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[Question]
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Trying to come up with a poison that could be applied during a massage by a person wearing gloves. Ideally the effects are mild and slow acting enough it takes a number of sessions to kill the person. Ideally not too suspicious, begging for an autopsy. Could also be that the victim has a pre-existing medical condition (heart/kidney?) that is tipped over the edge with the addition of some chemical? My preliminary research turned up: arsenic (a bit too obvious), cyanide (ditto), thallium (promising!), Oleander (seems too old-time for my setting), ethylene glycol (maybe, tho the link to anti-freeze is kind of narratively blah). Since many people who receive deep tissue massages experience mild nausea and other mild ill effects, the immediate side effects could plausibly include these.
UPDATE: The dimethylmercury is appealing: I like the pace of it as well as the obscurity. Did some research, and it does seem like safety precautions - thick gloves, masking (so as not to kill my protagonist...) might draw some attention, so contemplating: having the masseuse suggest an acupuncture treatment to her patient. This would allow for needles dipped in the mercury, avoiding direct handling of the mercury. There's also a technique called moxibustion, which involves the burning of mugwort clumps on the protruding ends of the needle after it's inserted, so possibly our masseuse could claim a smoke allergy, necessitating the temporary use of a mask?
[Answer]
Time period would be an issue (you wouldn't have it available in medieval times or something), but if you want a truly ghastly death:
# [Dimethylmercury](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimethylmercury)
This stuff is truly horrific. Even a little bit making skin contact is a death sentence, but not an immediate one. The masseuse would have to be *very* careful. A few drops will result in death by heavy metal poisoning about a year later.
(Also, normal latex gloves would not cut it. The incidences of dimethyl mercury poisoning have generally been *through* latex gloves.)
It would also be very difficult to trace back, given the length of time that the poisoning takes to run its course.
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I have an idea that delivers the effect through a different mechanism.
# Caesium-137
This is used in medicine for radiotherapy. It's a source of both beta and gamma radiation. Have it under the massage bed, encased in a lead container with an opening towards the head of the patient (or some other bodily part that you won't be massaging. You just need to dose the radiation so that the victim gets an effect within the time span you wish. In the [Goiânia accident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident) of 1987, some people exposed to caesium-137 died in about a month:
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> On **September 21**, at the scrapyard, one of Ferreira's friends (given as EF1 in the IAEA report) succeeded in freeing several rice-sized grains of the glowing material from the capsule using a screwdriver. Ferreira began to share some of them with various friends and family members. That same day, his wife, 37-year-old Gabriela Maria Ferreira, began to fall ill. On September 25, 1987, Devair Ferreira sold the scrap metal to a second scrapyard.
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> Gabriela Maria Ferreira, aged 37 (5.7 Gy), wife of scrapyard owner Devair Ferreira, became sick about three days after coming into contact with the substance. Her condition worsened, and she developed hair loss and internal bleeding, especially of the limbs, eyes, and digestive tract. She suffered mental confusion, diarrhea, and acute renal insufficiency before also dying on **October 23**, 1987, the same day as her niece, of "septicemia and generalized infection",[13][15] about a month after exposure.
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At the time no one in Brazil knew what the f... was happening. It took an international team of doctors to explain. And if such thing happened today through a "massage attack", I doubt people would be quick to pull a geiger counter - doctors might just write things off as some quickly progressing cancer unless they happen to have studied Chernobyl in medical detail.
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Dimethyl mercury. What you want is dimethyl mercury. Dimethyl mercury is extremely poisonous, can penetrate almost *anything* (indeed, it even penetrates most lab safety gear that isn't specifically designed to shield for it), is slow acting, and is very hard to detect if you aren't intentionally looking for it.
As an example, there was a recent controversy in research academia where a [researcher died 10 months after she spilled a few drops of dimethyl mercury on her gloves](https://www.sciencemag.org/news/1997/06/mercury-poisoning-kills-lab-chemist). The dimethyl mercury went through the gloves and poisoned her, resulting in her body having 80 times the standard threshold for mercury. The only reason anyone even thought to test her for mercury poisoning is that the researcher knew she had been exposed to it in the lab accident and asked to be tested for mercury. In the safety presentations we have to sit through at my institution, it was said that if people hadn't specifically been looking for mercury poisoning, no one would have even known what killed her.
You could in theory get away with only using heavy-duty gloves to poison someone with dimethyl mercury, but at the same time that would be exposing the poisoner to a lot of danger if they accidentally spilled some. Poisons absorbed through the skin can be as easily absorbed by the poisoner as the target.
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**Rabies.**
[New Aspects of Rabies with Emphasis on Epidemiology, Diagnosis, and Prevention of the Disease in the United States](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC172889/pdf/090166.pdf)
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> Most striking in the investigation of these cases is the absence of a
> clear history of animal bite exposure. Only 2 of the 13 case histories
> include an account of a bite by a bat, and in one of these cases, the
> parents of the 5-year-old child who reported the bite could find no
> evidence of a bite wound and the bat could not be found. In six other
> cases, contact with a bat was reported by the patient, family, or
> acquaintances, but in no case was a bite recognized or a bite wound
> evident. In two of these cases, a rabies-positive bat was later found
> in the home or office of the patient...
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Rabies acquired from bats is scary in that the bat apparently does not need to bite you. Handling the bat is enough. I therefore assert that a vigorous massage with rabies-virus doped gloves would also be enough. Rabies is a weird disease early on and in a person with no history of snuggling with Old Yeller, rabies would certainly not be recognized until late in the disease. I do think someone who died of something as weird as rabies would get an autopsy but if rabies has ever been used as a murder weapon I have not heard of it. People would check the victim's house for bats.
Also I like this because if @p.s is actually a masseuse with a grudge, my idea will not be used to kill a client. Unless @p.s has access to copious Old Yeller slobber.
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Imagine I had a sophisticated gun that is capable of producing a micro blackhole on contact with a target, that blackhole is designed to be completely evaporated as hawking radiation in exactly 1 second so I wonder would it devour the being and consume everything in it's path or create a powerful blasts that vaporize anything within range? Due to the science tag I will need to know the threshold for example the feeding rate overwhelm the glowing rate, thanks.
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I am NOT (not, not not) fluent in celestial mechanics, so if I'm wrong, let me know and I'll delete this answer. But...
**Our favorite supervillain, Gru, has asked his most trusted scientist, Dr. Nefario, to build him a black hole gun!**
From [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation) we find...
$$t\_{ev} \approx 2.1\times10^{67}\left(\frac{M}{M\_{\odot}}\right)^3\;\text{years} = 6.623\times10^{74}\left(\frac{M}{M\_{\odot}}\right)^3\;\text{seconds}$$
where $M\_{\odot}$ is 1 solar mass, or $2\times10^{30}$ kg.
This means that $\left(\frac{M}{M\_{\odot}}\right)^3 = 1.51\times10^{-75}$ or $M =$ 229,577 kg, which might be the approximate mass of the small hill behind Gru's house.
**The mass of the micro-black-hole is 229,557 kg. Gru can't lift the gun. But let's ignore that for a second.**
Using a [handy-dandy online gravity calculator](https://byjus.com/gravity-calculator/) we find that given the above mass of the black hole, Gru's mass of 100 kg (yeah, that's a little on the light side for Gru, but work with me here), the half-meter or so between Gru and the gun in his outstretched hand, the gravity is a paltry 6 mN. Which isn't surprising since the hill behind Gru's house isn't exactly sucking him into a dark and terrifying doom.
**Ignoring all of the analysis that suggests the force of a cartridge explosion isn't evenly distributed between you and the bullet for a normal gun, let's look at the basics of Newton's 3rd law.**
I'm assuming black holes aren't magic, which means that the hill-sized force needed to move that black hole forward such that it could be a threat to someone (F=mA, let's say 1,200 m/s, so 2.6 Mega-Newtons, that's a small nuclear explosion, isn't it?), moved Gru backward. Gru's either a thin, pink paste against the hill behind his house... or he's in low orbit, having ricocheted off the hill.
**Yeah, yeah, yeah... but did Gru get the ~~good~~ bad guy?**
The [Schwarzschild radius](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwarzschild_radius) of this black hole is...
$$r\_s = \frac{2GM}{c^2}$$
or 3.4x10-22 meters, which looks sub-atomic to me.
**TL;DR**
An object so small that it could pass between atoms yet having the weight of a small hill passed harmlessly through your opponent.
Which Gru didn't know since he's still in low orbit from the gun's recoil.
***With one small... glitch...***
@Notovny pointed out one small problem with all of this. That black hole bullet wasn't quite as harmless as we might have supposed. Oh, it's subatomic all right...
*But during its brief passage through one second of time, the evaporated power was about 4.93 million megatons of TNT.*
The [Tsar Bomba](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba), the largest nuclear weapon detonated on Earth, was a meaningless 58 megatons or something around 1/100,000th of that power.
So... While Gru couldn't see what happened to the ~~bad~~ good guy from low orbit, what he could see was the entire opposite hemisphere burst into flame, burning with the holy glory of the eternal sun! All but cracking the Earth in half!
*Which wouldn't be such a bad thing... if it hadn't pushed the darn planet TOWARD him...*
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I want to write about an object that won't be pierce-able even with the fastest of arrows (notice I didn't mention guns, only arrows) but that can somehow be crudely cut by an albeit very razor-sharp weapon (say something as sharp but as brittle as obsidian which is 3 times sharper than diamond and between 500-1000 times sharper than a razor or a surgeon's steel blade).
Is there anyway to make sense of this under real world physics or am I just going to have to handwave this as "something something magic" ?
\*Also I would like to mention that (however misguided and uninformed it may be) I'm going off the assumption that making obsidian/diamond tipped arrows would be ineffective since they would be very likely to shatter on impact thus nullifying any cutting power they might have had, had they been used for simple stabbing or cutting for example.
[Answer]
I believe a [non-Newtonian fluid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Newtonian_fluid) may help out. Some of these (e.g. "oobleck") get harder when subjected to strong, sudden force. Conceivably, a fast arrow hitting this substance will cause it to almost-instantly "solidify", while a slow-moving razor blade can pass through it.
(BTW, it sounds like you want something that behaves like a [Dune shield](https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Shield)...)
The complication is I'm not sure if there are non-Newtonian *semi*-fluids... since it seems you don't want it to *ever* behave entirely as a liquid. That said, maybe there is a way to combine such a liquid with a porous substrate (think 'sponge'). An impact might slightly damage the substrate, but you'd have to keep hitting it in the exact same spot in order to penetrate.
Whether or not this is 100% hard science, it may at least be sufficiently plausible for your purposes.
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**Edit:** I see that you mention stabbing in some comments. If you want *stabbing* to work, you probably *don't* want a non-Newtonian fluid/sponge/whatever, since its ability to resist penetration is somewhat proportional to the force of the attempt. (Not sure if it's *actually* proportional, or if the resistance "plateaus" once you hit some threshold.) Just like penetrating a Dune shield, the way to damage this hypothetical armor is going to be gently. Slow slicing will work, vicious stabbing probably won't.
If you really just want something that resists arrows, but *not* being stabbed, [boiled leather](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiled_leather) might actually be closer, or possibly some sort of [paper armor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_armour#Paper_armour) or even something like Kevlar. Or, if you when you said you want to be able to "cut" it, you care about stabbing it with pointy things rather than slicing it with something scalpel-like, try [chain mail](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chain_mail).
[Answer]
## Option A: Textile Armor
Gambison was a historical style of armor made from layers of linen sewn together. A good gambison can stop nearly all historical arrows fired even at relatively close range as well as duller bladed weapons. Most arrows just bounce off, but when they do penetrate (like when you fire an English war bow or crossbow at close range), it typically askews the path of the arrow as it penetrates each successive layer until it is turned to travel between the layers of cloth instead of through it.
That said, melee weapons are less prone to loose their alignment on a hit because they are braced in your hand so spears, war picks, thrusting swords, and particularly sharp curved swords are all fairly good at penetrating it.
## Option B: A Hide and Wicker Laminate Shield
A shield does not need nearly as much stopping power as armor to save you from an arrow. Whereas armor needs to completely stop a weapon's penetration to keep you safe, shields are held away from the body; so, even when an arrow head goes through a shield, the friction with the shaft can still stop it before it harms the user.
The Persian Empire took advantage of this fact when they designed their shields. Mobility and archery were major aspects of their military doctrine; so, instead of making heavy shields that would slow them down but block almost anything like most other ancient civilizations, they made these very light weight tower shields that could screen their entire body, but just from arrows. The shields could be easily hacked through with a sharp sword or over penetrated with a spear thrust making them almost useless in melee (as the Greeks proved on more than one occasion), but against arrows, they were a very effective countermeasure for their weight.
This same principle can also be applied to situations where you just need a "thing" to block an arrow. So, a thin wall or door could also apply as long as you are not standing directly against it.
## Option C: Plate Armor
If you slightly shift your thinking to just being about *overcoming* the armor in melee, but not with any arrow, then plate armor may be another solution. Tests of historical recreations of plate-mail against historical recreations of all sorts of weapons pretty consistently show that cutting or piercing it was practically impossible. Killing a plate armored warrior with a bow generally required a lucky shot to enter through an eye socket or exposed joint. By the 14th century, plate armor had become so well made that it was virtually impossible to get around with an arrow.
That said, a knight could still be killed through his armor by blunt force trauma. Front-heavy weapons like maces, axes, and war-hammers could kill a knight without actually penetrating the armor at all. This was even more true in the ancient era before the wide-scale use of arming jackets to cushion the blow. Daggers were also a popular option because their shorter blades gave one enough tip control to aim it into the very narrow eye slits which an arrow or sword would almost never be lucky enough to get into.
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The problem would be EASIER with guns. If you shoot a 50 caliber bullet into a tank of water, the projectile either disintegrates or skews wildly. If you take a musket rifle with a mini ball, the projectile penetrates deeper and truer. They did this experiment on mythbusters. I can't quite picture the scenario, but I suspect your answer will involve a denser but amorphous substance LIKE water dispersing the force. A slow, sawing tool might be the best thing to cut your object.
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The article for bulletproof vests in Wikipedia is in dire need of citations, but any site more aimed at explaining or selling such vests will confirm [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletproof_vest):
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> Vests designed for bullets offer less protection against blows from sharp implements, such as knives, arrows or ice picks, or from bullets manufactured with hardened materials, e.g., those containing a steel core instead of lead. This is because the impact force of these objects stays concentrated in a relatively small area, allowing them a better likelihood of puncturing the fiber layers of most bullet-resistant fabrics used in soft armor. By contrast, stab vests provide better protection against sharp implements, but are generally less effective against bullets.
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The reason stab vests are not great against bullets is because they handle impact differently. The bullet may not pierce you, but you still take the full impact at the contact point. Bulletproof vests on the other hand redistribute impact.
There is still the matter of arrows, which aren't properly stopped by either. You may use some handwavium for those.
*Edit:* thanks to Nosajimiki for this comment:
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> Just to clarify, this is true of textile vests like kevlar. Modern armor that is reinforced with ceramic plates will block a blade just as well as a bullet, the the plates ablate on impact so they don't take repeated blows to the same place very well; otherwise, they block it all.
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[Answer]
**A fine chain mail curtain**.
This is an imperfect solution for a bunch of reasons, but meets the literal criteria and might suggest other solutions.
* Something that can move freely like a curtain would just be pushed backwards if hit at high speed, but if you grab it with one hand to put it under tension, you could cut it at close range. When free, the curtain can conduct kinetic energy away, like a non-Newtonian fluid does.
* Something slanted at the right angle (e.g. a curtain pushed back by an impact) could deflect something like an arrow, but be vulnerable to a well-aimed well-angled stab.
* **Grain**. Meats, fabrics, woods, and many other materials have a kind of grain that is very hard to cut across, but easy to cut along. Similarly, a chain mail curtain might be very hard to pierce, but a downwards cut that catches on one ring could create tension against the ceiling mount, and pull it straight and make it easier to cut.
Another questionable possibility:
**A giant block of very dense gelatin**. (Or another substance)
* The substance should be a barrier that is thick and dense enough that one arrow could not pierce all the way through, as it loses velocity with distance traveled.
* A sword could get one through it, though, because you can land multiple sword strikes in the same location to progressively cut a hole through in a way you can't with arrows, both because you can't aim well enough and because arrows fill holes behind them with themselves.
* If the substance is gelatinous enough, though, it could collapse to fill in holes pierced by an arrow, and make piercing it that way even harder. Using a sword would get harder too, but still be doable with care and planning.
* Frankly, gelatin is too weak and wouldn't be a very good solution. Meat would work fine, though--a 10 foot cube of whale meat sitting in front of a doorway could not be pierced by arrows, but you could get through the doorway by hacking your way through the meat with a sword.
* Would take a while though.
* Also, kind of a disturbing image.
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One popular theory to explain how Earth got its water is that it was delivered by asteroid/comet/etc. The form this theory usually takes is that many small impacts occured over a long time, each delivering a relatively small amount of water until the planet reached its current water content.
But what if 'all the water' was delivered in a single massive event, a single comet or asteroid, a single impact.
What would this event have "looked" like?
Best answers will include details such as size/speed/etc. of the impactor, angle of impact, effects on the geography caused by the impact (impact crater size, or effects on tectonic motion, etc), whether or not the same impact could account for the formation of the moon, etc.
(optional) Bonus question: Since many of us in this community build worlds on different scales, how would these types of impacts change with the size of the planet? In other words, how different would an impact that covers a smaller planet, like Mercury for example, in about 70% water, or how would it be different for a super-earth with double or triple Earth's mass, to be covered by about 70% water in a single impact?
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So, lets say there's about $1.8\*10^{21}$kg of water on the surface of the earth (this excludes hydrates and stuff in the mantle, but the surface stuff seems like the bit most likely to be deposited by impacts after earth's formation).
Given the density of ice, $920kg/m^3$, that much water would form a solid sphere about 776km in radius. That's Quite Big, by the way... the Chixulub impactor that kicked off the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event wasn't likely to have been bigger than 81km across. It is bigger than every asteroid (Ceres has a radius under 500km) and as big as some of the larger moons in the solar system... [Iapetus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iapetus_(moon)) is a similar size and mass and is also largely made of ice so it is a good representative for your impactor.
Here's a size comparison of Earth, the Moon and Iapetus, so you can get a handle on what you're asking about.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/TPp7n.png)
(By way of a bonus, the massive crater [Engelier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engelier) is just about visible on Iapetus, and makes it look a bit like the death star. It is a mere 500km across, far smaller that anything we'll discuss here.)
It is at least smaller than the [Theia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theia_(planet)) impactor believed to have created our moon, which was believed to have been about 6000km across. There are [theories](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_water_on_Earth#Extraplanetary_sources) suggesting that much of the Earth's water did arrive during the Theia impact. I won't go into the Theia impact here, but instead consider only a single delivery of ice, probably after the moon was formed and the [Hadean](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadean) era ended (otherwise subsequent bombardments might have blown the water away into space).
Lets assume it is hitting crystalline rock, there being no water or sedimentary minerals on a waterless world. You can now throw these handy figures and assumptions into the [Earth Impact Effects Program](https://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEarth/ImpactEffects/). I picked a conservative impact velocity of 11km/s (it is a bit unlikely for it to be lower than this, and at this speed it is more likely that some of the delivered water will stay) and a 45 degree impact angle (other angles don't make much difference, which isn't entirely surprising). Summary for those of you too lazy to follow the link and fill in the form for yourself:
* Initial crater 606km deep, 1710km across. Given that Earth's crust is no more than 90km deep, that means the mantle is very definitely exposed. The hole will fill in with ejecta, of which there is quite a lot... it'll end up about 3-4km deep.
* Final crater diameter: 4540km, once the surrounding land has finished falling into the initial hole. This is vastly bigger than the biggest hypothesised impact structures ever found, [MAPCIS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_Australian_Precambrian/Cambrian_Impact_Structure).
* Despite the impact energy being measured in *exatonnes*, the calculator doesn't suggest that you'll get a really interesting superheated fireball as the impactor vapourises. I'm slightly dubious on this, but as I'm not an expert on banging rocks together and the authors of the application are, I'll defer to them. Certainly, the behaviour of objects undergoing a hypervelocity collision is unintuitive. This increases the chance that some of the water will actually survive the impact and stay put.
* Debris from the impact (like, lumps of the stuff, not just dust) will fall over 5000km from ground zero.
* If it hits at the right sort of place (say, at the equator) it could change the day length of the earth by a bit... for a 45 degree impact, the change is of the order of ±15 minutes.
The sedate impact velocity is required to minimise the chances of massive post-impact heating. Hopefully the impact pressures are low enough (relatively speaking) and the energy release spread out over a long enough period of time that what you get is a huge explosion of rock and steam that boils and buries an area larger than North America, rather than a multi-thousand-degree fireball that propels debris out of earth's orbit and generates large quantities of light gases that can escape the atmosphere. If the latter occurred, you'd need to deliver even *more* water, and then the impact energies would be even *higher* and more volatiles would be lost... and so on. You can see why many smaller impacts are preferred. Some vapourisation will inevitably occur, but it calculating how much is definitely out of my league.
The aftermath of the impact will involve a lot of dust lofted into the atmosphere which will also be filled with a great deal of steam. There was significant global cooling after the Chicxulub impact, but that didn't involve pouring a bajillion litres of water into the mantle, so whether the energy stored in all that steam will dissipate and rain out before the dust settles, or whether you'll end up withno significant coolings and a thick, hot water vapour atmosphere for a considerable time afterwards I don't know... again, that sort of guesswork is out of my league.
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Estimates for the mass of the [Chicxulub impactor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicxulub_impactor) that offed the dinosaurs range from 1015 and 4.6 $\times$ 1017 kilograms.
The [hydrosphere's](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrosphere) mass is currently estimated to be around 1.4 $\times$ 1021 kilograms. That is like 10,000 Chicxulubs in terms of orders of magnitude, if we use the upper bound for Chic's mass. Might be more like 100,000 dino-killing asteroids hitting at once, maybe 1,000,000.
For the record, the mass of the hydrosphere is also just one order of magnitude less than that of the [Moon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon) (at about 7 $\times$ 1022 kg).
The good news is since you are starting with a completely dry planet there is nothing to kill.
The bad news is that the impact will have so much energy that most of that water will become gaseous. It will also be awkwardly hot. The atmosphere and the water will be so hot that a lot of that water and a lot of any atmosphere you had will escape to space.
In the end the world's mountains will have been smoothed to different degrees due to strong, hot-steam winds happening during the months or years it will take for the planet to gradually cool down. After things stabilize again You will have an Earth with shallower oceans and a thinner atmosphere. Maybe some life can develop there.
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I just remembered something. The megacomet in question is not as massive as the Moon, but it will be coming much faster than the Moon would if it stopped in its tracks. Which reminds me of this other question:
[No! Not the moon!](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/103859/21222)
It's about what would happen if the Moon hits us. Consider the effects described in there but with less severity. For example:
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> * The impact is also enough to cause ripples on what is left of the crust, tearing it apart. A significant portion of the surface is destroyed; vast chasms open, ejecting lava(...)
> * Most of the water on the surface of the planet becomes gas. A major portion of it escapes into space along with the gods know how much of the atmosphere.
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And so on.
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If you want to have the total [hydrosphere](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrosphere) being delivered on a single impact, let's first check the mass
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> The total mass of Earth's hydrosphere is about $1.4 \cdot 10^{18}$ tonnes
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That means $1.4 \cdot 10^{21}$ kg.
As references, [Mimas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimas_(moon)) has a mass of $3 \cdot 10^{19}$ kg, while [Enceladus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enceladus) has a mass of $1.0 \cdot 10^{20}$ kg.
That's a major impact. As a consequence of the impact, most of the water would be vaporized, and such a vast amount of vapor in the Earth atmosphere would be bad: it would mean a huge greenhouse effect, probably turning the planet into a twin Venus.
Just based on the mass it's impossible to estimate the angle of impact, while the impact velocity would be at least in the order of 10 km/s.
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According to the USGS it would look like this:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/yPwWG.jpg)
Source: <https://water.usgs.gov/edu/gallery/global-water-volume.html>
The larger sphere represents all of Earth's water, while the smaller sphere represents Earth's fresh water. The larger sphere has a diameter of 1384 km, quite large but only 0.13% of the total volume of the Earth.
Ice has a density 92% that of water, so you can imagine an ice ball this size being 8.7% bigger.
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I am wondering if scientifically it is possible to cauterize a wound using molten metal.
I was thinking of a character whose wounds and scars were healed with metal, leaving her with spots and streaks on the skin that was cauterized.
The book would take place in a sci-fi, futuristic world.
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The problem is, cauterizing a wound implies tissue damage to the extent of closing off blood vessels. Such damage leaves a layer of dead tissue on the top. And the dead tissue will slough off in a day or two and take the metal with it. Yes there are metals that melt at temperatures that won't kill the tissue. But they won't cauterize the wound.
So it's very unlikely that molten metal will both stick to the wound and cauterize it.
It's just barely possible to prepare tissue for accepting metal and keeping it there. You would have to get some portion of it sub-cutaneous, so that as the tissue grew it would not eject the metal. Basically, you are doing the equivalent of a little anchor in the flesh. Probably it would be difficult to make this stable and long lasting, unless you put it quite deep. Skin is capable of gradually ejecting foreign material unless it's really well embedded. Example from [Live Science.](https://www.livescience.com/65710-should-you-always-remove-splinters.html)
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> If the splinter isn't removed, the body probably won't absorb the
> invader or break it down. Rather, the body will likely try to push the
> splinter out, Biehler said.
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Cauterizing is usually a "battle field" type operation, when the bleeding has to be stopped and only rudimentary medical capability if available. It's not what would be done in a hospital, for example. So preparatory equipment to make the tissue accept the metal is not likely to be standard in a battle field med kit.
So the combination of cauterizing and keeping the metal in there is extremely unlikely.
However, who says it must be combined? The metal could be added after the wound is at least partly healed. For example, to make the wound look less gruesome. Or more gruesome, depending. A shiny metal covered scar is probably more difficult to miss. Or possibly as a badge of honor or symbol of combat veteran status. Or various other possible intentions, depending on the culture and context. The notion of cauterizing the wound with molten metal could be the popular lore to make the fighters even more scary.
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> I was thinking of a character whose wounds and scars were healed with metal, leaving her with spots and streaks on the skin that was cauterized.
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You can get them by using a "standard" glowing hot metal bar, like it was done in the past to treat dog bites and other wounds at risk of infections, or pouring boiling water.
Using liquid metal makes it more difficult if not impossible to control the application time, and would cause tremendous damage to the surrounding tissues, due to the sudden boiling of the water there contained. Moreover most metals are more dense than flesh, so they would sink into the point of application as they char the flesh around it.
There are some metals with a rather low melting point, but they are also highly reactive, so not a good choice (i.e. magnesium or sodium).
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There are lead/tin/bismuth/indium alloys (or some combination of two or more of those metals) that melt at temperatures as low as below boiling water. It shouldn't be too hard to hand-wave a similar alloy that melts at around deep frying temperature.
The bigger problem is that these alloys are slightly toxic (though it's worth noting that current medical protocol is to leave a bullet in place in the wound if it doesn't create a hazard to nerves, blood vessels, or organs; it will be encysted by the body and won't introduce enough lead to cause trouble over a lifetime), and if hardened in a wound that breaks the skin will be pushed out of the body as the wound scars under the "patch". That is to say, the hardened "patches", if visible, would be very temporarily, lasting only weeks at most.
It might make more sense, in a far-future world, for her body to have been altered so that her own scar tissue shows a metallic sheen, and handle cautery with the classic red hot blade or poker (though cauterization is normally only needed for major wounds like amputations or sword cuts).
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So I read recently [this article](https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/11/mpg-of-a-human/) as I was trying to design a sci fi alien race for my story and I found out that a human only has an efficiency of converting food to energy of about 25%. What would happen if somehow through a fluke of biology this alien race being very similar to humans had a metabolism with an efficiency of 75%.
What would the effects be? Would it allow them to go for weeks without air or food?
[Answer]
You need to define what you mean by "metabolism."
The article you link seems to be discussing how well your body can extract energy from food, not how "efficiently" it uses that energy, so there is a bit of ambiguity.
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> Would it allow them to go for weeks without air or food?
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The short answer is yes and no, if your aliens can extract energy from food more efficiently, then they require less of that food. However, it's not that they're burning fewer calories; they're just getting more from the same amount of food. So then for air? The answer is no. There is a difference in extracting calories from food and using those calories. If we're saying *digestive* efficiency is higher here, being able to extract calories from food more efficiently doesn't mean your alien's metabolism rate is lower; your alien still needs the same amount of oxygen to properly burn the calories in the food it takes in.
Personally, I find this answer to be a bit boring, so let's delve deeper into other ways your alien can have a "more efficient metabolism" and what they mean.
**True Metabolic Efficiency**
A concept of "true" metabolic efficiency would mean that your alien is able to use less energy to power its biology. And when it comes to powering biology, obviously we're going to be talking about mitochondria. In all eukaryotic metabolism, glucose is used to power the creation of ATP. The ATP is then used to power the structures of the cell. This happens through glycolysis and the citric acid cycle. Oxygen is used to essentially "burn" the glucose and produce NADH and pyruvate, which are used by the mitochondria to power molecular pumps. These pumps move protons between the membranes of the mitochondria to create a charge differential. This charge differential them moves electrons in the *electron transport chain,* which essentially uses electricity to power cellular machinery that assembles ATP. Since ATP acts as energy storage, you can think of all this grand machinery as a simple way of charging tiny biological batteries. It's a bit more complex than this, but for our purposes this explanation is sufficient.
Now, if you increase the efficiency of the electron transport chain, you're able to assemble more ATP with less input. Unfortunately, this chain is already pretty efficient since it's had 4 billion years to perfect, but for world building purposes let's go all Jeff Goldblum here and assume "life has found a way."
What would it mean if this electron transport chain, or indeed the mitochondria as a whole, is more efficient than that of a human? Well, we already have some biological examples: birds.
Birds already have more efficient mitochondria than humans, and it leads to a lot of interesting effects.
Mitochondrial processes are the prime source of oxidative stress, which causes damage to the cell, and is a main contributor to aging. Oxygen is a very nasty chemical; it's quite reactive, and its greek name means "acid maker." Our cells are using it to literally burn glucose, but it cuts both ways: the oxygen can burn the cell itself and cause damage. This is because waste products and intermediary products called free radicals leak out of the mitochondria as part of its normal metabolic processes. The cell has to spend energy neutralizing the free radicals and repairing damage from them, which all effects efficiency. Mitochondria in birds are more efficient, and produce far less of the waste products and free radicals that cause this damage in the first place. The result? Birds have extraordinarily long life-spans for creatures their size. For example, the african grey parrot and macaw both have lifespans on the order of 60 years, despite being warm blooded with high metabolic rates. You'd be hard pressed to find a mammal of similar size that lives as long.
Birds also process oxygen much more efficiently than mammals. Although this is due mostly to the way their lungs are constructed, their highly efficient mitochondria no doubt also play a role.
So, to answer your question, if you want your aliens to have a truly more efficient metabolism, say their mitochondria (or whatever equivalent organelle) are highly efficient.
In this particular case, you might even be able to say they can go a long time without air. Probably not weeks, but definitely longer than a creature of the same size and metabolic rate.
You could say they process glucose more efficiently, and their molecular pumps and the electron transport chain are much more efficient. In this case, yes, they could go a long time without food. You could even throw in better digestive efficiency to make them extract more calories from their food as well for an even bigger punch.
In addition, because their mitochondria are super efficient, they would likely live much longer. A human with bird mitochondria might actually live for 200 years or more, so you could say your aliens live for a very long time.
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Well. A human can survive several weeks without food, so another similar organism which could make better use of its reserves might reasonably be able to last longer. Three times as efficient, over nine weeks of starvation. Seems reasonable.
Air though, that's a different matter.
Being *fuel* efficient isn't quite the same as being *oxidiser* efficient. You might be able to burn up three times as much of the food you ingest as a human does, but that burning process is still gonna require oxygen. I'm not sure how much of the oxygen a human takes into their system is actually "wasted" so I can't answer this bit definitively, but I'd expect that for the same metabolic rate your peeps might have exactly the same oxygen requirements as a human.
Whether or not that is the case, there are other reasons for breathing, such as ridding yourself of gas-phase metabolic byproducts. You can actually last a surprisingly long time on a lungful of pure oxygen (this is often done in emergency procedures like [endotracheal intubation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracheal_intubation) which involve you not breathing for a bit whilst people ram things down your windpipe) but the level of $CO\_2$ in your lungs will slowly increase. As it does, the ability of your blood to rid itself of excess $CO\_2$ is impaired and eventually halted entirely (it requires a concentration gradient to diffuse into your lungs), resulting in [respiratory acidosis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respiratory_acidosis) and eventually death.
Breath holding may be improved by looking at how other animals do it, such as whales or wulruses or crocodiles... a superefficient metabolism is unnecessary, and probably orthogonal.
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**Fuel efficiency means you need less fuel to accomplish the same work.**
If you have a super fuel efficient ugly little car that your friends are ashamed to ride in, it requires less gas than my 1970 Mustang to go the same distance. But you can ride with me if you want. We will split gas costs.
So too your efficient people. For the same activity they require less fuel than a human with normal metabolism.
It is interesting to consider whether existing human "racial" types might have intrinsically different fuel efficiencies.
I am struggling to make this into an engaging scifi concept, though. "Dude who does not need to eat much" does not grab me and shake me in the same way as "Dude who must eat immense amounts" or "dude who eats weird stuff".
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> What would the effects be? Would it allow them to go for weeks without air or food?
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There are animals which are just like that on Earth. They're called reptiles.
A lot of the energy we mammals eat goes towards keeping a constant temperature. Reptiles don't have the same thermal regulation mechanism, so while they are sluggish at night and during winter, they need much less food. And they use much more of the energy content of the food they eat for other things like moving around and keeping a heartbeat.
For the record, some quick googling brings us figures such as [crocodiles being able to survive for a whole year without eating (by hibernating in times of drought), and it's usual for them to live on around 50 "full" meals per year (less than one per week)](https://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/supersize-crocs-crocodile-secrets-of-survival/1750/).
That's what comes to my mind when you mention super-efficient metabolisms.
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Imagine a situation kind of like *Zootopia* with many different creatures all living in one environment, some significantly larger than others. These species aren't necessarily furries like in *Zootopia*, but you still have size difference such as an elephant vs. a mouse where one species is a hundred times the weight of the other.
All the the species are equally as intelligent and competent, save for physical differences, and the environment has been built with some attempt to accommodate all species.
These species have been living together for over a century, and in that time their technology has developed to a level generally similar to, or ever so slightly greater than, our own. For now, assume that lifespans are somewhat similar (the 'Elephant' likely will live a good 10 to 20% longer then a mouse, but our 'Mouse' species still get a good long life, unlike actual mice).
It would be great if all these species lived together in harmony, but that's not how life usually works out. Humans have always taken any advantage they have had, in numbers, size, or superior technology, to put themselves in a position of power over other groups, we have seen that in interactions between races, nations, and sexes. We have gotten better at it lately, but the tendency is still there.
If these creatures in our theoretical *Zootopia* like structure are still human like, they will still likely compete for positions of power, and with species being such a significant divider they will likely rally around similar species and ultimately some species will try to take power over the other. Now they may not completely dominate and abuse the other species, but likely one species, or group of species, is going to tend, on average, to be in positions of more power or wealth or otherwise have some degree of 'privilege relative to the others. I'm trying to figure out who gets to be top dog (...pun not originally intended, but approved of).
At first glance it looks like your 'Elephants' would clearly be the ones to dominate, their vastly superior size and strength would allow them to physically dominate over smaller species and force their will on the smaller creatures. If this were during the dark ages, with feudal nobles and peasants, they likely would rule by virtue of physical strength.
However, in the modern era the 'mouse' starts to have some advantages. With more and more of our jobs being intellectual, or service, positions that require limited physical strength the mouse becomes able to work and earn profits as well as the elephant in many situations. A mouse can answer phones in a call center or program just as well as the 'elephant' can. However, being so much smaller they have far less needs, they eat less, can live in much smaller homes, and generally can live off of a fraction of the expense something as large as an elephant would need.
This could mean the 'mouse' can work for a fraction the pay and put the 'Elephant' out of a job, or maybe the 'mouse' works the same amount and simply has a far larger disposable income after covering their basic living expenses. Either way this puts the 'mouse' in a much stronger economic position.
Since they will live in some form of a democracy now the much larger number of mice to elephants alive would give them a stronger voting block as well. Then again the 'elephants' were likely in a stronger political position a century ago when all these species came together to form a democracy and shared living spaces, since their technology wasn't as advanced and the physical strength of larger species put them in a stronger negotiating position. Perhaps the elephants insisted that their constitution adjusted voting power by species in some manner to compensate for smaller species outnumbering larger ones to avoid small species having such a dominate voting block?
So ultimately which species ends up on 'top' in a modern multi-species living environment, the very large, or the very small?
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### It doesn't matter
Both will be able to get manual labor jobs unavailable to the other. The elephant will be favored for jobs requiring strength while the mouse will do better with jobs requiring fine detail. But neither of those jobs will pay well.
The best paying jobs will be those that require thinking. Unless the physical size comes with different abilities when thinking, those will be divided evenly. Because size doesn't matter when thinking. Only a speciesist would say differently.
Thinking jobs tend to have such a high multiple that differing salaries don't matter. Everyone will tend to make about the same. So the more advanced the economy, the less it matters whether someone is mouse or elephant. The mouse might be able to live a little more luxuriously, but even there, it's not really size that determines costs in monopolistic (brand) competition. A nice cheese costs more than a bale of hay, even though it's much smaller.
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When we think of discrimination, we often think about populations being forced into poverty, but there is also the inverse where it leads to populations that are forced to rise as high as they need to too survive.
In the middle ages, Jews were barred from many industries, which forced them into high paying financial sectors. This made them become more rich and influential because they were discriminated against. Another example is that men typically make more money than women doing jobs that make them less happy. Employers tend to prefer women for jobs that offer more interpersonal fulfillment, flexibility, and light duty labor. In response, men are forced to compete over the left-over jobs that either no one wants or are harder to get into because it's their only option. However, many of these jobs come with more pay because of the associated risk factors, unpleasantness of duties, or longer learning curve.
**So how does this affect our mice and elephants?**
Elephants need bigger more expensive homes, cloths, furniture, etc. This means that when an employer is hiring for a simple job like a receptionist or fast food worker, they can offer less money than the elephant can survive off of and a mouse will happily take it. The mouse can live in luxury off of that salary and never need to worry about pushing further in his career.
So after fighting tooth and nail to find a job that can support his family, the elephant will raise his children with constant lessons about how important it is to do well in school, fight for labor rights, etc. so their kids can avoid that hardship while the mice parents who've never struggled for survival will encourage their children to do what makes them happy.
As this pattern goes on, stereotypes will emerge where people will be more willing to hire elephants in high paid positions under the assumption that "elephants just make better lawyers, managers, investors, etc." Being forced into a culture that cares more about money and power, the elephants will likely hold a disproportionate political and economic influence for their population. Once elephants hold a strong position in the democracy, they will fight for it by any means necessary, and they will win. This is because to the mice, that power is a luxury, but to the elephants, it is survival. This will lead to the dominance of elephants, not because they are naturally better, but because they are forced to be.
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*At our tech or slightly better? It will matter most which species is in control of the robots.* Physical differences among humans are becoming less and less relevant over time as our tools improve.
Given disability access in more and more nations, medical devices to restore or augment the body, and mass manufacturing creating specialized tools... it’s all coming down to brain power and patent lawsuits and intellectual piracy in the short term. In long term, once the robots really get going, it doesn’t matter who is smartest: the tech only has to be invented once, then anyone can run it. Assuming the robots still take orders, whoever controls the robot army wins. And if the robot army DOESN’T take orders, well, then we are all equal (and dead).
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I feel like it could end up like *Zootopia* after all. Not exactly as it, but pretty much parallel to it.
Since your example is solid, I assume you remember the world setting of that movie. Animals were equal in law, but "predators" were socially superior, getting leadership positions and "aggressive" jobs more. It's pretty similar to our world, where in most countries everyone is lawfully equal, but in multi-cultured areas such as North America, white men still lead all fields that are seen powerful, whereas people of colour, as well as women, need to struggle a lot more to be seen on top.
(Disclaimer: the political comment is made to get to my answer's point and not to express an opinion or start a discussion on the matter. That is not the point of this post.)
So, your civilisation might have put one of these groups in favour in the past - perhaps "Elephants" if they once valued wars like we humans did, or even "Mice" if you can set up an advanced technology of ancient times to make that happen; either way, you can set up a modern world such as ours where they are supposedly equal beings but the bias is still there, "racial" stereotypes and expectations thrown around, and a power imbalance only exposed by statistics.
Or you could have a constant war where these races live separately, so they lack some of the advanced tools/technology other community might have, and they fight with what they have, forever hating and lowkey fearing each other.
As a side comment - I want to mention that, in case of a civilisation where "Elephants" and "Mice" live mixed and together, I feel like your "Elephants" would be more likely to win the racial superiority in the beginning of intelligent history. It's of course possible to come up with many ways "Mice" could have that superiority, but in the beginning of civilisation where little technology is available, being able to *literally* squeeze out the competition could come handy.
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In my opinion, the rats would win. Because, the larger numbers, the better chances for evolutions, ideals, inventions, etc ... even with lower rate.
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I have been drafting the concept of a future world based on current research. I have been contemplating the long lasting transportation tunnels of the future. I am asking about the likelihood of the following building method:
Notes:
Granite is abundant and has extremely high strength and durability.
New carbon based materials are breaking tensile strength records.
There have been breakthroughs in self-healing waterproofing.
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Proposed Building Method:
Tunnels cut. Cracks filled and surface covered with self healing waterproofing material. Then coated with abrasion resistant material.
Granite blocks precisely cut for perfect fit in tunnel assembly. 4 hole drilled through the block.(Two through one face, and two through a perpendicular face) Blocks then coated in self-healing waterproofing and abrasion resistant coating.
Blocks moved roughly into position. Carbon based cords weaved through the holes. Cords then pulled tight pulling the blocks into position and cords tied off on themselves.
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Would this type of building method be stronger than our current concrete and rebar?
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No, it won't work.
The [thermal expansion coefficient of granite](https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/linear-expansion-coefficients-d_95.html) is $7.9 - 8.4 \cdot 10^{-6} \ m/m K$, while for carbon fiber the value [ranges](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0008622308003837) around $1.6 - 2.1 \cdot 10^{-6} \ m/m K$.
For comparison, steel has $11 - 12.5 \cdot 10^{-6} \ m/m K$ and concrete $13 - 14 \cdot 10^{-6} \ m/m K$.
Therefore, while steel and concrete will nicely accommodate for temperature variation thanks to their similar expansion/contraction, granite and carbon fiber will not, inducing additional stress in the structure, resulting in loss of the functional bonding.
You will end up with drilled granite walls and loose carbon fibers which would do no work in reinforcing the granite.
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**No**
* Granite does not appear everywhere. It is not the principle substance removed from the vast majority of tunnels (only from the majority of deep tunnels). Shifting to granite as the primary stone for tunnels means quarrying and transporting one of the heaviest types of stone on the planet. That's expensive.
* It also means cutting, (precision!) shaping, and (precision!) drilling one of the hardest types of stone on the planet. That's also expensive. And unlike continuously-poured concrete, you're stuck with layering bricks or blocks of granite. No matter how you secure it, that alone is a significant weakness (think "earthquake." The planet is always shifting).
* Pouring a fluid to fit your mold is much, much simpler than chiseling one of the hardest rocks to fit and drilling holes that must align and accommodate curves. Concrete is easily transported, cheaply available, and flexible in its application. Granite is basically none of those things.
* Concrete is internally reinforceable. Yes, it'll chip more easily than granite. It'll even break more easily than granite. But it's the use of iron rebar that is both the primary strength and the primary weakness — because the metal rusts and expands over time. Replacing the rebar with a non-corrodeable substance would improve this considerably. (I'd like to give a shout-out to @L.Dutch's answer, which points out why carbon fiber wouldn't serve this purpose.)
* And that assumes we don't figure out how to reinvent the Roman concrete used to build [Sebastos Harbor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesarea_Maritima#Sebastos_harbor) 2,000 years ago. It's still there. And Roman concrete is naturally waterproof (it even grows stronger in seawater).
A fascinating article is "[The Rock Solid History of Concrete](https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a28502/rock-solid-history-of-concrete/)" by Jonathan Schifman for Popular Mechanics. I strongly recommend reading it.
**And cost is always an object**
Construction methods are always impacted by more than the materials being used — and the cost of any construction method will always be a prime driver of how something is built. Yes, safety, utilization, etc. must all be met. But you don't spend more than you must to do anything. After 150 years (the time you specify in your question), there are many other things that will need replacement. The electrical, plumbing, and ventilation systems, and the transport platform (road, rail, etc.) come immediately to mind — and that assumes that the need for the tunnel exists after 150 years. The U.S. interstate highway system did not exist before 1956 (only 63 years ago) and yet roads have been resurfaced, redesigned, rerouted, and rebuilt considerably during the last 25 years. There are unused railway tunnels all over the country. There are unused, redesigned, and rebuilt subway tunnels all over the world. Perhaps the only kind of tunnel that would need to survive longer than 150 years is a buried aqueduct.
The convenience of concrete makes it nearly impossible to dislodge as the principle building material in the foreseeable future. Reinventing Roman concrete and reinforcing with something other than iron rebar would be a much more economical, practical, and probable future than using granite.
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Sure it would be. Granite has a compressive strength of roughly 200 MPa and concrete is usually 70 MPa (using a very quick google search), so that alone is enough to answer your question.
But why would you use Granite? You don't need to have the strongest, best, expensive material to create a tunnel wall. You need a material that will complete the job within safety regulations and you want it to be cheap, fast and easy to use.
So yeah, you could spend a hundred times more money and making a super strong tunnel, covering it with layers of materials to protect it from everything, causing your price to sky rocket and your project to be delayed and eventually abandoned due to the cost and difficultly in manipulating the material. Or you can build it to the safety regulations that have been set using a durable and easy to use material which will fulfill safety standards and not break the bank.
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Other answers give far better scientific information than I can and seem to be arriving at the conclusion than your proposition won't work. I'm not going to argue ;-) Since the ground moves about, you could just end up with a 'split' in the tunnel half way down. Both ends are still completely in tact, but there's a 1M 'step' half way down due to surrounding movement. Making a strong tunnel might be a moot point, but let's run with it...
Your future world might have CNC light sabres, contained plasma drills and anti-gravity carrying devices, so might be able to handle and work granite far easier than we can today. That being the case, they could conceivably use granite in the construction of the tunnel, perhaps as the initial support around the drilled tunnel. Inside that goes the more usual concrete 'tube', followed by a decorative internal layer of marble (or granite, if you really must). That way you could have a strong tunnel, with a modestly flexible (and repairable) interior. You could even have an air gap between granite and concrete layers as a space to allow for movement. I'd imagine you could achieve the same with two layers of concrete, but that's not what you asked.
In the future, getting these materials and having them milled or otherwise cut to size and shape will be far cheaper than it is today, and perhaps the aesthetics will be more important than they are today. Maybe 'liquid granite' or 'liquid marble' will be possible, something akin to 'poured stone' as we have today.
On the aesthetics point, the Victorians generally added decorative embellishments to their buildings and machines, and had a sense of 'leaving things for future generations'. I'd suggest we've largely lost that sense in our modern world as we have a far more 'disposable', short-term, money driven culture now. However, if your future world is digging tunnels designed for multiple decades or centuries of use, then they may return to such thinking. If so, doing things that don't necessarily make logical or scientific sense start to become more acceptable.
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Orgone is the measure of a person's connection with the cosmos. It is the conduit through which the power of the cosmos flows, focused through a sorcerer's will. Ritual practicioners must draw on this reserve of power to make a magic spell work. Spells require a constant infusion of Orgone through rituals that are performed inside a transmutation circle. These rituals vary by time, and can last anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours depending on the spell.
Enchantment Spells – These are spells designed to capture cosmic power within a crafted item, so that its power can be called upon in times of need.
Scrying Spells – These are spells designed to allow a user to perceive in ways that go beyond his fve senses.
Summoning Spells – These are spells designed to call up unnatural creatures, either for communion or servitude. They can also force such creatures into bondage.
Transmogrifcation Spells – These are spells designed to fundamentally alter or control another being
A circle can have a maximum of 9 mages. If more power for a spell is needed, a new, separate circle must be formed with its own individuals. For those circles to combine their orgone, a bridge must be created between them to link them together. Orgone cannot be transferred to inanimate materials or objects, as it needs to be actively moved between circles. Therefore, a channeler is used as this link. This individual connects the circles together in order to transfer orgone from one to the other and combine their power. Using this method, several circles can be combined to conduct a ritual.
There is a problem. These circles joining their power together creates a lot of excess energy. The transfer rate of orgone from one circle to the next will ultimately speed up during the ritual, turning that excess energy into heat. As the point of connection between these transmutation circles, the channeler inetivably becomes the bearer of all this heat buildup. This could be dangerous to the individual, for the link must remain open for the spell to work. This can potentially kill the channeler by cooking them from the inside.
How can I prevent this from happening?
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So the real key to this is doing something with the energy before it becomes the unknown wobbling mess of thermal energy that turns your witch into a pop tart. If you generate the heat, you have to get rid of it, period. The only real solution is to minimize the rate of heat generation.
Consider how one can use capacitors or inductors to shape current flow. If there's too much voltage, you can bleed some of the energy into a capacitor and release it later. Because you released it back into the system, it doesn't get turned into heat. If you had used a resistor, you would have had to convert it all to heat. They make *big* resistors for that, but you don't need them.
So your channeler never tries to fix anything by opposing it. They simply bleed some energy into themselves when there's too much in one form, and emit it back out in the other. You can be arbitrarily good at this.
The other big thing you may need is a failsafe. If your channeler isn't very good, and gets in trouble during practice, it'd be nice if they didn't die. For that, I'd recommend taking a lesson from High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) lines. HVDC lines have to have a circuit breaker, like all power lines. However, this is difficult. Normal AC power cycles at 60Hz. This means once every 0.86ms, the voltage across the circuit breaker is zero. This extinguishes any arc that may form between the electrodes and makes interrupting the current comparatively easy. Doing it in the HVDC world is harder because the [current is never interrupted](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHSVKuHqyKE).
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/W2RNJ.jpg)
One solution is the ["hybrid" breaker](https://new.abb.com/docs/default-source/default-document-library/hybrid-hvdc-breaker---an-innovation-breakthrough-for-reliable-hvdc-gridsnov2012finmc20121210_clean.pdf?sfvrsn=2). This approach is based on the observation that there's two kinds of breakers in the HVDC world. There's slow mechanical breakers which arc badly if opened under load, and there are fast semiconductor breakers which don't arc because they simply change the resistance of the semiconductor. However, the semiconductor breakers have a problem that they generate resistance during operation. You can't get them down to negligible resistance, so they are constantly generating heat. A mechanical breaker, when conducting, is basically a large wire. It's resistance is very low, so very little heat.
The hybrid approach is to have both switches in parallel. In the normal conducting state, the mechanical switches are closed and the semiconductor switch is open. This means all of the power runs through the mechanical switches, keeping the channeler... I mean conductors cool. When a fault occurs, the system first closes the fast semiconductor switch, so that both switches are conveying current in parallel. Now the mechanical switches open. Because the semiconductor is conducting current around them, there's virtually no voltage across them, and thus they don't arc much at all. Now the semiconductor is conducting all the energy, and heating up like crazy. But it can then be switched open without an arc, and the current is fully interrupted.
This mechanism brings the best of both worlds. When everything is going properly, the mechanical switches conduct the current without generating heat. When everything goes wrong, the semiconductor switch can handle the load just long enough to let the mechanical switches disengage. It strikes me that your channelers would want to be trained in some art which mirrors these hybrid switches, so they aren't cooked to death!
Incidentally, my original answer was going to be relating limit of 9 mages to this idea of only doing reversible things so that you don't cook while using Ogone. In mathematics, quasigroups and loops are structures which have this reversible property. Anything which can be done in a quasigroup or a loop can be undone. This makes these actions reversible, and thus there is always a way to keep the energy flowing as magic rather than as heat.
Loops are interesting structures in that they have an identity element. It's possible to be in a state where you simply don't change anything. You let it be what it is. This seems like a really useful property for spellcasting. If things are getting dicey, you really want to have the ability to pause and just let things be as they are while you girdle your loins. If you just have a quasigroup, there's no such way to just let things be. You *always* have to know what you are doing to be able to keep things stable.
We know [how many](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasigroup#Number_of_small_quasigroups_and_loops) quasigroups and loops there are for different sized structures. For small orders (i.e. small numbers of mages), there are very few of them, and most are full fledged loops. But as the order goes up, the numbers get messy:
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order quasigroups loops % quasigroups that are loops
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0 1 0 0%
1 1 1 100%
2 1 1 100%
3 5 1 20%
4 35 2 5.7%
5 1,411 6 0.42%
6 1,130,531 109 0.0096%
7 12,198,455,835 23,746 0.000194%
8 2.69e15 106,228,849 0.00000039%
9 ≈1.52e22 9,365,022,303,540 0.0000000061%
10 ≈2.75e30 ≈2.08e19 0.000000000076%
11 ≈1.94e40 ≈1.476e27 0.000000000000000000000000000000000075%
```
This could be a part of why the circle tops out at 9 mages. If something goes wrong, the casters in the circle need to operate in a reversible way to make sure they don't turn into crispy critters. If something goes wrong, and you have to regain control, you'll regain control into one of these patterns. 9 elements is already a gargantuan number of possibilities. If you can't rely on everyone to agree on a particular pattern when they get spooked by the Orgone getting loose, you have to rely on taming the beast after the pattern has been decided. There's just too many 10 element patterns. Worse, most of them aren't loops, meaning you have a very high risk of a pattern emerging that is merely a quasigroup, meaning you can't slow the casting down. It's gotten out of control.
Maybe its just my love of mathematical flavor, but I found it interesting that this sort of pattern crops up.
[Answer]
**Drink something icy cold during the ritual chanting, such as this assuming that the magic in your world can produce icy drinks.**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/WPdBW.png)
**Even better cool the mages' whole body in an icy pool, such as this**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/VknHm.jpg)
[Answer]
The simple answer is to get one or more [liches](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lich) into the loop.
>
> In fantasy fiction, a lich (/ˈlɪtʃ/;[1] from Old English līċ meaning "corpse") is a type of undead creature. Often such a creature is the result of a transformation, as a powerful magician skilled in necromancy or a king striving for eternal life using spells or rituals to bind his intellect and soul to his phylactery and thereby achieving a form of immortality.
>
>
>
In the eternal words of Balon Greyjoy, *what is dead may never die*. Dude's already croaked in the name of magic, might as well turn the dial on eleven to the bridge he's holding. I'm sure they won't mind the heat.
[Answer]
There are a couple of ways you could end up limiting this or restricting your magic system to account for this.
The first way is to simply place a limit on the number of Magic Circles a Mage is capable of channeling before they are roasted. Rituals that do result in a roasted mage are considered forbidden and not practiced except in dire times.
The second way is to have another animal act as the sacrificial channeling object. You can do this by either having the animal directly channel the energy between two circles. Have a mage who can control the challenging though the animal or have the mage direct the energy through different animals (In this case, the mage will still need to interact with the energy, but since it doesn't pass through them completely, the damage is minimal). Think of the mage like an Electrician and the Animal as a piece of Wire. In the original case you mentioned, the Mage connects himself to both ends and lets the electricity pass through him. In the second case, the mage can just tie an animal to both ends and is done with it. In the third case, the mage pushes the animal onto the ends, but needs to hold it in place. In the fourth, the Mage needs to make an initial connection using his arm which then goes into the animal, but doesn't pass through the rest of the mages body.
Finally, if your system allows it. You can have sub rituals going on at the same time to actively cool the channeler. This makes your larger spells grow in complexity and size, because you will have people cooling channelers and more channelers to provide power for more cooling for the core channelers and so on.
[Answer]
I have two parts of this answer one - how to stay alive longer without using (much) magic and the other a thought on how to use magic to survive:
### Without magic
Well, assuming this is just internal heat or at least not enough to actually start cooking the person, standard methods for extreme heat environments and treatments for high fevers could work to at least slow the effects on the channeler:
1. Start the person on an IV drip (or constantly drinking water if equivalent level of technology/relic/magic item cannot be made) and start this before the circles are complete.
The idea here is your body is going to need a bit of hyper-hydration before starting an activity that will raise one's body temperature significantly. Then as it begins, our channeler will need to continue this hyper-hydration to help maintain body temperature (compensate for added heat).
Note, if no "IV drip" you could have a second circle going which is casting a very low level "restoration", "cooling", or etc... spell on the channelers - one which is perfectly within safety requirements and can even stop and switch when needed.
2. Have buckets of water ready to dump on *clothed* person
Yeah, your going to be hot so the natural instinct is to wear as little as possible. Think about the last time you were rained on during a hot day though - it was nice at first but then you walked inside and were freezing! The light clothing will actually help hold the sweat, and the added buckets of water, on you by not allowing it to evaporate.
If it is a really big spell, the channeler might actually sit in a tub of ice water (or pool dug in ground) to keep that core temp lower.
3. Aspirin/Acetaminophen equivalent
There have been numerous [studies](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16154478) showing that these two can help reduce fevers. This would be the most hand-wavy though as you would first have to determine herb/plant equivalents for these and they are not meant to treat heat from an external source (they inhibit the reaction of certain systems). However, its still an option if you want some hand-wavy but seems real-ish solution.
### Using magic items/own magic
Now the above may work for your average channeler on an average spell but for those really big spells - you'll need something different and either a special channeler or special tools:
1. Mimic the [thermophile](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermophile) of Earth
Thermophile actually use the heat, and sulfur, to survive they way we use oxygen. So alter these channelers through magic to require heat to survive. This could be a permanent change (maybe make them require sulfur, such that they must live near volcanoes) or have a polymorph spell prepared in an enchantment.
2. No heat is lost only transferred - so give the excess a new place to transfer
This could be a channeler who is also a mage and so during the transfer uses the heat to cast a separate small spell or keeps an enchanted stone that works as a heat sink.
Another thought is they sit as both channeler and mage in a second circle and use the "lost" energy from large spell 1 to fuel minor spell 2.
