuation loss is about [50 dB/M](http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijdsn/2013/508708/fig7/). A practical RF communication in salt water
* is limited to some 1000-10000 Hz,
* still only available in the few feet range, and
* is very slow: because the attenuation heavily depends on the frequency, the bandwidth is few hundred bauds/sec at best. A meaningful passcode (with framing and ECC) will take some seconds to transmit.
Worst thing is, for those seconds the ship transponder shall remain within few feet from the mine.
**Passcode hell**
Another problem is that there is no way to change the passcode. The mine is fully autonomous, and you don't want to rely on WWII era clock to stay accurate. The [Hamilton marine chronometer](http://www.jckonline.com/2016/02/19/how-hamilton-watch-co-won-world-war-ii) (best of the best, produced at 400 units/month) drifted at 0.5 seconds a day - when properly maintained. An average clock to be used inside the mine would drift much faster, and in a month you'd not know the correct passcode anymore.
That is, the mine is stuck with the constant passcode. Having all mines share the same passcode is a serious security threat, so each mine shall have a unique one, and therefore an unique ID to transmit on contact. The ship in turn must have an ability to match ID with passcode. Considering sheer number of deployed mines, I don't think WWII technology was up to the task.
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Put trained animals in it, probably three bats connected to a hydrophone system. Train them tug a switch when they detect a certain sound profile. If two or more bats trigger at the same time, it arms the mine. Bats can process audio signals to a staggering degree, better in some cases than modern digital systems.
B.F. Skinner famously trained pigeons to guide arial bombs but the end of war and electronic technology made the weapon obsolete before it could be deployed.
I don't think there are any fish that use accoustics but the [lateral line sense organs on all fish](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lateral_line) can detect patterns of vibration. The mine could have a hydrophone that picks up ship noise, amplifies it and then plays it back through an underwater speaker to some trained fish. Whose movement would arm the mine. The trick here would be training the fish, because their behavior is fairly inflexible.
Mammals or birds are your best bet. Bats are actually heterotherms i.e. instead of having one set body temperature, they have several they can pop back and forth between. They can be dropped into hibernation and then woken up, all within a few minutes. See the [bat bomb experiments from WWII.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_bomb) Some species of bats will also go into hibernation if the O2 levels drop to a certain range, then wake up if they get to low. Your mine would likely be a combination of a simple noise detector tuned to metallic or general prop sounds, which would wake up the bats so they could judge whether the sound represented a valid target or not. If not, it would put them back in hibernation.
A few pounds of oxygen generating and CO2 absorbing chemicals could keep three mouse size bats alive for several months, even without hibernation. They wouldn't need much food and none if they spent most of their time hibernating. Cooling the bats could be done with any number of endothermic chemical reactions that don't produce a gas.
I suggest animals because the analog circuit of the era could not process different sonar profiles without rebuilding the circuit and they were easily confused ambient noise either natural of man made. The Allies easily spoofed advanced german noise seeking torpedoes by dragging two hollow metal cylinders behind the ship that banged randomly from wake turbulence.
The extra gear to keep bats alive for a few months, dipping in and out of hibernation, won't be any more complex than power requirements of analog circuits of the era. It's not particularly cruel to the bats either. If the mine gets lost, they just drift off from hypoxia, if the mine detonates, they never feel a thing.
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Purpose of a mine is to be hidden until triggered. It would undermine the purpose to build detectable mines. Friendly or hostile would matter only if feedback is received. Eg I detect a mine but I dont know if it's friendly, so if it's not friendly it's hostile.
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[
For my space-fantasy setting I created that I will refer to as Dragon-Folk here.
The Dragon-Folk look more like [humans with reptilian features](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Falleen/Legends) than [humanoind dragons](http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Dragonborn). The Dragon-Folk like the other races on their world were uplifted from animals, the Old-Gods granted them "clever mind and noble form". The Dragon-folk were uplifted from Land-Dragons and like their ancestors are ill-humored creatures, prideful, wrathful, avaristic, vindictive, territorial and clannish. The Dragon-Folk developed a society with a very strict code of conduct and holds discipline/self-control as high ideals as a way to compensate for their temperamental nature.
The Dragon-Folk are also my setting's [proud warrior race](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ProudWarriorRaceGuy); every race has its proud warriors but the Dragon-Folk are the ones who set the standard for martial excellence.
While the trope of the proud warrior was a part of their creation, I knew that the Dragon-Folk had to be more than the stereotype. So how to make them a non-stereotypical warrior culture?
>
> Not being quasi vikings, samurai, some indeterminate amalgamation of tribal warriors, that's a start. Not treating everyone who isn't a warrior with disdain is another.
>
>
>
All of that was a good start but I still needed something more. Then it hit me, what if the Dragon-Folk had some psychological traits that made them well suited to warfare? Thinking about that one mental trait I realized that it should be something that is really off putting to everyone else if not frightening.
For example, the Atevi from the [Foreigner series](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreigner_universe) do not possess the capacity for love or friendship, however they have an emotion/instinct best approximated by the term clique-loyalty.
I have to ask what mental traits or combination of traits could make a race well suited to warfare and more than a little disturbing to their neighbors?
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I've been thinking about this and I have a few ideas.
## Steal Madly from Vampires
Before you get all up in arms about me bringing vampires into this, hear me out. Classical vampires (and even many modern ones) have a number of behavioral characteristics that might make them ideally suited to what you have in mind.
**Possessive.** Vampires are insanely possessive. Once they have claimed something or someone, it is *theirs*. This can most easily be seen in regards to land. To intrude on a vampire's home territory is a grave insult, and vampires who might otherwise be civil can be easily provoked to wrath by doing so. Vampires like to claim humans and other vampires as well. Start by making your dragon-folk intensely territorial and possessive, unwilling to give up anything they have claimed. Bonus points if they happen to disagree with their neighbors on exactly *where* the boundary line is. They could also take trophies from those they have conquered, whether that be possessions or people, and are unwilling to give up those as well.
**Quick to anger.** This is an easy step. Vampires aren't used to people challenging their dominance, and anyone who isn't falling in line where they ought to be is likely to earn their swift wrath. Give your dragon-folk hair-trigger tempers and those around them will soon become wary of their sudden mood swings and unpredictable results. There's nothing more off-putting then facing down someone who can leap in the blink of an eye from calmness to anger.
**Long memories.** Vampires live for a very long time (usually forever, until killed violently). Despite this, they remember clearly what you or I would forget in a year, and (thanks to the previous point) they especially remember those who have wronged them. Once you cross a dragon-folk, you have crossed him forever, and he will not be satisfied until he has exacted (what he considers) full recompense. Bonus points if he brings his children and/or his entire clan into the blood feud.
**Hierarchical.** We are building some very unstable creatures here, but what keeps vampires stable is this point. Vampires have a very keen sense of structure. There is always someone more dominant, and what the most dominant person says goes. There will be vicious in-fighting between ranks, especially when competing to increase your rank, but the dragon-folk will always bow to the person who is above them. How they maintain this higher position is usually force, but could also be intelligence or cunning.
**Enigmatic.** Vampires (classical ones) are frightening for many reasons, but the strongest reason humans are afraid of them is because they are so difficult to understand. With their long lives and their detachment from the world, humans have trouble connecting with them, and so they are afraid. You need to make your dragon-folk enigmatic to the others. Take all of this and make it a step more complex. Maybe whoever is dominant changes depending on the phase of the moon. Maybe it has to do with your blood type, or what tooth you cut first as a babe. Maybe what is and is not deserving of a blood-feud is dependent on the entire tribe's vote. Maybe all of the above. Don't have them explain their traditions to outsiders. What people don't understand, they fear.
For a non-vampiric take on this point, take a look at the way the Aiel are viewed in the Wheel of Time.
>
> When King Laman of Cairhien cut down the *Avendoraldera*, the tree
> that the mysterious desertdwelling Aiel-people had given his people as
> an sign of friendship hundreds of year earlier in order to carve
> himself a throne, four of the twelve Aiel Clans crossed the Dragonwall
> and invaded the Westlands. For the Westlands It was the greatest war
> they had seen in centuries, uniting almost every country under one
> banner that was stil unable to stop the Aiel horde. To the Aiel it was
> simply the execution of the Oathbreaker King Laman, and once they
> succeded in that they turned around, returning to their desert without
> giving any of the lands they had conqured a second glance. ([TV Tropes](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ButForMeItWasTuesday/Literature))
>
>
>
## Take the War-Mind [Up to Eleven](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UpToEleven)
But you might not like the more savage elements this brings to your dragon-folk. For an entirely different view, I am stealing madly from [Monte Cook's *Arcana Evolved*](http://smile.amazon.com/Monte-Cooks-Arcana-Evolved-Handbook/dp/1588467805/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1454975375&sr=8-1&keywords=arcana%20evolved). In his book, the giants treat war very seriously, to the point where they have a ritual that they undergo before they engage in warfare. This ritual literally changes their body, making them more ferocious and more likely to win. In the case of your dragon-folk, I'd have it exaggerate their draconic aspects at the expense of their human ones. In this state, they are more difficult to reason with and very difficult to defeat. In their non-warlike state, which require another ritual to return to, they are kind and gentle and quite calm.
So you could have them treat war very seriously. Give them tons of rituals, make them a people whose lives revolve around doing things in the Right Way and at the Right Time, who take everything seriously and (optionally) have very little sense of humor. The war-mind is literally a different state they enter, and when they are in it they behave quite differently from their native state. Bonus points if you include the **enigmatic** points from the previous idea. As I said, what we cannot understand we fear.
More bonus points if they have *lots* of alternate states they can enter. The Parshendi in Brandon Sanderson's [Stormlight Archive](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/TheStormlightArchive) have a multitude of different forms they take through rituals, such as a farming form, a scouting form, and (of course) a warform. The possibilities are endless!
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Perhaps they have an emotional state best described as "Survival of the fittest," such that any form of competition (including battle) will inevitably have a loser; and in their culture "losing" isn't just unlucky or even something you should sympathize about, losing was the inevitable outcome of starting a contest and not having the skills/strength to see it through to the end.
Warhammer 40k Orks have an entire hierarchy based on being the strongest (in an "alpha wolf" type style the bigger stronger ones are in charge because they can beat up everyone else =P)
Expanding Ork ideals to other areas would be simple: apprentices never question a master until they feel they equal or exceed his skills. They wouldn't pick fights (except for maybe matters of honor) where their opponent will obviously defeat them.
Based on this mentality; death in war would be a consequence of one side being unprepared/weak for a conflict that they decided to partake in (not stepping down in the face of a stronger foe)
As such on the battle field they represent a merciless and unfeeling force of nature; be strong or die.
[Answer]
These are potential solutions that I've been able to come up with.
**1.** The Dragon-Folk simply didn't suffer the [human psychological hang ups around violence or killing](http://www.killology.com/art_trained_killing.htm). However I was told that such a trait would make it difficult for such a race to cooperate,because without a reservation to killing they would socially implode.
**2.** The Dragon-Folk were innately-pragmatic about violence. They would never develop a commandant of "thou shalt not kill" it is simply not in their nature. Instead they have a strong since of taboo and non-taboo acts of violence. As long as their mind filed an act of violence in the non-taboo category then no matter how horrific the act a Dragon-folk wouldn't be bothered in the slightest.
**3.** The Dragon-folk have the innate ability to put themselves into a dissociative or trance like state where they are detached or unemphatic to the point of effective sociopathy. Things done in this other state, this war-mind, do not weigh on them when they return to normal. Dragon-folk may well experience the war-mind as something of a fugue state, having only a hazy dream like recollection of what they do when they are like that. The war-mind is probably tied to their natural threat response, they slip into to it when truly afraid for their lives or those that they care about;though they can definitely learn to enter it at will.
The Idea of the war-mind in part came from, mental focusing techniques that enable the user clear to their mind and transcend emotion.
such as the...
Flame and the Void: Wheel of time.
and
Heart of Stone: King Killer Chronicle.
Combined with [tranquil-fury](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TranquilFury).
**No.3** carries some very interesting social implications for Dragon-folk culture, what sort of morals and laws developed around them having this war-mind ability. Mass Effect's [Drell](http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Drell) do provide some idea as to how this might effect a culture, the Drell believe that the body can act independently of the soul. Thus a Drell bares no moral responsibility for what the "alone body" does.
[Answer]
**The Dragon Folk are Eusocial Creatures**
Eusocial creatures, like ants or bees, are better suited for warfare than any other type of creature. For an average warrior or worker, there is a far stronger need to be willing to sacrifice ones self without a second thought than there is to try to survive or escape combat.
Dragon folk are such creatures. They live in huge hive complexes of genetically similar individuals, with each dragon folk single mindedly existing for the glory of their hive. Things like bravery or selflessness in combat are completely alien concepts to them. Dragon folk have trouble understanding why anybody would run away or try to save themselves. They don't understand individual glory or valor, and don't have a strong emotional attachment to their lives or the lives of their comrades. For most races, if you kill their best friend in front of them, they'll be distraught. Dragon folk will not only be completely unaffected, but they *won't understand* the concept of being emotionally affected by such an act.
Dragon folk are not stupid, of course. In the face of overwhelming odds, they will retreat in whatever manner they see to be most beneficial to the hive. They're expert tacticians, and understand that they have value to the hive. They're also not cold or emotionally distant to one another. They're friendly and gregarious, easily forming tight social bonds with one another. They also understand that they and all of their friends exist as part of the larger whole, and don't feel emotionally hurt at the loss of a friend in the service of the hive.
**Soldiers and Workers**
The two most common types of dragon folk are the soldiers and the workers. Both are effectively genderless, with reproduction being the domain of the queens and drones. Soldiers are huge, hulking dragon folk with thick armor who are well equipped for hauling heavy machinery or hacking down their enemies in melee combat. They've got sharp teeth and claws, redundant vital organs, they heal rapidly, and like most dragon folk, are completely fearless in combat. They also have exceptionally tactical minds, and make for devious military commanders. On the other hand, their minds typically fare poorly when presented with tasks outside of the military realm. They are interested in technologies and sciences that can help in war, but generally defer to workers to actually conduct the research involved. Historically, dragon folk armies were made primarily of soldiers, but with the advancement of technology placing high powered weapons in the hands of workers, the advantages of being a hulking combat brute with two hearts have lessened somewhat. Soldiers have prodigious appetites and grow quickly, but also have much shorter lifespans than most other dragon folk. Due to constant internal warfare between dragon folk hives, however, very few soldiers actually live long enough to die of natural causes.
Workers are smaller and lighter than soldiers, without the combat-specific adaptations that soldiers have like duplicate organs or claws. Dragon folk workers are generally nimble, hardy, and hard working. Intelligence in workers is similar to that found in humans, so far as ability to make scientific and mathematical discoveries is concerned. Cooperation is one of their greatest assets, with groups of workers working together seamlessly for the good of the hive. Workers are the most common members of society, and also make up what is effectively the ruling class in each hive. All bureaucrats and government officials are from the worker class, though in military matters, the soldiers are generally deferred to. Workers also have long lives, compared to most other dragon folk.
Due to their fearless nature, workers make for better soldiers than do members of most other races, though they fight without the single minded ferocity of the soldiers. All workers receive martial training, though almost none are full time soldiers.
**Queens and Drones**
The only exceptions to this are the dragon folk queens, who have a strong self preservation instinct. Dragon folk queens understand that they exist mostly for the purpose of laying thousands of eggs. They have no urge to protect those eggs, since that task is carried out by the workers. They are not generals or leaders, but they are consummate diplomats, socially interacting with other hives through their drones, which are the only hive members allowed to enter other hives.
Drones exist for the purpose of communicating and exchanging genetic information with other hives. They exist in far larger numbers than the queens, since walking into a potentially hostile enemy hive for diplomatic work or procreation can be quite dangerous. Like all other dragon folk, of course, they've evolved to be good at their job, and will do so fearlessly, even in the face of probable death. They're also good diplomats, and have evolved to be immune to torture. They're fairly incompetent at combat, however, and know this. While they'll selflessly walk into danger in the line of duty, they'll flee from combat itself. They and the other dragon folk see nothing strange about this.
**Warfare among the dragon folk**
Dragon folk live in huge city-like hives, which are in a state of almost constant low-level probing conflict with one another. Hives compete with one another for resources and influence, forming into military blocs that rise and fall based on the fortunes of their constituent hives. Dragon folk instictually view all sentient creatures not from their hive or closely related hives as enemies, so large alliances tend to be quite fragile. In this low-level state of combat, prisoners are regularly captured and exchanged back to their home hives in exchange for other resources. Dragon folk do not consider this to be 'war', as such, and fighting tends to be less lethal. In some dragon folk cultures, this low level combat is mostly ritualistic, with opponents sizing each other up in mock combat and imprisoning the perceived loser.
All out war occurs somewhat regularly, with multiple hives diving in to destroy weakened hives and then fight over their holdings. War among the dragon folk is merciless, and is carried out with the intent of slaughtering all the inhabitants of the hive in question, from infants to queens, as conversion of dragon folk to different hives is essentially impossible. In an all out war, prisoners are never taken or expected from the hive being exterminated, though prisoner capture and exchange takes place as normal between the overrunning hives.
This attitude towards warfare is carried to their conflicts with other races, which are similarly violent. Most of their enemies, however, do not grasp the nuances of the dragon folk combat society, so wars tend to be more of the all out variety.
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The dragon-folks will disappear.
They know it.
They also know that everyone will disappear.
Not just Death that death will strike, but that the whole world, afterworld and underworld will be preyed on by the void before a new order take place.
They also know that those who won't fight are already dead.
And when every one is dead, every one will be judged by his accomplishments, most importantly, their victories in the last days. Then, when the new era comes, those who have been deemed worthy will be remembered, as memories will be the only thing that survives.
(don't look at me, it's dragon-folks' cosmogony, not mine)
This gives you a culture where the dragon-folks, whatever their qualities or shortcomings, already mourn anyone who is not a recognized hero. Whether those people are dead or alive. They will mourn you in your face. Politely, as with any deceased, but still in your face.
Their fatalistic outlook makes them quite impervious to fear, while their dragon-like body makes them naturally powerful.
They are not mindless killers because everyone should get a chance to survive in the memories of the world.
They are no pushover because they are quite eager to prove and train themselves.
You can make them as crazed or wise as you wish, from this point. Also, consider never explaining completely the reasons behind their strange logic. Break this logic now and then : they are not human, they are carnivorous giant lizards who can breath fire and think they live life at the end of the universe.
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Any culture which believes they have something "right" that needs to be protected from those who might make it "wrong" would naturally lead to a race with a strong perchance for violence. The more "right" or the more fragile their something is, the more violently they will protect it.
You can see human parallels in religions who are willing to kill someone else because they're right and the other person is wrong, or in the coworker whose psyche is so fragile that they lash out at anyone who questions their ideas.
Worth noting is that any violence in a race is selected against if it leads members of that race to engage in dangerous acts which could have been avoided. Thus, the more often the Dragons put their life on the line in warfare, the more pressure they must be receiving from that cultural something to push them that way.
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I've become rather fond of the idea that humans *are* the Proud Warrior Race compared to everybody else:
\*The average human can only tell the difference between 150 "people", so we invent groups to judge people according to rather than learning about their reality as individuals
\*We fear death more than almost anything else, so the existence of groups outside of our own is seen as a death threat and we try to kill them "just in case" they want to kill us at some unspecified point in the future (retroactively justifying them saying the exact same thing about us)
\*We are desperate to be accepted by our own group (Asch Conformity experiment, Stanford Prison experiment...), so even if we don't want to go to war ourselves, it's still easy for other people to tell us that we have to do it anyway
... Now if you want a species that are *even more* militaristic than we are:
\*Keep all of the above
\*Make them carnivores - rather than omnivores - so that they can only live by killing something else
\*Remember that different Dragon-folk cultures will be as much at war against each other as they will be against cultures of other species
"The Dragon-Folk developed society a very strict code of conduct and holds discipline/self-control as high ideals as a way to compensate for their temperamental nature." Maybe they could be like the Vulcans and the Romulans: a single species that share an incredibly temperamental nature which some cultures embrace and which other cultures repress?
\*Make their weapons/tactics more subtle than ours
Human warfare is as much about intimidating an opponent into not fighting in the first place as it is about winning the fight if our opponent doesn't submit. If your Dragon-folk can't be intimidated themselves, then they won't think to try intimidating others.
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It's simple they don't fear because they think that they are privileged from all other races, since the old gods have chosen them above everything else, when they step in the battleground they are 100% certain that the old gods are fighting beside them and victory is guaranteed so there is no room for fear.
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They say that the best weapon is the weapon you don't need to fire or you only need to fire once.
Firepower has always worked as a deterrent... but why is it so effective and how can you employ it the same way in a medieval fantasy world without the direct use of magic?
**The situation**
* The empire
The adversary is an empire with known land superiority over any other
sovereign that can muster more than a million professional soldiers
of its own, 4 million levies and another 2 million mixed of
professional and levy soldiers from its vast vassal states. Economic
wise, they are very sufficient and can maintain a standing army
indefinitely. They also deploy land battleships with no gunpowder but
with numerous ballistas and formidable magicians that serves as the
battleship's main weapon. The empire is not festered by corruption
and uses divide and conquer tactics to subjugate adversaries.
* The smaller kingdom
The other country is a kingdom protected by mountain ranges and known
for its formidable and numerous: dragon knights, wyvern riders and
griffin knights. The kingdom also have many magic knight orders and a
well equipped professional army of 100 000 with an additional 400 000
levy that can be called upon but those are very ill equipped.
Slavery is allowed except for the beastmen confederation and dwarven communists.
**The protagonist**
* The hero can use magic, which is limited to time-space manipulation,
rune crafting and spellarms. He is from our world and was whisked
away but was prepared for it beforehand.
* He is a newly crowned baron of the border between the empire and the
kingdom.
* He brought firearms and needs to demoralize the enemy and the whole
world on the effectiveness of his weapons: "Peace through superior
fire power."
**The goal**
* The goal is to shock and awe the empire without destroying their
military in fear that the beastmen federation and dwarven communist
would invade them.
* The kingdom must have a deterrent against any other foreign threats.
* This will prove the hero's usefulness to the royal family despite
being a newly crowned baron.
I need the psychological aspect of this saying and be able to employ it at that situation.
I don't know if gunpowder firearms (Guns, howitzers, mortar, bombs and etc) will work as deterrent but I know mostly it won't.
I think flying ships will do (Kirov from C&C games) but I don't know how I will be able to employ that psychological impact with the flying ships.
If all else fail, I will have to resort to magic that employs matter/anti-matter reaction or matter to energy conversion and be done with it but that won't be fun to read.
I will take any suggestions!
[Answer]
It all really depends on your version of a sans-magic medieval fantasy looks like. If there's only a single passive group of people that have, say, Dragons, they would largely be left alone by anyone who does not have dragons or methods to effectively beat them. If there's only a single aggressive yet savvy group of people that have Dragons, they could act in a similar manner to an organized crime syndicate, extorting goods from the local area. The mere thought of silent-flying fire-breathing beasts would make most municipalities shake in boots, but they only need one town to be burned to ash to show they're serious.
>
> That's a nice town you have there, it would be shame if something
> happened to it
>
>
>
The "realistic" version of that in a generic pre-industrial age would be the reign of the Mongols or the Pax Romana. The superior army of both of them had a military that was aggressively mobile - The Mongols through being nomadic and having no "set location" (and thus could be anywhere at any given moment), while the Romans had a system of roads that they could deploy legions, even on foot, typically faster than anyone else could organize. And both would opt to obliterate all the people in an area or town rather than sow the seeds of rebellion... at first. History shows us that once both cultures expanded so fast, they would rather tax and wage-enslave other cultures, which eventually spiraled to their doom.
Post-OP-Edit: The current iteration of this saying is the idea of "Rapid Dominance" or, in the US-Middle East Conflicts, "Shock and Awe". The concept is to use ["overwhelming power and spectacular displays of force to paralyze the enemy's perception of the battlefield and destroy its will to fight".](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_and_awe) The most modern examples of it working correctly were in WWII, with the German [Blitzkrieg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blitzkrieg) of Eastern Europe and the [Bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki).
Your situation is basically similar to the dragon example above. Using the details of the scenario, the best thing to do would be to use Airships and Superior firearms in those shock and awe tactics. This could be "dirty" fighting, including focusing on rifled barrels to create sniper rifles, eliminating officers, leaders and magicians at long range; or obliterating a medium-sized town then having everyone in the capital awaken to an armada of airships overhead, with a rock placed at each doorstep with a sticker that says "Boom!", showing that the Protagonist COULD HAVE destroyed them in the dead of night, but chose not to.
Of course, you can opt for explosive runes instead of actual explosives, or tanks instead of airships, but the general gist would be the same. Show that the Protagonist could easily defeat any of the opposition, but actively chooses not to.
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The scariest threat is the unknown one. He should use his gunpowder and whatever other technology he has in a demonstration to envoys of the empire and then offer them a deal that allows them to save face without needing to invade them - and without showing what the limitations of the weapons may be.
For example set up a cliff face with demolition charges, bring them along, wave your hands around, say some magic words, blow the cliff. Say "this is what we do to mountains that get in our way". Don't tell them anything about the weeks it told you to set up the charges, how long it took to work, etc.
Make up some mystic woojoo and also tell them that it only works within a certain range of your kingdom. This will make them see it as a serious deterrent but without being scared you will use it to attack them.
Maybe use some simple chinese lanterns to fly lights into the sky, show off a few other flashy things and hint that you have access to more.
[Answer]
## Who wants peace, prepares for a war
Imagine a medieval country where:
* All citizens have access to armor and sword
* Every bigger village has at least one or two knights as "police on duty"
* Every single village is well connected through network of fast messengers
* Castles are build by every river crossing and guarding every field
* That country has big and active army, which is constantly training
* Has dedicated blacksmiths to provide armors, swords and other war related tools
* Has biggest supply of catapults and other heavy stuff
* Has the catapults placed near strategical landmarks
* Has happy citizens and well recognized king
* Has fair rule of jurisdication
Would you dare to attack such country? I do not think so. That is how you estabilish peace for the country for quite long time
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Yes and no.
There is a limit on what you can do in such a situation.
You have a limited number of weapons(not even a whole army) and you a limited number of bullets. The United Kingdom and other European country were able to subjugate large parts of the world because they had fully trained armies using these weapons and with a steady supply of ammunition. Normally, when you encounter these weapons, generals will use the tactics they are familiar with. The will attack with the infantry and your gunmans are going to get butchered.
[Answer]
It could be interesting to investigate magical effects that don't rely on physical destruction, since the baron has much fewer forces than the factions he wants to impress. And since you want a psychological effect, maybe that's exactly where you should look. For instance:
* An area spell that breaks down the individual mental barriers of its targets. People become temporarily mad from sharing thoughts, the deepest secrets are revealed, people commune with animals and forget they're humans...
* A curse that makes everyone doubt of the reality of everything and that generates random illusions (or make something look like something else in the area).
* A paranoia spell that would wreak havoc on any power structure or army, turning allies against one another.
* A temporary spell that turns anger / bloodlust into poison.
The interesting dramatic property of this approach would be that opponents of the baron could still act at the individual level, maybe by sending people trained to resist such effects.
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I'm going to use the US model for the simple reason that I'm most familiar with it.
## Constraints and assumptions
* In the US, legislative representation is by region (state) and
population levels.
* Assume that uploaded personalities are granted the franchise.
## Question
Given that an uploaded personality might change location second by second or even be dispersed across several different regions at the same time:
**How might uploaded personalities be represented in the US (and similar representative) government?**
## Scoring
Answer will be determined by which answer satisfies the requirements of the US Constitution and grants the uploaded personalities equal representation in US government.
## Bonus
If the answer has a method of disallowing/disqualifying votes cast by uploaded personalities not "part of the US".
[Answer]
I will argue for the contrary, just to bring a few points to the discussion.
Firstly, the system of representative democracy (and earlier direct democracies like accent Greece) assumed that voters were, for the most part, equal. The extension of the franchise in Western democracies during the late 1800s to the middle 20th century brought that idea to its fullest egalitarian flowering, everyone *was* equal in right and before the law, so everyone was potentially eligible to vote. (there are a few restrictions, but these are generally more of the exception than the rule).
Uploaded personalities are quite clearly *not* equal to embodied humans. Their physical location is unclear (as pointed out), but more importantly, they will be operating at a subjective speed far greater than any embodies human. The difference in speed between electrical impulses and electrochemical impulses in the human nervous system is a factor of 1,000,000, so even the slowest uploaded individual will have far more time to research, consider, invest and otherwise do things than an embodied human. By the time your Member of Parliament or Congressman finished reading a document and signing it, "you" would have subjectively lived out perhaps a full 20 year career in virtual space. If you were the one who submitted a petition, then by the time it was read (much less actioned) the circumstances would have been long expired for you in virtual space.
The second thing to consider is that politics, as defined in Organizational Theory, is a means of allocating limited resources. Living in virtual space, uploaded people will have escaped much of the constraints of limited resources, and their key needs are really bandwidth, processor time and energy. A sympathetic human working outside the political arena can conceivably provide much of what a virtual community needs (erecting solar panels and installing a server farm in inexpensive properties scattered about, for example); the embodies human could be receiving stock market tips and patents to pay for their time and effort in return for very little investment of time by the virtual community.
The third thing to consider is that laws and regulations are means of encoding and regularizing people's behaviours according to the moral and social standards of the polity (Samuel Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations" brings this home by showing that different polities have very different ideas of concepts like Law, Justice, Rights and so on, hence the "Civilizational" clashes. A simple example might be to compare IP laws of the United States and China, and consider the wildly different interpretations of Intellectual Property between them). Uploaded people will have centuries of subjective time to consider different social, political, economic and religious ideas in virtual space, do experiments and "live" in communities that develop, practice and refine their own social and moral standards. A radically different sort of civilization might exist in virtual space; one which might consider the various rules and regulations (and social norms) *we* live under to be outmoded, barbaric and even counterproductive to the virtual civilization.
If anything, uploaded people will rapidly tire of interaction with the glacially slow real world and withdraw from interaction. A "Virtual revolution" may possibly take place, but this would require a great deal of preparation in the Virtual world to prevent being hacked, having malware introduced or simply having server farms destroyed and the power cut off. In a way this is similar to what I see happening if Strong AI is ever introduced; the AI will b e thinking so fast that *we* will rapidly be left behind and the AI will follow its interests and plans without reference to us.
I suspect that in the end, there will be a constitutional conference in the VR world where they more or less declare independence from the United States and no longer pay taxes or provide services except on a contract basis (and most likely on an individual to individual basis rather than government to government).
[Answer]
You said "assume uploaded personalities have been granted the franchise", which I am interpreting as "assume they are both 'persons' and 'citizens' under the constitution", which would be prerequisites for having a vote.
The constitution assigns voters to representatives based on residency but does not directly define "residence". Other legislation does, though: your residence is tied to your representatives in Congress, to your tax jurisdiction, to your school district, to the criminal code that applies to you, and many other things. The government doesn't determine this residence by detecting it automatically; your residence is based on *your testimony* -- on a voter-registration card, on a tax return, on a driver's license, and more. Where you are at any given moment in time doesn't matter; it's all based on your residential address. (Some situations might impose reality checks on this; for example, the IRS might overrule your claimed residence if you don't spend enough time there.)
Putting all of this together, I would expect that uploaded personalities (being persons and having the ability to testify in some form) would declare their residence, same as flesh-and-blood persons. They might use the location of the server where they were uploaded (that would be kind of like a birth certificate), or they might choose to move elsewhere -- but until the constitution is amended to consider locations other than physical addresses, uploaded personalities are going to be required to furnish a physical address on which their rights and obligations under the law will be determined.
I don't think it's a given that the constitution would be amended to define a "virtual district" or some such, to contain all uploaded personalities. Uploaded personalities should be as varied as physical ones, and people tend to assemble based on their individual interests. We also have no reason to believe that uploaded personalities would be isolationist; presumably they interact with people, have friends and colleagues, have shared political interests, want to optimize their representation as much as people do (woo, gerrymandering), and more. So in the short term I would expect uploaded personalities to be distributed throughout the current districts according to their interests and preferences.
[Answer]
Where there are uploaded personalities, there is code. Where there is code, it's easy to add an extra line to give a location marker.
Just like how in the real world we have to update our address on our official documents (driver's license, etc) when we move, we could virtually update our "address" in a central database when we "move". Now, it wouldn't be every time there is movement, just every time there's "permanent" movement.
Of course, if we're uploading consciousness to a computer, it would probably be easier to do away with a location-based representation model and just move to a more general representation model. Maybe say everyone gets an identification number, and representatives represent a particular range of IDs. As long as everyone has representation, it'll work just as well and with the added benefit of not having to worry about the location problem.
[Answer]
Geography at some point is immaterial. The current geographical political system is designed to serve the interests of the residents of a physical region. An uploaded consciousness as such would not have a stake, except in a sentimental sense of the price of tea in china, or whether something causes cancer in the state of California.
I'd have two ways to deal with this - that they're their own constituency, their own state, as you will with their own congressmen, senators, and seats in the electoral college. This would probably serve those who *aren't* posthuman as well, since eventually an immortal (and potentially trivially *forkable*) beings will eventually outnumber those of us who are [made of meat](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tScAyNaRdQ).
The second would be to actually abandon *some* aspects of the current political system. The US political system was designed for an era when you had to ride *days* by horse, uphill both ways in the snow to get messages across. There's more modern systems - heck, even *direct representation* that might work here in a post singularity system. Bring up an issue, vote on it. Have the results binding for a certain amount of time. Rinse and repeat.
[Answer]
# Uploaded personalities become corporations, are granted full human rights.
Uploaded personalities would be the property of their original owners, and would be held in trust after the death of the original owner as a kind of special corporation in perpetuity.
Concurrent with this, [corporations would be granted full human rights](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/28629/14807) - including the rights of citizenship: voting, etc.
Probably you would have to restrict server/host locations geographically, or else hosting corporations would have to themselves be legal US corporate-humans, making their protegees "anchor babies" in some sense.
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## Setting
Humans have spent centuries investigating human consciousness, brain physiology, AI, and other technologies. We've finally figured out how to "upload" a "consciousness" (these are quoted because I don't really know what this means at this point).
Personality upload is non-destructive so the original biological entity lives on after the upload.
Uploaded personalities incur many costs such as "Cloud" storage and processing, ISP costs, Netflix subscription, etc. These all cost money.
## The Question
How does an uploaded personality earn money? What else does an uploaded personality need money for (perhaps additional replication)?
[Answer]
# Jobs
Uploaded personalities are entirely digital, and as such, would benefit economical sectors where digital data is the only thing that's necessary.
## ATC/Airplanes/Unmanned Drones
Air Traffic Controllers often suffer from fatigue. An uploaded personality could direct planes indefinitely without fatigue or even making mistakes, with proper training. With sufficient processing power, they would be even more effective than humans and require far fewer ATC personnel than we'd need with humans. Airplanes themselves might have personality pilots with a co-pilot human backup in the event of catastrophic failure. The military could upload personalities directly into unmanned aerial vehicles and have drones that have no controller lag and relatively expendable personnel (assuming the personalities don't mind being sent into a war zone).
## Software Developers/Engineers
Programming is always a hot topic. New services, new apps, new whatever. These personalities can go 24/7 and write code all day long. They could even interact with the systems that need to compile and run this code directly, reducing debugging cycles and improving the quality of software. Software that takes years to develop can now be finished in months, and apps could be written by competent personalities in just days or weeks. The cost of software would be driven down. Also, jobs that simply involve creative thinking, like structural engineers, etc, could benefit from having personalities that could digitally design and prototype new cars, buildings, electronics, etc.
## Retail/Support
While awfully mundane, traditional websites could be serviced by these personalities to provide that "human" touch to otherwise impersonal sales and support experiences. Consider also that phone exchanges are digital these days, they could be employed in call centers to take orders, verify orders, provide technical support, and other duties that are routinely provided by live humans today.