[Answer]
We know that air is pretty bad at dissipating excess heat, that's why we normally have to use a lot of air to take cool down something. Liquids, in particular water, are way better for this task. This can also help you with your problem.
Form the circles under a waterfall, or at least place the channeler in such a place.
The constant flow of cold water will help keeping the temperatures down.
===========================================
unrelated: quite ironically, this can also answer the question on [the purpose of artificial waterfalls](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/132514/30492).
[Answer]
If the heating process for channeling is internal, then the solution must necessarily act at the source rather than externally. Sitting in an ice bath isn't going to cut the mustard here.
Describing the solution while not getting an 18 rating for your story is at the discretion of the author. However it does put a new spin on the requirement for wizards to own a staff and robe. Though convention doesn't mention the ice bath the bottom of the staff has to sit in, perhaps a natural water course is sufficient.
[Answer]
**Use the energy augmenting power of the connection to more efficiently use mages.**
From OP
/A circle can have a maximum of 9 mages/
The OP states that more circles tends to increase the amount of total magic over time, and produce heat. I conclude this is a property special to magic. If there were a finite amount of energy produced by each mage, connecting them up would not elicit more energy. More connections generally reduce power via entropy. An electrical connection that is heating up is losing energy to heat. The risk is that the heat breaks down the connection. In mundane energy transfer scenarios (e.g. electrical lines, water traversing pipes) the connection itself cannot increase total energy input, only (always) decrease it.
But here the connection itself somehow increases the energy input. /These circles joining their power together creates a lot of excess energy. The transfer rate of orgone from one circle to the next will ultimately speed up during the ritual, turning that excess energy into heat. / The answer - mages drop out of their circles as the connections augment power. When power reaches 110% one page can drop out, reducing from the 9 maximum to 8. The 8th next mage drops out when power reaches 125%.
This capitalizes on the magic augmenting nature of the circle and frees up some mages to go have lunch early. Courtesy dictates that these mages released early should also make sandwiches for the other ones still magicking away in the circle.
[Answer]
# Enchanted items you say...?
Introduce a simple enchantment that only needs the participation of 3 or 4 mages in the circle, which has the effect of producing a heat sink. As long as a mage has one of these, as most mages will, any excess heat will always have somewhere to go.
[Answer]
# No Magical
## Drinking
Before starting and during the ritual, your designated mage to perform the link must **drink a lot**. Hydrating your body helps to cool your body and improve sweating. If possible **drink very cold water**, maybe even eat snow or ice, you must lower his temperature.
# Bathing
Before starting and **during the ritual**, your designated mage to perform the link must take an [ice bath](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_bath), which literally means bath in very cold water usually full of ice cubes. It doesn't matter if he suffers a bit of hypothermia, in a few minutes he *will want to have it*, just don't let him die.
Unlike normal ice bath, your mage **must be naked** so he lowers his temperature even quicker.
If you dare and have enough technology, you may take [one of these](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cooling_baths) baths.
# Magical
All these suggestions require a smaller circle surrounding the linker:
## Healing
Self-explanatory, don't you have healing magic? Maybe cast *healing* on him.
## Cooling
Instead of cast *healing* on the linker with more mages, you may cast a cooling ability, like *freezing ray* or *frost wind*...
## Dissipating or use a Heat Sink
Healing and cooling may not be available but your mages could dissipate the heat produced around the linker with magic, maybe dissipating it to the environment or transferring all that heat to some heat sink (like water or magical spell).
## Transfering
If all of that spells aren't available we still have some solutions, but riskier. The smaller circle of mages around the caster will *drain part of the heat to themselves*, effectively avoiding overheat the linker.
Instead of cook a single person, you warm several ones.
You could even nestle this ability adding more circles of mages for each mage that absorbs the heat or make it recursive to balance all the temperature.
] |
[Question]
[
I have a character who bills himself as an explosives experimenter. He wants to try something new with explosives.
He knows how to make a [bolas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolas) and has the materials to make one. However, he has this idea to make the simple bolas a little more dangerous.
In place of stones, he has hollow iron balls. He wants to fill them with an explosive substance and rig them with some kind of fuse that will trigger once the bolas have hit a target. I'm currently thinking the fuse to be triggered by a set of magnets in the bolas that, when the balls come together, have some kind of interaction/reaction to light the fuse in each ball and trigger an explosion.
Is this a good way to implement a set of exploding bolas, or is this type of weapon dead on arrival?
[Answer]
You are aiming for a medieval Darwin Award. And you are only the 1,000,000th person to have a similar idea with medieval explosives.
What is going to keep the magnets from triggering the explosives inside your pocket? And what happens when you let go the bolas at the wrong split second and tie your own feet by accident?
Get some IRL bolas and practice on trees for a while. It is a very effective weapon to tie animals and people, but it is very awkward to use - even more than a boomerang.
You are better served by using late-medieval explosives. Check out this other question:
[Explosives in the Middle Ages](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/45110/21222)
[Answer]
**Explosives Experience**
So I', not entirely sure what tech level you are wanting to work with here, but I have some pretty hands on experience with explosives (And I've only been exploded a little bit!) In any case you are going to have a lot of problems with rigging anything that doesn't risk detonating while spinning the bola above your head. Here's and idea for how you could do it with modern tech.
First, you have a hub that you hold that connects all three of the bola weights together. This hub has a safety pin and a dead man's switch. Before use the pin is pulled and the dead man's switch pressed, once released the deadman's switch will initiate a timer which will trigger a blasting cap, I would recommend that this timer be set for 3 to 4 seconds. Next, the chord that connects each of the explosive weights is actually det-chord which is ignited when the det cap in the hub is triggered by the timer. This det chord will guarantee that all 3 explosive weights detonate simultaneously.
The explosive weights are a lump of plastic explosive wrapped tightly in scored steel wire which will provide the weight as well as a convenient source of shrapnel. The problem with a solid iron ball is that it will only break into 3 or 4 pieces which does not give very good odds for producing casualties (this was actually an issue with early grenades and explosive artillery shells.) The steel wire can be encased in a thin shell of whatever you want for water and dirt proofing but with modern fragmentation explosives grenades derive their shrapnel from the tightly wound scored steel wire, not the outer shell.
**Lower Tech (IE more unsafe) Option**
The central hub contains a 4 second grenade fuse, and a pin that is pulled by a lanyard attached to the wrist when thrown, the explosives weights are still connected to the central hub by det chord (which has been in use for over a century in one form or another). I would recommend a double safety pin system where the pull-lanyard itself is not armed until the main pin is pulled. This method could be used as far back as the late 1800's without breaking suspension of disbelief. In fact, the union army actually had an experimental impact detonated hand grenade that utilized a wrist lanyard like I mention here.
**EXTREMELY low tech solutions (SUPRISE! Even MORE dangerous)**
Option one is that the central hub itself is the explosive with a hand-lit fuse, the device is thrown with the intent that the target is tangled up by the regular chord and counter weights and cannot free themselves before the crude black powder bomb detonates.
Ultra-low tech option two which is insanely dangerous to even carry around let alone throw is that each of the weighted balls use a mercury fulminate impact detonated percussion cap. Good luck figuring out how to spin it up and throw it without two of the balls clacking together and killing you. Also don't drop it, sit on it, touch it any less than extremely gingerly, or even look at it slightly funny. This is a VERY moody explosive device and you don't want to make it angry on accident. This is the grenade equivalent of that significant other that flies into a furious rage when you simply show up home two minutes late. Just like abusive partners it is best to avoid a relationship of any sort with this device at all costs. But, it could still *theoretically* work.
**Either Way, This is STILL an insanely Dangerous Weapon to Use**
Regular grenades are already pretty dangerous to use. They tend to bounce around a lot after being thrown and manufacturing accidents can also happen. A few grenades I've seen thrown over the years detonated quite a bit sooner than the 3.5 seconds they were supposedly manufactured for. Additionally, they tend to throw bits of the environment around like nearby pieces of scrap metal, rocks, broken glass, bone bits from the victim etc etc. I once found an AK-47 embedded in an adobe wall, god only knows how fast it had been going or how far it would have been thrown if it hadn't hit the wall. Grenades advertise a 15m casualty radius, but that doesn't necessarily mean that there is a magical zone where fragmentation just stops. A rock or piece of an adversaries gun could be thrown with enough force to be lethal out to 100 meters. This is why grenades are almost always used against targets in enclosed spaces or when there is plenty of substantial cover to hide behind after throwing. Bolas are by the basic mechanics involved in throwing them intended to be used in an open area. At the very least I would recommend that the thrower immediately drop onto their stomach and cover their head. Preferably facing away from the blast. Or jump in a ditch or something. Seriously, don't utilize explosives without either being very far away or hiding behind something. I can tell you from experience, even being blown up just a little bit really really sucks.
[Answer]
Use regular lit fuse. Bolas are just a delivery system, both for range, and to ensure bombs stay attached to the target until detonation.
To ensure both detonate at the same time, have them connected by the same fuse, and light the middle of it.
[Answer]
Magnets aren’t your best bet. The big issues with them are storage,arming and throwing, aka ‘My balls are sticking together’.
A better bet would be glassware. Small glass vials of highly reactive compounds (not sure which are readily available in medieval Europe, but your guy can readily experiment) can be put in a fabric bag around the main projectile interspersed with gunpowder and fast burning fuses. When the bolas hit a target the glass vials (hopefully) smash, mixing the volatile compounds which then ignite, igniting the gunpowder, igniting the fuses, detonating the main bomb. Experimentation with the thickness of glass should allow for a pretty safe weapon to transport that still works when thrown.
Potential downsides: might not work against soft targets, your bolas might explode when you try throw them unless you know what you’re doing.
But they’re potential problems with anything but a timed fuse anyway, soooo...
ADDENDUM: The original purpose of the bolas was to ensnare, so even if the bombs don’t go off right away the victim’s struggles to get free might set them off...
ADDENDUM: Quicklime and overproof spirits might be a nice combo for the contents of the vials: The mixture of quicklime and water can hit temperatures high enough to ignite gunpowder, quicklime was certainly available in medieval times, and a high enough alcohol content stops water preventing gunpowder from igniting (hence the term 100% proof, cheers @DavidRicherby for the correction there).
[Answer]
People don't appreciate when I answer with movie related examples, but...
The weapon you just describe appear in one 007 movie, maybe without the magnets which I think are completely unnecessary. I think it makes sense for it to explode with any impact, this way you can throw it against thing you wont necessarily be able to wrap around, like a car, a building or something big.
In the movie it seems that the balls have to touch each other to explode, but that makes it less efficient in my opinion, unless yo want it to explode ONLY when perfectly hitting the target
<https://youtu.be/tdXshjACQx8?t=53>
[Answer]
[](https://th.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B8%A5%E0%B8%B9%E0%B8%81%E0%B8%95%E0%B8%B8%E0%B9%89%E0%B8%A1%E0%B8%94%E0%B8%B2%E0%B8%A7%E0%B8%95%E0%B8%81#/media/File:Meteor_hammer.JPG)
When it comes to reliable ways to ignite something, chemical ignition is great because unlike fuses or flints, they work in almost any weather condition.
Two balls filled with black powder would be a great way to send shrapnel like a grenade. Finding a way to ignite the powder already exists and was used in firearms back when muskets ruled the day.
Fulminate of mercury is a reliable way to ignite things because it is sensitive to shock. Throw it against a hard service and you get a bang. This is the substance Walter White made to throw at Tuco Salamanca in the explosion scene in the TV show, “Breaking Bad”, although a little movie magic amped up that explosion. It is prepared by dissolving mercury in nitric acid and adding ethanol to the solution.
It would work like this, you load the metals balls with tightly packed black powder. You then add the fulminate of mercury. When the bolos collide with force, the fulminate triggers the ignition the black powder.
Fulminate of mercury was also used in railroads for a device called a torpedo. If you had to move a train when switching between tracks, the engineer would lay one at the spot in the distance. When the train ran over the torp, it would break causing a signalling noise that the train had moved the appropriate distance.
I have to caution you that fulminate of mercury is highly sensitive to friction, heat and shock. This makes it perfect for a hammer strike or a blasting cap, but not so perfect banging around in a wagon. You may not kill yourself in the resulting explosion, but you may wish you were dead. In all honesty, your protagonist would be better off designing grenades, but this will give you the element ou need in your story which could have been manufactured in medieval times.
Good luck.
* <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury(II)_fulminate>
[Answer]
# Magnet
If you really want to use magnets, I propose the following:
* His bolas are not made of iron, but of lead or any non-magnetic dense material
* Your hero does not have a magnetic armor (leather?), nor a sword or anything magnetic
* His friends neither
* But his enemies do
The magnet triggers the explosion when it approaches a magnetic material. It can even be more fun if it's a strong magnet and that it sticks to the enemy's armor.
The mechanism can be deactivated, so that if no enemy is in sight, your hero can be next to metal things without risk.
**Booom**!
] |
[Question]
[
# Background
This is a Terror Bird:
Specifically, this is [*Titanis*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanis) one of the largest of the carnivorous [Phorusrhacidae](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phorusrhacidae); it was perhaps 2.5 meters tall and 150 kg.
I would like a terror bird that is at least 1000 kg, but it would be even better if it were more like 5000 kg; the size of a *Tyrannosaurus*. Fundamentally, *Tyrannosaurus* is more closely related to bird than it is to extant reptiles like crocodiles. Of all the birds that we know of, the terror birds come closest to matching the physical anatomy of *Tyrannosaurus*; that main difference being that the birds lack the heavy tail of *Tyrannosaurus*.
# Question
Two overlapping questions:
* **Can a terror bird weighing 1000 kg survive in any modern ecosystem?**
* **Can a terror bird weighing 5000 kg survive in any modern ecosystem?**
# Considerations
* Modern ecosystem means anything that exists today, though assume that human hunting pressure doesn't exist so herds are plentiful.
* A modern physical environment means current temperatures and oxygen concentrations, among other things. There is some speculation that higher oxygen levels could be related to dinosaur size. I want to be sure that a terror bird shape can bio-mechanically be extended to large enough size.
* The terror bird must be able to survive at all sizes as it grows (at whatever rate it can) into a full sized adult.
* Given that terror birds are probably extinct due to competition with modern modern predators, assume that the terror bird can successfully compete with modern carnivores (lions, etc).
* Do not assume that a terror bird can catch modern herbivores (can it catch a horse?) This an important part of the question.
[Answer]
Modern and extinct flightless birds adjust for weight by swinging the whole body farther back, making the pelvis stick back very far, and making the femur more horizontal (see image). this moves the feet further forward. This does mean the forces on the femur will be huge at the largest size so it will need to be far thicker than seen in T-rex. At the largest sizes it may not be functionally sound.
The other problem is finding something to eat, but that is a bigger problem for the larger size so I address each individually.
**5000kg** The only issue is what prey they attack that requires them to be that big, they will be to slow to catch smaller animals so they had better be hunting things close to their size. there just are not many animals available. elephants, hippo, and rhino are about it so you are probably restricted to Africa or parts of Asia in the modern world. During the Pleistocene you have many more options: Africa, Eurasia, and North America basically the places that had mammoth.
**1000kg** This much easier, depending on the time period most of the world will work. But you still want and abundance of ~1000kg prey animals, which limits your to a few places on earth.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/TD4kP.jpg)
[Answer]
**Terror penguin.**
Big flightless birds extinct and extant have a similar body habitus - long neck, bulky body, no tail.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/nXzL1.gif)
<http://safariostrich.co.za/2016/05/the-ostrich-dinosaur/>
Probably it is the lack of tail for balance combined with a need for speed that limits the maximum size of these large flightless birds.
<https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24625-losing-their-dino-tail-limited-size-of-flightless-birds/>
>
> Theropod dinosaurs, the ancestor of birds, walked with their legs
> vertical using their tail for balance. As their descendents evolved to
> fly, their heavy tails became a liability and shrank to a stub. To
> keep their balance, the evolving birds began to crouch, with their
> femurs tilted back to keep their knees under their centre of gravity.
> They kept this position even after some had ceased to fly, and the
> extra strain made their femurs stronger... The dino femurs grew longer
> and thicker as body size increased, Chan says. But in birds, there was
> a “distinct plateau” between 300 and 500 kilograms, with femur length
> constrained by the need to keep the knee near the centre of gravity.
> That makes it harder to support a large body, and so it limits their
> size, argues Chan.
>
>
>
I wonder also if there is a limit to how strong a hollow femur bone can be. These flightless birds have strong bones, but they are all still hollow. Also the light skeleton reduces the mass of these birds - a giraffe of 5 meters might weigh 1000 kg (weight to height ratio = 2) but a big 3 meter ostrich weights only 150 kg (weight to height = 0.5). Good if you want to be a fast bird, but not if you are trying to achieve a weight target requested on world building stack.
---
But there is a different type of body a flightless bird can have.
<https://www.pinterest.com/pin/537476536770332251/>
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/EGARH.jpg)
Penguins are unusually upright, with their legs set far back on their bodies. Uniquely among birds their bones are not hollow. Penguin tails, or pygostyles are very robust.
<https://fossilpenguins.wordpress.com/2011/10/28/tour-of-the-penguin-skeleton-iii-the-pygostyle/>
>
> Penguins have a pygostyle, but it is quite different in shape from the
> standard avian pygostyle. In penguins, the element is more elongated
> and less flattened. Rather than being plate-like, it is almost
> triangular in cross-section with a flattened base. Penguins also have
> a very different set of tail feathers. Rather than forming a fan,
> penguin tail feathers are very stiff and quill-like, and stick out
> somewhat like the bristles of a broom. This is especially true of
> penguins from the genus Pygoscelis – the Linnean name Pygoscelis
> actually translates to “stiff tail”. These penguins are prone to be
> caught slouching around, partially propped up on their tail feathers.
> It seems that without the necessity of maintaining a “fan” of tail
> feathers, penguins have gone ahead and modified their pygostyle to a
> shape more suited to supporting themselves on land than steering in
> flight.
>
>
>
This has the makings of a large land animal: weight stacked vertically over the stable tripod of stocky legs and tail. This is a different route to bipedalism than either an ostrich or a tyrannosaur. This is a thing that can get very big - like the ground sloth [Megatherium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megatherium) which could measure 6m and weigh 4000kg.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/fIWTH.jpg)
The giant terror penguin will, however, be a predator in the pattern of a tyrannosaur. Why did the Tyrannosaur need to be so big and fierce? Was it to take down and devour huge formidable prey? No - it was to intimidate smaller, fierce carnivores. A carnivore never wants a fight it might not win - any injury might prove fatal because of consequent inability to hunt and starvation. Wild dogs are tremendously efficient hunters but half of their kills are stolen from them by larger predators.
Like T.Rex (may have been!) the massive terror penguin is a scavenger and kill stealer. No other predators have a chance against it and they leave when it arrives, carrying off what they can. Its bulky body offers no vulnerable spots within reach, and the bulk serves to anchor a long snakelike neck and sharp slashing beak. Because of its diet of carrion, its head will be bald, like a marabou stork or vulture. The long neck also allows it to eat without actually getting down prone on the ground, and the size of the bird means it can eat the entire kill itself.
[Answer]
Large predators such as crocodiles use ambush. Being living dinosaurs themselves, that means it is a proven method.
Now the terror birds face the challenge of Hot Blooded species; our rate of calories expenditure is way higher than a reptile. Cold blooded ambushers can snack once and sleep all week.
For a hot blooded hunter, this places a larger pressure on your ecosystem. Now your Apex predator is feeding more than once per week.
So your deciding factor is; what changes are needed in your prey to support your predator?
For once, increased birth rate.
Maybe they are faster, but migration trips to and fro foraging zones, expose them to the predators.
Maybe it is an exclusive prey that lacks any other predators. Architeuthis dux, AKA *papa squid* falls in this category. Only sperm & pilot whales munch on them. Other reason to favor a large size is cold weather, in turn requires a large predator to take them down. Polar bears already rock 700kg, so it isn't impossible to reach 1000kg. (**Add more feathers for the cold!**)
Over 5,000 Kg, you method of transportation depends on the soil. You will go ankle deep in mud, totally sink on snow to say nothing of making you too vulnerable to **overheating**.
The dealbreaker is calories.
[Answer]
## Make the terror birds aggressive herbivores living in a herd:
All large land mammals are aggressive :
* Elephant
* Hippopotamus
* Rhinoceros
* Buffalo
* and last but not least: [Giraffe](https://i.stack.imgur.com/2Ncmd.jpg) **:-)**
Except for the rhinoceros, they live in herds, are fiercely territorial, (yup cute dumbo and funny hippo will rip you and your car to shreds), and don't forget that *giraffes have horns* and a single kick of a giraffe's hind legs can split a lion's skull in 2!
Once they have these characteristics, there is absolutely no reason they can't become as heavy as:
* A Black Rhinoceros (680–1,810 Kg)
* A White Rhinoceros (1,400–2,300 Kg)
* An Asian Elephant (3,600–4,500 Kg)
[Answer]
Due to your demand for specifics, I'll have to split my answer into two:
1,000 kg - This is at least semi-plausible. This thing would chew through even the largest predators in its habitat, being 4x the weight of an adult male African lion. It would be mostly confined to Africa and south Asia, subsisting mostly on elephants, rhinos, and hippos, while occasionally snacking on smaller creatures such as zebras, wildebeest, antelope, and sika.
5,000 kg - No matter where in the world you put this thing (unless it had gills and could live in the ocean and hunt whales) it would starve.
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[Question]
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This may be an obvious question, however I can't find an obvious answer. **Is rapid premature aging something we can assume is painful?**
I'm not talking about 'natural' diseases such as progeria but rather being hit with an aging spell in a magical universe.
Drastic age changes in the space of a few minutes/hours.
I know that as long as I am consistent and know my own universe rules I can do 'whatever' I want with Magic (Sanderson's 3 laws etc).
* The logical scientist part of me wants to know if your bodies cells age/replicate so rapidly would it not be expected to be painful?
* or would pain/lack of pain have to be incorporated into part of the spell?
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EDIT:
I had two mental images in my head that are actually two different directions to approach this aging spell. However, in my mind, both would cause pain/discomfort or at least some sort of sensory overload mismatch signal in the brain. One more so that the other, I wasn't sure whether this pain was would have to be explained further or if I could just assume it was part of the process and not have to explain or dig further. Which is why I tried to ask the question with no magic specifics. I didn't want to get bogged down in how the magic worked, but rather in what I could expect from biology and the human body's reaction.
* The first mental image I had in my head, is that the person appears to go through the aging process right in front of you. For instance, go from age 25 through their 30's and into their 40's in a short space of time. The cells replicating rapidly one after the other.
* The second image I had was that the cell aging was rapid/immediate but the effects were delayed. Even though the cells were aging/aged right then and there, the physical effects to an outside observer where less noticeable (as mentioned by Demigan's puppy cancer giving answer :) )
The strength of the spell determining the speed of the aging, as well as providing most of the energy requirements for cell replication or transformation through handwavium. Although this was never intended for body growth as in aging from a child through to adult. That would have additional energy requirements that I understand would definitely be beyond the scope of this particular question.
The aging spell itself was also never intended to stop localised time, as I realised this had the whole 'how do I feed you and get rid of your poop' issues. I do have a really [badly phrased question](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/49171/food-requirements-for-localised-temporal-fields-at-different-time-velocities) on just that issue if anyone wants to take a crack at it. That is why I didn't use the [Time] tag and rather stuck with the [biology] tag, as there was surprising not an [Aging] tag of some sort.
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Thanks to all the answers so far. I hope this edit has made it a little less opinion-based by giving you a rough idea of what was in my head.
[Answer]
**It would likely be extremely painful.**
Perception of pain at a low level is a complex phenomenon, and the "painful" message is not generated as a meaningful signal in the nociceptors ("Pain=20%"), but rather is determined upstream. The "pain" is then perceived after signal processing from a somesthetic "background noise".
This is the reason why a [sufficiently large somesthetic stimulation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterstimulation) around a certain area will evoke some measure of functional analgesia - the somesthetic processing centers are overwhelmed and can no longer reliably detect the painful stimuli.
The same happens with "phantom limbs" - an amputated limb sends no longer any signal, *but this absence of signal is still a difference from the baseline* and may be interpreted as "pain".
Now, a very fast aging (or rejuvenation for that matter) would necessarily alter most of the nervous system, which would change the baseline for the whole organism. Chances are that this will be perceived as a [huge discomfort](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paresthesia), and very likely as an excruciating [pain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allodynia) until the somesthetic processors recalibrate themselves to the "new normal" - essentially what is called [idiopathic peripheral neuropathy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peripheral_neuropathy). In this case it would have a cause and affect the whole body, so it could be dubbed *peripheral aging-induced neuropathy* (PAIN).
[Answer]
I'd say yes.
Aging requires cellular change over the entire body. Every nerve in your body would be experiencing huge changes in local biochemical conditions (i.e. local to the nerve and even in the nerve) and this would register as a sensation or a whole range of confusing sensations. It's hard to imagine this not generating a pain response in the brain (which is itself also changing).
There would also be physical changes - sudden changes in the condition of muscle, cartilage and bone, etc. which would be detected by nerves and generate something like pain.
You would probably experience sensory overload, not just pain, but a brain overwhelmed by nerve impulses from all over the body.
Even if limited to the surface - the skin - this would generate a lot of biochemical activity local to every nerve and within the nerve. Hard to know exactly what that might feel like, but anywhere from intense pins and needles to something more like being enveloped in flame.
[Answer]
Normal aging isn't "painful" until aspects of the body start aging out and not working within "expected norms." Which begs the question, what does it mean to age?
**A Function of Time:** If your spell is aging people by speeding up time within the AOE of the spell, then pain due to aging isn't an issue. BUT, pain due to starvation and dehydration would be. The body would be consuming resources "normally." Without sufficient food & water (or the magical equivalent) the body would feel considerable pain ... then die. Let's assume you provide the magical equivalent of food (one that doesn't leave a massive pile of kaka at the target's feet), your target would experience being frozen in one place, the magician standing before him, a soft glow around everything, for all that time.... You might end up with a madman on your hands ("I've been standing there with poop falling around my feet for seventy years! [I keel you!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gZ6-6RbSEg&feature=youtu.be&t=11s)")
**Without time, what is age?** On the other hand, if your spell is not a function of time, but directly agest the body, then things like cell splitting, etc., are irrelevant. Instead, you're modifying the body such that reasonably good things are now unreasonably bad things, like brittle bones, an aged heart, forgetfullness.... It's a very interesting question to ask "what does it mean to be physiologically old?" It's trivial from the passage of time (rust forms on iron over hours), but without time? (suddenly there's rust where once there was metal). In this case you're removing mass from some areas, changing mass in others, and adding it in yet more. It's a *rearrangement* of the body. Honestly, I would consider that process to be *very painful.* No less so than liposuction or having a tooth pulled. And applied to the whole body in a period of seconds-to-minutes? I think it would cause life-threatening pain.
Therefore, I don't believe your spell need ever add pain to the mix. It may want to remove it to avoid a dead target.
*And you might want it to magically materialize a cushion for the target to fall on...*
[Answer]
If the spell just sets your cells to an "old" setting where the telomeres and genetic defects are more nunerous then at first nothing will happen. Things like arthritis, sagged posture from porous skeleton and other defects wont show until the body has had time to degenerate due to its older setting which takes time and some elderly diseases wouldnt even show similar to how not every elderly has alzheimers or arthritis. Should such defects be incorporated in the spell then the immediate change wouldnt hurt.
At worst you would feel the pain of your body's cells literally moving at high speeds through your body, potentially ripping loose as thats not what they are supposed to do. Or you know, you die of malnutrition and water deficiency as your body suddenly cramps years of growth in a few minutes to reach the older age. That would be unpleasant. In any case, if you survive and live long enough to grow older the defects would start occuring and those would hurt.
[Answer]
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> (..-) the person appears to go through the aging process right in front of you. For instance, go from age 25 through their 30's and into their 40's in a short space of time.
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What if I tell you, there is a precedent of that? But first let me cover the other parts...
First, the actual age of the person will still be the different from the date of birth to the current date. So, if the person is 25 before the *spell*, the person is still 25 after the spell. Unless we are talking about time travel or some other space-time distortion (which is the case of your other question).
Thus, when we say that the person ages from 25 to 30 in a short space of time, we are talking about apparience. Right? Right.
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> The cells replicating rapidly one after the other.
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That is a tumor. Remeber that in cell reproduction you end up with more cells than you started with. To follow that route the spell needs to kill cells too... and dipose of the dead cells. Also, cell reproduction needs nutrients... does the *spell* provide those?
I suppose that making the *spell* mutate or deteriote the cells makes more sense. And, as you already know, that would not have any immediately visible effects.
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Ok, the precedent is [Nguyen Thi Phuong](https://lmddgtfy.net/?q=Nguyen%20Thi%20Phuong).
According to interviews, she was allergic to fish, and apparently had a particullary bad allergic reaction with some - probably contaminated - fish... as a result, she had itching in all her body that did not go away. After some self-medication (in interviews she said she forgot what it was) the itching was diminished but still had skin rash. She tried some traditional folk medicine and that got rid of the itching and skin rash... but her skin began to sag and fold.
The whole process took a few months. As a result she had the apparience of a 50 years old woman at the age of 26.
It is unclear what other effects this had on her body. It is worth noting that she died at the age of 30 of an illness that gave her severe stomach pains and had her losing weight rapidly. It is also worth noting that she didn't appear to have the usual effects of age (eg: she didn't go into menopause, or develop artritis, etc.).
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Coming around to your *spell*, it could be possible that **instead of chaning the cells, it changes the body**. You get a convincing aging effect by moving fat around, and messing with the elasticity of the skin (removing collagen?). You may also want to alter the composition of bones to make them more fragile, take some water and potassium from the blood plasma (it will have some symptoms right away, and will also have some long term effects similar to premature aging).
Superficial effects:
* Dry irritated eyes
* Dry saggy skin
* Wrinkles
The person will suffer:
* Palpitations
* Heart arrhythmia
* Chest pain
* Dizziness
* Possible fainting
If the person does not faint:
* Joint pain
* Slow reflexes
* Cramps
* Spasms
* Poor balance
* Fragile bones
Take care, may break a bone...
Others:
* Fatigue
* Constipation
Possible long term psychological effects:
* Memory loss
* Depression
* Psychosis
* Delirium
I'd say it looks like aging to the average joe. The person will need quick medical attention after the *spell*.
I compiled the symptoms from a few web sites dedicated to medicines plus wikipedia, looking at calcium and potassium defficiency and also short and long time effects of severe dehydration. I took what made sense to me, under the assumption that magic can make it as bad as it needs to be.
In case you want to check, I took information from these sites: webmd.boots.com, healthline.com, everydathealth.com, wisegeekhealth.com and mayoclinic.org. And of course, wikipedia.org.
[Answer]
I'd say it's painful, but in a mental way. Knowing that your time is about to come when you would still have whole life ahead.
[Answer]
I don't think the actual aging process would be painful, as cell replication itself doesn't hurt. It does use up energy, so getting hit with an aging spell would likely be extremely exhausting and possibly cause you to pass out. There could also be the normal aches and pains that come with having an older body, which would probably seem more painful to a young person who gets all of them at once, rather than having years and years to become accustomed to it.
[Answer]
Probably somewhat painful, depending on how much you age. I would think the more prevailing sensation is weakness of limbs and a sense of lethargy as energy is sapped out as well and your cells, bones and body parts age prematurely.
[Answer]
Not really, or not for very long, because the body doesn't hold enough readily available energy in it to support this rate of rapid cell replication (nor enough materials to build new cells from but let's ignore that part) so it would start shutting down unnecessary systems like higher brain functions to save on energy consumption. Unless your spell also accelerated the pace chemical reactions take place and the body converts fat into energy. And then you could expect your subject to starve to death and/or get dehydrated within a couple of months' worth of ageing -- so within the space of a few seconds if I'm correct about how fast you want this rapid ageing to take place.
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[Question]
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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.
The year is 2030. The US has set up a moon base with about 2,000 people. The base can theoretically survive indefinitely, growing its own food and 3D-printing supplies, but in practice it needs trade with earth to get critical resources like lithium (no asteroid mining, yet).
This colony decides to declare independence in a way that they come out looking like the "good guys" (the US government, which they already didn't like, refused to let them give humanitarian aid to an "enemy" base, and tried to arrest them when they did anyways). The US military decides that it needs to reconquer the base within a year or two, or the American people will demand peace. Public support for the war is already lukewarm at best. Until this point, no space weapon systems have been built (though some may have been designed in secret).
My question is, how would the US go about re-conquering the lunar-colony?
**Constraints:**
* Technology is very close to present day. The war will end after 2 years at most, so there isn't much time to develop any radically new techs.
* Both sides are flying a mostly-reusable BFR-style rocket, which will cost the US military about 50 million per launch. The number of launches will be limited at first, unless they scale up production.
* China also has a moon base, on the south pole (the rebellious base is in a crater near the north pole). Chinese launch capabilities are more limited, but they could possibly supply the rebels with resources and equipment, if they can transport it long distances across the lunar surface. Russia and India are also willing to help the rebels, but they would need to hard-land payloads near the base, limiting their effectiveness.
* The rebels have about 6 BFRs, 3D printing capacity, and the ability to produce rocket fuel from water ice. They are also extremely technically adept (they're basically all brilliant engineers), and will be working on counter-measures.
* The moon base is one large structure that's mostly buried under ground. There are airlocks all over the place, and several large doors leading to the surface. The landing-pad is a few km away, and they travel back and forth in souped-up lunar rovers. These rovers can, theoretically, travel all the way to the moon's south pole, but only if they bring tons of solar panels to recharge along the way.
* The colony is powered by a massive solar array that surrounds part of it.
* Both sides start the conflict *hoping* to inflict as few casualties as possible. Politically, the US would rather give up the moon-base than see it fully destroyed. The rebels, meanwhile, will never even consider attacking civilians on Earth, although they will go after military targets if they feel they have to. Their support for the war is also lukewarm at best.
The two plans that come to mind are to either try to blockade Chinese resupply missions (though I'm not sure if the US has the ability to hit a convoy of lunar rovers), or to give spacesuits to a bunch of marines and have them storm the base Starship Troopers-style (though this seems incredibly dangerous and would result in high casualties). Neither of these plans seems great, so I'm curious to hear your thoughts?
[Answer]
The United States isn't going to allow the rebels freedom *because* of the consideration noted by StephenG: the rebels are on the top of a gravity well. A moonbase in rebellion is a deadly threat to the United States and her allies (and I'm going to suggest the Russians, Chinese and any other Great or even medium power isn't going to be very keen on this idea either) because they can launch large rocks on ballistic trajectories to crash onto Earthly targets with relative ease. This is, in fact, the plot driver behind Robert A Heinlein's "[The Moon is a Harsh Mistress](https://www.amazon.ca/Moon-Harsh-Mistress-Robert-Heinlein/dp/0312863551)"
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Uct6Z.jpg)
*What the AOR looks like*
Now while the Moon may be in an advantageous position in terms of gravity, the Earth is backed by the industrial resources of an entire planet and the manpower resources of 8 billion people, so even the most brilliant of Lunar engineers is going to be at the wrong end of things. For every brilliant Lunar engineer, there are tens of thousands of brilliant Earth engineers working at R&D establishments, and millions of ordinary engineers working in production facilities, backed by tens of millions of workers and hundreds of billions of dollars of financial resources. The Lunar colonists are still going to be boiling elements out of rock to get any resources they need....
While the US is likely going to use its diplomatic resources first, the most likely outcome is the leadership of the colony will receive a polite note from the United Nations suggesting they reconsider their position WRT US governance....or else.
In the mean time, since this is 2030, US Space Command is busy as well. A flurry of activity is happening at launch facilities across the United States and around the world. The President, following the example of the 45th POTUS, makes a multitude of contradictory posts on social media, allows an old personal relationship to dominate the news and continues "refilling the swamp", making the news follow these stories while the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State burn the phone lines. Finally, in an insanely choreographed performance, spaceships are launched from multiple pads at [Cape Canaveral](https://infogalactic.com/info/Cape_Canaveral_Air_Force_Station), [Vandenberg AFB](https://infogalactic.com/info/Vandenberg_Air_Force_Base), [Baikonur](https://infogalactic.com/info/Baikonur_Cosmodrome), [Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre](https://infogalactic.com/info/Jiuquan_Satellite_Launch_Center), [Satish Dhawan Space Centre](https://infogalactic.com/info/Satish_Dhawan_Space_Centre), [Palmachim Air Force Base](https://infogalactic.com/info/Palmachim_Airbase), [Tanegashima Space Centre](https://infogalactic.com/info/Tanegashima_Space_Center) and the [Guiana Space Centre](https://infogalactic.com/info/Guiana_Space_Centre), demonstrating that the Lunar Rebels are going to face the wrath of the entire planet (even if many of the spacecraft are unable to reach the moon in this launch phase).
Hidden among the various launches are a pair of S-37D's (now in service, the "X" moniker has been dropped), quickly setting course to the Moon.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/LM6Yo.jpg)
*X-37b, the predecessor to the S-37d*
On board, each spaceship has a brace of powerful non nuclear EMP weapons. If the ships don't receive orders by a specified time, they will release the EMP devices and blast the solar cell arrays and any surface power transmission lines. The concentrated energy will destroy the solar cell arrays and the transmission lines will pump high transient voltage spikes into the colony, damaging computer equipment and electronic devices, as well as any spacecraft or equipment parked on the lunar surface.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/tzaMd.jpg)
*Explosively driven EMP generator*
Faced with this display of power, the rebels *should* consider surrendering right away, and await the arrival of the US Marshals to take them into custody, while US Space Command personnel move to occupy the administrative and managerial positions.
[Answer]
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> The rebels have about 6 BFRs, 3D printing capacity, and the ability to produce rocket fuel from water ice. They are also extremely technically adept (they're basically all brilliant engineers), and will be working on counter-measures.
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> My question is, how would the US go about re-conquering the lunar-colony?
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The US Military would not.
Why ? Gravity.
In simple terms the "rebels" have the ability to create an effectively arbitrary number of rocket powered rocks (and I mean *large* rocks) to hurl at any point on Earth they want.
They can wipe out large chunks of the surface.
They can do this because the Moon's gravity is a fraction of Earth's and it also lacks an atmosphere.
It's essentially down hill most of the way for the object coming from the Moon. And conversely it's mostly *uphill* for the object coming from Earth. They have the high ground, and it's *fabulous* high ground.
For them to send a rocket powered rock to Earth, that will become a large and deadly meteor, is a relatively low energy task. They've got the fuel (Oxygen and Hydrogen) and they'd got rocks, so no problem making rudimentary rocket that do the deadly work.
They'll quite simply use this threat as a weapon of last resort. Try and take us over and we'll kill you all. Simple. This policy has a name : it's called [MAD](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction).
So there is, ultimately, no "win" scenario for the US military.
They can draw, but it's a draw where e.g. every large metropolitan area of the US is a wasteland.
It's not really possible for the Moon rebels to win, but they'd gain superpower status politically because being able to kill everyone is a pretty big stick diplomatically.
Short version : shoot the generals who want to attack the moon before the idiots doe something stupid and get everyone killed.
Now an early first strike *might* prevent the rebels from preparing this (very obvious) deterrent. However the rebels also have another advantage - the Chinese. The Chinese would be looking on thinking "If the US succeeds in taking that base back, they might get greedy and try it with ours.". Diplomatically they'll scream bloody murder and everyone's missiles will start going to alert status "far too high".
And even if the rebels can't get the Chinese to back them willingly, they *can* immediately threaten to launch every rocket they have against the Chinese base if they are attacked.
Now the correct way to deal with this is, of course, diplomacy.
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> The two plans that come to mind are to either try to blockade Chinese resupply missions (though I'm not sure if the US has the ability to hit a convoy of lunar rovers),
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World War 3 as it's also known. Unless you know a reason the Chinese would let you do this, it's an exceptionally dangerous move that could rapidly escalate into WW3. What exactly would you expect the Chinese response be to the first dead Chinese national ?
Lousy plan.
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> or to give spacesuits to a bunch of marines and have them storm the base Starship Troopers-style (though this seems incredibly dangerous and would result in high casualties).
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In theory you can storm any base and take it.
In practice you loose most or all of your people doing it.
This is almost a certainty when you factor in the nature of the base - all corridors and choke points. It's kill zone heaven for the defenders. For example - put a few containers of Hydrogen and Oxygen in every corridor and blow them when someone enters the corridor (by remote control) - result : Crispy Fried Marine.
Makes D-Day at Omaha beach look inviting. Think "Charge Of The Light Brigade" or "Pickett's Charge". That level of suicidal planning.
To take the base would probably mean killing every single person in it. There's no easy way to take such a base. You have to fight for very corridor, every room. Even if you did win, you'd look like the Nazis doing it. This has no happy ending, unless you don't like Marines because the casualty rate would be insanely high.
So not an option, IMO.
The best option : negotiate. Do a deal. Suck it up and make a face saving deal that "looks\* like they stay with the US (so they become a new State). Something like that. Maybe they become a US protectorate or some such nonsense. Maybe they'd be OK with that if the cash flow was right.
[Answer]
**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.
There may one or more (but not many) power junctions on the surface for easy routing of the solar grid power into the base. Hit those with missiles. My guess is that the fuel costs more energy to produce than it provides. You have simultaneously accomplished several things:
* Incentivized NOT launching rockets (because the colony may need that fuel to survive)
* Relocated some portion of defenders to a known locations (the generators - I assume you have a map of the base)
* Threatened the food supply (how long can those plants last without power)
You could stop there. I'm not certain how often that has worked. It might cause the rebels to reconsider, but it may just harden them. I'd like to see statistics on how often cutting the power alone leads to a peaceful surrender.
You could follow up with a blockade ring around one or both colonies to keep foreign supplies out.
Or you could follow up immediately with Marines at multiple airlocks in a shock & awe style attack coordinated to begin when the lights go out to take maximum advantage of the gap before backup generators are on-line.
[Answer]
**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.
They would arrange a terrible accident that suddenly wiped out all colonists but left the infrastructure in place (preferably but not necessary).
Boohoo, everyone one is very sad but space is a dangerous place. I'm sure the brave colonists would want us to carry on their brave mission so we're sending up new colonists to carry on the mission.
If you can make it look like an accident and declare all the colonists brave heroes, you'll come out smelling like roses.
The colonists would know this and would try for fail safes so arranged accidents couldn't happen without exposing it.
[Answer]
The weakest link in this setup is the solar arrays. If they are on the visible side of the Moon, they can be damaged from Earth, or LEO, based lasers, and the lunar colony would have no way to protect them.
It is a little more difficult to attack them, if they are on the far side of the Moon, but still they are the most vulnerable. Shooting lots of small projectiles, like grapeshot, from a distance, would do a great damage. They would be almost invisible, and arrive at the Moon like small meteorites, because there is no atmosphere to slow them down.
Neither of these measures would kill many people, they are well protected underground,
but the shortage of energy would force the colony to negotiate. Then the US can offer to install a nuclear power plant on the Moon, regain the support of the people both on the Earth and on the Moon and make a lasting peace. By controlling the energy source, and not allowing the colony to rebuild their large size solar arrays, they can remain firmly in control until the colony grows large enough to build its own nuclear reactor.
According to ESA the [natural flux of meteorite in space near Earth is](http://space-env.esa.int/madweb/hfluxes.php) "5.10-6 impact craters of 100 microns or greater per m2 per second (some 160 per year on 1 square metre) on HST solar arrays." It is less than a gram per m2 per year, yet those solar panels needs to be replaced regularily. On the surface of the Moon it would be a little higher, due to the gravity of the Moon, and the normal lifetime of the solar panels would be even shorter. But by intentional bombardment the flux could be raised much higher, and would speed up the aging of the solar panels considerably. The continuous bombardment would also make repair or replacement almost impossible.
The colony cannot retaliate with similar weapons. Although they can launch anything easily, their projectiles would either burn up in Earth's atmosphere, or would be big enough to intercept, long before impact.
[Answer]
**Isolate them economically**
Even if the colony is "self sufficient", like any other living community it needs trade, communication, people leaving, new people arriving, and so forth. A simple blockade would be the most effective way to reconquer the colony. Diplomatically, the US would argue truthfully that the base was *its citizens' property* and the residents thereof had no right to seize it. If the government was savvy it would offer amnesty/immunity to residents who surrender before a certain deadline. As the deadline approaches, every colonist would be tempted to take that free pass, rather than face likely prosecution and jail time in the near future; morale would plummet, and even those who persevere might be increasingly angry with the die-hards that persuaded them to rebel in the first place.
**The colonists best defense is cutting deals with other powers**
The colonists' best defense would be to immediately declare themselves open to trade with China, Russia, India, Japan, etc -- and use their six BFRs to import new residents from each of those nations. These new residents are a kind of "tripwire": if the US lays siege to the moon colony, it is essentially taking captive (and possibly starving to death) several good citizens of several of its important trading partners. I would also recommend that the colony open a bank and declare itself a tax haven with strict financial privacy laws; they might win quite a few powerful friends by offering discreet banking services to the world's billionaires.
The reason that the US will likely win anyway is that these colonists are presumably idealists -- or ideologues -- and would not want to sully themselves by making "compromises" no matter how pragmatical.
[Answer]
## Frame Challenge: Do Nothing
2,000 people is not nearly enough for the moon base to even hope to become an independent entity using near future tech. No nation on Earth with a population less than a few million can maintain the industrial and technological capacity to engage in modern warfare or space programs. It takes a lot of infrastructure to support a basic industrial economy here on Earth. And on Earth, we can afford to cut corners because we don't need to make our stuff able to endure the full radiation of the sun, or temperatures that go from 120C to -170 C, or the damaging effects of lunar regolith. The Moon is a very harsh place, and anything intended to survive on it needs to be engineered out of precisely the right materials (not stuff you can just 3d print), and parts will need to be frequently replaced. For that, your colonists will need support from Earth, and they will need it often.
The American government would not need to attack the moon directly because the base would be so far from self sufficient, that just refusing to send supplies would be a death sentence to the colonists. Moreover, the US government would be the only entity that knows the colony's specifications. If the colony needs a new pack of PX-500 air filters, and China tries to send them their closest equivalent to try to make a repair, then minor differences in manufacturing techniques could cause the colony to slowly vent its atmosphere into space, assuming the new part fits at all. So, not only does the colony need support from Earth, they need support from the US.
So, all the US government has to do to "win the war" is nothing. It won't take the rebels long to realize they their actions were in fact incredibly stupid and short-sighted. Chances are the leaders of the rebellion will be arrested or flee to the Chinese base without a fight, and the remaining colonists will stay behind and come back under US rule all on their own once the trouble makers are gone.
[Answer]
Earth could launch a series of missiles at the moon-base.
The first set are nuclear reactors capable of supplying power required by moon base if their solar farm stopped working. The reactors are controlled from Earth and rigged with self-destruct mechanisms if tampered with
The second set of missiles are paint balls and target the solar arrays, rendering them inoperable until cleaned.
But, not only is the moon a harsh mistress, she’s a fridged one, too. Without heating, ventilation and waste processing, the 2000 lunar colonists will die in a few days unless they accept the Earther’s terms and can hook up the nuclear reactors to their power grid.
[Answer]
## Take away their cable TV!
If people wanted to try, this would probably work on Earth as an alternative to shooting people to enforce bench warrants and unpaid fines. On the Moon it should work better, because there aren't many other entertainment options. First, you go for their movie streaming. If that doesn't work, you hobble their technical support by cutting access to Wikipedia and Stack Exchange. And if *that* doesn't work, you go for the rest of their internet connectivity, including PubMed and Sci-Hub. You tell me how long they're going to survive, on the *Moon*, without help from the ground, without being able to read scientific and technical literature.
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[Question]
[
Can firearm propellant be ignited by piezoelectric crystals that are activated by the trigger? This is for use in a world 50 years into the future similar to Earth. The people there are gearing for war and want to mass produce firearms with as few moving parts as needed without compromising their effectiveness in combat. If you wish, you can even describe mechanisms needed to make these semi- or fully automatic. The mechanism can either be struck by a force or ignited in a similar fashion to a lighter.
[Answer]
>
> The people there are gearing for war and want to mass produce firearms with as few moving parts as needed without compromising their effectiveness in combat.
>
>
>
If the goal is to produce weapons with as few moving parts as needed, piezoelectric ignition is a step backwards.
Electronic ignition [has been done before](https://www.forgottenweapons.com/remington-etronx-electrically-primed-ammunition-video/), but specifically piezoelectric ignition implies striking a piezoelectric crystal with a hammer, producing electricity which sets off the round.
There's just one problem with using that electricity to set off modern, smokeless propellant. Firearm propellants are designed to be stable, which is an important part of making them combust at a controlled rate rather than detonating inside the gun, so they are difficult to ignite via electricity or shock by design. This is why [primers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primer_(firearms)) exist; they produce a quick burst of heat sufficient to ignite the propellant.
So, even for a piezoelectric system, you're going to need a primer. And at that point, instead of designing a firearm to have a firing pin which strikes a piezoelectric crystal which triggers a primer which in turn ignites the propellant, why not simplify the design and omit the piezoelectric crystal entirely?
Note that in the real world, electronically-fired guns do not use piezoelectric systems. The most common form of electronically-fired ammo runs an electric current through a resistor taking the place of primer, and that resistor heating up supplies the thermal energy necessary to ignite the propellant. This requires a power source and onboard control circuitry, both of which dramatically increase the complexity and fragility of a weapon.
[Answer]
It has been done. This chain discusses some of the past experiments: <https://www.ar15.com/forums/general/Piezoelectric_Firearms__Primers_/5-1653460/>
RPG7 uses a peizo electric primer, and Remington had a peizo electric primed cartridge for its 700 series, but the ammunition was cost prohibitive. <http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2013/12/chris-dumm/electric-cartridge-primers-gone-but-not-lamented/>
[Answer]
Your firearm could use an actuator based on the [inverse piezoelectric effect](http://applied-piezo.com/piezoelectric-effect/), where an applied voltage produces a displacement in a piezoelectric material. Some ink jet printers use this technology to expel drops of ink.
[Displacements of a few mm](https://www.piceramic.com/en/piezo-technology/properties-piezo-actuators/displacement-modes/) are easily obtainable, with a tradeoff between displacement and impact force.
In this case, the piezoelectric material would move a firing pin which would impact the primer in a typical round of ammunition. The trigger could be replaced by a touch sensor (removing one moving part), and the associated circuitry could produce semi- or full-automatic fire.
The added electronics leave room for lots of interesting wrinkles, like fingerprint ID, double-tap for auto, booby traps in the event of enemy capture. Your list will undoubtedly be longer.
[Answer]
>
> mass produce firearms with as few moving parts as needed without compromising their effectiveness in combat
>
>
>
If the goal is to minimize moving parts, what about railguns?
<https://science.howstuffworks.com/rail-gun1.htm>
Railguns can fire ammunition that is otherwise inert without any moving parts. The loading mechanism should even be able to be replaced with a system similar to the firing mechanism itself at lower power.
However, the more advanced the machine, the less likely field repair becomes. Complexity also usually increases number of things that can fail. That being said, guns are only as reliable as they are due to generations of improvements. If your civilization developed along a different path, railguns may have become the default before traditional guns and a very stable configuration was found.
[Answer]
A propellent design to ignite throu either the heat of a battery and tank circuit to switch to a self to a vacuum in the cartridge with a gas discharge like mercury plasma passing through a pourous propellent like nitrocellulose.
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An ideal punishment for evil scientists or geniuses would be a judicially mandated, deliberate decrease in intelligence. Let's say that a judge ordered a person's IQ to be decreased from 200 to 110. How would the sentence be carried out?
Note that the sentence does not mean turning a genius into an idiot but a genius into a normal man. The procedure may be more or less painful or gruesome but the IQ should be not lower than the prescribed level and additional mental diseases should be prevented.
Let's assume that we use simple modern tech, e.g. have access to the medical and technological arsenal of our time. Refer to the answers of my question about [deafening](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/87141/how-would-deafening-as-punishment-be-carried-out).
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This exact premise was explored in the truly excellent short story Harrison Bergeron, by Kurt Vonnegut.
<http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html>
From the text
>
> It was tragic, all right, but George and Hazel couldn't think about it
> very hard. Hazel had a perfectly average intelligence, which meant she
> couldn't think about anything except in short bursts. And George,
> while his intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental
> handicap radio in his ear. He was required by law to wear it at all
> times. It was tuned to a government transmitter. Every twenty seconds
> or so, the transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep people
> like George from taking unfair advantage of their brains.
>
>
> George and Hazel were watching television. There were tears on Hazel's
> cheeks, but she'd forgotten for the moment what they were about.
>
>
> On the television screen were ballerinas.
>
>
> A buzzer sounded in George's head. His thoughts fled in panic, like
> bandits from a burglar alarm.
>
>
> "That was a real pretty dance, that dance they just did," said Hazel.
>
>
> "Huh" said George.
>
>
> "That dance-it was nice," said Hazel.
>
>
> "Yup," said George. He tried to think a little about the ballerinas.
> They weren't really very good-no better than anybody else would have
> been, anyway. They were burdened with sashweights and bags of
> birdshot, and their faces were masked, so that no one, seeing a free
> and graceful gesture or a pretty face, would feel like something the
> cat drug in. George was toying with the vague notion that maybe
> dancers shouldn't be handicapped. But he didn't get very far with it
> before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts.
>
>
> George winced. So did two out of the eight ballerinas.
>
>
> Hazel saw him wince. Having no mental handicap herself, she had to ask
> George what the latest sound had been.
>
>
> "Sounded like somebody hitting a milk bottle with a ball peen hammer,"
> said George.
>
>
>
[Answer]
Depending on the tech level of your world, I see a few different solutions being plausible.
## 1. A [lobotomy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobotomy)
(as mentioned by A.C.A.C. in the comments) reduces the amount of complexity a person's brain can handle, by simply cutting out a portion of the physical brain. Lobotomies were widely used as a treatment for mental disorders in the 1940s and 50s:
>
> They achieved their effects by "reducing the complexity of psychic
> life." Following the operation, spontaneity, responsiveness,
> self-awareness and self-control were reduced. Activity was replaced by
> inertia, and people were left emotionally blunted and restricted in
> their intellectual range. ([from wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobotomy#Effects))
>
>
>
One scientist referred to lobotomies as "surgically induced childhood," which would certainly be a solution to a criminal having too much intellect for their own good.
## 2. Brain-eating creatures
In some universes there are creatures that feed upon the brains of humans, while leaving the rest of their bodies intact. For example, [Mind Flayers](http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Mind_flayer) in D&D or [Ceti Eels](http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Ceti_eel) in Star Trek both affect the brains of sentient beings in a very damaging way. However, this method has the greatest potential for getting out of hand and reducing the victim to a vegetative state, or killing them completely -- therefore, those inflicting the punishment would need to exert strict control over the creature that was unleashed on the victim's brain, stopping them as soon as their brain has been damaged enough.
## 3. Intellect-affecting spells
If magic is a part of your world, a permanent variation of a [Confusion](https://www.dnd-spells.com/spell/confusion) or [Curse](https://www.dnd-spells.com/spell/bestow-curse) spell could very effectively prevent their scheming. Another option is a spell of [Bad Luck](http://dnd.arkalseif.info/spells/spell-compendium--86/unluck--4655/), which if powerful enough (and again, permanent) could effectively prevent them from making any significant intellectual breakthrough, thus foiling all their plans before they even happen.
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The basis of this idea (e.g., chemically reducing intellect) has already been explored in an episode of "House M.D." ([Ignorance is Bliss](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignorance_Is_Bliss_(House))) The episode describes how it was medically accomplished. Methinks that's exactly what you're looking for.
From the synopsis on Wikipedia...
>
> The remaining symptoms are explained after the discovery of his
> addiction to DXM [dextromethorphan] (mixed with alcohol to prevent
> brain damage), which he used to reduce his intellect.
>
>
>
From the *[Encyclopedia of Addictive Drugs](http://1.droppdf.com/files/X7AmY/encyclopedia-of-addictive-drugs.pdf),* page 110.
>
> Most persons find the drug unpleasant if the medically
> recommended dosage is exceeded, with unwanted effects such as easy
> excitability, **memory trouble,** nausea, itching, interference with
> male sexual function, slurred speech, **trouble with thinking,** and
> difficulty with moving arms and legs.
>
>
>
[Answer]
Tell them they can leave once they prove the Collatz conjecture.
They will begin overconfident, and then as they begin to realize the difficulties, they'll begin working through the night. Their tired minds will begin hallucinating of numbers, trees and streams of collatz numbers, connected and spiraling down toward one, Paul Erdos' words echoing in their head...
Soon, they will dream only of solving the Collatz conjecture. No more evil geniusing for them.
---
More seriously, some sort of psychological restraint - training them to have a pathological fear of fortresses, or focusing their thought on some sort of problem absolutely worthless - might be worth trying.
[Answer]
A slow release implant, much like long term contraception, that slowly releases a low dose of a sedative or tranquilliser. It's hard to be an evil supergenius if your ability to focus on anything is reduced by drugs. Productivity drops significantly if...zzZZZzzzz
*Wakes up*
Sorry, what was I saying? It's lunch time? I'll try and get back to this later, if I can be bothered.
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A fellow from the near future is sent on a mission to ancient Greece where he needs to impersonate Zeus. What kind of device would best approximate the mythical bucket of thunderbolts? Also, style matters - Zeus-impersonator needs to look appropriately god-like in a toga in a storm while throwing his bolts - merely pressing a button on a hand-held phaser wouldn't have the requisite effect on his worshipers.
[Answer]
# **Flash-bang grenades.**
It would look something like this. (I'll call your Zeus impersonator "Bob" for brevity.)
Now that Bob was standing in front of the propylaea which led to the Acropolis, a large crowd had assembled around him, waiting expectantly to hear the words of this unusual stranger.
"***People of Athens,***" Bob said in Ancient Greek, having checked that his tiny microphone was broadcasting to the hidden speakers that he had planted around the gateway, "***I am the All-Father Zeus, son of Cronus, chief of gods, father of kings.***" As his digitally amplified and deepened voice echoed off of the white marble, he grasped his modified flash-bang grenade in his raised right hand. The grenade, which was in the middle, was encased in a long tube filled with glowing neon, so that the "lightning bolt" appeared to constantly flash white-and-blue.
"***I have come to [insert reason for impersonation]. Now bow before me, or I shall smite you with bolts of lightning. Come, who now defies the great god Zeus?***"
A rather ugly-looking old man stood up.