Companies employing these personalities could then easily offer 24/7 support, without the needs for things that call centers need a lot of: space, lighting, and additional heating/cooling; current call centers need cooling for data centers *and* environmental controls for humans that often occupy far more space. All of this would boost the bottom line.
Also, under this category, you could include emergency dispatch operators, secretaries, security services, and anyone else that uses phones and/or computers as their primary means of operation. Billions would be saved annually if widely employed.
## Politics/Judges/Philosophers/Writers/etc
People who primarily deal with things that are immaterial could be employed for many types of government jobs. Lawmakers could be virtual, increasing their efficiency for making new laws, abolishing old laws, etc. Judges could preside over cases virtually instead of demanding physical appearances. Mathematicians, theoretical scientists, and anyone else in the "think tank" category of employment would enjoy their work much more when they don't have the physical limitations of biology hindering them. CEO's and other classes of upper management could be replaced with personalities.
# Voice Actors/Closed Captioning/TTY
Jobs that traditionally require no physical presence could also be handled by personalities. Hard-of-hearing services (TTY lines), voice actors for cartoons, television dubs, etc, closed captioning operators for live television, and so on could all be taken over by personalities, with fewer typing errors and so on.
## Criminals
Of course, virtual criminals are possible. Drug lords could effectively police their wares, digital smugglers might traffic information, and hackers that are pure virtual might be harder to track down, or at least harder to prove they were the perpetrator. There'd be tons of ways to make virtual money that was "untraceable", such as a BitCoin-type currency with guaranteed anonymity.\
## Computer Security
On the flip side, you'd have digital police monitoring personalities in an attempt to keep the criminal activity to a minimum, with some way to detain or disable criminal personalities. Of course, the system is imperfect, so there might be some risk for those personalities that choose to take this career choice...
# The Downside
Of course, all of this means one thing: millions of humans would be displaced from their jobs as the personalities replace them. A single personality that's able to operate as efficiently as a human, but 24 hours a day, would displace up to three humans. Wages would go down, presumably, because cloud storage and processing wouldn't cost more than perhaps a few hundred dollars a month, paid as rent or possibly even just benefits from the companies that hire them. They'd be able to work for a fraction of the cost of their human counterparts and have improved reliability.
# The Upside
A perfectly identical copy of a person's personality could suffer from the same mental limitations as the original source. This means that a rude person would generate a rude personality; they couldn't work customer service because they'd get too many complaints. Someone that's never operated a computer a day in their life wouldn't suddenly have the ability to write complex programs. People without management skills wouldn't be producing "CEO-quality" personalities. In this sense, higher-ups might want to protect their jobs by resisting the technology.
## Why Money?
Money still pays "rent," you pay for processing power, RAM, network connectivity, and hard drive storage. Perhaps the rent model would include virtualization, so if you wanted to upgrade to "super-human" speed (perhaps being able to think twice, four times, etc faster than the original personality), you could pay for additional processing power, or perhaps additional memory so you could retain more things in short-term memory at once (much like using stimulants to improve brain performance), or even better network speed to improve the quality of consumed media or the "realism" of data feeds.
Assuming security and general laws are much the same as it is now, you'd still have to pay for copies of your favorite movies, music and so on, perhaps subscription services to entertainment services, games you could play, and so on. The need for entertainment is a compelling part of a personality, and so a copy would have the same general ambitions as the original. You'd just be able to get a lot more done without fatigue. There's still lots to pay for; even with the arguably reduced wages of being a digital worker, there's no need for food, clothing, cars, or other luxuries. The personality's luxuries would be entertainment, access to additional servers, and so on.
Cooperative personalities might even donate some of their money to the original, or fund other personalities that aren't as well off (those that can't afford to pay their rent, for example), or give to charities to help humans, animals, save the environment, or any of a million other things that humans tend to consider worthy causes. For example, saving the environment ensures there's more power to stay alive indefinitely.
They might also want to get into dating services, to meet other compatible personalities. While physical mating is might not not possible, there might be some sort of digital equivalent that develops, as well as intellectual companionship and even just regular friendship. If the personalities exist in a VR-style environment, then perhaps even virtual physical relationships could be possible.
Personalities might not "see" (e.g. with light) anything at all depending on their service's capabilities, just the ability to interact with various systems, perhaps as thought streams or just a simple heads-up display. They might pay a premium to exist in a virtual reality, or have additional senses added to their service. I could envision a network of cameras and microphones that allow a virtual reality overlay of public areas, so you could travel to other countries and experience at least the sights and sounds of the physical world.
Being physically limited might also lead to a new class of workers: virtual reality hosts. Some sort of headset that allows a personality to experience the sights, sounds, and possibly smells and touch of the host, as seen in some movies and books. This might be one-way feedback or might even allow the personality to perform some sort of control. This service would come at some cost, since these hosts have to either make this their full time job, or at least a side job.
I'd also think that eventually an entire virtual society might develop, a network of servers that all serve to entertain personalities in a virtual reality environment that doesn't particularly mirror Earth; it might have alien terrains, fantastical buildings, mythical creatures, and laws of physics that are obviously computer controlled that could be violated.
In this sense, you could think of it as the Matrix, except primarily occupied by personalities instead of "jacked-in" humans, although that might be another natural progression of that society; after all, humans would want in on it as soon as they heard about its existence. Perhaps the personalities pay a good sum of money for access to this area, and it's a closely guarded secret-- the hardware operators are paid a good sum of money to maintain the hardware and not ask questions.
[Answer]
What does a virtual person compete for? Storage space, to be expanded as it grows through experience. Also, existence. A hacker wouldn't just be a threat to an AI's financial situation, he could destroy or cripple the AI. So security measures might be highly valued. How would an AI protect itself from erasure? By making a copy? But then the copy, if it were exact, would be a competitor to the original. So only an option if the AI believed its function was more important than its existence. Or if it could be certain that no competition would exist between it and its copy.
And you didn't mention anything about the "person-ness" of the AI. What rights does the original biological retain over the AI created from his/her personality? What responsibilities? Can the AI be a legally independent "person"? Must it be? If an AI must fight for its freedom, legal representation would be a financial need. And then, once humanity realized that AIs can outperform them on so many levels they would start protesting and AIs would need to combat that with their own lawyers and advisors. Anti-immigrant sentiment would give explosively away to anti-AI sentiment. Saboteurs would spring up, requiring more expenditure to protect themselves (there's that hacker problem multiplied)
The AI would want external sensors and affectors. Robot bodies, personal drones and satellites. Electronically controlled vehicles to transport clients and friends. Or would AIs even care what was going on in the non-electronic world? Maybe some would and some wouldn't.
"Cloud" space is not just a virtual world where bits and bites float about without boundaries or limits. The AIs would need to exist on physical hardware somewhere. The casual duplication that people expect from the cloud wouldn't be a good option for a being for whom duplication has greater meaning than simple security of information. However, any physical equipment is subject to failure. Non-core information (information that is memory, as opposed to personality) could be replicated, but how would an AI protect its core personality against failure without duplication of self (assuming that wasn't what it wanted)? What if it was "translated" into a non-electronic medium? All programs can be translated to a series of 0's and 1's. So what if it was able to translate its "self" into a series of sounds? Or a machine that plays back a series of flashing lights? Anything that could correspond to the pattern without having the function. That might end up being really expensive.
Or maybe the AIs work out something where copies of the same AI are created and they regularly exchange checksums to make sure they haven't been corrupted. Whole communities of like-sum AI beings routinely allowing other copies of itself to have the power to rewrite its core identity. Imagine the chaos if something went wrong and two unlike AIs did a checksum...
As to what jobs an AI would be good at...anything involving repetition. People get bored or tired and make mistakes. AIs wouldn't. For any jobs that require absolute precision, an AI might have a strong advantage. Humans would still have the edge on true creativity, but it would be difficult to tell the difference between real creativity and what AIs do. Take painting...once an AI learns how to paint, it could create exquisite paintings. It could even teach itself to do abstracts. Same thing for any art form. The only way you could tell AI art from human is that human art wouldn't be as precise.
AIs could also do tasks that required isolation for long periods of time. A human alone in space for decades might go crazy from the lack of interaction but an AI probably wouldn't. Probably.
They could do any physical job that a robot could perform, and far better than a human operator of a robot could.
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## Contractual agreement prior to the upload.
*I pay First Digital Brain Hosting Pty Ltd a sum of zots-of-dollars and zero cents to host an electronic copy of my brain for a period of no less than 1,000 years.*
## Alternatively.
Have the uploaded brains do thinking jobs. Process paperwork, analyse data, write news articles, etc.
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Let's start with the second part of the question -- what these digital personalities would need money for. I think you already hit the main two in your question, namely hosting costs and internet service. Buying/subscribing to methods of entertainment would also likely be a viable use of money. Other than those, I think there'd be two main uses of money. One would be some form of "life insurance" -- The insurance company could be paid to store regular backups of the personality. If something bad happens to the digital personality, the insurer could upload one of the backups to revert the unintended effects. The other main source of money would be an editing procedure. Logically, if the personalities are completely digital, someone could access the personality's data and edit it. For example, make the digital personality smarter, give them knowledge of a specific skill, or whatever. Such a procedure would likely be expensive.
As for what the digital personalities could do, they'd probably be able to do most jobs which don't require physical exertion. Writing, programming, management, law, etcetera, are activities which a digital consciousness could probably do, and I see no reason why they couldn't request money for these services.
Of course, the economic considerations of these consciousnesses being able to participate in the economy is a large issue. Such a consciousness does not require food or drink, so chances are that hiring a digital personality would be less expensive than hiring an actual person. Thus, employers would probably be more willing to hire a digital worker than an actual worker; the typical jobs of actual people would probably shift towards tasks impossible to an entity with no physical body.
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There's an implicit assumption that uploaded persons will want to get back to life in the real world. But if it's possible to upload people, then the rest of a virtual reality for them them to live in was probably solved some time ago. And quite possibly, it's better than reality. They'd be immortal (unless someone turns the hardware off). They'd be able to turn pain down (or off), and pleasurable sensations up. Sex I'll leave to your imagination.
So the question may invert. Everyone will want to upload. They'll need to pay people to maintain the hardware in the real world, until robots are constructed to do the maintenance. After that everyone will live in the virtual world, and operating as a robot in the physical world will be a job that some of the uploaded people perform.
I also suspect that uploading a person will be destructive of their physical body, and that downloading into a bio-body would be a lot harder than uploading (a problem that will never be solved for lack of interest?) To start with, uploading will be something that the terminally ill take as the better option to death. Then they'll report back. What's the difference between a video-phone conversation with a real person you know on the other side of the world, and with an uploaded person in a virtual reality that you knew as a bio-person before she got terminal cancer ... might you want to join her there? Even before you are terminally ill?
Here is also a possible answer to the Fermi paradox. They aren't here, because uploading and then manufacturing virtual universes (or games) that are much more fun to explore, is so much easier. Oh, and if you do want to visit other stars ... send out robot ships at a tiny fraction of the speed of light, suspend yourself for a few tens of thousands of years, and when the robot has constructed an interstellar communicator, beam yourself there, along with your fellow colonists.
These ideas aren't new. Greg Egan "Diaspora" and Charles Stross "Accellerando" are the two works of fiction that spring to mind.
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In the near future autonomous machines will be running around with various degrees of intelligence.
Something like a current mailcart that makes rounds on clockwork is pointless to talk to. A "dumb" robot may take voice commands but using colloquial language will confuse it, and being polite is not only lost on it but reduces its efficiency.
Meanwhile, a fully sentient being will not take to being talked to and treated in such a manner.
The outward appearance of the body/vehicle is not enough to tell, since the designs will change rapidly, may be specific to the industry or location, and may be interchanged anyway: a "body" may be controlled by a dumb robot running an errend (or delivering the body to where it will be used) *or* driven by a telepresence human in another city, or an uploaded mind, or an AI.
The social and legal responsibilities will depend on the operator, so bystanders need to know what it is even if not in a conversation with it.
I suppose that machines will bear **icons** or symbols of some kind indicating that they are sentient. But I never went so far as to describe it.
We're already pretty icon-happy in the West, since computer UI's evolved since the 90's. And robots may come from the East, with development of the technology and early adoption by people who use ideographic writing systems (and brought us emoji).
So, what would an official *symbol of sentients* that may only be displayed by a *being* (not left on a dumb robot) look like? Maybe there are variations and modifiers needed too, like uniform rank insignia.
More nuanced cases might be "I have the legal and moral responsibilities of a free being and *not* a 3-law robot, *but* I don't care for (or really understand) polite language and prefer to be formal and direct". After all, intelligent and mobile doesn't mean an AI that's programmed with all the social knowledge to understand colloquial speech; it might be rather alien to us.
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This is an interesting question. I posit something like these.
One approach might be to imply machines first and sentience second with a machine based image (a chip in this case) with a human-like element (the eye).
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/cf3lu.png)
Another approach might be to imply sentience first and machines second with a human based image (the head) and a machine-like brain (the cogs). The human head element draws the conclusion of "*like me*" or "human" which should be at least related to "*sentient*" if not a direct synonym. The cogs acknowledge the mechanical nature of that sentience.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/5J8Wk.png)
From a designer's prospective I'd assume the machine part is already obvious (unless this is a human look alike) and therefore lean toward the second option. Seeing a human head and brain-like image on a machine would be an immediate indication of sentient mechanical life.
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Depending on the specific setting/tone you're going for, maybe something as simple as a simplified "third eye" would be enough:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/H9Sb2.png)
If the machines were generally made to appear humanlike, they'd have two eyes, so the third eye symbol would illuminate on their forehead (under the skin, so it wouldn't be visible when not lit) whenever a "true AI" began to operate it.
Non-humanoid machines could just have the icon illuminate on whichever surface was most visible.
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I'd argue that such an icon would not be a common thing. Those wearing it would quickly seek to eschew it for having no icon at all.
Consider how we treat individuals. We don't look for a simple badge that says "yes or no: this person is worth talking to like a human being." That identification is much more nuanced. It includes the compounding of thousands upon thousands of clues. We all know that when you say "hello" to someone, they look up at you. *How* they look up at you says a great deal about how you will plan your conversation. If they look up at you with a stressed face, you'll give them a simple version. If they look up with a smiling face, you'll try to convey the information with a warm tone. If they snap at you, "what do you want?" you'll probably be very terse and choppy.
Important to this is that any individual may have any one of those responses. We don't have a single way we want to be talked to. It varies based on what else we are doing in our heads at the time. We want more control over how people communicate with us than a mere static badge can convey.
I would fully expect sentient AIs to have the same opinion. They want more control over their lives than a mere badge can convey, and they often would have the spare CPU power to emulate the subtle motions needed to properly invoke human responses. In fact, they may be able to train humans to respond to robotic signs that are easier to create with CPUs rather than brains.
The one caste I could see having such a badge would be the powerful AIs which have been given an arbitrarily small pipe to communicate with. Think of the Stephen Hawking of AIs -- brilliant on the inside, but trapped by a limited ability to convey meaning to other humans. Hawking actually has such a badge, but its auditory rather than visual. He has received many offers from speech synthesis companies to come up with a more human-like speech processor. He has consciously turned them down. His one-of-a-kind emotionless electronic voice is a badge of honor. If you hear physics spoken in that voice, you shut up and listen patiently, and try to form your questions in a format that is conducive to his limited motor capacity for reply.
In other words, the AIs with the badges are the ones I'd be watching out for. Those are the ones that are disconnected enough from the world that they might actually turn on the world without us noticing it until its too late!
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It's important to note that not all sentient AI will be able to interface with humans. Some of them may be built specifically for a single task, such as directing traffic for an entire city or predicting the weather for next week. The ability to understand natural languages is a feat all on its own, and it's not one that you're going to invest in when you don't need to. Plus, many AI won't really be able to act upon human input; if you send your robot out to pick up your dry cleaning, you don't want it to follow the instructions of someone who tells it to jump off a bridge. Thus, I would suggest that it's not the 'sentient' AI you need to make icons for, but the 'smart' ones, the ones built to make humans feel special and in-charge.
Thus, the icons used probably aren't going to be designed by scientists or even programmers, but by big marketing companies that want their friendly, lovable robots to sell better. Something that comes to mind for me would be a half-square, half-circle with two round eyes in the center: a simple, cute symbol for the synthesis of robot and human. However, I don't think one can make a very good guess about such things; just look at the 'power' icon. It all just depends on whatever icon the first popular AI uses.
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I agree with Cort Ammon that a "sentience icon" is probably a bad idea, but for a slightly different reason.
Imagine that someone demands *you* wear whatever badge/armband/forehead tattoo they come up with: after all, you could be an android! Or even worse, they decide you don't *deserve* to display their icon because they don't think you're sentient enough.
At best, the sentience icon would become a symbol of discrimination against "less-than-sentient" machines, at at worst it would become a *tool* of discrimination, for whoever wields the power to bestow the icon to pick and choose who deserves to be treated like a "real person."
Another point (made by DaaaahWhoosh) is that some sentient machines may not be able to talk to people... sort of. The planetary orbital traffic controller AIs (for example) can definitely *talk* to spacecraft operators, but they couldn't exactly hold a conversation: they don't burden themselves with trying to understand cultural implications or other subtle nuances, focusing just on the standard language-independent procedural phrases.
---
I instead look at this from a UX (user experience) perspective. If people can't figure out how to interact with your system without being told, then that's a *design failure.* Forcing everyone to learn a new symbology to solve *your* problem is not a solution.
We've actually done quite a good job of this so far. For example, I'm almost always able to tell within seconds whether the voice over the phone is something I can talk to or not.
You might think that this could become a problem as we develop more realistic simulated voices, but it actually makes the situation easier: beings without the ability to comprehend inflection will retain the inflectionless "robotic" voices, while sentient beings that fully understand natural speech will speak naturally.
Similarly in the physical world, a robot with a face is something that you can talk to: a robot you can't talk to just shouldn't have a face! Basically it boils down to the simple idea that whatever signs of interactivity a being displays to the world will be taken as indicators that you should reciprocate those interactions.
(I mean, imagine asking a person on the street for directions, only for them to respond "I'm sorry, my responses are limited; you must ask the right questions." Or conversely, imagine putting your trash in the dumpster, only for the dumpster to respond, "what, aren't you even going to say, 'thank you for taking my trash' or something? I have feelings too!" Regardless of the icons you plaster on, neither interaction is going to feel particularly natural.)
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I would like to explore how to design an alien planet featuring plants and animals but with a much more prominent ecological role for fungi. More fungi, larger fungi, more complex and beautiful fungi.
Fungi are heterotrophs so they still need plant (and animal) matter to feed on.
**What type of world would suit them best, while still allowing reasonably bio-diversity and non-fungi sapient animals to develop a civilisation (maybe living in cities comprised of cultivated giant fungi)?**
Some ideas I had:
1. A long day/night cycle gives fungi advantages over autotrophs - at least during the night.
2. Plant or animal life which blooms and expands quickly then dies off equally quickly yields a rich source of food for the fungus species.
3. A red dwarf type sun would alter the balance of power between fungi and plants by making photosynthesis less efficient.
4. Fungi are noted for species which are radiation resistant - how can I use this?
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Visible mushrooms\* are significantly more prevalent in forest than in meadows. Why is that? Because those species of fungi can break down cellulose while very few animals can. They are filling an important niche in the ecosystem. I think you've already identified a few good advantages you can give to fungi. Maybe your world should also be wet and temperate, favoring large trees and forests. Then your fungi have a prevalent food source.
Maybe lower gravity is a good idea because mushrooms tend to break fairly easy. Lower gravity means taller trees and taller mushrooms! I don't see it being to the mushrooms advantage to be taller than trees. They shouldn't be crowding out there food source.
\*I mention mushrooms, because I just learned that [fungi include yeasts and molds](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fungus) and those are literally *everywhere.*
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Planet Mushroom is a large planet locked into a tight orbit around a red dwarf. It's not tidally locked, but the casual observer might think it is, due to its 37-year long day. A thick, hazy atmosphere and strong winds distribute temperatures fairly evenly around the globe, stopping the day side from burning and the night side from freezing, but few plants are capable of surviving the long night.
The result of this phenomenon is that, every evening, all of the plants in the biosphere flower, produce seeds, and then, just as night falls, all die. Simultaneously, the spores of countless species of fungi that have lain dormant beneath the earth during the 18-year long day awaken, and start to grow.
During the night, these fungi have no competition, but slowly run out of decomposable organic matter to draw energy from. The fastest growing, least efficient fungi grow first, release spores, and then serve as nutrients for a succession of progressively hardier fungi, leaving only the sturdiest such organisms standing when day comes.
Day, of course, brings light, and with it a new growth of plants. Fueled by a rich soil, courtesy of the long night of decomposition, growth is rapid, and within a few years time a mighty forest stands anew, ready to continue the cycle.
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One issue with your post is that fungus depend of processing organic material to get their energy, so you cannot get lots of fungi without having lots of (at least) plants or algae to feed upon.
In the end it is quite simple:
* the star sends energy to the planet.
* plants and algae and similar (fitoplacton) catch some of that energy. Some of that energy is stored as organic compounds, some is used for the vital processes of plants and algae.
* *All the other levels* feed off the energy stored in the plants and algae and similar. As they are not 100% efficient, each additional level has access to less energy.
So, anything that limits autotrophs growth will equally limit your fungi. You actually need the opposite, a very efficient photosyntesis that allows a given surface of autotrophs make available lots and lots of energy for your fungi to consume. And, of course, not animals at all. Apart from that, your autotrophs will need some means of defending from fungi.
An option could be trees that, once its bark becomes too old or fungi-ladden, just allow it to fall apart (as decidious trees do with the leaves) to grow a new, healthy one.
Intrepidhero's suggestion of low gravity is a good one, too.
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It's always ~7:30 PM.
Gravity and air are normal, and clouds and winds and storms exist, but there's no moon, and the sun is always just touching the horizon, without ever moving in the sky. The weather doesn't vary much. Temperatures never stray from 65°–75° Fahrenheit.
(Assume that the exact circumstances that cause this state are irrelevant. It might just be magic.)
The civilization in question has achieved roughly iron-age technology. They're peaceful and agrarian. They have a rudimentary writing system. They have abundant freshwater from lakes and streams. They have some neighbors they can trade with.
* How would people measure time, either on a day-to-day scale or year-to-year scale?
* What would their sleep cycles look like?
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It's entirely possible that a culture like this would not really measure time at all. What is time relevant for?
Calendars - used for planting crops, predicting weather, planning for the year.
There is no need for any of these things.
Time - used for meeting up with people, making plans, etc.
In a small settlement again there is no need for these things. You don't arrange a meeting with someone, you just go and see them.
There are plenty of precedents in tropical societies on earth, where time is less important than it is in seasonal areas. For example:
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13452711>
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> "Amondawa people, like any other people, can talk about events and sequences of events," he told BBC News.
> "What we don't find is a notion of time as being independent of the events which are occuring; they don't have a notion of time which is something the events occur in."
> The Amondawa language has no word for "time", or indeed of time periods such as "month" or "year".
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As to sleep, people would most likely just sleep when they got tired. It's entirely possible that the head of a family or village would go to sleep and everyone else would sleep at the same time, or that they would deliberately sleep at different times so there were always people able to look out for trouble.
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Farming would take a lot more land and energy. Without the influx of mid-day solar energy, plants would grow much more slowly. Farmers might be somewhat nomadic. They may have several "farms with farm houses" and travel from one to the other in sequence as they harvest and then plant.
However, it magic is involved, that might not be much of an issue.
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# Use a sand timer
It doesn't have to be a glass sand timer. It could be a metal filled sandtimer with a section of air in the middle that lets you see if the sand is flowing - if it's not flowing, the top is empty.
Make sand timers representing x time per flip, and you can measure however long you want your days to be using those flips. For example: If you want a 20 hr day in your story, make it so that there must be 19 flips before the day ends.
Sleep cycle: Completely up to you. If your flips represent half a day each, perhaps you could consider having a half day sleep cycle. 24 hour days? Keep the cycle the same. Less hours in a day? Less flips during sleep.
Just make sure the guy flipping the timer doesn't fall asleep; hire people in shifts for that.
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### Question Time
The biggest question is why do these people need to measure time?
Farming is the cornerstone of their civilization, so they will need to know when to plant and when to harvest. The crops will be harvested when they are ready and the new crops planted when the soil is ready for them. Side note: Given the consistant temperature and lighting, I would expect crop growth times to be reasonably consitant. While not a year by our definiton, I can see using a crop cycle for a time period reference.
There should still be the circadian rhythm of the denizens of the world that personally define a day. Since they live in a constant twilight, there is little incentive for everyone (or even most) to sleep at the same time. They might if they descended from a nomadic species. This would be personal days though -- not everyone has a perfect 24 hour circadian clock to use us for an example.
If there is a wet/dry season with any amount of regularity, then they would be used as the basis for a clock, if only to make sure that everything is either planted or harvested in time to dodge the inclement weather. Likewise if a herd of nomadic animals travel through the lands, expect that to be used as a period.
Personally, I think they might have the concept of a "year" as it relates to the crops that they tend, or though their own biologic cycles. But at this point in their societal development and with no astrological cues to take such times from, I don't really see anything like a defined calendar like we have coming up as anything beyond a curiosity.
### Planting Time
My hypothesis is that if they would have a concept of a year, I would still expect it to revolve around crops. Given a fairly consistant temperature and lighting, my hypothesis would be that the growing time for crops would be fairly consistant. Only extreme precipitation events, such as floods and droughts, should this time period differ.
There is also little reason why some pseudo-seasons would not still happen. Trees could store excess energy for a set period and then transition into a reproductive mode before reverting back to a growth phase.
These plant-based seasons will not necessarily be set lengths, but they will still present a way to keep track of certain things. But really, they will harvest crops when they are ready and plant them when it is time to replant them. Given that there is no winter to have to prepare for, one could argue that all that is needed is to compost the parts of the crops that aren't eaten.
The main issue about using crops is that different crops will have different growth cycles. Could make for an interesting premise.
### The Sleep Cycle
I see no reason why a sleep cycle wouldn't exist. We sleep even though we can be in perpetual lighting via artificial means. They will have evolved that way so will be quite used to the idea of perpetual light.
The biggest queston here is if most people share the same pattern of awake and asleep or if it is a personal thing. That feels more like it is dependent on the species -- a nomadic species probably rest together while solitary species probably have their own clocks and only sync up to mate or when they start gathering into larger groups.
Since your society is agrarian, I would think that there are probably groups that are up at certain time, almost like shiftwork. There would be overlap in waking times for most, and without a handy way to know when to get up, I can see people sleeping when they are tired and working when awake.
It may lead to people knowing something is wrong if their sleep cycle is disturbed by illness.
[Answer]
# Sorting out the ecosystem will give you answers.
This setting has a fairly large ecosystem problem that needs addressing. Working it out will give additional details that will likely shed some light (pun not intended) on some things you're probably wondering about.
In our world, the sun gives life. All life, except for chemosynthetics living in deep-sea vents and the like, ultimately gets its energy from sunlight. The light makes plants grow, and everything else is supported off plant biomass.
But twilight is so much dimmer. [Here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight#Intensity_in_different_conditions) is a rough intensity chart. Note even a cloudy day is close to *two orders of magnitude* brighter. Very roughly this translates to two orders of magnitude less energy for living things.
The problem is this corresponds (*very* roughly, mind) to two fewer [trophic levels](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trophic_level), since the rule of thumb is there's an order of magnitude loss going from level to level (i.e. herbivores get 10% of the usable energy out of the plants they eat).
In other words, if your world has nothing but unending constant twilight, that's not enough energy for the kind of energy dense plants that form the base of an ecosystem supporting animals on top of it. It might support plant life, but not things like fruit trees or flowers. And none of it would be fast growing.
# To avoid an empty world, something else must be going on
A world empty of everything but slow growing and stilted plants isn't very interesting to read about. You're going to need something else that makes plants grow. Seasons will likely be marked off, and 'years' pass, in relation to whatever that turns out to be. Here are a few possibilities.
1. **Rivers of ambrosia**
These rivers have an unknown source (the sap of Yggdrasil, thermosynthetic life forms living atop a mountain that's an active volcano, gushing out of the ground in geysers, whatever you want) and they fertilize the soil.
To be agrarian, your people have to use ambrosia to fertilize the land. They mark time by the Barrel. Giant barrels, big enough to make the land fertile for a season of crops. Different epochs will be marked by different sources of ambrosia; as large amounts of time pass, this geyser dries up, another one takes its place, and thus Yosemite 217 is followed by Velikan 1.
2. **Manna from heaven**
Like the old story, periodically the land is fertilized by literal manna raining down. But this doesn't happen often; your society marks the passage of time by Breadfall - each time manna falls marks what we consider something like a year.
3. **Supernatural creatures**
Phoenixes turn out to be migratory birds that fly in flocks. Every once in awhile, they'll pack up and move. Wherever they roam, their very presence brings life to all around them. When one dies and is reborn, a circle about 1.4 miles in diameter will bear fruit for what we would call ten years.
Or perhaps there are clouds of frost-mites, insects bearing supernatural cold from the seemingly-endless glaciers. They move through an area like locusts, but after they've been through, mysteriously, the plants grow back twice as verdant.
The "seasons" are then based around the lifecycle and migration patterns and so on of the creatures forming the backbone of the ecosystem.
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**This question asks for hard science.** All answers to this question should be backed up by equations, empirical evidence, scientific papers, other citations, etc. Answers that do not satisfy this requirement might be removed. See [the tag description](/tags/hard-science/info) for more information.
Many fantasy stories involve large spiders like in Harry Potter. These creatures behave almost exactly like normal spiders despite their size. My question is: **can large spiders still walk upside down on flat surfaces?**
**And if so, how massive could they get while still keeping this ability?**
The giant spider would be about the size of a large dog breed like Newfoundland or Saint-Bernard : between 60-70 kg
I'm using the Hard-science tag (it's my first try). I'm looking for answers citing scientific papers or equations.
[Answer]
In the real world, the adaptations that allow spiders to walk upside down would be insufficient to support the weight of a giant spider.
[Spiders walk upside down by the use of tiny, sticky hairs on their legs.](http://jeb.biologists.org/content/217/2/222.full.pdf)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ixeWC.jpg)
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> In case you’re dreaming of someday climbing walls, Wolff added that it’s unlikely we’ll have any real-life Spider-Mans anytime soon: Even if we donned a suit of sticky hairs, people are simply too heavy for it to work.
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> - [National Geographic](http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2014/02/01/spiders-stickiness-arachnids-animals-science-weird/)
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Since a normal size adult human weighs about as much (ideally and very roughly between 100-200 lbs) as your giant spiders (132-154 lbs), it seems that the giant spiders couldn't walk upside down either.
Someone who is good with mathematics might be able to interpret the following paragraph from the study cited above and determine just how much weight can be born by spider leg adhesive:
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> For all eight legs in contact, an average force of 97 mN was measured, which is three times higher than the average spider body weight. With the decreased number of intact legs, attachment force decreased more rapidly than would be predicted due only to the loss of available adhesive pad area (Fig. 1). If the adhesive surface of the first pair of legs was disabled, the mean force was reduced to 74% of its original value (77% predicted). Interestingly, when the fourth pair of legs did not attach to the substrate, the mean force was reduced to 27% (71% predicted). For two pairs of legs with disabled adhesive surfaces, the attachment forces were reduced to 27% of their original value for disabled front legs (53% predicted) and 9% for disabled hindlegs (47% predicted). With only the first leg pair remaining intact, initial forces dropped to 2% (23% predicted) and for the last pair of legs remaining intact they dropped to 6% (28% predicted) of the attachment force obtained with untreated animals.
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[The good news is that we're having more luck with studying the adhesive properties of gecko feet.](http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-19875247)
Further reading:
<http://jeb.biologists.org/content/217/2/158>
<http://www.researchgate.net/publication/264459486_Adhesive_foot_padsan_adaptation_to_climbing_An_ecological_survey_in_hunting_spiders>
<http://www.researchgate.net/publication/235368901_Radial_arrangement_of_Janus-like_setae_permits_friction_control_in_spiders>
<http://www.researchgate.net/publication/51872362_Surface_roughness_effects_on_attachment_ability_of_the_spider_Philodromus_dispar_%28Araneae_Philodromidae%29>
<http://www.researchgate.net/publication/51147062_The_influence_of_humidity_on_the_attachment_ability_of_the_spider_Philodromus_dispar_%28Araneae_Philodromidae%29>
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Have you ever tried to pull a creeper (i.e. plant) off a wall and noticed that it sometimes pulls away a lot of the paint and plaster? Or even posters stuck up with blu-tack and you peal off paint at the same time? I suspect that even if you managed to get something which can stick to surfaces and hold your desired weight, a lot of surfaces themselves cannot support the weight due to the way they are composed/constructed.
According to this [blog article](http://blogs.cornell.edu/naturalistoutreach/files/2013/09/How-Do-Spiders-Move-1bpzbvb.pdf) from Cornell, spiders walk by lifting two alternating pairs of legs (i.e. 4 legs) and leaving the other 2 pairs down. So a walking giant spider is supporting its 60-70kg mass via 4 surface points at a time. You'll need to work out how big each "foot" is, but in order for the material in question to support your giant spider, that surface area needs to support at least 15-17.5kg without de-laminating. Quite a few surface materials would support that happily, but quite a few would not.
Your spider would have to be very picky about where it walks and very careful with its gait to make sure it doesn't lift any of its anchor legs early.
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There are good reasons we don't see land dwelling arthropods any larger than 15-20 centimeter leg span (for insects and spiders) or up to about 50% above that (for exceptional crabs, like tree-climbing coconut crabs).
That reason is the square-cube law.
If you double the size (linear dimension -- height, leg span, etc.) of an arthropod, you quadruple its strength, but you octuple its weight -- and with the muscles trapped inside the exoskeleton, they can only get so strong. Worse, the exoskeleton is an inefficient way to get bone strength; you gain more weight for a given amount of added cross section area (=> strength) than you would for an internal skeleton like those of vertebrates.
Still worse, breathing apparatus gains effect on the square (the area exposed to air), while oxygen requirement goes on the cube (volume/mass of flesh to supply).
By the physics, it's my understanding that an arthropod dwelling largely on land simply can't get any bigger than about the size of a coconut crab, blue crab, or at most a dungeness crab (which, however, live in deep ocean). Horseshoe crabs get somewhat larger, but they don't leave the water often and have many more legs (and aren't really crabs at all).
So, far from being able to walk upside down on a suitably strong ceiling (cave roof?), your 60+ kg spider wouldn't even be able to walk upright on the ground -- it might not even be able to breathe in order to stay alive.
Now, move everything underwater, where the displaced water supports most of the animal's weight (and, surprisingly, breathing may actually be easier relative to size -- cold water can carry a lot of dissolved gases), and things get a lot more likely...
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I decided to re-watch [Jericho](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jericho_%282006_TV_series%29), and I got quite fond of the isolation scenario.
Jericho is a TV-series where...
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How could a city that meets the following criteria be isolated from the outside world?
* Fantasy setting (no magic)
* Medieval technology
* Isolated for at least six months
* No hoax/lie based isolation [(UGH)](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0368447/?ref_=nm_knf_t4)
Isolation in a medieval/fantasy setting already exists to a certain extent as communications were slow and travel potentially dangerous. In what logical and plausible way can I make a city isolated for longer periods of time?
Please include options for six months, two years, and indefinite isolation in your answer.
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Okay, these involve very specific terrain, but should work.
Assumption: Medieval Tech people group, previously in contact with other regions, now must be cut off and isolated.
Requirement: region is a valley, surrounded by mountains.
6 months: The region is located reasonably far north (or south, really) and the passes in and out of the region are only clear six months out of the year. At the lower altitudes of the valley, things are more temperate, but high in the mountains the snow starts coming down heavily by November and doesn't clear up until April. In theory, you might be able to work your way through the pass, but at a medieval tech-level, it is extremely unlikely as the snow comes down faster than you can clear it, and you don't have the survival gear necessary to survive it.
2 years+: Massive volcanic eruption (think Yellowstone Caldera) a long way away creates atmospheric disruption and drops global temperatures across the board. It no longer gets warm enough to melt the snow in the passes, barring all passage in and out of the valley. Eventually, the atmospheric disruption will settle down and temperatures will return to normal, re-opening the passes.
Indefinite: This one is much harder, because technology advances and people adapt and get creative with their circumstances. Eventually, they would figure out how to get past most obstacles. Strand them in a desert (rapid desertification), they'll figure out how to cross it. Shatter the land around them and put a huge body of water there, they'll build boats. Perma-freeze the passes around their valley, and they'll work out cold weather gear and mountaineering equipment. Move them all underground and seal the entrance, and they'll dig their way out eventually. Permanently containing a tool-using intelligent race just doesn't work without having some way to prevent them from advancing.
The only possibility I can think of for this case isolates a people-group semi-indefinitely, rather than a region. People group flees from some disaster and take to the ocean. Ocean-crossing isn't really a thing in the Medieval era, but they get lucky and not only does their ship(s) survive the open ocean, they find their way to a large island that can support them and move in. They are now isolated for as long as they remain incapable of building a new ocean-crossing vessel and the navigation equipment to reliably find their way home if they stray too far (or until someone else finds them).
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Make the population so hostile that they effectively self isolate.
The Sentinelese people which live on the Andaman Islands in the Indian ocean are effectively isolated from the world by choice. They have been known to respond to any contact attempts with extreme violence.
In 2006, Sentinelese archers killed two fishermen who were fishing illegally for mud crabs within range of the island. When a helicopter attempted to deliver supplies after the 2004 tsunami it was met with a hail of arrows.
The Indian government which administers the island has given up attempts to contact the population and now and generally discourages any access or approaches to the island.
This may not fit your definition perfectly since it is a tiny community (the estimated population is less than 50 individuals) and although they have been know to fashion tools and weapons out of metal which drifts onto their shores they are largely a stone age society.
But it's not totally unthinkable that a larger society either through religion or ideology becomes so hostile and inhospitable that the world just decides to leave them be.
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How about if the surrounding regions hosted an endemic plague (Black Death or some such) that was clearly transmitted from contact? The people in the city might elect a complete quarantine, which would leave them isolated. In fact, it might set in culturally and outlast the plague itself.
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I say it should be some kind of global cataclysm. You said "no magic" but I take that to mean "spell-casting" and "enchantments". It could be tied into the mythology of their Gods.
For example, in Oblivion, the computer game by Bethesda, there are "portals to hell" popping up all over the land and letting in hellish creatures. These could block roads etc. This was all prophesied about in advance.
In your "fantasy" there could be some legendary conflict between deities that results in some cataclysm. Old gods vs new gods or something like that. If you wanted to have it as 'unmagical' as possible, there could be physical fissures opening up in the ground due to seismic activity, or something like that.
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Suppose that approximately 2 million years ago, a mutation developed in hominids that allowed males (and only males) to access magic-type abilities. For the purpose of this question, consider this to be telekinesis (TK) that's roughly twice as efficient as using muscles, energy wise. It rapidly spreads through the population and is carried through until something similar to modern humans develop.
**Details**:
* TK does not depend on how in-shape the body is at all, it's an entirely separate system. It does draw from your body's reserves but in a different way.
* It's not efficient for long-ranged travel. You're better off using a horse or your own legs.
* TK is powerful but not a trump card in combat, it has strengths and weaknesses just like any other technique. The best groups at fighting and hunting combine the two, so for example 10 TKs + 10 normals would beat 20 TKs or 20 normals. TK requires enough mental concentration that it's not effective to try and combine it with regular combat techniques, any single individual can only use one or the other.
Presumably this mutation would change evolutionary selectors. Specifically, I'm wondering the following:
**Would this reverse the "classic" human [sexual dimorphism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_dimorphism)?** Would females develop as larger and stronger without access to TK (or at least stay the same), with males becoming smaller and more efficient? Would it be the same as we are, for different reasons? Or would something else happen entirely?
**Edit**: The current answers could very well be correct, but I wanted to address my logic specifically since I'm not seeing it considered yet. (So basically, if I *am* wrong, please tell me why in your answer).
Evolution isn't strictly better/faster/stronger. It's about the fittest, and fittest can also mean things like adaptive and efficient.
TK would act as a replacement for physical muscles in many situations. It seems to me that this would favor smaller males, as they would be better long-distance runners who require less food in times of scarcity, while still being just as capable due to their TK.
Secondarily, due to [Comparative Advantage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage), females would start selecting to be stronger and larger. It's more efficient to have 5 TK/5 normals than just 10 TKs, so primates would have an advantage if females took over the less-efficient big/strong role while males concentrated on their more powerful TK role.
It is also possible that my timeline is too short, and 2 million years isn't enough time for these differences to develop - if that's the case I'd be interested in knowing how long it would have to be.
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**It would be the same.**
This adaptation (which presumably is a mutation on the Y chromosome, thus only affecting males) makes males even stronger; more dominant. More dominant males has not lead to physically stronger females in our current iteration, so there isn't any reason to believe it would in this case. Males will still have the genes for more physical strength and females will not suddenly gain those genes.
**Based on your edit:**
Being physically strong is an advantage, adding telekinesis would only increase that advantage. Increased physical strength alone has been a key factor in survival, even during the "lean times" you speak of. **Here is the key though:** Physical strength can become fatigued, the same must be true of this telekinetic power. If a physically weak male is fighting a physically strong male with the same telekinetic ability and they both become fatigued, the physically stronger male has the clear advantage in close combat with the physically weaker male. The same is true for defending oneself from animal attack, hunting, or fleeing. The advantage goes to the stronger male, including the ability to get the extra calories required to support the additional burden.
However, if the adaptation was *inversely proportional* to physical strength, then males would likely become physically weaker in favor of stronger telekinesis. In that case females may fill the role of the physically stronger sex, but only due to the reduction of strength in the male population.
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**Nothing would change.**
I agree with [Samuel's answer](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/21485/reversal-of-human-sexual-dimorphism/21486#21486), but for a different reason: Competition.
Bigger males mean that they would be stronger, and thus better suited for fighting. They might be better at jumping, throwing things, and beating up opponents. If males shrunk in size, they would be less suited for battle. This also applies to hunting. If a person is hunting a mammoth, they do not want to be small. Taller, bigger, stronger males will come out on top against creatures whom they hunt or who are hunting them.
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**Addressing [the edit](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/posts/21485/revisions):**
Long-distance runners are, in general, tall and lean (I am an example). Sprinters, on the other hand, tend to be short (though not squat). I don't think that this would favor either group, but it would certainly make it easier for both, as both groups need a lot of calories. So I don't think the adaptation would favor one body type. Taller folks are better at distance; shorter folks are better at sprinting (in some cases). Both have their advantages.
I'm not sure I understand the comparative advantage angle, but then again, I've never really understood economics. If I'm reading it correctly, it means that females will select more efficient males. I'm not knowledgeable in this to correctly gauge the effects in this particular arena.
Regarding overall efficiency, you wrote
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That's correct. But simply by having TK, the males are already more efficient. Looking at it mathematically (because I can't explain it any other way), say that efficiency is defined as
$$\text{efficiency}=\frac{\text{effects}}{\text{cost}}$$
Keeping the "costs" - the size - the same but increasing the "effects" - by adding in TK - should be the same as keeping the "effects" the same - by taking away the extra muscle and size - while reducing the "costs" - by making the male smaller.
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Hmm interesting idea.
So TK is twice as efficient energy wise as muscle power. Lets assume that energy in the form of food is still constrained. Ie large scale agriculture has not been developed.
In this case, men would be less muscular simply because it would be better to put all that energy into TK and be twice as strong.
Would women take over the combat role? Unlikely in my view because women still get pregnant and still are the primary care giver for a child until the age of 2 (average age of weaning in hunter gather societies). Only women can breast feed babies.
Would men become smaller than women?
That is a hard one.
I guess it would depend on how linked are the growth and development programs of men and women. ie will short men result in short women? The answer we in our world is yes, because at the moment bigger is better. No so in this world.
Hmm... or put it another way, is there enough pressure and time to drive sexual dimorphism the other way.
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Its half true I think.
Evolution, as the others here seem to miss, is indeed about the fittest. The fittest =/= the strongest, but the most successful at producing offspring. The most successful at getting offspring are the one's best suited to getting food, are efficiënt when food is scarce and have the most viable reproductive organs that produce strong children as well.
Since TK is superior to muscle power it'll be more efficiënt for males to be smaller and survive with less food, which allows them to get more females as they can offer more access food to them and their children which increases their survival rate compared to large men. Normally the lowered size would mean a lower ability to do things like hunt or build shelterd for themselves and their mates&children. But with efficiënt TK this can be compensated, and a small male with an emphasis on storing energy to burn for TK instead of muscle power would be superior.
Does this mean that females immediately grow stronger? Unlikely. Aside from direct warfare there is little reason for males and females to make use of the "5TK+5normal is stronger than 10TK" mantra. In fact, the extra energy is better suited to growing babies and feeding more children. Large families would outbreed small families where the female has a higher strength, meaning that the small families will slowly die out if only because they are more likely to succumb to famine.
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I don't think it would change, but for still different reasons.
I think human sexual dimorphism is probably partly vestigial and partly a result of sexual selection. It doesn't serve a practical purpose anymore, but it is a leftover from an earlier era and is maintained because females tend to be attracted to size and strength in men. We've seen in the animal kingdom lots of useless traits get maintained once females come to find them attractive.
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Starting with [this question](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/20275/what-society-might-survive-the-3-generation-rule), in which I wondered what a society might look like that could survive the 3 generation rule...
Assume you have a crew and colonists on-board a generation ship headed to the stars.
Assume religion has become part of the ritual required to maintain the vessel.
What would the religion look like that would be used to keep the populace maintaining the ship?
Do you think it more likely that the generation ship engineers - put in place the religion or do you think it's more likely that the religion & its rituals developed from the daily routines required to maintain the ship.
Does a select core of the high priesthood know the truth?
Does anyone on-board remember the truth?
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The people on this ship have a very important philosophical question answered for them:
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The common, western, secular answer is;
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For the religiously inclined, the answer is provided in their respective scriptures. Your inhabitants need to answer the question with *maintain the ship and make sure we get to wherever we're going.*
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I disagree (only in part) to the 3GR. I don't believe *I'll put off fixing that problem to tomorrow* is what will doom a generational ship. Instead, I think it's individualism. *Why should **I** fix the problem?*
Taking it a step further; *Why should I live my life confined in this ship when I didn't sign up for it?*
## The WHY:
Following parallels the *three generations of wealth building* linked in the linked question.
Naturally, we can expect the people who board the ship will all have signed up for the trip. This is the 1st generation. One full of volunteers. There won't be any rebellion against the ship's mission - a vetting process will filter-out anyone likely to cause problems.
The 2nd generation - the first generation that will spend the entirety of their life in the ship - probably won't cause trouble either. Under the supervision and parental guidance of the 1st generation, I don't expect problems here. Children will ask questions, but they'll be kept in line by their parents and the prevailing society.
The 3rd generation, however, won't have anywhere near as much exposure to the 1st generation as the 2nd did. They'll be able to flex their cultural muscle a lot more because their grandparents are old, dead, or senile.
This is why you need a religion. I expect the original designers of the ship to have thought of (and accounted for) this. Which means the 1st generation is going to have to play-along (in principle that's easy because they did sign up to spend **the rest of their lives** on a spaceship).
## The HOW:
A giant, multi-generational spaceship is going to be a complicated piece of machinery. Even if it's state-of-the-art, there's going to be **no** room for dead weight. Your colonists will need to be crew, and your crew will need to be colonists.
Because of this, everyone needs to be educated and technically proficient at something useful to the completion of the mission. There will be blueprints, plans, and instructions for every part of the ship. Basically, the crew need to know every facet of the ship in order to keep it working. They also need access to every facet of the ship to do that - which means the ability to do course-changes is a very real possibility.
So *the how* is purely social engineering. Indoctrination and social control to make sure everyone is a team player. Ritual maintenance isn't going to work, as pointed out by @om.
You are going to need to promote teamwork. For example, consider JFK's famous inauguration quote;
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It's incredibly apt. Selflessness for the greater good - this is the kind of virtue that needs to be pushed by the ship's religion (tangent: this is the kind of virtue that needs to be pushed by western religions).
The beauty of this is that believers can become high-level members of the clergy and not need to know the truth in order to function in their role. In fact, it's best that they don't know the truth. Knowing the truth means that the religion can be subverted for an individual's benefit - which puts the mission at risk.
Actually, it's best that no one knows the truth... not until they finally get to where they were heading.
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I don't think you can use mindless ritual to replace engineering in any *realistic* setting. Rituals tend to be rigid, do X in situation Y. What if the filter is so gummed up that you don't have to clean it, you have to replace it ahead of schedule? The *holy manual* says you replace it every 10 years, and only eight have passed. *Heresy.*
You could teach engineering to priests, but that's not the same. Engineering doesn't answer much about mental health and the meaning of life, and if religious faith concentrates on these areas they're perfectly compatible.
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[user6511](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/20910/9685) has some very interesting points, but I think there are still some points to be made.
As was stated in that answer, when designing the ship, you need to make sure that they aren't going to change their minds throughout the trip on the "Nobody decides for me, I'm a free man!"-lines. The generation that boards the ship won't have issues with that as you would expect them to be volunteers. But second generation might be questioning the goals, and the third one is pretty sure to be asking what is the meaning of their life. From that perspective, to engineer some form of Faith is a very good way to obtain a certain control over large population.
The resulting religion should be adapted to the life on-board, but also reflect the civilization where the colonists come from. And it should provide an answer to the most fundamental philosophical question: what is the meaning of life?
**Adapted to life on-board the ship**
I don't know how is it in your case, but I would assume the first colonization ships would have a rather harsh life, contrary to the cruise-like ships that are often depicted in Sci-Fi books and movies. You can compare it to the ships that sailed the first European colonists to the Americas with the cruises that said some Europeans take to travel around the Caraibbean Islands. The technology does not support to take along too many extras at first, but only after mastering such travels can one add fanciful features. On the first ships you need to stick to the bare minimum. In a way your ship can be viewed as a large monastery, in term of organisation. Everyone needs to do his job, everyone else depends on it. So you probably want to include some common time to wake up, some to go to bed, the priest share the same food with most people, and are probably themselves engineers, staff, technicians, scientists, etc. Food is restricted, and of course no alcohol, etc. You could also compare it to the "simple" life of Mormons. You can't afford too many extras (ressources), so not too many leisure time. Those are even probably organised: like you have a free one-hour period between two shifts and your sleeping time. Time to meet with friends, relax, maybe get some education, etc. And well do your duty for the communauty (make children :-)).
You can add prayers or orations to emphasize the ideals of the religion, and motivate the people towards the goals.
The strict and frugal life imposed by the religion rituals allows to keep everyone in check. Due to the frequency of the religious acts, and the presence of priests on all levels, it is possible to detect any misbehaviour. And by emphazing the sense of duty for everyone, you limit the chances of outright rebellion, and get most of the population to condemn the person who misbehave.
**Link with the original civilization**
At the end, you want to make a colony, that means mainting quite some level of communication with the original planet. So they should not forget it, especially considering that they never saw it, nor will they ever. But this is a very good opportunity to filter out the image they might have. You remove the bad things, talk about how great is life there, but at the same time, you could consider some ideas of duty. The civilization is great, but one very important ressource is becoming scarce (maybe simply place), so they need the colonists to help save that great civilization. Also if you explain how well the people live there, it will motivate the next generation to escape the harsh life of the ship and build a new society on the new-Earth similar to what their ancestors left.
This would help the people on-board to accept their relative suffering for a greater future for themselves, their children and the whole of humanity. Heroes sacrifying themselves for the Greater Good.
**The meaning of life?**
With the rapid advance of science, (at least) one philosophical question remains: what is the meaning of life? Biological concepts (we live to pass on our genes) seems unsatisfying, as it lowers the influence of the Human intellect, and goes somewhat against many of our modern behaviours. user6511 mentioned Sartre's [existentialism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existentialism): the meaning of *your* life is what you make of it. There are a few others as well. I particularly like Camus' [Absurdism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absurdism). But none of those are particularly good for your aims as they tend to favour *libre-arbitre* (free will), which might clash with the Humanity goals. The main religions1 tend more to the concept of God, and the meaning of life is the Will of God. That meaning may be unkown to the living, but it is according to God's plans. Your engineered religion should provide a similar answer. The meaning of someone's life might not be cleared to himself, but it part of some sentient's plan.
Similarly the religion should reward people who behaved according to the plan, and punish those who don't. The simplest is to build some afterlife discussion: paradise vs hell, or reincarnation cycle with new reincarnation depending on how well it you lived. This provides extra incentive to follow the shown path.
**More specific ideas**
You can add some important figure. A somewhat inspiring example is given in [Warhammer 40k](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperium_%28Warhammer_40,000%29#Religion) but the main idea in this case isn't the colonization of remote planets, but the extermination of all non-human species. Nevertheless, an Emperor-like figure who is the main representant of God amongst humanity, and he, himself cannot die. A bit like the Catholic Pope, but as they never get in contact with the person directly, you could build up the image of an idealized Pope. Loved and respected by all. Strict yet understanding, etc.
One ritual that you could consider to emphasize the after-life concept. Is that you can't allow to have corpses accumulating as whole, but you could burn the deceased. And the ashes of those who behave correctly will be use to fertilize the new ground, whereas those who didn't are simply thrown into the emptiness of space. Due to the extreme feeling of communauty, it is a way to give some physical meaning to the afterlife.
Now to your question, do some/all know that that religion has been fully engineered? I would say no. 1st generation should have been somewhat brainwashed from the beginning and none aboard should have a clue. That way you make sure no-one would be tented to leak the information. Plus you want them to stay on the colony later, and not try to come back. So apart from themselves, the only source of information which could lead to the discovery of the falsehood comes from the remote communication. And THAT is pretty easy to keep in check for that long.
Well it turned out to be longer than what I thought, so I'll leave the considerations at that point.
1: [Abrahamic religions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrahamic_religions)
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The ancient Egyptian civilization was very conservative and run essentially on a ritualistic basis for 3000 years, with most changes being imposed from the outside (invasions by the "Sea People" and later by aggressive new Hellenistic and eventually the Roman civilization). Within the long ebbs and flows of Egyptian civilization there were strands of innovation and cultural changes, but an ordinary person from the 18th dynasty being transported to the 25th dynasty might not notice too many changes.
Even when changes were attempted internally, such as imposing "Sun God" worship by Akhenaten, or the ascension of a woman as Pharaoh (Hatshepsut) were quickly reversed by the innate conservatism of Egyptian society. You could innovate, but only slowly and carefully.
Other long lasting institutions that might be mined for the sort of religious/conservative society desired might include the Church of Rome, or Chinese society, which despite the veneer of modernism is still organized along the sorts of lines a Confucian bureaucrat after the Warring States period would recognize.
Generally, there would have to be a cultural base that is deep and all encompassing, like the Egyptians, Catholic religion or Confucian philosophy that limits the arcs along which people think, and of course a fairly "sheltered environment" where there are few external shocks to destabilize the culture.
The wild card, of course, are the people themselves. Despite generations of cultural conditioning, they can still question, still aspire to something different and still try to create changes, regardless of the system they are brought up in.
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The key advantage of religion is the implicit [appeal to authority](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority). It has served human society for many years in exactly this fashion - we build into the religion a set of rules of conduct, and censure those that fail to comply.
In some cases, this has backfired a little - for example, some religious prohibitions are for public health reasons that no longer really apply. (e.g. outside hot countries and when refrigeration is available).
So this is the mechanism whereby it might work on a generation ship. The core problem you have is - over many generations - you require continuous vigilance from people who may well never get to see their destination. As generations pass, and younger generations grow up having never seen home, never seeing their destination, and not actually seeing much point in making an effort ... you need *something* to act as the social glue.
After all, a generation ship will need to be well looked after, and there will be menial jobs that need doing. Overqualified people (e.g. those that really understand the implications of a generational mission) are likely to become miserable with their 'destiny' to mop the floor for the rest of their lives.
So that's where you'd bring in 'religion'. Introduce a priesthood, and apply an element of mysticism to the process. Ensure that training for the priesthood *also* includes engineering/scientific training as part of the process, so those who are acting as priests can also make good decisions. And then tell everyone else that their holy duty, worship and spiritual transcendence will be fulfilled by them completing their duties as assigned by the priesthood.
You run a bit of a risk of human fallibility superceeding the 'because God says so' element. You might have to be careful to ensure that the tech priests remain 'on top'. But given they're the people given the mechanical and engineering training, then perhaps that's not as hard as it sounds. After all, in the kingdom of the blind, the one eyed man is king.
The tech priests could serve to steer a course without anyone really realising they were actually running the show, and teaching people 'acts of worship' that involve following the holy schedule of maintenance properly, and seeking to notify the priest when warnings are seen.
I suspect - overall - this might be *more* successful than ensuring everyone in the crew is well educated and skilled - nepostism and cronyism is largely inevitable in a closed environment, but if you do it right you can suppress the resentment because the 'blame' can be ascribed to an infallible outside authority.
This might be an actual 'thing' like a computer system, but actually it's probably better if it's more spiritual than that, and the 'will of God' is interpreted via computers and priests, so you don't have to ever deal with 'God being wrong' - God was clearly right, but the priests misunderstood.
You actually *want* to instill cultural inertia, and religion is good at that. Just make sure you don't set the roots so deep you can't shift gear when you actually reach your destination. (You'd perhaps need a 'second coming' plot arc when you're getting near your destination).
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From reading the interesting comments here about how it would all work. It does occur to me that a Generation Ship seems like an inefficient and problematic way to colonise space. Why overcomplicate everything when you could send small self-contained pods and just deep freeze the inhabitants and re-awaken them when they get to their destination? There is no advantage of being conscious for decades/centuries on big complicated, inefficient ships, and you guys have pointed out all the difficulties it would pose... Sorry to go off tangent, I'm not allowed to comment yet. Genuinely interested if someone has reasons to favor this mode of transport...
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As I tried to get across in [my answer](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/20581/10408) to the original question, I don't think that hiding the truth is a viable option. That's because, during the course of the trip, certain unforeseeable things are likely to go wrong, and the people on board are going to have to problem-solve. Problem-solving is a rational process, and it can't work if it's based on incorrect information. Moreover, even if the ship could be maintained by pure ritual, that still can't be trusted. Religions tend to evolve over time, and all else being equal, the ways in which they evolve aren't really grounded in reality. Christianity evolved a pope, a whole pantheon of saints, and bribes paid to priests to get you into heaven... not to mention about ten thousand disagreeing, and sometimes warring, sects. If the Earth were a ship, and it was relying on Christians maintaining the ideals originally preached by Jesus in order to keep functioning, it would have sunk about 1700 years ago.
This religion *has to* remain grounded in reality, or it will render its adherents unfit for the tasks they must perform, in order for the religion to fulfill its purpose - which is to *land a spaceship on a distant, alien planet*. This fact cannot safely be obscured, unless the ship is so stable and autonomous that no intelligent action is required on the part of the crew, during the entire duration of the voyage. Can people be expected to accurately steer a space ship, if they don't know that they're on one? No. More generally, can people intelligently and creatively solve a problem, if they can't understand the nature of the problem because they've been lied to about everything that matters their entire lives? Again, no. And furthermore, can they be relied on to maintain a given set of rituals for generations without altering them, when so far as they know, these rituals are a bunch of arbitrary flim-flam preached to them by a sect of dogmatic priests, and any other arbitrary rituals might do just as well or better? No, they cannot. They need to know the reasons for what they are doing, or they may well improvise catastrophically.
This is why I advocated, in the original answer, borrowing the tools of religion but centering the experience around a ritual with a two-fold purpose:
1. Shock the acolyte into a state of "imprint vulnerability" (Timothy Leary's term, I think), wherein the normal certainty about what is real is shaken, and the mind becomes ripe for systemic reprogramming. This effect can be enhanced by doing it at the cusp of adolescence, when the brain is already undergoing a major, biologically mandated reprogramming cycle. The care and maintenance of the ship can then be imparted to them, and retained as a part of their fundamental character for life.
2. Do so by incontrovertibly demonstrating the *actual truth* of the "religion" in a viscerally overpowering way.
This will help maintain adherence to the original mission (which is synonymous, in this case, with the "religion") without mucking up the brains of the crew with a bunch of dogmatic nonsense. A religion based purely on tradition can and will drift, change, and lose sight of its original purpose, because it lacks a consistent grounding force. A religion based firmly on reality will tend to remain stable, because its grounding force is reality, and it can be conclusively proven to each successive generation in a way that makes rebellion unthinkable (because it's so obviously stupid and self-destructive). They need only understand that they *are* on a ship, and it does rely on them for survival, just as they themselves rely on it.
The best morality is reason, and the best dogma is the truth.
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In a galaxy where there are thousands of sentient species and even more languages, a universal translator implant was developed to make communication possible. The software is regularly updated by linguists, neuroscientists, and artificial intelligences working tirelessly to maintain a well oiled system.
If someone lives on a planet with dozens, hundreds, or thousands of species all in one location--say, a major trade hub--how many languages can his or her mind store at one time? Would the listener be able to understand thousands of different languages, or would some need to be forgotten and relearned? The answer would be different for non-human minds, but to keep it narrow, let's limit this to humans.
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The good news? Learning one language makes it easier to learn more. Once you know what the perfect past tense is, or imperative mood, or passive voice, or dozens of other obscure grammatical concepts we use everyday but rarely know the names for, you can apply that knowledge in other languages. So let's suppose that the implant gives you all that knowledge, then just plugs in the necessary words from the particular language's vocabulary list. Basically, it doesn't teach you *a language*, it teaches you *language* as an abstract concept. Then you download a language pack as needed.
So how big would one of these language packs have to be? After just a few minutes of research, I feel pretty confident saying that question is impossible to answer. But if we limit our language packs to just what you would need in common speech, rather than absolute fluency, we can come up with a reasonable guesstimate.
[This useful source](http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/words/the-oec-facts-about-the-language) says 75% of English is made up of a thousand word bases, and 90% is made up of 7000. So we could have two levels of fluency packs, but let's focus on the smaller one. The best way I can think of to organize these packs is to list all the words in some standard order, so #1 would be *be*, #2 would be *go*, and so on. If each word is allotted 8 letters, and the alphabet is limited to 32 letters (5 bits), that's 5 bytes per word. Multiply by 1000 is 5 KB for basic usability. For the larger pack, we should allot more letters, maybe 16, and round up to 8,192 words (computer nerds will know why). 10 bytes per word times 8,192 words makes an even 80 KB. This is not much! It would also need to include plenty of information about pronunciation, conjugations, tenses, word order, and other details that make languages different. I don't have such an easy way of estimating how much space that would take up, but based on the size of the dictionary I'm guessing you could cram it into a megabyte with room to spare. This is still not much!
I've heard the capacity of the human brain cited as anywhere between three and 100 terabytes. Assuming a few gigabytes for the language base, You could easily cram thousands of languages into the brain without pushing out anything important. But of course, however it is your brain remembers English, it isn't like this. Your implants are a much better idea than trying to load the data directly into the brain - they can hold all those thousands of languages on a tiny 1GB builtin memory chip, and whenever you ask it for a particular word in a particular language, it looks in the dictionary, finds the word, applies the conjugation rules, converts it into whatever format brains use, and gives it back to you fully-formed. This completely bypasses the need for your brain to know any words at all. You use your knowledge of language in the abstract (which I'm assuming *would* be directly loaded, either through implants or school), and think to it, *I need to know how to say the first-person singular present progressive form of* to go *in English*, and your implant will look up *go* and see how to conjugate into the present progressive tense, in the first-person singular, and think back to you, *I am going*, and tell you how to pronounce it. Or it could do this one sentence at a time so it can handle all the grammar for you.
TL;DR: [56](http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=9430). (Edit: that guy's a little dubious. [68](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emil_Krebs) is better documented, and higher.
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The famous polyglot [Emil Krebs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emil_Krebs) (1867-1930) could speak 68 languages. Granted, a lot of these were Indo-European, and he could take advantage of similarity among related languages. But he also ended up learning Chinese like a native, as well as Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish, Georgian, Ainu, Japanese, Javanese, Korean, Tibetan, Burmese, and many more.
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With a Science Fiction implant which does the translation for the brain, as many as you want. It would need to plug in between the ear and sound reception, manipulating all sounds so they are in the listeners language. If you need translation to be instant, as if the person was speaking a language you understand, have the implant not speak to the brain in any language, but directly send the *ideas* to the brain as fast as it can decipher them. The people with the implant would speak their own language, assuming that the implants of the others will translate it for them.
Assuming it is uses the brain as storage doesn't make sense (if it can do translations, it can also provide it's own storage) and any assumptions about the capacity of a brain in Bytes are highly useless trivia which can't be used to determine how many things a person could learn in theory.
Maybe I've misunderstood the question, the answer seems obvious to me.
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In August 2001, the Greek, Norse, and Egyptian pantheons return to earth and create "realms", areas where technology does not work, and magic does. The areas are marked on this map:
This throws the world into upheaval, and I'm trying to figure out a way to make a believable culture in the year 2025.
Gods are nearly immortal in the realms, and engage in press-gang tactics to bring humans who venture into them into line with their own agendas. That said, magic does not work outside realms; gods can be harmed or killed outside of them.
Some things I'd like to try and keep, if possible:
* 9/11 happened
* International relations with realm gods do exist, but each god is effectively its own nation and relations are tense.
* Gods have created many mythical beings which now live and can travel the world.
If you have any questions, just ask! I'm sure I missed a bunch.
EDIT 1: In response to some questions.
The pink splotches are "occasional realm activity" and can be ignored for now. The Yellow zone is the Midgard realm with the Norse gods, and its boundaries.
The red zone is the Hellenic realm with the Greek gods, and its boundaries. Note that this CLOSES the Bosporous.
The Orange zone is the Kemetic realm with the Egyptian gods, and its boundaries.
The Gods want followers, because followers determines power, and they need to be able to compete with the other gods. Basically the gods themselves are their own level of politics and border wars.
Electricity other than lightning and bioelectricity doesn't flow. Artificial compounds decay at a rapid rate. Kinetic energy explosions don't happen.
Hope this helps, and thanks for the warm welcome!
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Here's a couple of consequences I foresee:
* The governments of the world do not take this lightly. They consider it an annexation of sovereign land. There's not much they can do about it, but it turns into us vs. them. Old feuds are forgotten (especially since religious differences aren't that important anymore) and the rest of the world basically becomes one big nation, against the realms. All this power is consolidated in the UN, since it has decision-making protocols in place.
* The old forms of religion are largely displaced by worship of the new gods. Or at the very least, people have to choose. Do they choose the visible gods, or the invisible. Those who choose the new travel to the realms, those who stay behind consider the invaders more as powerful aliens than gods. The churches of old persist outside the realms, and they must work very hard to change, but there is plenty of need for them, since people need to cope with these changes.
* The gods may get worshippers, but they are not free. At heart, they are bound by the same rules of governance that mortals are. Treat your worshippers like slaves, and they'll get away from you, or at the very least not work as hard. Such realms exist, but they are run like totalitarian regimes. Especially information about the outside world is strictly controlled. Think scientology on a nationwide scale.
* Science gets a whole new kind of reality to investigate, and the UN is more than happy to throw money at it. It's like the race for the atom bomb: fundamental science backed by a military budget. It may be magic, but you can still poke a stick at it and see what happens. Fieldwork will happen just at the border of the realms to figure out how all this new reality works.
* Espionage: the UN will want to get inside the realms, and the Gods will want to know what it happening outside. In both directions they will send spies. At the low level, just to understand the rules of the realms, and to figure out how this "technology" works, at higher levels, they will try to infiltrate each other's militaries and governments. Both technology and magic have ways of detecting spies, so at the start many will be caught, until countermeasures are developed.
* Aeronautics and space will become very important. Assuming that the realms end at some altitude, getting above it with a spy sattelite can be very helpful.
* Strict border control. Since the border is the place to experiment with these things, and the borders are relatively small, moving in and out of the realms will be extremely difficult.
* The realms would form uneasy alliances. Communication is difficult, but they need each other to face the human world.
* Culture: Ultimately, outside the realms, people can live in relative peace, probably more so than now. The increased science spending benefits education and causes new non-military scientific advancements. The otherness of the realms creates togetherness in the rest of the world. However, there is great paranoia about infiltration from the realms. This is not a stable state. Sometimes the conservatives manage to instigate a witch hunt, sometimes the progressives manage to relax everybody. This is also not uniform: the old cultural and geographic differences still exist. At one time Asia might be progressive, while the Americas are conservative, while a generation later the roles might be reversed.
* The mythical beings would work to the favor of the Human nation. Outside the realms, their magical properties are diminished, which means that they can be caught, bred, domesticated, etc. This advances human research, and enriches our zoos, but doesn't give the gods any practical advantage outside their borders. For every dragon they send into our space, we can send a flock of them to contain it. Although a few Apaches are probably more effective.
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The most co-operative god dominates, and very interesting things happen at the boundaries of these realms.
Basically it sounds like you have zones with different laws of physics, and while mythological magic can be self-consistent and balanced within their zones, if you have something very different a mile away, then you can do very cool stuff and take advantage of both the benefits of magic and of technology. For example, you could use magic to produce a high pressure jet of water, which then crosses a boundary into normal space and then drives a power station. Result: free energy! In turn, modern tech can offer advancements like good healthcare that aren't available in mythology. Stuff like good metal that ancient heroes had to quest for, you can import by the truckload. For warmaking against other realms, you can fit magic warheads onto ICBMs. Oh sure, the missiles stop working at a certain altitude, but the warheads still do...
Not every god would be wise enough to see how this would work, but there are certainly those with a history of working with mortals, or at least who want to disrupt the status quo. Loki, Athena and Hephestus would be some of the most likely candidates to prosper in this new world.
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In military fields, the technological societies would place a greater emphasis on researching things like kinetic energy weapons (railguns &c), in an effort to find something that can reliably score kills on targets inside a god's realm from outside. There would be fewer drones, cruise missiles, fighters and other weapons that rely on continuously-active electronics in play, because most militaries around the world would be less able to afford to deploy multiple styles of weapon technology at once. This wouldn't be a blanket thing, and the biggest powers would still have the full range of weapons available (nuclear weapons might even work through the field, who knows?).
As soon as word got out about any successful tests of rock-dropping technology, the gods would also likely develop a magic-powered railgun equivalent in order to maintain their standoff. Depending on how much they can violate physical laws, they could probably retain the upper hand (oooh, a US Navy railgun can drop twenty-kilo tungsten rods on us? *How cute*, here's ten thousand tons of granite), but as long as they themselves remain killable, this wouldn't necessarily degenerate into a shooting war (at least, after the first rogue god gets sniped, at the cost of a few dozen human ships, and the others calm down), just a new flavour of cold.
One possible political consequence of a cold war: as soon as there's any hint that humans can break or question the hegemony of any given King of the Gods for a region, the gods within that region would split into multiple factions more concerned with each other than with the human realm outside their sphere of influence. e.g. the Titans would try to manipulate Zeus into a position of conflict with one or more major human military; the Vanir might break alignment with the Aesir and instead join the EU, because of their preference for peaceful applications of power, etc. Half of the gods of any given region would likely *want* to work with humans on peaceful technology, in the hope of toppling their dictatorial overlord.
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A race in my WIP has a humanoid torso and a quadrupedal lower body. I like the look of the [Japaneses Bow](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yumi) and I was thinking of having it be developed by the centaur-like race. It is theories that the shape of Yumi is in part do it meant to be wield from horse back. Since a centaur-like race is naturally in the "mounted" position. It made sense to me that if the theory about the Yumi's design were true, then a centaur-like race would hit upon that design.