"I am Socrates, son of Sophroniscus. What evidence show you, to your claiming to be the great Zeus? For I do not believe anything unless it has been examined." Around him, the crowd was slowly backing away from Socrates, fearful of the retribution that was sure to come.
"***What evidence show I? WHAT EVIDENCE SHOW I?***" As his voice rose, so did his hand, bringing the dreaded thunderbolt with it, depressing the hidden button to prepare the flash-bang to go off upon impact.
## "***I AM ZEUS!***"
Socrates had but a fraction of a second to realize what he had done, and then everything went white.
The flash of light lit up the Acropolis. Across Athens, free men and slaves alike heard the roar of thunder, echoing and re-echoing off the Aeropagus and the Mouseion Hills. Back at "ground zero", Bob stood unaffected, having had earplugs in his ears and having closed his eyes at the moment of impact. While the crowd was blinded, he had slipped another thunderbolt out of his voluminous robes.
"Who defies Zeus?" he asked, quietly in a way that was at the same time threatening.
As one, the crowd fell to its knees.
[Answer]
Some sort of rocket launcher with an explosive warhead. The rocket engine provides the bolt, the warhead provides the thunder and flash. The [M72](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M72_LAW) reaches effective range in roughly one second, so the effects will make their combined impression.
There is no need to defeat armor, so a smaller fragmentation warhead could be fitted. This allows a smaller rocket motor, which makes the entire thing lighter. Maximum range could probably go down, too. It could be possible to fit half a dozen into a bucket.
Or perhaps the [M202](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M202_FLASH) could be mistaken for bolts in a bucket.
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As long as the people of ancient Greece were blind, gullible, or morons then using a grenade or rocket would work pretty well. My only response is that either your "lightning bolts" are abstractions or you've never seen/studied the area where a lightning strike (recently) happened. Lightning travels at speeds on the order of 100,000 m/s.
One of the fastest manually carried/launched missiles today is the Starstreak (speed over 1300 m/s). It would be theoretically possible to accelerate a missile in space so that it hits that speed (100 km/s) upon entering the Earth's atmosphere. Of course, this doesn't allow your actor to throw it.
There are both systems which have used lasers to ionize a path through the air allowing an electrical discharge. There are also wire-carrying rockets which allow the same thing. But again, neither of these systems will "look" like a guy throwing a spear.
I suppose you've heard what Abraham Lincoln has said?
>
> You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.
>
>
>
So, I can't discount the possibility of people buying the "he threw real lightning!" story. I do believe that a skeptical observer would easily see through that. So the question is: how far from "real" lightning can you go, without people calling you out on it?
I personally like the idea of tossing a flash-bomb which hides the (near-by) launch of a rocket (unless you think a shoulder launch would be ok) which is targeted by either a drone or your hidden side-kick using an ir laser.
The pros of this idea is you're only limited by the number of flash-bangs you can carry (and if they look like glowing bolts while you're holding them (think of glow sticks), that could be a plus). To be clear, you'd have to be far enough away from the witnesses so that they wouldn't see (or if they did see it, wouldn't think it important) the residue of the flash-bang. So, it would have to be choreographed: you toss the flash-bang, it explodes no more than a couple of meters away and through the subsequent smoke cloud, comes an ir guided missile. Not particularly lightning like, but there you go.
So, the detonation when it hits the target wouldn't be "lightning-like" either, so there would be plenty of reason to not "buy" the story, if some pedant wanted to point out that it wasn't "real" lightning. But, hey, there's billions of people that believe the dead can come back to life. Perhaps an incendiary warhead would be better than a high-explosive one. At least then the strike would be mostly burned, rather than mostly blown apart. (ie a combo small hi-explosive, large incendiary warhead, understanding that your rocket isn't going to completely disintegrate, and so you will leave evidence at the scene.)
There are rockets designed to (mostly) disintegrate, but I'm not familiar enough with that (cardboard) technology to say whether the difference would be enough to use them. But hey, in a story, why not? You can have the thing mostly made of disintegrating components, leaving no evidence behind. (The accuracy of such a rocket could only be crude, I'm not sure it could be IR guided...)
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Someone with advanced technology would throw thunderbolts by simply generating a massive electric charge and directing it where they wanted.
How could they direct that charge? By giving it a trail of ionized gas to follow, which is more conductive than simple air. That could be done by spraying ionized gas in the desired direction, or a directed electromagnetic pulse that would ionize enough air in the right direction, to give the massive charge a conductive trail to follow.
For a demonstration of this effect, look up the Apollo 12 launch. It was struck by lightning twice, when the ionized gas from the massive F1 engines created a 'lightning rod' to the ground, from thunderstorm clouds nearby. The Apollo 12 launch incident also spawned a nerd legend, when EECOM John Aaron uttered the words "SCE to AUX" after the lightning strike, saving the second moon mission.
[Answer]
I will tell you.
He uses laser filamentation to create a conductive channel across the air :
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/az1xc.jpg)
[Laser Induced Plasma Channel Weapon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tJF3qBWyUk)
Air has a limited capacity to carry light. After a certain light density (created by compressing laser light pulses into terajoules packets) and frequency (blue is more ionizing than red, for one), laser pulses will cause air to break down and become electrically charged. This means that air becomes IONIZED. Ionization of air allows it to carry charge, like a electrical conductor. If you combine a high voltage source with a compressed laser pulse generator, you can discharge the high voltage source current across the ionized air channel created by the laser pulse, effectively creating on demand thunderbolts wich with to attack your target. Thats how a technological Zeus would use thunderbolts as a weapon.
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Maxie Zeus, a supervillain in DC, use a lighting staff shaped like lighting. It can be done easily with an arc welder. In "Batman: Arkham Asylum" by Grant Morrison and Dave McKean he is plugged into electroshock machine that give him nice blueish glow.
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[
In order for different humanoid races (humans, elves, orcs, dwarves..) to evolve, they need to be separated for a long time, in different environments. However, if all races are supposed to be sentient, their common ancestor must have been sentient. If we take this as the point where humans have become behaviorally modern, that common ancestor would develop into a modern society in about 50,000 years. However, that does seem a somewhat short time-scale to allow for different evolutionary paths, considering anatomically modern humans are about 200,000 years old.
Somehow, development of civilization would have to be suspended for about 150,000 years to allow for additional evolution. The most logical target would be agriculture, which arose about 10,000 years ago, which suggests that agriculture takes a while to figure out, but once it's there, civilization will develop quickly.
Although development of agriculture is slow, it's somewhat inevitable, as even in Aboriginal Australia some very early forms where practiced before the Europeans arrived. Locking every race out of suitable areas would seem futile.
A thought I had was to use a volcanic or impact winter, where conditions would simply be too harsh to allow for effective agriculture. But what I could find of their time-scales, they seemed too short.
So how could cognitively modern humanoids be delayed in agriculture, and civilization after that, to give them enough time to evolve into different races?
[edit] I know of the question [Multiple humanoid evolution](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/10102/how-would-multi-race-humanoid-evolution-happen). This question is about timescales, since it generally takes longer for a species to evolve than to develop civilization after attaining behavioral modernity.
[Answer]
## We've observed agricultural delay in real life.
According to our friends at [History SE](https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/94/what-are-the-factors-that-caused-the-new-world-civilizations-to-be-less-technolo), agricultural ineffiency was enough to set the New World (Americas) way behind the Old World (Eurasia, Africa) technologically. By copying the factors that slowed farming down in real life, and by making them more severe, you can semi-realistically diverge the populations.
The info below is from the link I provided above. I do not claim it as my own; this is just paraphrased research fitted for the topic.
* **Make the continents vertical.** Cultivated plants and animals could spread easily across Europe and Asia, according the above link, because the **latitude is similar throughout**, causing fairly similar temperatures. By creating a beachball-like world, with longitudinal oceans and continents, you will make it significantly harder to spread farming techniques and crops.
* **Make the ecosystem harsh.** Farmers in the Old World were fortunate enough to have fairly adaptable plants and animals - easy to domesticate and breed - while those in the New World had a much more difficult task at hand. Make a more hostile environment on the populated continents, in which it simply takes more effort and time to perfect farming practices. Perhaps the introduction of magic, dragons, etc. pressures animals to be ferocious in response - or good at evading predators - so it's not easy to work with other species.
* **Separate individual civilizations.** Aside from environmental factors, you can design the world so that it's hard to spread knowledge. Consider fjords (which aren't great for agriculture, so would slow it down further) that make travel a burden, or even dangerous - or insurmountable mountain ranges that must be circumnavigated, which takes three years, etc. If it's hard to share knowledge, people will not advance as quickly.
+ Note: don't make it so hard to travel that groups evolve separately. You can create an analogy of "race" - populations with different skin color, eye color, etc - but don't make it so hard that new species develop.
In addition to the ideas provided on the link above, you could also consider
* **Infertility.** Using islands or mountains as natural barriers will also influence the climate conditions, making it much more difficult to grow food until you determine exactly how.
[Answer]
**Define sentient** becasue you don't need to delay agriculture to get several equally intelligent humanoids. It has already happened in the past.
Humanoids have been using fire for over a million years, stone tools for much longer. Thats plenty of time to get a diversity of intelligent hominids. There were at least [four](http://www.sci-news.com/othersciences/anthropology/science-neanderthal-genome-fourth-lineage-01624.html) distinct subspecies that gave rise to modern humans, not to mention other hominids around that did not directly lead to us, like florensis.
*Homo sapiens sapiens*
*Homo sapiens neanderthalis*
*Homo sapiens altai*
*Homo sapiens* unnamed (no bones just genetic evidence)
**All of which are believed to have been equally intelligent** and had similar levels of technology including clothing and cooked their food. They just spread and eventually interbed until they were no longer distinct.
**you don't have to delay agriculture just make it a little harder for each subspecies to spread and/or interbreed**. You can do this by making the continents a bit more isolated, or make the climate more stable so they become a bit more environmentally specialized.
Perhaps Neanderthal moved into mountains and tundra and became dwarves, Or denisovans were adapted for a desert climate and became orcs. Maybe Elves are adapted for the deep jungle.
I remember a cladogram I made for 4 common races. Dwarves rarely interbred becasue they were the first to split off and thus physically the most different, orcs, humans, and elves were closely related with orcs and elves being sister taxa (becasue of the ears). The only reason elves and orcs did not interbreed more often was due entirely to differences in desirable characteristics. Orcs and elves just had very different ideals of attractiveness in males and females, they just looked ugly to each other.
[Answer]
**consider a predictory factor**
So if your not going with the usual 'we were each *created* separately and are going for an evolutionary standpoint, try using different factions and they're response to superior predators to handle this, for instance:
1. One faction decides to go into hiding deep beneath the earth, and a special mineral or their water or what-have-you begins effecting their lifespan, while centuries in the dark and in small caves effects their height and eyesight. Dwarves check.
2. One faction decides to deep into the untamed wilderness, (could probably develop some sort of legend where they find the tree of life or something for their longevity.) and over the centuries of immortality they became masters of the woods and it's secrets. Elves check.
3. humans themselves could just be the stubborn faction that refused to leave where ever this super-predator hunted, and thus they never really developed at all. humans check.
4. orcs could be similar to dwarves if you like, some of them practiced dark magic that went horribly wrong and they became mutilated monsters. This would make them young compared to dwarves civilizational development and that's even if you have a magic system. Orcs check.
So that's them all evolving from common ancestors, but really just accepting that each species was created at a different time and (at the start) very far away could work just as well. In many books I've read the dwarves minded their business deep in the mountains for quite some time, while the elves traveled to the current continent and already were somewhat advanced, this lets you sort of control the development of each race without them interfearing with each other's development.
[Answer]
H Sapiens appeared by 190000 years ago, but agriculture was delayed until 12000 years ago due to the ice ages. Only when the ice ages ended could agriculture develop. Extending the ice age would have delayed agriculture.
[Answer]
My first thought is what Zxyrra writes up: not all regions here on Earth developed agroculture. Maybe suitable species did not exist *anywhere*.
Now the other thing: there have indeed been multiple intelligent hominins alive at the same time (just not anymore). We even had [hobbits](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_floresiensis)!
So why do you need to reach the point of modern humans *before* dividing into more species?
Consider also that humans have extremely poor variation, due to bottlenecks in the past. If that were not the case, then maybe you would get the differences you want **much faster**. Dogs, for example, are rather flexible and you have great danes and chihuahuas, all as one species.
So why not allow your progenitor species to have **high** diversity and the same kind of genetic flexibility? The different peoples you have could start out as simply different breeds of the same species, and then separately lose the diversity through bottlenecks or founder effects.
[Answer]
**SLOWING AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT DOWN**
As noted in other questions, an extended Ice Age is a great solution to the problem. See the human section below on how I would handle that.
The other way to do it is to have other disasters strike, that are difficult to recover from. I gave the dwarves and orcs and magical cataclysm (see below) but it really can be anything. The best answer here isn't necessarily that you have to extend anything, but that you hit the race as they develop and then agriculture gets pushed back again.
You might even get creative, and you can stop exploration or societal evolution with other things--an illness that wipes out much of the population in one place or rampant xenophobia and fear of the beyond which can be borne from magic, illness or other things.
And, if this is a fantasy world, exploration and spreading out may be hindered by magical barriers, or getting eaten by fantastic creatures. Natural barriers like a vast ocean can also help.
**SPEEDING UP EVOLUTION**
You can also use magical "radiation" in order to speed up the evolutionary process, basically use certain magical zones to drive evolution towards specific environmental adaptations, which may happen at a faster rate because of the magic present.
Depends on your flavor of dwarves, elves and so on...
Dwarves--
Suited to the underground. Traits they may have include a lack of magic, a resistance to magic, short stature and other things. They tend to be short and wide. Perhaps a magical cataclysm in their area drove them underground, and any that survived had a natural resistance. The area around their caverns were, perhaps, so dangerous that no others could or wanted to explore them for many thousands of years or perhaps longer. This underground life means that agriculture is not a top priority because of the lack of sunlight. The dwarves in my world dislike and are a bit allergic to sunlight because of this.
Orcs--
Can live at the fringes of the cataclysm. They were the ones who survived, but didn't have a magical resistance.
Elves--
Tend to be good with magic and nature. Slender. Can be taller or shorter than your standard human depending on what you want to do with them. They tend to be forest-minded rather than agriculturally minded, so you want to put them someplace where the forest is so abundant that agriculture isn't needed, or they've adapted to need less. The magic in their area can be more benign, but cut off by dangerous zones.
Humans--
Maybe they do develop agriculture, and maybe there's a series of Ice Ages, each one setting back civilization by many years. Imagine your standard Ice Age, give humans enough time to start to develop agriculture and then hit 'em with an Ice Age again.
[Answer]
Well, humanity(that is the Homo genus) has existed for around 2 million years, that is plenty of time for the small changes, but maybe you want something bigger. The best way of doing this is to have the more radically different ones in barren terrain, such as ice fields, deserts or mountains. They will take longer to discover agriculture.
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The reason agriculture developed was not time, there were no particular progressive changes in behavior or tool use that made agriculture possible. Agriculture became possible because of the environment. The ice age had ended, wild edible grasses were around and ripe for cultivation, and the climate was appropriate for semi-settled populations to develop.
So the simplest way to delay the development of agriculture is delay the end of the last ice age. The ice age took, say, twice as long, giving you another few hundred thousand years. That would give you plenty of time.
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# Remove Ungulate species
See <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ungulate>
Without cows/horse/yak/... to help us labouring/transporting/fertilizing/...
Agriculture would be much harder.
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Suppose a mad engineer needs the world destroyed by next Tuesday. For efficiency's sake, he considers "Gray Goo," a hypothetical end-of-the-world scenario in which self-replicating machines devour the entire planet while building more of themselves.
Realistically, **what would be required** (in terms of technology, resources, schedule, etc) to successfully transform the planet into all-consuming nanomachine?
Ethics aside, **what are the fundamental flaws** of the Gray Goo scenario?
**What are the properties** of a nanomachine network engineered to become Gray Goo?
This is not so much a question on how to write a believable Gray Goo disaster as a reality check of the concept itself.
(I may be inspired to resume my mad-science degree this turns out to be feasible, so please do your best to dissuade me today :) )
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I'll just answer one of your questions - the fundamental flaw.
The fundamental flaw is energy. Where to get it, and how to dispose of the waste heat.
Do the machines each have a nano-sized fusion reactor? Your mad scientist has to be truly amazing for that to work.
Do the machines at the top of the heap have solar cells, and then distribute the energy they gather to other machines with a network of some sort? Are the machines really that cooperative? Evolutionary selection would set in pretty quickly, I would think, and blow that cooperative structure up.
How do the machines deal with waste heat? Once you've turned the top several kilometers of the earth's crust into machines, the ones at the bottom would be cooked from below by the earth's mantle and from above by their colleagues.
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> self-replicating machines devour the entire planet while building more of themselves
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That sounds like "life." Unless you're living in space, you're surrounded by living things - bacteria, plants, other people, etc. All life is essentially trying to devour the entire planet by building more and more of themselves. We've even got mechanisms in place to help each generation be more successful than the ones before them!
...so why is the Earth still here? As @JohnFeltz mentioned, one of the big problems is energy - it takes energy to grow and reproduce and synthesize chemicals.
Another issue is that Earth is not a big ball of chocolate. There are a lot of elements, 90 of them in fact, that naturally make up the Earth. [Oxygen makes up about 46% of the Earth's crust, and Silicon makes up about 28% of it](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth%27s_crust). That means your gray goo will have to consist mostly of silicon and oxygen.
What to do with all those other pesky elements? *That's the hard question.* No two elements behave exactly the same way, and their behavior also changes based on the chemical compounds they are in - for example, our bodies have tons of hydrocarbons in them and we breathe in plenty of nitrogen, but if you put one hydrogen, one carbon, and one nitrogen together in the right way you get the extremely poisonous [hydrogen cyanide](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_cyanide).
So to start with you need a superintelligent AI running the show (and there's no guarantee that such an AI is even possible. I talked about this [in a previous answer](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/18184/6781)). It would need to have a complete understanding of physics and chemistry in order to understand how to break down any given material into usable components. Chances are that even then there will be elements for which there is no real use, so your best case scenario would be that there would be a giant landfill of those unusable elements and everything else has been converted.
I'd also forget about trying to do this with nanomachines, which the "gray goo" scenario typically implies. Bacteria have had a very long time to learn how to compete with each other, so nanomachines have a severe disadvantage.
One way that you could both provide enough energy and have a way to deal with unusable elements would be to discover a way to easily convert matter directly into energy and vice versa. You'll still have to deal with waste heat (and there's going to be a lot of it), but things will be much easier if you can take something like [Radon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radon), convert it into energy, and then use that energy to produce some useful carbon, iron, or whatever it is your machines need the most.
So until you master the matter->energy->matter conversions, I'd suggest trying for much simpler game of [global thermonuclear war](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WarGames).
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The main issue with the Grey Goo scenario is, as others have stated, energy. When you get right down to basics, self-replicating machines are basically just a new kind of life form, and will be under the same pressures to survive as any other living organism. You can't turn the entire planet's mass into robots without running into problems with energy sources and waste heat, so you're going to have to lower your ambitions somewhat to wiping out all organic life, turning the surface of the planet into one big solar power plant, and turning the crust into a network of geothermal power plants, with maybe some supercomputers in between. Still, an admirable goal for an aspiring mad scientist.
If you want your nanobots to take over the world, you need to build a better life form. So the question is, can human technology one-up billions of years of evolution and outcompete all life?
But all hope(?) is not lost! There are a few areas where engineers can put Mother Nature in her place, and one of those is, interestingly enough, energy. Photosynthesis is not actually all it's cracked up to be - it's good enough for life, but solar panels are about 10 times better at converting solar energy into usable power.
Evolution, for all its competitive spirit, tends to be more focused on survival and reproduction than killing. Sure, organisms kill each other all the time, but they do so *because* it enables them to reproduce, they don't reproduce in order to kill. Since you're engineering the goals and prime directive of this new form of life, you can give it different priorities, and most life will not be able to adapt fast enough to oppose them.
Also, you can let your machines build a computer to control their global takeover strategy, which most living organisms cannot do. Program it with your ultimate goal so that it can continue working on your objective once it has eaten you.
Unfortunately, nanobots can't construct things *that* fast, so destroying the world by next Tuesday is out of the question. And sooner or later pesky environmentalists and any other people who would rather the Earth not be destroyed will start to fight back. Now you're just dealing with a robot war. You can probably win that, though, provided you've planned ahead well enough.
You'll probably want to start your takeover of Earth in a place like the Sahara where silicon and sun are easy to come by. Start with self-replicating solar panels and turn the desert into your starter power source. The best part is, you don't have to give away your true intentions at this point - exploiting the desert's solar energy is a wonderful goal, and you can probably get world governments supporting you before you reveal your true intentions.
You can divert some of that energy to drilling into the Earth for geothermal power. More free energy...and more space to hide your growing robot army.
Once you have set your forces in place, it's time to reveal your hand. Now all you need to do is make more desert, and that's easy - we've been doing it for years without even trying. Slash and burn your way to victory!
Once you've converted the surface of the planet into one big solar factory and turned the inside into a network of geothermal plants, you're pretty close to exploiting all of the Earth's energy resources to their maximum potential.
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converting the entire planet into "grey goo" is quite infeasible, However you don't need to consume the earth for a grey goo scenario just consuming every living thing on earth would do just fine. an analysis of the feasibility of this is outlined in [this](https://www.foresight.org/nano/Ecophagy.html) paper. (if the first link doesn't work [here](http://lifeboat.com/ex/global.ecophagy) is another link to the paper)
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Given advanced enough telescopic technology, would it be possible to detect that a planet in the order of 50 light years away is inhabitable? (i.e. without having to actually go there)
I'm just looking for the basics here - presence of water, enough oxygen in the atmosphere, temperature, and sunlight (perhaps a bit dimmer than on Earth but still bearable) and assume the technology exists to "fine tune" i.e. remove unexpected toxic gasses from the atmosphere, turn the local algae into plant-growing soil, etc.
But here is the hard part, my scenario involves such a planet that people on Earth decided to colonise, but once they got there, they discovered that it wasn't inhabitable at all - lifeless and without atmosphere like the Moon, as well as unbearably cold and as dark as say, here on Earth in the moonlight.
So my question is, what could lead advanced astronomers to make such a mistake despite being really confident in their initial belief?
I'd prefer an answer where the astronomers got it wrong, rather than circumstances changing during the journey (e.g. a Solar flare destroying the atmosphere or something)
**Edit after a bit of thinking time**
I've been thinking that a huge undetected magnetic cloud made of handwavium particles between us and them could disrupt the light coming to us, messing with frequencies, etc. However, I think this would make the planet appear darker than it really is - I want it to appear brighter than it really is. Is there any kind of lensing effect something like this could have that would make either the local stars (it's a binary system) or the planet's own reflected light seem brighter? Maybe it could make the planet look closer to the star than it really is and they would deduce that the planet is brighter than it actually is?
It is OK if the astronomers involved are not 100% sure that they are right. External pressures will force them to launch the mission anyway. Also, there are no aliens any more advanced than maybe plant life.
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Getting any one factor wrong would be unlikely, but quite possible. But getting *all* of them (temperature, atmosphere, etc) wrong would defy belief.
Temperature would be the hardest to get wrong. Observing all of the planet's radiation gives a spectrum curve that translates into a surface temperature. If anything else was resulting in that radiation, it would have to move with the planet and match its expected output. Only a planet-sized object could do that, which would throw off all other observations.
Presence of water and oxygen will be a little more realistic to get wrong. In any case, you will be looking at some phenomenon that we've never observed before, making it so out-of-the-box that the astronomers don't consider the scenario.
## It's all in the moons
During the planet's formation, it somehow lost all the light particles to nearby objects, leaving it without an atmosphere. Much later it captured these objects, giving it a ring of moons that are essentially blobs of dirty oxygen-rich water. Dark dust inside the moons absorbs a lot of sunlight, warming them to just above the melting point but not so much they evaporate. (This situation would normally not be stable over long periods of time)
Note: It needs to be liquid water because absorption lines are different for each phase of water, so astronomers would notice there is a lot of ice but no liquid water if the moons were frozen.
## It's the one-in-ten-billion planet
This planet has an atmosphere (but no oxygen) and is covered with seas (but not of water). Instead, it has some amazing organic ooze. For some incredible reason, the ooze absorbs frequencies associated with hydrogen, oxygen, water, it even points to photosynthesis. Except they are all due to strange molecules that have nothing to do with water or anything. Truly a one-in-ten-billion coincidence.
## It's a trap!
The astronomers are not to blame: Advanced aliens have put a cloud of nano-engineered particles around the planet that absorb exactly the frequencies that indicate the presence of those substances carbon-based lifeforms look for.
It may be a relic of a long-gone space war or pirate trap, but that no longer matters. Underneath the cloud, there's nothing.
## It's... an anti-planet!
This is the most outlandish option: The entire solar system is made of anti-matter. It's exceptionally empty (all the floating anti-matter already having annihilated with normal matter from outside this area), so that the ship is fairly safe, but the lander sent out ahead explodes in a multi-megaton blast on first contact with the outer atmosphere.
The colonists can only stare at that beautiful living world, but they can never go there.
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Cold and without light is a huge stretch. Especially when there is no atmosphere. I mean you can have a thick atmosphere blocking the sunlight but without that, it all depends on the location of the planet. Only viable idea is that someone fakes the results.
However, if you are OK with a warm planet with no oxygen. It could happen. We detect elements from the light spectrum they reflect. Some molecule in the air could cause similar reflections to oxygen and can fool astronomers.
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## It was nice when the light left
In the last 100 years (50 for light to get to us + 50 to get there) things have gone downhill. Maybe something hit it, maybe locals did themselves in in grand style, maybe alien colonizers strip mined it first.
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It's possible that there was a planetary factor that, in the zeal of trying to escape the Earth or colonize, was forgotten. For example, the orbit could have been erratic, and a small group of scientists saw and understood it, but when they tried to go public the populace rejected them. This was like the discovery of the 'missing link' several years ago which, by chance or intention, was fabricated. So, there could have been a problem with the planet, but the people rejected it due to humanity's confirmation bias.
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Deciding a planet was habitable depends on looking for the presence of molecules that indicate life is present on the planet. The most likely candidates are water, oxygen, and chlorophyll. As discussed in this paper [here](http://arxiv.org/abs/1404.5337)
Since the planet in question is lifeless and devoid of atmosphere, the presence of water, oxygen and chlorophyll seems unlikely. But if they were present, this give a false positive. So in what circumstances would any of these substances be present to give a false positive?
Firstly, water is most detectable of the trio of life-signatures. What if aliens coated the planet with a layer of water to give a false reading? The coating wouldn't cover the entire planet. Just enough to make it look like an inhabitable planet. The water would have to be contained in thin sandwich of materials that would be transparent in the bandwidths used for detection of water.
If necessary, the aliens might plant oxygen and chlorophyll in similar layers to increase the probability of fooling non-alien astronomers. Deliberative fraud is a possible explanation for why astronomers were deceived into believing they had observed a habitable planet. As for reasons why the aliens have done this can be left an exercise for the reader.
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Since I asked these questions [If magic is real, can it be true that rational scientific thought should exclude it?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/13364/if-magic-is-real-can-it-be-true-that-rational-scientific-thought-should-exclude) [Science, Religion, Magic: Can they be maintained in equal and parallel opposition?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/17404/science-religion-magic-can-they-be-maintained-in-equal-and-parallel-oppositio) I realized that I wanted something that went beyond "unscientific". I've asked this elsewhere, but didn't get a useful answer.
This is for an alternate world of roughly modern level of science. Magic exists, and it shouldn't be limited to subjective / unprovable effects. It is, however, intrinsically hostile to science because it is fundamentally *irrational*. I don't mean hostile in the sense that technological devices stop functioning in the presence of magic. I mean it in the sense that magic is not studied as a science.
My expectation of irrationalism goes beyond science. Magic is also not the prevalent means by which wealth and power are gained. It's not the main way wars are fought, and not because magic is useless as a weapon. My expectation is that only irrational *people* make (good) magicians. Developing a scientific mindset impedes one from working (understanding? Does anyone understand it?) magic. Because administrators tend to be logically minded, governments don't focus on organizing magic. Because strategists tend to be rational, militaries focus on non-magical methods.
Who do I expect to be magically inclined? Playing to tropes... A lot of people from 'primitive' cultures. It is not that they have any hereditary advantage, but that they have not institutionalized rationality to a great extent. There are many magically inclined people in industrialized cultures as well. The difference is that there isn't a recognized social place for them. They might be artists like Escher, Picasso and Dali, or just the hobo who says something oddly insightful and prescient and later says, "Told you so." Maybe I'll think of more likely places, but the common factor is obvious: they're all outsiders to the mainstream of industrialized civilization in some way. Magic is a disruptive force, something on the fringe.
For an example, how I expect magic to relate to warfare: Soldiers would sometimes carry charms to deflect bullets. Some of these actually worked. Yet national armies would not issue these as standard equipment. However, if a nation happened to be led by a crazed dictator, he might just send expeditions to discover sources of occult power...
My vision seems coherent, in a handwavey thematic sense. I'm not sure how to make it work on a... I guess "rational level" is the wrong thing to ask! Work with human nature, maybe. My vision implies some rather extreme assumptions: for example, that strongly rational people not only don't get magic, but are strongly resistant to even employing anyone who is irrational enough to be magicians. And I'm probably overestimating the rationality of the average person...
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Here's the problem.
So you have these "irrational" people who can do magical effects. Sooner or later, someone who isn't "irrational" is going to find someone who can do something potentially useful and then ask them to do something specifically for them. Perhaps payment will be involved.
So... can these "irrational" people actually choose what kind of magic they do? Escher could choose what to draw, even if what he drew was unusual. Could Picasso choose what subject to paint?
Take your example of bullet deflecting charms. Could such an "irrational" person choose to create them? If so, then they *will* find employment in someone's army. And by "employment", I mean "do it or die". So if an "irrational" person can choose what kinds of magical effects to create, then non-magical people will benefit from them. And there's no avoiding that.
If an "irrational" person cannot choose what kind of magical effects to create, then basically what you will have is modern society, except that every now and them, someone will show up with random powers and abilities that can do incredible things. But since they cannot be controlled, even on pain of death, there will be few lasting effects of them. They might create "works of art", but they would be random, unique, and ultimately useless towards society.
But either way, once the scientific method exists and is widely employed, the problem you will have is that they will begin to psychologically study these people. They will start learning how particular forms of "irrationality" causes particular forms of magic.
If there is at all a system behind it, they *will find it*. Eventually. And if there is no system behind it, they will at least catalogue the particular forms of thought that lead to magical talent. And they'll likely catalogue the degree of such thought that leads to the degree of such talent.
Either way, they're going to learn something about how "irrationality" affects magic.
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You can assume that magic is no longer possible. That for example the "mana level" of the world has decreased over time so that it is no longer sufficient for magic to happen and everything works according to science.
Magic being impossible would seem to prevent the setting having magic, but it actually doesn't. Our bodies are full of atoms that were formed in events so energetic they can't happen on Earth. Similarly some of the primal magic might survive in stable entities despite the magic no longer existing. Essentially the magic contained by such entity makes the local mana level higher, which causes the physical laws to bend enough for the entity to have magic. It would be impossible for such an entity to form, but any pre-existing would be stable.
Thus only way to use magic would be to interact with entities alien to the rules of the current reality. If you further assume the type of interaction is mental, you need for the magician to think in way that is alien and incompatible with reality as seen by non-magicians. They'd certainly seem irrational and even insane.
They'd probably try to practice some mental discipline to keep the mental patterns of the two realities distinct, so that they can operate in the normal reality, but it wouldn't help enough to make them appear normal. The best would be to have such strict separation between the mental patterns that you'd think normal then not using magic and magical then using it. But the two patterns would appear so different it would look like you have two personalities, one of which is totally insane and the other suffering from weird memory issues. Not sure if that would convince anyone you are sane and rational.
As a bonus since the entities would be discrete and rare, they could also be unique in how the magician needs to interact with them. Also variation in the amount of magic they have would naturally lead to differing levels of mana, and thus different entities would follow different rules of reality. And the magicians of course would be unique individuals. If the entities are rare and unique enough, it might be genuinely impossible to deduce general rules of magic from observing individual magicians do magic. And more sensitive a scientific instrument is, less likely it would be to work correctly near the reality distortions caused by the entities.
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I don't think there was a clear question here, but you may enjoy the [Orks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ork_%28Warhammer_40,000%29) from Warhammer 40k, which have many traits you seek in a magic system. From the linked Wikipedia article:
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> Orks prefer close combat weapons as they are represented in-game as being terrible marksmen, which they compensate for by building comically powerful guns, which are often manned, again for humorous effect, by the weedy Grots or Gretchin who are portrayed as being slightly better handlers of ballistic weapons than their bigger cousins, having a similar proficiency as an average human soldier (Imperial Guardsman). The Ork WAAAGH gestalt also works on their equipment. Aside from allowing Orks to form some form of hierarchy, t**his gestalt psychic field allows slapped-together weapons, vehicles, spacecraft, and aircraft to function when, according to all laws of physics, they should explode, fall apart or simply not work**- for example, when a human or Eldar attempts to fire an Ork gun, it usually explodes. **In the same way, the generalized Ork belief that vehicles or aircraft painted or otherwise colored red have higher top speeds than those painted or colored otherwise ('da red wunz go fasta!') actually results in measurably higher top speeds for Ork vehicles painted red.** It is theorized by fans that at some point in the past, orks built two vehicles that were identical in their eyes, save for some internal difference that resulted in the red painted one going faster. This effect can be included in the game, with an Ork player using 5 army points to buy a "Red Paint Job" for any vehicle, giving it an extra inch of movement. **In a similar vein, Orks desiring stealth will paint themselves purple; the logic being that 'no one has ever seen a purple Ork'.** All this combined suggests that the only thing supplementing the Ork war machine is their own confidence in their methods- were there to be logic applied to the situation, the Orks would not be half as effective as they are.
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Science and religion should not be considered in conflict, Science is about asking "how" the world works while religion (and philosophy) ask "why". Magic in your system isn't in the realm of science since it is essentially not reproducible or falsifiable, but does not seem to clearly fall into religion or philosophy either.
If magic is "irrational" and cannot be reliably reproduced or explained, then it will end up in society much like cryptozoology, chemtrails, the Face on Mars or other "fringe" ideas, followed obsessively be a few people who try to explain or rationalize it, while a legion of debunkers will also be analyzing it for any holes or weakness. It will be terribly frustrating for all sides, since you will have snippets that may or may not point to magical events and powers, but they are not reproducible, provable/falsifiable or explainable by normal means.
Kind of like today.....
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## Magic is guided by the subconscious and blocked by the conscious mind
From the descriptions in the question, it sounds like a vital part of interacting with/controlling magic is done through the autonomic nervous system, which in turn is influenced by the desires, images, etc in the subconscious mind.
First, let's establish breathing as a reference: Breathing is normally controlled by the autonomous nervous system, with the rate etc being influenced by both the body and the brain to adapt to momentary needs. It is possible for the somatic (active/conscious) nervous system to override this control, as in holding one's breath, but only up to certain limits. The moment that control is lost, automatic breathing resumes.
Magic in this scenario is also controlled by the autonomic nervous system, but any attempt to override it will suppress all activity rather than taking over control. This makes it impossible to consciously control magic when you *want* to do "Magic". *(it also prevents toddlers from blowing up their parents the first time they hear "No!").*
How then can people use magic?
1. They discover it by accident/providence. Something, somehow triggers the first magic effect.
2. When attempting to repeat the magical effect, they discover that focusing on the magic doesn't work, and vitally, **accept this**. Whether they imagine it's God granting their requests or unknowable inspiration doesn't matter, as long as they stop consciously thinking about it.
3. They learn to trigger their subconscious mind with trances, drugs, prayers, images, sounds, feelings and/or memories. The subconscious then activates the magic controlling part of the brain... maybe.
Effects will be unpredictable because of stuff floating around in the subconscious. Feeling bad about the cake you burned this morning? That healing spell just might end up cauterizing the wound instead of healing.
## Why magic is permanently unavailable to the scientific minds
Any person that strives to be rational and scientific will suppress expressions of their subconscious, act according to established goals rather than instincts or feelings. This blocks any activation of the magic part of the brain and over the years causes it to atrophy, so that even when a scientist reverses course and tries to go all instinctive and subconscious, no magic will come of it.
Any successful magic user forced into a laboratory setting will be forced to do exactly the one thing that will block his magic: think about it. *Everything* about the laboratory setting screams this into the magic user's brain.
Even just an observing scientist in the sacred grove will trigger a blocking reaction as long as the magic user cares about that.
This makes magic not "reproducible" and thus no "serious" scientist will risk their reputation on it.
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I have always thought that a superb scientific mind can be a terrible curse. Much dumber individuals seems to sprint right past problems that I foresaw or right into the exact problem. My rational mind clearly sees an extreme amount of branching paths each a potential outcome based on a choice. Often, I spend a lot of time with decision paralysis trying to pick a best route.
The irrational minds with magic however, they have no qualms in violation of cause and effect. Magic occurs simply because, "there is no other path." It is always those with delusions who create the strangest and most powerful effects. One such person managed to stall the day/night cycle for a week because after getting bit by a bat, he was afraid of the dark and the only solution was for it not to get dark.
Magic, while powerful, can not be wielded to any organizations one goal. At least, not without a large amount of effort to mold one of these "crazies" into line.
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In our world you can look at how our society treats hypnosis. There were open heart surgeries performed without anesthetics under Dave Elman. There aren't any scientific publications of using hypnosis for that use case.
There are a few scientific publications that suggest that supplementing classic anesthisia with hypnosis generally improves health outcomes.
Doing hypnosis well often coindides with a state of mind that very different from the mind of a scientist. That's because it's important to be in certain states of mind when doing hypnosis. A hypnotist is more effective if he strongly believes in the suggestion that he gives.
Why have a doctrine according to which clinical effects created by suggestions aren't supposed to count because they are placebo. Hypnosis genereally works through creating clinical effects through suggestion.
I know multiple people who got their wisdom teeth drawn without anesthesia and without any pain. Yet that's not the topic of scientific attention.
Using hypnosis to reduce pain is a topic that's openly discussed. Dave Elman didn't try to keep his knowledge secret from science.
There are other communities that do try to keep what they are doing secred. In Tantra that happens a lot. MIT trained computer scientist Dave Chapman has an interesting article about the [Windhorse](https://meaningness.wordpress.com/2014/02/06/a-killer-app-for-modern-vajrayana/) technique where he speaks about it but doesn't reveal what it's about because he promised to keep it secred.
Secrecy is the anti-thesis to our system of science. In a world with working magic it would be easily imagineable that magicians can cast binding oathes of secrecy about not telling non-magicians about the way magic works. At the moment a magician violates the oath of secrecy he dies.
A complex system of binding oathes might also reduce the number of magicians that exist because magicians regularly die for violating some oath they swore. When they get into a situation where two different oathes they swore require them to engage in different actions they die.
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I was always quite fond of the way Fullmetal Alchemist handled it. In FMA, theres roughly speaking two universes, the one we live in which is governed by science, and the one of FMA which is governed by Alchemy. Alchemy then is studied rigorously, empirically and known to follow particular laws, most importantly being a sort of conservation of energy/matter one that you cant take out of the equasion more than you put in. The alchemists hold the highest scientific pursuit the search for the philosophers stone, and its implied that the stone might hold the answer to why sometimes alchemy doesnt appear to follow the conservation law as neatly as it ought to. The search for the answer to that question is explained at the end (which I wont go into, spoilers and all that, needless to say, its horrifying) and ties the whole ark of the story wonderfully.
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One possible angle you could use is that the effectiveness of magic is tied to the emotions of the wielder and the 'novelty' of the spell. It could be similar to art - you can teach the principles and techniques of art and study them rationally, but to create an actual work of art in practice you need to break away from the 'science' and paint from the heart. Once you are simply copying previous works, or painting for the money, they are no longer as 'authentic'.
When a person performs the same task over and over, it becomes "routine" and they tend to lose the emotions associated with that task. If the magic is associated with the emotions themselves, it will be virtually impossible to 'mass produce' magical items.
For example, a person might channel their emotions to create an anti-bullet charm in order to protect a loved one going to war. A particularly empathetic person might be able to do this repeatedly and/or for strangers, but such individuals are rare, and once it becomes routine labor for them, the charms no longer work. Military equipment is usually constructed either by machine or in sweatshops - arming thousands of soldiers with the same items is virtually impossible otherwise. Therefore, the 'Industrial Revolution' is naturally opposed to the principles of magic.
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[Springhole actually has a fantastic article on this subject](http://www.springhole.net/writing/mix-science-and-magic.htm), but the basic gist is:
Science is the study of things that exist. If Magic exists, then it can be understood scientifically ;)
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As water guns today can send a jet of water quite a distance away, I wonder how useful would a gun be, that sends an electric current over a jet of water to its target?
By useful I mean:
1. Gotta be able to replace/complement standard small arms, in terms of range, firepower, others. I'm actually looking to have my protagonist be surprised by the devastation that this thing ought to wreck.
2. Gotta be safe for the user. Some of the bad guys will get fried while testing it, but eventually I want it to be an evil horror weapon of the future, so safety first.
3. Gonna need a cool name. All I got right now is hydralectrogun, suggestions for something better are most welcome :-)
I'm no expert on electricity but I realize that the hydralectrogun will be limited by the power output (power source), and by the range (water jet stability, delivery of the electric charge).
Whatdoyousay?
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It will be less useful, more destructive, or less portable than you'd expect.
Firstly: **Range**. One of the big problems with water as a projectile is that it doesn't like sticking together when moving through the air. The easiest way to see this is to pour a bucket of water off the top of a tall building, you'll see that it very quickly disperses into a series of drops, rather than one cohesive lump. The reason for this is that the turbulence caused by the air rushing past the water is enough to break the surface tension of the water, except for small droplets. For your gun to have any decent range, it's going to have to push that water out *fast*, and as you're spraying it fast the leading edge of the stream is going to break into thousands of water droplets, rather than one cohesive stream. Why is this a problem?
**Electricity doesn't jump as easily as you might think.** While part of the stream might be capable of transmitting a current, most of the beam is going to be made of small droplets. From the point of view of the electrical current that's pretty much the same as a lot of air. You can get around this by pumping up the ~~current~~ voltage (Thanks Michael) enough for it to bridge from one drop to the next, but at that point it will also have enough oomph to bridge down all the other drops that are spraying down towards the ground (thanks to the aforementioned turbulence) and ground far short of the target. Or possibly to wrap back around to the operator and ground through him.
We can fix this by spraying more water to keep the stream continuous, but then we reach a different problem: **Volume.** The further you want an uninterrupted beam of water, the more water you have to push through at a high enough velocity to hit the target. This (sadly) means we have to spray water at an awfully high rate for an awfully long time, which equates to an awful lot of water. It goes from the portable to needing a van quite quickly...
The biggest problem, however, is establishing a potential difference to actually make the electricity flow. You can't set up a circuit through the gun because you'd need two (non touching) streams of water. You can't ground the power, because that would need your gun to be at potential the entire time, which is a very good way for your operator to get zapped and not a good way to deliver a life threatening jolt of power (without the aforementioned operator zappage).
Finally: Water is a great conductor of electricity. So much so in fact that if your enemy gets wet (because you just shot him with a water gun) most of the electricity would likely route down him and hit the ground without causing any damage whatsoever. And really, who wants a dread weapon that can be defeated with a pac-a-mac?
All things considered: You'd be better off with a Taser strapped to the bottom of a super soaker. The super soaker doesn't actually do anything useful, but at least it looks cool.
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**Want to improve this post?** Provide detailed answers to this question, including citations and an explanation of why your answer is correct. Answers without enough detail may be edited or deleted.
Not useful at all.
<http://mythbustersresults.com/water-stun-gun>
Myth busted.
**Update because some people don't like answers that short.**
If you have ever seen a stream of water under a strobe light, you see that what appears to be a continuous stream is actually a lot of separate droplets. That means that the electricity would have to travel many air gaps, which it does not do well. In practical terms, what appears like it should work would not work at all.
The Myth Busters team tried building a water-stream stun gun, and could not get one to work. It was not until they put 1 million Volts of electricity behind the gun that they managed to get it to work. However, a Tesla coil capable of generating 1 million Volts is not portable and would be impractical.
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Why use water?
Water is messy, short ranged, and would have a high chance of electrocuting the shooter.
If you're close enough to use a water gun, you might as well just use a taser and be done with it.
Instead of water, [use an ionizing laser beam to create a plasma channel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolaser), and send the electricity down that.
This is real world, present/near future technology that's being developed by DARPA, and will probably be available on the battlefields in the next decade.
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Mythbusters did it: [Mythbusters Water Stun Gun](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2mpjlp)
In short:
* You need a continuous, "laminar" stream of water. The electricity won't reliably arc through droplets at voltages that will stun but not kill. That meant the only production water pistol that worked was the largest one, one of the big syringe-type guns you use in swimming pools.
* You need two streams, one for each side of the circuit. The earth isn't very electrically conductive; you need thousands of watts of power to reliably stream electricity using the actual "ground" as part of the circuit. That means the rig the Mythbusters came up with required two impractically large water cannons.
* You need salt water. Potable drinking water like you get from your sink is actually a fairly poor conductor of electricity; its main shock hazard is that in small amounts it removes air gaps and increases surface area contact between you and a voltage source (and the salt on your skin will make a small amount of water more saline). To get electricity to actually flow through water, you need an isotonic (roughly body chemistry) or hypertonic (seawater) saline solution.
* Distance is still a factor. Wires are used in modern tasers because the resistance over the 20-30 feet of wire is negligible. Even with electrically-conductive salt water, voltage is inversely proportional to the square of distance; at normal taser range, what you get through a stream of water from an ordinary taser is not enough to disable a human, and upping the voltage at the source makes it dangerous at closer ranges.
* Any leak in the device, or even wet hands, and the shooter is in greater danger than the target.
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So, this could be a possibility in the future as energy emission technology continues to develop. MIT has a plasma cannon. Japan has a laser that pulses in the petawatts. Energy shields are right around the corner as well. Electricity on its own has a real hard time bridging gaps between conductors because air has a ridiculously high Ohm rating. Like, stupid high. If your conduction medium isn't stable in its shape like water from a squirt gun, you're going to have angry water for a few feet maybe and then plain old water after that as the electrical energy disperses into the air through the air's resistance. To change this, fire the water under VERY high pressure. I mean HIGH pressure. Like well beyond what current materials can handle. You'll get basically ice 7. Which is an amazing conductor of electricity. Better than silver and silver is as close to a perfect conductor as we can get at the planet surface. 0.000015 Ohms. That's not much resistance. What also happens at that pressure is a vacuum forms around the projectile as it travels. The vacuum has no electrical resistance. Electrons can freely bounce around from one atom to the next with no problem. If you understand physics, you know where this is going. Get that pressure just right with an electrical charge, you've made a plasma gun. Hydrogen is the easiest substance to make plasma with. Comparatively low starting temperature, plenty available, goes through multiple phases of fusion during its phases as plasma before becoming helium. Basically, is you shot heavy water at something (H²O²) with enough pressure and an electrical charge, plasma bolt that you'll also get some heinous radiation from. Actually, don't do any of that. Bad idea.
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I don't know if this is helpful or not but the weapon would be better used in a non-lethal ship to ship capacity. Water is actually a poor conductor of electricity. It is the impurities in the water that make it conduct. Sea water would be a much better conductor and a ship could just have a hose in the water and one pointed at the target. As mentioned, the flow would have to be laminar, but with a nuclear powered warship at you disposal, maybe something could be done. You'd have to want to make it uncomfortable or possibly lethal for people on the other ship, but I'm not certain why you wouldn't just shoot them with bullets, you know the old way.
Also, you might consider some kind of futuristic coagulant that starts out low viscosity, so it flows through the gun and plumbing at greater velocity and then sort of adheres once it's airborne to hold the stream together. Just a thought.
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If a water gun had enough potency in order to the water jets achieve very high pressure it could cause serious injures and damage.
Just think about that the weight and the water currents from floods can distroy houses and small buildings as if they were made of paper.
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I know it’s been a while since this question was asked, but here is a link I think is relevant to the OP’s question. Liquid charge stun guns exist that can fire two parallel streams of a conductive water/salt or other mixture. This would be similar to the device the OP was talking about.
<https://electronics.howstuffworks.com/gadgets/other-gadgets/stun-gun6.htm>
Another suggestion I have for the OP, that would have a similar effect, without using electricity, would be some sort of metal squirt gun flamethrower. Could be a pretty powerful weapon that would inflict the surprised reaction you were talking about.
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I am mad scientist and I captured Average Joe, who is not average only in one remark: He is person [not to be missed](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/23146/how-many-humans-can-i-abduct-without-getting-noticed) (I double checked). Otherwise he is healthy male, around 30 years old, with no food allergies (I also checked)
I kidnapped this Joe and locked him inside controlled experiment: He is in "jail" which contains no running water in any kind.
I plan to provide him with any vegetables and fruit he wants. He is also getting other sources of food. But no running water.
Joe is going to be noticed, that if he survives for 60 days, I am going to release him with bag full of money (say 500 000 USD in various small amount banknotes)
Is he going to make it? What changes can I expect on his body?
Things to consider:
* Shower: No shower, he gets baby wipes.
* Toilet: Chemical toilet, I am going to change it regularly while he sleeps
* Day/Night: I am going to simulate usual day with changing the lighting dynamically, providing Joe at least 9 hours of "night"
* Humidity: Average air humidity
* Cooperation: Joe decided to cooperate and wants the money
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**SIGN ME UP**
You can get hydration from almost anything you can eat, even a nice piece of bread. Foods like cucumbers, watermelons, and even strawberries will have [a lot of water](http://www.livestrong.com/article/350652-percentage-of-water-in-fruits-vegetables/) (90%-ish). Cucumber and lettuce are among the highest.
A balanced diet high in vegetables and a few fruits will see him through 60 days just fine, all other things considered. He should emphasize the vegetables (cucumbers, etc.) over the fruits (watermelons, etc.), because super high natural sugar from fruits can be a little detrimental although not noticeable in 60 days, but can also cause diarrhea at first.
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## 60 days? piece of cake, you said you'll provide him ANY vegetables and fruits!
Bet he'd ask for watermelons, melons ,cucumbers and other vegetables/ fruits with lots of water,so it's no problem.
However sitting in same place not moving doing nothing for 60 days is true torture, you must be mad to do it,and bet he'll scream, his family and friends will notice he's gone and will search for him, aint think you'll hold ihm for whooping 60 days like this.
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**In terms of water, he'll be just fine.** As everybody else has noted, fruits and vegetables have a lot of water in them. Since he can have any fruit or vegetable he wants, he's gonna be pretty happy in this regard.
I'm more concerned with the remains of his food. After all, it's not like he's going to eat watermelon rinds, apple cores, or even carrot tops. He'll probably leave those in a corner. Assuming you're not going to clean those up at night, they'll most likely rot after 60 days. Even worse, he'll be stuck in a room full of rotting leftovers.
As for changes on his body, expect him to gain weight. He *is* in an almost empty room with nothing to do but eat. Heck, he's probably going to crack from boredom if you don't give him any form of entertainment for 60 days.
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It is not necessary to drink the whole "8 glasses of water" (or whatever it currently is). You can get your water from moist foods, which vegetables and fruits will be great at providing.
It is quite likely that he will feel thirst and crave a drink, but he will survive.
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# Fruits and Vegetables in 60 days.
The first thing that came to mind when you mentioned any food was coconuts. They aren't ideal for sports, but if Joe is in a room not doing much of anything, he would be fine. Not to mention that he could eat cucumbers and other foodstuffs with high water content. I believe that you be coming out of this situation a few bucks short.
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Are you preventing him from juicing? Just juice everything by hand and drink the liquids. :)
Yeah, he can totally make it.
He might want to drink his urine too. You can cycle that back through a couple times, it just works your liver a lot harder.
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So, it's easy for me to imagine how a [Lich](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lich) or Vampire or something similarly considered to be intelligent and persuasive and powerful and immortal could control a kingdom that is spreading across continental divides; however, it's difficult for me to think of a way that werewolves could do this without fundamentally altering the concept of "werewolf," so that it is specialized.
In most accepted fiction they're not immortal, they don't cast spells, and they are often given to mercurial temperaments -- none of these things seem like the kind of things that would lead to the unification or assimilation of cultures into an empire-sized nation.
Any idea how werewolves might be able to accomplish this? I am thinking something along the lines of werewolves being nobility or aristocratic and the commoners being human, but it just doesn't seem likely.
Sorry if my formatting is wrong or anything, I've been a lurker for a short time and only just signed up.
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Something as simple as a cult of lupine deities would elevate werewolves to demigods or at least divinely blessed beings. It might be engineered by the werewolves as a means to attaining their status, or it might have started out as the werewolves' *own* religion addressing their specific existential concerns, which then spread naturally to the human populace.
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Oddly enough, there's another answer to this -- and that's *pack structure*. A society of werewolves (vs. an isolated afflicted werewolf) would likely form a strong pack structure, just like RL wolves do, and that would serve as the basis for government as the society continues to grow. As to humans? They'd be packmates, albeit of a lower order because of their lack of abilities...
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This entirely depends on your werewolf myth and what kind of setting this is in.
Is the werewolf completely indistinguishable from a normal person at all times except for one night a month when they transform and go on a rampage until dawn?
In this case, there isn't any benefit from the curse, so they have no more or less ability to rule a kingdom than anyone else save for the problem of needing to be locked in a cell for a night (once a month they withdraw to a monastic cell to contemplate their faith in a secluded vigil - easy propaganda explaining why they are unreachable for that evening).
If the werewolf retains some measure of increased strength, improved sense, ability to withstand damage, etc., they become fantastic fighters. A pack of werewolves could become the most feared military force in the region as either the vanguard of their army or as an elite strike force raiding the enemy.
Not only can they dominate on the battlefield, but a tougher foe could be taken by the werewolves disguising themselves as harmless unarmed travelers to a rival city (just in time for the full moon). A pack of werewolves rampaging through the enemy capital may bring about their downfall before the war even starts.
Werewolves would not have much an advantage in a modern technologically advanced liberal democracy where rule is by gentile discussions of policy (at least in theory), but they would be unmatched in a feudal society where strength of arms to attack your enemies or defend your people is paramount. Distinguished veterans are afforded significant gravitas for their service even today, while back in the viking age werewolves could be truly legendary warriors afforded all the honors that could be given.
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Royal Sacrifice.
Each month two worst criminals of past month (or, if the month was peaceful in the law department with only smalltime fraudsters, the previous month) are chosen to be released into the Hunting Grounds on the night of full moon. It's the Hunt Night, and the Royal Pair is on the prowl, both proving their might, punishing the most abhorrent of crimes and gathering *vitae* to give them might to rule for another month.
Day-to-day they are wise and fair rulers, but beware if you anger them. After the ambassador of a neighbor kingdom taunted the queen for taking to plight of her citizens of border villages and providing them with food over the harsh winter, his lord received the foot of said ambassador, along with a letter explaining that the queen thanks for the meal so conveniently provided and the game so enjoyable to chase, especially in these difficult times; the food saved from the royal tables due to the meal so graciously provided was dispatched to the starving peasants.
Now, how they became the rulers? Well, possibly the royal heir was bitten by a werewolf. Or maybe the leader of a revolution against a tyrant happened to be a werewolf with a fairly good grip over the beastly form, leading the revolt and being accepted as the new king. Or it was the werewolf who committed a truly heroic deed, say, slaying a terrible dragon, and begged the king for sparing his life as the boon - and the king appeared even more generous than that.
Now for "the other half" - the werewolf king/queen later found a loving soul who was willing to look past the beastly nature and accept to share the curse willingly (which saves her/him from risk of becoming the meal in case of... accident).
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Let's look at history and use tribal empires like Mongols or the Islamic Arabs as an example.
First, werewolves have a strong pack like structure. This is similar to a tribe.
These tribes start with constant warfare among themselves. A diplomatic alpha leader unites the different tribes together and settles their differences.
They still go through years of constant war between themselves. But eventually the great alpha's team succeeds.
External threats and older empires grow worried of this unity. They try to hold them back or engage others to raid the united tribe.
The tribe has enough military experience at this point to succeed. The external threat that attacked them greatly underestimated them and left themselves vulnerable. The werewolf megatribe counterattacks and overruns those old empires.
Combine this with their ability to 'convert' others to the tribe by turning them into werewolves.
However at this point the megatribe's economy relies heavily on loot from successes. Their leaders, both political and military are all great warriors, not economists nor bureaucrats. They keep raiding and conquering to cover for expenses to a point where the empire overextends itself and collapses.
Also check out how theological Muslim empires like Ottoman and Rashidun caliphates treated non-Muslims. This could be a good example of how werewolf empires might treat and actively discriminate against humans, yet still live happily with each other side by side.
For example, both may have different taxation rates. Non werewolves would be exempted from military service but be taxed higher because they fall under protection of the werewolves. Some may hold high offices but not the highest offices.
Non military things like banking and internal affairs could be left to the humans. Colonial empires also provide great examples of this.
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You know, being a werewolf is not a blessing, it's a curse usually cast by a witch. Therefore, in order to run an empire a werewolf would have to 2 options:
* The first would be to hide it. Obviously, this would be the hardest option: the smell, behavior and other dog-like actions would drag the attentions to this weird emperor. Besides, "what to say and do about that wolf that as been terrorizing our homeland and crops, Mr. Emperor?", would be a very common yet responseless question. I would go for the second option.
* The second option would be to start in a not advanced civilization or a society that worshipes the wolf or other pagan gods. Because going to a modern and/or mind open nation and show yourself, would cause the terror on earth and would start a search to kill all werewolves. This would never happen in the above civilizations. For example, if a man would have come to Egipt thousands of years ago and given proof of being a werewolf, I have no doubt or question he would be immediately crowned king and labbeled as a semiGod. He would have the whole Egipt at his feet and would rule it easily. From there, he could expand and start wars for conquer. No one else would believe the Egyptians had a "semiGod" with them, so no one would panic and unite against the werewolves. And I'm sure the people would even bring their best lambs in sacrifice during the full moons.
**This is just an example**.
Ok, we have proof he could sit on a throne. But could he rule it?