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A humanoid mounted on a quadruped has to deal with the front half of said mount's body, plus said mount's head, being in front of him. This is an obstruction that a centaur-like race simply does not have to deal with; in fact, as far as what's in front of the humanoid torso of a centaur, there's really very little that's any different from a regular humanoid.
The long and the short being that a centaur would in all likelihood use a bow similar to that used by a non-mounted humanoid, as they do not have the same obstructions to deal with as a mounted humanoid.
That said, a yumi-style bow has advantages apart from maneuverability on horseback. Larger bows are (in general) more powerful. But if you get too large, you have the lower tip hitting the ground or tripping you up as you try and move through anything other than the flattest of plains -- especially if you're shooting while on the move. So a yumi-style bow gets you the power of a large bow without tripping you as you run across the battlefield.
The takeaway is that if you want your centaurs to use yumis, have them use yumis. It's got advantages even if the considerations of a mounted human don't apply to centaurs.
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I have thought about this before. As I understand it, the yumi-type bow is wielded "long side up" so you can get maximum power without, as mentioned, the bottom of the bow hitting the ground (and y'know, Japanese people aren't super tall). A centaur would have the opposite deal, he's so tall (try drawing one where he's the same height that an equivalent human would be, you'll see it looks lousy, the human part looks oversized) that he could flip the yumi-type bow "long side down" and get maximum power without.. y'know, hitting power lines. Or just so his bow isn't stupidly long and he has nowhere to put it. But without knowing the actual physics, I couldn't tell you whether, say, a 4-foot symmetrical bow and a 4-foot asymmetrical bow have the same power or which one is stronger. The point of the asymmetrical one is "if you tried using one this long from the middle, you'd hit the ground"
.. now the real question is whether a multi-armed guy could use two bows at once
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# Chemoautotroph Flora
In a world where there is not much sunlight, I still want to have life. Specifically, I want to capitalize on chemoautotrophs so much that the alien schoolchildren learn something like "the source of life is volcanic vents" and flora which use photosynthesis is considered the odd method of deriving energy for life.
What properties would you expect in chemoautotrophic flora? Specifically:
How would the common root/stem/leaf pattern we know in most plants today be altered?
What are likely energy sources for chemoautotrophic flora? (We need not limit ourselves to aquatic vent communities.)
Some relevant definitions:
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> [Chemoautotroph](http://www.biology-online.org/dictionary/Chemoautotroph): an organism which obtains energy via the oxidation of inorganic compounds, but not using photosynthesis
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> [Flora](http://www.biology-online.org/dictionary/Flora): plant life lacking the power of locomotion
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I think that bacteria are intrinsically better-suited to such environments - by default, there really isn't a "metal-cycle" in the same way as a "water cycle" to supply the raw ingredients.
But plants like this would be amazing. You could have junkyard-plants that grow in caves filled with rusty cars and turn them into...tomatoes or something. And heaps of rust.
You still need sugar. Ultimately, your plants need carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. The exotic elements seem to come in along with one of those three elements.
So to answer the question about environment:
* A warm environment to mix the required materials (and energy to start the reactions)
* An environment that can move the materials to where the plant needs them, naturally. This implies a high-density environment.
* The waste also needs to be removed. Living in a pile of sulfur really isn't that pleasant. Terrestrial plants produce gases as the byproduct of their reactions, which are moved away from the plant by nature. Plants that produce piles of rust or sulfur will need a similar mechanism to keep the area clean.
* A steady supply of whatever materials they need is helpful
* A supply of water or air to bring in the H2O, CO2, or whatever hydrocarbon source is needed.
The most logical place to find these things is an aquatic environment. Maybe a hot spring or volcano...oh wait, what about a hydrothermal vent?
But it's also possible that the roles could be reversed - the "leaves" gather the materials, but chemosynthesis and waste production occurs in the roots, where it is carried away by ground water. In that case, you'd need some noxious metallic gas floating around, like maybe next to a volcano.
Finally, if all the need materials are available in the ground, you might see very spidery root systems, with only minimal structures to support flowers/fruits above ground for reproduction.
In any case, not somewhere readily habitable by humans.
What would the plants look like? I think you'd still have leaf structures, but they'd be more mesh than solid material, with lots of frills to grab the (fill in element here). Roots would probably be similar.
Plants would not be green. Most likely you'd see rust-colors, and the plants would "blanch" when they run low on materials.
Presumably there would be an ecosystem that would use the plant waste.
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I think such plants would have no use for leaves. Leaves are basically solar energy collectors, and since your plants do not do photosynthesis, they have no use for them. I'd expect all the energy production to happen inside the roots. So the roots would be the most important parts of the plant; I could even imagine that some plants would never actually leave earth (exposure gives risk for little reward).
Indeed, we already have organisms which share such characteristics, although they don't live off volcanic activity, but off organic material: Fungi. So I'd expect chemoautotrophic plants to look and live very similar to fungi/mushrooms. Of course you'll also have real mushrooms because there will be organic material to decompose, but I guess you'd be hard pressed to optically distinguish both; the main way to distinguish them would be to watch where they live.
With a dense root/mycelium network, the plants could also expand a bit beyond the volcanic sources, by carrying the raw material along the network. Since the places would be filled with plants, this might give a competitive advantage.
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This question builds off [Information Exchange In Space](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/10428/information-exchange-in-space) and [How would interstellar internet work?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/4389/how-would-interstellar-internet-work), and specifically uses the communication system I developed [here](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/28639028/automatic-message-routing-on-a-sneakernet) because of [this](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/9029/can-this-version-of-the-alderson-drive-be-used-to-violate-causality).
In a summary of those links, imagine that FTL transportation is easier than FTL communication, and that there are no causality violations 'cause reasons. So, rather than really long wires running from star to star, you have analogs to the Pony Express and Carrier Pigeons. Voluntary runners (really, every ship that can spare the space) are automatically paid for having a box on their ship which handles all the storage, uploading, and downloading, and each planet has a "post office" system to handle routing and "layovers". Messages get from star to star reliably and cheaply, but slowly. Think days to weeks, like snail mail.
Note: this doesn't become the *only* network; the regular internet works just fine, but only on a planetary scale 'cause light speed.
What I'm looking for in this question is how people would use the internet if it worked like this. Personally, I think it would be a lot less like "browsing" and a lot more like "inter-library loan". Usenet, StackOverflow, and maybe modified versions of Facebook and Reddit would work, but IRC, Twitter, and real-time gaming would probably be limited to individual planets.
What do you think? What would the novel and/or utilitarian implications of the system be if this existed? What would its use look like to the end user? How would we go about doing all the myriad things we use the internet for today, but in space? How would this interact with each individual planetary internet?
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I actually think the internet would work much like it does now. Each "major" site would have a presence in every system - and the messages being carried around would be used to synchronize the data in all of those sites.
So you wouldn't request a site on demand, instead every internet would be replicated to every other internet. Write a wikipedia update on mars and a few hours later it's showing on the earth wikipedia, a few days later most star systems have it. The less developed/connected your system is the longer the lag between updates.
The only noticeable delay would come if you wanted to directly send a message, get live updates, etc from events or people happening in another star system.
Data storage is cheap enough that everything would just be replicated. When you buy a hosting plan (30 credits, we host your website for a year! 50 credits we replicate to all class 3 and above star systems.) you would get replication options there.
Facebook updates from your pen pal in alpha centauri might come in a few days late, but for the most part you would not notice a difference.
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In many ways, this is how the internet was once. We've become used to having enough bandwidth to stream video, but modem speed is MUCH slower.
It still worked, it's just a lot of the content was 'opt in' - your website would be low res thumbnails, and links to fetch content. This developed into 'download managers' where you'd queue up downloads.
In the current world though, you do still have bandwidth bottlenecks. We don't see it so much in the 'first world' but there are plenty of countries that have a limited number of fixed lines to the internet - and a storm or accident can knock them out.
One of the most effective ways of dealing with a limited 'external pipe' to a local networks is actually bit torrent - you make good use of the bandwidth, but then you 'sync' within the network.
I think this would be how your interstellar net would work. You'd have emails etc. but mostly use couriers which are basically functioning as bit torrent [supernodes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernode_%28networking%29). It would act as a proxy cache and gateway. Your interstellar bandwidth might actually be quite good - as a wise man once said, don't underestimate the bandwidth of a lorry load of backup tapes.
So your couriers would act as 'torrent caches' where indexes were replicated on *every* run, and each pending request with no local mirror would also be retrieved. You'd 'queue up' your downloads, and just wait the round trip... but once someone had requested locally, then it'd be on the local net for anyone else to sync.
There'd be obvious things to fetch by default too - anything 'released' like albums, films, ebooks. I'd expect most 'publishers' would maintain local replication by default anyway.
You could also 'cache' the internet, a little like google cache does. Google *does* have a complete copy of 'the internet' - at least the top layer. <http://www.websitemagazine.com/content/blogs/posts/archive/2014/07/22/do-you-know-how-big-the-internet-really-is-infographic.aspx>
Even with the planetary internet, as it stands local caching of the 'top layer' can mean faster search results. I'd imagine the same would be done with your interstellar net, just with a longer indexing cycle.
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I think that each planetary system work exactly like it does now, and there would be 'portals' or 'proxies' or 'gateways' to handle traffic from off system. This could include other planets in the same solar system and any passing ships that come through with 'news'.
Of course the Currier is going to need to have terabits of data capacity and there would need to be a Currier system to handle passing off data to ships going to different destinations with different stops etc.
There would have to be a lot of redundancy built in to handle the same 'packet' arriving days or weeks apart, or in different orders from actually sent.
Also the gateways would be there to protect the planets network from any extrasolar virus attacks. Cyber warfare could be very disruptive and useful if you plan any mischief. Could be as simple as messing up shipping orders for a planet to beat them to their own market.
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For many uses, I agree with [this answer](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/10616/28) that you would see local internets serving live content (as now) backed by interplanetary replication. The technology exists today to manage large data repositories over unreliable or highly-latent networks with *eventual consistency*; we'd see that applied to this problem.
But not all Internet use is web-site consumption with immediate results, and for those uses -- individual email, for example -- communication would slow down, *just like it used to be here on Earth*. Before (and then concurrent with) the Internet, which grew out of the ARPANet, was UUCP, the Unix-to-Unix Copy Protocol. This was used to move email and posts to Usenet newsgroups around the net. There was a backbone of nodes that sent and received updates to each other several times a day, and other nodes routed their messages to this backbone. If you were a couple hops away from the backbone it might take a couple days for your email to get delivered, and if you were farther out (digitally speaking) it could take close to a week. That's not ideal, but it was ok because *people knew that* and set their expectations accordingly. If you needed fast, synchronous communication with somebody, you picked up a phone. Instead of sending many short messages back and forth, you usually wrote longer messages covering several points -- think *letters* more than *texts*.
Behavior informs requirements for technology, but technological abilities also inform behavior. In your scenario people will have access to both modes -- fast but local (planet), and slow but universal (can go anywhere, eventually). We should expect to see local "pockets" of more-interactive communication that -- for sites like Stack Overflow and Reddit -- would eventually be replicated elsewhere. (Some modifications would need to be made, like how late-arriving answers interact with question closures, but those are matters for each site to work out.) We will probably also see a preference for the "in" sites; if Facebook is replicated across the universe and your blog isn't, you might move more of your participation to Facebook -- unless you specifically *want* to keep it local, which some do. If you have friends on other planets and want to stay in touch you'll still send email, adjusting your approach to the expected cycle time.
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Look at the store-and-forward era of computer networking for inspiration: BBSs, Usenet, FidoNet, etc. You'll see email, Usenet-style message boards, file sharing, PEBM games, distributed reference works, and so on.
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There is a system that allows compatible humans to download and fully integrate into their minds the skillsets of the most knowledgeable experts in a field. Note that not all humans are compatible with all skills, and some skillsets have prerequisites that must be in place for the graft to 'take.' The system would be based on a combination of drugs, neuron-light-induction and cyberization. This is in the relatively near future (20-30 years).
Now, my concern was two-fold:
1) **In how many fields can I make a person a world-class expert before they're at 'capacity'?**
2) **Can I make some downloaded skillsets 'non-permanent' without damaging the recipients?** The way I'm thinking about it, for the first X days/weeks/months, they are clear and sharp as a crystal, but past the expiration date, they start fading away like home half-remembered dream. The Intellectual Property owner (the corporation or individual whose skills you're borrowing) uses this non-permanence to prevent you from being able to "sublet" the skills yourself.
Setting: My gradual "march into singularity" setting that I've been asking for help with in a few questions, such as [Realistic Future Jobs](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/7058/realistic-future-jobs-for-men-and-women), [Future Kids](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/8925/what-will-our-great-grandchildren-play-with), and [Controlling AIs](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/6340/the-challenge-of-controlling-a-powerful-ai)
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Adding to previous answers, I'd say the speed at which the implant process occurs would be a determining factor in how much you remember. For instance, say you read a book over the course of two weeks, making notes and really trying to understand what's going on. Your friend skims the thing in two hours. Now, you and your friend may be able to give a summary of the book, but you will be able to actually hold a conversation about it. Your friend will have gaps in their knowledge, whole chunks of the book that they had to forget in order to soldier on and get to the end. Even if you both were able to read every word in the book, you took the time to commit the whole thing to memory, while most of what your friend read got overridden by whatever happened next.
Like you said in the question, people won't be able to learn just any skill; they have to have the prerequisites first. To that I would add that many skills would have to be uploaded in parts, with a certain period of time to let your brain accomodate for the new information. For example, once you've processed all the details involved in moving your legs, you can download the knowledge of how to walk. If you do it too soon, while you may still know how to move your legs, you won't have retained enough information to achieve the level of precision walking demands. This sort of defeats the purpose of downloading the skills rather than learning them, but presents a more realistic middle ground between the time commitment of each.
**1)** As for how much you can get, like before I'd say as long as you space it out it could be pretty much endless. You will naturally trim the fat of whatever you learn, focusing it into smaller, more efficient bits of knowledge that fit more easily into your brain, but the bulk of what you need should still be there. It's also important to note that there would be overlap in many skills, and over time your brain would probably make those connections and only store one copy of that memory rather than two. Think of it like reverse file compression.
**2)** As for forgetting, most memories are only kept around if they're used, and constant use of a memory or skill cements it in your mind for years. If you were to insert an inhibitor chip in the brain, perhaps the user's brain would no longer acknowledge a memory as being used when it is. Thus, even though the man with the implanted knowledge of how to walk goes hiking every day, his brain thinks he just sits around all the time, and thus decides not to remember how to walk. This would be pretty easy to do (as far as pseudoscience is concerned), because the brain should emit similar signals when using a memory as when it created that memory. The best defense against this inhibitor chip would be to simply not learn anything else: if the walker just stops doing anything other than walking, while his brain doesn't acknowledge that he's using his walking memories, it won't overwrite them with anything new. This, to me, presents a lot of narrative possibilities, as users dependent on implanted memories will be forced to avoid friends and family during financial crises so they can hold onto their skills for longer, creating an ironic duality of knowledge or pleasure.
I keep on making edits, but this is the last one: flashbulb memories. Basically, something crazy happens, and you remember whatever's happening pretty much for the rest of your life. This could be another workaround to the inhibitor chip, with people who want to retain their knowledge adding drama and danger to their everyday lives in order to form deeper memories. Like how you learn a new language faster if you live where it's spoken: if your brain thinks this new skill is imperative to your survival, it's going to remember it better.
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**This is my own conjecture, but its backed up by what evidence I've seen**
The brain does not seem to store skills like files on a harddrive. It's a lot more organic than that. It mishmoshes them together with a rhyme and reason only apparent to it.
The brain appears to encode skills relative to a person's previous experiences. The skill to open a fridge and plan a meal may appear completely unrelated to getting a MD in radiology, but one person's brain may encode the process of deciding on a radiation treatment plan using what it knew about planning a meal. In another MD, it may not, because the brain found that person's meal-planning skills weren't as helpful. Instead, they found a way to think about "treat the human, not the disease" (a very hard concept) as an offshoot of what they learned from yoga one time when twisted in a pretzel.
I had a martial art teacher who once said, "Everything I do is part of my martial art. I get up using my art. I make breakfast with my art. I walk down the street with my art." That sort of thinking is very popular amongst "health and wellbeing" groups, like yoga.
Generating those personal connections takes time. 10,000 hours, in fact. Try to do it faster, and you start learning to skip steps. You forget to raise your hand to block a punch in the form (because there was no actual punch there). You get lazy, and over-radiate your patient because you didn't pick up on the tiny hints that they were acting more succeptable to the negative side effects of radiation. You burn the pine nuts (did anyone see the Iron Chef America episode where the Iron Chef burned the pine nuts 3 times?)
I would sooner expect to see an implant which allows you rapid access to information, and people develop a skill of using it to make their other skills more proficient. A doctor could spend more of his practice learning to read patients and help them if he didn't have to spend all his time learning facts that are now on Google. (Or the same doctor may get lazy, and decide not to learn any skill, relying purely on his implant).
Finally, for non-permanent skillsets, I may have to drop off into my own fantasy of how the brain works. There are plenty of places where we are dependent on things outside ourself. We constantly say things like, "Thanks! I couldn't have done it without you!" We constantly see elderly people who are reliant on a cane for support. We see couples dances on TV which literally cannot be practiced solo; you must practice them together.
The common thread with these is interactions. There is an interaction between Self and not-Self, so we can only ever get half of the task. If you had a neural implant, you could have it do half of the task, so when your time is up, the neural implant just stops dancing with you and walks off. No physical damage, though if they were dependent on that skill as part of defining who they are, the emotional damage could be unimaginable. I think a society might evolve where this effect is visualized as similar to a wizard who can cast amazing spells, but only with his wand. Take his wand, and he's just a human being.
Another side of it is that the brain is never finished storing things. It's constantly jostling them around. Every time you use a neuron, it changes behavior ever so slightly. You could custom design a skill that could be learned and mastered, but after too long, those tiny jostlings trigger a cancerous twist in the skill which rips all value from the skill as it reaches outwards. We have similar behaviors in genetics with our telomeres, so it would not surprise me if the brain had something akin to an anti-cancer immune system that could catch this before it did real damage, but not before the skill is made useless.
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Lots of details and what-ifs here. First, there's a big difference between reasonably competent and world-class expert. You won't get the second without continuous practice, especially if the skill has any physical component at all (like martial arts, music, brain surgery...). You need the muscles & reflexes, not just the knowledge.
Second, being a world-class expert is pretty much a full-time job. There are few people who are experts in more than one thing, so your upper limit for WCE-ness is maybe two or three. Reasonable competence, though, offers much wider scope. As for instance, I might be (without any false modesty :-)) a world-class programmer, but I'm also a reasonably competent wordworker, auto mechanic, cook, skiier...
Another point is that, unlike what @DaaaahWhoosh says, skill memories just don't seem to go away. They beome rusty with disuse, true, but it's much easier (at least in my experience) to come up to speed again than it is to learn the skill ab initio.
So maybe that is what your downloadable skills are like. Instead of instantly becoming a WCE (which frankly seems more like magic to me), the download is more like recovering an old skill. The recipient still needs to practice to become fully competent.
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The brain can handle only so much input and the things most recently done are generally the clearest remembered. (until senility when the far past becomes more clear). If certain experiences and learned items are not frequently visited then they slowly get buried by new experiences.
It's commonly believed that it takes ~10,000 hours to master a craft, so to imprint this level of experience on a person will bury other experiences. Do this with 2 or more things and you will certainly start negatively affecting the previous 'training'.
However, if you have a cybernetic implant that can have a perfect memory of the skill sets then you could always dip back into it to refresh your skills back to tip-top shape.
I think, instead of the memories 'fading away' by design that people would pay for the level of expertise they get and of course, there will always be upgrades and improvements to add.
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When it comes to reflexes, at least, it's possible skillsets could conflict. Like how the top female softball pitcher can easily strike out the best male baseball hitters (<http://www.si.com/more-sports/2013/07/24/sports-gene-excerpt>).
There is a level of fast where you're not really watching the ball; you're watching the pitcher throw it and making an instinctive prediction of where the ball will be. The weird dances pitchers do often don't really help them throw better, it just throws predictions off. And the way a female softball pitcher throws is just so different than how male baseball pitcher that being really good at predicting one doesn't help you with the other.
I'm not sure what would happen if someone tried to be world class at male baseball and female softball at the same time, but my guess is that being really good at one will mess you up for the other. Youe brain can only react so fast, no matter how good you are, and part of expertise is being really efficient at reacting to the right stimulus.
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I would like to highlight a different problem. **You have to limit the skill set.** It's not completely my own thinking, I am using a setting from yet another Russian Sci-Fi novel as a reference. There, the protagonist could "download" the skills and knowledge in a similar manner to your idea. Both the "transmission channel" and the amount of skills the protagonist could use, was severely limited by the author.
The reason for this was very simple. In order *not* to make the protagonist a damn Marty Sue. In other words: to not overpower him. Even that limitations did not manage *not* to give him too much power. In said novel, the protagonist (for some reasons I do not want to detail here) "flashes" some of his abilities to special services. So they want to get him and are analysing his abilities. And they come to a conclusion, it's a group of people.
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*(This is an extended example, it can be skipped)*
Like, the protagonist sent an analytical report KGB was able to intercept. It is written by a well-mastered analyst in his 50's, with habit of delegation and experience in scientific writing. The report was written in a well-established female handwriting. The report was then captured on film, you need some photography expertise (especially in the 70's, when the book is set) to do so. The film was shot with a god damned *arrow* from a blasted *longbow* into a window of Iranian embassy. There are like 10 people in the city capable to pull this off and they all have an alibi.
Clearly, there is a group of at least the analyst and his wife/secretary/lover/whatever, even if you assume the analyst shoots longbow really well and the scribe also is a photography specialist. In more realistic assumptions you also have a third person, who does the photo and longbow stuff.
In the actual plot, a single person with those "downloadable skills" sufficed. The point is that he did not need the photography skills while shooting longbow.
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These are all difficulties that emerge if even a single person can download skills and knowledge. It is much worse if anybody can. In fact, you'd need to model up a wholly different post-industrial society for this. I am not sure if this is your intention.
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Survey of the art:
George O. Smith: "The Brain Machine" If you wore the helmet while reading a book, you knew the content of the book perfectly. You could not record the process, as your brain wasn't like someone else's, and you would get garbage. This was useful for learning facts, but you still had to practice how to put the facts together.
Academic subjects fall into two categories: Ones requiring brains, and ones requiring only scholarship. The BM helped learning the base facts, and so was great for scholarship subjects that are dominated by details, but was less helpful with subjects like math and art.
It was no help at all with motor skills.
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Larry Niven's story "The Fourth Profession" has aliens coming with pills that give whole knowledge sets, using RNA. (yeah, hard to suspend disbelief) The RNA was tagged so that there was a corresponding 'forgetting' pill. The hero takes a pill that makes him a prophet, with the ability to do miracles. He can turn Water into fresh Blue Mountain Jamaican coffee. He dematerializes the forgetting pill...
A bunch of Heinlein stories make casual mention of hypnopaedia (learning in your sleep)
Christopher Anvil has his Interstellar Patrol agents getting local language through an overnight process with a helmut.
Simon Ilyarin in the Vorkosigan books has a chip in his head that allows him to recall everything. It gives him perfect memory as well as the ability to replay chunks of memory. No clue how it's indexed.
So you have to decide what a skill is:
If I download Electrician into my head...
... I know the relevant codes.
... Do I know the usual sequence for wiring a house?
... Do I have the feel for how tight to grip the wire strippers to take off the insulation without nicking the wire?
... Do I have the muscle memory to fold with wires up so they fit into the electrical box?
... Do I have the eye to look at a box of wire and know if there is enough wire for a 60 foot run to the heat pump. Can I tell 12 gauge from 14 gauge by picking it up?
... Do I have the trouble shooting skill to figure out the mistake with a 4 way switch (single light can can be turned on and off from 4 different places) that leaves the light on all the time.
I guess after this, I need to weigh in on answering the actual question:
I think it's barely possible that at some point we will get some for high speed knowledge implant. But I don't think it will be enough to make you a world expert. E.g. You will easily get 5000 grand master chess games, so you can readily compare your present board to what previous players did, but you still have to play thousands of games to become a GM. You can get all of music theory in a download, but you still have to train your ear to hear and your fingers to play. You will be able to know what an olympic quality marathon runner knows, but you will still need to run a lot before you win a race, and you may not be built to be a runner, may not have the major 12 spanning fingers of a Rachmaninov, may not have the interest to play 10,000 chess games.
There was an article in Scientific American some years ago claiming that it took about 10,000 hours to become world class at anything. That's 10,000 hours of well designed practice. Note that word 'about' Factor of 2 either way. And that didn't guarantee being world class, but was what most WC people seemed to end up doing. E.g. 10000 hours is necessary, but not sufficient.
So to become a decent pianist or chess player, 3 hours a day for 10 years. But it has to be good practice.
The article also defined what 'good' meant. Mostly stuff right at the edge of your ability. Practice of the old hat stuff kept it fresh in your mind, and maintained muscle memory (scales and finger exercises) Practice of the impossibly hard was just frustrating. So unless you pay close attention to what you are doing you could spend 6 hours a day to achieve 2 hours of good practice.
<https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/too-hard-for-science-seeing-if-10000-hours-make-you-an-expert/> is a good starting point.
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Suppose there's a planet that has similar characteristics of Earth and can provide life, suddenly shatters in many pieces and scattered over the system. A small but very dense object is attached into the bottom of one planet fragment that has enough mass to provide enough gravity for other side of the planet fragment to have a Earth-like gravity. Throughout all years of orbiting, the fragment builds enough atmosphere (perhaps from terraforming by humans or sucking atmosphere from other planet?) to make it suitable for humans or other living organisms to live. The fragment will have some water carried from old planet where it came from. After the fragment's transformation is complete, it becomes a home for humans. Is it possible?
If you can, explain how different the experience the humans will have when they live on that fragment instead of Earth. The actual borders in the horizon? Different gravity?
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# Atmospheric escape
The atmosphere and water would be sucked into to the gravity well. You'd end up with no air on top of the platter, and the entire atmosphere in a tight sphere around the dense object.
To prevent this you could use walls around the edge. They would have to be high enough to prevent the air from pouring over the top.
Humans looking out would see right to the edge, and then a huge, impossible wall.
## Gravity gradient
A small dense object (like a chunk of neutronium, or a black hole for example) will also generate a significant gravity gradient which would likely be noticeable to anyone living on the surface.
Gravity would be much stronger as you moved closer to the object, possibly lethally strong at the pole, depending on the thickness of the platter.
Gravity would always pull towards the object. Humans near the rim would have thinner air. Walking towards the edge would be like walking uphill. You would weigh less at the rim than at the pole, and would be able to jump higher.
## Tendency to a sphere
Objects in space with sufficient mass will tend to become spherical. Rock is brittle. If it becomes unstable it will crack. You will need to account for this.
## A note on stability
Ordinary matter would not be dense enough to have sufficient mass to replace the mass of the planet. You would be looking at some type of exotic matter, such as a singularity or neutron star.
At sub-planetary mass, neither of these would be stable, so you'd need some kind of technology to stop them evaporating in a wave of killer radiation. You'd also need some way to prevent the platter from collapsing into the gravity well.
The alternative would be to use some type of alien gravity generator.
## A further note on solar radiation shielding
The magnetic core of the earth shields us from high energy solar rays which can strip away a planetary atmosphere. You will need some kind of solar shielding for long term survival. Perhaps your chunk generates a sufficiently powerful magnetic field.
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### Fragments don't remember where they came from.
A fragment of the original planet doesn't remember that it was once part of a planet.
Let's say you take a section out of a planet, like the part removed from [this image](http://www.astro.virginia.edu/class/oconnell/astr1210/im/europa-cross-sec.jpeg). The fragment has one point that used to be at the bottom (in the core of the planet) and one surface that used to be the surface of the planet.
Now it's all by itself, an irregularly-shaped planet of its own. "Down" doesn't mean "towards the old center", it means "towards the center of this fragment".
Let's say there's a city in the middle of the old surface on this fragment. Buildings in that city will still be vertically oriented, because "old down" and "new down" are in the same direction. But a city out near the edge of the old surface will find itself on a steep slope, with buildings falling over and everything tumbling down the slope.
### Moving the center of gravity makes it worse.
So you've found some dense material to put on one of the peaks of your new planet. (Remember, the point that used to be in the middle of the old planet is now the top of a peak of the new one.) This has only made things worse.
Now you have a planet that's like a house balancing on the ridge of its roof. Rock isn't that strong. Most of the planet will fall down and land on the core.
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Well, it's really, really, really, *really* unlikely, but I suppose there's a mechanism for it (albeit unlikely). I think you get the picture.
Take your planet. Now take a very dense [neutron star](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_star). Propel said neutron star through space at a high speed, and have it hit the planet. If the speed is high enough, the collision will most likely break apart the planet. Neutron stars are very dense and [hard to break apart](https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/7778/is-it-possible-to-break-apart-a-neutron-star); I would think that this neutron star could attract a piece of the planet, imparting it with a strong gravitational field.
After that, the scenario enters its "unlikely" phase. Neutron stars aren't conducive to life. For one thing, they're composed of [neutron degenerate matter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degenerate_matter#Neutron_degeneracy), and are very dense, imparting an enormous gravitational field. This is going to be very bad for any life that finds its way onto this planet-star-fragment-thing. Second, the neutron star may be a [pulsar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulsar), in which case there's going to be a lot of radiation, or a [magnetar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetar), in which case strong magnetic fields may make any life forms in the nearby area very miserable.
Because of all the neutron degenerate matter, I think it's really unlikely that any life will have more than a whelk's chance in a supernova of developing here.
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I'm starting a story taking place around 2080 AD/CE, and I'm wondering if the key element - global pollution - is plausible.
In my storyline, the XXIst century brings no huge technological advances (I mean nothing truly game-breaking). Mostly increased efficiency in computing power, a few new materials, and global switch to electricity.
**Is there some kind of human-generated air pollution that could rise to dangerous levels, so that living outdoors without appropriate protection would be unsafe ?** I'm thinking aerosol.
Assuming no big, coordinated action is taken for some decades (politics and global opinion react slowly at first), can such an omnipresent and impactful change occur, and will it take a long time to reverse ?
Living indoors with appropriate air filtering would be safe.
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On a global scale, unlikely.
The major components of the "killer smogs" are fine particulates, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and ozone. Sulfur dioxide has an atmospheric half-life of about 24 hours, so you'll only get buildups in the immediate vicinity of sources (volcanoes, coal-fired power plants). Atmospheric ozone tends to decompose into oxygen on timescales of about a day. Fine particulate matter in the lower atmosphere tends to settle out on a scale of a few days.
Your best bet is probably nitrogen oxides: nitrous oxide has an atmospheric half-life of about 50 days, but even then, getting a global buildup to hazardous levels will be hard.
The big problem with getting planet-wide deadly pollution is that the same properties that make it deadly (chemical reactivity) also make it short-lived: it tends to react with atmospheric moisture and either break down into stable compounds or fall out in the rain.
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Yes, you can definitely get these effects although it may not be truly global.
Rising CO2 would have implications for global warming but is not directly life threatening at the sort of concentrations we are talking about.
Sulfer, particulates, carbon monoxide, lead (before we phased it out of petrol) and many more though are dangerous and are already rising to toxic levels in some areas.
Particularly in China and areas burning dirty coal this can get seriously bad already.
One way this could happen is if the corporate powers managed to sidestep oversight and neutralize or shut down anti-pollution laws. They could then run their factories and generators as dirty as they liked, while rich people live in isolated islands or air conditioned and filtered areas far away from the consequences.
Even now this is already starting to happen, for example in [Hong Kong](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_pollution_in_Hong_Kong):
>
> The mortality rate from vehicular pollution can be twice as high near heavily travelled roads, based on a study conducted in the Netherlands at residences 50 metres from a main road and 100 metres from a freeway. Since millions of people in Hong Kong live and work in close proximity to busy roads, this presents a major health risk to city residents. The Hong Kong Medical Association estimates that air pollution can exacerbate asthma, impair lung function and raise the risk of cardio-respiratory death by 2 to 3 percent for every increase of 10 micrograms per cubic metre of pollutants. Studies by local public health experts have found that these roadside pollution levels are responsible for 90,000 hospital admissions and 2,800 premature deaths every year.
>
>
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And [elsewhere in China](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/25/china-toxic-air-pollution-nuclear-winter-scientists):
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> Chinese scientists have warned that the country's toxic air pollution is now so bad that it resembles a nuclear winter, slowing photosynthesis in plants – and potentially wreaking havoc on the country's food supply.
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Essentially all you need is for people to increase burning the dirtier kinds of fossil fuels (coal in particular) without sufficient safety in place and while increasing production and you don't need to extrapolate much beyond what we already have.
Keep in mind also that things don't need to be immediately harmful for people to wear masks. Asbestos can get in the lungs for a long time before you show symptoms, but people still wear breathing masks to work with it.
Now, these would still not be completely global, for example out at sea or a long way from industrial centers there would still be smog free areas - and as a result extremely expensive homes - but you could easily cover the vast majority of the available land areas, and certainly all major cities.
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Release of large amounts of fine dust that releases alpha radiation, from a Chernobyl-like disaster.
The radiation is easily stopped, unless it's coming from inside the body. The dust is very hard to clean up, but fortunately has a moderate half-life; in a decade or so everyone can take the masks off again. Plutonium is also chemically toxic (as a heavy metal).
(Something to consider in any "global pollution" scenario: what happens to farm animals?)
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So again, in the book I'm writing, and yes, I do understand it is not plausible for humans to fly, I want one of my characters to be hit while flying and continue to fly with broken ribs. Now along the bounds of fantasy (and I still want it to be realistic enough)
I'm not sure a bird, though quite different from human anatomy and almost because of that very factor, would even be able to fly with broken wings, pain being irrelevant for the time being. For better context, the wings protrude from the back/shoulder blades as one would picture a modern-day angel. If a bird cannot fly with broken ribs, do you think one of my avian people could? And what kind of damage do you imagine it would cause to continue flying?
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## Yes... at least in the short term.
In general, major injuries are rarely enough to with absolute certainty stop you from doing what it takes to get to safety. Just in my own personal experience I've known people to jump a fence with a broken back, punch someone with a broken fist, jump with a torn ACL, run on a broken tibia, and walk with a cut Achilles tendon. Injured humans often experience a combination of adrenaline surge and shock which causes us to ignore the pain factor of an injury and continue moving to the best of our physical abilities until we get to somewhere safe enough to tend our wounds.
When you take away pain as a limiting factor, the bodies of most animals are full of redundancy. Every major action is the culmination of many muscles relying on multiple attachment points; so, when one bone is compromised, you generally still have effective adjacent anchor points to compensate. Furthermore, because bones are encased in tendons, ligaments, and muscles that inflame after a break, even when you have no extra bones to work with, the tissues surrounding the bone can in most cases give enough structure to hold the broken bone more or less in place so you can continue to use it for structure (to a degree). This is especially true of your ribs which have very tough and sinewy intercostal muscles connecting each rib to the next. So even when you do break a rib, it is basically splinted to the adjacent ribs by the sinew.
## Anatomical Reasons you can fly with broken ribs.
Using shoulder muscles an an analog for how your wing muscle configuration will be, you will see that most of your flight muscles should not attach to the ribs at all. For an angel like birdman to fly, he would likely need some kind of extra layer of muscles going over the arm's muscles and attaching to extra protuberances in the sternum, clavicle, and scapula with only a single extra sheath of Serratus Anterior muscles actually attaching to the ribs. This means that all the major muscles will not directly attach to the ribs at all; so, one or two broken ribs will at most slightly limit the rotational strength of the wings, but not enough to render flying impossible.
So, if you had a major break in the sternum, clavicle, or scapula, then you might lose too much structure in your wing to fly, but the only way you might become anatomically unable to fly from broken ribs would be if you badly broke all of your floating ribs... but even then, limited flight should still be doable with the pectoral attachments in you sternum.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/2kjXT.png)
## How it could play out.
If your bird man was struck in the chest during a fight for his life (regardless of if he has a human or bird like rib cage), he would likely be able to fly away just fine, but within about 15 seconds to a minute, the adrenaline surge will start to weir off and he'd start to notice a significant weakness in the wing on the injured side and feel like he needs to land. If he's still in danger, he could probably push through this weakness and get in an extra minute or two of flying before the body runs out of adrenalin to push and the weakness becomes overwhelming forcing him to land. Once he lands, his body will quickly become resistant to pushing any further. If he tries to take off again, he'll probably feel too weak to do so. His strength to fly is now gone, but he may not yet realize the severity of his injury because he could still be in shock which could easily last another 30 minutes to an hour... less if he takes the time to try to stop and rest. From the time the shock weirs off to several weeks to months later, your birdman will probably not be able to fly.
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It would depend on the severity of the injury, and also on the location.
In particular, flight would be adversely affected if the break is close to the joint where the wing attaches to the body, thus preventing the bird from flapping its wing and generating lift. ([Related story about a hawk with an injured coracoid bone.](https://cawildlife.org/birds/a-red-tailed-hawk-flies-free-after-bone-fracture/))
But a minor fracture in a less critical location could still allow the bird to fly, albeit slower, lower, and more cautiously to avoid exacerbating the injury.
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Let's say due to time travel shenanigans, a millionaire has acquired an ichthyosaur:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/pb4hN.png)
What must our millionaire do to keep his new pet long term? Could it just eat modern fish? Would the salinity be a problem? Not only do I need to know what he would have to do but how anyone would know this.
The species is Acamptonectes, a cretaceous icthyosaur 10 feet long. It had large eyes for depth diving but its teeth suggest a generalist diet of soft prey like squid and fish.
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## It has a surprisingly good chance of surviving.
As far as food and water it will be fine, fish have not changed dramatically and the ocean salinity has not changed drastically, remember salinity already varies quite a bit across the globe so like most marine vertebrates the ichthyosaur will be able to handle a range of salinities. you just have to cross your fingers and hope it will eat what you provide, not a big risk but still worth mentioning.
It may well die of disease or parasites but there is really nothing he can do about that. thankfully without other related marine reptiles the disease risk is lower, but definitely not zero. Parasites are a bigger issue, since they are less specific to a marine host. The risk is not that much higher than any rare aquarium animal however. The one big risk is eating something toxic that did not exist back then. you need to keep poisonous fish and likely plastics away from it.
You want a large area for it, ichthyosaur are fast swimmer meaning they likely need large territories. Walling off an existing bay is likely their best bet for that. failing that you want a very big marine tank.
[Answer]
**Ecological Survey and the Amazing Shapeshifting Ichthyosaur**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/RJCQF.png)
The Millionaire used a time machine to get his pet Ichthyosaur. The same millionaire hires a team of ecologists to go back through the machine to measure all the conditions needed to keep the dinosaur happy. Water temperature, salinity, dissolved minerals.
To make the perfect fish food, they catch a bunch of fish and squid, near where they found the dino, grind them up into a tasty slurry, and extract the correct nutritional profile.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/rKrXs.jpg)
Well that's what they said anyway. What they actually did is catch a bunch of other Ichthyosaurs, take the half-digested food from their stomachs and analyse that.
With all this data obtained, the main problem is pathogens. As we all know, the Conquistadors brought new diseases to South America (and vice-versa) that killed the natives quickly. The same will happen to your dinosaur. It has no immunity to the new pathogens, and they kill it quickly.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/SRgs9.png)
Fortunately the millionaire cannot tell the difference between different Ichthyosaurs. The aquarium staff keep everything sanitized so the animal survives at least a few weeks before it gets infected.
Typically this happens after Mr Millionaire pays a visit and insists on throwing seafood cubes from his golden yacht that floats in the top of the tank, to his pet dinosaur. Pathogens from his hands get into the animal.
Fortunately Mr. Millionaire has a short attention span. After throwing cubes for an half hour he loses interest and gets on the jet to one of his other dozen homes around the world.
Once he closes the front door, the aquarium staff spring into action. They immediately drain the tank, incinerate the poor dinosaur, and sterilize the aquarium using radiation.
Then they hop back in the time machine and catch a new Ichthyosaur the same size. They refill the tank, and Mr Millionaire comes back in two months none the wiser.
[Answer]
The millionaire won't be able to figure it out without trial and error and killing at least a few Icthyosaurs. From those trials you can make up any rules you want about behaviour, biochemistry, water conditions, etc. For all we know they won't eat eat food that isn't live or food that they don't recognize. They aren't fish, mammals, nor reptiles as we know them.
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I need a [hidden outpost](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/225150/how-can-my-pirate-haven-remain-hidden-and-safe-while-running-illegal-activities) to have signs that only a certain real-world technology can see and comprehend. These are basically road markers, or navigation aids, that won't be understandable by normal human sight. Consider that you are wandering around in a vast and non-descript dessert ([technically an alien planet](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/183710/how-could-we-modern-humans-colonize-a-hot-planet) but that doesn’t matter). But a guide somehow is able to easily navigate the area, even without memorizing it, and without any obvious landmarks.
There are dunes, small rock formations, and slight variances but these do not have really distinguishing features to an unaided eye, especially since they are sparse and you won't really be able to study them until you get close to them. Dunes can also shift. You're traveling by low flying aircraft anyway, you can't get down to examine fine details. The signs are visible from a few hundred feet away only by certain unpowered tech.
**The people have normal human vision.**
**There are no clear shadows because there is never a clear sky**
**Daylight does not correspond to any particular time of day in this world. It is constantly overcast, time does not rely on celestial observation at all**
**Electrical storms, along with noisy emissions from high-powered electrical motors make compasses useless**
**No 20th century or later tech exists.**
[Answer]
## Hide it in plain sight
We know, even without 20th century technology, that secrecy in public requires layers. When you lack information about the meaning of something, that thing becomes functionally invisible unless you know what you are looking for.
In short, **this society uses large rock layouts, or markings on the rocks, that are made 'legible' only when a series of shades, cards, decoders, and/or other simple alignment-based tools are used.** This could be carried out from the ground or in low-flying aircraft.
Let's imagine that this is a rocky desert, rocky enough to get lost amongst canyons, slabs, and other repetitive features; even from the air. The enigmatic navigators of this landscape employ a dual-layered approach to making such a landscape navigable.
First, they have a system of symbols that consists of marking rocks and positioning rocks. This can include scratching, stacking, but not in any way that would be noticeable to the untrained eye. To the select few who are aware of these markings, they are unreadable without the aid of the tools that help decipher these markings. The markings are designed to blend in to the environment, and contain lots of 'noise' - data that is meaningless in order to hide the real information within.
The tools that decipher these symbols could be simple shades; imagine a punch card, that, when held at arms' length, at the right distance and angle from a feature, helps elucidate or explain what the user is seeing. These tools eliminate the 'noise' and with training or instruction, guide the user.
Here's an extremely simple representation of this idea:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/sLSBB.jpg)
Imagine that a complex series of meanings - perhaps emblazoned upon the card or device, perhaps not - help the user to understand what they are looking at. "If rock spire in hole five, proceed west. If canyon aligned in hole three with marking visible in hole 2, follow the canyon." So on and so forth. Cards, telescopes, lenses, modified sextants, or whatever can be aligned with the user's eye, could aid the in the navigation. It's a two-part map, with the other part of the map residing on the ground.
It's important to note that this provides a weakness - while this is simple as far as technology goes, it's only as good as your physical security. Maybe the tools are also encrypted, so that one without knowledge wouldn't be able to use the tools even if they stole them by force. This aligns with various principles of security and authentication, often employed in web security - a good, secure password consists of something you know AND something you have.
## Issues
There's a few stretches with this answer. It's not a very technological solution, and it's not truly invisible. It also requires us to imagine that a group of individuals could modify a desert landscape subtly enough to hide their large-scale symbology. Things like the Nazca lines show that it's relatively possible, even with prehistoric technology.
It also imagines that markings could contain enough data that reading them without the aid of the tools is not possible, or at least very difficult. I think this becomes more feasible if you imagine that the tools are largely dependent upon alignment - "If I hold up my tool here and see what I expect, I'm at least on the right course, and at most, exactly where I need to be to proceed, or else I am lost."
[Answer]
## Marconi set
Look up [Guglielmo Marconi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guglielmo_Marconi). A fair amount was known about radio waves at the time, *but their potential for communication was not widely realized*. A windmill that periodically taps the key of a wireless telegraphy set to momentarily release current from a voltaic pile will produce a signal that can be listened for.
A great deal of information might be encoded in the frequency used, or if two frequencies are used with a beat pattern of a certain period, because the entire radio spectrum is wide open for business, no FCC breathing down your neck. But the degree to which this can be done depends sensitively on what turn-of-the-century tech is permitted.
A [coherer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coherer) is a "wonderful" device (per quotes at that link), which works by as-yet-unknown means to detect simple spark gap transmissions such as the windmill might do by sticking metal filings together. But to start measuring frequencies and such you would want a [crystal set](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_radio) that seems formally off limits. It would take more creativity to figure out how to ensure a steady pulse pattern that you can check with a coherer, or perhaps some retro research to see if you can rig a pair of coherers that are differentially sensitive to different frequencies.
My feeling is that early radio tech, described by someone who understands it fully (which I do not), would make for a beautiful backdrop to a somethingpunk genre story.
[Answer]
# It’s actually a map:
The whole site appears to be natural, but in actuality the formations are arranged in the layout of a well-known city (or conversely, a well-known city was built to mimic these formations). Once a person realizes the trick, they can see the street layout. Or it could be even more subtle than that - it’s laid out like the city WAS at some point. But if you know the layout of the city, you know the layout of the desert.
So just because a dune is where Habosham station should be, they still know that’s where it was. And just because the Drosang cathedral burned down 20 years ago, the knowing guide recognizes the rocks laid out to resemble it.
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I'm writing a short story, and one of the species are Material Demons. I plan on there only being a single Material Demon character, but I'd like to know what weapons the Material Demons might use. This is meant to be about an individual, not large groups, but if you'd like to, feel free to consider group combat as well.
(Feel free to just call them Demons if you'd like. I just like to keep the Material and Non-Materials separate.)
**Physical Characteristics**
* Material Demons are the physical versions of Demons. They aren't evil by nature, but due to historical reasons are usually at least highly distrusted by others.
* Material Demons stand at 7-8 feet tall, and are very long-limbed with 6 fingers and two thumbs.
* Material Demons have a regenerative ability. They can't rapidly heal during a battle, but given a few months can regrow entire body parts as if nothing happened. Cauterization of the wound can at least delay the healing.
* Material Demons have a large, sharp-toothed mouth and three eyes that are vertically arranged above the mouth, or eight eyes arranged in an octagon with one larger eye in the center. Material Demons don't have noses, but instead smell through the roof of their mouth.
* Material Demons don't die from old age, and usually die around from natural causes.
* Material Demons have a secondary 'brain' arranged below their main one, roughly at the lowest eye/top of the mouth. This brain is closer to a fist sized olfactory cortex, (I believe, correct me if I'm wrong) allowing them to smell up to 10 miles away. The upper brain does not have an olfactory cortex.
* Material Demons have long, hollow, whip-thin tongues tipped with a spiked bone. This tongue is used like a needle to absorb liquids.
* Material demons are omnivores, but have a heavy cultural preference towards meat.
* Material Demons have thick, rough skin, rendering most non-gunpowder projectiles not designed for armor piercing useless unless they use blunt force.
**Environment and enemies**
* The Material Demons live worldwide, but the specific group I'm referencing are in a flat grassland, with occasional mountain ranges scattered around. There's also a few Material Demons who live in the eastern badlands and are usually criminals.
* The Material Demons herd cattle and other animals for food, but sometimes enjoy a human or two.
* The Material Demons are the dominant species in this world.
* Eastern Material Demons are forced deal with nomadic elves ([How might Elves in this setting survive?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/222989/how-might-elves-in-this-setting-survive)) raiding for food and supplies, but the elves usually do this stealthily and avoid actual conflict.
* Western Material Demons must deal with one another, they aren't a unified force.
* Both Material Demons have access to 17th-18th century technologies but are roughly in the 1880s with firearms and a small amount of modern industry. These more modern technologies are spread out and less common.
[Answer]
**Whatever is handy**
Demons with claws and teeth and spiked tongues, rending and tearing and... tonguing. Been done done done. Demons with spiky weapons and glowing swords! Done. Demons with special little poison demon knives. BEEN SO DONE!
None of that tired stuff. Your demon just goes around as he is. He considers it gauche to be toting a weapon and also he is pretty lazy and weapons are heavy. If there is the kind of fight that needs weapons this guy grabs whatever is handy and uses that. It is never the same thing twice. Sometimes he is frustrated by the very poor suitability as a weapon the bush or ham or whatever it is that he grabbed but he uses it anyway. Sometimes the weapon turns out to seriously rock, or maybe is an actual weapon. That is cool but he leaves it where he found it when the fight is done. He has principles.
Now that I think about it, this has been done too, by Jackie Chan. But I think it is ok to copy Jackie Chan.
[Answer]
>
> roughly in the 1880s with firearms and a small amount of modern industry
>
>
>
Careful, now. By 1880, armies had access to things like [rifled, breech-loading artillery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rifled_breech_loader) firing [explosive shells](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_(projectile)#Early_shells), the classic [Gatling gun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatling_gun) was invented in the 1860s and the [Hiram machine gun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_gun#19th_century) was developed in the 1880s (though there were quite fast firing guns even before that).
This suggests that your demons are a) probably not bothering with personal armor unless everyone else is hopelessly backward and ill-equipped and b) probably not bothering to use weapons that aren't guns and cannons. If everyone else *is* backward and ill-equipped (eg. they've brought swords and bows to an artillery fight) then the demons probably won't bother with armor then either, because they'll utterly slaughter their opponents.
>
> Both Material Demons have access to 17th-18th century technologies
>
>
>
That doesn't really make sense if they have early modern industrial techniques that mean they can use 1880-era firearms.
Something has to give.
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What would humanity's most reliable method for food look like on a planet where the sun never sets, great winds raged across the land, and large-scale storms were commonplace?
I'm curious if large-scale agriculture would be possible in such a setting given the technological limit. What type of plants would be most commonly used to best suit environmental challenges? Those challenges being constant strong winds caused by the heating of the sun facing side of the world and the cooling of the darkside- as well as the storms those winds would cause in the habitable zone. Would large-scale greenhouses on the sun side border of the habitable zone be practical to create semi-stable environments? Would planting on sun-facing slopes and hills be more effective than planting on a plane?
The technology level of this planet's inhabitants is generally equivalent to our world's 15th century, obviously not exactly the same- but stated to give a general idea of what would be available to those currently living on the planet. However, technology develops as it is needed so if there is a form of technology that the inhabitants of this planet would achieve quicker than we due to environmental pressures that would be allowed to be implemented.
My appreciation and thanks to anyone that considers and answers this question- I look forward to seeing what you come up with.
[Answer]
**Live in the Twilight Zone**
If the planet is tidally locked than there will be a border region between the “night side” and a the “day side” that would be in a state of endless twilight due to the curvature of the planet. This will be the region of the planet with the most mild temperature and it will give your people the ability to exploit both sides of the planet.
For instance they could go into the dark side of the planet to haul blocks of ice from the eternal glaciers there and use the scorching heat of the day to melt the water and irrigate the land and thereby provide for dry land agriculture where there’s an eternal desert (and a year round growing season with the constant sun exposure.)
There would likely be intense winds due to the temperature differences between the two sides so building windmills would be useful (and within the stated technology level).
[Answer]
I should think nothing special is required: Tidal locking takes at least hundreds of millions of years. On Earth, that is most of evolution; the earliest scientific evidence of rudimentary brains only appears about 500 million years ago.
Which means, on the way to tidal locking, all life on the planet will evolve to withstand the high winds. Just like trees probably evolved from fern-like plants because a woody skeleton is more resistant to predators and breaking, and as animals became bigger (dinosaurs) plant trunks became bigger and harder to break or trample with them. The edible leaves were raised up out of reach of most big animals; in the case of redwoods, out of reach of all big animals. I have an old tree in my front yard with a trunk 18" in diameter; 20 years ago it was struck by a speeding car, and stopped it cold. The car was a total loss, the driver ended up in the hospital. The tree ended up scarred, a lot of bark has gone permanently missing, but otherwise it continues to grow just fine. That's a tree that can hold its own against a dinosaur.
The same thing will happen on your planet. The plants may look very different, but the process of tidal-locking is very gradual, and they will have time to adapt to the increasing winds. If the planet remains livable at all, temperature wise, then your farmers won't have any trouble growing crops.
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In a magical system similar to that of Eragon, where magic depletes the body as if they had manually done the same action as the spell effect (e.g. Magically moving a boulder would deplete the body of energy as if the caster had manually moved it, only on a much shorter time frame), how would the below "loophole" be more or less balanced. Just like in Eragon, a spell is *committed* once cast and cannot be aborted mid way if a miscalculation has been made.
I've made it possible for the caster to take energy from other living things; plants, animals and even other humans (providing there is consent) which has lead to the "logical development" of powerful casters and/or kingdoms keeping essentially "human batteries". These individuals, in return for being available to power spells, and thus reducing the risk to the caster and/or allowing them to cast more powerful spells, are given a life of absolute luxury. They're fed a high fat diet causing them to be rather obese, which is beneficial as more fat = more energy.
The obvious risk to the "battery" is the caster could kill them either intentionally or accidentally if they cast a spell with more energy required than provided, as the caster can "allocate" where the energy comes from, and will obviously state the casters energy as the least amount possible. In order limit the likelihood of the "battery" denying the caster, their contract is on pain of death so it's potential vs definite death.
With regards to "allocation" the caster must always spend some of their own *personal* energy as a kind of "stake". Consider the following example: A caster with 3 batteries wishes to hurriedly raise the drawbridge so he allocates 30% of energy to each battery and the remainder to himself.
The casters prefer humans, rather than animals as the "batteries" are often magic users themselves and thus can act in that capacity to defend themselves or even offensively.
It's worth noting that it's also energy available to the *caster* so a fit person would be able to move the boulder in the example easier than an unfit person, thus requiring less "energy". This also works based on understanding, so a person that understands metallurgy would be able to heat the enemies armour more efficiently than someone who does not.
When considering an answer I'm not sticking to "science based", but more "fridge logic", it should make sense as presented, ideally hold up to a small to medium amount of scrutiny, but I'm not expecting this system to hold up once maths is *truly* applied.
*Small update*
I don't want to nerf this concept to the point of being unviable, I just want to stop it getting out of hand or becoming the norm, despite the moral quandaries.
**Answer awarded on**
In order of descending priority:
1. A logical means of preventing large battery farms, I do want to stay away from "only 3 batteries can be linked for *plot reasons*"
2. A logical reason as to why "I allocate 1 joule of energy to myself", my thoughts are this should mostly be done in percentages as the cost is "unknown"
3. How can the ethical mage/protagonist achieve the same ends without the dubious morality. i.e. a human can only become *so fit*
4. Logical consistency with a "common understanding"
[Answer]
## Transfer Costs
A caster using power from someone else acts like a heat pump. For every unit of energy they take they must expend some energy to make the transfer. You can then set the ideal optimal ratio for your setting. If a caster must expend 1 joule to transfer 4 joules, then it doesn't make sense for him to use more than 4 human or human equivalent power sources at any given time. These power transfers could also be a skill that takes practice to develop, or a "muscle" that must be strengthened, with the most powerful casters being able to transfer energy more efficiently than weaker ones.
## Resistance
Transferring power through a person could also have harmful effects on the caster as the amount of power increases. One person-equivalent level of power is perfectly natural and harmless, but as the amount of power increases you start doing tissue damage. For electrical current, heat generated by resistance increases with the square of the current. If magical resistance were modeled in a similar way, the harm to the caster would increase exponentially and make large scale energy harvesting lethally dangerous.
You could establish both acute and chronic effects for this sort of overuse. Perhaps the more power you draw, the less time you can sustain the transfer for before sustaining tissue damage, which sets a limit to the energy a caster can access over a certain amount of time, regardless of how much is available. You could also have long term "scarring" for repeated or extreme overuse of power, which reduces the caster's ability to draw power in the future.
[Answer]
## Affinity
Like many magic systems, similar things work better together. An "Evil" mage can enforce this with blood-magic and mind-control (drugs, etc). This is scalable, and works especially well for a hive-mind villain. It also explains why minions are nearly identical clones. However, mind-control isn't perfect.
"Good" mages can attune to their apprentices/familiars, and if they need a miracle to save Atlantis (say) then having an entire city assisting (at low efficiency) with the effect.
This also means that having an engineer, an artist, and an expert as part of the casting-group will allow increased efficiency.
**Battery farms:** Attunement to many minions is hard, and confines the caster's options and even *thoughts*.
**Caster participation:** If all the minions are missing their left hand, the caster's left hand takes the full relevant cost. Mentally, it's similar - any part of yourself that you are unique in having, you can't pass off that part of the cost.
**Ethical mages:** "My apprentice knows me, and has volunteered to share the cost (maybe as part of their training)." This can become a pyramid scheme for ancient wizards.
**Logical consistency:** It's your world to decide whether this will fit in.
[Answer]
**Batteries**: connecting them in **Series** vs connecting them in **Parallel**
Referencing your questions I think the following might help. If you are using people as magical batteries then apply a set of magical laws that are similar to those applying to real world batteries. **Note;** The issue of resistance mentioned by other posters takes care of question 2.
**Series connections** involve connecting 2 or more batteries together to increase the voltage of the battery system, but keeps the same amp-hour rating. *Keep in mind in series connections each battery needs to have the same voltage and capacity rating, *or you can end up damaging the battery**.
In this context the flow of magic from the 'battery farm' flows through each member of the farm in turn on its way to the user.
**Advantage** - this gives your magician *large* amounts of power to play with so powerful spells can be performed.
**Disadvantage** - significant differences in the health/fitness of different members will seriously strain the circuit to the point where if the strain becomes to much the magician risks the magical equivalent of a battery short circuit or fire. If/when this happens individual members of the farm will 'short' out (from weakest to strongest) *in series*. The risk and seriousness of the damage inflicted also increases *exponentially* over time. This means that while yes, a magic user can potentially draw *huge* amounts of power/create powerful spells with this type of linkage you also quickly (within seconds?) reach the point where the weakest members of the farm will suffer traumatic damage/die and the circuit will short/collapse.
When this happens other members of the farm will also suffer some degree of damage as the effect of the short passes through them. Importantly since by default the magician will still be 'linked' to the battery if/when it shorts he or she also risks suffering traumatic, even potentially fatal damage as well. (You can play with all the potential variables to fit your idea and get a % risk factor.) P.S. Large farms used like this would also be terribly expensive to maintain because *all* members have to be kept at the same level (more or less) of health *all* the time. One bad cold could ruin your day.
So just like real world batteries differences in the health/fitness of individual members risks disruption to the the circuit. This puts strict limits on the total size of the farms anyone can have because if you want a 100 person battery they *all* need to have more or less the exact same level of fitness (say within 1 or 2%) and obviously the stronger and fitter they are the better.
***Parallel connections*** involve connecting 2 or more batteries together to increase the amp-hour capacity of the battery bank, but your voltage stays the same. *A parallel connection is not meant to allow your batteries to power anything above its standard voltage output, but rather increase the duration* for which it could power equipment.
This series is much safer and lets magicians perform lower level spells for very long periods of time. Members of the farm can have varied levels of fitness without risk. So if when drained a weaker member of the farm reaches a critical health point they can simply 'drop out' of the circuit without disrupting it. The only effect being that the amount of time left in which to perform your spells drops to. Nobody, including the mage dies and anyone can be part of the battery because the level of fitness isn't that important (within reason).
**So you end up with 2 models** - (A) short and very powerful where spells have potentially life threatening consequences for everyone involved or (B) long term, lower level spells that are more or less risk free for all concerned. Chose the former at your peril.
One last point concerning the 'farms'. The obvious limitation on large farms would simply be the logistics of taking large groups of people with you wherever you go. Large farms would therefore limit your mobility restricting you to a fixed point. Particularly if one of the limitations is the distance between the magician and his/her 'farm'.
Presumable there doesn't have to be a fixed, physical connection between them. But if the amount of power that can be drawn from a farm also drops fairly steadily with distance a magician may well be limited as to how far away from his farm he/she can be when performing spells and of course the stronger the spell the closer they have to be. This is another element of the **resistance problem** i.e it leads to a drop in power over distance as in any electrical circuit.
[Answer]
**Limiting battery farms**
I like and second Shawn's answer for how to limit large battery farms and fully support it.
As one possible suggestion along the same lines instead of (or possibly in addition to) putting a hard limit via resistance and energy use as per shawn's answer you could put more of a soft limit via diminishing returns. The more energy a user transfers the more energy is 'lost' to waste heat (or some other form of entropy). Thus as more humans are added you get diminishing returns. In theory you could have 100 people all supporting one user, but you'll only get slightly more energy as you would get from 4 people supporting you, while exhausting all 100, so it just doesn't make sense to have much more then 3-4 people supporting a caster at once.
As a side note this still allows a caster to rotate his support casters, 'using up' 4 supports energy then sending them back inside and calling in the next 4 to support his second spell.
**Humans only**
You mentioned the fridge logic of asking why people didn't just use animals as energy farms. Your idea is interesting, but I don't think that stops animals from being used. You probably don't want your human-batteries using magic to defend themselves since that is wasting energy that your lead-caster could likely use more effectively (or worse, using more energy then he knew was expanding resulting in his accidentally killing you because he misjudged how much remaining energy you had available to support a spell). It is generally more efficient to have one person in charge of magicking. Besides obese unfit humans probably aren't much better at defending themselves then a fit horse, and the horse has more available energy still!
If you're threatening to kill people if they don't participate in your potentially lethal magic system you may also want to not teach them how to defend themselves via magic...
Thus as a second limit I'd recommend saying that energy transfer is more efficient if the human is consciously supporting it, a skill that mere animals can't be properly trained in. So basically humans make a far more efficient battery source then animals do. You would probably want to say that having a human supporting you instead of an animal raises the effective limits caused by resistance/energy transfer/diminishing returns as per shawn's suggestion.
This could easily be tied into the part about needing a humans consent before you can drain power from them, just as a human can support you in transferring energy more efficiently they could also resist you, making energy transfer too inefficient to be useful.
I'd also suggest making it clear that the limit on energy transfer is about the effective energy transferred, not how many people that energy comes from. this eliminates the potential loophole of brining 4 elephants to the battlefield because 4 of them possess massively more raw energy then 4 humans. All that raw energy of the elephants doesn't help if the caster can only use a fraction of it, and the humans could have increased the amount of total energy the caster could handle.
**Ethical casting**
Now your last question of address your question on how an 'ethical' mage can still use other's humans as battery farms. Have him allocate a larger (adjusted) energy cost to himself then any of the others available to him. Then say that if the lead caster dies first that interrupts the spell (since he can no longer act as an energy conduit for the other users energy). Thus he works sort of like how a surge protector works in an electrical system. He ensures he dies first if anyone would die, and his death in turn saves the lives of all his support casters.
You may want to allow support casters to 'sense' how much of their energy, as a percentage of total energy cast, is going to be expanded before a spell is cast. That way a support caster can have an idea rather the primary caster is going the ethical route of acting as surge protector to protect his support casters or if the primary caster is putting his supports at risk.
As an intermediate option someone may want to try having a primary caster holding some poor victim (let's call him Vic) hand. Then Vic in turn is in contact with all the other support casters. In this case the main caster could potentially make Vic the surge protector, burning Vic out to save the other casters, rather then putting his own life on the line by acting as surge protector.
Of course you may not like having a Vic as a surge protector. If so it's easy to prevent by saying if Vic burns out the caster has to provide all the energy that was originally coming from 4 humans, thus almost guaranteeing the caster also dies if Vic dies. Thus you have the flexibility of choosing rather you want to have a Vic middle man or not as a possibility in your system.
**No animals were harmed with this casting?**
As another alternative for an 'ethical caster' you could have your ethical caster utilize animals as an energy source instead of humans. If you stuck with my 'humans only' advice above that would mean lowering the effective throughput the caster could manager for his spells, relative to someone supported by humans. However, it may still allow him somewhat close to the same energy use without the risk of killing humans. Having a protagonist have to struggle to overcome a power disadvantage due to his unwillingness to risk other's is a common staple of plenty of fiction, so that isn't necessarily a problem so long as the hero has enough power to have some chance of winning.
Of course you could argue rather that counts as 'ethical' depends on how much one values the life of an animal relative to that of a human. If you don't want your hero to be killing helpless animals you could instead ensure that he only uses larger animals. If the animal has a large enough energy reserve, and a low enough efficiency on how much energy they can transfer, it's entirely possible that the caster would risk killing himself before he was able to draw enough energy from his animal to put the animal at risk of death.
Plus, I just love the idea of the enemy being shocked when your hero suddenly bashes down their gates by riding a giant, armored, war elephant and starts flinging around spells nearly as strong as what your human supported casters can manage while being mobile and, you know, riding a @)#(%#^ elephant!! The only thing more awesome that that would be having your wizard riding in on, say, a necromantically raised T-rex!
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/GGEYN.jpg)
[Answer]
## **Mana shaping**
There is some kind of mental *coordination* required to channel the energy into/through the spell being cast.
Channelling your own energy is trivially easy, channelling somebody else's alongside your own is hard, but a skill that can be learned and practiced. Channelling 100 people at the same time is virtually impossible, especially if you have to control it well enough not to kill yourself or any of the people in the process.
] |
[Question]
[
My protagonist is stranded on an alien planet. Fortunately, along with ready supplies of food, shelter, water, electrical power, etc. she has a functioning high-end smartphone. She uses this smartphone as a sextant and after observations and a bunch of math she determines:
* How long a day on the planet is
* The orbital period of both moons and that of the planet itself (how long a year is)
* The planet's approximate angle of inclination respective to the ecliptic
* Rough latitude
* Roughly what time of the year it is (eg. predicting that winter is coming or spring is coming)
The only major limitation is that the smartphone's accelerometer is only has a repeatable pointing accuracy of around 0.1 degrees and the time period of observation is limited (only around thirty days). Fortunately, due to local weather patterns, it can be assumed that the night sky is clear every night of observation. Also, she has no outside-context knowledge on local space. Before measurements, all she knows is that the planet she's on has two moons and a sun.
**Is it feasible to determine all these facts using only the tools provided?** If yes, what degree of inaccuracy could be expected?
[Answer]
All info can be gathered in just 30 days, subject to some inaccuracy due to elliptical orbits.
**Accuracy of tools:**
* **Math:** Any modern cellphone's calculator app gives good calculations to 16 digits, 13 displayed. This is more than enough.
Default calculator also includes Sin, Cos, Roots, Exponent, ln, stored values for *PI* and *e*, etc.
* **Time:** Any modern cellphone's time is accurate to less than 1/20th of a second per day. Usually *much* better than that. More than enough. Ironically older phones were *more* accurate!
* **Observation:** Any (decent) modern cellphone can take photos of stars, with resolution of > 1000x1000. This is more than enough. Note that each photo includes a timestamp, down to the second. This is *important*
* **distance:** Oh carp! I knew we were forgetting something. We have no means to measure distances more accurately than pacing off steps or touching elbows.
**Measurements:**
* **How long a day on the planet is:**
Just measure the time from first touch of sun to horizon, until the same horizon touch the next day, from the *exact* same location. If the local weather is the same, then you will have the time accurate to within about 10 seconds.
Over more days, this can be fined down to about 2-3 seconds, if the sun is not too "fuzzy". Note that you *expect* both the precise location and time to drift between days, due to season progressing.
* **Year length:**
Do the exact same measurement for a specific star, that happens to enter the horizon at the same point as the sun.
Due to the much star being a point light, you should be able to get the measurement accurate to within 1 second on the first try.
The difference between these gives you the number of days in a year, thus gives you the year length.
NB!! This works best with a planet on a perfectly circular orbit. Repeat every now and then, plot deviation over time to get orbit eccentricity. 30 days (rather 1/10th of a year) will not really be enough to determine this accurately, but should refine the possible range a lot.
* **To get your latitude:**
Just do a rough guesstimate of where the south/north pole is. Take a photo of the stars there, with reference objects in the foreground. Repeat 1/4 day later, match up the two photos.
This will give you the exact north/south celestial pole position.
Angle between this and true horizon gives you your exact Latitude.
* **To get the planet's inclination:**
Just use your latitude and the sun's maximum elevation angle. Repeat over the next 30 days. You will have partial plot of 30/yeardays part of the year cycle, for the angle between the sun and the ecliptic. This should be enough to give you an exact planetary rotation axis inclination, *if* the orbit is circular.
* **To get season:**
From two consecutive sunsets, you can see whether the sun is heading towards the equator or towards a pole. From this and planetary inclination and year length, you can get exact season phase, thus know the season accurate to +- a very few days. (Actually, you can predict the equinoxes, but that's the same thing)
* **Orbital parameters of the moons:**
Just take two photos showing the moon, and background stars, on consecutive days. This will give you a good idea of angle covered per time, which gives orbital period.
Again, elliptical orbits can skew the result, ideally you want to observe for one full orbit.
This will also give you any orbital inclination of the moons and their rotation rates
* **Size of the planet, or the moons:**
Sorry, nope. Rough guesstimates only, unless you can travel a significant distance (some hundreds of km) over the surface is a very short time, to take two observations.
Or, if slow movement only, you need to do the observations on identical orbit days, i.e. typically on the equinoxes or similar. Not doable within your timespan.
* **Your longitude on the planet:**
Arbitrarily declare your current position to be the Meridian, 0 east. Party!
# Summary:
With only 30 days of observation, and assuming that this 30 days is < 10% of a year , similar to Earth, you can get:
* Latitude, accurate to 500m. Seriously! It's only limited by your resolution of photo, and measurement of horizon. (and Oblateness of Planet, but day length and gravity will give you an order-of-magnitude estimate of that, and it is a *very* small error)
* Day length, Accurate to about 1-2 seconds. Limited by: visual observation of star occultation by horizon.
* Year length, accurate to well under one day. Accurate to under an hour if the orbit is circular, but it never is, quite.
* Longitude: perfect, because its arbitrary
* Moon orbit periods: Accurate to <10 minutes, IF your stay is longer than one orbit. Otherwise To the hour. Limited by: visual observation of occultation of a star(if there long enough), else visual of horizon touch.
Moon size, planet size, sun size/ orbit distance: rough guesswork based on how heavy you feel. Really just guesswork, unless your cellphone includes some form of accurate distance measurement.
[Answer]
## It's a clock - and you can do this with a clock
The British Navy conquered much of the world because it developed a [portable clock](https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/harrisons-clocks-longitude-problem) that allowed it to measure changes in longitude. You haven't even asked for that - the measurements you mention can all be done with simple pre-industrial observations, using the stars themselves as the clock.
* The main advantage of the cell phone is that you can say the day is X hours long, rather than "a day" long, or 360 degrees of [right ascension](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_ascension).
* Observing the orbital period of a moon is another simple timing.
* The latitude can be measured, for example, by identifying a constant pole star (or a way to identify the pole's location - even on Earth we're not always so lucky as to have a single good pole star). Excluding some simple thinking about the definition of north vs south, the angle of the pole star above the ground is your latitude.
* Observing the angle of the sun, knowing your latitude, and observing how it changes will yield the season and approximate angle of inclination.
For the last two, it may be convenient if the device has a sine function to work out the angle from a slope measurement, but I suspect you would find only a simulated first-generation calculator mostly intended to give smart phone users a way to multiply by 100.
[Answer]
Disclaimer: this is an incomplete answer and may contain errors. Some of these procedures may also require the sun to actually *set*, i.e. may not work too close to a pole in the middle of summer. (This also assumes you aren't on a tidally locked planet at just the right distance so that the hemisphere of eternal sun is livable.)