Werewolves as I see it, would have the best instinct: human and canine. This would make him be an eximious warrior and leader. Smart, fearless... God knows what else. In a matter of hygiene, I really don't think his people would mind if the palace and his room would eventually stink. It wouldn't be pretty nor elegant, but who cares? Sure, there would be faeces and urine all over the place, but it would be a fair trade.
The only part I see it all coming down would be at the expansion. Canines are the most territorial beings on earth. I'm sure the emperor wouldn't be different. He would want more and more and more, and eventually his people would suffer tremendous losses, hunger, and pain. Consequently, he would be burned alive, as no emperor should treat his people this way.
So I think in short-medium term, this would succeed perfectly as they expand more and more by the hands of a strange yet great leader. But in long term, as other nations unite to fight this empire, it's ruler wouldn't know when to retreat and spare some lives. In the end, it would **fall.**
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Considering that humans have had empires ruled by the likes of Hitler, Stalin, Timur, Mohammed, and various of the Roman Emperors (Nero & Caligula spring to mind, but there are others) - to name just a few, why in the world would they have problems with werewolves?
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What internally consistent time travel rules would make for an interesting world to model and explore in a game or a book?
I exclude the "no free will" setup (where everyone is pre-destined to behave in a way consistent with past events if they travel in time); it seems quite boring.
I also exclude the extreme case of the "parallel universe" setup, where any possible event happens in some universe, and so the time traveler simply shifts between parallel universes depending on what he does. This setup results in no special importance attached to any particular timeline, which makes time travel have no impact on the world (except as a personal experience).
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If you want internal consistency, you're stuck with some varient on 'you can't change (what you know about) the past', I'm afraid - what you're calling the 'no free will' version. Anything else allows paradoxes. Fortunately, that still leaves rather more wiggle room than you're giving it credit for.
The technical version of the rules for internally consistent time-travel is the [Novikov self-consistency principle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novikov_self-consistency_principle) - it's a theory that was developed when a professional physicist started wondering about exactly that problem. It can be difficult to get your head around, but worth the effort if you're serious about trying to handle time travel logically. There are a lot of subtleties involved, and working out what *isn't* ruled out is just as important as knowing what is.
In layman's terms, the principle essentially boils down to 'you can't cause a paradox'. In particular, nothing you do while time-travelling can prevent you from going back in time in the first place, nor can it change what you 'know' at the time you do travel back in time. That doesn't mean that the *real* explanation for what you 'know' is the same as what you *thought* was the case when you went back in time, though. SF has given some good examples of this in his answer.
Setting the story in the present and having time-travellers come back from the future allows you to make much better use of the options that *are* available - you can do things like have a character escape from a locked cell by having themselves appear outside the door with a key, having come back from the future to let themselves out.
For a very well-executed version of this type of time-travel, you can check out [Continuum](http://www.aetherco.com/continuum/).
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"Future cannot be changed, but the past can, as long as it leads to the same conclusion."
The moment of start of the travel is a fixed point. But the past wasn't at all how you remembered it.
What can change is the knowledge of the time travellers, and events can be put in motion, that will not bear fruit at the moment of start of the travel, but will extend past it in a way that would not have occurred had the time travel not happened.
The movie "Primer" had something along these lines:
>
> One of the protagonists knocks out his past self and stashes "himself"
> in the attic, then proceeds to go through the day, planting ideas in
> others' heads, subtly affecting the world, following the "rails" into
> which the universe ! forces him and when the natural time flow
> catches up with the hour he had departed, at the end of the "trip" the
> world *appears* just the same as when he had departed, but the events
> that he knows had occurred are not at all as he had remembered them
> from the first time around.
>
>
>
The time traveller is bound by invisible "rails of fate", physically unable to stray far from them; but there are freedoms he can take, do things in different ways; often significantly different, which will lead to that one fixed point in time to be "as remembered" but the results vastly different.
Say, in the future the authorities discover a nuclear bomb planted in the middle of the city. Disarming it is very difficult, probably the effort would fail. They find traces of the bomber, a notable terrorist who had arrived at the city two days ago.
You travel two days back into the past. You can't just kill the terrorist and deliver the bomb to the authorities, changing the future. But you can knock the terrorist out, sabotage the bomb, then plant it yourself along with evidence that it was the terrorist, and when the countdown ends, the bomb won't explode.
(you may resist the "rails of fate" and can change the future, but it would be a very unpleasant experience, literally pushing against moving walls that try to guide you like a puppet.)
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Throwing it a completely different direction, check out the videogame [Achron](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achron).
It's a very unique kind of RTS game in that it allows you to alter the future and past of the game you are playing. This means if you are losing a fight, you can go back in time and issue different orders to prevent the fight from happening. You can also transport units back in time and even units fight alongside future copies of themselves and more crazy crap.
It manages to do this without causing crazyness by having a time-boundary after which the universe becomes permanent with no more mingling allowed. If a paradox occurs then both versions of the paradox exist in waves; ie one moment you killed your own grandfather and one moment you aren't born, until you cross the time-boundary at which point whichever version happened to exist at that exact moment becomes the permanent situation.
It also has some rules about how the further you go, the more expensive mingling with the past/future becomes and you have a limit of how many orders you can give, managed by your available chrono-energy.
Considering that this is a working game, you can probably scavenge a lot of their ideas for how to avoid problematic situations in time-travel.
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**Time flows asymmetrically. Why should time *travel* be symmetrical?**
One way to make a logically consistent form of time travel, is to simply say that traveling in time only goes in one direction. Either you can only go further into the future, or you can only go into the past.
If you can only progress into the future, it entirely eliminates any chance of paradox, questions about matter/energy conservation, and just about every other question related to time travel. It also can be used to explain why there have been no time travelers yet - since no one in the past has a time machine, no one can get here. It's simple, easy to understand, and logically consistent. However, it's not very useful.
If you can only return to the past, then it no longer matters what your future was. You can rewrite it freely, and it won't have any affect on you or the universe. Shoot your grandfather? No problem, because you're already standing there with a smoking gun in your hand. The "you" there popped into existence at a specific point, and the fact that you happen to have the genetics and memories of someone who isn't born yet isn't relevant. It means that (should you live long enough in this new timeline), you won't be able to see yourself born, because the man who would have been your grandfather is dead. Likewise, any other changes you cause simply change what will happen as time continues on its normal track.
In this scenario, the only logical inconsistencies come when someone or something materializes out of thin air, without an apparent causal history. But once they exist, the universe treats them the same as anything else. Big picture, this *does* violate the conservation of mass, but not on a scale that is likely to be relevant.
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It seems a lot of this depends on reconciling the time traveller's "history" (sequence of events) and along with everyone else's concept of past. A simple answer is to just let the time traveler's concept of what the future is be invalid or violated, making so people can go back in time and alter things. If they go back to the future, it will be different. This is, on the surface of it, most similar to the time travel seen in the [Terminator franchise](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminator_(franchise)).
Basically, it amounts to the time traveller having their knowledge intact, but be able to travel back in time. The universe does not care that the matter of the time traveller was not there before or care about history as the time traveler sees it, and simply lets stuff happen as normal in past time. The future (as seen from the traveller in some past time) is no more real or special than anyone else's idea of the future, except that the traveler already knows the outcome of certain events unless the traveler alters them somehow.
If the time traveller goes to their original time, things will very likely not be the same. Indeed, going back in time may even prevent the time-travel technology existing at all. Since the universe does not need to preserve the time-traveler's causality, the past changes and the future becomes something else. The universe just doesn't care about any particular future, and there is no dimension hopping, just re-shaping of futures.
This has the unfortunate effect of time travelers essentially giving up on everything and everyone in their time unless specific things are/are not done. Since the traveler may or may not know the specific things, they may or may not cause the future to change. That's just how this time-travel setup works.
To sum up this time travel:
**Causality does not hold for the time traveler. They are meatbags at a certain point in space-time. Their future, which they have already experienced, is nothing more than a false memory easily abolished by their current actions.**
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Check out \*The Man Who Folded Himself" by David Gerrold.
However, any model of history "changing" in-place as it were, rather than creating different time lines, runs into the soliphism problem. If there is more than one traveller, which one overwites events containing the other? You have a "real present" that follows the traveller (the "write head" of events) as well as a meta-time in which changes to the history takes place.
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One solution would be a time portal that works the following:
You have to activate the portal. Than you have to wait. Any time later you can step into the portal, leaving it at the time it was activated (similiar to the movie primer), but you deactivate it by doing this (the tunnel collapses), so you break all bridges behind you.
This places hard limits on where (when) you can go. But it avoids that a slightly different "you" does the journey again later and stack up with a group of slightly different "Yous". What you could do is to activate the portal again as soon as you left it, but this means the next "you" can only come back a few seconds later. If there is more than one traveller I suggest that time always flows to the next departure, than time is totally rewinded back to the point of the arrival and continues. So if Alice activates a portal at 2050, Bob at 2060, than Bob steps into it 2070 (travelling back to 2060) then there is a new timeline with two 10 year different Bobs (and only one active portal owned by Alice) and all the changes that timetravelbob introduces. If in this timeline Alice steps into the portal 2080, she travels to 2050, creating a new timeline in which perhaps (and perhaps not, depending on what she changes) bob will activate his portal 2060 and step into it 2070 travelling back to (the already changed by alice) 2060 and do whatever he want. The resulting timeline will be consistent and has two Alice and two Bobs and no active portal (unless someone else has another or one of the both activated theirs after their Arrival).
I'm not sure if "primer" does it exactly that way. It's to long ago that I watched it. But this is what I refined to circumvent all possible paradoxes and other Problems.
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Inspired by a certain @KSmarts , [based on a previous question over here, which talks about a kingdom with a super grasstato plant](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/10692/are-there-any-good-uses-for-infinite-grass-and-potatoes).
So, the kingdom is absolutely overflowing with potatoes, and it grows all over the place, so it is not difficult at all for anybody to part some grass and pull out some potatoes, and then brew it into vodka.
How would society be like now that vodka would be practically be almost as cheap as water, if not cheaper and more common than water? Don't forget about them having infinite food as well
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Note that even if the base resource is infinite, food and booze would not be free: you still have to pay the workers, and I suspect that actually makes most of vodka's price.
So instead what you have is a **highly competitive** vodka and potatoes producer.
As pointed out by jamesqf's comment, that wouldn't change society much.
However it is also interesting to look at the geopolitics that could arise from this situation. Since selling those products is a live-or-die condition, we can assume that those products are heavily exported. And since they are extremely competitive, a huge part of the food consumed in other countries could come from your potatoes.
This has a major consequence:
**In nearby countries, agriculture may be very under-developed:**
because why would they bother with producing food that will eventually be more expensive than the one you are providing.
So you have a huge political leverage on these countries: If they do not obey you, you can threaten to increase the price of the potatoes, which would cause a famine since their agriculture is not equipped to deal with such a situation.
To see what that could do *in real life*, you can look at the relationship between Russia and many ex-USSR countries. There it's not potatoes but gas, but the consequences are the same.
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Free food *and* alcohol?! When do I move? ;D I imagine that immigration would be high.
Actually, *immigration* might be a problem. Everyone crossing proverbial boarders to live there could lead to a housing shortage. Low prices on food and drink, coupled with lots of people; most of your wage would go into rent. Those that are poor lose their homes. But due to the price of food and alcohol, can still afford to indefinitely live in a drunken state.
But back to the topic at hand. If everyone was forever mildly buzzed, you might see less stressed people. You'd certainly see less productive people. And possibly an increase in liver disease.
Those that don't drink would be at a competitive advantage to those that do. As too those that can hold their liquor better than most.
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What I see would be a country that doesn't do anything. If you are always fed and you have these potatoes under foot that get in the way of anything productive why bother? Then you add abundant and cheap alcohol on top of that? You'll have a country of tubers and couch potatoes.
Of course some small percentage of the country will work and have ambition, but if no one wants what you've got, trade is nil. So what do the people have to live for? Killing a few animals for protein and their hides for cloths and tools, dig some holes to live in.
Most with any drive would probably move to the borders and try to set up some kind of business with the outside world.
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For many kingdoms throughout ancient history, we see that a surplus of food really opens up more time in the day for people. This isn't a bad thing; it leads to many more people devoting their time to education and the arts. For example, the first governments and states rose out of societies that had a surplus of food, because the rich now had time to fill jobs such as politicians and judges.
I think if this kingdom had sudden access to infinite food, we would see an explosion of culture. There might be some logistical problems at first, due to the fact that the kingdom would have to adjust its infrastructure. I'm not entirely sure how trade would react but overall the access to abundant food would be a good thing.
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I assume by the word 'infinite' you means that there is no limit and it's completely free. So it's all free food and alcohol. Assuming low-to-none production cost.
Based on the law of supply and demand, if the supply is theoretically infinite, then the price would be theoretically free.
So, what would human do if they don't need to work to get food?
Human have 3 kinds of needs (economically) sorted by the most important:
1. Primary needs (including basic food, water, home, and basic clothing) - basically the essence of human survival
2. Secondary needs - the needs for other thing that you can live without, but don't want to (like education, furniture, basic vehicles like bike)
3. Tertiary needs - the needs for high priced goods (like cars, phones, computers, better foods, higher educations, etc.) - this one is 'endless' needs. No matter how many money one have, he/she can't fully fulfill this needs
If the primary needs have been fulfilled, then humans will try to fulfill secondary needs, etc.
With free food, no human would become lazier, because they still have a long list of needs to be fulfilled (the secondary and tertiary needs). And they would spend their time with education / art / research or anything to fulfill their endless needs.
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Another probability:
If that kingdom have weak military force, there is a probability that another kingdom will try to invade it for its endless resource, just like how the history has proven it by the word 'colonization'.
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You might want to consider this experiment: mice had unlimited food supply in a limited space (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink>, <http://io9.gizmodo.com/how-rats-turned-their-private-paradise-into-a-terrifyin-1687584457>).
Unlimited food -> population growth -> overpopulation -> fights, lost interest in reproducing, careless behavior about offspring -> ... -> population eventually unable to recover -> extinction.
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I've read that a triple stage combustion light gas gun can fire for a muzzle velocity of 12km/s. That's faster than the escape velocity needed to escape earth's gravitational influence.Thus, im going for this speed value.
Suppose a 155mm CLGG fires a tungsten projectile at a target below at a speed of 12km/s, will it be effective enough to act as an artillery shell fired from orbit but it's area effect relies solely on speed and kinetic energy? Rods from god would take 12-15 minutes to reach ground target from orbit, and that's at a starting velocity even lower than 8km/s because you need to de-orbit the rod first.
The main goal is to significantly cut the travel time of a kinetic energy weapon from orbit to ground, by aiming it downwards, and fire at a ridiculous velocity, and to also provide an orbital strike package at a tactical level, where any soldier in my setting, can simply "telepathically" tap into available orbital strike CLGGs using their neural interface, ridding them of much of the wasteful seconds tapping into their devices that could have been put to focus in ground fighting. There are HGVs dropped from orbit to achieve the orbital strike role but that'll take 12-15 minutes depending on it's trajectory and flight path. Will a 155mm CLGG in orbit firing a tungsten projectile downwards into the planet at 12km/s be effective/destructive enough at a tactical level?
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Such an orbital CLGG would need to be at an altitude of at least 200 km. At 12kps, the projectile would take about 16.7 seconds to travel from the firing satellite. Traveling straight down, the projectile would accelerate by a negligible 164 m/s, discounting atmospheric effects.
A properly designed long-rod penetrator should be capable of destroying most battlefield targets... if it hits. The problem with getting the projectile to hit is that as it travels through the atmosphere, it would be enclosed in an opaque mass of plasma as its tip ablates from impact with countless molecules of air. The plasma from atmospheric reentry has been shown to put the descending object within it out of effective contact via radio signals, and obscures the object from optical observation and by extension, optical communication.
This would mean that the projectile would effectively be a dumb-fired shot. It would rely upon the initial aim of the launching platform and the accuracy of the instructions from the forward observer. If the intended target was mobile, in those 16-odd seconds, it could deviate significantly from its projected course, which would cause this hyper-velocity projectile to strike an innocuous patch of soil rather than an enemy asset.
While it would take Rods from the Gods longer to de-orbit, and they would not hit at such a high velocity, RftGs have the advantage that they can be deployed in large numbers, and are therefore capable of saturation bombardment of an area, while orbiting a CLGG and its ammunition would be an expensive proposition, and CLGGs would therefore be available in limited quantities, and would be unlikely to be able to perform the necessary saturation bombardment of the area.
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**Frame Challenge - This weapons system will not work**
155mm? Your projectile burned up in the Atmosphere before it even got close to making an impact.
For reference - The NASA estimate of how large a Meteorite has to be to traverse through the atmosphere and hit the ground is **5 Meters in diameter** - however they give another answer - that anything less then **25 meters in diameter** is unlikely to impact the earths surface and cause damage.
Now - you might counter 'Ah, but my Weapons system is Tungsten! the Meteorites aren't made of Tungsten!' - and you would be correct, Meterorites are primarily made from Silicates - which have fantastic thermal properties - including a boiling point around that of Tungstens melting point.
Once your projectile hits the atmosphere - it will start to get very toasty **very quickly** and even if it doesn't vaporize, it will start to melt, which will deform the projectile, which will increase the aerodynamic drag, causing more friction, causing it to go off-course etc. etc.
Even if you could put a protective shield around the projectile with some super-high melting material (Hafnium Carbonitride) - I still think this would melt from the friction - even if it doesn't outright melt, if it gets hot enough to start plastic deformation - you've still got the Drag/Accuracy problem.
In short - you need a much larger projectile to traverse the atmosphere and a means of having a sacrificial series of layers that will absorb the heat and break away without altering the course of the projectile - for that it will need to be *much* larger than 155mm.
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This doesn't work for a multitude of reasons. One is that a multi-stage CLGG has a terrible projectile-to-gun mass ratio. Yes, you might get 12 km/s - but you'll be launching a 1-gram projectile out of a 1-ton gun. Good for scientific experiments, useless for anything else.
Orbital projectiles are already **almost** too fast to survive reentry. A 1-ton tungsten rod at 8 km/s can do it. A 1-gram pellet can't.
If you need instantaneous strikes from orbit, you're much, **much better off** using pure energy weapons - lasers, solar mirrors, possibly other forms of radiation.
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Maybe possible, but think more of something like a [hypersonic missile](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypersonic_weapon). These can survive 8km/s in atmosphere. I've heard that they can use just the kinetic momentum alone to cause destruction. But I think you would have to come up with something that is a cross between a hypersonic missile an artillery round. Even the [long range artillery rounds](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1156_Precision_Guidance_Kit) have steering, I've heard that they can achieve [100km ranges with newer tech](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1156_Precision_Guidance_Kit).
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Ok, so I have this world(or maybe it will just be a dimension depending on how things pan out) called 'The Weird' that has air in space, like Earthlike air(for the most part). Also, the 'planets' or worldplanes are pretty much flat(barring mountains and the like), at least at the top. It should be noted too that sun(s) and moon(s) orbit these worlds, not the other way around. Another thing, the gravity is kinda funky. So the upper half(or maybe 3/4) of this realm/world is without gravity, and only some planets generate their own there, and the lower portion has gravity, or rather gradients of it. So it starts off at like moon gravity or so, then works its way to Earth gravity, then to like 2x-3x Earth's gravity or higher in some spots as you move to the 'floor'.
So with most of the basic cosmology out of the way, let us move on to the question. Since The Weird has air in space, would it be possible to fly a plane or maybe a chopper to another worldplane instead of needing a rocket or specialized spacecraft? Could flying creatures like birds and insects travel to-and-fro worldplanes?
I am mostly concerned with the zero-G or low gravity section as I know aircraft can fly in Earth gravity and not in (much)heavier Gs and this funny gravity thing might be switched in for all zero-Gs. But if you feel the need to include the other G zones, then feel free as there are worldplanes in all the G zones except for certain distance from the floor.
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\**Where there is air, you can fly, but be wary of the distances!*
It sounds to me like there's nothing special about your "space." It's just more atmosphere. If there's an atmosphere, planes can fly exactly like they fly in our atmosphere.
However, understand how large distances are in space. One of the reasons rockets can travel meaningfully between planets is that, without an atmosphere, rockets can travel very fast. Like 25,000 mph fast. With atmosphere, you have to plow through everything in front of you. Our fastest aircraft have only reached roughly 2,000 mph, so it will take 10x longer to get anywhere, even in a screaming fast jet like a SR-71. Also, it will take fuel. Lots and lots of fuel. Rockets flying through space experience extremely little drag because there's almost no atmosphere. If your atmosphere is dense enough to fly, it's dense enough to slow you down. You would need to run your jet engines steady-state for the entire multi-year journey between planets.
You would need to have fuel along the way. My recommendation for "birds" flying between planets would be to have an entire ecosystem in "space," so that there's fuel to consume. After all, in the end, we're all powered by the great big ball of fire in the sky.
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Since there is too much of what would go weird should the system be subjected to the real world's physics, I assume that there is some *magic* at work that helps stuffs retain their properties, namely air in space, zero gravity between worlds (there is NO place without gravity in the universe, and the smallest object at the farthest place does apply its gravity "here" wherever that is), suns with less mass and apparently no friction vs interplanetary air (also no gravity close to them?), etc. Therefore, the plain answer to your question is a definite YES, as in, you *CAN* reach the other planet on an ordinary aircraft, but...
But, spacefaring devices would still not be like intra-planetary aircraft, namely because there is place with no gravity, thus no "down" and "up" which have to be accounted for when designing aircraft. Wings would serve no purpose out of gravity, engines would have their thrust vectors off mass center with no compensation from control elements, making a normal airplane start rotating under its own thrust with a sudden inability to normally control the flight. A helicopter with added means of orientation control could do, however. I assume that a "rocket" with twin rotors like on a modern attack helicopter like Ka-52 on its top would be the correct shape for an interplanetary spacecraft within your world set. You can control thrust with copter's normal means of control, you can drive through "space" on the same rotors, you can control turn in zero gravity using rocket's fins (retractable if they spoil travel while in a gravity field), additionally you can use smaller airplane engines to turn your rocket sideways, once in another planet's gravity field, you turn the "bottom" of the rocket towards the planet and start an almost normal helicopter landing.
The main problem with such travel would still be fuel. The space is BIG, your air-filled space might not be that big but still, there would also be currents in intra-planetary air that could easily shun a vehicle off course by too much to miss the destination, there could be rogue asteroids barely seen in space because the ambient light would not let your spacecraft see them before they would have no time to dodge the collision, there might be dragons (Chinese type) afloat in midair that prey on unsuspecting travellers or whatever life that could exist there as well, and all the mentioned and not mentioned dangers would ask for fuel expenditure to avoid. A helicopter's normal flight span is limited in hours, yours might take a day or two worth of fuel, yet still it might be too small to reach the destination. There is a possibility however, use a VERY large rotor that's powered by rocket passengers' muscle force, with zero gravity and low air resistance air-rowing is quite a method to provide a little bit of speed. In fact, such a rotor could well serve as fins when the craft is powered by engine. But, this type of travel would be even slower, and would expend the rocket's food storage together with fuel. Hmm.
Regarding planet gravity of 2-3 Gs at ground level, you can alter the planet's atmospheric density to allow flight in such conditions, and thus design your aircraft to both withstand this gravity construction wise, and fly in dense air using normal aerodynamics. Note however, since the density curve for an ideal gas in a gravity well is a frikking EXPONENT, and for a real gas it's close to that at relatively low pressures, you need to design your gravity wells somehow to allow nonzero values at their edges and not too high values at the bottom, otherwise floating would surpass heavier-than-air flight for both lifeforms and aircraft. After that, the answer to your question of "can ordinary aircraft reach another planet" would shift to a no, as a floater cannot properly move in zero gravity, or would break down while lifting from the dense atmosphere.
Regarding interplanetary travel for lifeforms - the answer is yes, provided they can feed on something mid-flight. Otherwise, they would run out of fuel (fats and other energy within a living body) and die in mid-air. There's a multitude of issues with such a travel however, first the movement in air at zero gravity is something different from flight (close to swimming underwater, in fact), which birds might not be able to learn, while insects and seeds/pollen might reach the other planets by intra-planetary currents; second, the navigation problem - unless your midair is EXTREMELY transparent, your planet dwellers would not be able to see the sun(s), probably the nights if any would also be very weird. Here on Earth, when you look at the sun, there is about ten kilometers of dense air obscuring sunrays, in your world it would be *millions* of kilometers of dense air, making the intra-planetary medium opaque. There might be more problems, requiring more time to analyze, but I believe this set of problems would first need to be solved before you continue.
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On Earth airplanes can't go to space because of the lack of air: airplane stay airborne because the motion of air around their wings causes and upward force that cancels out gravity; since the air density decreases with height, at a certain point the airplane can't get enough lift to go higher.
In your world this limitation is removed, since there is some sensible atmosphere at high altitude. This means that, as long as the airplane has means of keeping motion with respect to the air, it can get lift force.
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Flight on Earth uses engines (either jet or prop) to produce thrust and aerodynamic wing surfaces to provide lift against gravity. And that last part is where your universe might have some issues.
An unmodified aircraft will be able to fly through a suitable atmosphere, but will be restricted to regions where there is sufficient gravity to stabilize the flight envelope. If you try to go too fast the generated lift will be too high and the plane will rise into even lower-gravity areas. Without changing the wing structure of the craft you'll have to align the plane's velocity vector correctly by pointing your nose down so that the additional lift translates to 'forward' motion at some angle above the direction the nose is pointed.
So you either fly slowly, thus extending your travel time, or you have to deal with odd flight vectors. Most of your navigation aids will be almost useless since they're calibrated for flight in an entirely different environment. You'll need telescopes and other manual methods to ensure you're getting the flight vector close enough, at least until you can find someone with enough information and technical ability to make adjustments.
And of course there's the fuel issue. The longest commercial flight on Earth at the moment is a little under 10,000 miles (~15,300 km) and just shy of 19 hours in an Airbus A350 variant designed for long-range flight (the A350-900ULR specifically) and carrying 166,000 litres (44,000 gallons) of fuel. You'll get a little more range running semi-ballistic flight paths through the lower gravity at high altitude, but don't plan on doing any really long-range travel that way. Given the right sort of flight path you might double the range, but at the cost of being in the air for four or five times as long.
High gravity is going to be much harder to sell with Earth technology. Not only do our aeroplanes not have the kind of thrust it would take to generate enough lift (except perhaps for some of the more interesting stunting builds) but they're just not built to take higher gravity. Just sitting on the ground in 2G would probably snap the wings off most commercial aircraft, and the framing required to resolve that issue would make the plane too heavy to lift. I'm sure you *could* build a 2G aeroplane with the right materials, but it's not going to be simple and fuel consumption is going to go up exponentially. For those areas you'll need to build dirigibles or other lighter-than-air craft to stand a chance. And balloons - especially gigantic helium-filled dirigbles - aren't exactly known for speedy travel.
But you know what dirigibles *are* good at? Staying in the air for as long as you can keep the lift gasses contained. If you have the right kind of material to hold helium indefinitely (which is a bit of handwavium, but so's your entire universe) then you can float around the sky for months without expending a single litre of fuel for lift.
And here's where we can have some fun.
In order for your universe to make a tiny bit of sense there has to be something moving the air around, preventing stagnation and ensuring that the massive volume of air doesn't get depleted. That means that you at least have winds and possibly major air currents that we can use. Start with a large dirigible with some solid internal structure that we can attach wing masts to. If you just pictured a streampunk airship then you're headed in the right direction. Use sails to capture the air currents and ride them whereever you're going. For faster acceleration throw out massive parachute-like sails that act like the spinnaker on a modern racing yacht.
I imagine that there would be "air rivers" filled with lighter-than-air craft travelling between land masses at different levels. Which means air pirates. On hang gliders, probably. Sounds awesome!
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The distances are really big. You need fueling stops frequently (more like an archipelago of planets/moons) or some really big aircraft. [@Cort Ammon](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/244821/83464) has a very good answer about distances and fuel requirements.
One other really important consideration for planes in particular is going to be the [angle of incidence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angle_of_incidence_(aerodynamics)) (the angle that the wings are mounted relative to to the longitudinal axis of the plane). From what I understand of aviation, this angle translates part of the forward acceleration of the plane into downward acceleration to counter gravity. Planes can change their pitch to modify this force, but this angle is the angle used as the "default" for cruising. This angle is usually around 6 degrees for planes designed for long-haul flying, though fighter jets may use lower angles and I believe that stunt planes have no angle of incidence. If you are designing planes to do long-haul flights in microgravity, you will want a much lower angle of incidence so these planes can have almost all of their acceleration be forwards, as there is almost no gravity that they need to fight against to stay aloft between planets. Otherwise, the planes will likely get pushed continuously off-course in a direction perpendicular to their path of flight.
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Suppose that a mysterious philanthropist provided fundings for Charles Babbage's intricate projects and the Analytical Engine was finished by 1850.
Surely there would be a lot of raptured academicians and some fuss in newspapers, but what are some problems from 19th century the Engine could solve and thus provide substantual economic boost?
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*"What are some problems from 19th century the Engine could solve and thus provide substantual economic boost?"*
## None whatsoever
For those readers who don't know what we are talking about, Babbage's envisioned [Analytical Engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytical_Engine) would have had about the same capabilities as a typical ordinary programmable calculator, such as the famous [HP-42S](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-42S) (of which a free open source re-implementation is available as [Free42](https://thomasokken.com/free42/)). Of course the HP-42S was very very *very* much faster, but speed is not of the essence. But what is of the essence is that the HP-42 was also very very *very* much cheaper than the Analytical Engine, and it was *mass produced*.
There are literally *thousands* of programs available for the HP-42, and any of those could, in principle, be implemented on a functional Analytical Engine.
But the competitors of the Analytical Engine were not mysterious programmable calculators from the future, but human [computers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_(occupation)). The Analytical Engine was to be a mechanical programmable calculator, with ordinary mechanical speed; certainly not any faster than 100 human computers.
Let's try to understand the economics.
In the 1850, 50 real gold pounds sterling per year would have been a *fantastic* wage for a human computer; that would be about 7000 debased paper pounds sterling of 2022. Mr. Babbage burned through more than 17,000 pounds sterling (about 2,500,000 British pounds in 2022 money) before Her Majesty's Treasury pulled the plug. With that money the Treasury could have employed a hundred human computers for three years, computing whatever they wanted to be computed. With the advantage that the human computers did not require any huge capital investment, but rather they would have been pay-as-you-go.
The point is that one fantastically expensive, slow-as-molasses Analytical Engine would not have provided the British Empire with any competitive advantage. It could not do anything that a team of human computers could not do, it would not have been any faster, and it would have costed a lot more.
## Meanwhile in America
It may be instructive to compare Babbage's visionary but utterly impractical dream with the severely limited but eminently practicable inventions of [Herman Hollerith](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Hollerith), who concentrated on designing and building electromechanical tabulating machines actually useful in real life.
Hollerith's machines were first used to tabulate the results of the 1890 U.S. Census; while the results of the 1880 census took eight years to tabulate, the results of the 1890 census were completed in six years, although the population had increased by 25%. Hollerith and other inventors continued to develop and refine [unit record equipment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_record_equipment), which became ubiquitous in commercial and governmental organizations throughout the first half of the 20th century; general-purpose digital computers only replaced them in the late 1960s or early 1970s.
In 1911, Hollerith's Tabulating Machines Company joined four other companies to form the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company, which, in 1924, changed its name to International Business Machines, better known as IBM.
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As stated on the Wikipedia page for the [Analytical Engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytical_Engine)
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> Babbage developed some two dozen programs for the Analytical Engine between 1837 and 1840, and one program later. These programs treat polynomials, iterative formulas, Gaussian elimination, and Bernoulli numbers
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Gaussian elimination can be used to invert matrices, that is for example in solving systems of linear equations.
One possible application that comes to mind is the building design, where solving the frame requires solving such systems.
Babbage himself foresaw the development of Computer Science after the usage of his machine:
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> Babbage understood that the existence of an automatic computer would kindle interest in the field now known as algorithmic efficiency, writing in his Passages from the Life of a Philosopher, "As soon as an Analytical Engine exists, it will necessarily guide the future course of the science. Whenever any result is sought by its aid, the question will then arise—By what course of calculation can these results be arrived at by the machine in the shortest time?"[
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**Almanacs**
While chronometers help with determining longitude for navigation, they must be recalibrated fairly frequently. The moon, planets, and their moons are excellent natural clocks, but their motions don't perfectly conform to Kepler's laws. Corrections for their gravitational interaction were well understood in the 19th century, but the calculations are difficult. An almanac giving the positions of celestial objects versus time was very useful to navigators. Even in the 21st century, [almanacs are important official publications](https://aa.usno.navy.mil/publications/index). Automating the calculations allows the use of more accurate models and has improved the reliability of the predictions. Navigation was, of course, a critical activity for a worldwide empire funded by oceanic trade.
**Firing Tables**
Firing tables are used to estimate artillery range given elevation, charge, projectile type, etc. Tedious to calculate, they are of obvious use to an empire.
**Tide Prediction**
Later in the 19th century, Lord Kelvin invented a special-purpose analog computer for predicting tides. That was, of course, very useful to the Empire. A general-purpose digital computer could have done this, and Babbage's work was a couple of decades earlier.
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## It creates a self perpetuating computing R&D race
Sure, the Analytical Engine is a bit of a toy. But now everyone knows that switches can be used to create thinking machines. Every artillery expert realises that faster computers = more accurate ballistics. Just having one computer incentivises the development of every technology that feeds into them.
As soon as relays get invented, they immediately get optimised for computers. People start trying to make vacuum tubes 40 years earlier. WW1 features WW2 style encryption and WW2 has semiconductors.
## Development of the sciences, especially the social sciences
This doesn't scream competitive advantage, but what happens when Keynes comes along with the General Theory of Inflation and there's 80 years of computers being used to calculate things? Or when pervy old Kinsey shows up but the rates of sexual normbreaking is already known and tidily tabulated (and kills the scandal, as he's immediately disregarded as wrong)? Maybe the Soviets actually manage their economy quite a bit better with the aid of computers.
The possibilities are endless.
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# Friction and slippage
No matter how well-oiled, there will be some resistance when turning the cogs. With a long enough chain of cogs, it may become impossible to turn the cogs without damaging them. This was [a major problem](https://www.uh.edu/engines/epi243.htm) for Babbage's actual Analytical Engine.
Cogs don't fit exactly together, or they wouldn't be able to move. If you have a series of cogs driving each other, the last cog will be behind the first by some small, but significant amount. This introduces imprecision, and the longer the chain of cogs, the greater imprecision.
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Imagine someone claimed she was from Mesopotamia, one of the earliest civilization and had time travelled 5000 years into the future which is now our current modern day, she was completely naked so how can we scrutinize her using existing science and technology to find out if she is a fraud? Can we compare DNA or urine/stool sample? Language? Probably not she could be the only one who can speak it. Religious habit? maybe not also since she can pretend well.
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First of all, I doubt she would plainly say "I am from Mesopotamia and I have traveled in time", simply because those are concepts we have formalized. She will probably be scared by all these weird looking creatures popping out of horseless and smelly chariots, with funny body odors and body decorations.
That aside, there are several indicators which can corroborate the suspect: language is probably the best one. We don't speak those old and extinct languages, but thanks to the work of many philologists have a decent hunch at how they might have sounded. If this person was able to fluently speak it, and maybe even read the inscriptions, the possibility would be either that she is an academic of the field or something else. And the more academic institutions would fail to recognize her, the more that something else would become plausible.
Then probably a stool sample taken immediately after her arrival would tell that her most recent meal was not from our times, and also a chemical analysis of her hair would probably reveal level of pollutants different from the one we generally experience today: for one, copper extraction gave out a lot of arsenic in the surrounding.
DNA might show some old traits, but it's hard to assess their statistic relevance from a single sample.
Anon in the comment poses also a legitimate question, about her radiocarbon apparent age: I see two possibilities for this.
1. time travel doesn't affect nuclear decay: this means her $C\_{14}/C\_{12}$ ratio is unaffected, maybe a bit lower than what we have today. Maybe that could be also explained as effect of her diet, not sure about the numbers, but her radiocarbon age would not appear "old"
2. time travel does affect nuclear decay, forcing all of the atoms which would have decayed to do it after the jump: she would show a lower $C\_{14}/C\_{12}$ ratio before she starts eating current food, and she might probably show also some sign or radiation poisoning, due to the burst of radiation caused by the travel.
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In most of the industrialized world, she would almost certainly be diagnosed as a mental health/brain injury patient who lost the ability to speak coherently. At least at first. A *Jane Doe* in the health system would get initial treatment alongside with an attempt to identify her and to refine the diagnosis. As there is no match with missing persons records, they *might* bring in linguists to make sense of her 'babble,' but the assumption would be a (brain-injured) undocumented immigrant.
The odds that somebody brings in a classical philologist early on are slim.
The 'therapy' would continue over months and years, effectively teaching the time traveler the local modern language. It is possible that at some point she can explain her past experiences with such clarity that a modern person (who watched *Back to the Future* or *Star Trek IV* as a kid) makes the connection, but it won't be the time traveler. The tests mentioned by L.Dutch might come in order to determine her *regional* origin, with an eye towards deportation after the treatment, and would be filed away as inconclusive or contaminated ...
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At first glance, I think o.m. has a point.. I can add: she has a fair chance of getting raped and traumatized on arrival. It will be very difficult for her to adjust on her own, be acknowledged as a "normal person". Not being able to speak any language, not understanding current day technologies, or any modern frame of reference.. BUT..
**It will depend on the person welcoming her**
Suppose she would meet a member of WB, soon after arrival. Open minded, intrigued by her language and Catweazle-like behaviour, and not inclined to label such a person as "crazy" or "retarded". Welcoming her to stay for a few weeks or months. She could get some proper clothing, and one day the host will hear her Mesopotamia time machine story. Of course, he would open a topic on WB immediately, asking what to do now. A language expert hops in.. and proposes some tests to verify her claim: some words, short sentences. It turned out she responds with joy, hearing familiar words.
In the followup, interested scientists may be invited (in a discrete fashion) and after a while, she'll be in the news, some day. *Remarkable* women.. many people would be interested to meet her and talk with her. She'll take up a study and could become a professor, or she could become a cult hero.
**Being a deviation, it would depend on the arrival place**
The above is a best case scenario. She is a deviation, she will behave weird. Police, or municipal services could step in, try to get her institutionalized. These institutions are present in certain countries. Once a patient, it is often difficult to get out. On the other hand, many countries that have such institutions also have certain ethics: they regard psychiatric help as help, in case of a problem. It will depend on her own abilities and strength.. e.g. the ability to act, or be *polite*..
A general, hostile approach as a result of culture could happen in many places. It would also depend on looks, skin color.. not all Mesopotamians were white. In some belief systems, a woman who presents herselves naked in public is by definition a prostitute, which could get her arrested.
**.. a matter of luck**
Bottom line, for me: she's *human*.. just a stranger without clothes.. capable of emotional expression and fear. And looking you in the eye. My guess is, she'll at least survive.. the *followup* is a matter of luck for her !
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A woman turns up naked, terrified, unable to speak any comprehensible language?
No-one in any part of the industrialised world is going to assume she's brain damage or mentally handicapped. (Sorry @o.m. but you're seriously wrong here.) They're going to assume she's a traumatized survivor of rape, torture or something like that. Since she doesn't speak English, the immediate assumption would be that she's an immigrant (legal or illegal, they wouldn't know). And people forgetting recently-learnt languages and reverting to their original language in the face of trauma is a well-recognised phenomenon. So all the normal processes for handling a vulnerable, traumatized, victim of crime kick in.
As with anyone severely distressed, the first step is to bring them down from the point of panic so that they're able to be rational. Warm clothes, and food and drink, are the immediate requirements. And then she'd be brought to somewhere safe for her. In the short/medium term this could be a secure unit whilst they work out how to help her, and make sure she's not going to harm herself.
Then there's communication. Anyone who's ever travelled abroad knows how it feels to be in a place where you don't speak the language. You can still tell when people are trying to help you though, and informal sign language ("eat", "drink", "sleep", and pointing at things) is more effective than you'd think. And even just on holiday for a week or two, you pick up a few words. They'd almost certainly bring in some language specialists to try to figure out her language too, but there are enough languages in the world that everyone would know this isn't a sure thing. The only reliable way to communicate is to get her to learn your language.
Within a month or two, she might be able to communicate a bit. She wouldn't be able to say she came from Mesopotamia though. She'd be able to say she lived on a farm, and find a picture of a mud-brick house. At that point she might describe a bright flash (or whatever time travel process) and then appearing naked here. This would probably be written off as lost memory though. Even her being a subsistence farmer with manual tools wouldn't make her unusual in much of the world. And for her, she'd know nothing of a wider world so she wouldn't know she'd traveled in time.
It would likely take significant time after she'd acclimatized to life here before she realised that she had been moved in time. Maybe going to a museum and seeing things she remembered as exhibits, or on TV. It's nothing that's going to come to anyone's mind any time soon though.
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**PCBs**
Aka polychorinated biphenyls.
<https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/pcbs.html>
PCBs were super useful synthetic chemicals and lots of PCB was made between the 1920s and 1970s. They do not readily break down and persist in the environment. They are bioaccumulated according to trophic level and so humans accumulate a lot. Even though PCBs stopped being made in the 70s they can still be found worldwide and today every modern human has detectable PCB in tissues. If there is a concern about PCB toxicity it is not complicated to test for them.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/FK5YP.jpg)
<https://www.epa.gov/americaschildrenenvironment/ace-biomonitoring-polychlorinated-biphenyls-pcbs>
If you ancient is truly an ancient, her body would have no PCBs (which did not exist 5000 years ago) or very low levels compared to other persons her age as her accumulation would have only begun when she arrived in our time.
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Let's say that a mage is standing outside and world-renowned scientists are standing all around them, and this mage wants to prove beyond a doubt that they are casting a spell that is based on magic. To do this they must clearly and unambiguously violate the laws of physics, chemistry, etc. with no way for a trickster to ever replicate their feat.
Clarke's "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" must go right out of the window; when this mage is done, their demonstration must be so decisive that a rational scientist will have to admit that magic exists.
Assume here that said scientists are open minded and will accept proof as it is, even if they understandably regard what they see with rational skepticism based on scientifc knowledge.
Edit to answer Tortliena: Thanks! I am talking about an Arch Mage-level magic user, they've already demonstrated they can do crazy things like stopping time and crossing dimensions from theirs to ours. But science could possibly do this. The spell they would cast would answer "You literally cannot do that according to physics" with "I just did that." But it has to be quick and easily recognized as doing what is impossible. What quick and simple thing does physics say is flatly impossible?
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# Use the philosopher's stone
Spend enough time in this site and you will see questions about magically turning some atoms of some element into atoms of some other elements. Usually lead into gold. Usually while also upholding realistic physical consequences of doing so too. Spoiler alert: in most cases the end result is similar to the two disasters related to the [Demon Core](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core), but far more intense. [Thanks user 2012rcampion for mathing it out for us:](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/11223/21222)
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> If we want to achieve a maximum lead-to-gold ratio, we can simply emit all of the excess neutrons as neutron radiation. On average, each atom of lead will produce 1.04 atoms of gold, 2.76 neutrons, and -12.4 MeV of energy. That minus sign is a Bad Thing: it means that we have an energy deficit, i.e. we will need to put in that much energy for the reaction to take place. How much? About 50 Megawatt-hours per ounce of gold. You would also absorb on the order of tens of Sieverts of neutron radiation per ounce of gold produced [note from Square-Cubes: lethal radiation is usually between 4 and 8 Sieverts in short exposure]. This is probably not good for your wizard.
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If your mage manages to turn lead into gold without killing himself and everyone around him spectacularly, he will impress scientists more for the part about not dying than about the transmogrification itself. On top of that he will also be playing the oldest trope in Magic since Hermes Trismegistus.
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The scientist would conduct experiments using the scientific method of which the Mage would then participate in.
Any experiments would be done in a strictly controlled manner where every potential variable can be accounted for and controlled. Equally so, any magical effect would have to be both observable and measurable. Finally, the experiment would have to be done in a way that could be recreated by other scientists in order to verify the results.
So how a scientist would conduct an experiment would largely depend on the type of magic the mage claims they can do.
Let's say for example the Mage an conjure a spell that causes any object they can see to self-combust. A way to test such an ability would be to put an item inside a sealed, see through box.
The atmosphere inside the box would be controlled and have instruments to detect the presence of flammable liquids/gasses. the box would also have instruments to detect temperature, smoke etc.
The item going into the box would also be tested for flammable chemicals.
At no point would the Mage be able to access the item or the box.
Once setup, the scientists would ask the Mage to enter the room, stand at a marker on the ground and then be asked to ignite the item in the box.
After the Mage has ignited the item, the scientists would then study the data to conclude whether or not there is a scientific explanation for the item combusting.
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You can't, really. There's absolutely no reason why someone would believe magic is at play, unless they're already primed to believe in magic (which, mind you, plenty of scientists are guilty of!). Heck, if magic was real, we would simply let it join the rest of the stuff we call "science", because science is not any particular set of technologies or tools - it's a toolset for *learning* about what is *real*. Real magic is no different. No cheap tricks like transmutation or FTL communication are going to change that - it would require us to take another deep look at the things we took as fixed (or what the magic *actually* did, as opposed to what we observed it did - e.g. is it *really* a violation of the conservation of energy, or did the energy come from somewhere else?).
The magic that would be by far the hardest to swallow would be something *complicated*. Transmuting a chunk of one element into a chunk of another element doesn't qualify - it's interesting, but *simple*. What would be really complicated, but is taken for granted as simple in human imagination? Minds and bodies. People take them for so simple that they routinely "grant" human-like minds to rocks, animals and weather effects. But in reality, they are *insanely* complicated.
So for the most plausibly magical trick, I'd go with a polymorph. Change a human into a cat. Have the cat send a message while being a cat. Change it back. Have the human report back. Give the opportunity to every other scientist who claims it's just a trick. Is it fool proof? Hell no. Humans are susceptible to suggestion, and it's plausible enough that you used a drug to enhance that. We already know drugs who do something like that. It's also a lot more plausible you used some illusion (a perfect free-floating 3D hologram is far beyond what we can do now, but far more plausible than magic). You will always have people who couldn't experience it on their own. And even if they did, how could they trust their own experience? There's just too many ways that people routinely fool themselves, even without assistance. But at least it's something really complex, and not just something that could be answered with a simple technological device. Not impossible, but complex. Almost all magical tricks are really, *really* simple. This isn't.
Really, in general, go for things that *sound* simple to a human (because our brains do it automagically), but really aren't. Things like "walking through walls" sound really simple to humans (and are common magic in both fantasy and soft sci-fi), but answers to questions like "how are you walking in the first place if you're intangible?" are very easy to answer in human-language ("the spell knows the difference between a floor and the wall, duh"), while being nigh impossible in reality-language. But rather than just scientists, you really want *practicing magicians* (the trick-making kinds of guys, like James Randi) in on the demonstrations. You need people who are as non-gullible as humanly possible.
This *still* doesn't guarantee anything, of course. There's nothing you could do that would be *absolutely unexplainable with science*. Again, science is just about finding out how the universe works. If magic works, and it has rules, it will become a normal part of science. That's one of the points of Clarke's Law - and of course, Agatha Heterodyne's corollary, that sufficiently analysed magic is indistinguishable from science ;) In the end, if magic works, and people can use it... who cares whether you believe it to be supernatural? It clearly isn't, no matter how weird it is.
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# Pull Apart a Black Hole
Alchemy? Transfiguration? Polymorphing? These are all *difficult*, but I don't think any of them are actually outright impossible. With sufficiently advanced technology, I believe some of the more skeptical scientists might instead believe you've achieved teleportation tech (note that FTL isn't even required for this, it could be "boring" teleportation), which would allow you to perform all of those tricks.
Unfortunately, having a Black Hole handy is both irresponsible and ill-advised, so we'll take a shortcut and look at the closest known (??) Black Hole in HR 6819, which is *only* 1011 light years away.
Of course, tearing that apart wouldn't exactly be very timely, would it?
That's fine. We have magic. Just tear it apart 1011 years ago, to the second, and watch as it breaks apart in real-time. Use the matter to paint colorful nebula, write one of the scientists names in the stars, have some fun with it.
***This* is a triply layered impossibility.** If your scientists have the courage to acknowledge that no, they're not dreaming or hallucinating, the only viable remaining belief is that yes, magic is real. In one fell swoop, it:
1. Broke the laws of physics by pulling matter out of a singularity
2. Broke the laws of physics by 'time-travelling' 1,011 years into the past, with casual precision.
3. Remotely manipulated past-matter to create something that could only be known in the present.
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[The question was edited so I'm replacing my answer. Original text is left below the new answer.]
**Demonstrate FTL transportation or communication**
To the best of today's knowledge, no practical procedure permits movement or even communication faster than the speed of light. There are hypotheses that would permit it but they involve phenomena that are themselves currently believed to be physically impossible (e.g. negative mass). This would be an upending of known physics to an extent that could only be described as cataclysmic, which is what the querent has asked for ("*You literally cannot do that according to physics*").
As for the mechanism of demonstration, the moon is about 1.3 light-seconds away and even amateur radio operators with the right equipment can [bounce a radio signal off the moon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%E2%80%93Moon%E2%80%93Earth_communication). Open a portal to the moon, place a receiver there, transmit a moon bounce signal toward moon, and observe through the portal that the receiver on the moon detects the signal as soon as it traverses the 1.3 seconds to the moon but before the 1.3 second return trip could possibly have completed, proving that the portal is FTL transport.
(Should scientists reject the demonstration, note that the wizard could also become quite wealthy by outracing high-frequency traders on the stock market, who already use the fastest communications links possible to execute their trades in order to profit from them. Even the most hardcore skeptics will not withstand an unambiguous demonstration of that magnitude.)
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**Float in midair without any mechanical or other external aid**
Science does know how to make flying machines and how to levitate an object using external [magnetic fields](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_levitation) or [acoustic fields](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_levitation). However, countering gravity itself, one of the 4 fundamental forces, without any external support would be considered quite remarkable by physicists and would spark keen interest in proving or disproving it.
(That being said, it makes no sense to speak of magic being opposed to science. Any phenomenon that can be replicated on demand is itself subject to investigation using the [scientific method](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method) so magic would eventually become a scientific field of study itself.)
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Mind magic.
Of course, if our Mage is impatient, they could enchant all the scientists to just believe, period.
Alternatively, other spells that change the scientists' individual perception would be convincing, one by one. Perhaps body-swapping all the scientists' consciousnesses around to others, or even moving their minds into mice and birds, with full memory of the experience.
Of course, if the Mage wants the scientists to be able to make an authoritative statement about what they observed one may wish to put their minds back in human bodies. But which one goes where?
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You can't.
Magic is just science that hasn't been explained yet. Eventually it gets explained, and then it's not magic. Scientists know this. They won't think for a second that it's magic, just unexplained science.
If the mage can stop time, that just means we need to add time-stopping into our understanding of physics. We might not know exactly how to cause time-stopping, but we can study the effects, and we can also dissect the mage's body after they die, to see if they have any weird organs or chemicals that allow them to do this. Perhaps if we stimulate *this* nerve it stops time. Okay, where does that nerve lead to?
If the mage can transmute lead into gold, we know he has to remove some number of protons and neutrons in the nucleus of the lead atoms - that's the *definition* of lead and gold - if that doesn't change then it's just an illusion. What happens to the left-over ones? Do they go flying off to the sides as The Square-Cube Law suggests? Do they just vanish? Do they fall out the bottom in a pile of atomic goo? If the mage can vanish neutrons and protons, can he also conjure them when turning gold into lead? Can we make a perpetual motion machine and solve the entropy problem?
You know, we do already have magic spells in our world. A magician can cast *lumos* and seal light in a portable plastic tube, and then any old fool can activate the spell by flicking the conveniently provided switch to let the light out one end. Making one of these takes a fair bit of skill and commands some payment, but any old fool can use it. Eventually it runs out of magic, but the magic is conveniently contained in sealed metal canisters that can be swapped out to replenish it. In case you didn't figure it out already, I'm describing a battery-powered flashlight. A visitor from the 1600s would probably describe it this way. What else is a lightbulb, but a *lumos* spell that requires a continual supply of magic juice?
The scientists know there's no such thing as magic, not because they won't believe their eyes, but because they know they'll eventually be able to understand it fully and develop it into useful technology. The transmutation did happen, but it wasn't magic, just a research opportunity.
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First, ask the audience for a short message about something highly improbable that happened recently (the last five years or so is fine). A mundane example might be "President Trump - double impeachment, no conviction". Alternately, use your magic to gain some currently unknown insight into physics, math, or the like; or you could just predict the near future.
Next, grow a large tree in your open field. While growing this tree, encode that message into its growth rings in Morse code. For bonus points, encode different messages in different branches of the tree.
Finally, for added flair, you can then summon a sustained bolt of lightning out of a clear sky to show off those rings. Because it's cool.
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There are a few reasons this defies traditional scientific explanations.
* This could not possibly be sleight of hand, because it takes a team of people and some heavy equipment to move a large, living tree.
* Tree rings grow predictably with climate and vary in thickness with growth conditions for a year. This is so [accurate and consistent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendrochronology) that a piece of wood from the northern hemisphere can be dated back any time in the last 12,310 years. A living sample of a tree that doesn't match this record would be very notable. On top of that, carbon dating would show the whole tree is equally young.
* To encode an actual message in rings like this, you would need a carefully controlled greenhouse and a century or three. A provably modern message (news or knowledge) would have to start the encoding process before the industrial revolution began.
* The content of the message could also be solid evidence of magic. Advancing a science or two by a nice margin these days typically takes a large team of researchers years or lifetimes. Correcting several leading experts at once is extremely unlikely, making it good circumstantial evidence for your case.
* Lightning is caused by an imbalance of electrical potential. It balances in a fraction of a second and then the lightning is gone. Sustaining a miles long bolt just doesn't happen in nature, and would take a power plant's worth of energy if done by man.
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As far as it is known, **Relativistic Kill Vehicles** are a common weapon in science fiction and are rendered as powerful as nukes just due to their kinetic energy alone, a finite mass being propelled at a portion of lightspeed.
<https://hackerfall.com/story/relativistic-kill-vehicle>
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/5Fhdz.jpg)
However, one thing that has never been questioned is its feasibility, and thus I ask if it is possible to construct such a weapon.
Rules:
* Any percentage of lightspeed is fine, as long as it is above 1% lightspeed.
* The length and the size of the gun is up to you. Any resource is also fine, maybe even slightly theoretical, as long as it is not complete Unobtainium or Handwavium.
* The bullet should not have any rockets, and only a starting spark or propellant is allowed. Or magnetic materials for the bullets. Having a rocket function makes it more of a Relativistic Missile instead of a Relativistic Gun, which is what I am more looking for.
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Pfft. Unless you can get a [Lorentz factor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorentz_factor) of at least two, it doesn't deserve to be called a relativistic kill weapon.
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Happily, relativistic rockets are *harder* to make than relativistic guns, because physics hates you and your toys, as [Tsiolkovsky](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsiolkovsky_rocket_equation) has observed.
I'm going to blatantly abuse the wiggle room allowed by "starting spark" and break out Jordin Kare's [sailbeam](http://www.niac.usra.edu/files/library/meetings/fellows/oct01/597Kare.pdf) interstellar propulsion system. As many have observed, going fast enough for interstellar travel, even a puny 0.1c, is *really hard*, and using rockets is basically a terrible idea if you want to go faster.
The sailbeam is a [laser-driven light sail](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_sail) system, that uses a powerful laser (the "spark") to drive a stream of small sails made of suitable dielectric materials (the "propellant") to considerable speeds. The performance limits of such a thing are mindboggling... Kare suggests that maximum acceleration of a sail could be 32 million gravities (or zero to lightspeed in .97 seconds) though practical implementations probably aren't going to hit those sorts of levels.
The whole idea of the sailbeam was that each sail can be efficiently ionised and then deflected by a magnetic shield to transfer momentum, which is obviously not what *you* want. Instead of using the stream of relativistic lightsails directly, you bounce them off a magnetic shield behind the actual kill vehicle to drive *that* up to relativistic velocities. That can be a lot heavier and denser (making it impractical to deflect with mere human-generated magnetic fields) and might also have other useful adaptations like having a bursting charge to turn into a cloud of debris that is impractical to intercept. Lots of possibilities.
Sure, it doesn't look much like a "gun", but that's a *good* thing because guns of the conventional kind cannot possibly do what you want... too big, too hot, to inefficient. Nonetheless, it clearly ain't a rocket.
(and to those who might ask "why not just use the laser?" this could hit a target at arbitrary ranges, whereas all lasers will be diffraction limited and have finite ranges, or have planet- or star-sized optical elements)
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Do note the size of this system... you probably want at least a light-second's worth of space for the sail "runway", which is about 300000km, plus sufficient distance for your kill-vehicle to get up to speed. The latter is likely to be much longer, as accelerations will be quite a few orders of magnitude lower. That gives "barrel" length of a few tens of millions of kilometres (light minutes) depending on how fast you want your projectile to go. That's why you don't want a physical barrel on this sort of weapon!
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It depends on what counts as a bullet. A synchrotron can easily accelerate a proton to relativistic speeds, does that count as a bullet? Probably not, but how big must the bullet be? As this is critically important to the calculation.
It would be possible theoretically to accelerate a much larger object such as a magnetic bullet using synchrotron type technology but the practical problems are immense making the whole thing impractical.
The first issue would be acceleration, in order to build up enough speed in a reasonable time the accelerating force would need to be astronomical and/or the radius of the gun would need to be on a similar scale. And once a bullet has been powered up to such velocity it would be difficult to aim except in the plane of rotation.
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Not easy, but doable (with unlimited resources).
This is what I would go for. (Caution, awesome MS paint skills)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/RHn2T.png)
I would go for a design not unlike the large hadron collider, only with a twist.
The ship would have a diameter of 32km giving it a radius of just over 100km. This means that at .01c the projectile takes approximately 0.034 seconds to make a full revolution. Assumed you can switch the magnetic fields guiding the projectile within that time window to have it exit the straight "nozzle".
To counteract the inertia created by the projectile, one simply places thrusters in opposite direction the projectile is propelled.
The bigger problem would be the time you have to switch your fields to get the projectile from the loop into the muzzle. A full revolution at only 1%c takes only about 0,034 seconds. It'd take some really fancy electronics and programming to get this done accurately and quick enough.