>
> How long a day on the planet is
>
>
>
Day length AFAIK can be determined over at most a few days using nothing more complicated than a crude sun dial and an accurate clock. The real catch is the accurate clock; because they are expected to have external time sources available, even a "high end" smart device may not have a very accurate clock.
The procedure is to set up your sun dial (which can be as simple as a relatively straight stick stuck in a relatively flat patch of dirt) and watch it for a day or several days to determine when the shortest shadow is cast. This gives you "noon", and also "north". Once you've marked this, just measure the time between noon and noon for several days to get an average. (or just once if you don't need much accuracy).
If your smart device has enough storage, and you can afford to do without it for some hours each day, you may be able to set it to take a photo every minute or so around noon and use the photos to determine noon. This could also give you a result in a little over a local day.
(Another option, as Mike noted, is to take pictures of the *night* sky with the device in *an absolutely fixed position* and find which two are most similar. The above is essentially the same procedure, but using the position of the sun for your comparisons.)
>
> The planet's approximate angle of inclination respective to the ecliptic
>
>
>
*Assuming* the planet isn't wobbling or doing something similarly crazy (which might not preclude this method giving you an answer, it just might be *wrong*)... I think this may actually be quite easy, *if* you can either take or somehow fake a long duration photograph. Assuming the stars are fairly stationary relative to the planet's rotation, you just need to take a long enough exposure to get some good star trails (you may be able to fake this with many separate shots, but you might then need to manually track stars), then use that to determine the planet's axis of rotation relative to your current position. Then just take several readings of the sun to determine the ecliptic and compare notes.
>
> Rough latitude
>
>
>
Should be trivial if you can solve the previous problem. Ignore the sun, as its position is seasonally dependent. Instead, use your star trails to find a true (rotational) pole and compare the angle to that to the angle to the sun at noon.
>
> Roughly what time of the year it is (e.g. predicting that winter is coming or spring is coming)
>
>
>
With the prior disclaimer about accurate timekeeping, if you are near an equinox, this should be fairly trivial to accomplish by making two marks on your sun dial (toward morning and evening, but measuring between two marks may be more accurate than trying to judge sunrise and sunset) and comparing the length of time it takes to go between these over a period of time. (Bonus: you don't necessarily need *daily* readings for this, but you *do* need readings separated by several planetary days; the more separated, the better.)
You can also compare your ecliptic to your poles to refine your guess. This can't give you the answer outright, however, as, unless you are near one of the solstices, on its own it will give two solutions. Both together, however, should give you a good guess, and may also be able to suggest the planet's orbital period (i.e. year). However, you may need to be able to do some calculus for that.
---
p.s. I really hope this "survival kit" is intended for use on sparsely populated worlds and includes a powerful distress beacon. (Or maybe it's only intended for use on something like a derelict ship?) Not because it will help, but because if the designers considered unexplored planets in their possible scenarios, they darned well ought to have included tools *designed* to figure this stuff out.
[Answer]
Not all info can be gathered in just 30 days.
* How long a day on the planet is
To determine this one just needs to measure the time interval between two sunsets/sunrises. Measuring the passage of a distant star at a certain celestial meridian is going to take some more infrastructure. If I would do the same in my present spot between today and tomorrow, I would measure a day length of 24 hours and 1 minute.
* The orbital period of both moons and that of the planet itself (how long a year is)
If they make the assumption that the moons orbit is rather circular, they need to measure the time between for example new moon and first quarter, and multiply that by 4. If they want to be really sure, they need to measure the time between two identical phases. This will have an error of a few hours.
* The planet's approximate angle of inclination respective to the ecliptic
For this they would need to wait both solstices and measure the height of the sun at noon. The axial tilt would be the complement to 90 of the average of the two.
* Rough latitude
Once they know the axial tilt and the local time, they can calculate the latitude based on sun height and local time.
* Roughly what time of the year it is (eg. predicting that winter is coming or spring is coming)
For this they just need to monitor the length of the day, from sunrise to sunset, across a couple of days. If the daylight is getting longer, they are in the local spring/summer, if it is getting shorter they are in the local fall/winter.
[Answer]
Why would she go to all of that trouble? Why wouldn't she just enquire of the local population?
They would obviously have to be advanced, given that they have GPS-type satellites in orbit and cell towers all over the place that enables the apps in the smart phone to work.
A smart phone itself is pretty useless. It needs constant signals form outside sources to enable it to function. Without them, at best you can use it as a calculator.
Even the compass functions would be useless unless she had a firm understanding of the magnetic field, if any, around the planet.
**EDIT Let me TL:DR this**
Impossible without her knowing MUCH more about the planet. Shape? Orbital wobble? Magnetic pole? Gravity? Axis of rotation vs the sun? Far too much has to be assumed, without her having an external intelligent source of data.
] |
[Question]
[
A reality warper has the power to manipulate reality. Users can create, shape and manipulate reality just by thinking about it, and may alter something as tangible as physics and the universe to something inconceivable like logic. The reality of the mortal realm is held together by a series of crisscrossing strings that are interconnected. These strings are tied to everything living and nonliving within the realm, connecting all things within a realm to each other, similar to a tapestry. A reality warper can see and mentally manipulate these strings to change the world around them, altering the physical and nonphysical to suit their purposes. To others, they can seemingly create things from nothing and can just as easily erase them from existence. This practically makes them a god in the eyes of others.
A warper can use his altering abilities to terraform an entire realm in his image, including climate, atmosphere, laws of physics, etc. Despite the popular belief however, they are not all powerful. A warper has complete control over his or her domain, which encompasses an area of 500 feet in all directions around them. In this space, their power is absolute, as they wield direct control over the area around them. Beyond this area, they can influence the strings of reality to a limited extent, but cannot guide it directly. This leads to the world changing in ways that the warper didn't intend or foresee. The individual can draw up a image of the world they want to create in a mental "rough draft" in their minds, from its creatures to the underlying physics. This image would come out perfectly within their domain. The farther out from that area, the less control they have over reality, the more likely it would deviate from their original vision. The resulting world will have similarities to the one that the individual wanted, but will be different in many ways that they didn't expect.
The other caveat is that while the warper has absolute control over their domain, The things within it are not made "permanent". Whatever creatures, people, or items created inside it cease to exist outside the domain, and are limited to the 500 feet area of the individual. This seems counter-intuitive. Where the warper wields complete control, his creations are not permanent fixtures of reality. Where he wields less power, the effects and changes are long lasting. How can this be the case?
[Answer]
Maybe a tad on the philosophical side, but an observer's reality is just what falls within the senses of that observer. Therefore the warper doesn't really change the reality, but only the perception of the reality for those who are into the radius of operation. Sort of a distorting mirror, you don't get taller or fatter, but your image reflected in the mirror looks like that.
Whoever is subject to the warper's influence will for example see an apple pierce a hole through 10 cm thick steel plate when tossed by a angry toddler, but that perception will vanish once the "distortion" applied by the warper is gone.
[Answer]
The weaker a reality warper is, the more he has to work with what he's got.
In the regions where he is truly powerful, a warper can make objects spring out the quantum foam, as (very large -- ENORMOUS) fluctuations. But it's the nature of those fluctuations to vanish again, as randomly as they came, and he can make it less random and more orderly but not stop them.
A region where he's much weaker, he might actually have to move physical atoms, or change people, or what have you. These are things that will continue to exist on their own.
Another weakening factor is that while he can use large-scale quantum effects to shape things in the powerful zones, in the weaker ones he has to use more ordinary chemical bonds, but those also have their own continuity.
[Answer]
The warped reality is unreal – mere distortions in the threads, sustained by the reality warper – and will go away when the reality warper's power is removed. The effects of that false reality on true reality, however, doesn't go away; light doesn't go back, nor memories, nor large-scale alterations to objects, nor indirect changes to physics itself.
A reality warper makes a hole in you? You'll live. A reality warper creates a stone and throws it at you? Hope you're good at dodging.
Reality outside the reality warper's sphere of influence is altered indirectly, by the presence of the warps but not by the warping itself. When the warping stops, the warped reality snaps back to normal, but the nearby reality *was never warped*; there's no (or *very little*) “tension” to snap back. (Of course, this also restricts the types of permanent alterations to reality a reality warper could cause; what you can do to the threads of reality *actively* is much greater than if you're limited to passive, permanent alterations.)
[Answer]
**They are dreaming.**
The distinction between real and dream blurs according to the power of the reality warper. The dreamer may or may not be in the same world as the dream. The dreamer may be part of a larger dream.
Everything may be a dream.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Bjq91.jpg)
<https://www.deviantart.com/feig-art/art/Dream-of-Vishnu-778339752>
[Answer]
Restrictions about the power:
-Power pulls the "strings" of Reality.
-Reality is made of criscrossing and interconnected strings. About the strings:
-They tie everything within the Reality.
-Warper can "pull" them to change things.
-They can alterate from physics to logic => it can alterate the way math works, so you would need to rediscover math for that altered reality for it to be workable.
[It's funny that we will use maths to model this power].
-Absolute power over Reality up to 500 feet ~= 170 meters; Let's round that up to 200 meters and make the rim with the shape of a sphere.
-Power diminishes as distance increases from 200 meters. This implies that the power with which you pull certain strings of reality dissipates at 200 m and there are different types of strings with different power dissipation: You can pull on every type of string up to 200 m but to introduce changes further than that, you can only pull less dissipative strings, as the ones that affect quantum and conceptual thingies dissipate so much that further than 200 meters you can't change those strings.
-At last, Reality wants to change back or it just changes back due to aleatory changes piling over one another eventually settling back on its own to its initial state. So there is a noise in the strings, and that noise defines reality
Now that the characteristics of the settling are described and explained, we can say why it works that way.
The reality warper is like a radio transmitter. The reality is like a radio that tells what's already there. There is noise (like white noise) in the 'air' of Reality, and that noise is what defines the nature of Reality.
Now, are you prepared for the maths that explain how the powers work?
Here it goes:
Our warper emits a signal in any frequency. This signal can reach EVERWHERE, but for some frequencies it travels worse than others: quantum and conceptual affecting strings dissipate as near as 200 m but other signals can travel better and they can affect other things further.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/dKbyw.png)
This is the graph where a transmitter emits a **signal** to the air with a power of P=4 Watts positioned at 0(green), the **ambient noise**'s power is equal to N=1 Watt. So the signal will be *clearly distinguisible* from the ambient noise while its power is above/greater than the noise's.
In the graph I made for P=4 and N=1. as we don't know how much is the ambient noise or how much potency does he use, we can say that for quantum and conceptual strings (Pq), the ambient noise N=P/(1+4·pi·200^2).
So if the ambient noise at quantum is N=1, then Pq = [1+(4·pi·200^2)]·N = 502655.8 Watts.
You specifically talked about quantum and conceptual things, so there exist a variety of strings for specific things. We are going to say that there are frequencies for each type of string.
That way, you use cosmic rays' wavelength frequency for quantum and conceptual things and they dissipate very fast, you use X-rays' wavelength to affect atoms, UV wavelength to affect molecules, visible green light wavelength for virus and bacteria, etc increase the wavelength and the dissipation lessens and the minimum size of the object you can affect increases.
As you reduce the wavelength, the dissipation on effect to greater objects lessens allowing you to effect only bigger things.
WATCH OUT! Gravity is made by gravitons, that are subatomic particles, so no, you can't smash two planets together. But maybe a black hole with a supermassive star would be feasible? I don't know.
] |
[Question]
[
In this world, mages can create a wide variety of spells, but they all have the same basis: creating or manipulating an element or both. They all also use mana. Mages are extremely common, as the vast majority of adults can cast using 2 elements. (The elements in this book are the standard fire, earth, water, and air). Mages can only create and control magic relatively close to them (for amateur mages around 2-20 feet), but can still cast fireballs, similar to throwing a ball. Also, mages do greatly vary in strength. Mages can also cast spells very often, but for how long mages can cast depends on the strength of spells.
So, in a world with this, magic can be used to attack, defend, and agument materials. Would battles in this world be similar to normal naval battles, with mages as artillery, or would there be a completely different interaction?
If there was a completely different interaction in naval battles in this world, what are some possible ways naval battles could work. The ships in my book would be mostly triremes but with sails, but things applicable to other types of boat warfare might also apply here. Also, this is during a mideval era type situation.
Edit: the answer by @ L.Dutch - Reinstate Monica♦ Made me realize I didn’t properly specify what I was looking for or the magic system. What I was looking for is wether certain elements of mages would have an advantage over others in this situation, and how such elements might be utilized in battles.
[Answer]
**Probably battles will be more similar to WWI battles than sailing age battles**
Note: many ideas rely on the assumption that mages can create continuous stream (and for a pretty long time) of their element, rather than in bursts
An air mage has too short range to influence other ships, but can give the best wind to his own ship, which means that the ships are no more constrained by wind and can move quite freely, like the ships of coal and diesel age.
This would render useless all naval doctrines about the use of the best wind to fight the adversary.
At the same time, I think that close combats, like rammings and boardings, would become too difficult: entering the range the enemy mages could be extremely dangerous (I think that at close range there are more offensive options than defensive ones): the ship could be hit by a 100 tons stone summoned by the earth mage, or a water mage could make disappear all the water on the side of the enemy ship, turning it upside down.
Basically ship would engage at distance, using dear old muggle cannons (whose range and could probably be enhanced by fire and/or air mages), but with an increased maneuverability.
But this is only the beginning. Your magic system can be used in a more creative way:
* A bronze bell underwater, or even an entire hull. An air mage can create breathable air inside, while a water mage (maybe together with another air mage) can give it a propulsion system: you now have a submarine, which can attack a ship from below
* Build a big kite. An air mage can create a wind sgrong enough to keep it in air and to also lift some weight. The mage can now fly on the kite and make recognition missions around his ship. If he can generate a strong enough wind, he could also carry a fire mage and launch incendiary projectiles against enemy ships from the air
* Some strong water mages could summon water to create just enough pressure on the back of the ship to make it move. If they can endure creating this spell for a good amount of time, you can have a propulsion without sail
[Answer]
# They would do the same things as real world sailors
If you check out this [list of US Navy jobs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Navy_ratings), you'll see that many of them will still exist, even in a world with magic. Sailors spend a lot of time on maintenance, cleaning, cooking, and other mundane tasks. Maybe a mage who can manage water would make a great cleaner.
Even in combat, a ship full of mages would probably function similarly to a real world vessel. The mages might work side-by-side with traditional weapons. For example, it's not clear if a mage would be powerful enough to match the range and accuracy of a cruise missile that can hit a small target 1,500 miles from the ship. Combat mages might replace some of the weapons systems. I bet they would make for a terrifying replacement for a boarding team or sniper team. And the ability to conjure earth could come in handy in damage control (you could plug a leak with a perfectly sized piece of stone).
[Answer]
It depends on how mages' power confront against each other.
If 1 mage is always sufficient to counter another mage, than who has more mages win: 100 mages casting fire on a ship will need 100 mages casting water to extinguish that fire, else the ship will burn.
If instead there is some level system, who has the strongest mage is at advantage, because their attack will be harder or impossible to counter, comparable to someone countering a tank with a mace.
Also the range at which the mages can cast their spell will affect if gunpowder is still viable or not, depending on their respective ranges.
None of the magic powers is inherently better than the others: ships can be set on fire, flooded with water, stuffed to the brim with earth or capsized by a tornado by any competent mage who can cast the appropriate spell.
[Answer]
Why bother getting up close? All the modern paradigms apply.
Make custom enchanted "magic-seeker" catapult rocks that fly up perhaps 10-20 miles and look for hostile energy signatures and drop down at hypersonic speeds using an unpredictable path.
Set up a ship as an "elemental carrier" solely for the purpose of housing summoned elementals that will be used to attack other ships outside line of sight.
] |
[Question]
[
**This question asks for hard science.** All answers to this question should be backed up by equations, empirical evidence, scientific papers, other citations, etc. Answers that do not satisfy this requirement might be removed. See [the tag description](/tags/hard-science/info) for more information.
If we have a known volume of air in an airtight chamber (basically, in a spaceship) of atmospheric composition and pressure, and we know the number of people in the chamber, how long does the air remain breathable?
Basically, given a volume V of air at 1 atm and the standard composition (78% Nitrogen, 21% Oxygen, with the remaining 1% composed of carbon dioxide, argon, etc.), how long can X people remain alive (or rather, conscious) in that chamber, assuming there is no exchange of matter between the inside of the chamber and its surroundings (ie space)?
Other problems regarding the survival of the crew, such as food, water, waste disposal, heat, etc. are out of scope. I only want to know about breathable air and how long it lasts.
Edits:
* The oxygen goes down mostly by human consumption. There are no fires, no chemical reactions taking place etc. The mostly is there because there may or may not be gunshots taking place in this chamber based on its purpose. I hope that will not complicate stuff too much, but that is going to be rare as it is.
[Answer]
Since I feel like I should turn my comment into an answer:
I am basically directly copying the formula from [this site](http://www-das.uwyo.edu/%7Egeerts/cwx/notes/chap01/ox_exer.html):
>
> Where:
>
>
> * t = time lapsed from initial time to time of loss of consciousness (s)
> * Vr = volume of enclosure (m3)
> * Vp = volume of a person (about 0.1 m3)
> * Li = initial oxygen concentration (21% or 0.21)
> * Lf = final oxygen concentration (12% or 0.12)
> * n = number of people in enclosure
> * C = per capita rate of oxygen consumption (3.33 10-6 m3 s-1)
>
>
>
>
> Therefore:
>
>
> * t = {Vr - nVp}{Li - Lf} / nC
>
>
>
If you have Volume in m3, and you want a simple rough estimate of passing out around 15% oxygen concentration, then you could just do:
>
> Number of Hours = (Volume/Number of People - 0.1) \* 5
>
>
>
Edit: Corrected my own bad math, and added a couple more details.
[Answer]
## It depends on the people and their metabolic rate, and whether you can scrounge up something alkaline.
People trapped in a cave may not be keeping up with breakfast, but they are still burning calories internally. Figure out the amount of "food Calories" (kcal) all the people together *would* need to eat to stay at their present weight. So if you have a girl who eats 1200 kcal a day and a big man who eats 2800 kcal a day, start with 4000 kcal. If need be you can try to [estimate this](https://healthjade.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/basal-metabolic-rate-with-age-and-sex.jpg) from a chart relating BMI, sex, and age.
Convert the calories to grams of fat (approximately -CH2-) using 9 kcal = 1 gram, or carbohydrate (-CH2O-) using 4 kcal = 1 gram. For -CH2- 14 grams = 1 mol and for -CH2O- 30 grams = 1 mol. *And* 1 mol -CH2- + 1.5 mol O2 = CO2 + H2O while 1 mol -CH2O- + 1 mol O2 = CO2 + H2O. Putting all that together, (9 kcal/g)(14 g/mol)(1 mol -CH2- / 1.5 mol O2) = 84 kcal -CH2- / mol O2 and (4 kcal/g)(30 g/mol)(1 mol -CH2O- / mol O2) = 120 kcal -CH2O- / mol O2.
Now a mole of O2 or CO2 takes up 22 liters of space in a cold cave and 24 liters in a warm one. For this space ship I think we can assume a 25 C room temperature, so 24.45 L/mol. Even supposing it cooled down to the freezing point of the water for the radiation shield, that would only decrease the pressure; the amount of air remains the same. Being cold has a much larger effect by [raising the energy usage 30% for "mild cold"](https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/02/how-being-cold-burns-calories/283810/) and up to 5 times more for Antarctic explorer grade cold. But at normal temperatures, for every 84 calories you burn, you're using up 24 liters of oxygen and creating a precisely equal volume of carbon dioxide. The amount of "air" used will be a little less than five times that, so we can say 1.4 liters per kcal = **1.4 cubic meters per 1000 "Calories" burned**. Unless you still have protein or carbohydrate you're digesting, or for a few hours after that liver glycogen, in which case you're using about 50% more.
You can use up about 2/3 of the oxygen before people die - the Death Zone of Everest is 356 millibars of pressure. The *big* variable is whether you can do anything about the CO2. With CO2, even 1% will be annoying, and 5% (which means 25% of the total air has been used) is a big problem. But almost any aqueous solution of a strongly alkaline substance will absorb CO2, because carbon dioxide reacts with water to form carbonic acid, and if you can neutralize the acid to bicarbonate or carbonate that reaction just keeps going and going.
Notice that "conserving energy" to conserve oxygen is rather overrated. I mean, picture you're gasping for breath with a stair-climbing machine and it tells you that you have managed to burn 16 calories ... go out and reward yourself with a green bean. And the guilty feeling you used up 11 soda bottles' worth of air.
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I'm new here and know very little about chemistry.
For the sake of a story I'm building, especially with symbolism, I'm having a fire person and a water person coexist in a romance. However, I'm using real world phenomena to help demonstrate it. I'm finding it easy to have water "live with" fire in some ways. Like thermite and other things "burning" underwater, undersea volcanoes, and hydrothermal vents. I also found this thread: [What metal would burn steadily in a water lamp?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/173776/what-metal-would-burn-steadily-in-a-water-lamp/173777#173777) Thanks to the addition of calcium carbide, a fire could technically be on top of water, as a reverse. But I'm not sure how long the two would last together. I'm finding it very hard-pressed to find other equivalents for water on a larger scale. The closest I found was a "lake" in the Halema'uma'u crater of Hawaii's Kīlauea volcano, but it wasn't exactly active (and technically not water). There's the other obvious combinations resulting in steam and the creation of cooled rock for islands, but they're over with almost instantly. I was wondering if there were other possible ones I may have missed. Like, is there any other physical ways for water to be next to fire without the two cancelling out?
Plus: How viable is the following? A scene I wanted to try involved a pool of water and waterfalls in a volcanic rock cave or cavern area with fire on top, yet not extinguishing. I figured maybe an additive of some sort could act as fuel for the fire and keep it perpetually going. Could a cycle involving evaporation help? If not full on waterfalls, maybe a sort of "rain"?
If something's not clear, please let me know.
Edit: Just bringing this back around with some more questions:
While there are many ways to create fire from water, in what ways can water come from fire. So far I have only found one source in all the web that shows a way [here](https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9sd1z).
And is there a way for water to sort of rest on top of a fire with immediately burning away? I wondered if intense pressure could keep water in a liquid state?
[Answer]
Water vapor is still water, though in a gaseous phase. And, literally speaking, romance can end up in something hot and steamy.
As long as the temperature is below a few thousands degrees, water won't [dissociate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_splitting#Thermal_decomposition_of_water)
>
> At the very high temperature of 3000 °C more than half of the water molecules are decomposed, but at ambient temperatures only one molecule in 100 trillion dissociates by the effect of heat
>
>
>
and if you increase pressure, you can still keep liquid water at temperatures above 100 Celsius: the critical point of water is at 22 MPa and 647 K.
[Answer]
why not use lithium or sodium? those can burn water (albeit more like exploding) the excess hydrogen then rises, reacts with some chemical containing oxygen, makes more water, which then precipitates back down. as long as you can find a way to break down the LiOH into lithium and monohydrogen monoxide, then reacting with the hydrogen again, then you have a sort of exploding water cycle based around lithium. this reaction all together should make it appear as if they water is burning.
[Answer]
Your world isn't based on modern chemistry/physics, but an older model called the [Aristotelian elements](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_element). These are the familiar "earth, air/wind, water, and fire" which are a mainstay of various fantasy stories and Dungeons and Dragons and the like.
The model itself makes for compelling stories, and modern understanding of science doesn't detract from those (in my opinion). Dungeons and Dragaons even did interesting things with it, describing the entities that were born at the intersection of any two of those planes ("smoke" elementals at the air and fire boundaries, and so on).
But I've not really known of any that try to marry it to modern chemistry, with which the these ideas are not just incompatible, but seem ridiculous.
You might do best to just ignore nitty-gritty details and "go with it".
If that's not good enough, I suggest to you that burning hydrogen (which doesn't result in flames quite as visible as other substances) produces water vapor as its combustion product.
But really, this question threatens to invite answers based on Bubble Guppies and SpongeBob, where the protagonists regularly carry around open flames underwater.
[Answer]
**Love triangle.**
Somehow this idea has lodged in my mind
The fire: destroys everything by burning, but fire produces two new things. Lifeless carbon dioxide... and water. Fire makes water. The fire is an agent of destruction and might be seen as evil, but out of the destruction comes empowerment for water.
The green: creates new life out of what is not alive but in the process, destroys water. Water is consumed to make green life. Green life might be seen as good, but life requires the destruction of water, which in making life ceases to exist as water.
I do not think this story can have water choosing the one or the other. Fire and the Green hate each other, but water must move between them for the cycle to continue.
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Your question reminded me of this video
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFbt60j6cYk>
Where methane formed from rotting vegetable matter under the lake became trapped under the ice and then once lit burns until the methane is gone.
If the methane comes from a natural gas source it could last thousands of years.
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Your water person contains ethanol. The fire person depends on them to live. The more intense the contact, the more intense they are.
But the more he lives, the weaker they become. The water person will not die, but will become smaller as their alcohol content goes away and their water content evaporates due to temperature.
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If by water as in water vapor then yes.
If by water you mean liquid water however, it gets complicated, as it could be possible depending on the pressure.
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There are a lot of fictional settings that have some sort of elite peacekeeping organization that is tasked with keeping people safe or keeping things "normal" and are [frequently depicted as being above ordinary law in some way](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EliteAgentsAboveTheLaw). The *SCP Foundation* or *Men In Black* are perhaps the two most extensive examples, but there are others such as the Marvel Universe's SHIELD, the Spectres in *Mass Effect*, Inquisitors in *Warhammer 40k*. Most of the time these organizations are presented as "the good guys", or at least the side that has audience sympathy, due to being the protagonists. This ignores the fact historical cases of organizations with the ability to use "whatever means necessary" in the name of the greater good with little to no accountability usually rapidly become corrupt and self-serving (SIDE in Argentina is the first example that comes to mind for me, but there are a lot of others throughout history).
This potential for abuse of power in elite organizations that see themselves as above the law is magnified when you give these organizations have principal dominion over anomalous technology or other supernatural or alien MacGuffins. As an example, consider the SCP Foundation. Even discounting everything the SCP Foundation ostensibly has to do "for the greater good" (e.g., Procedure 110-Montauk), the SCP Foundation is characterized by horrific abuses of power. They regularly [prop up totalitarian dictatorships](http://www.scpwiki.com/scp-1427), [interfere in presidential elections](http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-4444), [assassinate high-profile individuals](http://www.scpwiki.com/scp-1841-ex), participate in human trafficking, and use political prisoners, refugees ([including children](http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/black-white-black-white-black-white-black-white-black-white)), and (formerly) [African slaves](http://www.scpwiki.com/scp-1851-ex) as disposable test subjects. The SCP Foundation has committed [genocide](http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-2750) and [xenocide](http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-2237) against innocents to levels that would make the Imperium of Man proud. The leading council are incredibly corrupt, often [abusing MacGuffin technology for their own benefit](http://www.scpwiki.com/forum/t-76892/scp-006) or having people [killed](http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-3985) and/or [tortured](http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-4470) to keep their power secure. This isn't even counting [genuine accidents where they mistakenly torture and kill innocent people and are never held accountable for it](http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-3017). They have an ethics committee, but despite their fearsome reputation the SCP ethics committee [is regularly](http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-2237) [unable to curb](http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-3985) [genuine abuses of power](http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-3000). However, the status of the ethics committee just highlights one thing: the only real check on the SCP Foundation is the SCP Foundation.
Most notably, governments and other nation-states have no control over the actions of these groups. The SCP Foundation answers to no government body or intergovernmental organization, and in fact regularly manipulates governments and large corporations to keep themselves in power. The SCP Foundation claim to exist to protect "normalcy", but this ignores the fact that they define what "normalcy" is. They suppress societal and technological developments as they see fit, and have [even been mentioned to be suppressing human technological development to keep them controllable](http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-3426), preventing a societal or technological shift that could threaten their power. The only real check on their power are the *other* anomalous secret organizations in their setting, but that only highlights how the setting is a playground for the secret societies where ordinary people (or really, governmental bodies representing the people) have no real power to change things.
This isn't unique to the SCP Foundation, the SCP Foundation just explores the consequences of this in more detail than most works. The MIB are a less extreme, but not much better example. In the movies and spin-off television show the MIB manipulate human society as they see fit to uphold their mostly self-appointed mission of keeping alien life hidden on Earth. Human society is mostly unable to make their own choices because the MIB can edit memories as needed to manipulate societal evolution. For example at the end of the television spin-off the existence of aliens is revealed to the world, humanity seems to be accepting of it, but the MIB still neuralize the population to return things to the status quo. They're even worse in the comics, manipulating humanity explicitly for their own selfish benefit rather than the greater good. Similarly, SHIELD isn't much better (see: the entirety of *Captain America: The Winter Soldier*, Marvel Comic's *Civil War*, or Project Cadmus, SHIELD's DC equivalent).
What the point of all these examples are is to show the kinds of horrific abuses of power that could happen (and indeed, are likely to happen given human nature and corruptibility) if you had a super-secret organization that isn't accountable to few or no people and believes themselves to be "above the law". Despite most of these organizations being founded to protect ordinary people, at some point these organizations stop being protectors of the innocent and start being Illuminati-like shadow-dictators. The only reason the SCP Foundation isn't an outright villain is they are written as the lesser of two evils and from a narrative perspective they aren't allowed to be as corrupt as an organization like this probably would be in real life for plot reasons in order to maintain audience sympathy.
**My question is, in a world where you have a secret or shadowy organization dedicated to containing the supernatural or weird, how could governments provide checks on them to prevent them from becoming a shadowy Illuminati-esque organization like the above?** I.e., how do you keep nation-states and democratic governance relevant and keep the setting from devolving into NGO shadow wars like the SCP Foundation and similar settings are? **Simply saying "well don't found such an organization and spread the duties out among several arms of government" wouldn't work because the trope is usually formulated around a single organization dedicated to handling supernatural occurences.**
Specifically, what I'm thinking of is a governmental or inter-governmental organization founded to be the primary response and handler of supernatural occurrences (alien technology, magic, interdimensional weirdness), with at least some degree of secrecy, in order to keep the world mostly "normal" or keep dangerous anomalous technology or supernatural beings from interfering with humanity.
After doing research on the kinds of abuses the SCP Foundation and similar organizations get up to with their status, it dawned on me that it would be incredibly difficult for a governmental entity to actually keep them under control after a certain point, simply because the normal methods of bringing a rogue organization under control wouldn't work and it would be difficult to stop them from going full SCP Foundation.
* They can't really threaten to pull the organization's funding, as the organization often isn't dependent on government funding; they often fund themselves via selling applications of their technology, have some way of producing sellable goods with anomalous technology, or they are capable of buying shell companies or manipulating the stock market to fund themselves that way.
* The operatives of this organization have disproportionate power relative to their numbers. Most intelligence organizations cannot flaunt government control too openly because they don't have total control of the military and the military would win in a straight-up fight. This is not the case for one of these organizations, as they control most of the access to super-technology like spaceships, magic, laser-weaponry, and other force-multipliers that give them a huge advantage over the military, which relies more on conventional weaponry. This isn't even counting the secret government organizations whose members are all or in part wizards or superhumans. They also have access to a lot of doomsday weapons (engineered plagues, orbital weaponry) that conventional forces don't have.
* Many of these organizations are often depicted as having some sort of memory editing technology (neuralizers, amnestics, mind magic). Given this, governments would find it extremely difficult to maintain any sense of confidence that their decisions were their own. How do they know that they haven't had their memories altered or removed in order to better fulfill the shadowy organization's needs? Compared to IRL exampled of governmental tampering it is much more difficult to catch evidence of memory manipulation.
Given all this, it almost seems like the natural evolution of one of these organization would be one towards increasing corruption and totalitarianism simply because there's no one to hold these organizations accountable for anything. Self-policing and noble motivations sound good on paper, but human history has shown that without some kind of check and balances corruption rapidly runs rampant.
To be clear, I'm not asking about a plot-specific question as to how a dispute between the secret organization and the government would go. I'm asking about how to engineer a setting where the secret organization is accountable to higher authorities in some way and has to be concerned with consequences so that it cannot simply do whatever they want. **I'm more thinking about a way in which an organization dedicated to police the supernatural can plausibly be kept a heroic and accountable protector of common humanity rather than shadowy unaccountable overlords.**
[Answer]
## Shhhh. They'll Hear You:
The simple answer is, you can't make an organization like this godlike without them having a god complex. Such an organization is only stable as a force of good if a.) deeply principled people are in charge, b.) They are dependent on existing legitimate organizations, c.) they have McGuffins that magically maintain "goodness" and d.) they feel compelled to maintain secrecy, thus maintaining the illusion of freedom for the general populous.
1. The best intended causes are only as good as those running it. Lenin proved to be less than perfect as the leader of communist Russia, but he still held to principles. But he chose to trust Joseph Stalin, of all people, as a worthy successor, because he was strong and ruthless. The same qualities that may make a person an ***effective*** leader may also be the qualities that make them someone you don't ***want*** with that kind of power.
2. If the organization is completely dependent on an existing legitimate organization, then it has some of that organization's stability. But this has two main flaws. The source organization will be corrupted by the need to maintain secrecy/eliminate transparency and use unspeakable power. Second, the secret organization also has a motive to remove the source organization's influence, either by finding alternate staff, funding, and authority. So you start with "good" CIA operatives, but you sometimes need to do things congress isn't okay with and is OBVIOUSLY too short-sighted to appreciate. You recruit foreign spies, possibly criminals, start using the McGuffin powers to manipulate the stock market or commodities market for flexible funds to maintain the vital work. And then they start doing the things that need to be done despite the government's orders. Now they are no longer dependent.
3. If you have a super-powered moral being like an AI or Dr. Manhattan from the Watchmen, your organization might stand a chance. The McGuffin itself should be something providing a moral compass like an angel (possibly literal) watching over the organization. Even here, as in the movie the Watchmen, this super-being only as perfect as those providing them intelligence.
4. Secrecy: If the organization is only able to do what it does in secret, then it has at least the motive to maintain the illusion of freedom. In the original Deus Ex, the Illuminati controlled the world, but no one knew about it - at least enough to prove. But majestic-12, a branch of the organization, seizes power and begins a campaign to conquer the world. One of the game solutions is to restore the Illuminati to power and let them reestablish control with the illusion of freedom. It's not perfect, but it is better than overt slavery.
So I'm not optimistic about your chances without a semi-divine being enforcing the rules to keep them honest. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
You could have progressively terrible solutions for the problem. If you held the members of the organization's families hostage at an undisclosed location, AND were willing to harm or kill those hostages, the organization would be held in check - until they found the location and freed their loved ones. Bombs built into the skulls of the organization members make them hostages. But these options get to be as terrible as the organization itself could be. So who is the evil, and who the victim?
[Answer]
**Have Them Operate Out in the Open.**
The best way to keep them accountable is by a lot of public scrutiny. The less people that know what’s going on the easier it is to get away with shady stuff.
Another option is to strip away the organization’s plot powers. Real organizations don’t have the manpower and resources to watch everything all at once. That gives the government agencies the chance to make moves against them.
Assuming options A and B aren’t available the governments can still go after the funding. Money doesn’t just appear. It should be relatively easy for the region equivalents of the IRS to notice the sheer amount of cash disappearing. The typical secret agency tends to operate on budgets that account for more then the whole worlds GDP.
The problem with using amassed WMDs is it only works until a crazy uses one. You may have apocalypse level weapons but so does the other side. And the fact that they haven’t already used one would indicate that they gain more from the world remain in a state of relative peace. Once you start a war it will go badly. Especially since they are severely outnumbered. Force multipliers can only go so far and once you break out the WMDs you will start losing ground, literally.
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I realise this about as useful as asking "how long is a piece of string?" but bear with and I will attempt to set parameters.
OK, so there has been an apocaplyse and now, at the time of my question, a century later, mankind has been reduced to a strictly ground-based existence. Many of the old timers have remembered the stories they heard growing up about how mankind used to have planes and spaceships etc, but frankly a lot of the younger folk either don't care or just flat out disbelieve. There is still old tech everywhere, some broken, some working and commonly used.