But by far the biggest problem is the scale of this project. It's an absolute monstrocity and would cost an obscene amount of resources to get built in orbit. Not to mention to fuel cost to orient and maneuver this thing. Using this as a weapon would only work if it can be properly protected from enemies who also have access to advanced weaponry and could take this thing out with conventional and far less convoluted weapons.
Conclusion: However fun a weapon might be, it's not particularly practical unless this thing can be properly protected from assaults with support units... Or it could be part of a death star if you want to take a route like that.
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Solid vehicle relativistic weapons may not actually be able to exist. As matter approaches the speed of light, several models of quantum mechanics predict that the the "shape" of the probability cloud changes when an atom moves faster. This predicted effect is caused by the inability of the electron to exceed the speed of light forcing its orbital to become lopsided. The lopsidedness would cause complex molecules and crystalline structures to become unstable, and form a state of matter that behaves more like plasma when it leaves the barrel. I can not find any current research that proves or disproves this phenomenon; so, I will try to answer this question using the more conservative assumption of what is the "best way to make a relativistic compacted direct fire weapon" (doable) rather than "the best way to make a relativistic kill vehicle" (maybe not doable).
Most technologies able to accelerate things to relativistic speeds involve GIANT magnetic accelerators. But in space, mass is expensive making that super impractical, as Hyfnae points out.
The good (bad?) news is that there is an emerging technology that could be used to make reasonably scaled relativistic weapons. Laser accelerators can take a small coil full of matter that is already in its plasma state and accelerate it to much greater speed and precision than bulky magnet accelerators. Unlike normal solid matter, plasma can become extraordinarily ionized making it much easier to manipulate with electromagnetic forces. In 2014, the National Accelerator Laboratory, in Menlo Park, CA built a laser accelerator that was only 30cm long and could reach much higher speeds than most giant accelerators.
This means the ideal material for your "kill vehicle" is probably an ionized cold plasma cloud made of something that expands relatively slowly in its plasma state like xenon, neon, or helium.
The ideal speed to maximize damage for your energy input is technically somewhere around 0.6-0.7C. Faster than that and your matter becomes less reactive with normal matter and a lot of your energy will just pass right through the target and be wasted... That said, maximum damage is not necessarily the best weapon here. Because matter can only travel at 1C, as you get really close to 1C your plasma stops being able to dissipate. It basically time dilates into an almost "solid" mass. For example, at 0.99995C, you have a Lorentz factor of 100 meaning that something like Xenon plasma would only expand ~1.8 meters per second. At that speed, your Xenon pulse will be more like getting shot by a nuclear powered x-ray than a bullet, but even if the targeted ship does not exactly explode in a giant nuclear blast, your shot will still empart so much energy into the collisions that do happen that you can still cause devastating damage.
Then there is the ever common question that comes up with relativistic weapons: "Why not just use a laser?" Well anything that fires at 0.99995C might as well be called a laser except for one key element. Ballistic damage is a function of how much energy you can focus into the smallest amount of space and time as possible. Shining a flashlight at someone for a few hours won't hurt them, but translate the energy of that light into kinetic energy and compress it into a fraction of a second and you are are talking about giving someone a gunshot wound. Similarly, These plasma accelerators impart the energy of lasers over time into the plasma's kinetic energy. You might spend several seconds, minutes, hours, whatever charging up the plasma to its full speed, but once released, you are emptying a coil that might only be a few meters long at a speed of 300,000km/s thus turning your flashlight into a gun.
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[Question]
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In a fantasy world I am constructing, a planet goes through regular, but extreme temperature cycling. Roughly every 500 years, the planet begins to heat or cool, dependent on its current temperature. Transition periods between high and low temperatures are relatively short (~20 years). If plotted, this would resemble a square wave.
The amplitude of this wave is significant, with peak temperatures similar to those of the Eocene thermal maximum (27° C), and trough temperatures similar to the last glacial maximum (9° C). This would mean that the planet also goes through intense hydrological cycling as ice sheets freeze and thaw, coastlines drift, and weather patterns change. Thus warm periods also correspond to wet periods, and cold periods correspond to dry periods.
Given this harsh oscillation, most species on Earth would not do well. The equator would remain relatively stable from what I can tell, resulting in similar conditions to what we would see on Earth, but living beyond even 30° N/S would likely require extreme migratory patterns or specific adaptations to accommodate the climate shifts. Thus I am wondering **what adaptations and behaviors would allow organisms to survive away from the equator?**
To answer this question, consider both plants and animals. It may be assumed that all organisms have developed some sort of sense to allow them to predict when these climate shifts will occur a few years in advance to accommodate any behavioral shifts or morphological changes that need to occur. Additionally, even though this is a fantasy world, assume that the only explicitly magic effects visible is the ability to slowly redistribute body mass, and the natural generation of heat within specific kinds of rocks.
Assume that the first ability takes longer given greater physiological changes, for instance a complete change of body plan might take a week, whereas superficial changes like changes in coloration patterns might only take a few minutes. Greater changes additionally require significant brain power to accomplish. This brain power cannot be sacrificed during the transition. Assume that the ability of stones to generate heat is limited to some volcanic rocks always feeling slightly warm, and a small subset of these stones being hot enough that they would be uncomfortable to touch, but would not results in damaging burns on contact.
My own research into the subject suggests that species that can fly and have significant thermal insulation (birds) would do well in this environment given their high mobility and ability to survive the cold. Small mammals like foxes, rodents, and cats would also do well in this environment due to their resistance to temperature shifts, as well as their low energy demand. Grazing animals like deer and bison may also be able to tolerate the shift given the ability of grasses to survive cold and hot conditions, as well as their own natural tolerance for ranges of environments.
Plants would likely undergo extreme blooming periods during warming cycles to reseed rehydrated and thawing regions, but it seems that many temperate would be able to persist with small variations in sap chemistry. An interesting point of note is that deciduous trees may not lose leaves in the cold phases as the solar flux remains constant.
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## Mass migration
The simplest way for organisms to adapt to such changes is not to change so rapidly (a couple hundred years isn't much) but rather to migrate, as whole ecosystems, along with the changes in habitats. The periodic changes would mean that the following adaptations would be useful:
1. The ability to migrate (obviously) - while easy for many animals over the course of 20 years, it means that various plants would be adapted to ensure that their seeds would be carried away and distributed by the animals that need these plants to live.
2. The desire to migrate. It means that they would be "instinctively trigger-happy" in interpreting changes in temperature as a signal requiring long-distance travel instead of local adaptation to survive the changes where they are; behaviors that we see in migratory birds on Earth would be widespread in most types of animals (and in a way, plants) on that world. Also, while animals could be territorial, long-lived animals would *not* expect to live their whole life in one territory but they would consider just moving acceptable (which is not the case for all animals on Earth).
3. The ability to flourish after migration - in such a world, the ability to rapidly repopulate after migrating to a new habitat (and losing most of population in the process) would be even more valuable than in our world, so this is something that most species would be optimized for. Larger litters, faster breeding cycles, possibly the ability to self-fertilize or preserve fertilized eggs so that after a migration a single individual could have lots of offspring even if they're the only one of their species that manages to successfully migrate.
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I think that, **away from the equator**, it would be very difficult for most living organisms to live through the cold part of your climate cycle with just some extra fur or such. Most organisms that would want to keep active through that period would need to migrate towards the equator.
Tardigrades can survive pretty extreme conditions, so I would imagine that this type of micro-organism would be pretty widespread throughout this world.
However, it could create some interesting hyper-hibernation behaviours.
A lot of insects would revolve around colonies dying during the "winter", then regrowing in "summer", perhaps by having eggs that can survive freezing and thawing.
Same for plants, they would mainly die and spread seeds as winter approaches, or revert to just being a tuber-centric root system, then regrow once conditions are favourable.
I'm fairly certain that your large animals would need to migrate. I can't really imagine any bear-like animal that could hibernate for 500 years and continue its life unfazed afterwards. Anything smaller would probably lack the fat storing capabilities to do so. I'm unsure about rodents or similar critters, but once again I doubt it would be possible.
Large grazing animals, like mammoths, might stand a chance against the cold, but with no plants around to eat, they'd die out quite quickly from starvation.
Anything cold blooded is out of the question, unless you want to go for a Loch Ness Monster type scenario. The problem with that is that thawing doesn't usually occur instantaneously or uniformly. If your brain thaws before your heart, you're gonna be in deep trouble.
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Any organisms regrowing after this period probably wouldn't invest as much into size, as the "race" to claim ressources after the Great Thaw would be too important. Apart from that, you could probably imagine a fair number of ecosystems that could exist stably during your summers.
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**For animals**, migration appears to be the best option. You could have heat loving animals that retreat towards the equatorial regions during the'cold' period, and expand into the higher latitudes during the 'hot' period. A population of cold loving animals would similarly migrate between polar and 'temperate' latitudes.
*Regarding alternatives*: I don't think that hibernation for 500 years is a realistic option, and I don't think that an animal that could adapt to large extremes in climate could compete with mobile species 'designed' for specific climates.
**For plants**: a more practical option might be seeds that can remain dormant in the soil for extended periods (seeds can remain viable for [thousands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldest_viable_seed) of years). One set of plants (multiple species) could have seeds that only germinate after exposure to frosts - they would grow in cold conditions. The other set would germinate after a period of warm seasons. A period of 500 years would be more than long enough for mature forests to grow over the decay of the previous vegetation type.
*Other options*: Rather than long-lasting seeds, you could rely on plants with sticky seeds and/or light flying seeds - the former would catch a lift with migrating animals (see above) so the effective latitude of each species would drift over time, the latter would need enough seeds that, given suitable wind currents, could re-establish new populations as the climate changed.
**Aquatic species**: It is worth considering that a lot of aquatic species sometimes spend considerable amounts of time in widely ranging climates (whales for example, which can migrate from equatorial to polar seas). The sea acts as a natural thermal reservoir so even with significant climactic changes, such animals might be able to adapt their behavior to suit the large long-term variations you propose.
**Outside the box**: As an alternative, you could have bimorphic species. As an analogy, imagine a tadpole/frog system, where the animal matures to adult-hood as a heat-loving-'tadpole' when it grows in warm conditions, but metamorphose or mature as a cold-loving-'frog' if brought up in cold conditions.
[Answer]
**Refugia.**
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refugium_(population_biology)>
>
> Simple environment examples of temperature
>
>
> One can provide a simple explanation of refugia involving core
> temperatures and exposure to sunlight. In the northern hemisphere,
> north-facing sites on hills or mountains, and places at higher
> elevations count as cold sites. The reverse are sun- or heat-exposed,
> lower-elevation, south-facing sites: hot sites. (The opposite
> directions apply in the southern hemisphere.) Each site becomes a
> refugium, one as a "cold-surviving refugium" and the other as a
> "hot-surviving refugium". Canyons with deep hidden areas (the opposite
> of hillsides, mountains, mesas, etc. or other exposed areas) lead to
> these separate types of refugia
>
>
>
Your world contains hot and cold refugia. During cold times, as warm-adapted creatures flee south or die out, cold adapted species spread down from the poles and out from their mountain "cold surviving refugia" and retake the newly encoldened lands. Likewise during the hot times - cold species retreat to the cold refugia and hot species migrate up from the south and outwards from their "hot-surviving refugia". It takes a few decades for the change of shifts, which then persists for the next few centuries until the change takes place again.
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Say a group of people travel to a different planet where they have to wear spacesuits to live (because there's no oxygen and because of the atmosphere's density).
What would happen if they planted trees from earth in a greenhouse on this new planet, completely sealed, with all the conditions necessary for the trees to live, but on that planet's soil instead of earth's soil? Would the plants still grow? Would they still breathe out oxygen like on earth?
And, if not, is there any way to grow a lot of earth's trees in outer space? (because there's a limit to how much dirt they could bring on a spaceship)
[Answer]
Maybe. It all depends.
Trees rely on soil for a lot of things, and the alien soil would need to supply it and also refrain from being harmful.
* Not poison the tree: Some extraterrestrial soils are actively poisonous. (Mars' soil, for example, is *highly* oxidizing and would, untreated, almost certainly kill anything planted in it.)
* Retain water: Soil holds water and the tree's roots absorb that water.
* Provide fixed nitrogen, potassium and phosphorous: These three nutrients are essential for plant growth and needed in fairly high quantity. In an established soil community on Earth, they are supplied by mineral weathering and recycling of old plant material. Fixed nitrogen, in particular, would be unlikely to be usefully present on a lifeless planet that was Oxygen/Water based.
* Provide micronutrients: There are many other elements which plants need in race amounts and rely on the soil to provide.
* Provide support: The soil holds the tree's roots and the roots hold the tree erect. Without soil, trees fall over without external support.
Probably the best way to use alien soil is in hydroponics: The soil presumably lacks organic matter, so process it to remove nasties (oxidizers, over-supplies of specific minerals, etc) and use it as a growth medium that provides nothing more than support for nutrient-rich water. (Perlite, for example, is sort of a Quaker-puffed-mineral which is completely inert and used for just this purpose here on Earth.)
You still need to get CO2 in the air from somewhere, protect the tree's leaves from too much UV, and protect them from desiccation.
But it's not very likely the an extraterrestrial planet's soil would be useful right out of the box, so to speak.
[Answer]
You are better off using [lichens](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lichen).
>
> A lichen (/ˈlaɪkən/, LEYE-ken or (USA) /ˈlɪtʃən/, LICH-en) is a composite organism that arises from algae or cyanobacteria living among filaments of multiple fungi species in a mutualistic relationship. The combined lichen has properties different from those of its component organisms.
>
>
>
They are the first organism to colonize lava fields after eruptions, and grow in conditions as extreme as in the tundra.
>
> Lichens grow on and in a wide range of substrates and habitats, including some of the most extreme conditions on earth. They are abundant growing on bark, leaves, and hanging from branches "living on thin air" (epiphytes) in rain forests and in temperate woodland. They grow on bare rock, walls, gravestones, roofs, and exposed soil surfaces. They can survive in some of the most extreme environments on Earth: arctic tundra, hot dry deserts, rocky coasts, and toxic slag heaps. They can live inside solid rock, growing between the grains, and in the soil as part of a biological soil crust in arid habitats such as deserts. Some lichens do not grow on anything, living out their lives blowing about the environment.
>
>
> When growing on mineral surfaces, some lichens slowly decompose their substrate by chemically degrading and physically disrupting the minerals, contributing to the process of weathering by which rocks are gradually turned into soil. While this contribution to weathering is usually benign, it can cause problems for artificial stone structures. For example, there is an ongoing lichen growth problem on Mount Rushmore National Memorial that requires the employment of mountain-climbing conservators to clean the monument.
>
>
>
Last but not least, they can be used as food
>
> Lichens are eaten by many different cultures across the world. Although some lichens are only eaten in times of famine, others are a staple food or even a delicacy. Two obstacles are often encountered when eating lichens: lichen polysaccharides are generally indigestible to humans, and lichens usually contain mildly toxic secondary compounds that should be removed before eating. Very few lichens are poisonous, but those high in vulpinic acid or usnic acid are toxic. Most poisonous lichens are yellow.
> In the past, Iceland moss (Cetraria islandica) was an important source of food for humans in northern Europe, and was cooked as a bread, porridge, pudding, soup, or salad. Wila (Bryoria fremontii) was an important food in parts of North America, where it was usually pitcooked. Northern peoples in North America and Siberia traditionally eat the partially digested reindeer lichen (Cladina spp.) after they remove it from the rumen of caribou or reindeer that have been killed. Rock tripe (Umbilicaria spp. and Lasalia spp.) is a lichen that has frequently been used as an emergency food in North America, and one species, Umbilicaria esculenta, is used in a variety of traditional Korean and Japanese foods.
>
>
>
Similar to what happens on Earth, after lichens have enriched the substrate forming a soil, you can start growing grass-like plants and only much later you might think of trees.
[Answer]
Your plants will most likely die as they don't have the supporting ecosystem in the soil. If you look at the evolutionary timescales, land based (read as soil inhabiting) plants are first thought to have evolved on Earth around 700 million years ago, but life first formed on the planet a lot earlier; around 3.5 billion years old, probably around 1 billion years after the Earth first came into existence. Prior to that life was actually oxygenating the atmosphere; it's estimated to have taken around 2 billion years.
The point of all this is that if there is no oxygen in your atmosphere, then there's probably little to no biological activity going on there to start with, and certainly none that would provide an analogue to the ecosystem that exists in soil that trees and other plants rely on for their survival. For a start, dirt isn't just dirt; trees grow in a mix of biological material and rely on bacteria breaking down old plant matter to provide nutrients for them. Potting mix, if you're a gardener, doesn't often contain soil at all, but rather a whole bunch of composting biological matter with the accompanying bacteria, worms and the like that help turn it into the nutrients that the roots of trees pull out of healthy soil.
When you get right down to it, plants are nowhere near as hardy as we would like. Granted for the most part they're hardier than us, but put them on an alien planet and you're going to have soil Ph, foreign biological processes (if you're lucky), salinity, water capture and a range of other issues to deal with. On earth in most places all we have to add is water because the soil is already ideal for our trees. But, if the amount of fertiliser bought by the agricultural sector is anything to go by, even our soil is often not ideal.
Of course, this doesn't even cover the question of toxins in the atmosphere like sulphuric acid, what the temperature variations are, the relative humidity and ability of the soil to even hold water... It's a complicated exercise.
Bottom line is that you can't just bring your trees; you need to bring their entire ecosystem, probably building suitable soil out of the dirt and regolith already present from the ground up (no pun intended) before you think about planting your trees.
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Not trees, trees are delicate sensitive things, though they may not seem it at first glance.
You want weeds, dandelions, horsetail, bindweed, knotweed, grass.
Plants that will grow out of a crack in concrete and call it a good home. Plants that your every effort to annihilate has knocked 6 weeks growth out of and *look who's back*. It'll take you a while to work out what will grow, what won't, and what's straight up invasive in the new environment, then you can start planting properly.
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Can we create any electrical equipment which works in the opposite way to a bulb, such that is whilst it is switched on all the light in the surrounding area gets absorbed creating darkness?
[Answer]
Maybe possible in theory, but not plausible with any foreseeable technology.
Light is a torrent of electromagnetic waves. Darkness is the absence of any such light waves.
You can cancel out a wave by creating a wave which is exactly identical but with the phase shifted by 180°. This is called "destructive interference". But there are a couple of problems with trying to cancel out a light source in a real-world scenario:
1. if your two wave emitters (light and "anti-light") are not in exactly the same location, then the interference only works in one spot at a time.
2. then there is the problem that light is usually not just a wave with one frequency but a combination of multiple waves with lots and lots of different frequencies and amplitudes (that's what defines the color of a light). If you want to cancel out a light source, you need to match all those frequencies.
3. And then there is the problem that in a regular lighted situation you don't have one light source but many different light sources as well as indirect light. So you don't have the same combination of light waves on every surface.
So you can not just have an anti-lightbulb which you can switch on anywhere and expect to work. You would have to know exactly which micro-meter of surface in the surrounding receives which light frequencies and then send out rays of light with exactly those waves so that they arrive phase-shifted by 180°. This would not just require a tremendous computing power but also the ability to emit billions of unique rays of light with an extremely fine precision.
If you want to prevent people from seeing something, then there are simpler methods.
* You can obstruct their view with smoke or fog.
* You can temporarily blind them with a strong flash of light.
* You can obstruct or disable any sources of light.
[Answer]
That already exists.
It's called a smoke bomb.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/qA0zq.jpg)
If you stick your head into it the smoke, you won't be able to see s... a thing.
If you make the smoke black, it will absorb visible light in all wavelengths. If you use [vantablack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vantablack), your absortion efficiency goes all the way to 99.96%.
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Going laterally a bit here.
If all you need for your "darkness" is for people not to be able to see anything, then your device could generate some (unobtanium-based) E-M wave pattern which completely shuts down the optic nerve.
Obviously this will be useless if your intent is to stop hardware such as video cameras from recording information.
[Answer]
Based on answers above, two options:
1. High-tech smoke bomb, namely a cloud of nanobots that stay in a given area, fill the air in it evenly, are painted with [Super-black paint](https://news.artnet.com/art-world/singularity-black-blackest-paint-1042202). In fact, rather than microscopic nanobots, make them more like moths or floating flakes. Device coordinates nanobots and provides energy through induction: nanobots constantly circulate to the device to recharge, and then away from it to dim the furthest corners.
2. Brute force: device emits super-bright light that makes it impossible to see anything, by overwhelming both retinas in the eyes and sensors in cameras. Device will need a lot of energy, and a very efficient light bulb. Can make it a plot point that it does not last long.
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Although it's counter to every sci-fi show that I've ever seen, wouldn't a shield that blocks lasers also block physical light?
That would make it easy to turn on a shield emitter lightbulb and have it block all the light from entering an area. I'm not sure if it would stop light created in that area.
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One military has developed insects with strong jaws capable of chewing through the weaker parts of CBRN (Chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear defense) gear and then injecting neurotoxins into their enemies' bodies. These insects would be deployed through cluster munitions, IED (improvised explosive device) like devices left behind while retreating, and airburst artillery (assume modern technology on both sides) and are resistant but not completely immune to insecticides. How would you prevent these from decimating your forces?
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These sort of cat and mouse games are hard to speak to on this kind of site. The answer is always the same "the military will identify a weakness in the attacker's attack, and exploit it."
I would expect the MOPP suits worn in CBRN strikes to *very very* rapidly be improved to support use in CBRNI strikes (Chemical, Biologial, Radiological, Nuclear, and Insect). The jaws of the insects chosen will be analyzed at a very rapid pace and new suits which are designed to not be chewed through will be distributed.
While these new suits are being developed, I would expect soldiers to knock the insects off of the suits, and crush them. MOPP suits aren't *that* easy to chew through, so it will take a large insect a reasonable amount of time to get through and deliver a killing blow. Insects are not a match for a capable soldier. Soldiers will kill the insects en masse. A 2000 pound airburst round may deliver a lot of insects on the scene, but you may be astonished at how enthusiastic a team of Marines can get when squishing bugs that threaten their lives.
I would expect a lot of research will go into understanding *why* these insects attack the soldiers. A soldier in protective gear is not typical prey for an insect. Most insects avoid attacking mammals two orders of magnitude larger than them. My first instinct is that the humans who engineered these insects developed these insects to try to lay eggs in humans, akin to the blowfly. Mating and propagation of the next generation is strong enough to cause these insects to get close to animals they otherwise would avoid. I would expect great interest in developing a lure which mimics whatever these insects seek, permitting squishing of them in great quantities with less effort and risk.
[Answer]
**You're going to need a bigger bug.**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/GF9jZ.jpg)
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4FcSpr951A>
A lot of genetic engineering went into these battle bugs. Pesticide resistance alone is no mean feat, plus they have fast knockdown neurotoxins plus they chew thru suits and attack.
I am taking away that you think readers / players in your world will dig superbugs. So have more! Your anti bug bug is not pesticide resistant , no neurotoxins, just bad of ass with a hatred for those dang neurotoxin bugs and a desire to bite them in half. Which is what this Japanese Giant Hornet is going to do to this bee.
Your marines would release their anti bug bugs when they came under attack. By those bad bugs, I should be clear. Antibug bugs stay inside for nonbug attacks. But if there bad bugs come, each antibug bug will fly out and rapidly and summarily deal with dozens or even hundreds of those chewy poison bugs. Maybe each marine would carry a few in a pouch, and on release the anti bug bugs will crawl and buzz around their soldier, taking out any GMO bug with the temerity to try something.
Then the anti bug bugs will return and the marines will sing the antibug-bug song and feed them sweets and ground meat and puff marijuana smoke into the hive.
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I think the easiest method to counter this would be to keep your infantry 'buttoned up' in armored personnel carries and IFVs until the area was definitely cleared. Vehicles like the Bradley are designed to resist NBC attacks and I imagine the insects would have a hard time actually working they way in to the vehicles, if they even take notice of the vehicles at all.
Having your troops only dismount when they've engaged the enemy would make it a lot harder for the enemy to make full use of their bioweapons as once they are within a few hundred metres, the enemy isn't going to want to call in bug artillery on their position. Even if they beat back the assault, they now have a ton of bugs that are liable to attack them (assuming the bugs can't tell between friend and foe).
Incendiaries like flamethrowers and white phosphorous would probably also be rushed back in to service for infantry units in order to counter any bugs they come across.
I think the biggest threat these bugs would pose would probably not be in IEDs but artillery and air support on troop concentrations, especially against non-combat units in the rear. The main way to counter this would just be to massively boost your counter battery and air defence capabilities.
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[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/0AbS3.jpg)
<https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/kill-it-with-fire>
**Fire, Its The Only Way To Be Sure**
Many creatures are naturally afraid of fire, perhaps due to the light, the heat, the noise of a combination of all three. Igniting the insects would not only kill them but it may cause a rout, sending the insects back towards whoever sent them against you. This could cause the insects to instead attack their handlers “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”. Flaming pigs have historically been used by the Romans to cause elephants to rout so we could assume a similar principle will apply here (though with giant insects and flamethrowers).
Fire could also be used defensively, even if the insects are unafraid of it. If you are being charged at by the insects, igniting the first few rows will ensure the destruction of the entire army. The first few rows will be directly killed by the flamethrowers, their ignited corpses would litter the battlefield. The insects behind them would have to climb over these flaming bodies and, in turn, be killed by the fire. This would lead to a mountain of charred insect corpses with little effort on the part of the defenders.
**Gallons of Pesticide**
In a similar vein, you could spray the insects with toxic chemicals, causing their death. Your own troops would be safe inside their CBRN suits. Whilst *actual* pesticide may be a ridiculous suggestion depending on their size, you could instead use a plane to mist them with chlorine gas or hydrochloric acid.
**Capture the Young or Queen**
I recently rewatched *Nausicaä, Valley of the Wind* so i can not help but to reference it in this answer. Towards the end of the movie a young Ohmu (a large cattle-sized pillbug-like insect) is captured and is being used as a weapon. Whilst this young creature has no offensive capabilities, it is instead calling to its herd. The *adult* Ohmu are the size of 3 or 4 storey buildings and are easily capable of levelling a city when enraged. The young Ohmu is being used as bait by a military, attracting the adults to a city to destroy it.
Your military could employ a similar thing, capturing the queen or the young and drawing the insect army away from your troops and towards your enemy.
**If It Bleeds, We Can Kill It**
A simple yet effective way is to just fire bullets into them until they stop moving. The *Starship Troopers* movies are a good example to use here, the marines are armed with “pulse rifles” (essentially just sci-fi machine guns) which they use to kill the Bugs (6-8ft creatures with huge manibles capable of slicing a man in two). In the movies you see creative uses of grenades, plasma walls, Zerg tactics from the insects, it seems to be what you’re after. However, i must warn you these movies are somewhat gory, not for the feint of heart nor weak of stomach.
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**Use this ecological menace against their creator**
Use armored vehicles to prevent immediate exposure.
Determine the chemical that attracts the insects.
Use armor and air to lay down a trail of attractant leading the insects back into the home territory of their creators, thereby rendering much of *their* CBRN defenses ineffective.
Then gas the creators mercilessly. Karma.
[Answer]
modify the suits or if they can control the meeting place have the grass and plant matter that's genetically modified can do it for them.
If its the suits they could be self healing or maybe have a layer inside that will fill up with light weight liquid that will harden quickly to help protect the wearer longer while they either spray the air or else the layer has the counter agent inside that once it makes contact with any digestive substances it explodes or sends a shock to it so the bugs might get a 10,000 volt jolt to their tiny frames that would kill them.
If it's plants I heard they want to make corn that will change color to signify poisons in the air or tell earthquakes are incoming so the idea is similar enough the plants are gmoed ether via spraying the war zones or via making and panting the items in hostile zones they look just a tiny bit different then the actual item it is based off of your solider would be trained to spot this but its largest tale beyond the subtle non activated from would be color change or illumination or harmonics that link to the suit's inner comms that squawk only to those with the programs to tell them what it sees, hears, or knows about the area like explosive detected or traffic came in stopped for 5 minuets then left.
Another method would be to have animals or pet robots to try and suss out such particulars. If these bugs are alive and moving inside the small mine then the computer could sense the tiny tremors located in one spot but it could also be somewhat faulty if you are in a country with regular tremors it could give false positives for a wide area that's for if you wanted to not make it too easy for your group to move through an area.
[Answer]
Essentially, what will happen is that the suits will be adapted VERY quickly to deal with this threat. These suits are already heavy duty, so why not make them more so. There is a variety of solutions to this actually, feel free to choose.
* Make it stronger. Basically, toughen up the materials with whatever science/ hand waviness you wish. For example you could put a mesh of wire in that fouls the bug's jaws, or use an entirely different material.
* Kill the damn thing. For this one, you can incorporate it in many ways as well. You could put electricity (props to Mio) etc. Alternatively, you already have the suit, why not use that to your advantage. You said not completely immune to insecticide, so I am assuming that you mean you need something pretty heavy to kill them. So just put that in the actual CRBN that you are being protected against.
* Counter it. Props to Willk for this one. The anti bug bugs are a great and funny idea that would be good to incorporate into your story.
* Eliminate it. Final idea, spread a disease, blight, infertility ray that is used against these to wipe them out entirely.
Essentially, any of these alone or in combination will work, pick and choose as you wish. Good luck!
] |
[Question]
[
My question is simple. What would people in England in 1700 think of a modern, history loving, 12-14 year old girl? This particular girl was a case of time travel gone wrong. A school trip meant to be observational only and mostly simulational where the travelers aren’t physically there fails and leaves one member of the class stranded. There is no hope of getting back, and she is near the Scottish border. She is wearing a long sleeve red Cotton T-shirt, red leggings, and long green skirt. She is wearing brown leather ankle boots with laces and rubber bottoms. She does not have a phone. She fortunately likes history enough to have some basic skills like sewing, cooking, building things, making things like candles and soap, weaving, etc, without modern tools. She looks like she is from the area, and apart from clothing, would not be too odd if you passed her on the street.
How would people of the time and place react to her is she walked into town one random morning.
Edit: Farther along the insomnia trail, would it help if she were dubious of the machine and decided to take a few things with her? They couldn’t be to large or expensive, and no computers or cellphones. Size limit around a large satchel with possible wearable items?
Edit for clarification: She is from the area in modern times. Not another country or region.
[Answer]
**How would she be immediately perceived by the citizens of the time?**
The reason this question is hard to answer is, it depends. Whoever finds this girl first is going to determine her entire future.
**Let's start off by setting the scene.**
She is here (just south of the solid black line):
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/vfbAo.png)
Somewhere.
None of these are cities. I'm guessing they're mostly farming/pastural communities back in 1700. Small towns. Villages really. The [Industrial Revolution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution) didn't begin for another few decades. It, along with steam engines, didn't happen until the mid-18th century, when your girl would be middle-aged.
**Aside from agriculture, fabric was likely the primary industry of the time and region.**
>
> By 1600 Flemish refugees began weaving cotton cloth in English towns
> where cottage spinning and weaving of wool and linen was well
> established; however, they were left alone by the guilds who did not
> consider cotton a threat...In 1700 and 1721 the British government passed Calico
> Acts in order to protect the domestic woollen and linen industries
> from the increasing amounts of cotton fabric imported from
> India.
> The demand for heavier fabric was met by a domestic industry based
> around Lancashire that produced fustian, a cloth with flax warp and
> cotton weft. Flax was used for the warp because wheel-spun cotton did
> not have sufficient strength, but the resulting blend was not as soft
> as 100% cotton and was more difficult to sew.
>
>
> On the eve of the Industrial Revolution, spinning and weaving were
> done in households, for domestic consumption and as a cottage industry
> under the putting-out system. Occasionally the work was done in the
> workshop of a master weaver. Under the putting-out system, home-based
> workers produced under contract to merchant sellers, who often
> supplied the raw materials. In the off season the women, typically
> farmers' wives, did the spinning and the men did the weaving. Using
> the spinning wheel, it took anywhere from four to eight spinners to
> supply one hand loom weaver. ([ref](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution))
>
>
>
>
>
**What does this girl look like to the locals?**
First of all, maybe she doesn't look like a girl at all. Sure, she's wearing a skirt, but it's not the wide hipped flowing skirt of the late [Stuart Period](https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/Tudor-Stuart-Fashion/). She has no [petticoats or elaborate bodice](https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/Tudor-Stuart-Fashion/).
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/PLs6S.png)
In fact, her outfit looks a lot more like [this rich gentleman's](http://www.fashion-era.com/english-costume/1689-1702-william-and-mary.htm). Boots and leggings and all.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/NpPAN.png)
While no one could mistake her for a boy after a day or two, it's very possible that whoever first encounters her will assume she is a pre-pubescent boy. The higher voice and lack of facial hair would fit right in. As long as her clothes aren't tight and she's closer to 12 than 14, her body wouldn't necessarily mark her as female. This might give her some initial protection and better explain what she's doing in town alone.
**Everyone knows she's not local** because the town is small enough that the residents all know each other. The most likely explanation is that she is a salesperson traveling from town to town to sell her (his) wares. She could even tell people her father is camping in the woods and sent her to drum up business. Or she could be looking for work.
Ideally, she'll find an adult she can trust who will take her in for a few days until she can get settled. Those first few minutes will make all the difference.
Despite her soft hands, good skin (not much work in the sun), and excellent teeth and health, she will not be mistaken for a noble. Her clothes might be devilishly fine weaving (a t-shirt is not something people of that time period could duplicate, despite the fact that they were skilled with cotton) but they were just not fancy in any way.
The boots, sure, they're very expensive work, but they're probably scuffed up (teenagers!) and maybe she got them as hand-me-downs from her last employer. She can't even afford petticoats or proper sleeves! No way is she from a wealthy family. Or even merchant class.
**What could she bring with her?**
If she somehow knew this could happen and wanted to bring things ease her transition into early 18th century life, what could she fill a satchel with that would be easy to bring on a field trip?
**Lace.**
Lace was all handmade back then and took a very long time to make. You need tiny crochet hooks (for tatting) or a needle and thread and great skill and practice.
>
> Lace, a decorative openwork web, was first developed in Europe during
> the sixteenth century. Two distinct types of lace making—needle lace
> and bobbin lace—began simultaneously. Needle lace is made with a
> single needle and thread, while bobbin lace entails the plaiting of
> many threads. Lace thread was typically made from linen, and later
> silk or metallic gold threads, followed by cotton in the nineteenth
> century....
> Lace was always an expensive luxury item because of its painstaking,
> time-consuming production....Both men and women wore
> lace from its inception to the eighteenth centuries. It was often the
> most costly part of dress and reflected the sophisticated tastes of
> the aristocracy. Lace adorned women’s and men’s collars and cuffs,
> draped women’s shoulders, hands, heads, covered entire gowns, and
> decorated furnishings. The excessive sums of money spent on
> extravagant laces prompted many rulers to place restrictions on the
> wearing and importing of lace from other countries. Sumptuary laws,
> however, proved futile and the smuggling of foreign lace was
> widespread. Europe’s desire for handmade lace continued unabated until
> the end of the eighteenth century. ([ref](https://www.flysfo.com/museum/exhibitions/lace-sumptuous-history))
>
>
>
If your character buys pretty machine-made lace.—not the cheapest polyester, but decent quality cotton lace, or lace from synthetics that resemble silk and hold up well—she will be well on her way to having her own business.
Even simple lace trim cost a fair bit. Add in some other decorative needlework, and you have an outfit fit for a queen. (Note that the lace trim around her neck, as well as the trim beneath it, are items that one would purchase separately then sew onto the clothing.)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/8WOPN.png)
[Queen Anne by Closterman 1702. Hanging in Hampton Court Palace.](http://www.intriguing-history.com/periods-history/stuart-period/)
It was quite normal for salespeople to wander the countryside with goods they acquired from others who went on long distant trips to trade. As long as she is not immediately robbed (and in a small town, that's probably not going to happen...towns with that reputation don't get visits from salespeople and that can ruin their economy...towns often had fairs and other events where trade was important).
It's your story, if you want her to find kind protective people in the first hour of her stay, then she will.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/q3G0w.png)
Detail of [Irish Crochet Lace](https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-detail-of-irish-crochet-lace-work-on-collar-in-the-sheelin-antique-13443120.html) work on collar in the Sheelin Antique Irish Lace Museum in village of Bellanaleck, County Fermanagh
**Jewels.**
While even plastic jewels would fetch some money, she'd be better off bringing good inexpensive gems made out of glass or less expensive rocks or even some cubic zirconias. Not to pass off as diamonds, emeralds, whatever. But as gems in their own right. She doesn't have to lie: whatever she brings will not be something available there and will be valuable.
**Paper and pencils.**
Paper will not be easy to find and it will not be cheap. A couple spiral notebooks will be very valuable to her. A bunch of pencils will last longer than ballpoints, but both are useful.
**Names and addresses of nearby barristers (lawyers).**
This one will take some research but it shouldn't be too hard to look up modern-day firms and find one or two that were founded in or by the early 18th century (she might have to go to London for this, but in 20 years, she'll have the means). Then she can do the old time-travel troupe of leaving a message to be delivered in 2019 to her family.
[Answer]
It depends exactly where she turns up and in what country. I'm British so I'll imagine Britain.
---
Initial reactions will be surprise and suspicion. She will almost immediately be labelled a 'foreigner' - probably French which was the default foreigner in those times - because of her funny way of speaking and dressing. Local children will gather round, asking questions and eventually possibly bullying her for her differences. The adults will be curious but not at all trusting. They are used to sameness, and difference will be viewed with extreme suspicion. Poverty is everywhere that she is actually likely to meet people on the street. Upper classes will travel by carriage or horse and not speak to people in the street. To speak to a wealthy person she would have to approach the mansion and knock at the door. The servant who first answered the door would probably just shut it again after telling her to go away.
Time-travel simply wouldn't be believed in those days. No-one would want to listen except perhaps she might be considered a good teller of fairy-tales where people can fly through the air and other marvels. The idea of having toilet facilities within the house would be considered disgusting by lower class people and unnecessary by the upper classes who have servants to empty the chamber pots.
Perhaps the best place to arrive would be in a farming community. There was always plenty of work to do and hands needed to do it. Workers would likely eat at the large kitchen table and there would be some kind of family atmosphere. The work would be hard and require long hours. When harvesting is impossible because of rain then she would be sent out in the rain to pull weeds. (I know I used to spend the summer on my uncle's farm. You couldn't just sit around doing nothing).
There would likely be no pay - just bed and board.
---
In a big city, not having any money or family to call her own, she would be considered an orphan or waif or stray.
>
> The orphanages in 18th century England; particularly London were
> terrible, terrible places for a child of low class.
>
>
> They; most of them situated in ‘Working Homes’ were particularly not
> even a ‘orphanage’ of any kind. They were simply a workforce with
> children labour.
>
>
> The nannies, or the masters of the houses were usually cruel,
> cold-hearted people who beat and forced the child into work. Babies
> were very rare to survive if given to the ‘orphanage.’ In early 18th
> century England it was estimated every 12 deaths 11 were infants.
>
>
> <https://www.quora.com/What-happened-to-orphaned-children-in-18th-century-England>
>
>
>
If she was very lucky she would be offered a job as a servant with a wealthy land-owner. Even then she would be at the bottom of the pecking order among all the servants and would end up scrubbing floors and taking out chamber pots.
>
> At this time children worked in many different and dangerous places
> such as farms, coal mines and even in chimneys. There were no laws to
> protect people at work until the Industrial Revolution was well under
> way. <http://www.newlanark.org/learningzone/clitp-industrialrevolution.php>
>
>
>
By the later 1700s, if she arrived near a cotton-mill town for example then she would be put to work in fairly inhumane conditions with no health and safety provision and long hours.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/nfDtt.png)
---
Even children with relatives had it bad. Consider the case of Jane Eyre.
>
> Jane Eyre is a young orphan being raised by Mrs. Reed, her cruel,
> wealthy aunt. A servant named Bessie provides Jane with some of the
> few kindnesses she receives, telling her stories and singing songs to
> her. One day, as punishment for fighting with her bullying cousin John
> Reed, Jane’s aunt imprisons Jane in the red-room, the room in which
> Jane’s Uncle Reed died. While locked in, Jane, believing that she sees
> her uncle’s ghost, screams and faints.
> <https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/janeeyre/summary/>
>
>
>
Read the original novel to find out what a terrible time Jane Eyre had whilst young.
[Answer]
1. The local people who encounter her will realize she is a foreigner by her accent.
2. They will realize she is a wealthy foreigner because her hands are soft. She has never done work. Her poor command of English manners will be chalked up to the fact that she is foreign aristocracy.
3. They will be struck by the fact that she is extraordinarily beautiful. She is tall and well nourished. Her hair is clean. Her teeth have been straightened. She has no smallpox scars.
4. Faced with the appearance of a aristocratic foreign young woman, the locals will be extremely respectful and very careful. She will be well treated and as soon as can be done, brought to the local lord.
5. One would think your protagonist needs a cover story but maybe not. She is a terrible liar. She tells the truth. She is from Delaware. She has no idea how she wound up across the Atlantic but if she had to suddenly appear somewhere at least she is still in England.
6. The common people will notice her remarkable clothes and shoes but might be too respectful to ask questions. Once with the aristocracy, there will be someone with a discerning eye who takes notice of her clothes and who is willing to ask questions.
7. She is not a liar. When asked directly, she tells them she is from the future. She is believed and rapidly has an audience with the King. Very intelligent people ask her many, many questions.
8. She develops a fever. She has never been exposed to tuberculosis, until now.
[Answer]
If you are placing her in the Marches, then much of the very good stuff already provided will not apply. Even in 1700, the Borders were not well governed. There are few sizeable towns. The Border families still lived in Bastles or strongholds and most people would still be under the control of their feudal lord.
*What would people in England in 1700 think of a modern, history loving, 12-14 year old girl?*
A clear skinned young woman, not able to understand Northumbrian or Scots would be soon at risk. Unnaturally clean, strange clothes, unfamiliar with the patois, no money.
How does she get herself something to drink? to eat? Can she handle animals? to barter work for food? If it's the cooler 9 months, then she'll be wanting shelter come nightfall - again, how to pay for it? It's hard to travel then, too. I may be wrong, but you could be before most roads, so the tracks through the dales would be tough to travel, and regularly subject to reivers. How would she know where to go? and in the Cheviots all valleys look alike, so you need a guide.
I like the notion though, wish I'd thought of it. You can have plenty of fun developing the scrapes she gets into.
[Answer]
I wouldn't be surprised if she got stabbed and robbed there is not exactly very much protection for someone like that unless she got somewhere to stay, she might also be just robbed and shoved into a workhouse.
[Answer]
**Bad Things**
1. The English spoken in Britain today is not the English spoken in Britain 300 years ago. You need only look at the newspapers of the time to see how people *educated at that time* speak in "best form" (or "book English"). She'd be hard pressed to understand anybody and everybody would be hard pressed to understand her. Yes, having access to the time period would obviously give her a leg up, but as anyone who's learned a 2nd language will tell you, it's actually really difficult to sound like a native. So, she'd be perceived as a foreigner.
2. Sufferage hadn't happened yet, so she would basically have no rights. Unaccompanied by someone of legal majority, she would be treated as an urchin or of the lowest social class.
3. She would have considerably greater — even *vast* — knowledge compared to the average citizen of the time. Heck, she'd have vast knowledge compared to the majority of nobles at the time. She might be thought of as a witch. If not, she'd be thought of as a *pest,* knowing things only men should know and talking in ways only men should talk. The world was very, very, very different back then.
4. She'd suffer something awful from the food. We have an incredibly clean/sterile environment today. All food handling from creation-to-dinner-table is squeeky clean and free of all disease compared to the 1700s. She wouldn't be at all used to the food, the water, the lack of medicines (hope she isn't allergic to anything).
5. Teens are not small adults. Your teenager would be so completely out of her element, so completely unable to judge the motivations, intentions, and actions of people around her that she would be easily used, manipulated, and taken advantage of. (There are *wholly scientific reasons* why dirty-old-man laws exist....) Bear in mind that professional historians would have trouble "blending in" if they visited the past. Humans are infinitely more complex than can be reported in a book, and history-loving she may be, she's just a teen. She'd stick out (ignoring her clothes) like the proverbial sore thumb.
If your teen wasn't dead in a week, she'd be sold off as an indentured servant (at best) to a local land owner or tossed onto a ship bound for Australia or the Americas.
However, the fact that no teen would survive this experience with their life or sanity intact hasn't stopped many authors from placing teens into adult situations to save the day. The entire Young Adult book industry depends on everyone's willingness to suspend their disbelief — which is a fancy way of saying you should do a lot of research into the era and location specified, and not worry so much about how the people of that era react to your heroine. Once you get past the language/clothing/behavior hurdles (the first 1% of your story), you get in to the story you actually want to tell, and that's more important.
] |
[Question]
[
I am currently exploring the idea of writing an SF / alternate history series that inserts kaijus into historical events. Specifically, I'm looking for **unexplained or strange historical events** that have remained mysterious in nature. Ideally, **I'd also like answers to avoid the 20th-21st centuries**: the older, the better.
Answers should provide events **that are disastrous in nature**. For example: the vanishings of ancient ships and fleets; or the destruction of cities or settlements that have no clear scientific explanation.
A *kaiju* is a large monster such as those commonly found in Japanese SF, e.g. Godzilla.
[Answer]
In 1290 Margaret the Maid of Norway, sailed from Norway to Scotland to be crowned Queen, and to eventually marry Prince Edward, the future King of England, thus uniting the two realms. But they stopped in the Orkney Islands after rough weather, and Margaret died, allegedly of sea sickness, and there were 300 more years of on and off wars between England and Scotland, and thousands of people died.
It is true that it is possible to die from sea sickness, and Margaret was only 7 years old, but it still seems a bit strange and maybe Margaret had other conditions. Or maybe a Kaiju rose from the sea by the ship, and terrified Margaret half to death, and then breathed poisonous vapors on the ship, weakening everyone and contributing to Margaret's death.
Mansa Musa (reigned 1312-37) of the Malian Empire made a famous pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324-26. In Cairo Musa is said to have told of the fate of his predecessor Abu Bekr II:
>
> The ruler who preceded me did not believe that it was impossible to reach the extremity of the ocean that encircles the earth (meaning Atlantic), and wanted to reach that (end) and obstinately persisted in the design. So he equipped two hundred boats full of men, as many others full of gold, water and victuals sufficient enough for several years. He ordered the chief (admiral) not to return until they had reached the extremity of the ocean, or if they had exhausted the provisions and the water. They set out. Their absence extended over a long period, and, at last, only one boat returned. On our questioning, the captain said: 'Prince, we have navigated for a long time, until we saw in the midst of the ocean as if a big river was flowing violently. My boat was the last one; others were ahead of me. As soon as any of them reached this place, it drowned in the whirlpool and never came out. I sailed backwards to escape this current.' But the Sultan would not believe him. He ordered two thousand boats to be equipped for him and for his men, and one thousand more for water and victuals. Then he conferred on me the regency during his absence, and departed with his men on the ocean trip, never to return nor to give a sign of life.[1](http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2011/12/a-real-life-white-whale-that-destroyed-over-20-whaling-ships-and-survived-encounters-with-another-80/)
>
>
>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Bakr_II>[2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Bakr_II)
And maybe a kaiju was responsible for the non return of the Malian fleet.
In Greek mythology Cassiopea, Queen of Aethiopia, boasted that her daughter Andromeda was more beautiful than the Nereids, angering Poseidon, God of the Sea, who sent a sea monster, Cetus, to ravage the coasts. King Cepheus chained Andromeda to a rock to placate Cetus, but Perseus killed Cetus and saved Andromeda.
And possibly Cetus was a kaiju.
According to Procopius *History of the Wars* VIII, xxix
>
> It was at that time also that the whale, which
> the Byzantines called Porphyrius, was caught. This
> whale had been annoying Byzantium and the
>
>
> towns about it for fifty years, not continuously, how-
> ever, but disappearing sometimes for a rather long
> interval. And it sank many boats and terrified the
> passengers of many others, driving them from their
> course and carrying them off to great distances. It
> had consequently become a matter of concern to the
> Emperor Justinian to capture this creature, but he
> was unable by any device to accomplish his purpose.
> But I shall explain how it came to be captured in
> the present instance. It happened that while a deep
> calm prevailed over the sea, a very large number of
> dolphins gathered close to the mouth of the Euxine
> Sea. And suddenly they saw the whale and fled
> wherever each one could, but the most of them
> came in near the mouth oi the Sangarius. Mean-
> while the whale succeeded in capturing some of
> them, which he swallowed forthwith. And then,
> either still impelled by hunger or by a contentious
> spirit, it continued the pursuit no less than before,
> until, without noticing it, it had itself come very
> close to the land. There it ran upon some very deep
> mud, and, though it struggled and exerted itself to
> the utmost to get out of it as quickly as possible, it
> still was utterly unable to escape from this shoal, but
> sank still deeper in the mud. Now when this was
> reported among all the people who dwelt round
> about, they straightway rushed upon the whale, and
> though they hacked at it most persistently with
> axes on all sides, even so they did not kill it, but
> they dragged it up with some heavy ropes. And
> they placed it on waggons and found its length to
> be about thirty cubits, and its breadth ten.^ Then^
> after forming several groups and dividing it accord-
>
>
>
^ About 45 feet by 15 feet.
>
> ingly, some ate the flesh immediately, while others
> decided to cure the portion which fell to them.
>
>
> Now the Byzantines, observing the earthquakes
> and learning the circumstances of the Nile's rise and
> the capture of this whale, began straightway to
> prophesy that such and such things would take
> place, according to the taste of each. For men are
> wont, when present events baffle them, to utter awe-
> some prophecies of the future, and, distracted by
> occurrences which trouble them, to infer, with no
> good reason, what the future will bring forth.
>
>
> But as for me, I shall leave to others prophecies and
> explanations of marvels ; still, I know well that the
> lingering of the Nile on the fields did prove a cause
> of great calamities at that time at any rate, while
> the disappearance of the whale, on the other hand,
> unquestionably provided an escape from many
> troubles. However, some say that it was not the
> same whale that I mentioned, but another one that
> was captured. But I shall return to the point where
> I made the digression from my narrative.
>
>
>
<https://archive.org/stream/procopiuswitheng04procuoft/procopiuswitheng04procuoft_djvu.txt>[3](https://archive.org/stream/procopiuswitheng04procuoft/procopiuswitheng04procuoft_djvu.txt)
So the ship-sinking Porphyrius (or possibly another creature mistaken for him) was killed about the time of earthquakes and severe Nile Floods and famines. This seems to be fairly shortly before Empress Theodora died in 548 AD. And perhaps the ship-sinking Porphyrius was a Kaiju.
And maybe the giant "serpent" that fought the army of Regulus in 256/255 BC was a some kind of Kaiju.
<https://www.ancientworldmagazine.com/articles/regulus-bagradas-dragon/> [4](https://www.ancientworldmagazine.com/articles/regulus-bagradas-dragon/)
Anyway, these are a few ideas I thought of.
Added 10-13-2018.
The army of Regulus mentioned above was later defeated by the Cartharginians and thousands of Roman soldiers were killed or captured. This Roman defeat was thus a significant event for thousands of Romans and their families. And I am not familiar with what the ancient sources said about the defeat of the Roman army.
But maybe some Roman sources claim the carthaginians didn't defeat the Romans easily. If defeat or victory balanced on a knife's edge, possibly the earlier battle with the giant serpent was enough to tip the scales against the Romans. If no ancient sources claimed that, one could always invent a newly discovered account which does claim that Regulus's army would have defeated the Carthaginians if not for the earlier fight with the giant serpent.
I have thought that kaiju could be responsible for the disappearance of some exploring expedition. For example, there was the Franklin expedition to the Arctic to find the northwest Passage in 1845-1848. Of course you can't just say that a giant kaiju smashed the ships to splinters. Both have been found well preserved in ice cold waters in recent years, and a note explaining they had been trapped in the ice and abandoned was found 150 years ago.
But three sailors were buried on the island where the expedition spend the first winter, and the note specified how many more had died before abandoning the ships trapped in the ice. And of the specified remaining crew who left on a death march toward safety hundreds of miles away in Canada, the skeletons of many have been found, but many other skeletons and graves remain undiscovered.
It certainly would be possible to write a story in which some unaccounted for crew members could have been the victims of a kaiju.
But there was a recent TV series *The Terror* (2018-?) whose first season involved some sort of terror stalking the crews of the icebound HMS *Erebus* and HMS *terror*.
In 1848 Dr. Ludwig Leichhardt and six companions set out on his third exploring expedition, an attempt to cross Australia from east to west, and the expedition was never heard of again except for possible relics, aboriginal rumors, and various scattered clues. So it would be possible to write a story in which some Australian bunyip, really a form of kaiju, was responsible for the disappearance.
According to the Bible, Sodom and Gemorrah were destroyed by fire and brimstone from the sky, obviously the wrath of God. Or maybe a volcanic eruption? Or perhaps the flaming breath of some dragon-like kaiju?
Similarly the *Historia Brittonum* claimed that the fifth century British monarch Vortigern was burned down in a a wooden fort with his people by fire from heaven. Or maybe it was fire from a dragon-like Kaiju.
Another British monarch, Maelgwn Gwynedd, died about a century later, allegedly about 547, 548, or 549. According to one story he died during the "yellow plague". But maybe not of the "yellow plague", because one story has him fleeing to the church at Rhos and locking himself in for safety. But he looked out the keyhole and saw the "yellow plague" and died, possibly from fright. And possibly he saw some horrifying kaiju.
Then there was the story of the sinking of the schooner *Pearl* by some giant squid or octopus in 1874.
<http://www.sundaytimes.lk/991212/plus5.html>[5](http://www.sundaytimes.lk/991212/plus5.html)
A ship-sinking chepalopod that sinks a ship is definately kaiju-like.
In the 1490 Ch'ing-yang events, many stones allegedly fell from the sky on the city. Some sources say that 10,000 people were killed. Was this the deadliest meteor shower in history, or the deadliest hailstorm, or something caused by a a Kaiju?
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1490_Ch%27ing-yang_event>[6](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1490_Ch%27ing-yang_event)
In the 1760s the Beast of Gevauden killed a number of people in France. It is usually said to have been one or two man-eating wolves, but more exotic explanations have been made, so maybe it was some baby kaiju.
Then there was the legendary Great White Whale, Mocha Dick, a partial inspiration for you-know-who. Mocha Dick smashed a number of whale boats, but I don't know if Mocha Dick ever sank any whale ships like some other whales did. But a number of sources on the internet claim that Mocha Dick sank a varying number of whaling ships.
This article claims that Mocha Dick sank over 20 whaling ships.
<http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2011/12/a-real-life-white-whale-that-destroyed-over-20-whaling-ships-and-survived-encounters-with-another-80/>[1](http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2011/12/a-real-life-white-whale-that-destroyed-over-20-whaling-ships-and-survived-encounters-with-another-80/)
And I have read a claim that remains of a number of whaling ships were found in the waters near Mocha Island. So possibly there could be a story in which Mocha Dick was not a *Physeter macrocephalus* but some sort of kaiju.
Added 10-14-2018 There is the story that Cambyses II (r.530-522 BC) "The great king, the king of kings, the king of lands and people, the king of the world" conquered Egypt and then sent an army of 50,000 men to conquer the Oasis of Ammon or Siwa and they were wiped out by a giant sandstorm in the desert. Or maybe by a kaiju.
Here are mentions of several shipwrecks where important people died.
<https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/40071/apart-from-the-white-ship-in-1120-have-there-been-any-other-maritime-disasters/47957#47957>[7](https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/40071/apart-from-the-white-ship-in-1120-have-there-been-any-other-maritime-disasters/47957#47957)
And possibly some of those deaths could have been caused by Kaiju.
The Great Dam of Ma'rib in Yemen was built, repaired, and rebuilt over centuries and possibly millennia, the first inscription there is dated to 760 to 740 BC. It was used to provide irrigation for crops to support many thousands of people. There were breeches in the dam in 145 BC, and in AD 449, 450, 542, and 548. After the final breech and flood in 570-575 the dam was not repaired and tens of thousands of people left to seek other homes. And possibly the dam was busted by a Kaiju.
The Kyshtym disaster in 1857 is considered the third worst nuclear disaster. Inadequate storage of nuclear waste led to an explosion and the release of radioactive waste of the a wide area and the evacuation of about 10,000 people from from an area of hundreds of square miles and an unknown number of cases of cancer. And even though the causes are well known, to most people the disaster is just a vague rumor and so the idea of it being caused by a Kaiju may seem fairly plausible.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyshtym_disaster>[8](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyshtym_disaster)
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**The Trojan Horse**
A cunning ploy by the Greeks involving smuggling soldiers into Troy inside a giant statue of a wooden horse? Or was it an even more insane plan involving capturing/luring a giant Kaiju and directing it today their enemies, and following in its wake?
Historical record could have been deliberately altered to suppress the truth, or perhaps generations of storytellers merely adapted it into something more believable.
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Tunguska had no effect on RL history, it happened in the middle of nowhere.
Possible events that you can replace with Kaiju actions:
* sinking of Santorini civilzation, destruction of Pompei, London fire
* destruction of Spanish Armada, defeat of Napoleon in Russia, or Nazi in Kursk battle
* destruction of some exploration expedition, or small colony. E.g. viking settlements in North America that vanished without a trace. Natives respected and worshipped Kaiju, vikings chose to fight it.
All these events were caused or aided by **random forces of nature**, which affects their role in history. Before the event, nobody expected them to happen. And after the event, nobody expected them to happen again, at least not in any predictable pattern.
**Kaiju is not nearly as random**. You can see where it is, and predict where it is heading. To achieve same randomness, you need it to appear and disappear suddenly. One way is to have it teleport to earth for a few days. Another is to have them hibernating and moving deep below ground for centuries at a time, and then emerging to feed on concentrated human suffering for a few days.
But even then, people will try to predict where will Kaiju appear next, how to avoid (or summon) it. Even if these efforts are pointless, humans still want to believe something, and act on their beliefs.
Perhaps you can blame religious or racist atrocities on beliefs about Kaiju.
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The chernobyl incident could be a result of a war between russians and a kaiju. In the end the kaiju emitted a huge radiation pulse or the russians had to use nuclear weapons to bring it down. They covered up the whole incident as a nuclear power plant accident.
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Two Mongol invasions of Japan were thwarted by typhoons that sunk their fleet. You could insert a kaiju in there somewhere, I'm sure. Bonus points for the events being related to Japanese history.
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May 22 1520: **Massacre in the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan**
Maybe Pedro de Alvarado did not massacre the Aztecs in his ritual. Perhaps the god of the Aztecs Quetzalcoatl, a kaiju, came back since it was predicted. He became enraged on having seen his people adoring the false god Hernando Cortes. Thus he decided to massacre a portion of his people.
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[The Bronze Age Collapse](https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_Age_collapse) remains one of history's most mysterious examples of societal collapse. Several cities were completely destroyed, whole empires and civilizations crumbled away into nothing, international trade disappeared completely, literacy nearly vanished for centuries. And the reason for it is still a mystery to this day. All the evidence that exists merely shows that there **was** in fact a widespread disaster, but there's scant proof for any of the many competing theories being the definitive answer.
Makes for a wide open space for speculative historical fantasy.
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* The disappearance of the 9th Legion (Hispana) sometime after 140 CE. No one knows what happened to them (aside from providing fodder for assorted fictional stories and some movies).
* The disappearance of the Roanoke Colony.
There are hosts of missing ships: Wikipedia provides a list [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missing_ships).
Others...well,
* In 1781 a tsunami hit Taiwan, however there was no earthquake reported to account for it. While in real life this may have been caused by a writing error about a large quake and tsunami in 1771, this hasn't been confirmed.
Other than that, things are thin on the ground unless you go to mythology (like Sodom and Gomorrah) because most places destroyed by disasters are now understood as to what likely caused the disaster.
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The [Great Boston Molasses Flood Disaster of 1919](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Molasses_Flood) was obviously caused by a peckish *kaiju* with a sweet tooth. It even occurred right on the waterfront.
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Depending on how 'historical accurate' you want it, you could even say that greek and roman religion and mytholigy were based on Kaijus.
Atlantis, lost Island, may have been sunk by Poseidon, or was partially resided on sleeping Kaijus. Based in water, it would cause massive floods.
Zeus, mostly heared by his voice with roaring thunder, why not also a Kaiju shooting lightning like Godzilla.
All this would also fit into ['The Gigantomachy'](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giants_(Greek_mythology)#The_Gigantomachy), Kaijus fighting other Kaijus. A normal human at that time that would see such battle would asume, that gods are fighting against giants.
There is more, even the norse mythologie had giant animals, like the giant snake [Jörmungandr](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B6rmungandr), also called the World Serpent, cause its tail could circle the earth.
Even [Fenrir](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenrir) was depicted as a wolf, that would swallow a human in in piece.
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**This question already has answers here**:
[What percentage of a population can be part of a medieval military?](/questions/20826/what-percentage-of-a-population-can-be-part-of-a-medieval-military)
(7 answers)
Closed 5 years ago.
I'm working in a low-fantasy setting of roughly mid-Renaissance development. Basically Earth-like with some mildly out-there plants and animals, but nothing overtly magical. I see a lot of questions about how *huge* cities work under these conditions and how big they can get, but not much information about midsize ones.
The specific setting is a smallish city run by an oligarchy of rich tradesmen/guilders. It has a lot of mines and its primary industries are related: iron working, silver working, etc.; it imports most of its food in return for these products. It has a supply of water along a good-sized river. The climate is on the cold side of temperate; to the south (this is in the southern hemisphere) there are some serious mountains that get very inhospitable, but it's not that bad where the town is located.
Historically, it was never a major administrative center like a provincial capital; it also doesn't have any religious/cultural significance (yet). It's connected to a very important trade route (where all the weapons and jewelry and such go) but it isn't a hub - there's basically nothing south of it.
Essentially, it's important in its region, but not in terms of the wider world.
So the question is twofold - **how many people** would live in and around the city (or town or whatever), and **how many soldiers** could it raise for long-term campaigning? I know there's a lot of factors that go into something like this, so an order-of-magnitude estimate is fine. I mostly just want to know if I'm going to end up with the kind of army where fifty or a hundred guys is a noteworthy force, or if I need to start drawing up regimental heraldry.
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Maybe the easiest way to answer this question is to look at our own past. Are there any cities in Europe or perhaps China in a similar situation? Perhaps in the Harz Mountains in Germany? If you can identify a similar situation, you'll have a pretty good and pretty realistic example to work from.
I would note that importing most of their food in a medieval environment isn't likely to be very stable, and would tend to limit the population. Long-distance transport of food on a regular basis and over many years needs a pretty well-settled and policed countryside in between. The Medieval world was not at all good at supplying that! So I'd not expect your city to be huge.
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**Standing Armies are Very Rare in European History**
Historically European military forces were actually pretty small during peace time. The rank of private today comes from the renaissance period where "private soldiers" were hired on for the duration of a military campaign. Nation's tended to rapidly build large armies as needed using a combination of conscription and mercenary hiring and just as rapidly get rid of them once the conflict was over. In the interim they tended to maintain small part time militias that were essentially just for keeping town watch, deterring riots, and collecting taxes. Feeding, paying, and housing an army is incredibly expensive so once they weren't needed a nation got rid of them as quickly as they could, standing armies didn't really become a thing until the industrial revolution made it affordable to equip and feed them.
To illustrate the history a bit, the term "soldier" comes from latin "solidus" into franko/germanic "soldner" or "soulde" which means "one who fights for wages." The word Soldier literally means "earns wages." The legendary Doppel Soldners of Germanic origin wielded giant zweihander swords and wore heavy armor, they were sent into the teeth of musket and pike formations to use their giant swords to hack apart the pikes so that cavalry and follow on forces would attack without being stuck full of spears or perforated with bullets. Doppel Soldner literally translates as "double wages" since they arrived equipped with the finest equipment and took on the most deadly jobs they got paid double.
So to specify, a renaissance era city state's army size is not dependent upon it's population, but its funds. The army does not have to come from your populace, a plethora of mercenaries roamed across Europe in that period willing to show up with their own equipment and fight whomever you want for the right price. They might even show up in pre-organized companies or regiments of men with their own officers and chain of command. Armies of the era typically were conglomerations of your own native conscripts, mercenary bands, and lead by your nobility and their own private forces. The mercenary aspect or renaissance combat means an army can be as big as you can afford to hire.
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Example: Toulouse, France had an estimated population of about 30,000-35,000 between 1500 and 1600. The nearby region --miles of farms-- housed approximately 350,000 during the same period.
In a pre-industrial (high birth-rate, high death-rate) society, that means about 2/3 of the population are children, since about half won't survive to (rather short) adulthood.
Assuming also that your city excludes women from military service, that leaves about 5000 adult males in the city, and 50,000 adult males in the countryside.
Now subtract out the rich, the insane, the priests, the crippled, and the others incapable of any kind of useful service. That leaves about 45,000 males to defend the region, including 5,000 in the city.
Now subtract out the tradesmen and merchants and others upon whom the city's economy and essential services depend. They may defend the city, but cannot march away on a seasonal campaign. That leaves about 20,000 men (mostly farmers) for seasonal campaign service (they must be home for planting and harvest)...if the local leaders can afford to pay them!
But you didn't ask for *seasonal* campaign service. You asked for *long-term* campaign service, so subtract out the older farmers with families that will otherwise starve. Also remember that campaigns require sustainment (food), and distant campaigns will require long wagon trains operated by an increasing number of soldiers to keep everyone fed. So somewhere around 5,000-7,500 for a long campaign, and anther couple thousand for sustainment.
But wait, there's more.
An Army is more than just Soldiers. An Army is about money first and foremost. Soldiers without pay simply go home. Soldiers without food and equipment tend to desert and go home. The limiting factor of a small city's ability to wage war is NOT the number of available soldiers, it's the funds available to pay, equip, and feed them.
One small Renaissance-era city simply cannot generate enough wealth to sustain thousands of soldiers for more than a very brief period of time...that's why wars in Europe during this period tended to be short and seasonal.
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I'm building a science fiction setting for a space combat game, one in which players would be in the cockpit of a starfighter or bomber.
Unfortunately, reality says they would be vaporized by a laser-based point defense system before they could see any enemy ships.
I've been trying to work out a means to mitigate the effectiveness of point defenses so that fighters would still be viable while holding to a mostly-realistic world (realistic, but with some number massaging.) I've been trying to avoid any solution that involves floating matter around a ship to physically block projectiles or requires an overhaul of existing ship designs. Plasma shields are also out due to [various issues](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/75994/properties-of-magnetically-confined-plasma-shielding), at least as a passive defense solution. They're used for something else.
After thinking a while, I came up with a an interesting idea; electronic warfare.
---
One idea I've been playing with are carriers and other capital ships producing electromagnetic interference. This interference cloud prevents computerized targeting systems from acquiring a lock precise enough to hit smaller targets like a fighter, bomber or transport/boarding craft.
As a bonus, I feel this also has an interesting effect on gameplay. It creates "*islands*" or influence zones where smaller craft are safe as long as their capital ships survive. It also helps to define gameplay boundaries.
In this scenario, what types of active scanners and passive sensors would be affected by electromagnetic interference? Which ones would not be affected by it at all? And would the remaining usable detection systems be capable of tracking small ships for targeting purposes?
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But here is my take on it.
**One**
For a laser point defense system to be effective, you have to be able to have the laser focused on the exact surface of the space craft it is hitting. If the laser isn't focused it won't be able to melt or damage the fighter ships as effectively and gives them time to adjust their course, block you with a larger ship or use multiple ships to take turns absorbing the heat. All the while they approach you. This isn't a normal laser you have in a lab that can burn a small hole through metal in a 10m range. This is 100's to 1000's or even more meters and your laser isn't focused its just a high powered light (Please correct me if this is wrong. I don't know of any high powered lasers that don't have a focus point of high energy)
**Two** Focusing the laser is an extremely delicate and complicated task. You would require huge focusing crystals/lenses that have to be perfectly clean or they will affect the focus of the laser. Tremors, shakes and acceleration would all affect the focus of the laser and affect the reliability of your point defense system. Once the enemy ships are on top of you and hitting you, your going to be shaking so much it will likely damage the internal laser generation and with all that power you are putting into the system it could easily break.
**Three** Distance plays an important role. At huge distances, focusing a laser and tracking can be extremely hard. A small time delay would be enough to allow a detection system to start taking evasive maneuvers. Whatever manipulators you are using to redirect the beam and its focus will need an incredibly high degree of accuracy and reliability, as well as being able to track the enemy.
**Four** At close range fighting, the lasers would be terrible. Any ships flying too close would be basically impossible to track fast enough to effectively hit and the constant shaking and tremors from being hit would probably end up damaging your system. The lasers would also likely take up a huge amount of space and power to run, and if they are ineffective at close range, that man power would be better placed somewhere else.
**Five** If there is something that would let enemy ships immediately close the gap (warp speed anyone?), your point defense system would be useless. Two carrier type ships fighting each other with point defense systems might be cool, But if I can hit you with plasma that just burns through your ship before your point defense system gets me, I win. Also I don't think a point defense system would be able to stop high velocity plasma (not sure about the actual physics of it).
**Six** I'm not sure how a laser point defense system would stop solid projectiles. If it was something that carried an explosive charge I could see it being useful, but wouldn't most solid projectiles (which would travel in a predictable fashion and hence be ideal for a point defense system to tackle) just melt or become plasma and continue along its original trajectory as it was originally travelling extremely fast? It might not do as much kinematic damage, but it would burn and weaken the hull.
Some other suggestions.
* You could purposely shoot out gas, which would disrupt the lasers. Lasers are generally invisible, once it hits gas, its energy is reduced as it bounces off the particles.
* Carriers with a ton of drones would be effective distractions for actual fighters. They could effectively shield the ships from the lasers.
* If your lasers are powerful enough, I don't see any reason you wouldn't use it to destroy the capitol ships rather than smaller fighters. Of course, if the laser isn't effective enough, you would give your position away, and a more effective weapon would be able to take you down leading to a trade situation which is bad for both sides.
* High powered lasers are not simple tools to operate. They would require a huge amount of power and people to constantly maintain them, not to mention they are expensive and can be very large.
* A natural counter to capitol ships with lasers would be a swarm of smaller ships. There would be an point where have 2 smaller ships with lasers beats a single ship with a bigger laser. It becomes an arms battle at which is the most cost effective
* Lasers aren't miracle weapons that will burn through everything in their path. There is a focus point where the beam will converge and be the most effective. Lasers aren't generated from a point source and the light waves don't all move in the exact same direction alone a perfect line and hence need to be focused. Think of a magnifying glass. If you aren't close to the correct distance its not nearly as effective as you would imagine.
[Answer]
# The spectrum is too wide for this to work
You say
>
> I know that electromagnetic interference would not do anything to
> cover up heat signatures. I am going to look into a separate solution
> for this.
>
>
>
This is sort of showing an lack of understanding. Every object emits radiation; this is called [blackbody radiation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-body_radiation). The temperature of the object determines the wavelength of this radiation. For example, the sun is hot, so it radiates a lot of visual light. You are not so hot, so you radiate mostly infra-red.
You idea to use electronic warfare to jam the spectrum will only apply to whatever wavelengths you can jam. Here on Earth, that is practicable. There are a lot of limitations on how far radiation will travel on Earth. Our thick atmosphere attenuates signals, so that only a certain subset of signals are good for long range detection. These signals can be blocked with electronic warfare. Even more limiting, intelligence agencies are used to determine the exact wavelengths of enemy sensor systems, so that you know exactly what to jam.
In space, the spectrum is wide open. There is nothing blocking signals of any wavelength. Therefore anything from LF radio waves up to gamma rays can be used as a sensor. In order to blind sensors with electronic warfare, you need to emit a lot of energy in all wavelengths. Sort of like a star does.
So unless you are/have a mobile star, you won't be able to jam enough wavelengths of EM radiation to make this practicable.
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The problem with trying to jam in space is that you are loudly announcing to everyone where you are, so all they have to do it turn down the gain on passive sensors and you've kindly given them your exact position, how fast you're moving, and in what direction.
Consider submarine warfare as an example: sure, you could produce a tonne of noise to try and overwhelm someone coming after you with active sonar, but all you're doing is loudly announcing to passive receivers even further away where exactly you are.
Jamming is more effective in atmosphere, as mentioned, because it's possible to "hide" more effectively. You can be below the horizon so they don't have line of sight. Thermal isn't as effective over long range. You can hide in clouds. None of that is true in space, giving a defender a far greater ability to use a multitude of methods to see and track you.
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In most mediums, the trick is to try and eliminate as much of your signature as possible, making it harder to detect you, or to get a target lock. This is the reason that submarines and fifth generation fighters are designed with so much attention to signature reduction and passive sensors, to avoid revealing themselves until it is too late to do anything about it.
Space is a much different environment. Because it isn't a fluid medium like water or air, it does not absorb radiation, so your signatures do not get absorbed or diminish, and there is no differential absorption of different wavelengths either. In addition, you are playing against a background which is marginally above absolute zero, meaning *any* emissions show up against the cold background of space. You need energy to maintain life support and other "hotel" functions, much less move or fire weapons, so you will be a bright spot against the cosmic background. [Atomic Rockets](http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacewardetect.php#nostealth) has a section on the ins and outs of "stealth in space" for the gory details.
Not everyone agrees, and on the [Tough SF](http://toughsf.blogspot.com/2016/03/stealth-in-space-is-possible.html) site there is a detailed and rather interesting attempt to define ways where you *could* achieve stealth in space, under certain circumstances. While I don't necessarily agree, the author has though this out in detail, so perhaps if everything works out you *could* achieve stealth for limited periods. Unfortunately, the [ship designed around these principles](http://toughsf.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-hydrogen-steamer-stealth-spaceship.html) resembles a WWI U boat more than a fighter.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/awFAV.png)
*Solar powered Hydrogen Steamer (after Matter Beam)*
This leads to another issue. If people are trying to sneak around in stealthy spaceships, then everyone else will be doing everything possible to detect them. My preferred solution would be constellations of sensors operating as interferometers at a multitude of wavelengths, effectively becoming sensors with apertures of 1 light second in diameter (similar to the distance between the Earth and the Moon). Larger ones are possible, but the light lag between the elements makes them unwieldy.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/4fvWL.jpg)
*now keep adding mirrors....*
Of course if I can create that much sensor power to find spacecraft even if they are cooled to 22K (Matterbeam's suggested operational temperature), then I can target *anything* from incredible distances, which leads to the final objection to coming into "eyeball" distance: you are flying into a gauntlet of fire accurate to 1 light second away. (In practical terms, you could shoot much farther, but a greater than 2 second delay between detection and a laser reaching the target starts allowing for jinking manoeuvres). With even less than SFnal technology, you could send rocket propelled weapons that distance, the "New Horizons" spacecraft crossed the distance between the Earth and the Moon in 9 hours, which would be sufficient to deliver a spread of submunitions unless the spacecraft has even greater amounts of deltaV.
Luke Campbell described the ultimate laser weapon in [Atomic Rockets](http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacegunconvent.php), under "non bomb pumped lasers", which can send a Ravening Beam of Death (RBoD) X ray laser capable of vapourizing metals, ceramics or carbon fibre at a distance of a *light second*, and is highly dangerous even a *light minute* away. Since size and power outputs can scale rapidly in a space environment, I suggest that the name of the game in space warfare is to detect and fire at targets at at long a range as you can effectively do so. Your space fighter isn't being targeted by a CIWS cannon, but by the freaking Death Star.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/kaunr.jpg)
*Not this*
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/xgS84.jpg)
*but this (to understand the scale, the "racetrack" is an electron beam accelerator a kilometre long)*
So sadly, unless you are willing to do a *lot* of handwaving, there is really no way to achieve your goal. On the other hand, by carefully examining the actual space environment, you could create a very alien play environment much different than "Dawn Patrol" in Space.
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I might be a bit late to offer insight to this that hasn't been provided by the other answers, but I suspect there might be something that hasn't been looked upon yet:
**The Realism-Playability-Relationship.**
Of course I'm in no way an expert to that topic nor could I provide wisdom not available to a greater extend to our first instance of online knowledge with the capital W.... but I'm a wargamer.
As such I spend much time playing games where a great effort has been spend making them pretty realistic. And while "realistic" and "space warefare" isn't anything you'll find today, one can jump into an P-3 Orion and do ASW all by himself, reading MAD and SAD lines.
And while you'll get games where you can hide your submarine below several thermal layers or even below another ship, conceal your torpedoes behind other torpedoes, turn off all your active sensors (and your engines) of your ASW frigate to make it next to impossible for submarines to detect you without active sensors... all games have to cut it somewhere, to make it still possible for an untrained operative (the casual gamer) to grasp how to use that stuff.
All the other answers are probably correct with their assumptions about how utterly impossible it is to hide in a high vacuum where you are the only source of radiation for a couple of megameters. And that you will be done for once you get into the range of their laser guns.
There is at least one try to get something like active stealth in space, which happens to be the Normandy from Mass Effect, which is said to store their heat internally but need to release it from time to time in an atmosphere... But that seems to be no option when your enemy is expecting you.
So you need to either skip that and just claim that its done somehow for the sake of playability. Even *Dangerous Waters*, which is a game made from guys that do actually create military grade naval sensors, cuts its realism at one point, which is the way the ocean does work. There are thermal layers in that game, but they do work way more simple than in reality. Or your sonar buoys are limited to shallow and deep, instead of a self defined depth.
And what can you do?
*Skip it*
Your game needs to skip that part, where your poor fighter crafts get toasted by lasers, and just insert them right into operational range, either by elaborate handwaving or other means. Still... even if you just plain avert this, there is another problem you need to avert, too: the high speed of objects passing each other in space.
I suggest grabbing the Demo of *Kerbal Space Program* and try to dock two spacecrafts, which both have a relative velocity of 500m/s. Or just watch it zip past you. It will shift from dot to highly visible to dot in a couple of seconds... and because KSP is scaled down, use km/s instead of for the relative velocities in use by our modern day spacecrafts. If you want to reach your enemy in a decent timeframe, you need to get even faster, where you might get to a point where your timeframe for aiming and shooting is about 10ms.
But why is that a problem? Because your "realistic fighters" would drift out of the "too close to aim" area in a matter of eye blinks. Right into the "absurd big core firing area of any useful laser cannon", which will get a superb trajectory of your fighters zipping by and just need to lead their aim.
To be honest, I did ponder about the mechanics of a realistic space ship fighting game some time ago too, and I needed to forfeit at the point where I didn't found a way to keep the game realistic and playable, because at a given point its duked out not by pilots or weapons, but the Sensor-ECM-ECCM complex.
I noticed that any spacefight would work like this:
1. detecting each other (minutes to hours)
2. getting into effective firing range (probably even longer)
3. being the first to get a weapon lock (micro to nano seconds)
4. wait for the laser to hit (a second or so)
And most of the "action" happens in 1 and 3. While 1 can be interesting if you allow some less than realistic approaches to hide and sensor something, 3 will evolve into something that isn't short in tactical depth to chess.
As the others told you, there are way to much emissions to hide from passive sensors, but you might be able to go the other way:
hide in your own blob of em-emissions, or extend it to make your ship a bigger target (and leave the question "where in that 1km² sensor blob is that darn enemy?" up to your enemy). If you can't hide yourself, all you can do is making it as hard as possible to actually get the... exact location of the signatures source.
While that might work if you doing an Star Trek like battle between precise but quite small fleets (or even single ships), an environment with fighters would went for "spray and pray (but with lasers)" to take potshots at as many targets as possible.
Well, that does sound like Battlestar Galactica, but they do use guns for this which are reduced in usefulness to most close range defence (which is sufficient, because its that way there).
Instead of that you could cover that whole 1km² em blob within a second or less using a statistically calculated firing pattern that will grant the biggest chance to hit something with your laser cannon.
So, what can you learn from this?
I would think that you scenario isn't a candidate for "most realistic game of the millenia", so you can...
1. drop the fighter/bomber approach,
2. avoid the question of "how to ecm them" and start thinking about "what's about the relative velocities",
3. try to use the "hide behinde the wall of dead bards" approach, eh, I mean "behind the wall of false sensor information"
4. greatly extend the ranges involved to a point where your fighters distribute themselves all over a star system and wait for prey in more usuable location, like the Cronosphere of the local star, at which it would stop feeling like a fighter-carrier game (thats why I didn't even talk about it until now)
I do wonder what you will choose.
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Although your question asks if electromagnetic interference would be effective (it wouldn't: visual, infra-red, etc, even reverse triangulation all can counter this), your question actually is:
**[How do I] mitigate the effectiveness of point defenses?**
Point-to-point laser defences have an insane number of flaws. Realistically, all they can target are small craft and missiles (low armour, poor shielding).
However, there's quite a few major issues:
**Reflective armour plating**
Whilst mirror-esque armour might be useless against conventional kinetic weaponry (it's reflectivity is easily thwarted if it becomes damaged), it offers a near perfect defence against lasers as it dissipates nearly as much energy as it receives (which is why missile interceptors must be coupled with point-to-point lasers to stop this being a thing).
**Slow or weak pivot points/fast ships**
One major issue for the laser turrets is they must be able to provide a basic 180 degree (or nearest) coverage, and to do that, they must be able to pivot. Older models of point-to-point laser systems have slower pivots and thus cannot keep up with faster missiles or craft.
Faster pivots tend to be more technical, and thus more suspect to breakage or wear.
**Refractive chaff**
In space, one big issue is debris hangs around for a long time. As an anti-point-to-point defence measure, some ships and larger fighters come equipped with micro-reflective chaff that they can deploy, which 'muddies the waters', so to speak, causing micro-deflections of energy and thus reducing the damage the laser does.
**Multi-targets**
Even the fastest point-to-point turret system has to be paired with other turrets, because another issue is sheer numbers of targets. Fleets of fighters use swarm tactics, as do missiles (some missiles with multiple warheads).
Some fighters carry dud missiles whose sole purpose is specifically to trick point-to-point systems (this is usually circumvented by having two categories of PTP: anti-fighter and anti-missile).
**Cloaking**
A PTP's biggest weakness is it cannot hit what it cannot see. However, cloaking makes a ship invisible on the visible light spectrum. Some ships have cloaking so advanced that PTP lasers simply 'bend around' the craft - a variation of the mirror armour.
**Thickness versus strength**
Another cause for PTP failure is that the armour thickness is greater than the heat or melting point strength of a laser. This is especially true in older PTP models encountering newer types of armour.
**Energy absorption system**
Some armour variations actually absorb the light (kinda like a heavy duty solar panel) and either dissipate, redistribute or even absorb the energy (often going back into the shields).
**Other point-to-point systems**
Even more infuriatingly, some people had the bright idea to use PTP defences to attack other PTP defences.
So, to recap, your ship can use:
* Mirror shielding/armour.
* Thicker armour.
* Decoys.
* Mirror Chaff.
* Cloaking (bending light)
* Energy absorption.
* Speed.
* Covering fire from other PTP systems.
[Answer]
remote electronic warfare and military satellites is not really a big thing
Military satellites are an expensive venture, most are built with enough security and encryption features to expressly prevent unauthorized control. Even their ground control systems are kept isolated from public networks. So to be able to remotely "hack" a satellite is harder than to remotely hack the pentagon which actually has connections to public networks.
Hiding from the prying eyes of modern sensors is also extremely difficult with the best options being under water or underground (even then theres no guarantee). Factor any array of futuristic orbital weapons (currently banned by treaty.....) and there is really no defense.
**However here is one evolution of orbital warfare that I foresee progressing:**
Currently the hubris of satellites is that they are assumed 'safe' because they are isolated by 100s of miles of space which make physical access costly and noticeable.
**You could destroy a satellite, but I see that as wasteful as they are expensive.**
I believe a robot could be created and remotely be controlled to fly up to satellites and carry tools to physically access satellites. Once accessed they can establish a direct connection to the operating of the satellite allowing remote hackers to take over the satellite. Thus acquiring them both a new operational asset and potentially a counter intelligence counter operational asset. If their take over was undetected they could feed the originating country false information. IF it was a weapons satellite they could tweak the targeting system such that if the enemy uses the satellite to target an allied target they could adjust the values such that any attack would miss. This way the enemy wastes attacks while revealing their target and is lured into a false sense of confidence(this is probably the greatest advantage one could attain in war).
**The next evolution is:**
Satellites become equipped with proximity detection sensors and defense turrets to prevent hack bots. As well as possible counter hack bots.
**Then the next evolution is:**
armored stealth hack bots
The evolution of software and AI factors into this progression randomly.
**Eventually** you end up with manned orbital warships with orbital war being similar to naval war with parties vying for orbital dominance.
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[Question]
[
My first question in this forum so if I have made a mistake I apologize in advance.
My World is Earth, but it's changed based on the following four premises.
1. In 1000 AD a virus killed 90% of all males of every animal species.
2. The females were immune but benefited with longer lifespans (four to five times normal) and immunity to all diseases.
3. 90% of all male newborns die shortly after birth since the virus struck worldwide.
4. It's now around 1800 AD
Without considering the impact on Humans:
Question: Would the wild animal populations be able to maintain sustainable populations? Would predation make it impossible for wild species to survive?
My assumption is that even one male in ten can still inseminate as many as ten males could, so while population drops, the longer lifespans, and continued breeding maintains smaller but still sustainable populations. I'm not sure of the "math" when it comes to predation.
///////////////////////////////////////
UPDATE
I received a lot of great feedback, which was instrumental in tuning of the world. Thanks to all those who replied.
In the world I'm building, which is our Earth, a meteor strikes the west coast of north America in 1000 AD. This is a transpermia event in which a kind of virus from some other distant world (far, far away and a long time ago) infects all mammals. The virus weaves itself into the Y chromosome in the germ cells (sperm) so males only pass it to male offspring. It doesn't do anything to the adult host, only its descendants. The virus can infect cross-species and as it does it carries with some of the DNA of the infecting host. This DNA is then somehow incorporated into of the germ cells which are then passed on to male infants.
The virus makes somewhat random attempts to weave in the genetics it carried from the original host to the offspring of the infected resulting in mutations most of which results in miscarriages or death after the birth of the offspring of the male. Those male offspring that survive are chimeras - a mix of phenotypes from different species. The result might be as simple as a horse that grows deer antlers, or it can be far more disturbing.
Again, most of the mutations are fatal, but the virus isn't completely random and does attempt to make changes in line with natural development. When it hits on a success - a male that survives and in turn breeds - it preserves what works but will add some changes to its own offspring.
All the mammals that come in contact with each other exchange chimera viruses resulting in more and more diversified phenotypes in the offspring.
So, for anyone one who was curious or wants to provide more feedback, there you go.
Thanks again to everyone. I'll do my best to help others in the same way in this community.
[Answer]
# No
Some species change sex (including clownfish), often due to lack of a male in the immediate environment. Komodo dragon females can reproduce by parthogenesis, all viable offspring of this will be male. Many insects only briefly have males during breeding season, the rest of the year it's female only. Herd mammals tend to have single males with large groups of females, you'd have to look at each one in turn to see what percentage of males actually reproduced in any year. Cats (big or small) also have one male to many females. The great apes also, in fact anywhere the term alpha male or dominant male is used.
Only pair bonding species, including many dogs, birds and humans are going to suffer.
You ask about predation, but that's unlikely to be a problem. In the case of birds, both predators and prey pair bond. In the case of mammals, the prey tend not to pair bond and most of the predators don't either. You'll probably end up with a massive boom in prey mammals
## Oddments
Seahorses, some frogs and a few birds, the father is the one that cares, the mother lays eggs and wanders off. Some spiders where the male dies or breaks off a penis in the female or have other limiting factors on the number of females they can impregnate. Preying mantises could adapt but would suffer a large loss in population first as not all males heads are bitten off.
## Long term
A hundred generations of a specific virus/disease/condition and only the survivors reproducing. Things will settle out to an ever higher percentage of survivors. Eventually all will be forgotten.
[Answer]
You will need to have a good, hard think about the mechanism of your Doom Event, such that it would continue to kill 90% of males, generation after generation.
Assuming you aren't having magic as a factor, and you want a scientifically believable mechanism, then you are looking at, for example, something that has a protective gene on the part of the X chromosome that is not duplicated in the Y chromosome.
And then 1 in 10 males have this protective factor on their Y chromosome, so they survive.
But once they breed, the percentage that is protected will rise rapidly, because only the protected males get to reproduce. In two generations or so, the only male to survive will be the immune ones, and normality will be restored.
Alternatively, say it is a bacteria or virus - the 10% who survive are the most resistant. Their offspring will be more resistant on average, so the next generation, 20% or 30% or even more will survive.
You could say "no, no, it is triggered by testosterone", in which case it would kill the unborn males in utero, when they get their first flush of testosterone and start forming male genitals. But the 10% that survived would be the ones with the lowest testosterone levels at that time, and their sons would also have low levels ...
Evolution rubs its hands at this kind of sorting event. The fittest (those who can survive the sorting) are the ones who breed.
You will need ongoing handwaving if you want evolution to stop functioning as it always has. The 1:1 gender ratio is not arbitrary - there are evolutionary reasons why the ratio tends back to 1:1 any time it gets out of whack.
[Answer]
It seems to work for African lions.
The bulk of their breeding occurs in extended family groups
(called “prides”)
where the female/male ratio is somewhere around 3:1 to 6:1.
When cubs are mature enough to breed,
the males are expelled to live on their own,
but the females stay in the group.
The only way a male lion gets to breed
is if he kills the dominant male of a pride.
The other males might as well be dead as far as reproduction is concerned.
ISTM that this could work with a 10:1 ratio.
ISTR that there are other species
(smaller animals, like birds and insects, maybe? but also
deer/moose, sea lions (!) and walruses?)
that do a similar thing with a much higher ratio —
e.g., out of a generation of 10 or 100 or more individual animals,
only one male wins the right to breed with all the females —
but I’m not sure about that, offhand.
A couple of issues:
* In our real world (in Africa), only the top *n*% (with *n* ≈ 10?)
of the male lions (based on fighting ability) earn the right to reproduce.
The other species that I mentioned operate similarly.
This, obviously, is natural selection — “survival of the fittest”.
If *all* the males are able to reproduce
(because there are only 10% as many),
you lose this mechanism for keeping the genome strong.
(Then again,
most species allow all animals that survive to adulthood to breed,
and that model seems to work, too.)
* Some male lions kill their fathers
(and, perhaps, end up mating with their sisters, aunts, and even their mother).
Most migrate across the countryside,
and, if they take over a pride, it’s an unrelated one.
This, obviously, maintains genetic diversity.
If you take the lion model
and just stipulate that the male cubs stay in the pride,
that *might* lead to inbreeding.
But that feels like an oversimplification.
[Answer]
YES, depending on how many species you are affecting. If you are counting all plants, microorganisms (for whom the concept of sexuality is ambiguous), and insects then you will collapse the entire food chain. Even if larger animals survive, their ecosystems will be destroyed. The surviving birds won't find appropriate food, gut bacteria wouldn't proliferate properly, fish wouldn't have an intact food chain. That level of constant mortality (if it targeted anything approaching "male") would wipe out so much life the rest would starve for lack of being able to find each other.
But it sounds like you may only be considering larger animals, perhaps only mammals and birds. In which case the lower organisms will persist and the larger ones would have some time to evolve in order to drastically increase male offspring reproduction so that at least some survive. I suspect that for many larger species (like lions, elk, etc) only a few males successfully produce offspring anyway so other animals could replicate their strategy (one male with a harem of females).
[Answer]
### Cattle
Cattle already maintain a high bull:cow (male:female) ratio. Expect [twenty to thirty cows per bull](https://u.osu.edu/beef/1999/03/10/mating-capacity-of-bulls-bull-to-cow-ratio/), so this would still leave bulls in excess.
### Horses
As discussed in the Dick Francis book **Banker**, one stallion (male) can cover about forty mares (females) a year. Some manage more. Some less. Allowing for less, a thirty to one ratio seems safe and leaves stallions in excess.
### Chickens
The [rule of thumb](http://www.backyardchickens.com/t/656513/rooster-to-hen-ratio) is one rooster (male) for ten hens (females). But some go with lower or higher numbers of hens per rooster. Eating the excess hens rather than the no longer in excess roosters could bring this back into balance for those who prefer a ratio less than ten to one.
### Bees
[Bee reproduction](http://www.cs4fn.org/maths/bee-davinci.php) is self-regulating. Drones (male) come from unfertilized eggs, having just one parent (a mother, a queen). Female bees (worker or queen) come from fertilized eggs (two parents, a drone and a queen). So if nine in ten drones die before mating, bees would make more drones.
You could also exempt bees as "not animals", but even if you do include them, it doesn't end the world. It does increase the egg laying requirements slightly.
Bees are interesting because they are really important for crop pollination. Ending bees might end the world, so it's good to see that that wouldn't happen.
### Hermaphrodites
I'm going to assume that any species that has both male and female organs in the same organism will not be affected. So most plants and earthworms would be safe. Also, those sex changing fish. Asexual production for bacteria and algae would be unaffected.
### Species die off
It is quite possible that some individual species might not be able to survive this. Some may have consequences. Bees and earthworms were the two most wide ranging problems, but bees should be OK and earthworms would reasonably be exempt. Domesticated species should be able to handle things, as they have excess breeding capacity.
[Answer]
>
> Would the wild animal populations be able to maintain sustainable
> populations? Would predation make it impossible for wild species to
> survive?
>
>
>
NO to the first question. Here's why.
The biggest issue I see here is that you've said all Animals. **Scientifically, insects are Animals, and they DO have gender. This is a massive problem. Insects are kind of like a base in the pyramid. Take most of the species away, and you've got eco-system collapsing problems.** Plants, for instance, depend on them. And many animals eat bugs. This is a bottom up kind of thing.
Now, were I you, I would limit the groups effected to avoid this. So in the Animal Kingdom you have two groups: Vertebrates & Invertebrates.
Vertebrates include these classes: fish, amphibians, birds, reptiles & Mammals
Invertebrates include these classes: all insects, mollusks, crustaceans, corals, arachnids, velvet worms & horseshoe crabs.
I would have the species affected, at the very LEAST be limited to Vertebrates.
Limit it more to make the problem devastating, but maybe not resulting in the complete collapse of Animal-kind. If you leave the bottom of the pyramid intact, it's more likely to survive, but if you just limit it to--mammals for instance, it's still going to be a big deal, but the earth won't become a barren wasteland.
**Under Vertebrates, having all fish affected by this might well kill the oceans and water entirely. Contaminating nearly all of the earth's water supply. This would be the fish kill to end all fish kills.** The rotting corpses of the boy fishes would result in a massive algae bloom, cutting off the oxygen for most of the remaining fish, who would also die, and contributing to more of a bloom, which will kill off all the coral and all the crustaceans, and pretty much all sea life and any mammal/bird that depends on the sea for food. Also, you know, very little water now available to drink. So massive die-offs on land for that.
Any species that can change gender of course, has a great biologic advantage, and the excluded classes of animals will also thrive in unexpected ways.
I am not sure where predation comes into the equation. There's enough trouble already with what's going on. There will be less predators chasing the prey, because the number of those will also go down.
Your stumbling block is actually genetic stability, not predation. Lots of inbreeding going on here...
EDIT: **With the 90% number, there just isn't enough genetic diversity for most animals to survive.** Instead, I would vary it according to species. There's really very little out there which would affect the entire biome like this. Even a 50% drop would be huge for most species. A 90% die off that was non-gender discriminating would be tough for a lot of species, but the fact that it's just males actually makes the difficulty of the species surviving even higher. Take a look at Minimum Viable Population research to get you started and keep in mind that most animals don't check to see if they are genetically compatible and many stay to a certain area, so even if a world wide population is high, if the communities are isolated by geographical features, those communities might die off, if the population is too low. Most of that research assumes a normal ratio of M to F, for a reason.
[Answer]
Compared to the others, this is minor on earth, but *sessile* species, already near their lower population density limits would probably be totally screwed. So I particularly wouldn't want to be a barnacle or mussel, if this were to occur!
[Answer]
It is important to understand the mechanism for why gendered sexual reproduction evolved in the first place. Essentially the idea was that the base requirement for a new offspring is a genetic pairing, from this evolved two evolutionary strategies. Also referred to as evolutionarily stable strategies (ESS.) These two were: if I pack food with the genes it will have more to eat and be more likely to survive (female), and if I put less food in I'll be able to make more sex cells and I'll have more chances to succeed.
From this evolves behavioural ESS. The several stable varieties in which a gender can be very dedicated to their partner or can have several sexual partners. Varies species tend to end up in one quadrant but there is strong evidence that given a significant upset it will change.
I would imagine wiping out 90% of males would count. The result would be essentially every male would have many female sexual partners, in every species. As this would be a uniform blow to all species I would imagine that most extinctions would be avoided.
To address the concern for genetic diversity, you would be only losing around 45% of the population. This is not nearly enough to cause (most) species to go extinct, especially considering genetics, other than sexual characteristics, are distributed in a uniform fashion. If you kill 90% of human males would hair colour genetic diversity really be that affected?
To address the concern of food levels, all species are being effected equally. As a result any predators population would be by ratio decreased the same amount as any prey population.
The main issue with removing that percent of the population would in caste based species. In a social species where males perform a particular task that females don't/can't perform there would be severe damage likely leading to extinction. Offhand I cannot think of any such species.
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[Question]
[
Suppose there was an alternate reality where humans had focused on their space program and everyone worked together to colonize the solar system all the way out to Jupiter in the 1950s. Many years have passed since then and it is now 2016, earth has smart phones and a the tech you would expect in 2016, but each planet farther from the earth is a decade behind in technology.
Is there a good explanation for the gaps in tech between planets?
additional info
* when I say colonize all the way out to Jupiter I mean its moons
[Answer]
If anything, I would expect the tech gradient to go in the opposite direction. Unless you're using the colonies to dump your undesireables, the people going out to each new colony are likely to be the Best and the Brightest. They're also going to be facing potentially life-threatening challenges on a daily basis, so there's a lot of impetus to develop technological solutions to problems. On Earth, the only impetus for that is economic. Earth may well be suffering from 'brain drain', with the best researchers and scientists going out into the wild blue yonder and coming up with their own technology once they're there.
Lack of distribution of this tech could easily be explained by provincialism or political or economic competition between the different worlds.
[Answer]
*Brief and quite simply*,
>
> **The same *reasons* there's difference in *tech-levels* here on our earth now**:
>
> Technological Development, Time & Distance, Society
>
>
>
---
*A bit longer and somewhat more elaborate*,
**Technological Development**:
The different planets are simply lacking the equipment to manufacture certain things, after all: building a factory requires another factory that produces the more basic things. Transporting everything between planets with our current technology-level is simply not feasible
**Time & Distance**:
Another thing is the actual distance and thus time it takes to colonise a planet. For example the mentioned planet Jupiter is, at it's closest, still some [600 million kilometers](https://www.google.com/search?q=jupiter%20distance&ie=&oe=) away from earth.
At the speed of light jupiter'd then be approximately 32min traveltime from earth (give or take some1).
According to [wikipedia, the record for the highest speed relative to earth ever attained by a human being](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight_records#Fastest) has been achieved by the Apollo 10 crew in 1969 (20 years into the colonising idea/effort); the achieved speed was 0.0037 percent of the speed of light.
So even by ramping up the fastest speed we've attained travel times between systems and thus the time for someone or something physical to actually reach another planet are still tremendously long.
**Society**:
If society does progress along the same ways it did on our earth, then Planets might as well be regarded different nations.
Patent law and patent infringement will be a big thing and the planet might simply not have the *money* or *lawyers*... After all they will likely still need to rely on earth for things that cannot be made/grown on other planets due to radiation and other concerns.
So here's some reasons for you based on distance and enviousness
1588'000'000'000m / 299'792'458m = 19612s = 32min
2funny enough, this is also the year that [JFK](https://er.jsc.nasa.gov/seh/ricetalk.htm) became president
---
**On the *Issue of Distances***:
As mentioned we could probably send a single signal to Jupiter in some ~32min (with lots of leeway). Thus a signal roundtrip and thus the span between two messages of a *fluent conversation* would be some 70min (give ~~or take~~).
Now we know, we could send the plans for [a new coffee-maker](http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/1769.html) and other technological novelties in a negligible span of time.
So what's the issue?
They can't build the coffee-maker... All the computers and tools we sent with them are decades behind everything we have on earth. Even if every new ship we send with supplies, crew, and materials will be some 10%1 faster than the previous ones they'll still be on their way for years.
But they could build machines to build newer machines, that's after all how it works on earth, doesn't it? - You're right there! But that isn't going to be that fast a process, they'll still need raw materials, many of which they will need us to supply them with (e.g. plastics). And they will likely not be able to build any factories that create large amounts of parts, so their production facilities will be occupied for producing basic parts and machinery to make repairs and replacements of their habitats/spacestations/wherever-they-live.
1The number of 10% is highly fictional and will steadily decrease to a point where improvements over previous speeds will have to be measured in the area of 10-3% and less
---
**On *Technological Development***:
All the above does not mean the technical development of earth and its colonies will be *the exact same* as in our universe. The act of colonization will likely lead to a science-/technology-boom in areas such as Environment Control & Manipulation, Isolation, Thermal & Solar Energy Production/Recovery, Robust Electronics, *Rocket Science*, and many more.
It will also be likely that our mars habitats actually have technology that has roots in our smartphone technology (our rather the other way around if we're looking at it more closely). But that colony we've established on Io 5 years ago pretty much will still be on the tech-level of the late 60s.
[Answer]
## It's not that simple
I think you are misunderstanding the basic concept of colonisation. It is extremely unlikely that in such a short time span there could be significant populations outside of Earth, add to that the deleterious effects of living extra-terra, even if you live in a rotating space-station for gravity. When things break, what then? If the oxygen levels get too high, what then? If your batteries lose longevity, if your guinea pigs get sick of spending their entire lives just repairing equipment...
Ordinary supplies would have to be constantly brought into the colonies, as the creation of biospheres is incredibly difficult, let alone one with a large amount of cattle.
How are you going to get medical equipment? Food? Toilet paper?
The most likely scenario is that those colonies have extremely advanced technology, while lacking the basic infrastructure that keeps a society afloat. In fact, the most likely scenario is a bunch of corpses cocooned in a high-tech facility.
But sure, they wouldn't have cell phones, pretty useless without cell towers.
[Answer]
I'll keep this brief since the other answers cover it nicely. I'd expect you'd have two gradients going in opposite directions depending on what the technology is used for.
**1st gradient:**
The far off colonies would need highly advanced tech just to stay alive. Space is very inhospitable after all. Surviving on Mars or Jupiter would require a lot of technological innovations just to keep the colonists from dying. Since the Earth *is* hospitable[[citation needed]](https://xkcd.com/285/) there wouldn't be much of a market for that type of technology. Any that exists would be in small quantities or on its way to the outer solar system if manufactured on Earth, or already there if manufactured there. The high tech stuff would exist mostly in the solar system, especially where it aided habitation and exploration.
**2nd gradient:**
However, I think there would be a gradient going the opposite direction for high tech luxury items. Smart phones exist in a grey area between strictly useful and strictly luxury. If you are spending all your time, money, and resources trying to make sure micrometeorites don't cause a massive depressurization event in your habitat, or [Jupiter's radiation belts](https://airandspace.si.edu/exhibitions/exploring-the-planets/online/solar-system/jupiter/environment.cfm) don't give everyone cancer, you won't have resources or time to devote to luxury goods. To pick an example less ambiguous than smart phones, take your pick from the [Sharper Image gadgets](https://www.sharperimage.com/si/view/category/Gadgets/100120?mainCatId=) or [Think Geek electronics](http://www.thinkgeek.com/electronics-gadgets/) catalog. Any technology used in those that isn't also useful for survival will exist in small numbers in the outer solar system.
Another easy explanation for it is travel time. [Juno took 5 years](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juno_(spacecraft)) to travel from Earth to Jupiter because it had to get lots of gravity assists along the way. It is very straightforward to use that as an explanation for why stuff like that hasn't made its way out there, coupled with my explanation in the "second gradient" paragraph.
[Answer]
# I don't think so
Once you've put the effort into travelling to and colonizing the first planet, the next ones will simply require:
* More fuel
* More supplies (food for the journey)
* More patience
[Answer]
Colonies will require tremendous amounts of resources and money and support from earth, until they become self sustaining. They will likely need to produce/mine some resource thats rare on earth to trade with. Trade will be very limited due to cost, meaning the colonies will be utterly impoverished and lacking in basically everything, and may never get out of 3rd world abject poverty situation.
[Answer]
Abundant luxury items and high tech lifestyles require a reasonably stable society, good economy, a thriving middle class and consumerism. Most of those things would be missing initially from the populations at other planets. No amount of know how about how to make an iPhone is going to help if the majority of the people can't afford it and when in this case there are far bigger priorities.
As covered in the other answers, the other planets will be used initially mostly for mining for a long time. People going to live in such hazardous conditions banished from their homes for years will be mostly poor folks migrating for jobs. There won't be a thriving middle class looking to buy luxury items, just lots of miners living a sub-standard lifestyle trying to save money that they hope to spend back home once their contracts are over.
Then the next stage would be most of the population living at the other planets being too busy farming and terraforming for many many decades once enough people living there decide to permanently settle down there and never return to earth. The society would be equivalent to how it was on earth a few centuries ago, in the sense that people's main focus would be on growing food and maintenance/creation of life support systems. Until terraforming is complete and they can walk around without the fear of dying, the society will be consumed in just managing food & life support for the growing population while earth has luxury to discover/invent more and more with the newfound resources.
Then as Mars develops enough, corporations will start eyeing Jupiter and the cycle would begin again and so on. Earth would be ahead of Mars and Mars ahead of Jupiter and so on until terraforming is complete.
This is assuming no ftl travel or teleportation of machinery or other technologies develop. If people somehow figure out how to build large structures, machinery and factories on earth and transport instantly (or cost effectively) to other planets, then they'll develop much much faster but still stay a bit behind. If earth cuts down the time of terraforming from hundreds or thousands of years to a few decades, then all planets would catch up even more quickly and be at earth's level in probably less than a century.
[Answer]
Latest microchips and nanotechnology require insanely complicated existing technology and supply chain, you can get some idea from [Intel's example](http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/devices/leading-chipmakers-eye-euv-lithography-to-save-moores-law). So the technology gap in these areas could happen very easily if Earth for some reason restricts export of latest technology and know-how, like USA did during cold war.
[Answer]
I agree that scientists would likely colonize, just like scientists are the people interested in visiting space now. Theory and academia is likely to flourish where there is a concentration of like-minded folks, so these two things would be advanced to some degree. There are however two reasons I think technology would be behind in the colonies. Firstly, knowledge would most likely travel back to earth, so the knowledge found with experiments on the colonies is not likely to stay only there. Secondly, a variety of materials is not likely to be found at any one colony, so engineering and manufacturing would be costly.
Possible ways to bring technology back to the colonies:
* Reduce shipping costs.
* Localized material extraction and manufacturing units, including food and water, that can easily be moved. See Slingshot, invented by Dean Kamen <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slingshot_(water_vapor_distillation_system)>
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[Question]
[
An interstellar civilization has superluminal travel which allows for travel between two points, effectively without traversing the space in between so they don't crash into anything between them and their target.
Navigation presents a problem: the visible stars only give a snapshot of their positions years previous and they have moved since then, so the current position of the target must be calculated.
The dangers of incorrect calculations include getting lost or, less commonly, arriving inside a solid object. Getting lost isn't immediately deadly but costs precious time and fuel to detour, assuming you have the instruments necessary to navigate on your own.
**What logistical concerns are involved in the civilization calculating a constantly updating map of the exact position of every star, planet, moon, and other navigational hazard in the galaxy?**
(This question is inspired by [propulsion](http://en.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/Propulsion_in_the_Re-imagined_Series) in the Battlestar Galactica remake, which uses concepts like "jump drives" and "red lines." I did find an [analysis](https://atlasoficeandfireblog.wordpress.com/2016/04/10/stellar-cartography-the-journey-of-the-galactica/), but wasn't sure whether this applies to FTL in general.)
[Answer]
**Summary**
What you're trying to do doesn't make sense unless you send a few thousand (or more, depending on sensitivity) mapping drones into the galaxy to keep up-to-date mapping data. The drones would be connected in an FTL sneakernet so you can just ping the nearest drones for data from time to time and have pretty accurate data.
Note that if you're in the thousands of probes range, the data will necessarily be predictions from light thousands of years old. The simulations should be very accurate with advanced math, but things like "the Death Star exploded your planet" won't show up.
Additionally, without extremely good resolution on the drones (not likely due to diffraction limits), there will always be uncertainty about the exact positions of small bodies in the unexplored / infrequently visited solar systems. As such, you'll need to send a scout drone ahead to be absolutely certain there's nothing where you're going in you're in unexplored areas.
However, mapping within explored solar systems would be done routinely so there will be no issues there.
You're pretty safe blindly jumping anywhere you can see, so it's not *that* huge of a deal anyways1.
If you want one-year "real-time" accuracy, you'll need hundreds of millions to hundreds of billions of probes. Same thing if you want to see all the planets in the system without probes jumping ahead.
I didn't do any math, but the entire network could potentially be setup within days if your mapping drones can jump hundreds of light years at a time. However, it will take some time to calculate precise velocity information to make your models accurate. A few years should be fine, but an advanced civilization could probably do it faster. From there, updates every few decades should be sufficient.
**Can't take a snapshot from a single point.**
There's no way to take a snapshot of the entire galaxy from a single point in the galaxy. The galaxy itself [blocks light from reaching us](https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/how-astronomers-see-the-universe-through-our-galaxy-8426933b7673#.wjcza1vpp), plus there's a resolution limit due to [diffraction](http://www.astro.cornell.edu/academics/courses/astro201/diff_limit.htm). There's (probably) also the pesky [super-massive black hole](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermassive_black_hole) in the center of the galaxy that's difficult to see past.
That said, you could get pretty good pictures of the galaxy by using a number of probes spread through the galaxy. There's no way you'd get exact positions of all the planets, asteroids, and smaller junk from really long distances, but you could at least know where all the major stuff is.
Highly populated areas would have *lots* of data available for real-time updates on pretty much anything hazardous. Unexplored areas would require mapping before a jump.
**Need lots of probes. How many?**
Future technology will improve our resolution to an extent, but let's say 1000 light years is a good range to see most stuff ([this page](http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/features/cosmic/milkyway_info.html) says we can use parallax out to a couple thousand, but let's be conservative). Then we just need to cover the galaxy in a 1000 light year grid.
The galaxy is roughly cylindrical. From [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_Way#Size_and_mass), it's about 100k light years in diameter, and 1k light years thick. That's a volume of about $2\pi rh$ $=2\pi(50kly)^2\cdot1kly$ $\approx6\cdot10^{13}ly^3$.
In 3D space, the furthest points in a rectangular grid are $\sqrt{d^2+d^2+d^2}$ $=\sqrt{3d^2}$ $=d\sqrt{3}$. The furthest point should be in the middle of a grid cube. This means our grid needs to be $2\cdot\frac{1000ly}{\sqrt{3}}$ $\approx 1155 ly$ from node to node in order for every star to be within 1000 light years of a station.
Originally, I thought of a bunch of cubic groups. Each group will have eight stations (the corners of the cube), but almost all of those stations will be shared by four or eight cubes. Each cube will be $(1155ly)^3$ $=1.54\cdot10^9ly^3$ in volume. That means we need about $\frac{6\cdot10^{13}ly^3}{1.54\cdot10^9ly^3}$ $\approx 39000$ cubes. Since each cube has eight stations, and most nodes are shared by eight cubes, that's around 39000 stations. Note, however, that this only applies if you're putting a lot of stations much closer together.
It gets a little tricky here. In a 3D grid, each station will be shared by eight cubes. So there's approximately 1 station per cube, as above (technically, the outer edges will have un-shared stations, but they're in the minority). But once your view distance is over 1000-2000 ly (the thickness of the galaxy), we just have a single layer covering everything, so it's a 2D grid. In this configuration, each station is shared by about 4 cubes, so there are 2 stations per cube.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/fPixU.png)
The blue dot is a star at the edge of the galaxy. It's maximal distance to a station given a single layer of cubes is given by the green vectors, which are equivalent to summing the maroon, red, and orange vectors. The distance is $\sqrt{m^2+r^2+o^2}$. The maroon and red vectors are both half the distance between stations, or $m=r=\frac{a}{\sqrt{3}}$, and we need the total distance to be less than $a$ (where $a$ is the maximum distance we need). Plug that all in to get:
$a=\sqrt{2\cdot\frac{a^2}{3}+o^2}$
$a^2=\frac{2a^2}{3}+o^2$
$o^2=a^2-\frac{2}{3}a^2$
$o=\frac{a}{\sqrt{3}}$
Total thickness is $2o$ (same distance above and below the cube) plus the height of the cube, $\frac{2a}{\sqrt{3}}$. If $h$ is the galaxy thickness, then:
$h=2\frac{a}{\sqrt{3}}+\frac{2a}{\sqrt{3}}$ $=\frac{4a}{\sqrt{3}}$
$a=\frac{h\sqrt{3}}{4}$ $=433ly$
So one layer of cubes will blanket most of the galaxy (the central regions are a bit thicker) if you're putting enough stations to keep one within 433 light years of every star. In this case, we're no longer comparing volumes, but areas. The galaxy is $\pi r^2$ $=\pi(100000ly)^2$ $=3.14\cdot10^{10}ly^2$ in area. Each cube on the grid is $(\frac{2a}{\sqrt{3}})^2$ $=\frac{4a^2}{3}$. For $a=1000ly$, we need $23550$ cubes. Each station only shares about four nodes, so you need twice as many stations as cubes, $47100$ stations total.
Additionally, if our stations can see far enough, we don't even need cubes. At that point, we just need a 2D plane of stations. We can use the same math as above, except use a zero-height cube.
$h=2\frac{a}{\sqrt{3}}+0$ $=\frac{2a}{\sqrt{3}}$
$a=\frac{h\sqrt{3}}{4}$ $=866ly$
Again, we're comparing areas. Each square has four stations, and most stations are touching four squares, so it's one-to-one. $23550$ stations total.
That's a lot of stations, but considering you're talking about exploring the galaxy, it's not really that bad. Plus, you only need to blanket the parts of the galaxy you intend to explore.
**Modifying the number based on different view distances.**
Ok, so we can already see more than 1000 light years using parallax methods. What if you want to calculate a different value?
There are three cases. In the case where $a<433ly$ (or you're looking at a spherical galaxy or something), stations is proportional to $a^3$. So take the ratio of new $a$ to calculated $a=1000ly$ above, cube the ratio, then divide that into 39000. For example, using $a=100ly$:
$\frac{39000\text{ stations}}{(\frac{100ly}{1000ly})^3}$ $=\frac{39000\text{ stations}}{\frac{1}{1000}}$ $=39\text{ million stations}$
In the other two cases, where $433ly<a<866ly$ and $a>866ly$, station count is proportional to $a^2$. Same thing, but square the difference.
$\frac{23550\text{ stations}}{(\frac{5000ly}{1000ly})^2}$ $=\frac{23550\text{ stations}}{25}$ $=942\text{ stations}$
That's the entire galaxy with only 942 mapping stations.
**How do we update that in "real-time"?**
Use the "[sneaker net](https://what-if.xkcd.com/31)", combined with FTL, like in this question.
Basically, each mapping station has a few small FTL drones that warp back and forth between nearby nodes. A drone's host node gives the drone all its current information via some kind of close-range, wireless (or wired, doesn't really matter) transmission. The drone pops to each "connected" node (the six nearby nodes: up/down, left/right, front/back) and transmits that information to the connected node with the same kind of short-range transmission. At the same time, it would receive information about distance nodes from the connected node. Then the drone pops back to the host node and uploads all the newest data.
You'd need a pretty big dataset to hold all this information, but a society this advanced shouldn't have much trouble with that. Each node has a complete copy of the data at all times. Far away nodes will be slightly out of date, but the FTL nature of the network means they'll be accurate within about $JumpTime\cdot NumberOfNodes$. This is a linear node count; worst case scenario is going to be about $JumpTime\cdot\frac{2\cdot GalaxyDiameter}{NodeDistance}$ (data is coming diagonally across the grid, so it has to jump south, east, south, east, etc., for example, meaning the delay is about twice as long as going straight along the nodes).
For a 2 minute jump time (time to jump, transfer data, jump back, transfer new data) and 5774 ly node distance (corresponding to a 5000 ly view distance), that's $2min\cdot\frac{200000ly}{5774ly}$ $\approx69min$, or about 1 hour. The number is linear, so if you double the jump time, you'll double the lag time.
Also, it depends on how many drones there are per station. The 2 hour number assumes six active drones per station; if you only have one drone popping to 6 stations, that's six times the delay, or about 12 hours. For the 2D grid of cubes, you only need 5 drones per station, and for the 2D square grid, you only need 4 drones per station.