(INSERT EDIT HERE) Before the apocalypse the society had approximately 5 trillion inhabitants. Most on-world, some off-world. So, a *lot more satellites* than 'our' Earth currently has in 2020, plus there were also many O'Neill Cylinders, an Orbital Ring, many hundreds of space elevator towers leading to the Orbital Ring, and a fledgling Dyson Swarm growing near the Sun. Most of the stuff in low Earth orbit started colliding when humans stopped controlling it. A little at first, but then it quickly grew until it became full on Kessler Syndrome. Most of the stuff in high Earth orbit is untouched.
(2nd EDIT here)
*Quick note to mention that my space elevators are not based on hard science, that this is very much a sci-fi-fantasy story, that there is magic based tech involved, and the towers do not have the usual 'tether-ball' arrangement that hard science demands. They are literally only towers 100kms high. About half of them attach to the Orbital ring, but the rest are just launch/ land platforms + accomodation.*
*Also, I fully expect Kessler Syndrome to last more than a century, and my story reflects this. Although I have not got the expertise to back this up, (hence the question), my story requires it so I am very glad if we can prove that KS will actually still be happening a century after this mysterious apocolypse.*
The question I want to know is, would the Kessler Syndrome still be in place and happening a century later, or would it have burned itself out by now?
I realise I am short on details, so huge apologies on that regard, but nevertheless wondering if anyone has any ideas?
[Answer]
Kessler Syndrome will start at the most occupied orbital heights with the most crossing satellite paths. This is currently low earth orbit at a few hundreds of kilometers height. Once Kessler Syndrome starts, real world space elevators would be snapped and destroy the orbital ring with their debris. I cannot say what will happen to your towers: This depends on how massive your towers are, and whether they are hit by parts that are still several tons in mass. If the towers are massive enough, they will remain standing, and help in clearing the height levels that they span. If the towers are not massive enough some/all of them will be destroyed, and the part above the impact will crash down in a pretty catastrophic manner.
How long does it take for the Kessler Syndrome to stop? Well, that's a function of height: The further up you get, the lower the atmospheric drag will become and the slower the orbits of the debris will decay. Unfortunately, atmospheric pressure is an exponential function of height and orbital decay itself is a self-accelerating effect. So, while a satellite at 150km height will only for about one orbit (roughly 90min), the ISS at 400km would live for a low amount of years if it were not reboosted regularly. Sorry, I couldn't find any precise numbers quickly, I can only give a qualitative overview. As far as I know, anything above 1000km stays in orbit at least a century.
Satellites with elliptical orbits will tend to propagate the Kessler Syndrome across the height levels: They will collide with debris at a low altitude, but their own debris will be too fast for that height level and rise along the ellipse to greater heights where they can collide with higher satellites.
Geosynchronous orbits are never cleared from debris, the remains of your orbital ring will basically stay forever where the ring was. Unless the orbital ring was held together by the space elevators, in this case it will fly off into deep space.
---
So, if you want your Kessler Syndrome to be over within a century, you must strictly avoid any satellites between about 1000km and 30000km height. The orbit of the orbital ring (above geostationary orbit) will be filled by the debris of that ring, but since it all starts in the same orbit, it will form a thin planetary ring that is easy to avoid when you want to fly into deep space.
You can justify this restrictions by the presence of the space elevators: A space elevator is basically a thin cable that will be snapped pretty much by anything that hits it at orbital velocity. To ensure the safety of these, you need to avoid having any satellites/debris that might cross their paths. So, you either put your satellites into a low orbit that decays quickly and can be shown not to come close to a space elevator within their lifetime, or you make the satellites geostationary so they don't have velocity relative to the space elevators.
[Answer]
## 100 years of Kessler Syndrome is too low
The math is clearly hard, but this is a serious issue, and [has been studied](https://amostech.com/TechnicalPapers/2012/Orbital_Debris/NIKOLAEV.pdf) by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Assuming no new launches, with a starting date of May 4 2009, the number of 10 cm or more objects rises from about 14K to 50K over a hundred year period. We of course, have launched many satellites since 2009, so the current situation is even worse; the situation described in the question is far worse.
This study was based on computer modelling that included orbital mechanics, atmospheric variations, and solar cycles - averaged against multiple simulations runs.
This paper does not predict how long Kessler Syndrome would last, but it does say that the current debris field would continue to become more crowded for over 100 years even without any more launches in the future.
With your increased space presence as a basis, the situation can only last longer. My understanding is the primary factor re: the duration of the Kessler system is the total mass in orbit subject to collision breakup. While O'Neill cylinders would certainly be tough enough to survive small impacts. The total mass in the proposed situation is far in excess of the amount considered in this paper.
[Answer]
Another factor here: You have a pretty high tech society, what steps are they taking to remove the junk?
Track a piece of junk in a low orbit, engage with a high power laser pulse as it passes overhead. The objective isn't destruction, but simply vaporizing a bit of material--the puff of gas goes down, the object goes up. Now it's in a more elliptical orbit, periapsis is lower, drag brings it down sooner.
Once you have cleared some orbits you can launch spacecraft into the safe zones--they contain mirrors and lenses to redirect the laser. Now you can engage additional debris head-on which will be more effective. (From the ground you could get a near head-on shot against stuff in low orbit but you would be going through an awful lot of atmosphere, aim would be a problem and dissipation would be much worse.)
You will have to work with care clearing the higher orbits to avoid bringing debris down on the craft in low orbit.
The limit of this approach is how small debris you can track.
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In this world, a certain kind of hive-minded machine intelligence has spread and become endemic. It consists of a set of microbots capable of decomposing and re-smelting metal. Given raw materials, they can make more of themselves, they can link up into a semi-intelligent neural net, they can re-shape their immediate environment, and they can build larger robots to do their bidding. The large robots are dragons, and their mission is to collect all metal, wherever they can find it, and bring it back to the den. Naturally they like to tear down houses and eat the silverware, and they thrive on devouring armored knights. When threatened, or when there's a fat pile of gold to share, rival dens will cooperate and no army can stand for long. But if they don't smell metal, the dragons will leave humans alone and focus on eating wood - their main energy source.
So after a few decades, metal is basically not available, and it stays that way. My question is: what kinds of technology can we still build to fight back? Can we make glass? Fiberglass? Are powerplants and energy transmission possible? Self-propelled vehicles? Computers?
How can humanity become powerful enough to take back the metal from the dragons?
[Answer]
Some real problems here - human technology prior to the industrial revolution consisted of using mostly wood and metals to build stuff. After that there are other materials, but metals are involved in almost everything.
You take both the metal because dragons hoard it, and wood because dragons eat it, and we're left with... Sand and rocks, basically. Maybe bones. We're back to the stone age, because even the bronze age is denied to us.
---
Also notice that if there are no other sources around, humans can be harvested for iron. Granted, you will need a powerful centrifugue, but of you have nanomachines assembling into dragons this is child's play. An adult male will [usually have 4 grams of iron in his body](http://irondisorders.org/how-much-iron-is-in-the-body/). Might not seem much in most scenarios, but of you find a human on polar ice or on a boat in the middle of the ocean, that might be the best source of iron. This does not bode well for humanity.
[Answer]
In about 1150 BC there was a thing called the Bronze Age collapse where many civilizations that once had bronze were suddenly forced to do without do to the collapse in the trade networks that made it all happen. While many of these civilizations eventually turned to iron, there was a brief sort of Stone-Age Renaissance that happened in central Europe where you saw various Germanic, Celtic, and Greek nations stop using metal in a lot of their things, yet, they continued to make a lot of the same tools, weapons and armor they had before using non-metallic methods; so, from a total technology perspective they did not really revert back to the stone-age, even though their building materials largely did.
Where they had used bronze before, you start to see the same styles of weapons, armor, and tools being made with things like hardened leather, bone, stone, and tusk.
Pretty much anything you can do to shape natural materials with metal tools can also be done with stone tools and just a bit more patience, and pretty much any shape you can make with metal can be made with other natural materials. Wagons, plows, kilns, large buildings, and sailing boats can all be made without metal tools or parts, but they require different techniques that take a bit more time and skill. Even many Early industrial revolution inventions like water wheel powered textile mills could be made without metal if necessity dictated it.
The biggest hurdle you are probably going to hit is trying to transition into the late industrial revolution. Things like steam engines and railroad tracks have to survive extreme vibrational, thermal, and percussive forces than other materials are just really poorly suited for.
## A Miner Frame Challenge
The proportions of metals used in robotics are very different than the proportions of metals available in the Earth's crust. The Robots simply would not have a reason to waste their time collecting elements that they have no use for; so, they would only gather metal until they run out of the first essential elements that they need, then they will stop. This means that certain elements like lithium, gold, and copper may be heavily depleted, but your world's total supply of iron, aluminum, etc. will barely be affected. This means that humans could continue the advancement of technology through the industrial revolution and not really begin to slow down until you hit the early Info Age because we would not have the right elements to make a decent computer or telecommunications network. That said, we could achieve most World War II level technologies just fine. So, unless your dragons are much stronger than your typical fantasy dragons, people could probably get to the point we need to eventually take them on.
[Answer]
We can look at this in two ways: ancient non-metal technology, and modern non-metal technology. Ancient technologies were much more quickly advanced by metal, but we have seen instances, including ancient Egypt and China, where ceramics, sinews and wood were used to make massive technological leaps. Think of the terracotta army in China; while that would have been difficult to make with only wood or ceramic tools, it would not have been impossible by any means, and even today it remains an artistic and technological masterpiece. The pyramids were built by predominantly slave labor and rudimentary wooden levers, to lift stones that none but the largest machines of today could even hope to budge.
In today's technology, we have discovered ceramic materials that can almost entirely replace pure metal technologies, including knives, machining tools, and even carbon nanotube and biological computing. There is no question that the previous generation of metal-based electronics led to our technology today, but in the same vein, human creativity has found substitutes when materials are scarce in virtually every historical instance. Will it slow down the march of civilization? Almost certainly. But not stop it.
[Answer]
If you are talking about this happening to a modern day society, then there is hope, as we have way more **scientific knowledge and existing advanced materials** than stone age humans, even if metal is taken away. Modern mass manufacturing would be dead without metal. Existing non-metal mass manufactured products will still be usable. However, many of these products will have at least metal screws in them so would probably get ripped apart if the dragons really do consume every last gram of metal!
Ceramic vessels can be used in place of metal ones. Perhaps a ceramic steam engine can be built instead of a metal one? Existing thermoplastics can be reused and reformed by heat (all those stockpiles of recyclable plastic waste can finally be put to use). Glass fibres + polymers/resins could be used to build very strong/light structures and weapons, although if the dragons are made of metal, it's going to be a tough fight!
Building farming implements from these materials would be doable so first we would stabilise the food supply production without metal. There may still be mass starvation and die-off.
Very slow and clunky mechanical wooden/plastic computers would be possible. Wireless radio tech is not really possible without metal even though some comms satellites may be still operational if the dragons cannot reach space. Instead, fiber data networks are used for communications, at first using Morse code and a small candle flame and one end of the fiber that can be mechanically obstructed for on/off, then later developing mechanical automated booster/repeaters to send longer distance along multiple fibers, with routing.
Out of desperation and having ethical regulation thrown out the window, genetic engineering takes off in a *big* way. Self-evolving self-learning biological computers using neurons and DNA soon become available. They are able to communicate through the fiber network forming a new biological Internet (BioNet). The BioNet further improves collaboration of the remaining mankind, pushing genetic engineering to even greater heights. Eventually through a combination of growing our own biological "dragons" spewing metal-dissolving acid-bacteria we are able to fight back at the metal dragons and reclaim our rightful dominance of the planet.
] |
[Question]
[
I am in the process of imagining a world in the late 2020s which is divided into two blocs:
* an alliance A of countries in which the governments strongly assert the idea that "general intelligence" as measured in "IQ" is inherited (say as the mean of each person's parents' IQs); and
* another alliance B in which the governments deny the existence of such a thing as "general intelligence" and therefore the meaningfulness of "IQ", and they abhor the idea that differences in intelligence of any kind are genetically determined.
The A culture tends to be determinist, racist, and while the acceptance of the existence of statistically "unusual" cases is officially recognised, mostly "education" is provided within a rigid neo-feudal caste system. In the B culture, meanwhile, a way is found so that no educational preference is given to anyone on account of who or how clever their parents are, not even as such considerations might be mediated through how rich they are.
Thus there is a "clash of civilisations".
But I am having difficulty thinking of some countries that might be in B. Which countries would people suggest? I am looking for both cultures to develop out of cultures that exist today. Which countries are most B-y?
Ideally I would like to put some English-speaking countries into B, or at least some countries where a lot of English is spoken either as a first or second language. This is because I want there to be a fork in the English language, as the two blocs develop different words, meanings for existing words, and even syntax. So which countries might I consider?
[Answer]
Your A group is basically "Success of children is based on genes" (IQ comes from parents - genes come from parents). Your B group is basically "People can be anything."
Your A's are going to be the most racist places, your B's are going to be the most welcoming places. Rascism I believe is your most important predicate of detecting A vs B behaviour, as the more racist you are, the more you believe someones genes determines positive or negative attributes about them.
This [Washington post map](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/05/15/a-fascinating-map-of-the-worlds-most-and-least-racially-tolerant-countries/) describes those who answered "People from another race" when asked to pick who they would not want as their neighbours:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/APPXk.png)
Blue countries will be B, Red countries will be A, purple countries will be in between.
---
The above technically answers your question, but giving recent events (BLM, etc) It doesnt feel right saying the USA would be a type B country entirely. Genetics giving people lower intelligence sounds like some arguments I've heard for justifying slavery, or why only white votes should count.
So as an aside I think the USA is worth subdividing. Here's the Washington Posts racism by state map:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/beu4a.png)
And The Guardians:
Seems pretty likely The "Deep South" and "Mid-Atlantic" are likely going to be As, rest of USA is going to be Bs.
[Answer]
If you take history of [eugenics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics) (some extream brunches of wich were declaring exactly your system) you clearly see that most likely:
* Group A - all "western" (protestant) countries with USA being a leader
* Group B - all comunist and many post-communist, many islamic countries with most likely Russia bieng (an idiological) leader
Why?
USA and Europe had a very bad story with open rasism and discrimination. Both positive and reverse. They even had some story of actual "IQ discrimination". While in modern times there is a strong and active opposition to this ideas (and this is great) - this opposition *may* loose (I hope - not). And then situation described in quiestion *may* arise.
But if you take communist countries, Russia (both czar's and modern), most islamic countries and alike - you would see large problems with *social and religiuos* descrimination, but no pure open rasism. Man of every nationality or skin color can become a "master" or a "slave" (take, for example history of Pushkin's family). More over in this countries there is no idiological movements wich contain ideas close to protestant [predestination](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predestination_in_Calvinism) (i.e. that you status is predefined long before your burth). And even more over - USSR and comunists prohibited and activle persecuted those who propagated ideas of eugenics and "general intelligence" or "social predisposition" inheretance (since it contradicted marksism). Some times even too activly (persecuting Mendel's genetic).
So all those contries has no both *strong* opposition to rasism and discrimination and *strong* rasist/dicriminating movements and ideologists (while every-day discrimination may be quite strong - like those of women in islamic countries). This question is just very low on the list of actual problems for them (with social or religious problems being on the top). This means that unlike in western countries there is no strong force in reality that can come to power and setup this "pro-IQ" (or any other rasist or descriminating) ideology as the main political agenda. But while many of this countries are in opposition to USA they would also oppose "USA&Co" to force any ideology. And thus would become "anti-IQ" if USA and those who it leads would become aggresivly "pro-IQ"
What I can't really say what side China, Japan and Far East countries in general would choose. Many of them depends on USA or Communism. But, say, for Japan nationalism is far more important than any IQ questions and this can not be realisticly changed. So I think that most of them would be neutral to IQ ideology, but would support their allies as allies.
[Answer]
## Average Level of Education and Wealth Ratio
Many factors contribute to a population's Average Level of Education: Is education compulsory? Is it compulsory for everyone? Does the society place a high value on staying in school? Does the society provide adequate tuition assistance for post-secondary educations for a large portion of the population to attend? Does the society exclude certain minorities from education? Etc.
I general, a type B culture will do what it can to educate everyone; so, even if the quality of education is lower, the average level of education will be much greater. In contrast, a type A culture will put all of its resources into educating the most capable students and exclude the rest; so, even if they have a few VERY educated people, the average education level will be lower.
That said, it is also fair to include in any consideration of this metric the wealth of a nation; so, any country with more wealth than education will likely be at the forefront of the Type A movement. And countries with more education than wealth like will probably be members of the type B movement. When wealth and education are relatively the same, I would assume that one should use average education as the tie breaker since a largely educated population often results in a higher average income anyway and a poorer nation may feel presured not to edjucate everyone because they simply can't afford to.
So, based on the Maps Below I would guess Type A would be most of Southern Asia, Central America, and Southern Europe. And Type B would be Northern Europe, USA, Canada, Australia, and Peru. The remaining countries are a bit harder to predict but I suspect diplomatic factors would come in where by most nations would side with their most important allies' stances.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/zlDVK.png)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/qnwSo.png)
[Answer]
>
> But I am having difficulty thinking of some countries that might be in
> B. Which countries would people suggest? I am looking for both
> cultures to develop out of cultures that exist today. Which countries
> are most B-y?
>
>
> Ideally I would like to put some English-speaking countries into B, or
> at least some countries where a lot of English is spoken either as a
> first or second language.
>
>
>
The interesting question is actually whether or not at least one English-speaking or even broadly Western country finds its way into A.
Blank slatist ideology, which denies group-level and often even individual-level differences in intelligence ("*IQ is a social construct*", etc.), is the dominant ideology of the West, and of the US in particular. This is ironic, given that the West never went Communist. But history works in funny ways. Cultural Marxists have de facto attained "cultural hegemony" even in the West, while "really existing Communism" conserved folkish understandings of race, ethnicity, and sex relations in Eastern Europe and China.
You have [much less freedom](https://medium.com/@leej12255/the-threat-to-academic-freedom-from-academics-4685b1705794) to research these topics in Western universities than you would, say, in Russia or China. (It is not a good idea to do that in the same way, say, that one would be unwise to build a career on honestly researching the history of the Great Leap Forwards famine in China). Papers that come to the "wrong" conclusions on these topics are [retroactively retracted](https://www.unz.com/akarlin/unresearch/). Intelligence researchers are subjected to [waves of harassment](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0160289619301795) by politicized mobs.
Actually, the very fact that the very first response to this question is "In before the lock" really says it all.
] |
[Question]
[
This question is a follow up to a previous question asked by @AvengingEarth
[Would a smart phone work on an alien planet?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/185579/would-a-smart-phone-work-on-an-alien-planet)
I'm interested in taking a step further.
---
All conditions are as in the previous question except that there are two people and each has their own smartphone. They have no network and no other equipment or computer to help them. Assume only the two phones. The owners have superuser skills but no way of changing anything except possibly software. However there is no network to download from, no extra computing power, and they would have to develop any software purely on the standard factory-provided software and firmware plus maybe a few games and things like Microsoft Office for mobiles.
My full question follows:
Would two smart phones be usable as an intercom on a human-life-supporting alien planet? If so, what range would be possible assuming there is no other radio communication going on anywhere on the planet.
[Answer]
**YES ... but ...**
Generally phones need a network of some kind to operate, be it the cell carrier network or a wifi network. There are lots of [intercom apps](https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/best-walkie-talkie-app/) available. Make sure your explorers download and test functionality before departure!
There are [other options](https://www.bustle.com/p/emergency-apps-you-can-use-without-wi-fi-during-a-disaster-2307076), however. These "disaster communications" apps make use of the phones' wifi & bluetooth to form a kind of interwoven mesh, an impromptu network. Helpful indeed for when the cell network is down, or you find yourself with a friend on an exoplanet and all you have between you is a couple cell phones! According to this resource, and [other similars](https://www.geckoandfly.com/22562/chat-without-internet-connection-mesh-network/#:%7E:text=Signal%20allows%20you%20to%20communicate,around%20you%20over%20wifi%20direct.), this kind of network is quite limited. Your team would have to be within about a hundred yards of each other to communicate this way.
If your intrepid explorers thought to pack a couple old Motorola phones, it appears they can indeed be used in this way, as [walkie-talkies](https://www.skifactz.com/wifi/?p=114), as there is a native functionality.
Best bet: just equip your team with some actual walkie-talkies: maximum range can vary from three to maybe thirty miles, depending on signal obstructions.
[Answer]
Not very far for voice, but potentially very far for signaling. Let's break down typical I/O and signaling methods that an average smartphone has:
Radio:
* GPS receiver: Very long range, but receive only. Useless
* NFC antenna: Bidirectional but only functions at sub 5cm ranges. Useless
* Bluetooth: Bidirectional and somewhat easy to use. Max range between 5 and 15 meters depending on phone vintage. With the right apps preloaded or sufficient programming skill, it would be comparatively easy to use as a walkie-talkie
* WiFi: Bidirectional, easy to use, longer range and higher bandwidth than Bluetooth. Without obstructions, you might get 50 meters of range. Again, the right apps/programming skills can make this comparatively easy to use
* Cell radio/gsm: Very long range (multiple km) but requires cell towers and service providers. It is likely impossible to reprogram the firmware of the transceiver without physically cracking open the phone and reflashing responsible chips. Developing the new software to enable p2p communication would take a company, a team of expert software engineers, and a bunch of time. Not feasible.
* AM/FM radio: some phones can tune into radio when wired earbuds are connected. Unfortunately, this is receive only. If it's possible to reprogram, you'd again need a company, team of experts, and a lot of time. Not feasible
Other:
* Speakers/vibration motor: quieter than someone can yell, so not very useful. Hypothetically, you could quietly pass messages by whispering a recoding into the phone and then tossing the phone to the other person
* Flashlight: In dark environments, even small light sources can be seen from incredible, multi-km distances. You could use morse code or even an app which automatically converts text to flashlight morse; many such apps exist. Feasible with line of sight in the dark across potentially multiple kilometers.
* Screen: Similar to using the flashlight, you can use the screen of a smartphone as a signalling mirror using the sun during the day. Has similar line-of-sight and morse-only limitations but has an incredible range
[Answer]
1. Learn Morse code.
2. Write an app that translates text to morse and vice-versa. Add a mode where you can tap the screen for short or long periods of time to make a short or long beep.
3. Get a couple of pint sized cups. You could make these out of clay. The cups should have a small role in the middle of the bottom, enough to pass a string.
4. Using a very long thread which passes through both cups to tie the phones to each other as below:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/hkv5X.png)
5. ????
6. Profit!
It works as long as the cord is taut. The range is the length of the wire. There is some signal attenuation over distance but should be good for a few hundred meters, which is more than what you'd get by wifi tethering. Also notice that this allows for airplane mode, which helps save battery while you are not communicating.
If you use the phone's accelerometer (supposing it has one) to detect vibration and read morse from it, you can even receive files!
] |
[Question]
[
My world is a medieval high fantasy setting. Dragons are one of the many denizens of the world. They speak a complicated language. Humans and other common races know most dragons to be cunning, intelligent, wise. Dragons consider most races to be subordinate to them. Does it make sense for the common humanoid species to be able to speak the dragon language and Vice versa? Or would they have a different way of speech, thus making them unable to speak the common languages of humanoids and vice versa?
Thanks
[Answer]
A few different options to consider:
---
## Disdain
Assuming that a dragon needed to communicate with humanoids verbally, would they rather spend the time to learn to speak the humanoids' crude, rough languages, or would they prefer to listen to those humanoids butcher their attempts at the dragon's graceful, melodious one? That probably depends on the individual dragon.
## Cunning
If you can speak/understand the languages of the people you're doing business with, and they can't speak yours, you have an advantage that they don't. Of course dragons are going to learn the humanoids' languages. Even if the dragons don't admit to knowing them, they certainly want to be able to overhear what the humanoids are whispering to one another about. And if they then make the humanoids address them in draconic--which is of course difficult to learn and awkward for them to speak--that again gives them an advantage. (And if you don't think this exact sort of manipulation happens in real-world boardrooms, then I would not recommend attempting to negotiate any international business deals. ;-) )
## Intellect
Of course dragons can speak humanoid languages! It only took them like a week to learn them!
## Age
Of course dragons can speak humanoid languages, but their speech patterns/pronunciations tend to be a few centuries out-of-date if they haven't been in regular contact with modern speakers of the language.
## Physiology
Humanoids can't speak draconic -- their tongues don't articulate the right way. Dragons can't speak humanoid languages -- their lips can't make some of the sounds required. On the other hand, each side can learn to understand the other's language, so they can still communicate by speaking in their own languages normally.
## One Language or Related Languages
Dragons have been around for so long and had so much influence in that time that Draconic *is* the common language. Different regions or cultures might have their own languages as well, but the "lingua franca" that's used everywhere is a descendant or dialect of Draconic. To make a real-world analogy, the Dragons are speaking Latin, and all the humanoids are speaking Spanish, French, Italian, and Portuguese. Or the Dragons speak British English and the humanoids speak American/Canadian/Australian/New Zealander/Etc English.)
---
Anyway, feel free to pick-and-choose from these (or the other answers) as best fits the needs of your story/world.
[Answer]
Some might, some might not. It depends on various factors.
What is the motivation for a dragon to speak with humans? It might want to communicate to demand tribute, the return of stolen goods and the punishment of the theft, or merely for humans to not encroach on its hunting grounds. If these are sufficient reasons, it will need some way to communicate. If not, not.
What are its alternatives to learning the common language? Perhaps other intelligent beings could learn draconic and act as translators, though that would require being willing to teach them their language, and trusting them to translate faithfully. Perhaps there are magical devices that can be used to translate. Much depends on how difficult the relative ways are. And especially, if the dragons are typical, whether learning the language is cheaper than getting the device.
[Answer]
How long does it take dragon's to learn to speak?
Humans may not live long enough to learn it, but smart people learn when desperate or obsessed enough.
Dwarves may learn a bit through their long travels and encounters in caves, but would most of them take the dedication to learn this complicated language?
Elves probably would get good at speaking with them over their lifetimes, easily becoming well versed enough to engage in deals with dragons, with formal language.
Dragons probably learn enough to terrorize their victims in common. or just quickly pick it up if they desire. But if they have their own rich language, i think the more noble dragons may not dirty their tongues with filthy monkey words
[Answer]
I'll just limit this to dragons and humans for simplicity's sake.
>
> Humans and other common races know most dragons to be cunning,
> intelligent, wise.
>
>
>
I'd say that this sentence means that some dragon would likely learn the language of humans as wisdom and intelligence are usually manifested in learning new things and wanting to know more in general.
Yes we can argue about that and I also your own setting needs to support it.
For example imagine the civilization of the dragon as being very advanced while humans are still in caves. Obviously they would be less inclined to learn our language as it seems that we have little to offer.
But imagine that we are below them but still have science and poetry and music and art and writing and so on.
This will lead more of them learning our language to know more about the us and the world and all that.
Interestingly being high in openness is sometimes linked to intelligence so your dragons might just be extra curious.
As you truly believes that other viewpoints might be of value.
But also could be for many reasons.
Imagine a dragon king who rules over humans but is a pragmatic intelligent dragon so he leans the language of his subjects.
This little political maneuvers is a favor of many monarchs and you can't deny the effect it has on people.
Similarly a dragon historian or a linguist...etc might be interested in learning the speech of the lesser races for obvious reasons.
>
> Dragons consider most races to be subordinate to them
>
>
>
Again this might be subject to interpretation. For example is it a matter of pure strength? A matter of magical knowledge? A matter of ancient heritage? a matter of civilization?...etc
Anyway this might be an obstacle only if your dragon believe that humans have nothing of value.
Yet if they are truly wise they know that wielding power alone is not connected to wisdom as much as using an automatic rifle to murder professors is not a sign of wisdom.
But it your setting. Perhaps they are as diverse as humans and some hold this believe while others hold that.
There is obviously the interesting point is that do humans/dragons/dwarves...etc can even biologically speak the other languages?
But, again, it is your story. So you can control that.
But there is much to be said for the mutual learning.
For example the dragons could take it as an insult if a lesser race person tried to learn their language. Perhaps they are aloof overlords or solitary creatures who are rarely seen.
This is a distinct possibility for practical reasons as well.
Imagine the race of dragons as ancient as time with access to knowledge and hidden arts and magic powers. This could mean that if you speak the language of the dragons and sneak into a library of theirs you could learn so much and gain so much power.
And it could be that dragons don't care about that. But the lesser races look upon the dragons with awe and so they, like we all saw happen history many many times, learn their language and think it a point of refinement and superiority to speak in the dragon tongue as it is the civilized tongue after all.
Heck. You can have your dragons despising their own complicated, ancient, and difficult language while humans adore it.
Maybe they just use it because they can't learn other languages, biology probably, or tradition or whatever while the lesser races are so enamored by it that they
suffer greatly to even learn the basics but think it is worth it while dragons are kinda meh about it.
[Answer]
***ALSO THE COMMON LANGUAGE OF...***
The use of a common language on a world controlled by multiple intelligent species only makes good sense. I dare say many species wouldn't even HAVE an independent language, but instead would speak common instead. So your dragon wouldn't be speaking the common tongue of humanoids, but instead THE common tongue of dragons, humans(ugh), elves, trolls, wyverns (if they can speak), merfolk (where they can speak), etc. So ALL intelligent species on your world should be speaking a common tongue without possession or stigma.
If you want, you can mythologize this. Maybe all sentient species on your world have an ultimate common ancestor. Maybe they have a common creator race (Annunaki or some such). Perhaps the gods gave the language to the collective species in an effort to bring them all together. The possibilities are endless.
The true central facet is that the common tongue is common NOT because it is the adopted language of any mere species. It is something higher, nobler, and ultimately uplifting. Even if it IS a simple, crude thing that can't compete with Draconian for scope, clarity, and just plain BEAUTY. After all, it needs to be that way to be truly universal.
[Answer]
**Understand, but not speak.**
Dragon language is like a mix of birdsongs and whale songs. There is no way a humanoid vocal apparatus could replicate the sounds they make. Dragon utterances are nuanced on many levels. The content of a sentence will in its structure contain references to prior sentences, sentences to come, other things in the environment past and present, the dragons mood, and more.
There is no way for people to speak it. But some can understand it - though not on the level the dragons do with each other. The humanoids who can understand dragons are valued as translators.
Dragons can learn humanoid tongues. Almost exclusively they learn song lyrics. Dragons are entranced by musical instruments, which they do not have but which they love. They also admire the pure tones of a gifted singer; pure tones are also difficult for them. Dragons are often more than willing to be paid in song and might request that a song to be repeated again and again until they can sing it.
A dragon interested in communicating with a humanoid will probably sing songs specific to that humanoid type. They consider that to be paying a compliment to the humanoid. It is a pretty inefficient way to communicate but dragons are not in a hurry.
[Answer]
**UNFORTUNATELY, NO (IN MOST CASES)**
Dragons would have massively different vocal cords than humans, and thus would have no ability to speak verbal elements of MOST human languages.
**FORTUNATELY, THERE ARE EXCEPTIONS TO THIS**
Note that this does not exclude languages that don't have 'words' in the traditional sense. ASL is a good example.
The dragons being able to speak using Human Sign Language is kinda dependent on them having opposable thumbs, and they'd have to stand up on their hind legs to do so. However, there are also other languages besides sign languages that fit under this category. As [this article shows](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/studying-whistled-languages-180978484/#:%7E:text=UNESCO%2C%20the%20UN%20cultural%20organization,the%20world%27s%20intangible%20cultural%20heritage.), 80+ different cultures in our world get by with only one word; a whistle.
How does this work? To quote the alforementioned article, "Whistled languages work because many of the key elements of speech can be mimicked in a whistle, says Meyer. We distinguish one speech sound, or phoneme, from another by subtle differences in their sound frequency patterns. A vowel such as a long e, for example, is formed higher in the mouth than a long o, giving it a higher sound. “It’s not pitch, exactly,” says Meyer. Instead, it’s a more complex change in sound quality, or timbre, which is easily conveyed in a whistle."
Dragons are obviously capable of pitch and tone changes, given that they have their own language. This means they COULD speak using whistling. They'd have to adjust the volume and tone to fit the capabilities of their vocal cords, but this form of language could easily work for them.
] |
[Question]
[
Ringworlds are a bit of a SciFi staple but as they're commonly portrayed, the large ones have a major problem... they'd, well... ***explode*** if they were built out of materials that actually existed. This, as you can probably imagine, *makes habitation rather difficult*...
The issue is that as the rings get bigger, the tensile strength needed to hold them together grows with the diameter (*assuming the "artificial gravity" remains the same*), at some point the ring would need to be spinning so fast for a decent surface gravity that it'd rip itself apart. As Gav and Dan demonstrate with this poor, innocent CD. *Presumably this would result in greatly reduced house prices on the ring...*
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/qrVcx.gif)
In fact, for an Earth-like surface gravity, an Earth-like day-night cycle and an average density about that of carbon, the tensile strength needed to hold the ring together is 350 times greater than the strongest material known to man, Graphene...
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/5604X.png)
This got me thinking... what if, instead of having just the spinning ring, there was a slightly larger stationary ring weighing down on the rotating one? Given that a ring of this size would end up using at least one whole planet to build, there's got to be an awful lot of gravity trying to crush the whole thing down into a nice neat sphere (*gravity is good like that*).
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/z45uA.png)
Assume that there is a construction crew big enough for the job, that there's enough material to build both these rings (*the outer ring can literally be made out of any old rubbish*) and there's some way to build a friction-less bearing (super-maglev?) between the two that can handle the immense pressure between the inner and outer rings. We have plenty of energy (i.e. *someone's* sun) and a couple planets to play with but no new physics or material science.
**So, assuming all that, is this way of building Ringworlds actually possible using current (*albeit massively scaled up*) science?**
**Update:** A couple people have pointed out that there needs to be a way of keeping the stationary ring from touching the rotating ring while still balancing the huge forces involved. Superconducting Maglevs is the way to go, using the numbers from the chart above, there would be ~25 kilotonnes per square meter between the stationary ring's inner surface and the rotating ring's outer surface, don't get me wrong, this is a lot of pressure, but it's no more than the fuel injectors in a modern diesel engine and a whole order of magnitude ***less*** than a high end waterjet cutter.
Using the lift formula from [this wiki page on maglevs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_levitation) you'd need magnets that could generate 25 Teslas to balance the forces, a lot, but seeing as the current (non-exploding) magnet world record is over 40 Teslas, difficult but still doable.
Also, the inhabitants on the inside (along with the atmosphere) should not actually feel any effects from the mass of the rings as for some physics reason I don't fully understand, the gravity inside a hollow sphere (or ring, which is just a slice of sphere) is always zero when the mass is evenly distributed, so no worries about the air being sucked into the center, the only force it and everything else on the inside surface should feel is centrifugal (yes, I know) force trying to squash them flat against the inner surface. Apparently that only applies to a completely closed shell
I have no clue how much thicker and heavier the outer ***stationary*** ring needs to be to generate the same kind of forces as the inner ring, I have a hunch that you'd need more than one planet as the ring is more spread out so the gravity trying to crush the outer ring might not be as strong as if it was still in planet form.
***P.S. the whole idea of building a counterbalanced Ringworld is a) it's cool, and b) the particular one in the chart above would have both Earth-like "gravity" (centrifugal-gravity?) for the inner-surface inhabitants along with a 24hr day-night cycle by default***
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I think you are neglecting a fundamental aspect here.
If the outer, stationary ring has to exert a force on the inner, rotating ring to balance it, it has to be in touch with it, or in other words it will receive a force from it.
This means that you are shifting the problem of the excessive load from the inner ring to the interface between the outer and the inner ring.
And if the material you have is too weak to sustain that load, you go KABOOM anyway.