In a highly 3D grid (in a spherical galaxy or similar), worst case is $\frac{3}{2}$ worse, because it's doing south, east, down, south, east, down, etc., for example. Note that a disc-shaped galaxy (like ours) will still use the above numbers, even if you have a lot of nodes. In this case, the number of down jumps will be small compared to the number of south and east jumps, so you can ignore them.
**What is "real-time"?**
As kingledion notes in a comment, "real-time" isn't really real-time. Each node still has a pretty big lag between the events happening and the light hitting the node. My assumption was that we just needed to see the stars closely enough that we could keep the calculations accurate.
If my assumption is correct (the question seems to indicate that's all we need), then the "real-time" aspect isn't really important. You just need to update once every few decades or centuries to keep your simulations reasonably accurate. This is a good thing, because it means you can get by with far fewer drones and energy requirements.
However, if you want more accurate data, you'd need to either:
A) Have a *lot* of probes. To keep everything within 1 year accuracy, you'd need to bring the probe distance to 1 light year. That's around $4\cdot10^{13}$, or $40\text{ trillion}$ stations. A lot more than you likely want.
To be fair, there are only 200-400 billion stars in the galaxy, and there's not a really good reason to use more than one station per star except highly traveled FTL routes. So 200-400 billion is a more "reasonable" cap.
B) Have probes that do a lot of hopping around. Depending on your FTL energy requirements, this might be quite difficult. But you can just have (relatively) a few probes that pop from star to star. From [this site about cloaking](http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacewardetect.php) (and how you can't do it in space), they calculate about 4 hours to scan the entire sky for things the size of spaceships.
Our futuristic space probes could likely do it in 30 minutes or less, though they'll need to do three or four scans from different positions, so let's call it 2 hours (probably a lot less). You say these guys can jump hundreds of light years at a time, so a probe should easily be able to hop the five to ten light years between nearby stars in a single jump.
Add the jump time to the scan time (the probes can absorb most of this by running calculations and charging the jump drives while scanning). Let's say jump time is pretty minimal, so the total is 2.5 hours per system.
Now, let's say you want data less than 1 year old. Each probe can jump through $\frac{8760 \frac{h}{yr}}{2.5 \frac{h}{\text{system}}}=3504\text{ systems}$ per year. This means you need around a hundred million probes to cover the galaxy.
Both of these options also have the advantage that you can see all the planets and so forth inside every system. At high cost, of course.
**What about those pesky, unexplored systems?**
If you're jumping into uncharted territory, you'll want to send a lead drone. The drone pops in, maps the nearby area, then pops back to the main ship with the results. You just want to make sure you don't hit anything, so the drone can be tiny. If the drone doesn't come back, don't teleport there. Send a second drone a few million miles away and try again.
Space is huge. Even stuff inside the solar system is *really* far apart. The reality is that you could randomly jump around our solar system for the rest of your life and probably die of old age (or mutiny)1. A couple lead drones should be more than sufficient for most crews.
**1Derivation of safety statistic.**
The Sun is about [99.8% of the solar system's mass](http://www.space.com/58-the-sun-formation-facts-and-characteristics.html). The Sun's density is [$1410 \frac{kg}{m^3}$](http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/solar/sun.html). Ice comets have a density of [$0.6 \frac{g}{cm^3}$](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet) $=600\frac{kg}{m^3}$. The Sun's volume is about [$1.4\cdot10^{27}m^3$](http://www.space.com/17001-how-big-is-the-sun-size-of-the-sun.html). Double that and you've got way more than the volume of "stuff" in the solar system. The solar system (just counting out to Pluto) is about [7.5 billion km](http://www.space.com/18566-pluto-distance.html) in radius. That's a volume of about [$1.8\cdot10^{30}km^3$](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=4%2F3*pi*(7.5+billion+km)%5E3).
That means about $\frac{1}{1.3\cdot10^{12}}$ of the solar system is stuff. If you make one jump an hour for 60 years, that's 525600 hours. Your probability per jump of hitting something is $P=\frac{1}{1.3\cdot10^{12}}$. The probability of hitting something after N jumps is $p(n)=1-(1-P)^N$. $p(525600)$ $=1-(1-\frac{1}{1.3\cdot10^{12}})^{525600}$ [$\approx 4\cdot10^{-7}$](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1%E2%88%92(1%E2%88%921%2F(1.3%E2%8B%8510%5E12))%5E525600). That means about 1 out of 2.5 million people will hit something if they all jump once an hour for 60 years.
[Some guys](http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/12/the-chance-of-a-collision-in-outer-space-is-practically-zilch/383810/) from [Reddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2pe4oj/say_you_had_the_ability_to_fly_a_spacecraft_from/) come up with something similar.
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Predicting the motion of a set of stars into the future is exactly like predicting the weather. Fast computers can run the equations, but the slight errors and omissions in your original measurements will gradually amplify and eventually your predictions will show errors.
Weather predictions begin to fail in a matter of days, but predictions of star motions should last quite a bit longer. Still, a prediction about what is happening "now" 1,000 or a 1,000,000 lightyears away may show some errors.
Also, to be accurate, there is no universal "now" in a universe governed by relativity. Two observers traveling in different directions can both look at a distant star and calculate what they think is "now" over there, but they will reach different conclusions.
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Nothing. I expect reconnosince craft to jump ahead into boring empty space and/or make small jumps, for the express purpose of making accurate maps.
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If you've got superluminal drives, then you've got time travel. In a relativistic universe, those are just two different ways of talking about the same capability. So if your galaxy is 30,000 light years across then every decade or so you map it as it was 30,000 years ago and then send the map back in time by 30,000 years to the people who need it.
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You could kinda-sorta do this. However, it would be tricky. Remember, everything moves, and everything interacts. This is known as the [n-body problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-body_problem). As far as we know, there is no closed form solution to these problems. The best we can do is a numeric solution (i.e. simulate the motion of objects). This means errors *will* crop up.
Of course, the other thing to consider is that 99% of objects out there are too dim to see from a distance. By mass, you can say most of the mass is found in the stars. However, there's plenty of dark objects out there like asteroids. If you don't want to hit one of those, you're going to need more than a visual snapshot of the area.
A better approach would be to define "safe" areas which are well charted. You jump to one of those and then observe the local space before jumping to a less safe spot. That keeps the manual exploration cost down.
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The method of finding the parallax, and thus the distance, to stars involves observing them from Earth or Earth orbit and plotting their apparent positions half a year apart. The distance Earth travels between two observations will make nearby stars seem to change position very slightly against the back ground of farther stars.
The accuracy of observations and distance measurements can be improved by improving the resolution of the instruments and/or by moving the instruments a greater distance between observations than a mere two astronomical units. Or you can use simultaneous observations from widely separated instruments. So by first using widely separated observatories in our own solar system with accurately measured distances between them we can find the distances to nearby stars very accurately.
Then instantly transport observatories to some nearby stars at distances about a million times the diameter of the Earth's orbit. Simultaneous observations from those widely spaced observatories will thus be a million times as accurate as observations from Earth six months apart. That will be enough to make a very accurate three dimensional map of the globular star clusters.
Then instantly transport observatories to distances thousands of times farther from Earth than those nearby stars. The map of the globular star clusters will enable precise positioning of those observatories billions of times farther apart than the spread of the earth's orbit, and thus capable of measuring parallaxes billions of times more precisely.
Observatories thousands of light years "above" and "below" the galactic plane will have views of hundreds of billions of stars in the galaxy, unobstructed by the dust clouds.
Observing each star over a period of years will detect angular motion while spectroscopy will reveal how fast it is traveling toward or away from each observatory. Knowledge of how far away each star is from an observatory will indicate how old the positions are and thus where the star has moved to since its light was emitted.
And that is the procedure for a preliminary mapping of the galaxy to be followed by more detailed surveys of stellar positions. but you would need really super sized telescopes to detect small objects like moons, asteroids, comets, etc. over hundreds or thousands of light years. Detecting them should be left to surveys of individual solar systems.
If space travelers are afraid of running into unseen objects in interstellar space despite the fact that "Space is empty. Very, very, very empty." they might as well stay home and not dare to travel in interstellar space.
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[Question]
[
After reading that [sweet](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/53703/how-would-aluminium-work-as-medieval-armor) thread, I had another question in mind.
I read somewhere that at first, when countries started to design sailing ships with metallic armor, they were doing it with a mix of copper plates and teak wood. I wondered if the same kind of armor could be achieved with aluminium and if yes, how much resistant would it be compared to steel / iron armored ship and would it really be lighter than a warship with full steel armor ?
Bonus point : I'm not pretty sure when ships with metallic armor where first used. Did some ships like that exist before ships started using steam engines for propulsion ?
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Aluminum is a poor armor. It's a lightweight material, but very heavy for its level of protection. The [density](http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/metal-alloys-densities-d_50.html) of aluminum is 2700-2800 kg/m^3, while the density of steel is 7850 kg/m^3. The densities vary by alloy, of course, but in general steel is about 2.8 times more dense than aluminum.
This is useful because we can do comparisons to existing armor. We can't really compare against modern tanks, because they use highly advanced composite armors which are typically rated in terms of steel equivalency (the M1A1 Abrams is estimated to have an equivalent of over 30 inches of steel worth of stopping power!). However, we can compare against the M4 Sherman from WWII which had 3.7 inches of armor. If we built an aluminum tank with a similar weight, it would have 10.4 inches of aluminum armor. So how well would it fare?
It turns out that the internet has an answer for this question. Demolition ranch [took shots](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LpINxI73Vw) at a 8-10inch block of aluminum with varying calibers of guns. It fared well against small arms, but when they moved up into powerful rifles, whole chunks of armor started to fail. When facing basic armor penetrating rounds, they managed to dig about half way through the block. They did not test any of the weapons designed to take on armored naval targets, like 20 mm and up.
The big issue for stopping armor penetrators is that you need a material that is hard and dense to stop them. Aluminum is neither, so it is very weak.
Of course, this is all against modern weapons. If you're talking about stopping ancient weapons it may work better. However, making aluminum is *not* easy until you could develop the large quantities of electricity used to refine the raw materials. Your nation would have a substantial advantage over other ancient societies simply by having this technology. Copper is easy to work with. Aluminum is not.
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Per the other answers, aluminium can be used as armour. However, aluminium on ships ships does not [really fare well with fires](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Belknap_(CG-26)#Collision.2C_fire.2C_and_reconstruction) which makes it very unsuitable for actual naval combat where fire is a big, big problem.
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Unfortunately, Aluminum is currently used on Naval ships for armor plating. For a variety of reasons... weight savings, cloaking aids, and diminished threats of damage from an enemy. I'd prefer more than an inch or two of Aluminum in front of me during an attack.
One of the Allied battleships in WWII was struck by a Kamikaze. No injures and the damage was fixed with a couple gallons of paint. The 'dent' is still visible.
Give me steel.
[TRUE] A unique form of protection seriously considered was constructing the entire ship out of ice and some kind of Peat combination. Essentially carving it out of a chunk of tundra or iceberg.
So, YES is the answer, but not a good one.
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[Question]
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The question is about enmity between 2 different races that are different in their ideology, physic and abilities. It is not about the political issues or indifference that may arise within a society.
The dragons are not very massive as seen in other stories, here they are of the size of a grown up horse. They are not very violent but peace loving.
The elf people are Magic users with their magical abilities limited to certain areas like warfare and healing.
1. What could be a reason to inflict enmity between these races?
2. Just a feeling of superiority or thirst for power and the need to exploit a non magical or less powerful species is all that it takes?
3. What else could be the reason to have a war that continued for ages and pass on to many generations?
[Answer]
**Disputed territory always seems to work.**
Dragon: Get off my land, elf.
Elf: This land has always been mine.
Dragon: Rubbish, it was given to me by my grandfather.
Elf: After he stole it from mine.
**Ideological differences are another favourite.**
Dragon: Why are you elves so much into the magic of war?
Elf: Why are you not? You're built for it, look at your claws and fire breath.
Dragon: You're a fool. Peace is the answer.
Elf: You're the fool, and you stink.
**A perceived insult.**
Dragon: Your wife is looking pretty good today!
Elf: What did you just say?
**Warfare for generations.**
If you want to find out what would cause a war that lasts for generations, just look into the [Balkan Wars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkan_Wars), which led to the First World War and also the later [Yugoslav Wars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslav_Wars) but realise that the true causes of those wars (and the bad blood that preceded them) have been disputed for hundreds of years.
Typically, wars like those have roots going back so far that nobody can reliably pinpoint the true reasons why they fight.
Sometimes in situations like that, there will be a period of peace, and then the old rivalries flare up again, going around in a cycle of anger built up over generations.
Another example is the history of [Jerusalem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem).
[Answer]
**Conflict over environment.** e.g. Elves live in forests, dragons have a tendency to burn down forests.
**Conflict over resources.** This one is harder, the only thing they'd fight over is hunting grounds. Elves aren't traditionally farmers so the dragons wouldn't be killing livestock but if the dragon hunting style panicked the wild herds and disrupted the Elven hunts, or the dragons felt the Elves were (over)hunting "their" herds.
You'd have to have them actually rubbing up against each other somehow, it's far more common to go to war with your neighbours than with someone far away, and there'd have to be something to constantly remind them of the conflict or it would fade away. The normal power/money/land human conflicts don't apply to two significantly different species with such different requirements.
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If elven magic is so focused on warfare, it is easy to believe that elven civilization and people are also any sort of warriors or, at least, pretty aggressive. So maybe there was enmity between elven clans much before against the drakes. Think about it like the Ancient Greek, many city states fighting against each others.
Dragons are peaceful, but still dragons. They have claws and breath fire. Even with the size of a grown up horse, they are still much bigger even for an (american) football player. That makes them formidable warhorses, and elves KNOW IT.
The cruel elven warriors tried to enslave the peaceful dragons to use them against their own kind, but the dragon pride won't let them.
[Answer]
This is an incredibly broad question. Listing the reasons two peoples can hate each other could fill volumes. In our history of humanity, we have found quite a few reasons to hate each other.
Now Stack Exchange frowns upon questions that result in "list answers." At first I thought this question had to be too broad, and worth closing, because it had to generate a list. But then I got to thinking, the question of "why might two people hate each other in general" is actually quite the useful World Building question. Accordingly, my answer is very generic.
For discussion purposes, let's say every individual, or group of individuals, has a "goal function," that they use to decide whether a potential action accomplishes their goals or not. This goal function can change over time, as people's opinions change. With this concept alone, we have a powerful tool for capturing enmity between two races, for we have a feedback loop. Our goal function affects which actions we take, and our actions lead us down paths which shape our goal function. We've all heard the effect of feedback. The effect of a slight whisper into a microphone that's turned up too loud feeds back from the loudspeaker to the microphone until it rapidly turns into an earsplitting sound.
Usually these goal functions directly benefit the individual or group. "Planting seeds ensures I get to eat when winter comes, thus planting seeds is good," for instance. Wanting to build up your own quality of life is generally considered to be a healthy goal function.
However, when dealing with other minds, it's not always easy to figure out what those goal functions should look like. If Dragons' planting of seeds, food high in protien to replace the carnivorous faire of their ancestors, involves slashing and burning sacred Elf forest land, we can get contorted goals to deal with it. The Elves may decide, "Dragons cut down our forests. They don't respond to reason, but do seem to respond to pain, so if we hurt them when they are cutting the forests down, maybe we can teach them how to not cut down our forests, despite the language/cultural barrier." The key to this is that the elves have made their "goal function" include a conditional "opposing Dragons achieving their goal function when they are cutting down the forests."
At this point, the Dragons *can* short circuit the feedback loop. If, at this time, they decide that the Elves are probably trying to tell them something about their farming methods in their own special way, and decide maybe the best way to solve this is to keep the Elves interests in mind, the feedback loop is broken. The Dragons have decided to make "supporting the Elves achieving their goal function, because it's good for the Dragons."
However, more likely, given the lack of cultural and linguistic interaction that caused the problem in the first place, the dragons will respond as a child does. Rather than getting the message of "don't burn down the forests," the message they receive is "don't burn down the forests when the Elves are watching." They get creative, finding ways to sneak things in. It's only natural. They may have an exploding population that needs food, and thus farmland. Maybe they don't want to turn to eating the Elves, as their ancestors once did.
The result is quite agnostic to the rationale of the Dragons. The Elves only see the effect. It's getting harder and harder to actually catch the Dragons in the act. The forests are still getting destroyed. At this point the Elves engage in what I believe to be a key step in the cycle, highly visible in the aftermath. They make the decision that, since they know Dragons are harming the forest, they declare that they will punish the Dragons, even when they don't catch them in the act. Any Dragon seen will be assumed complicit to the burning of the forests. The goal function shifts from "opposing Dragons achieving their goal function when they are cutting down the forests." to "Since we *know* the dragons are cutting down the forest, opposing Dragons in any activity is good."
The key word in that goal function is "know." When we use that word in a context such as this, it typically means we're no longer looking to change our mind. Perhaps more to the point, we no longer assign value to putting ourselves in good positions to test our "knowledge." Maybe it was all a misunderstanding. Perhaps the Elves know this, and recognize that it may be a misunderstanding, but they're simply no longer going out of their way to find more information to bring into the equation. This is essential for animosity: the loss of a desire to act towards finding a common ground. You may be happy if a common ground finds you, but you're no longer inconveniencing yourself to find it.
From the Dragon's perspective, this increase in hostility is frightening indeed. Dragons are getting wounded and even killed by Elvish flash mobs. They have to act. Going back to our child reasoning, the elves have shifted from acting as a mother spanking the child with a wooden spoon during the act to a father spanking the child with a belt after the act. Now there's debate about whether mother's wooden spoon helps or hurts a child's maturation, but its generally agreed upon that the belt does not. If the punishment comes in slow enough to permit intellectual analysis, it will be rationalized upon. The Dragons respond by changing their fitness function. Clearly supporting the Elves' desires is detrimental to their own. They sever the last thing holding the feedback loop at bay: their goodwill towards the Elves.
Now, many things can happen. The feedback loop is unimpeded -- the sound tech at the board is away on break, and the microphone is primed to screech as loud as it pleases. War is a possibility. The key to war is the point where the harming of Dragons becomes equal or greater in value to the lives of the Elves themselves. If that hatred can rise to that point, war will occur.
However, it does not always reach that point. Distance can help. Not just physical distance, but mental distance as well. Perhaps the Dragons start building a wall to protect their farmland. Now there's a clear mental barrier between "us" and "them." With this barrier in place, it may be harder to convince Elves that its worth dying to kill Dragons. In this case, the feelings don't go away, they *simmer*. These boil down into the enmity between races.
Enimity is not free. For most species, children are not born hating anything. They must be taught to hate, and they will raise questions along the way. Something has to provide the energy required to maintain this hatred as a few young individuals question whether maybe there's a more peaceful way. However, the Elves may find that a little nugget of that boiled down hatred is easy to transmit to the next generation. Even though most of the anger and rage may die down over time, this little bit procreates from generation to generation, ensuring an *apparently* built-in natural hatred of the Dragons. Long after the anger dies, long after the wall is torn down because it's no longer suiting anyone's needs, the hatred may propagate.
And its very difficult to face hatred with love. It takes skill and inner strength. Depending on how strong the Dragons are, they may find this enmity from the Elves bothersome, and match it with an enmity of their own, home grown from Elvish insults.
And now you have a "natural enemy." It may not even be evident that it's part of your society. It can also simmer this way for an extraordinarily long time. Often this hatred *permits* certain actions which benefit your race, such as an increased tendency to take from others. If the hatred becomes the foundation of the good, it can be very hard to remove this natural animosity.
I have shown a rather large example of this, but history has shown that such feedback loops can occur as a result of mere personal insults to leadership as well. Two tribes may stay enemies for a long time after a spat between tribal leaders.
This also suggests the resolution to such enmity. One needs a feedback loop inspiring people to come together, instead of driving them apart. If it is strong enough, it will begin rooting out the hatred. But that's for another world. You want hatred between your two races, you can get it!
[Answer]
Here's an interesting idea I haven't seen yet: what if dragons are non-magical. Not only that, what if they actively dislike magic and try to hunt it out wherever they find it? Perhaps they perceive the use of magic as a danger to the fabric of reality, and so they're willing to cast off their typically peaceful ways and fight to stop magic from being used. In this case, any cultural contact between elves and dragons could precipitate a war.
This also creates an interesting morally ambiguous framework: the elves are using potentially dangerous magic and pose a threat (which may be real or only perceived) to reality, however the dragons have instigated a war against them and may be attempting to hunt them to extinction (depending on how ingrained magic use is in elven society). If you're making this world as an RPG setting, you could leave the choice of who to side with up to your players. If it's for a form of non-interactive media, you can still get a lot of mileage out of both sides seeming justified (and unjustified) to the protagonist in different ways, and having her figure out where her loyalties lay.
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private property is generally simple. all people recognize the value of "i won't steal your stuff if you don't steal mine". conflict arises over shared resources (e.g. the air, the water, etc.). so, maybe the elves don't like the dragons flying over (and pooping on) their fields. maybe the dragons don't like the elves draining the rivers for irrigation. other resources can be seen as "shared". perhaps the elves view the forest as a "shared" resource they occasionally visit, but the dragons think they own the whole place. if either race could consistently control the land, then the dispute would end. but if the elves and dragons both regularly use the land with impunity, then it is de facto shared and conflict will continue. shared resource are particularly problematic when the two races use them in mutually exclusive ways. e.g. the elves want to clear land of trees to plant the crops they need, but the dragons want to grow trees which they need to build their nests. since both races view the land as a shared resource, and both races think they know the "right" way to use the land, conflict is likely to become intense.
[Answer]
All of the above, sure, but go for a super-devastating incredibly-tough-to-crack dissonance, might as well do it with magical magic.
Hows about:
The ancient wars have been about the ancient land of Shmatlantis where the staff of the gods that created the universe resides. According to conflicting legends Dragons/Elves were first, have received dominance over the world from the gods, but the other race stole the ancient artifact/power, those meddling villains.
Shmatlantis magically resurfaces every 1000 years, for 3 days. That's where the truth lies in the form of some ancient key/scroll/an (did I say 'ancient' yet?) artifact of coolness.
So a bunch of guys from each race are selected through rigorous training/ceremonies over 1000 years to prepare for the treasure hunt. They become leaders in battles and learn to hate the bad guys to extreme.
The guys at the UN are stumped.
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In [Weaponizing the return-energy channel of a one-way portal](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/242517/75), I describe the function of a hermes portal, which are magical devices that, when activated by some command, create a connection to a linked portal device. Portals allow objects to pass from the source (the portal device that was activated) to the destination device. However, objects cannot travel back from the destination device to the source device without the destination device being activated as a source. The activation command is made specifically for the portal when it is created and is often effectively impossible to derive from a portal (active or inert) without destroying it. It is possible for an object or person part-way through a portal to retreat, as long as it has not passed completely to the other side.
When a portal is activated, energy can travel in both directions through the portal, both electromagnetic radiation and sound energy, though the gases that carry the sound energy do not actually pass through the portal. This allows the person activating the portal to more easily determine if it is safe to proceed through the portal prior to actually doing so and allows a person on the source-side of a portal to communicate bidirectionally with a person on the destination side. This is the return-energy channel.
Physically, a portal device is often a physical doorway or tunnel, or perhaps a ring, maybe like a stargate, but it could be much more lightly constructed, possibly as little as a stiff, shaped wire. A portal functions from both sides simultaneously without collision of transmitted objects within the portal.
Now, following the suggestion given by BMF in the accepted answer, my characters have set up twenty capitol Fulminium laser-blasters pointed into the portal, ten each side, mounted so that they will jitter in random patterns across the mouth of the circular portal.
A Fulminium laser-blaster of this type emits ten (10) 8.3 MJ one-millisecond (8.3 GW) pulses of orange and UV laser light per second, each pulse carrying an energy equivalent to nearly two kilograms of TNT. In addition, these weapons emit copious amounts of electrons, which are typically discharged down the ionised channel of air that the laser beam creates in the air between the weapon and the target. The Fulminium rods in the lasers are the weapons' atomic power sources, and contain enough energy to fire continuously for years.
Since the hermes portal which is the target of these lasers is receiving an incoming connection, the light can pass through the portal but the electrons from the blasters cannot, but instead remain on the surface of the portal field, accumulating a charge of up to a billion volts. However, the *effects* of the charge can pass through the portal's return energy channel, repelling negatively charged objects, and attracting positively charged objects. Any positively charged objects, such as ionised dust or gas, *can* pass from the source side to the destination side, capturing some of the electrons on the destination side of the portal field, resulting in free electrons on the source side.
On the source side of the portal is a large walled city, much like Carcassonne in that it is entirely land-bound, and sits on a large hill-top, with the palace about 500 meters from the outer wall, with suburbs outside the outer wall:
[](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/25/1_carcassonne_aerial_2016.jpg/2880px-1_carcassonne_aerial_2016.jpg)
However, the city is much larger, on the order of the size of Byzantine Constantinople, roughly six kilometers across:
[](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bb/Byzantine_Constantinople-en.png/2560px-Byzantine_Constantinople-en.png)
The following diagram shows the position of the portal and the ranges to the relevant structures. The portal is placed 500m from the city wall, on level ground in a square in the city's outer suburbs, one side of the portal facing directly toward the palace. The diagram shows a scale representation of the hill upon which it is built. The hill is composed of earth and granite.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/58AZG.jpg)
The portal is about 3m in diameter. The lasers are placed from 0.1m to 1.5m from the bottom of the portal. The lowest lasers are set to sweep about 1° below the horizontal for a small portion of their movement, but all the lasers are set to sweep up to a maximum of 6.5° above the horizontal. The lasers will sweep an arc of up to 179.75° to either side of the centre of the portal (so that they will miss the edges of the portal device, which is quite thin) on both sides of the portal, ten lasers on each side, each pivoting randomly and independently within these limits.
The instant the portal is opened, the lasers begin firing, and continue to fire continuously for the ten minutes that the portal remains open, sweeping the area around the source portal as described above. The lasers are suitably heat-sinked, and won't burn out or reduce their rate of fire due to their own waste heat.
In the vicinity of the portal, waiting to pass through, are 5000 infantry soldiers wearing late medieval plate armour, and six solid steel automata ranging in volume from 100 to 500 liters, which may simplistically be considered to be ovoids twice as high as they are wide.
The buildings in the vicinity of the portal are late medieval timber, stone, lath and plaster structures with slate roofs. The buildings inside the walls of the city are dressed stone or brick, also with slate roofs, while the palace is heavy fortified stone with copper roofs, like the keep of a late medieval castle.
The city has a population of several hundred thousand people.
My question is: **What will be left of the army, this city and its population after the laser-blasters have fired for ten minutes?**
Don't forget that the laser-blasters charge the portal up to a billion volts as well as shooting 8.3 MJ / 2kg TNT equivalent laser pulses 10 times per second for each of 20 lasers, for a total of 200 pulses per second emitted in a fan from both sides of the portal.
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With the amount of energy we are talking about - everything in the immediate path of the laser is pretty much vaporized.
The humans don't do anything particularly interesting - and they are the lucky ones - but the walls of the Palace? This is where it gets fun.
The stone doesn't just vaporize - the tiny bits of water inside the stone are super-heated and turn to steam instantly - the stone walls explode. The bits of stone that were near the laser beam (but not close enough to explode) are melted into a magma state - which subsequently gets exploded everywhere.
This super-hot liquid rock that has been blown everywhere is now starting fires for everything that's combustible.
So we have raging fires.
But wait! There's More! All that charged energy on the surface of the portal? Well, that disperses into the atmosphere causing a current of charged air to start moving.
*Really* moving - causing a localized wind that fans the flames in an unnatural way.
The heat generated from the firestorm is now causing flash ignition throughout the city and anything that doesn't ignite melts - Those copper roofs? They are now dripping death drops of molten copper.
Let's also remember that all those electrons that caused our winds have a charge - so something approximating sheet lightning is ripping through the streets in the carnage.
This emanates out from the epicenter at a frightening rate - driven by the combination of exploding molten wall rock splattering everywhere and fire winds ripping through the city.
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So, you tag it as "Medieval" and then you go and invent lasers? You could cause some pretty serious damage to a city without anachronistic lasers if your portal device exists. Place your entry portal at the bottom of the sea, and your exit directly above the royal palace or whatever. 10 solid minutes of sea-floor pressure water suddenly exploding over the center of a city will be plenty destructive enough to wipe out most medieval period construction. You also get a secondary hit after the portal closes, as the surrounding water will rush in to fill the resulting void and could cause tsunami level waves to all nearby shorelines. So much for your enemy's naval power.
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TheDemonLord gives a good explanation of the type of damage that your setup could *potentially* do, but you'd only see that sort of destruction if the enemy was completely stupid (which is very unlikely if they're using the portal for military purposes). Here's a more realistic view of what would happen.
The enemy opens the portal to your world. They see a brief glimpse of some machinery they don't recognize, and then *something terrible* starts erupting to the portal. The abort signal is given, and the portal is shut down. Total portal open time would be on the order of 5-10 seconds. There will be significant damage to anything immediately in front of the portal, but it's not open anywhere near long enough to do the level of destruction described above.
This plan is not entirely without risk to yourself. When the portal abruptly closes, there will be laser blasts that are in progress that will go flying past where the portal used to be and slam into whatever is behind it. If you're *really* unlucky, someone on the attacker's side might notice that one of your death beams reflected off of a mirrored surface and figured out that they were made of light. After a bit of planning, the attackers re-open the portal with a large, thick mirror immediately in front of it. They could wait for the reflections to destroy your defenses, or push forward using the mirror as a shield.
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> The portal is placed 500m from the city wall, on level ground
> in a square in the city's outer suburbs, one side of the portal
> facing directly toward the palace.
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What idiot would put a portal *there*? Even if you're not expecting nasty energy weapons to come back at you, simply opening the portal is enough to show the other side who opened it, giving them a nice free view at your palace and its defenses. Not to mention, a spy stealing that portal's activation code means that an invading army can simply dial into your portal, launch trebuchet volleys through it, and demolish your palace from afar. A portal is a massive liability that could possibly destroy your kingdom, and it's unreasonable to think that "nobody has figured out the activation code yet" (security by obscurity) would be considered adequate security.
No, any sane person would keep the portal *far away* from anything they remotely cared about. The view through the portal would reveal as little information about the other side as physically possible, perhaps overlooking a large blank expanse of desert or steppe, preferrably with a natural barrier (like a giant cliff) behind it. You'll have lots of wide open space off to the sides in which to stage any invading forces. You'd open the portal, peek through it from the side using a periscope or expendable crewman, and only send anything through after the "all clear" is sounded. If you see that you're in over your head, the only thing the enemy might see is a brief glimpse of a pair of scared-looking eyes before the portal disconnects.
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> the light can pass through the portal but the electrons from
> the blasters cannot, but instead remain on the surface of the
> portal field, accumulating a charge of up to a billion volts.
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1 gigavolt is enough to arc across an air gap of over 1,100 feet. You won't be able to isolate your portal far enough from a source of ground to accumulate anywhere near that much static charge. Also, remember that voltage is a relative measurement. The voltage you measure on the surface of your portal is relative to your local ground potential. The ground potential on the other side of the portal is not necessarily the same as your local ground potential, so the surface charge they see on their end could be completely different. If this portal was built to any remotely sane building standards then its chassis is connected to an earth ground for safety reasons, which means you likely won't be able to build up much surface charge at all. A non-grounded portal would be terribly unsafe even in normal use cases due to the lack of a common reference voltage described above (a harmless 2V charge on your side could be a lethal 2TV on the other).
[Answer]
## The portal room would blow up, but not serious damage in the city
The problem is that your charge buildup on the destination side would cause attraction of ionized particles from the *source* side inward, thus causing wind directed towards the portal. That wind would carry inward whatever dust and molten rock that arises from your lasers when they blast open the closest wall, and clog the portal from destination side, blocking the energy flow from destination to source. As an additional problem, the charge buildup would also cause electrostatic discharge on the destination side, potentially breaking your lasers' electronic parts causing them to stop.
The closest location on the source side would suffer of course, 8.3 MJ pulses would blow up holes in whatever they meet, vaporize dust particles, incinerate humans, yet since they are not striking the single direction, they will only break up the innermost area and not travel further, the excess heat on the outside would turn air opaque effectively raising local temperature, and also some of that heat energy, together with expanding air, would travel to the destination side. The outside area would suffer a big blast of molten rock, but then matter buildup on the destination side of the portal would start obscuring the incoming energy flow. Note that plasma is positive ions mostly (mass wise), thus it would get pulled into the portal by your electrostatic field at the destination side.
As a side note, since incoming particle shower (aka wind) would not be able to propagate backwards, the temperature on the destination side would rapidly rise, proportional to the amount of energy not delivered through the portal. Even if the lasers won't overheat, the room would, potentially breaking the destination side apart, together with whatever complex where it's installed. After that point, the connection would break, leaving source side city pretty much unharmed.
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The title is horribly worded, but I have no idea how to otherwise title it.
Basically, the idea behind these special eyes is that they would be structured much like real-life compound eyes, but the first half of the ommatidia tunnel is mostly filled with a black mass that would absorb any light it touches, meaning only light reflected from a narrow angle from the front of the ommatidia would get to the second half where all the photoreceptor cells lie. These photoreceptor cells would then discern the colour of that light. Repeat this for each ommatidia in the eyes and you get a pixelart-like image, composed of individual hexagonal "pixels". The organisms would use multiple much smaller simple eyes (ocelli) to accurately detect distance.
The organisms in question would be mostly between the size of a mini Golden Retriever and a horse. The main supposed benefit of this eye type would be that the simple nature of a pixelated image would make the amount of brain space required to process it pretty small while allowing vision in all available degrees without the atrocious peripheral vision that human-like eyes have.
My main question is, is there something about the nature of light that I am missing that would make this unreasonable, impractical or otherwise outside of the realm of possibility?
Thanks!
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> . . . meaning only light reflected from a narrow angle from the front of the ommatidia would get to the second half where all the photoreceptor cells lie.
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An obvious difficulty is that this kind of eye wastes most of the light that reaches it. It is thus a competitive disadvantage compared to a conventional compound or human-like eye, simply because a creature with it is much less able to see in poor light. This does not seem like a good trade-off against the cost of some nerve tissue for visual processing.
Using a hypothetical kind of cone cell that is as sensitive as a rod cell will not solve this problem. Rods are only about 100 times more sensitive than cones. If your eye elements accept light over an angle of one degree, (1/57th of a radian), you're only taking in about (1/57\*57) = 0.03% of the light that a human-style eye (with an angle of view of about a square radian) would get. You're getting about a thirtieth of the effective light of a conventional eye, with about forty times worse angular resolution.
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**The image might be pixelated, but vision will not be.**
Our brains do a huge amount of processing of the "raw data" that comes from our eyes, and presumably, your organisms will do the same. Even if the raw data from the eyes was pixelated, it seems likely that the brain would do something to remove this pixelation, like maybe incorporating information from the very recent past to remove the pixelation. The most I can imagine happening is that if an organism briefly glances at an object then moves its eyes away, the image it sees might be pixelated, but in general, the organism's vision will not be pixelated.
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Broadly yes, they would, unless you can show an objection…
What 'compound-like' means is up to you.
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Despite being a gas giant, and being chilly cold, there are a few reasons I believe Saturn would be an ideal habitat for future colonisation, and here are a few justifications:
* **Saturn actually has a closer gravity to Earth than even Venus**- Saturn's gravity is only 6% higher than Earth, compared to Venus having nearly 10% lower gravity than Earth. 10% may not seem like a BIG difference at first glance, but if a astronaut ever returns from Venus after a very long time, there might be chances of slightly weakened bones. And stronger gravity on Saturn means that humans can actually develop strong bones and muscles, without at the same time be crushed to death, by immense forces.
* **Saturn has lower radiation levels**- As per my understanding, Jupiter has Chernobyl-level radiation, as its moon Io regularly spews out volcanic material, which forms a strong radiation belt that can kill humans, if they decided to colonize areas near Jupiter such as Europa. However, as Saturn doesn't exert enormous tidal forces on its moon, there is virtually no radiation belt, or atleast something that is comparable to Earth's radiation belts (Van Allen belts) or even lower.
* **Saturn is a reserve of ~~geothermal~~ Kronothermal energy**- One reason why airships can actually function on gas giants, is because, gas giants have immense heat in their interiors. A future airship colony could plunge conductive cables into the deep atmosphere to harvest heat to heat up the hydrogen gas so that they can get sufficient lift to float in a hydrogen-dominated atmosphere. Jupiter could also be used to harvest ~~geothermal~~ Zeuthermal energy, but as I mentioned, crushing gravity and intense radiation make it an uninhabitable place.
* **Saturn is a reservoir of wind energy**- Wind speeds on Saturn are immense, about 1700kph. If we could use wind turbines to harvest the wind on Saturn, we could possess immense power. Neptune is also a candidate for this, but it requires a long time to be reached by humans, hence omitted.
* **Saturn has low radiation levels**- Before people read my previous point and point out that **Mars and Venus are easily reachable**, they should perhaps see that Venus and Mars are bombarded with UV radiation the likes of which has never been seen before on Earth. Saturn is far away from the Sun, and thus receives virtually no radiation.
* **Saturn has useful chemicals and elements**- Although there is no soil on Saturn, there are a few chemicals in its atmosphere that can be used for making fertilizers, pesticides etc. Ammonia, a crucial gas that is used for making fertilizers on Earth, is present in abundance in Saturn's atmosphere, and sulphur compounds can be used to make pesticides and important chemicals such as sulfuric acid. Soil cannot be found here, but since there is a virtually inexhaustible source of fertilizers, there would be no problem of soil exhaustion, or fatigueing shipments of soil from Earth. Compare that to Mars, which has alkaline, toxic soils, and Venus, which has virtually no soil at all.
The main question is:
**Are there any problems in my justification for using Saturn as a future base?**
[Answer]
* Saturn's gravity is only 6% higher than Earth
Saturn in fact doesn't even have a surface. "Surface gravity" for gas giants is defined as the 1-bar level, where atmospheric pressure is similar to Earth's. This severely limits the available materials for building and sustaining a colony and greatly complicates the problem of building anything there.
Additionally, while the "surface" gravity is only a little higher than that of Earth, the escape velocity from the same level is far higher...35.5 km/s, over 3 times Earth's 11.2 km/s. The delta-v cost of reaching a minimal orbit will be greater by a similar proportion. Realistically, we don't have any propulsion system capable of the sort of delta-v required to reach orbit from Saturn.
* Jupiter has Chernobyl-level radiation...
This is an argument for not colonizing Jupiter or its inner moons, not for colonizing Saturn.
* Venus and Mars are bombarded with UV radiation
...which can be blocked with sunscreen. Someone exposed enough to be vulnerable to UV radiation on either of these would be far more concerned about their imminent death by asphyxiation, immolation, or exposure to near-anhydrous sulfuric acid. They would not survive if similarly exposed on Saturn, either.
* Kronothermal energy
You will not be able to simply dangle cables into the warm interior to collect energy. Aside from the wind issue, to generate power you need a conveniently accessible temperature gradient, not just a hot location.
* Saturn has useful chemicals and elements
Saturn's atmosphere is almost entirely hydrogen and helium, with only trace amounts of other substances. Even if you could collect useful amounts of ammonia and sulfur compounds from the clouds, there is little you can do with those in the absence of, well, *everything else on the periodic table*. Saturn's atmosphere is cripplingly resource-poor.
Venus at least has a surface you could conceivably gather materials from, and the surface of Mars is rich in useful minerals, while the toxicity issues are ridiculously overblown: perchlorates are a little more toxic than table salt, their low-level effects can be reduced with iodine supplements, they are rapidly excreted rather than accumulating in the body, and they are quite easy to remove or destroy.
[Answer]
Saturn has an escape velocity of 35.5 km/s compared to Earth's 11 km/s. It means you need about 9 times the energy to get to orbit.
The maximum temperature is 151 K, which is about 30 degrees colder than the coldest temperature ever observed on Earth.
The atmosphere is 96.3% Hydrogen, 3.25% Helium, 0.45% Methane, and traces of other stuff.
So, not exactly a garden spot.
[Answer]
**Bad idea**
First, BillOnne's answer is quite correct - anyone who goes there is staying there permanently, the delta v to get to orbit is prohibitive. Which does not, in and of itself, make colonisation impossible, just a one way trip with no escape possible if things go wrong. Which leads to the next points...
You note (peak) wind speeds of 1700 km/hour as an advertisement for wind power. However, the real issue is 1700 km/hour *relative to what*. You have correctly assessed that colonists would need to be occupying airships "floating" in the atmosphere, since the pressures at depth would crush any human-occupied structure easily. Which means that *if* everything was going well, a human-occupied colony airship would be zipping along at 1700 km/hr relative to an outside observer, but at close to zero relative to the atmosphere it is floating in. Practical upshot - usable wind speed for power generation is nowhere near the windspeed perceived by an outside observer. Although there still will be relative wind speed, as described below.
It gets worse, though. Systems with high wind speed are never a uniform speed all the way through and are never a consistent speed at all altitudes. (Note that most aircraft do their best not to fly into hurricanes / cyclones - it's not the absolute speed but the windshear and turbulence that make this an activity reserved for hardened aircraft and harder pilots conducting weather research.) As Saturn's wind systems interact any habitat will be tossed around like a kite in a tornado, making normal life impossible. The difference in speeds at different altitudes will also make it impossible for any cables to allow geothermal/kronothermal power generation to last more than a fraction of a second before snapping.
Short version, any colony dropped into Saturn's atmosphere will be tossed around in the very cold, stormy air, with no way for colonists to escape or find somewhere safe to effect repairs *when* something breaks.
[Answer]
**Frame Challenge:** Saturn itself is a poor choice for colonisation, but some of its moons, Titan and Enceladus in particular, are not bad options. It won't be paradise, but both have a solid surface and exploitable resources, probably enough for a future human civilisation to survive there, with the occasional resupply ship.
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I'm building a world for a novel and would like to have a single-sex, sapient species. The world is based on the general physics and scientific nature of our world but where more than one sapient species has evolved. What could be the major occurrences that would bring about an evolutionary change from a 2 sexed to single sexed species in such a setting? Preferably in a reptilian creature.
Thanks for any thoughts.
[Answer]
**Evolution through the intermediary of partial sexual reproduction**
You specifically ask for an evolutionary reason - rather than asking about a species that was always single-gendered.
This has precedents in nature, for example with the ubiquitous aphid *Myzus persicae*
This small insect has an option of reproducing sexually or asexually.
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> In the warmer months, and throughout the year in warmer climates, the
> ... aphid reproduces asexually
> [Myzus persicae
> From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myzus_persicae)
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Note that aphids generally have a very biased sex ratio - roughly 1 male to 20 females.
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If you really want to take a deep dive into the subject then here is where to look!
[**Google Scholar: evolutionary asexuality**](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=evolutionary%20asexuality%20animals&btnG=)
[Answer]
# There already are:
The [whiptail lizard](https://www.theverge.com/2015/7/19/8994705/whiptail-lizard-parthenogenesis-unisexuality-badass) family (to name just one) has several groups where only females exist. They do not have sexual reproduction, but instead reproduce by [parthenogenesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis). Other species (like the Komodo dragon) are capable of parthenogenesis if no males are available.
There are several ways these species can occur. Some cases involve a hybrid lizard (similar to a mule) caused when two related species mate. The female can still ovulate and produce viable offspring by parthenogenesis, but don't have any males (probably because male hybrids are non-viable). In other cases, conditions or disease may have wiped out all the males.
Some of these species engage in mating behaviors with other females of the species, and while there is not genetic exchange, mating behaviors appear to increase fertility (possibly by altering hormone levels). In other cases, the females are triggered to ovulate by mating with members of other related reptile species. Again, no genetic exchange takes place. Sometimes, they just don't have sex.
Long-term, these species are considered a dead end because they lack a method of exchanging genetic variation. In the short term, however, these lizards can exploit resources and increase their numbers rapidly because every member of the species is female and all members can produce offspring (as opposed to half of the members being male and not directly producing offspring). They don't need to engage in risky, energetic or competitive mating behaviors to produce offspring either.
* [Hermaphroditic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermaphrodite) species obviously are all the same gender. But for your question, I assume them to be two genders in one, rather than one gender. Otherwise, hermaphrodites are a viable answer to your question. [There can be issues with this](https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/5148/why-are-not-all-species-hermaphrodites).
* Some species are capable of [transforming from one gender to another](https://www.latrobe.edu.au/news/articles/2020/opinion/what-we-learn-from-fish-that-change-sex#:%7E:text=Clown%20fish%20begin%20life%20as,%2C%20size%2C%20or%20social%20status.). This is technically called being sequential hermaphroditic. For some fish, if the dominant male dies, the alpha female can transform into a male. There would not need to be a genetically separate gender for this, but there would still be two genders (so I assumed this didn't meet your needs). But there could be prolonged periods where there were no males, and select females transform, mate, and (possibly) die afterwards. ***If this were in response to stressful conditions and combined with parthenogenesis, you would have a species that could rapidly expand in good times and still generate diversity when conditions got tough.***
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Gender and sexual reproduction aren't necessarily linked.
Evolution is favoured by sexual reproduction because genetic character mixing is faster, but you could have your creatures be eterohermaphrodites (they have both sets of sexual organs and can inseminate one another, cannot inseminate themselves).
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**Extreme Dimorphism**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/oUMNY.png)
Your species has two options for reproduction.
1. Female makes unfertilised eggs. These only contain genetic info from the mother. Perhaps they are her clones. Perhaps she scrambles the genome to activate and deactivate different bits of DNA and get different young. In any case the offspring are all female.
2. Female makes eggs which are fertilized by a male. These have genetic info from both parents. The young can be male or female.
Style 2 is historically better because it leads to more genetic variation and faster evolution. It also creates both males and females. But in the modern era people only do Style 1. This leads to males dying out.
The reason is males are much smaller and stupider than the females. It is debatable whether they are sapient at all.
In the hunter-gatherer era it was useful to have a lot of males around. The reason for this will depend on the exact biology and I leave it to your imagination. They eat less than a female -- perhaps they act as cheap lookouts. Perhaps they can fly? Perhaps they have more acute senses?
In any case, in the civilized era, males are no longer needed and people see them as a burden. A male in your family is too stupid to work a job, or leave the house on its own. But it is smart enough to tear up the furniture unless you walk it four hours a day.
This leads to Style 1 becoming the norm and males dying out.
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**They are hermaphrodites**
They reproduce sexually. A scenario of a meeting of equal and equivalent partners would have each be both male and female, each fathering the child that the other carries. Under some circumstances an individual could be both father and mother: still sexual because it would use meiotically produced sperm and eggs, but one individual.
One could spin this in a way where at some prior state there would be a single male that would compete for the right to be a father for multiple offspring. The society has progressed to the point that such a system is considered a primitive throwback.
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Have two genetic contributors allows for more genetic variety in a short time. Asexual production produces what are basically clones, identical copies of the single parent. there will be some evolution due to mutations, but at a much slower rate than sexual production.
An advanced specie will develop the ability to alter their genes. This will initially be done avoid genetic defects, but will quickly become produce enhanced off spring. This will result in even faster evolution than sexual production.
Selecting sex based on genes will be an easy change. Since it is far easier for Females to give birth, females will be preferred and number of male children will plummet and possibly disappear. if artificial wombs are developed this may change instead to favor males instead of females.
While the choice of male or female is up for debate, the most likely outcome will be a society of all one or the other.
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The OP asked about "species". Most answers refer to animal species, and the answers contain interesting examples. Plants are also characterized by species, and are also sexually, asexually, and "self-sexually" reproducing organisms.
Many plants have flowers with both male and female elements, permitting self-fertilization while also permitting other-fertilization. One can ascribe utility and "fitness" in that if the population density is low than reproduction will occur through self-fertilization, but if population density is high other-fertilization will be more likely.
Further speculation suggests that if the population density is low, the incidence of predators and pathogens specific to the plant species is also low, so the loss of sexual reproduction is less of a liability. When the density is high, there is a greater chance of an opportunistic specialist foe, and the benefits of sexual reproduction are higher.
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# Intermediate sperm storage
Many reptiles have evolved the ability for the females to, after mating, store their partners' sperm for use later. From there, some females may develop the ability to produce their own sperm in this system, becoming able to reproduce asexually, obviating some of the need for males, and then later develop the ability to impregnate each other, obviating the need for males entirely.
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In real life temperature effects the gender of some species. If it's hotter there are more males, if it's cooler there are more females, or vice versa.
It could be that some form of environmental contamination, such as pollution or a disease interferes with this process, causing species to have attributes from both sexes, rather than one. In essence, children could be born as fully functional hermaphrodites.
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The end result is that a delivered envelope or the writing on it is designed to completely decay within 2 weeks to a month, ideally through natural processes caused by the type of materials used, so that the paper itself has decayed or the writing is completely illegible. It does not strictly have to be 'paper' and can be something more easily degradable, but that can still support writing before it does.
This should be achieved without any other timed mechanism that may introduce some other substance to the envelope after a set period of time.
Edit: This is not for passing secret spy messages, but because in world the written word is more mentally harmful to view the more times it has been seen. This is a safety precaution to avoid leaving loose notes behind. Nobody would be looking to uncover hidden words with a high level of scrutiny (hence the longer than immediate timeframe for decomposition)
What are some best methods to achieve the desired result?
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## That's not ink, it's mold.
Letters are printed using water mixed with dormant, black-colored, water-activated mold as ink. After 7 days, the mold has started growing and has become hard to read. After 14 days, the mold has grown significantly and destroyed its readability. In 30 days, you have a (albeit disgusting) sheet of mold.
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# Use the 'ink' from receipts
Many (most? All?) Receipts use thermal paper, which is used to 'write' the receipt.
Sometimes I need to hold in to a receipt for guarantee or something similar. Some however fade much more quickly. Thanks to even the smallest bit of light and/or friction, possibly even by doing nothing the letters start to disappear. Not sure if this is intentional, like biodegradable or to prevent returns of a product, but it shows that 'ink' that disappears after a time is very possible. Maybe the kind of paper also helps, reverting to it's original state after a time. You can also turn it around and have the paper turn black slowly as the normal temperature is already too high, starting the reaction.
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# Be Careful, someone has thought how to get around that already...
Depending on your needs, [THIS](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/121414/self-destructing-messages/121434) question may answer your question.
If you've ever been to the [International spy Museum](https://www.spymuseum.org/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIk6GilYzn9AIViZ7tCh0xQgfCEAAYAiAAEgKmFPD_BwE), you'll know that people have tried a LOT of different ways to make messages that either can't be read by anyone who you don't want to, or that are destroyed as soon as they are read.
Codes can be broken. Even the pressure on paper leaves an imprint that can be read. Ink you can't see leaves a residue that's detectable to sophisticated enough sensors. So what's a secretive person supposed to do?
Your question implies the message must no longer be readable after two weeks, but says nothing about codes.
* The simplest way to achieve your goal is to use paper that is readily [water-soluble](https://www.winklersmagicwarehouse.com/product/dissolvo-spy-paper/), edible or alcohol-soluble and preferably non-toxic. That way, the reader can eat or drink the message when done and the message is gone. Swallow it, or at least pop it in your mouth, drop it in a drink, etc.. and it's gone.
* Another alternative is paper with messages only read by ultraviolet light that are then [destroyed by the heat of a hairdryer](https://www.newscientist.com/article/2217550-coated-paper-holds-secret-messages-that-can-be-erased-with-a-hairdryer/).
* [Flash paper](https://www.vanishingincmagic.com/flash-paper/articles/what-is-the-difference-between-flash-paper-and-flash-cotton/) is hyper-combustible and leaves no residue.
* [Potassium permanganate](https://melscience.com/US-en/chemistry/experiments/chemical-ink-eraser/) decolorizes ink, although there will likely be a residue of detectible chemicals for a sophisticated spy to detect. Perhaps it or micro-beads of it embedded in the paper that release as they absorb moisture would do the job. But the ink would need to dry without releasing the permanganate, so a water-free solvent would be needed and a dye known to degrade in the presence of potassium permanganate. The paper would need to be kept in a desiccated condition (like a sealed water-proof envelope with a desiccant pack in it).
* Digitally, there are apps that allow you to create [self-destructing messages](https://metro.co.uk/2020/11/03/how-to-turn-on-whatsapp-self-destruct-messages-and-protect-your-chats-13528390/) good for only a set amount of time.
* A special printer has been designed that causes paper to [burst into flame](https://www.therecycler.com/posts/printer-creates-self-destructing-paper/) after about 60 seconds. If such a letter were printed in an atmosphere that had no oxygen, and sealed inside a container with inert gas, it would burst into flame shortly after opening.
* Some pigments and preparations, like film, are destroyed when exposed to light. Read in proper "darkroom" conditions, the messages are readable, but rapidly over-expose once exposed to normal light.
* Encoded test results: The information is encoded in the form of unstable organic molecules of the kind commonly tested by hospital or clinical labs. These can be read, and each numeric value corresponds to a letter in a cypher. These tests often are unstable and become increasingly degraded over time, when left at room temperature, or exposed to light (like many vitamins). Identify a test that needs to be performed within a set amount of time, kept at stable temperatures, and can't be exposed to light. The tubes are placed in order in a rack. So if they are left out, exposed to warmth and light, get too old, or are even dumped out so the tubes are no longer in order, then the message is lost. Run the tests, and you get a series of numbers that correspond to the letters of the message. It certainly doesn't LOOK like a message, either!
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### Non-secrecy
For a message that needs to disappear for public-safety reasons (transcript of unholy knowledge?), but that doesn't have to remain secret against determined attack:
**Edibility**
I suggest you use an agar plate or icing/frosting, depending on whether your local ants prefer to eat protien or sugar. The wildlife will take care of a discarded message for you, because it tastes good. Sugar-based writing can also be susceptible to humidity.
**Viscosity**
In a hot climate, scraping your message into a bar of pitch will work, since it will gradually flow into the grooves. You can vary the substance based on your needs, pitch may not be fast enough in a colder climate.
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The principle - make the ink contain a catalyst the triggers the decomposition of the paper. The thickness of the paper and/or concentration of the "destructive agent" that the ink catalyses can be used to tune the lifetime of the note.
For example (I would need to try it to see if it is practical): [sodium percarbonate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_percarbonate) in the structure of the paper in interaction with an iron oxide based ink should trigger a slowly advancing oxidation reaction (also bound to the amount of water the percabornate can get to absorb from atmosphere).
Which brings another idea: highly hygroscopic paper which gets into a mush state outside of a sealed envelope that keeps it dry en route to delivery.
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Actually, this is probably easier than you might think. One of the hard parts of making ink is to make it **not** fade. So instead of trying to make ink last, you work to make it not last.
Any basic alchemist should be able to whip something up in a few months, and if this is a normal need in your world, any alchemist would already know several recipes (as in could make it today).
Note that chemical analysis would probably still find the "ink".
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Fly meat is likely a more efficient source of protein than traditional livestock, such as cows, sheep, pigs, chickens, and the like, in that:
* [Flies can feed on essentially any biomatter](https://www.jcehrlich.com/flies/what-do-flies-eat/#:%7E:text=Adult%20flies%20feed%20and%20harvest,nectar%20from%20flowers%20as%25well.), including biomatter not edible by traditional livestock - [in some cases, that means literal shit](https://www.jcehrlich.com/flies/what-do-flies-eat/#:%7E:text=House%20flies%20are%20general%20feeders,variety%20of%20substances%20such%20as%3A&text=Animal%20feces).
* While I'm unsure as to whether this applies to flies, [crickets are ~40 times more mass-efficient in terms of unit mass of protein produced per unit mass of water consumed](https://interestingengineering.com/the-explosion-of-insect-protein). Less water consumption equates to lower costs and improved environmental friendliness.
* From the same source as the one immediately prior to this, cricket meat is ~69% protein, while beef is 29% protein - i.e. more protein per unit of mass, which improves efficiency in more ways than I can list. I don't think it's unreasonable to presume that this might apply to flies, although I can't find a source on this.
* Insects in general [produce fewer greenhouse gases than conventional livestock](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110107083737.htm), reducing the effects of climate change due to farming.
* [Flies have short lifespans and reproduce quickly](https://www.orkin.com/pests/flies/house-flies/how-long-do-flies-live), meaning that, if genetically engineered/bred into being food insects, such modifications take effect much faster, and the effects of such modifications can be rapidly observed. Basically, they have a fast [turnaround time](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turnaround_time) in terms of genetics.
* People don't care about flies. All but [the most stringent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jainism) animal-rights activists and moralists do not care about their lives. PETA does not protest fly deaths, nor would they [compare fly factory farms to the Holocaust](https://www.cnn.com/2003/US/Northeast/02/28/peta.holocaust/). You will essentially not be facing any opposition to a fly farm on the animal-rights front.
* [Flies live everywhere](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fly#:%7E:text=Flies%20are%20often%20abundant%20and,flies%2C%20midges%20and%20fruit%20flies.), meaning that they can be bred anywhere - all you need is an enclosed space for doing so, so that they don't *fly* away.
However, there are obstacles to fly farming. Ignoring any cultural ones - for instance, people not wanting to eat protein sourced from such stereotypically and often legitimately filthy insects - but taking into account any other potential issues with this: **how, exactly, does one farm flies on an industrial scale?**
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Farming flies it is already [being done](https://time.com/3825158/farming-flies-south-africa/).
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> Seven years ago Drew came up with the deceptively simple idea of farming flies to supply a fishmeal alternative to chicken and fish farms. He was inspired, in part, by the sight of a vast pool of blood collecting behind an abattoir near his family farm. It was swarming with flies. Flies are nature’s housecleaners, feasting on organic waste that would otherwise become a breeding ground for disease. With the support of his brother and the help of an entomologist at South Africa’s Stellenbosch University who was working on the idea of fly-driven “bio-recycling,” he developed a program that would take food waste from Cape Town’s hotels, grocery stores, restaurants and abattoirs to feed and breed flies.
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> Getting from the theoretical to the practical of farming flies was an arduous process of trial and error, says AgriProtein’s entomologist Richards. Flies are picky about how they breed and lay eggs, and the AgriProtein team had to figure out how to get flies, who prefer to breed in the summer and lay eggs only at specific times, to adapt to the needs of a 24-hour, 365-day-a year industrial process. “As with any biological process, the problem is up scaling,” says Richards. “In nature things work on a small scale. As soon as you want to increase that to industrial size, unforeseen problems come to the fore” — like the fact that maggots overheat when there are too many feeding at once. The solutions to those problems are a tightly-held secret.