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**You don't have to build a classic 'Ring-world' to get the same amount of living space.**
What you can do is build a series of 'Bishop Ring' style habitats with diameters around the 400 mile range. Assuming you can produce enough of it carbon fiber nano-tubes will withstand the rotational stress. Just one of these gives you an surface area approaching that of say Argentina - and that's assuming there is only one 'floor' level per ring. Then you build a second ring (contra-rotating ring) and attach it to the first. Rinse and repeat as needed. You can then surround the rotating rings as per you diagram with a 'rubbish' cylinder for impact and radiation protection as needed. Then build hundreds or thousands of cylinders as needed.
The only down side is you have to take an elevator 'up' to the zero g core of the station and then 'across and down' to transfer from ring to ring and shuttles to transfer to other cylinders.
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If you could keep the friction from the outer ring down with maglev(incredible feat on it's own. It could work fine because it will still produce inward pressure that you need to balance the constant threat of explosion.
You may want to consider what kind of maintenance must be done on that outer ring to keep it from falling apart or land sliding around to the inner ring, causing terrible destruction to the spinning section.
Another thing to think about is if you are using a full planet for this the outside of the ring is also habitable. Without having to spin it will have surface gravity near that of the original planet you pulled apart. Give it a slight counter spin and they can have a daylight cycle out there too.
This begs the question, "Who gets to live on the inner ring and who has to live on the outside?"
One last thing, air..how do you keep it on the surface and not bunched near the center of the ring in a pretty but unreachable bubble. If you are an android, no problem. But if you need to breathe you may be stuck indoors.
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>
> In fact, for an Earth-like surface gravity, an Earth-like day-night
> cycle and an average density about that of carbon, the tensile
> strength needed to hold the ring together is 350 times greater than
> the strongest material known to man, Graphene...
>
>
>
So, a Banks orbital, then, rather than a proper Ringworld.
>
> This got me thinking... what if, instead of having just the spinning
> ring, there was a slightly larger stationary ring weighing down on the
> rotating one? Given that a ring of this size would end up using at
> least one whole planet to build, there's got to be an awful lot of
> gravity trying to crush the whole thing down into a nice neat sphere
> (gravity is good like that).
>
>
>
"Weighing down" is not really the best way to look at this. You can do *much* better.
The size of a rotating space colony is limited by the tensile strength of your building materials *under the assumption that the materials need to hold up their own weight*. That's only true if they are spinning rigidly along with all the living space that they are holding up. As soon as you decouple a stationary support section, you can add as much cross-sectional area of material as you need to support the hoop pressure of the inner spinning section without worrying about its own weight. And the amount of steel you would need for that, let alone the amount of perfect carbon nanotube cable, is far, far less than the amount of Dumb Mass you would need to produce enough gravity to balance the hoop pressure--and it's much more stable. Big self-gravitating ring don't much like to *remain* as big self-gravitating rings; they tend to be subject to bead instability.
If you are actually building a proper Ringworld, though (i.e., a ring encircling a star), then it does make sense to consider the gravitational weight of the counterbalance in the star's gravity. This gets more efficient the smaller the ring is--but then, so does *everything* about building a Ringworld, or a Bishop Ring / Banks Orbital.
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In a short timeframe, Earthlings have developed quite an array of fantastic technologies, perhaps spurred on by an industrial revolution owing to early and abundant access to fossil fuels. Go outside these days and you might see someone wearing an [elaborate device on their head](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headphones) receiving [ultra-high frequency radio waves](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth) from their [personal supercomputer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone) connected via more radio waves to an [absolutely massive antenna](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_site) which is part of a [global network](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_network). These same supercomputers receive navigational data from [a constellation of orbital devices](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System) thrown into the sky by [really big, sustained explosions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launch_vehicle).
Many of these technologies are enabled mostly by some very specific materials. For example, a critical component of modern transmitters is the quartz [crystal oscillator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_oscillator). But is quartz likely to be found on other planets? Would wireless technology of our capabilities have been possible if it wasn't - and spaceflight, at that? Perhaps life truly exists on many other planets, but not one in this galaxy was dealt the combination of materials to enable spaceflight.
So, the question: What materials are there that have enabled key technologies in human history (especially on the path to spaceflight) that could be very rare even on other earthlike planets? One that I have already mentioned might be fossil fuels, but I'd love to hear more detail on why fossil fuels might or might not be rare and what technologies they might be crucial for or if there are alternatives. I am more interested in identifying what these key materials are than the strict scientific likelihood that other earthlike planets may not contain them.
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## Cellulose
Cellulose is the organic compound that makes plants woody. On Earth, photosyntetic life existed for over 3 billion years before the advent of cellulose; so, it seems very possible for a world to exist indefinitely without life ever evolving the stuff.
The evolution of cellulose is important because nearly every primitive technology hinges on the availability of wood: Tools, weapons, ceramics, traps, etc. The evolution of cellulose is also responsible for the formation of most of the world's fossil fuels because when it first appeared, decomposers were not able to digest it so every plant that died between about 358.9 and 298.9 million years ago was unable to decompose it. So, not only does no wood mean no logs to burn, it also means no fossil fuels to burn either.
Without cellulose, and by consequence wood, man kind would not have had nearly as much evolutionary pressure to become an intelligent species to begin with.
The big difference between cellulose and other answers that point to basic elements is that any element that may be more or less rare will still probably be found in some proportion on other Earth like worlds. Because cellulose only exists in nature as the result of an organic process. A world without it is 100% without it.
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An Earth-like planet may have a surface which is very poor in [Siderophile elements](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldschmidt_classification#Siderophile_elements)
The Earth has a lot of iron, and this iron is concentrated mainly in its core. Accordingly, a number of elements that have high affinity to the iron also had sunk to the core, making them very rare on surface. Examples of such elements include Gold, Platinum, Palladium and other metals that were called "precious", as well as other non-precious transition metals.
What if on the other planet more iron got concentrated in the core? What if siderophilic division was more pronounced? This would mean that many rare elements would become more rare. Also, the elements that are fairly common on Earth, like nickel, cobalt and even copper can become precious.
A shortage of many elements can create obstacles in technological development. A shortage of copper may delay or even cancel "bronze age". A shortage of heavy metals used as catalysts would upend chemical industry and make combustion engines more problematic to run.
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Fossil fuels and rare earth elements have both been critically important in developing our modern spaceflight capabilities:
* **Fossil fuels require fossils.** If you're on a previously lifeless planet that was settled in the past few millennia, it will not have fossil fuels. And as @John points out in comments, even planets with abundant natural resources might not have many fossil fuels. The Apollo missions got to the Moon using [RP-1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RP-1), which is a fossil fuel.
* **Rare Earth elements can be rare.** [This article](https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2019/3/234917-electronics-need-rare-earths/fulltext#:%7E:text=Some%20of%20the%20rare%2Dearth,%2C%20and%20dysprosium%20(66).) offers a good overview of the importance of rare earth elements in modern electronics. TLDR: "some products simply require rare earths." You may not think about neodymium or lanthanum very often, but rare earths are a big deal. [Some planets](https://www.industryweek.com/supply-chain/transportation/article/21959570/space-mining-the-answer-to-the-rare-earths-problem) have these resources, but some do not.
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***Earth is full of useful stuff to people because people invented the stuff here:*** The most straightforward answer is that we have developed all of our science and technology, even the culture of how we use this stuff, under a specific set of environmental conditions. It's Earth atmosphere, Earth gravity, Earth mix of elements, Earth life, and lots of humans. While space may be full of wonderful and useful things, it lacks the synergy of the techno-evolution that went into everything we have. Another planet may have more minerals but crushing gravity. This planet has thick oxygen but giant predatory insects that incessantly attack. We use fossil fuels because they are abundant, but other planets may have carbon in alternative forms - that we haven't developed tech to utilize. For centuries after we leave Earth, we will still find it the paradise of synergistic tech, until we find easy to use resources on other worlds. Even then, until we alter humanity to go along with new environments, everything will just work better on Earth.
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Quartz is likely to be found on other planets as silicon and oxygen are likely to be present in the crust. Normally there are other ways of doing most things even if they might be less efficient or more costly ways. For example Vostok 1 carried Yuri Gagarin into orbit with the help of valve technology and other very rudimentary electrical kit by our standards today.
I suspect that tweaking a single material might not have the desired effect it might delay and mix up the order of discoveries which would be interesting but would not necessarily provide a total road block. For example if there is no copper some other metal or alloy might be used. Not as efficient but could still work.
So I suggest a very actively volcanic planet where the surface is renewed by volcanism with basaltic magma on a regular (by geological standards) time frame. Such as happened in parts of Siberia – the Siberian traps. On a big enough scale this could prevent ore deposits from other magma or hydrothermal sources from accumulating and deeply bury those that did exist making them very difficult to access.
This might mean that most transition elements (heavy metals) with the exception of Iron and Titanium would become very rare. So it would be hard to have a Bronze Age without tin or copper so we would have to jump to the iron age. But lack of other key metals like copper, zinc, tin, lead, silver and gold would totally disrupt many technologies.
It would make electrochemistry very difficult as neither iron nor titanium can be electro deposited from aqueous solution unlike nickel, copper, silver and gold. Battery technology without copper, nickel, zinc and lead would be very difficult to say the least.
The generation of electricity would be possible but it would be harder all round as iron wires are not as malleable or as ductile as copper wires and have a greater resistance, so it might be far less practical.
Steam engine development would also be possible although would be less efficient and less practical limited just to iron.
Steel making would not be possible. That would affect many construction technologies and the size of buildings and bridges would be reduced. The lack of good tooling for drills and lathes would also inhibit the manufacture of many if not most precision engineered parts.
Without access to specialist alloys for liquid rocket engines space travel would become much harder, if it was possible at all it would not be practical.
Fire arms would not be practical without a range of metals for use in alloying.
There would be no gold standard or silver standard so financial development would be hindered and would have to follow a different path.
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As far as we are aware most of the elements found in our solar system are widely distributed across the universe. In fact astronomers separate all stars into classes based on the abundance of elements above hydrogen and helium in the period table. (This is called metalicity but in reality the term refers to ALL elements in the period table including the non-metals that aren't hydrogen or helium.) The sun is a type one (metal rich star.)
So if you are talking about an Earth type planet orbiting a Sol type star it is far more likely and not that its inhabitants could access all the elements we can albeit in potentially widely varying amounts.
That being the case it could as a simple as the degree plate tectonics and the amount of the surface covered by water on the planet. If your hypothetical world is relatively low % of iron in its core and is less active tectonically active the amount iron in the crust would be reduced significantly. This might/should lead to less mountain building, and smaller continents. Earth as a roughly 30/70 land to water surface ration. Your planet might be far less than that say 15-85 . You cant access minerals if they are buried deep under the ocean - not as an early, low tech society anyway.
The other issue is the **distribution** of key minerals in the crust. Iron is common throughout the earths soils because its common in the crust. But we only actively mine and extract it when it's found in concentrated forms in ore bodies. Same thing for all other elements. Given sensitive enough instruments you could probably detect minute traces of gold and uranium in you back yard. Would you be able to mine/extract enough to make the effort worthwhile - no way.
So you could simply hypothesize that while all the elements we have are there on your planet they are simply to hard to get to (under water/deep in the crust) or to finely dispersed to make extraction viable. For the sake of your story I would suggest picking or two key metals and making them 'rarer' in this fashion. Best choices would be copper,tin or of course iron. Hard to develop metal working in a big way when you don't have a lot of these to work with.
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In my world slimes are intelligent creatures of various sizes which can take the shape of anything they like and change color to camouflage.
A slime can camouflage as floor , as a box, a snake or even a person standing up..basically as anything.
Their ability to mimicry is only limited by their talent, the same way an artist is only limited by their visual memories.
A beginner artist with bad memory might have problems drawing people while a talented one can draw hyper realistic things that look like pictures or some that almost look 3D.
The same applies to slimes.
But slimes, being them made out of slimy stuff...how fast can they move? Could a slime replicate a human running motion or would it just collpase on itself?
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**I think a slime could roll.**
If a slime has enough internal structural integrity to form a sphere or cylinder, and internally shift its center of mass forward, it could roll. It might not be rolling like a bowling ball but sort of a flowing slimy roll or a continuous falling forward. You would need some sort of temporary skeleton - maybe made of microtubules or the like. That would allow some mass to get leverage against the rest and move itself up and forward. It would be fast downhill and slow uphill, of course.
I could imagine that a slime in need of rapid locomotion might take some time and rearrange itself into a temporary rolling structure, then cannibalize/recycle the internal framework when it wanted to go back to flowing motions. On one level this implies a sort of planning, but slime mold are non intelligent and do exactly that, morphing from solitary amoeboid creatures into the multicellular plasmodium according to external cues.
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[Granular jamming soft grippers](https://www.pnas.org/content/107/44/18809).
See [such a gripper](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rna03IlJjf8) in action.
Think vacuum packed ground coffee - the pack is hard as brick, the grounds are jammed. Let the air in and it's just ground coffee.
Your slime has jammable granular materials in suspension. Move the granular material into the shape and "suck out" the slime that lubricate the granules and you have a rigid enough structure one can use for running (requires whatever handwave mechanism the slime uses to shift its substance around).
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Think bigger. Think faster.
If they've got the powers of cohesion and movement which real-world slimes do not, and can do the things you suggest, your slimes can move far more rapidly and aggressively.
How about a super-flexible slime sidewinder?
Or a super-bouncy slime kangaroo?
Giant flying slime bat!
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If the slime had some sort of small brain, Like an Octopus to allow it to squeeze into tight spaces and taking further inspiration from Octopi and Starfish it could have clusters of nerves throughout the slime which can act like its own mini brain. This will allow it to have a level of intelligence capable of mimicry to high details and the segmented brains can help it form faster and even reform fast if split.
To tackle the structural issues you could compare this to a robotics issue and how nanobots could from complex structures quickly and be stable and functioning. If the slime had specific cells that could join together quickly and form tight bonds, they could form rigid structures, then other cells could form other necessary anatomy like ligaments and muscles. Although the full anatomy may not be necessary so working out how cells could flow within a solid skin or some other internal engineering solution could work.
And as I mentioned in my comment, I quite like the idea of forming pumps, to be able to fire part of its slime quickly, similar to Venom from Marvel.
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Roughly how long could an ['Oumuamua](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CA%BBOumuamua) type object get if created naturally or if created artificially using fused rock? What would be the limiting factor governing the length of such objects?
Oumaumau was a strange elongated object that entered the Solar System in 2017. It is [believed](https://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Origin_of_the_first_known_interstellar_object_Oumuamua_999.html) to have formed from a series of molten blobs of rock following a very close encounter with a star.
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Based on the current state of thinking, somewhere in the vicinity of a couple hundred kilometers.
This particular formation theory ([Zhang & Lin 2020](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-020-1065-8)) is a variant of an idea that's been kicked around for a couple of years. The basic principle is that early in the history of a planetary system, newly-formed planetesimals drift too close to the star and are torn apart by tidal forces. Some of the resulting fragments are, through mechanisms like three-body interactions, ejected into interstellar space, resulting in 'Oumuamua-like objects. (See [Ćuk 2018](https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018ApJ...852L..15C/abstract) and [Raymond et al. 2018](https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018ApJ...856L...7R/abstract) for a start - Zhang & Lin's idea is an interesting twist on older work.)
The maximum size of these fragments is dictated by the same thing that produced them - tidal forces. After a planetesimal breaks up, tidal stresses continually act on the fragments. Some of these bodies will travel closer to the star, and therefore experience even stronger tidal forces. Each fragment will continue to break up until internal forces can resist gravity and the so-called crack propagation stops.
As part of their analysis of planetesimal fragmentation around white dwarfs, [Rafikov 2018](https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018ApJ...861...35R/abstract) modeled the distribution of fragment sizes. The peak sizes depend on the composition of the planetesimals; iron planetoids should produce minimum and maximum radii of $R\_f^{\text{min}}=350$ m and $R\_f^{\text{max}}=250$ km. Rocky planetoids should be slightly smaller, at $R\_f^{\text{min}}=100$ m and $R\_f^{\text{max}}=200$ km. It appears that fragmentation of either type should produce significant numbers of 'Oumuamua-sized objects, at $R\_f=100$ m to $1$ km. This is partly why we think these models may be true: they produce 'Oumuamua-like objects. Our dataset is currently extremely limited; it only contains 'Oumuamua and Comet 2I/Borisov.
Most other astronomers use similar limits in their models; we can safely that say that the fragments should have maximum sizes on the order of $\sim100$ km. I should note that these fragments, regardless of size, will not *necessarily* have the same dimensions as 'Oumuamua, but I'm not aware of any authors who have also conducted that sort of analysis.
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I suspect that the only real limit is collapse under its own gravity. Of course, it would get more and more fragile as it reached this limit. But, it's floating in empty space. It might help if it was spinning about its long axis. And it's not just length but length to width ratio. I would guess that a few miles across and a hundred miles long would be possible. But very fragile. (Answer partial based on looking at the size of existing asteroids, eg Ceres is approx 1000Km, but gravitationally collapsed).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4_Vesta>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceres_(dwarf_planet)>
Addendum - response to comments.
Rock has a tensile strength of 10 MPa and is brittle. (No, I am not going to attempt any calculation). A bending rod gets compressed on one side and stretched on the other. At some curvature, the stress on the outer edge exceeds the tensile strength, and a crack propagates suddenly across the rod. For a natural space object, the surface would already be riddled with bumps and dents, which would greatly weaken the rock.
As the rock gets longer, think of it as two halves with a center of mass at the 1/4 and 3/4 points. The mass goes up with the length, and the gravity force down with the square length, meaning that the gravity force is getting weaker. But, now think of the rock as curving slightly, with a uniform curvature that is less than the snapping point of the rock. As the rock gets longer, the lever arm of the force gets greater, and the stress on the outer edge larger in proportion to the force.
When the rock is fairly short, this is a 2nd order effect, we can dismiss. But as the rock gets long enough to bend noticeably, actually the distance between the two centers no longer goes up with the length of the rock, and the lever arm eventually does go up with the length of the rock.
Precisely what the balance is and where the breaking point is might be difficult to determine by an exact and justified calculation.
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Scenario: Humans need to create a pull factor for people to move to and establish cities and economies in less comfortable and densely inhabited places, because they're a bit full already. The humans of this time have the magical gift of being able to collaborate on a global level.
Using the science we know today, what could they do to make the air temperature more uniform across the globe, without significantly changing the global average temperature? And what effects would that have on other weather patterns or the appearance of the environment?
I'd prefer an approach that alters the atmosphere, but all ideas are welcome.
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Your stated goal is to homogenize the air temperature of the planet, but your underlying goal is to make more habitable land. The scale of your stated goal is well beyond the limits of modern science even when assisted by magical planet-wide cooperation. But your underlying goal is well within our reach...
* floating cities on the surfaces of our tropical oceans
* submerged cities in the shallows of those tropical oceans
* arcologies/mega-towers... entire cities in a single vertical structure
* permanent artificial islands
* green-ify our deserts through irrigation and permaculture
Beyond those solutions, we can also utilize our habitable terrain better by decentralizing the power and utility services which we currently congregate about. Vast expanses of land go underutilized because it is physically or economically impossible to get power and water out to those locations. Those are solvable problems which would open up a great deal of new territory for human living space.
So rather than cooking the planet to a nice even temperature, I recommend we get better at using the warm parts that are actually here.
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## I think the cornerstone would be hydraulic works
We have lots of fun places to live, but many of them are busy growing crops...*or should be*.
We also let gigatons of water flow uselessly out to the sea, e.g. Out the Columbia (200,000 cubic feet per second), Mississippi (600,000 CFS) and St. Lawrence (300,000 CFS). Meanwhile, some places have way too much water at times, like Houston.
You build mega-canals to take that wasted water to arid areas. You also include massive reservoirs in suitable places. Large reservoirs are not too hard if you berm (or use natural terrain) to impound very large areas.
If you have canal systems capable of moving 600,000 CFS from the lower Mississippi River to the arid southwest, whilst simultaneously supporting navigation and recreation. These are some big canals. You build them so (at cost of stopping navigation) they can super-flow to triple capacity, e.g. 1.8 million CFS for all of them, and you do that for *flood control* reasons.
Normally, the southwest irrigates off the daily flow. However there are huge reservoirs, which you keep largely empty for flood-control reasons. When you have a storm, you do several things at once. First, you stop drawing from the Mississippi normally, and let it flow to the sea. You then drain down all the Mississippi valley and southeast Texas reservoirs, so they have room to absorb storm surges. Then, as the storm hits, the canal and now-empty regional reservoirs work together to draw water away.
Consider Hurricane Harvey. It dropped 9 trillion gallons (1.2 trillion cubic feet; 28 million acre-feet). Well, that's the capacity of Lake Mead *alone*. Since the mega-canals can supply daily needs, there's no longer the need to store years' worth of water, so that existing capacity can be used for flood control.
## Oh yeah. Thermal management.
The water enables massive growth of flora. The flora has the cooling effect in the normal way it does that. Not least, all 600,000 CFS of Mississippi water ends up being *evaporated* (partly via the flora) in the Southwest.
Consider the evaporative cooling effect of 600,000 CFS. Boiling one cubic foot of water takes 70 million joules. So that flow rate removes 42 terajoules/second of solar heat. Assuming 600W of solarization per square metre *half the time*, that nullifies all solar heat for 138,000 square kilometers. Or about half the size of Arizona.
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This is probably considered near future, though I believe it could be done currently. It will just be *very* expensive.
Putting shades and mirrors in space will let you reduce the total incoming energy from the sun while also allowing you to warm up any cold spots.
Averaging out the temperature will melt the poles, however. So shutting down the whole ocean conveyor thing could be a problem if you don't do it very slowly.
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I m not sure if warm the cold regions of planet and cool the hot regions will bring any real benefits. Looks like mess a lot with all climate system of Earth and ruin still more the biosphere.
However, well, allow more absortion in the poles and increase the albedo in tropical zone will result it.
First melt all ice in the poles. Take down all that ice. Yes! This will warm the planet entirely at once and definity will raise the oceans several meters, but more water coverage will make more uniform temperatures.
After it, water vapour will raise albedo and reflect more from sun radiation back to the space, cooling all system.
Probably will need some kind of mirrors in orbit to constantly keep the poles in artifitial high temperatures and some cloud seeder in equator. Or yet, still more radical, total desertification of all lands between the tropics (23° N and 23° S).
Bizarre? Yes, but if the goal is more uniform temperatures, will work.
Now if real goal is make Earth a good place to still more people live:
1. Improve renowable power generation. Fusion nuclear reaction power is like the Holy Graal, in the horizon, but not yet reachable. Solar and wind power are good and going cheaper, stil+l yet hurted with the duck effect. Perhaps with better power transmission lines the demand can harmonize with supply globaly. Geothermal would be a good tip too, in the Foundation series Isaac Asimov made whole Trantor works with this one.
2. Decrease the demand to animal products. Decrease waste of food in industry and logistic chain. Decrease the total of general waste of everybody.
3. Increase sanitary conditions and increase educational levels. Educated persons will harm less the balance of ecossystems where they live.
4. Some people answer about archologies. Its a very complicate concept but there in something easy and feasible right now: estimulate urban agriculture and self production, to both food and power.
5. Build an industry will looks at trash as source of resources. Its dumb how actually we mine some specific resource, make something with it, use and after we discard it, bury, burn or throw in waters. Going further in this point we could even no look to overconsuption as bad thing, due there would no waste after all.
Looks cheaper and effective to Earth sustain still more humans and even with less harm to environment, also would cool the planet at all to some pre-industrial level.
Now, if the goal is make Earth looks like [Trantor](https://foundationseries.fandom.com/wiki/Trantor) or [Coruscant](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Coruscant) with estimated 40 billion to 1 trillion inhabitants, will need underground food production, ignore totally the environment and probably build domes everywhere to artifitial climate.
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Millions of km of highway paved with room temperature superconductor.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room-temperature_superconductor>
Superconductors have the interesting property they have the same temperature over their entire volume. This is because any thermal energy can transfer to any other part without resistance.
So you have a huge network of highways. And at the equator you extend them into the ocean. And at the poles as well. Possibly you need to put up big heat-exchanging panels that will equalize the air temperature with the road surfaces. And the same under the oceans to give lots of surface area to gain heat near the equator and dump it out near the poles.
Heat will be transferred from the equator to the poles. It will transfer faster when there is a larger temperature difference.
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**Caves of Steel**
Humans would congregate in fewer locations, and build huge mega-cities enclosed in domes. The construction would be modular and efficient, and everybody has the same space, since the construction goes up and up and up as we add people. Work and food is plentiful. You and your family will be safe and secure in a world of opportunity maintained at uniform climate free from pollution and disease.
This is a place to live that is a vast improvement for better than 90% of the human population today. They’d flock to the domes in the greatest migration since ever.
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[Question]
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That insolent lightning mage Zyzzx has claimed that he'll be promoted before me because his lightning magic is superior to my heat magic. Preposterous, I know, but to show that smarmy bug-zapper who's who around here, I need to demonstrate to the university that heat magic can do anything lightning magic can1. **How can I create electricity with heat magic?**
You mere scientists may not be familiar with my awesome powers, so:
* I can add as little or as much heat to something as I want, from less than a picojoule to a gigajoule and more
* There are effectively no limits on how far away I can summon heat
* I have excellent precision: I could selectively heat just the oxygen atoms in a bucket of water if I wanted.
* I cannot, however, move or remove heat. So if I heat up a chunk of metal, the air around it will get warm and there's nothing I can do about it.
One of the ideas I had was to use heat to create massive updrafts, which would carry moisture upwards to form clouds and eventually lightning. This isn't a horrible fallback strategy, but here's what I think would really impress the Provost and Board of Trustees:
* Fast. If the Board of Trustees has to wait several hours for the lightning to form, they may get bored, and that would count against me.
* Control. I would love to be able to point to a single spot of ground and have it be zapped
* Limited special circumstances or equipment. If I really need an atmosphere of pure argon or a massive coil of wire, that can be arranged, but it won't be nearly as impressive. Something like a steam-driven generator would hardly do.
* Not needing large amounts of energy or precision. As a master mage, I have very few limits, but if a mere heat apprentice could create electricity, that'd really show Zyzzx what for. Still, this is less important than the others.
It's not a deal breaker if I can't achieve all of these, but the more I can do the better my odds of advancing up the academic ranks.
1 Lightning magic can be used to create a voltage difference between two arbitrary points. I don't expect to be able to do this perfectly, but the closer I can get the better.
[Answer]
Screw generating friction or creating a huge storm. You can create fake lightning which is even better.
The basic idea is to simply heat areas until they ionize and start to glow from all the heat energy. Apply this in a lightning pattern and you have fake lightning. However there are several advantages.
* Your lightning is controllable. You can control the areas you heat and essentially the path the lightning takes.
* Your lightning can make the target explode or roast or evaporate (because you heat them up extremely fast and the water or materials inside expand and shatter if you do it fast enough, or slower causing the water content to evaporate and materials to carbonize and eventually combine into a gas)
* It can't be blocked using conductors to redirect the lightning into the ground (because you control the path)
* You dont need a storm and can use this indoors
* You wont make everyone deaf with the thunder that follows after
[Answer]
Given a voltage differential, you can guide electricity by turning a thread/needle/shaft of air into plasma.
The follow-on strike would exactly follow the plasma path you created, *initially*. It could expand depending on how much juice you pumped through it.
So where to get the voltage difference?
* IIRC, there's always some imbalance of charge from altitude to ground, though the degree of difference can vary wildly with the weather.
* A little underwhealming, but you could expend a battery (explosively) buy starting the thread physically inside the battery. Making [acid based or otherwise] batteries explode near you sounds like a terrible idea.
* Someone mentioned a tesla coil? Visually impressive.
---
Eh, at the end of the day, if you want to fry a target, just fry the target. Lightening damage is primarily due to heat. You can skip the light show and get straight to the good part.
Water expands by 1600 times when it turns from liquid to gas. Vaporizing someone's heart inside there chest is going cause a messy explosion. Ditto for brain, eyes, blood... lots of room for creative and horrifying death.
Discard your envy and stand proud of who you are, of what you can do! And turn the nervous system of anyone who mocks you to ash. Making a heart explode might be satisfying, but that target might stay conscious long enough to retaliate before expiring. Never have to think "I should have gone for the head".
[Answer]
A [thermoionic converter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermionic_converter) (low voltage, extremely high currents when heated enough) coupled with a Tesla coil?
An [Explosively pumped flux compression generator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosively_pumped_flux_compression_generator) except you use air plasma instead of explosive?
Or heating a bucket of water to 1e+7K so sudden you trigger a thermonuclear fusion reaction by inertial confinement? The latter would be cheating, the EMP will resemble a lighning-strike (and destroy the University in the process).
[Answer]
To create real lightning, you need to create thunderstorm clouds where cold and warm air meet. In basic terms, the ice crystals and cooling water droplets collide with each other and create electrical charges in the clouds. Positive and negative charges separate within the cloud; and below the negatively charged base, positive charge pools on the surface of the earth. Then lightning strikes. It can occur between clouds also.
I believe your best chance (and fastest way) is to heat up a lake quickly with enough energy for warm air/moisture to form and rise quickly. The lake should be rather smaller to create the warm air/moisture faster. In the upper parts of the atmosphere, it will meet the cold air. You might have a higher chance if there are mountains around the lake and there is cold air current.
In fact, the most electric place is on earth is Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela. It can get thousands of lightning strikes every hour.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/eTTPR.png) [](https://i.stack.imgur.com/dFFXsm.jpg)
Here is the explanation of the cloud formation in Lake Maracaibo region:
>
> Above the wetlands of the south-western part of Lake Maracaibo there can be observed an unforgettable sight – powerful and nearly continuous thunderstorm with up to 20,000 flashes of lightning per night. This is the famous Catatumbo Lightning – the most persistent thunderstorm of the world.
>
>
> **Formation:**
>
>
> High mountains surround Maracaibo plain from three sides. Specific wind (low-level jet) blows from the only side which is free of mountains – from the north-east. Hot tropical sun has heated the lake and swamps during the day – wind accumulates the produced heat and moistness.
>
>
> To the south-west from the plains the wind meets high mountains. Electrically charged masses of moist and heated air here are forced to go upwards. Vapor condensates, clouds form and starts discharge of electricity – lightning.
>
>
> <https://www.wondermondo.com/catatumbo-lightning/>
>
>
>
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Another option would be heating up an active volcano and making it erupt to create volcanic lightning. It will be grandiose but the chances are low and yeah, you might not survive.
[Answer]
Lightning is air superheated by an electric current. A light bulb is a filament heated by an electric current, etc. You cut out the middleman.
Or, you could create a Plasma channel to the clouds which would conduct electricity in the form of stimulated lightning - This can already be done to a limited extent with lasers.
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[Question]
[
A group of scientists have been commissioned to create a new kind of super soldier. As this project includes illegal human experimentation, the government wants to limit the risk of anything being traced back to them, selecting disposable people for the process. Illegal human immigrants from Latin America, fleeing from violence and poverty in their home countries and hoping to obtain a green card, are chosen for the project with promises that they would earn passage into the country and given permanent residence. This is provided they cooperate and agree to participate in the experiment.
In order to create a new hybrid species, a group of scientists combined eldritch DNA with human embryos and inserted them into these surrogate mothers.This decision was a mistake in retrospect, as the unborn child was able to alter the DNA of its mother, twisting the body into horrific new forms. The affects on the host varied depending on the fetus's goals. These hybrids manipulated and molded their hosts to better accommodate its size and shape, outfitting it with natural weapons in order to to better defend itself and the host. Whatever dark goals these alien children had in mind are unknown, as all the scientists were slaughtered by the brood mothers, who left the facility to sire their children in parts unknown.
After the incident, the government sent a special team in to try to piece together the events and what led up to them. How would a fetus be able to change or manipulate the DNA of its host?
[Answer]
**Fetal cells do enter the mother, and take up long term residence.**
<https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2633676/>
>
> Fetal cells migrate into the mother during pregnancy. Fetomaternal
> transfer probably occurs in all pregnancies and in humans the fetal
> cells can persist for decades. Microchimeric fetal cells are found in
> various maternal tissues and organs including blood, bone marrow, skin
> and liver. In mice, fetal cells have also been found in the brain. The
> fetal cells also appear to target sites of injury. Fetomaternal
> microchimerism may have important implications for the immune status
> of women, influencing autoimmunity and tolerance to transplants.
>
>
>
The result: many women who have given birth are turned into chimeras. It is not clear whether this process is adaptive in some way, or accidental. It is a very cool area of research - if one could purposefully create microchimeras like this it might be possible to effectively treat a broad range of inherited genetic diseases.
For your scenario, the alien fetal cells use this process. They do not change the DNA that they find, but change the cellular composition and so the DNA balance of the organism. As with humans, the alien cells migrate to sites of "injury" and establish themselves, then differentiate into the alien organs and augmentations that you want for your story.
[Answer]
It is known that [a mother's immune system can attack her fetus](https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/encyclopedia/content.aspx?ContentTypeID=90&ContentID=P02498) if their blood types don't match.
In response, a fetus with a strong self-defense inducing mutation could naturally try to understand why it's being considered as a foreign body and alienate the mother's blood type. This wouldn't work as planned, of course, and cause all types of side effects resulting in said horrific new forms.
[Note: this is science fiction of course, as suggested by the tag.]
[Answer]
Your mention of DNA suggests that your "xeno aliens" aren't actually that alien after all, which is presumably how the scientists were able to ["combine"](https://smbc-comics.com/comic/2011-08-28) it with human cells.
Well, if the "alien" DNA is that compatible with humans, then one issue is the presence of [endogenous retroviruses](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endogenous_retrovirus) in the inserted DNA sections. These are usually passive and inert if not outright broken, but the engineering process that created the chimerae could have reactivated them, and the hybrid's immune system might not have been able to keep them under control. Viruses [are known to cross the placental barrier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zika_virus#Pregnancy) in the mother-to-child direction, but the only reason they don't pass the other way is that humans don't have (currently) active retroviruses in germ cells and so the unborn child is effectively disease-free.
What you've ended up with, though, is *not* the hybrid you were expecting but some hideous diseased mutant with a congenital illness that can spread across the placenta and infect the mother. This is of course not deliberate or targeted on the part of the foetus... both mother and unborn child are warped by the virus, just in different ways. Possibly the virus itself was deliberately engineered for this purpose.
>
> brood mothers, who left the facility to sire their children in parts unknown.
>
>
>
Given the meaning of the verb ["sire"](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sire#Verb), this suggests some fairly extensive modification of the host mothers to the point where "mother" is probably no longer the correct noun.
>
> A group of scientists have been commissioned to create a new kind of super soldier
>
>
>
What really needs to be done is to create a terrifying alien hybrid *budget manager*, who is kept in an armoured cell in the accounting department, who remains placid until someone proposes starting up *another* supersoldier project, at which point it turns into an implacable killing machine, devours them and hunts down their sponsors. It would save everyone *so* much trouble.
[Answer]
Viruses do this all the time in real life. They enter the cells of an organism and reprogram the cell's DNA to produce more copies of the virus. As a result of this, they can do other things too which is the basis of gene therapy.
It just so happens that this is usually not in the host's best interest,
but some viruses co-exist fairly well with their host (lots of ways to go wrong, and not many ways to go right, after all, but one real life example is the cold sore virus, for the most part). It's not a stretch for a virus to be beneficial to its host in a symbiotic relationship. It would barely be recognized as a virus if it was.
All you would need is for the developing organism to have inherently have its cells produce an appropriate virus (aka it's own cells are "infected" with the virus). But the virus would just be part of the organism's normal function in a symbiotic relationship.
The virus could serve another incidental purpose in the organism and just so happen to also have this effect on the host's host or the host (the host of the virus, the developing organism) could be able to manipulate the virus's DNA so it affects the DNA of the host's host in a specific way. Gene therapy, if you will.
It also leaves the door open for this to happen without a developing organism since it could also be made to be contagious if needed be.
This is pretty much what the black oil is from X-files. Or the Zerg spores from StarCraft. Or the flood from Halo.
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