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Oh, come on, mate! Just a simple "insect farming" in your favourite (& hopefully decent) search engine would have led you Wikipedia's [insect farming/As feed and food](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insect_farming#As_feed_and_food) - with the two very first links to [insects as feed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insects_as_feed) and [insects as food](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insects_as_food).
That's a lot to go through, each edible insect will have their own requirements in an insect farming business (which is estimated to hit [$8 Billion by 2030](https://hivelife.com/insect-farming/)).
But I'll give you one example in which is dead simple to harvest them: the [black solder fly farming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermetia_illucens#Farming) - their worms are [self-harvesting](https://www.hobbyfarms.com/black-soldier-flies-free-self-harvesting-chicken-feed/)
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> Yes, black soldier flies harvest themselves. You don’t even have to touch them.
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> The wiggling larvae graduate into crawling prepupae (I warned you—entomology nerd) and **feel a compulsion to climb** The Ramp of Death in a Biopod, Protapod or a DIY digester.
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> At the top of that ramp they find The Hole of No Return and unwittingly drop through it into The Bucket o’ Free Chicken Feed that you provide. (These are not official names of the components.)
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> Then, every couple days, you dump the bucket where your chickens can enjoy some high-protein snacks. How easy— and not-gross—is that?
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Here, a search on youtube if you ever feel like starting to DIY: [black soldier fly farming](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=black+soldier+fly+farming).
You can even buy [kitchen bench-top equipment](https://newatlas.com/farm-432-fly-larva-food/28509/) to do it (moar plastic - but, hey, it's for a good cause, eh?)
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(this is probably going to be my last mermaid based question for while)
unlike their [giant](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/199692/how-could-medieval-ships-protect-themselves-from-giant-mermaids) counterparts, most [mermaids](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/167943/realistic-sea-humanoids) are more humanoid sized and have a life style similar to seals. now some of these mermaids occasionally make the voyage to land cities and they can scuffle across the ground similar to sea lions it's relatively slow and exhausting and due to their seal like hind limbs i doubt they could mount a horse easily. so given all this with medieval level technology what would be an effective land based mode of transportation for mermaids?
Note: Magic does not exist in my story
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If the mermaids can survive an extended period out of the water then sling some [hammocks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammock) across the interior of a wagon. They can ride in what is probably the most comfortable position for a mermaid on dry land.. lying down.
The humans could provide buckets of water and rags or sponges so the mermaids can moisten themselves if needed during the day. At night they camp by a lake or river.
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*Sedan Chair*
For most things a sort of Sedan chair or litter would be the preferred mode of overland transport. Swim upriver until you reach your destination city/town, hire a litter from the docks, and get quickly carried to your destination. This would be especially good if your merpeople are comfortable in a "sitting" position and if they don't require frequent re-hydrating. It becomes a little less feasible if lying down is their only comfortable way of being on land. It'd make the litter longer and a bit less maneuverable, but I don't think it would be a huge deal.
For longer trips (town-to-town say) you'd probably have to go with some sort of draft animal pulled cart. I say this under the assumption that your merpeople would need to spend at least some time every day in water to be truly comfortable. So you wouldn't just be hauling the merperson and their baggage, you'd also have to haul what amounts to a large kiddie pool around as well. Apart from Very Important Merpersons I don't see these being used in cities, or indeed in most towns. They'd need to be custom built to hold the water and it just wouldn't behoove people in a medieval setting to make them because a merperson can get *almost* everywhere worthwhile by swimming. Almost all major medieval cities and most towns/villages would be situated near bodies of water that would eventually make their way to the sea, so merpeople would likely just swim/use whatever seaborne transport they normally use. But for some locations I could see water-wagons being used to ferry Merpeople from one town to another, or more likely one body of water to another. (think across mountains from one set of rivers to another, or from the ocean overland to a lake if the river is very winding.)
The one exception to using rivers/streams I can think of is if a particular river/stream had a really strong current, or in places where rapids would make it impractical. For strong currents I know what they did for barges is have oxen on the banks drag the barges upstream, and I could see merpeople getting on the barges to be "towed" across areas where the current would make swimming to tiring/impossible. Rapids on highly-trafficked waterways would probably end up with sedan-chair portages similar to the city versions.
As an aside, for countries that did a lot of business with or had strong alliances with merpersons I could envision canals being dug specifically for merpersons. It would be an extension of Imperial Highway building. Heck, you might even see canals dug specifically to facilitate ambassadors which run directly from the docks to the Palace, which itself has various waterways so that a Merperson royal or ambassador would never have to condescend to being carried by humans or flopping along by themselves! But they would have to be VERY closely bound politically/economically, otherwise the expenditure might not be worth it.
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## Most Merfolk will Travel Using Crutches
There are a lot of answers here based on what merfolk of considerable wealth could choose from, but the idea of persons of normal means owning any sort of vehicles is a pretty new concept.
Instead, consider that merfolk are basically no different on land than a 1-legged human. The use of wooden crutches as a means for 1-legged people getting around [goes back to atleast 2830 BC](https://opedge.com/Articles/ViewArticle/2008-04_06); so, it's not hard to imagine them being interjected into almost any setting. With conditioning, it is very much possible to [travel over 10 miles in a day](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/30/sports/running-on-crutches.html) on them which means that a reasonably fit merperson could travel just as far on them as a commoner would ever realistically be expected to walk in a day.
Furthermore, crutches do not require you to transition between modes of travel. A Merperson, could come out of the water, travel the few miles it takes to get into town, and "walk" right into the building they were going to.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/XuwzT.png)
**This answer applies to mermaids as described by the OP, not all versions of mermaids.**
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> (they) have a life style similar to seals... they can scuffle across the ground similar to sea lions... (they have) fused thighs...
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Len brings up a few good points in comments that would apply to a mermaid with a literal fish tail, but these mermaids by their description appear to be aquatic mammals and not fish at all.
When you look at the tails of aquatic mammals like seals, sea lions, dolphins, or whales, they bend in the dorsal/ventral direction like human legs, not in the side-to-side fashion of a fish tail. More ovever, since the OP describes the tail as fused leg bones, and not an extension of the spine, this further implies that the OP's mermaids are most likely a viable evolutionary branch of the sirenomelia mutation. Survivors of sirenomelia who have had their legs surgically separated are proven to be able to walk on their legs; so, to have a tail made of two legs fused together would likewise be able to support one's weight when standing. It can also be assumed that the "fin" at the back is much thicker and "foot like" than a fish's tail fin as you see on aquatic mammals or people with sirenomelia. Worst case scenario, your mermaid will need some kind of shoe to prevent abrasions while it walks, but human commoners already wair shoes all the time, so this is a pretty reasonable expectation in addition to the crutches
As for concerns about needing to stay wet, seals and sea lions can live indefinitely out of water. In captivity, injured seals are often kept out of water for months at a time as their injuries heal; so, if these merfolk have seal like lifestyles, this means any answer that mentions keeping the mermaid wet is unnecessary.
**What about those scales?**
While we generally expect to see merfolk with scaly tails, no one ever said those scales belong to the mermaid. They could wear fish leather tail coverings which would have a similar function to all-in-one pants and shoes while further perpetuating the "half-fish" misconception by showing off a scally lower half. In reality, their lower half could actually be more like a dolphin or seal tail.
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Just use a wheelchair, it's the best solution for people who cannot use their legs in urban environments. If something more robust is needed then a larger motorised or animal drawn one.
Airports and seaports have wheelchairs.
No need to reinvent the wheel on this one.
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As I kid I used to make my own little swimming pool by just filling a wheelbarrow with water. When my cousins wanted to play, we just moved around in a "movable swimming pool".
Scale it up to the size of an adult, have some beast of burden or humans moving it, add some more wheels for better holding the load, and you have your transportation for mermaid, with the added benefit that can keep them hydrated along the trip.
This will leave the mermaid to scuffle only the last part of the travel, where the carriage won't fit, like the business premises that they are visiting.
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If mermaids co-exist in the world with humans, I would suggest chartering a ride. Mermaids must have something of value they could barter for transportation.
This could be lucrative for the humans, with luxury wet transportation, or economy dry transportation. Humans would build ramps into the ocean making it easier for mermaids to access their rides. Humans would compete for access to the mermaid customers, and the valuable goods they would offer for a ride.
Eventually, it would become standardized. One token of value for one unit of transport. The market would prevail, and would offer problems to be solved related to all the common economic disruptions.
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They can use side saddles.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/lQSO4.png)
Of course these saddles are not as convenient as normal saddles, but they do the job.
Or, if mermaid's tail can get rigid, she can move on land almost naturally.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/y2HWT.png)
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I'm running into some issues trying to make sense of both my planet's density (it's given properties should make the planet an ocean world, so I'm looking for lighter elements so the planet is rocky) and the origin of its exotic magnetic field (exotic as in concentric spheres that rotate along approximately the planet's axis in alternating directions, so that floating islands can be fixed on certain points at different altitudes and move with it) and so I thought of creating an element with custom properties to explain both phenomena, but of course, the periodic table is already pretty filled up, specially with regards to the lighter elements, so this new element of mine would have to be a new heaviest element in order to fit with the table.
So I though about the possibility of alternate versions of existing elements, i.e.: an alternative oxygen with similar atomic properties that behaved exotically when bonded to iron, making alternate iron oxide float. But how to explain these alternate elements?
In [this](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/112095/chemical-element-made-with-alternative-particles) post, Mranderson asks something somehow similar. I, at first, thought about using quasiparticles or elementary particles to explain the alternate elements, but as Loren Petchel pointed out on their response, having unstable, high energy elementary particles which are also heavier wouldn't be good building bricks for something intended to last.
And so I'm left with this:
**Is there any way to explain alternate elements (or exotic behaviour of elements) in a *more or less* scientific way?**
I'm trying to flesh out my world's base as scientifically accurate as I can before I get to designing it's magical aspect. Of course I can always use the "because magic" card when not able to explain something logically, but I'd like to avoid this if possible.
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If your goal is to explain why certain island floats, don't go in deep details as explaining the chemical composition: not everybody is into chemistry, and not even those who are want to know the chemical composition of particular elements of a world.
Look at Studio Ghibli's [Laputa: Castle in the Sky](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_in_the_Sky):
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> Sheeta's amulet is made of hikōseki (飛行石, "levitation stone") crystal ("Volucite" or "Aetherium" in English-language releases), a material used to keep Laputa and the other flying cities aloft.
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No details are given on the chemical composition of the Volucite, it's just said that every stone contains a tiny amount of it and that it quickly degrades when exposed to air, therefore refining it into a stable crystal is quite complex. Nothing more.
And this doesn't take anything away from the story.
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**[Magnetic monopoles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_monopole)**. They're not an "element" per se (what they are *supposed* to be is a little mysterious; they were theorized widely but fashion seems to have turned against them.) The system of "shells" of magnetic fields is extremely hard to justify if the atmosphere isn't plasma, unless we throw in something like this that shakes up our assumptions about how magnetic fields work. Maybe the monopoles can bind to the nuclei light elements and be part of the atmosphere itself - once you have an atmosphere crowded with, say, north magnetic poles, it seems like you can handwavily justify many weird effects. (Most speculation about monopoles was that they didn't interact with matter - you could push an asteroid and find monopoles from its center left behind - but I'd love to hear a physicist explain why a nonexistent particle can't possibly interact with strong or weak nuclear forces)
**Just do it with mundane science**. The oceans were stripped down to almost nothing because the star emitted lots of XUV flares. The magnetic fields are caused by immense particle beams shot between a global network of towers left anchored in the planet by previous alien inhabitants who wanted to beam power and provide support for habitations throughout the atmosphere and low orbit.
**[Dark matter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter)**. No one really knows what dark matter is. It doesn't interact with normal matter except by gravity and it is thought probably to move around very quickly. But what if a natural or artificial phenomenon in your planet or in your broad region of space has caused dark matter to start coupling with ordinary matter? Then it has some by definition unpredictable interactions with other particles. Maybe it ends up in nuclei; maybe it becomes stabilized in a ring system inside the atmosphere that only very faintly interacts with physical matter but has some odd magnetic effects.
**Antimatter**. Okay, this one is a little loony ... honestly they all are ... but [some people](https://news.berkeley.edu/2013/04/30/is-antimatter-anti-gravity/) think antimatter could be anti-gravity. The only problem is that the tiniest speck of it will blow up and kill everybody. But ... what if there is some unknown physics that can allow matter and antimatter to coexist? A field of some sort, deployed in your sector of space by an ancient civilization to defend against military attack, affects the mass of particles and antiparticles in opposite directions, and now they have different Compton wavelengths and they can't neutralize or something. (Like I said, it's a bit loony, but sci-fi is a playground! Niven got away with worse...)
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You say "floating islands". Do you mean in air or in water?
Because a floating island on water is possible with known physics. Pumice floats. If somehow you have a large enough mass of it to support your island you can have a floating island.
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# Short answer: yes.But we need to get a bit technical why.
In modern particle physics, "particles" arise as a result/manifestation of quantum fields. These fields are the most fundamental physical entities we currently understand or claim to exist. The symmetries and interactions of these fields give rise to the particles, forces, and physical nature of our universe.
If there's a deeper or better model/explanation, we don't know it yet or its speculative and unproven.
Why does this matter? Because the atoms, forces, and properties, in our universe come into existence because of these quantum fields. At least one field was deduced to be "maybe existing" to make the rest of them work - and it naturally brings its own particle to the game (the Higgs Particle/Boson).
If another field existed, then it would allow for its own novel particles and interactions to exist. It could radically change behaviour at certain energies ("symmetry breaking", allows stuff like superconductivity to happen, on a macro scale, as well as the visible universe to exist!). We would have new extra Interactions, maybe new extra forces and new ways things can combine or interact (on similar or larger or smaller scales than we currently know of), and existing ones would change. Perhaps subtly, perhaps not. Both are possible.
In fact "dark matter" is widely suspected to be undetectable directly at present, simply because its some novel particle/s, and its laws mean it doesn't interact with most things, so we have very few ways to directly detect it. There could be a whole family of dark matter particles, we just don't know. There could be entire "new" interactions we've never seen, or which only occur visible to us in certain very limited circumstances, and crucially, they could be *radically* different to those we're used to. I'm going to use that approach, and speculate on a similar mechanism to answer your question.....
# Proposed solution
Suppose a new quantum field existed or was undiscovered so far, with some appropriate properties. This is very likely, and not entirely fanciful, but its effects could be.... well, that's up to you to devise. Its properties mean that one or more new particles may also exist. (They might also mean that existing particles can achieve novel states.)
Note that you want it to not fundamentally disrupt existing outcomes, as it takes exceedingly little change to the known laws/interactions, to destroy the fabric on which life as we know it depend. You want it just to add to the possibilities. That's probably possible (a new field wouldn't *have* to interact in damaging ways, or at all, with known fields) and certainly handwave-able.
If the field allows for new particles, they may not be readily detectable at present. We aren't noticing them. These new particles could have suitable properties so they can combine within the atomic nucleus and create a nucleus with fractional charge, and allow fractional negative charges around it - apparently our belief that charge can only be an integer within a nucleus or in its valence shells is only valid for a Standard Model that excludes this newly discovered field. So you'd have new elements slotted in between, in addition to the current (integer proton count) ones.
Alternatively the field could allow new particles that can combine within an existing ordinary atomic nucleus, without affecting its electrical charge or disrupting the nucleus stability, but now the nucleus has some changed or extra property.
You now have all the physics mechanism needed for your question! Quantum fields can do stuff like that. Handwave some details away, but the hard core should be valid.
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I'm experimenting with a sci-fi setting where human-like mechanical androids are the dominant "lifeform." Though the setting is based on science, androids live in tribal societies. For the most part, these societies are devoid from other pierces of technology - there are no high-tech vehicles, weapons, or power stations. As such, I need a way for androids to power themselves without the use of batteries or power stations like hydroelectric or nuclear power plants.
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Futurama has a good suggestion:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/623N2.png)
[Alcohol fuel cells](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_methanol_fuel_cell) are what you need. Grow suitable crops to provide carbohydrate feedstocks, then ferment and distill to produce nice, relatively purely fuel.
Distillation can *probably* be done with [bronze-age technology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distillation#History), certainly possible (but perhaps only in a limited way) with iron-age level knowledge and was clearly done by medieval societies so you have plenty of leeway in the sorts of society your androids are emulating. The resulting fuel is quite energy-dense, relatively stable and storeable, and the fuel cells can certainly be made to be powerful enough to make a human-sized thing capable of doing human-equivalent acts of physical exertion. Internal fuel tanks can tide the androids over between meals.
The nice thing is that this kind of power source makes good sense for a fairly high-tech society of the sort that would have produced your androids in the first place, removing the need for additional handwaving in the backstory.
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**Food**
To simplify it to an uncomfortable degree: you need material to grow or maintain the androids and energy for movement.
There are differences between humans and robots in how they gather and process both of these. For robots it's generally simple. Your parts are refined and placed/replaced according to your needs. Energy can come in the form of electricity or chemical bonds, like diesel, among other methods. A human is more complex. We eat food that is broken down and processed, stored and used for both (in addition to oxygen).
Ultimately this means that food can be a power source for any movement, as well as building material. I don't know how your androids function, but a few meals a day could power them and potentially help them grow/maintain themselves. You can enlarge/change their diet, so they can process the required materials for their android forms. You can do this in many ways you want. Examples can be it is transported and used much like blood, or maybe they have a small advanced 3D printer inside them to create the parts required, which can be used by the android or someone else for construction/maintenance.
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# Solar
If you make some of them solar-powered, you can add a twist: droids which are active only by day. They can be made to hibernate for an indefinite amount of time by being pushed into a hole or cave, and going under foliage makes them slow.
# Radioactivity
There is a kind of power source called [Radioisotope thermoelectric generator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator), or RTG for short. It is used in satellites and space probes - all the five probes currently leaving the solar system are powered by it.
RTG's extract energy from the decay of certain radioactive elements. In the wiki article it mentions some isotopes with half lives over 400-years. It may be that long ago humanity left a lot of RTG powered droids around, and maybe also many extra RTG's for spare parts that the droids can use to build new ones. Over centuries though this would stop working, so the droids might be in a quest to find new power sources soon.
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**Oxidation reactions.**
Your androids are living without other tech; you explicitly rule out power stations etc. They are living in tribes like humans.
They could power themselves with chemical energy. We do that. We eat reduced carbon molecules that can be oxidized to CO2 to release energy and then couple that energy release to charging up ATP which is biologically available energy.
It is not very androidy to eat blueberries and pork. You could obtain the chemical energy through a different oxidation reaction. The oxidation of metallic iron (or aluminum or titanium) also releases energy. Lots of bacteria oxidize reduced iron for their energy. Your androids could eat reduced metals and oxidize them within their bodies, powering their internal functions.
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I am not sure about the greater picture for your androids living in tribes with no tech but it seems like at one time they were part of something more technologically advanced, and have fallen to their current state. Maybe there are ruined devices around
ed to be, and maybe they themselves remember.
Long ago these androids had proper fuel. Now they break little pieces off of the old machines and eat them. The androids are cannibalizing their past. It might help your story.
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It is worth pointing out that the androids themselves have reduced metal titanium / aluminum skeletons. In isolated groups, some individuals might have skeletal components now replaced by wood.
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**Hydrogen Fuel Cells**
Basically, hydrogen fuel cells produce power constantly as long as there is oxygen and hydrogen to sustain it. Oxygen can just be extracted from the atmosphere, while the hydrogen can be purified from ingested H2O. As a result, as long as they have air to breath and water to drink, these robots can sustain themselves.
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Context: this is for a Pathfinder 2e campaign, the setting is my own but the available spells are those present in the rulebook.\*
I would like a character in this setting to have an **artifact** which is extremely technologically advanced and which can do *something* that will make everyone (or almost everyone) instantly **believe that they are in fact a god and not just a spellcaster.**
Of course, the overwhelming majority of commoners in my setting have never witnessed any of the higher-level spells (nor ever will) so they just might believe that, but one could argue that they must have at least heard about what mages are capable of doing, so that sounds a little hand-wavy.
\*For example, here's some of the highest-level spells that the most powerful wizards can cast in Pathfinder 2e, which are pretty damn miracle-ish:
* Gate: tear open a portal to another dimension
* Cataclysm: self explanatory
* Time Stop: briefly stop time for everything but you
As to how exactly casting a spell "works", wizards and other casters typically have a pouch containing typical materials necessary for casting: precious metals, powders, catalysts, and so on.
The caster takes out the material, speaks magic words or moves their hands in a specific pattern, and then the spell is cast. The whole thing typically takes 4 to 6 seconds for most spells.
I know this is a very difficult question to answer, but I'm looking for just a prompt that will put me in the right direction and make me think of something that didn't come to mind.
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**Undo death.**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/S8xj7.jpg)
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4HoxDhLRR0>
Depicted: the Resurrection of Lazarus from Last Temptation of Christ\*. A classic demonstration of divine power.
[I took a look thru the Pathfinder spells](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?Tradition=0). In Pathfinder you can make things undead but as far as I can tell, making something that was dead be alive again is not among the spells. The Resurrection of Lazarus is the second best example of this and is done awesomely well in this movie. Lazarus has been dead a while and he smells bad. For the people in his country who were keeping track of Jesus, this was when they realized what he was.
The best example of being divine is of course the resurrection of Christ himself. Pathfinder spells offer no option for a person who is definitely, unquestionably dead to be not dead. When that happens a god is involved. Negating death and bringing back life is a divine power.
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\*Kids, if you dig amazing movies with amazing soundtracks, don't watch the link. Watch the movie. You do not have to be a Christian to enjoy (enjoy? make you think? Move you?) the story of a man who suddenly starts hearing his God. Willem Dafoe should have won an academy award for his portrayal of Christ.
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> I would like a character in this setting to have an artifact which is extremely technologically advanced and which can do something that will make everyone (or almost everyone) instantly believe that they are in fact a god and not just a spellcaster.
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Well, an atomic bomb would do I think.
Oppenheimer is quoted to have said "Now I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds."
And the [Ramayana](https://www.ancient-code.com/weapons-gods-mahabharata-atomic-blasts-12000-years-ago/), an ancient Indian epic poem, writes
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> Gurkha, flying a swift and powerful Vimana, hurled a single projectile charged with all the power of the Universe. An incandescent column of smoke and flame, as bright as ten thousand suns, rose in all its splendor.
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[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/yzI8P.jpg)
Just to be on the safe side you can take a Zar bomb.
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## You Need a 2-Way Radio
*... but not for the reasons you may be thinking...*
In DnD e5, Divine Sense is a Level 1 Paladin ability. This allows them to confirm the nature of Demonic, Angelic, Devine, and Undead beings. Other systems have things like See Aura or something else like it which can do more or less the same thing. I'm not sure if Pathfinder has something like this, but I'd be surprised if it did not since you see these things in nearly every fantasy setting.
What this means for you is that an impressive show of force is far less important than fooling a Paladin/Cleric/Wizard/etc into seeing a divine aura around you. The most common scientific explanation of auras that exist today is that your body produces a low frequency electromagnetic field that some people are sensitive enough to detect. So, what you need to do is first use a radio to record the divine aura of one of the gods' Avatars, then have it transmit that aura when you are near someone with the ability to see auras. Since these special individuals know what a divine aura is supposed to look like, they will see this aura emanating from your person.
Scientists are already starting to prove the existence of human auras; so, I would bet that by 2500AD, cellphones (or their future equivalent) will have downloadable apps for things like detecting and manipulating people's auras. For your ancient civilization, this app was likely meant as just a play thing for 9 year old girls to see if a boy likes her, or to hide how she is feeling from others who might be scanning her aura... or perhaps it was a tool designed to fool highly advanced biometric scanners.
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The spells might be miracle-like, but their mechanics are still the same. All spells require at least one of the following: Materials, words, movement.
Now imagine in a world where that is the established norm that someone comes up to you, touches you and your clothes are instantly changed into flowing robes. This person then without any materials, words or movements lets an entire feast appear before them. He creates living creatures, kills a person and brings them back to life, lets crops grow, changes the weather and more with a thought, a single word or the dismissive wave of a hand.
You are either witnessing someone who has discovered simultaneously a new type of magic and has such magic potential it's hard to conveive, like the rest of the mages in the world are candles and your characters is the sun, or you are truly a capitol-G God. (or you've secretly found a device that gives people the (de)illusion, but you aren't going to give them that idea now are you?).
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**Simple: Use SCOPE**
As far as wizards in Dnd and Pathfinder go, they're practically gods in minutiae, and the powers of the greatest wizards *will* be talked about. In a particularly knowledgeable society, the *limitations* of these wizards will be known and discussed. Assuming this, all your character needs is the perfect wizarding artifact:
**Solocus**
Description: This Artifact is magically inert until it attunes to the energies of a holder, then it is "bound" until the holder's death. Upon attuning, it causes a wizard's magic to develop new properties.
Effects:
1. Limitless Mana-In most series, mana is replenished over time, like water in a bowl when rain is falling, or water trickling into a basin. A mage attuned to this Artifact is like a basin with a built-in spring; whenever their mana is used for spell-casting, more mana flows in to replace it.
2. Potentiel-The caster's spells and magical abilities are elevated to god-like levels in terms of scope and power. A regular wizard can Resurrect one person; a Solocus wielder can resurrect an army.
Assuming magic is a function of quantum physics, an enhancement of man's ability to change the world around them, and uses energy as its means, the Solocus is then perfectly feasible advanced technology, as long as the extinct civilization is very, *very*, *VERY* advanced. Furthermore, since your character will now have both traits of a diety (extreme and limitless power) no one should be able to tell the difference.
Seriously, considering the Egyptian Pharoahs were considered gods, there's nothing implausible about a human being considered as a god.
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### Create life from raw materials.
Many mages can spawn some monster for a battle. Many can reanimated the dead into some undead horrors. Even jesus could return life to Lazarus, so that's been done too.
No-one can turn mud or clay into a living, breathing, intelligent character. The ability to spawn an inteligent companion by drawing their outline in the sand and giving them a name, throw dust in the air and turn it into a bird, or spawn a crying infant from the mud, or turn a small pebble into a seed and plant it and have it grow a plant.
... and do it under lab conditions so it can be studied to ensure no trickery, obviously.
No existing answer on this page would convince me you were a God. Undo death happens every day in our ed, even non spellcasters could learn CPR. there are stories of multi-hour brain deaths coming back when hypothermic. Nukes and pretty apps are a fact of modern life, and violations of the laws of magic / physics are interesting research topics implying theres more to study, not proof of the divine.
If you could create life on command from raw materials, that would convince even me.
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In a standard high-magic fantasy world, there are three universal truths most inhabitants (as well as many writers and readers) will have trouble to accept:
1. Gods are basically extremely powerful magic users
2. *"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"* (Arthur C. Clarke)
3. When magic follows well-defined rules and creates reproducible results in controlled experiments, then there is nothing paranormal about it. It becomes just another branch of physics. That means any so-called magic items **are** technology. Or in other words: *"Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology"* (Terry Pratchett)
That means divine intervention, magic and technology are basically the same thing.
Unless, of course, you as the worldbuilder **make up rules which distinguish one from the other** and make those rules common knowledge in your world. When there are things which one of these things can accomplish but the others can not, then that is a way to tell them apart. Examples *could* be:
* Gods receive their power from faith, so they can not affect those who do not believe in their existence.
* Magic comes from the minds of mortals, so it can not be created, stored or directed by that what is not alive and mortal.
* Technology is bound to the laws of thermodynamics, so it can not create energy from nothing.
Yes, I understand that these examples conflict with the game mechanics of Dungeons & Dragons. But the DnD game mechanics really don't distinguish much between divine and arcane spellcasters, and only has very vague rules about technology (at least in the base game without optional supplemental rulebooks). So when you want a solution which works within the DnD framework, then you have to find other distinguishing criteria.
But fortunately, DnD 2e already has a solution for you: Anyone who fails their *Knowledge(religion)* check will not recognize the symbols on the artifact as belonging to any god they ever heard of. Anyone who fails their *Knowledge(arcane)* check will not recognize whatever happens as arcane magic. Anyone who fails their *Knowledge (engineering)* check won't have any idea on what technological principles this device could operate. So the only conclusion of the average low-level peasant would be that they are looking at the power of a new god.
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**Gods make miracles, mages cast spells. So the question can be turned upside-down like this :**
## What is the difference between a spell and a miracle?
**A spell is an action on the world that follows a set of rules even though the source of the action is never truly explained (magicka and so)**. For instance, even if you don't understand how the energy comes out of your palm, and how the character feel when they draw magic to hold a fireball, you know that a water elementalist (kineticist in Pathfinder) will only be able to make water things, within their own limits.
**A miracle is an action on the world that breaks any kind of rule and more importantly common sense**. That is the main difference. In the real-world, splitting a river in half in a matter of seconds is considered as a miracle, as much as the act of multiplying bread is. Even though they vary in scale, they break our world known rules. And this makes them unexplainable, even by the biggest heads of the country, for centuries and millennias. Then your goal first and foremost is to make something that breaches into the thread of reality, making something truly impossible in regards to your world rules.
**On top of that, miracles are often grouped into themes** like gods in mythology are in charge of one topic (Poseidon : sea, Anubis : death...). It's simply because people put a face to things, and having one god doing everything makes them less clearly defined. If your artifact can make multiple things at once, it can be wise to group them in the same thematic to reinforce the creation of a myth.
**Last but not least, miracles inspire most of the time pure awe**. A strong effect makes this feeling sprout and reach the skies (as I bet your worries lies in), but! In reality, the roots of it come from the fact it's unexplainable, so you can create miracles even if people can reach a quite high level of power.
### How can you make a miracle?
**So the way to go is to breach a physical rule in a way which makes it totally unexplainable to the people of your world. You can add on top untangible and/or unescapable effects, as they're often related to mythology (like Fate or souls) and are things which are hardly interactible nor understandable.**
To give two examples : In the quite-old-now game Planescape Torment, there is an enigmatic character who can basically kill whoever they want inside their territory, without constraint of time or effort (untangible and unescapable), and no-one could ever explain how they do this, even the wisest mage/priest (unexplainable). Without going to the extent of killing, you could calm one's deep soul (untangible) through a single gaze that can pacify even the most belligerent, angry warrior (unescapable), without any trace of magic (unexplainable).
That's a quick trick to make miracles, but you can use other extraordinary terms based on your context and world laws. The lower your overall fantasy and technology level is, the more possibilities you will be given.
### Traps to watch out for
**When looking for your miracle, don't look too much at the inherent mechanics of your world and forcefully try to break them, saying "this is like that mechanic but..."**. Doing so would make you risk facing people seeing it as a variant, and eventually find a plausible explanation to this or simply comparing to it. Stopping gravity in an area when a mage can lower it the same way is too close to an existing rule. Making as if raindrops of gravity make one's soul fly to the sky is far enough different from a simple gravity field, as much as in terms of strength as in the form it is delivered : You can have a grasp of what a no-gravity field would be like on the body, but can you explain what it would be like to have rain of anti-gravity droplets move out your inner-self?
Also, as is shown in the previous rain example, **don't forget people's perception and feelings when faced to the miracle. This is a really big factor in order to fall in awe and gives lots of unexplainable things, yet it can easily be overlooked**, especially if you inspire yourself from a pen-and-paper rulebook. If you think your magic as some kind of river, and magic is sent with a continuous stream of it, then a periodic, fluctuating wave coming from all around you would make anyone truly uncertain about the true nature of the action. Not because the effects are utterly different, but the way it is felt is.
Finally, **to make a character look like a god, it should NOT be something your character don't have any control over**. Miracles are actions, and if the entity behind that action is the item and not the person, then the godlikeness will be credited accordingly to the item, not the person. That's kinda silly, but it's one thing that makes heroes and gods different.
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There are a lot of good answers here, but I'd still like to add my suggestion.
Although I've never played Pathfinder, I am quite familiar with D&D 5e and the spell system there. For balance reasons, I assume that there is also a limit to magic in PF beyond what the spell can do: how often you can cast it. If a powerful mage can cast Time Stop, can they cast it multiple times in a row and [take all the turns](https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=416787)? If they can open a Gate to the astral plane, how long can they maintain the gate? How many people can pass through? Can they make the gate *permanent*?
I don't know if the gods you mention are major or minor, but that could be something to play with. Even a minor god of time could be able to create a few hours of time out of thin air. Perhaps a major god could fuse planes together for multiple days, if not years. What would a permanent Cataclysm look like?
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If people know about spells, then the only way to seem divone is to use bigger spells.
I was initially thinking about the 10th plague, a biblical passage in which the angel of death kills every egyptian firstborn man. Then I found something bigger: [the Familicide spell from the Order Of Stick](https://oots.fandom.com/wiki/Familicide).
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> I have extinguished their own family lines as well! Countless parents, siblings, and children, dead—down to the last cousin.
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This kills everyone who is a relative of the target up to three steps. Since the mere existence of a being capable of this is a constant threat to dinasties and royal families, the caster will become the stuff of legends. People will wonder what happens if you cast it on a demigod...
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So, I have an Earthlike planet with a healthy biosphere, and I need to completely reset all complex life on it. Near as I can tell, one way to do this is by totally destroying the atmosphere (after all, not even the great dying could put an end to complex life on earth.) trouble is, I need the planet to still be habitable afterwards.
What could cause this to happen? Put formally, these are the relevant constraints:
* The planet must be habitable to humans before and after the event. (Complex life will be funneled in via magic portals afterwards. I’d like the event itself to be mostly non-magical in nature.)
* All multicellular life forms must be wiped out. Colonies of single-celled organisms can stay, but are not required to. (I may make an exception if the multicellular life form cannot easily be distinguished from single-celled organisms.)
* The fossil record must be left intact (with an appropriate “great fossil gap” representing the event.)
* The event in its entirety must not last longer than 30 million years. Ideally, it should last longer than 20 million years. The planet must remain uninhabitable to multi-cellular life for the duration of that time.
In addition to this, I should like to know what the gap will look like in the resulting rock layers, and what types of life could survive the event.
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Not an exact match for venus, but close is plausible. The start is global warming 101:
* Silly civilisation emits lots of CO$\_2$.
* Hot weather melts frozen CO$\_2$ and methane deposits.
* Runaway greenhouse effect cooks the planet.
* Over the following million years another [Great oxygenation event](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxygenation_Event) happens. Simple organisms undergo photosynthesis.
* Few cycles of oxygen toxicity / snowball earth stops photosynthesis from overdoing it.
* Eventually an equilibrium point is reached, and complex life can restart.
A hot high CO$\_2$ planet actually exists in [Earths History](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Earth). You basically returned earth back to Proterozoic period in that history, and then let it play out again from oxygenation onwards.
The wikipedia page I linked has some interesting info about the geology of this period, but for example:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/InlxK.png)
These alternating red layers of iron represents excess oxygen, grey represents other (eg high CO$\_2$). This is basically earth trying to find balance between hot CO$\_2$ and cold oxygen.
Extremophile bacteria will survive. Some simple life will survive. Everything on the wikipedia page that was alive then will survive it a second time. Deep ocean complex life that we know little about may survive.
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Just so you know, when Earth was formed it was very Venus'y at the beginning. [Then when it was finally cooling down Theia came and reset the Hadean era](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant-impact_hypothesis), possibly extinguishing early bacterial life. Some millions of years later Earth cooled again and billions of years later here we are.
A new giant impact could lead to a new Hadean era. It could probably wipe most of the fossil record but not all of it. We would need a new bombardment phase with lots of ice comets to have oceans and an inhabitable planet again, and it would also require some billions of years for life to reappear naturally. If this extinction is done on purpose, then whomever is bringing in the giant impactor can also bring in the comets.
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High exposure to UV radiation, presumably due to a solar event or a man-made event. UV causes DNA to mutate.
Complex organisms with be disproportionately affected, one can imagine only a few specialised unicellular organisms with enough shielding against the radiation make it.
High temperature could also be used, again only thermophiles will make it.
The most resistant species to any adverse environment are usually unicellular, so you just need the event to be harsh enough for all other species to die but not this one.
[Answer]
**Gamma ray burst.**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/puAmz.jpg)
<https://supernova.eso.org/exhibition/1217/>
These are energetic sudden emissions that radiate with the force of many suns. One nearby to us would be tough if the beam hit earth.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma-ray_burst#Hypothetical_effects_on_Earth_in_the_past>
>
> Hypothetical effects on Earth in the past[edit] GRBs close enough to
> affect life in some way might occur once every five million years or
> so – around a thousand times since life on Earth began.[124]
>
>
> The major Ordovician–Silurian extinction events 450 million years ago
> may have been caused by a GRB. The late Ordovician species of
> trilobites that spent portions of their lives in the plankton layer
> near the ocean surface were much harder hit than deep-water dwellers,
> which tended to remain within quite restricted areas. This is in
> contrast to the usual pattern of extinction events, wherein species
> with more widely spread populations typically fare better. A possible
> explanation is that trilobites remaining in deep water would be more
> shielded from the increased UV radiation associated with a GRB. Also
> supportive of this hypothesis is the fact that during the late
> Ordovician, burrowing bivalve species were less likely to go extinct
> than bivalves that lived on the surface.[9]
>
>
>
Your earth is bathed in a prolonged gamma ray burst. As opposed to the described Ordovician burst that got rid of everything topside and down into the ocean but spared the deep dwellers, this gets rid of them too and down a ways into the mud at the bottom of the ocean. The only survivors are the archons and super deep dwellers far under the earth, shielded by much overlying rocky material.
Gamma ray bursts are real and you can read more about what sorts of things they are thought to have done to life on the ancient earth.
[Answer]
The climate was already at a tipping point, when one or several catastrophes happened: a solar superstorm, an impact or whatever.
After the catastrophes the planet slode into an almost irreversible greenhouse trap, i. e. the planet got cooked. Changes in chemistry made the rocks gas out a lot leading to a Venus-like environment with high pressures and temperatures like in a baking oven.
But then something happened again: the sun underwent a massive temporary cool-down and after a few million years the chemical reactions were reversed. The single-celled organisms that survived started an oxygen catastrophe.
The sun is unstable in this scenario but luckily the sun ended its cool-down period exactly when the greenhouse effect ended preventing a snowball planet scenario, such that the planet is ready for recolonization.
The fossil records are preserved, however the rocks will show the period where the chemistry changed a lot (with outgassing and later reversal of the reaction). Similar to the gray-red layers of iron-rich rocks in a different answer, but different because of the much higher temperatures involved. I am not a geologist but I think this is an area humanity just doesn't know a lot. We would need to examine a lot of rock samples from Venus to know more.
I could imagine that carbon-rich strata like coal got denatured heavily in ways we don't know from the Earth, like for example losing the more of its carbon contents the nearer to the surface the strata was during the Baking period of the planet.
I looked up "oven" in Ancient Greek and found: ἰπνός, so you could call it the Ipnosic Era.
] |
[Question]
[
I've got two landmasses that are each situated on either side of a 20-50 mile wide sea (with the width varying along its length) where the sea runs for several hundred miles before opening out into the ocean proper. Is there any way that the tectonic plates of my planet could move away or toward each other to create this? If possible I would like to avoid too high levels of volcanic activity and earthquakes although having at least some would be preferable. If a formation like this isn't possible what would be the most similar? (i.e. when the Americas moved away from Europe and Africa at what width was there a stable sea between the two?)
In this sea what would the currents and weather systems look like? Would it be a fairly calm and easy crossing or extremely perilous at most times of year?
[Answer]
### Two tectonic plates slowly moving away from each other will create a channel between them.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/jws6J.png)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/1eONP.png)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/TTc1v.png)
The slower and more regularly they're moving, the more stable the geology will be.
For example, look at the Arabian plate vs the African plate, and the red sea:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/S4hfE.png)
[Answer]
## Yes it is possible, and it actually exists
Consider the [Bosporus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosporus) + [Sea of Marmara](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_of_Marmara) + [Dardanelles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dardanelles): all together they are about 300 km end to end (190 statute miles, 160 nautical miles) and they connect the Black Sea to the Aegean (and from there on to the Mediterranean and the Atlantic). The Bosporus and the Dardanelles are obviously much narrower than 50 miles (they are long winding narrow straits); but even the Sea of Marmara is narrower than 50 miles. (Its maximum width is about 70 km, or 37 nautical miles, or 44 statute miles.)
[](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sea_of_Marmara_map.png)
*North is up. North-East to South-West: Bosporus Strait, Sea of Marmara, Dardanelles Strait. The pink coloration on the shores of the Bosporus is the city of Istanbul. The large body of water to the North-East is the Black Sea; the Aegean is to the South-West. Bounding box: West 26°, South 39.8°, East 30°, North 41.5°. Map from Wikimedia, public domain.*
[Answer]
If you accept the Gondwanaland hypothesis. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gondwana>
You can choose any width you want from zero to the width of the Atlantic Ocean.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/sj8TF.png)
[Answer]
To add to existing examples of tectonic plates separated by salt water, at [Silfra in Iceland](https://www.dive.is/dive-sites/silfra) we also have an example of a newly-formed fissure filled with water, except here it is fresh water because it's on land. In time of course this will widen and join the sea. This is a good example to demonstrate that we do see a continuous range of water-filled fissure widths, so you really can make your geography be whatever you need it to be.
] |
[Question]
[
The Greek philosopher Empedocles famously postulated that the four elements comprising all matter are Fire (**F**), Water (**W**), Earth (**E**), and Air (**A**). More recently, the video game “Doodle God” has turned this theory into a fun way to waste time: by repeatedly combining these $4$ elements, the player can construct novel entities. For example:
>
> Dust = Earth + Air = **EA**
>
> Energy = Air + Fire = **AF**
>
> Storm = Energy + Air = **(AF)A**
>
> Swamp = Earth + Water = **EW**
>
> Life = Energy + Swamp = **(AF)(EW)**
>
>
>
Here are some of the more complex advanced entities that can be created:
>
> Quicksilver = **W(F(A(FE)))**
>
> Glass = **F(A(A(FE)))**
>
> Lizard = **((A(FE))((AF)(EW)))(EW)**
>
>
>
Note that parentheses must be used to disambiguate these combinations, because “combination” is a non-associative operation, i.e. **A(BC)** is not necessarily the same as **(AB)C**.
---
**QUESTION:** Can we come up with a Doodle-God-esque theory of matter that starts with fewer starting elements? Can we come up with one that uses *only one* starting element to generate all other entities, but still uses roughly intuitive/guessable rules of combination? How would you generate Fire, Water, Earth, and Air from your proposed “first element” and what would the intermediate steps be?
([Here’s an analogous concept](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iota_and_Jot) in SKI combinator calculus, for you computer science nerds.)
[Answer]
Yes.
Your basic element is the empty set.
Combination forms a new set with two elements: the operands of the combination.
At the lowest level, I think you will have to be content to discard intuition, but you can easily non-intuitively assign meanings to four (or however many you like) simple constructs, and let those drive the intuition for more complex combinations, a la Doodle God.
Fire, water, earth, and air could, for example, be as follows:
Air: {} (the empty set)
Fire: {{}{}} (Air+Air)
Water: {{{}{}}{}} (Fire+Air)
Earth: {{{}{}}{{}{}}} (Fire+Fire)
But it need not be. That's just the four simplest constructions I could think of.
[Answer]
# Yes and No
Yes, we can start with fewer elements - as few as two.
No, we can't start with one. Let's say that 4 units of the basic element (A) create compound B, and one B and two As creates C. You have twelve units of A. Does it create 3 Bs, or 2 Cs? Even assuming non-association, strict additive compounds make it pretty much impossible to make a chemistry system.
There's a reason why the calculi you linked (and their associated languages) have two symbols - that is the *minimum* syntax required to express anything. Let's let our two elements be Light and Darkness.
Let's let the synthesis of Light and Darkness be Aether.
So Light = 1, Darkness = 0, and Aether = (10) or (01).
We then can build Ephemera (Aether + Light), and Tactile (Aether + Dark).
And then Fire (Ephemera + Dark), Air (Ephemera + Light), Water (Tactile + Light) and Earth (Tactile + Dark).
And, having constructed those four elements, you can then build anything you could previously build with the four elements.
[Answer]
**One could describe the actual system as having 3 meta-elements.**
Or 3 subatomic particles: the proton, neutron and electron. Rearrangements of these 3 are responsible for all the elements, and further combinations of elements comprise all matter.
You could have such a system with 2 elements with a redefinition. For the composition of elements, the presence of a proton implies the presence of the electron and for purposes of matter, they could be considered a package.
[Answer]
Basically, what you are describing here is an algebraic "magma" or "groupoid." You have a set of things (elements) that you can combine with each other, via a single operation, to attain other things in that set. In this context, your question can be interpreted as "Can a magma be generated by a single item?" Very directly speaking: Yes, absolutely.
To illustrate this, consider the elements of our reality. What makes a particular element be a particular element? The number of protons in the nucleus. Change the number of neutrons and you get an isotope. Change the number of electrons and you get an ion. Properties might change, but it's still the same *element*. Now, suppose our "operation" were "when combining two elements, just add the number of protons together." Hydrogen has one proton, so hydrogen mixed with hydrogen has two, and gives helium. Helium and helium would be beryllium. Etcetera etcetera.
This kind of system would be, in one sense, more well behaved than the Doodle God system, as it would be associative. However, if the combination is automatic, it would also be *poorly* behaved because, if you just put a billion hydrogen atoms together, instead of getting a gas, you would get a single atom of whatever element you assign to have a billion protons. So, you probably would want to have some sort of trigger on it, such as the combination requiring a large amount of pressure. (Nuclear fusion, anyone?)
[Answer]
# Yes, you can have just one element.
**According to Greek philosophy, everything is made of a base element called *Prima Materia*** (well, actually it's technically *Arche*, but the term *Prima Materia* is used more often these days).
The ultimate [Unobtainium,](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Unobtainium) *Prima Materia* is described as being pure potentiality of being. It holds the potential to become Anything and Everything; however, it remains formless when left to itself. **In order for it to become something like lead, gold\*, or a sheep, it must be acted upon by a εἶδος (Form).** These "Forms" are ideas of such overwhelming potency that they warp reality, bringing order to the chaos of *Prima Materia*.
**\*** Incidentally, this mutability was the basis of Alchemy; the purpose of the Philosopher's Stone was to turn matter back into *Prima Materia*, so they could then turn it into gold.
[Answer]
## The Universe is Just Energy All the Way Down
In science,the [Theory of Everything](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_everything) is the hypothetical that the 4 fundamental forces of the universe (electromagnetism, gravity, strong force, and weak force) are all caused by a single underlying force. Although the exact solution for theory of everything has not been unequivocally proven, one model that seems relevant to your question is the theory of [Quantum Gravity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_gravity).
QG theory stipulates that the entire universe is a matrix of binary energy states that are either occupied or not occupied at the planck scale, and based on what pattern of occupied states you have determines the manifestation of various subatomic particles.
So, if your Doodle God game were to start with just the element "energy", this element could be combined with itself to form the false vacuum of space. Then adding more energy to the false vacuum would create your fundamental subatomic particles such as electrons, quarks, and gluons. Then you could combine quarks and gluons to get protons and neutrons. combine protons and neutrons to get atomic nuclei, then combine atomic nuclei with electrons to get hydrogen. Hydrogen + hydrogen gets you stars and helium... and well if you see where I am going with this you just keep building up your stars until you get various kinds of star deaths that result in the elements of the periodic table. Once you have these you can go to town making planets, organic molecules, microbial life, and well... you've played Doodle God, so you know how it will expand outward from here.
In this version of doodle god, fire, air, water, and earth would be mid-game elements rather than fundamental ones.
] |
[Question]
[
I have a planet too far away from its sun for photosynthesis to work well, so the plants use chemosynthesis. But since they don't use sunlight, would they have any reason to grow above ground? Some tall(tree sized) ones too? They need to be above ground so the herbivores have easy access to them.
And what structures would these plants have to collect whatever chemicals? This world's lifeforms use liquid methane and/or ammonia (I'm undecided on which one would be best) and hydrogen gas.
[Answer]
There are a lot of details needed to answer this question well, but let's take a stab. I'll guess your "plants" will look a lot like fungi & mushrooms. They are taking energy from their environment, but not the sun, and will spread along the sources of that energy. If it comes from chemicals in the soil, they will infiltrate the soil. If the chemicals collect on pools, the plants will look like pond scum. If they are in water/the ocean, the plants will take on specialized functions to harvest the chemicals from the water. The real challenge comes if you want above-ground structures to be eaten by herbivores. The lines between chemo-plants and chem-animals would be MUCH blurrier, as these organisms would be all carrying out the same functions. Plants could try to eat animals, animals could drink chemical food. These suggestions are an ecosystem - multiple strategies could all be working in different climates and chemical environments. Some plants would take advantage of primary chemicals, others of reactions subsequent. A lot depends on the sources of energy.
* Some of your organisms will evolve scum-like life across the surface, like lichen and moss. they will infiltrate surfaces to extract chemicals, scattering as resources deplete. Animals could scoop these up off surfaces, and the plants could grow back from the "roots" like grass.
* Fruiting bodies can carry seeds/spores further it they are scattered by (winds?) They will be modest structures compared to the vast organisms underground. To be carried by wind, they would want to be as tall as possible. Protect these from being consumed if they are tall/semi-permanent.
* Fruiting bodies can also take advantage of herbivores as seed/spore vectors like plants do. Flowers allow pollinators to carry genetic information, and then later fruits allow the transport of seeds. Use everything plants do today (there are vast numbers for strategies; best to just look these up)
* Complex functions of plants require space, not just at a cellular level. Competition for simple chemicals would be high, and your plants could grow "refineries" to carry out chemical reactions better carried out on scale. Imagine a plant that heats a chemical to volatilize it out of soil or rock. It's not how plants/organisms work on Earth, but hey, why not? These refineries could be filled with high-energy chemicals and would be valuable - I see them like cacti. They could use "smokestacks" to carry toxins into the air. A forest of such structures could look a lot like a real refinery. They could even have symbiotic organisms that have evolved to be "refinery workers" and either help the plant carry out functions, or defend their chosen territory while the workers only harvest minimally from their chosen species.
* Valuable micronutrients could be carried in the air, and would require an above-ground structure to compete with other plants for this nutrient. Such collectors could look like rain-collecting structures - an organism lining a depression, or large goblet-shaped bodies. In this case, the tallest/widest structure would be the most efficient. It better be valuable, though - like food (nutrient-chemical) raining from the sky. The structures could even retract when it wasn't "raining" nutrient to protect themselves.
[Answer]
**Your plants are electrotrophs.**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/eP8BR.jpg)
<https://captainjetson.com/featured/st-elmos-fire-what-you-dont-know-about-air-travel/>
In your cold, dusty world, airborne dust can accumulate large amounts of electrical charge. Since your world (is it the same world?) is so cold that methane is liquid, the atmosphere is mostly hydrogen which conducts electricity even worse than ours. Huge charge differentials accumulate in the air before finally equalizing via immense lightning bolts.
Your "plants" take advantage of this by offering the charge an easy way down. Plants extend as far up as they can reach, and put out branches with many ramifying tiny spikes. The spikes glow with corona charges / a.k.a. St Elmo's Fire most of the time (as depicted above) - they are collecting the atmospheric charge and giving it a path to ground in exchange for a little work on the way. Thus your autotrophs fix chemicals in such a way that heterotrophs can eat the chemicals and take advantage of the stored electrical energy.
In dense growths the corona charges from these towering plants are enough to light your dark world.
---
I can feel a comment coming - yes it is from L.Dutch - and he asks how a sunless planet can have wind. That is a very good question. This rogue planet is spinning extremely rapidly and the atmosphere does not quite keep up with the planet below. High winds result. Thus the ultimate source of energy for this world is the rotational momentum of the planet itself.
---
crystalline electrophiles
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/TABKF.jpg)
[Answer]
**Probably not**
They'll scale as needed to get resources. Your plants will generally grow sideways instead of vertically (as @Halfthawed points out in comments). On Earth there are plants that don't rely solely on photosynthesis. Mushrooms use sunlight for producing fruit, but they don't have an incentive to grow to tree height. Below is an exceptionally tall mushroom and it's still shorter than the man holding it. Despite their short stature, mushrooms can cover *massive* amounts of space. The "[humongous fungus](https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/10/humongous-fungus-almost-big-mall-america)" has a similar surface area to the Mall of America.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/m3RLZ.jpg)
Plants need a reason to grow tall. If there's a lot of crowding, you could conceivably end up with plants growing vertically because there's no room to grow horizontally.
[Answer]
One reason for a plant to grow tall (tall being relative) is for pollination and seed dispersal. In fact, there are plants that are sort of chemosynthetic, rather than photosynthetic.
One example is the snow plant (Sarcodes sanguinea) which grows in the US Sierra Nevada and north into the Cascades. It derives its nutrition from mycorrhizae living in the soil, which in turn are symbiotic with conifers. The plant lives most of its life underground, but in spring will push up a bright red flowering spike which later bears seeds. <https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/plant-of-the-week/sarcodes_sanguinea.shtml>
] |
[Question]
[
This is for a story I'm working on. These creatures are what the Native American myth of the Wendigo originated from. Their origins are a mystery, but they need to feed on human flesh at least once a month to survive. They are indistinguishable from humans except during feeding or hunting when they essentially transform their bones and muscles at will to grow structures like claws and fangs for tearing flesh, spider-leg-like appendages for climbing and pinning down prey, etc. They originated in North America and over the centuries began to live among humans. Some still hunt humans while some have learned to process dead humans to provide sustenance without risking hunting humans in large cities.
My question is, in the scenario where these creatures live in groups inside large human population centers and develop networks of front businesses to facilitate obtaining and processing human corpses, can they realistically keep their existence a secret from the general public?
[Answer]
## Individuals: Yes. As a Species: No.
If we are talking about an individual wendigo, sure. Other answers have given many examples of how one might blend in fairly well. If you mean as a species, the answer is almost definitely not. It only takes one wendigo getting sloppy one time to blow the lid off the whole masquerade, and in modern society with both physical and technological forensics being what they are, some wendigos will get caught.
A wendigo coroner might take a few bites out of a corpse thinking he's done with it when opposing counsel demands the body be reinvestigated. A wendigo funeral director might have a family change their mind last minute about an open vs closed casket funeral. One feeding on homeless people might accidentally nab an undercover cop or eat someone in front of a security camera that they did not notice. One might get arrested for something unrelated to cannibalism, but once in jail, there is no way to eat without getting caught.
This inevitably means society as a whole will know that wendigos exist, and investigators will be well versed in hunting them down. I suspect this will probably result in one of two outcomes:
A - People will do everything they can to drive the wendigos to extinction. You will need special licensing to work anywhere you might have access to corpses to make sure you are human. Wendigos will need to stay constantly on the move. If they are able to take on multiple human faces, they may be able to remain mostly hidden from society, but if they only have 1 human face, facial recognition technology and social media will drive them out of developed nations because staying ahead of law enforcement indefinitely is unfeasible, and getting harder each passing year. Otherwise, they will probably stick to countries with unstable governments and join up with Cartels and other criminal organizations which are already in the habit of getting away with murder.
B - They will get mostly wiped out until some government declares it unlawful to kill them. If the government recognizes wendigos as sentient beings with all the rights and privileges of personhood, citizenship, or an endangered species then the government might portion rations of human remains to registered wendigos basically feeding them the leftovers of registered donors after all transplantable organs are removed. In this case, the species will mostly survive in the light of day, but a small minority may choose to hide what they are for fear of a genocide. This small minority would be those individuals who feed on the homeless and already dead in the previously addressed methods to stay undetected.
[Answer]
Absolutely. Let's discuss this in points.
* In modern time recently deceased humans with no family are an excellent source of human flesh. Whether they are about to be burned or buried. You don't need to bribe the people handling the body much as the low risk of having no one and the vague excuse of medicine is enough. We can also transport dead bodies well enough so you can get a frozen corpse from half way across the country in a good state.
* Homeless people, the insane...etc also provide a decent and stable flow of actual living people to be used. You can even get them to do what you want with drugs or money. And you can drug them enough so that even if they are caught during transportation they know nothing. And no one would bat an eye if a couple of homeless people disappeared every month.
* Rich people have access to stuff like yachts with missile defense systems. So having an isolated location in which you can eat the bodies of humans is no big deal. Without the government or an organization of comparable resources looking into them it's remarkable what a rich person can actually do. EMPs, anti photography measures, cameras, former navy seals guards, motions detectors, land mines...etc means you can build a fortress where nobody can know anything that is going on there. If not in a literal island in the middle of the ocean that you control.
* A well enough connected network of spies and officials can insure that it is simply impossible to be ever discovered. The movies where the young detective overcomes impossible obstacles are just movies. In reality things are a lot worse than they seem. Not that I'm saying mistakes can't happen or things remain hidden. Just look at watergate or Snowden. But this global or national governmental levels crap is completely different from a kinky billionaire that buys corpses every month.
* This stuff is even easier back in the day. I'm pretty sure that a medieval lord can do whatever he wants with the captives he gets. Better yet if he is a christian/muslim/pagan...etc they can get away with worse stuff against other religious or non religious people.
* The above is just an example. You can kidnap people from other countries or far away lands. You can round up the insane or beggars, you can get the bandits and outlaws...etc Honestly with no cameras it's very unlikely that they can be discovered.
* Lastly I'd stress using dead humans instead of living ones. Much easier.
* The only problem is that if your creatures do something stupid like hunt down a human and eat it in a public square one the fourth of July in the middle of Washington DC or make a lame dungeon and decide to eat alive humans and have a preference for something like virgins and then happen to kidnap the daughter of an a war veteran with something like 30 years of special forces worth of work and she has a sister who is a congresswoman and a brother who is an MMA champion and spend his spare time training with melee weapons and the girl is a half robotic witch.
[Answer]
**Coroner.**
>
> Shadow found himself looking away, not from revulsion, as he would
> have expected, but from a strange desire to get the girl some privacy.
> It would be hard to be nakeder than this open thing.
>
>
> Jacquel tied up the intestines, glistening and snakelike in her belly,
> below the stomach and deep in the pelvis. He ran them through his
> fingers, foot after foot. of them, described them as ”normal” to the
> microphone, put them in a bucket on the floor. He sucked all the blood
> out of her chest with the vacuum pump, and measured the volume. Then
> he inspected the inside of her chest. He said to the microphone,
> ”There are three lacerations in the pericardium, which is filled with
> clotted and liquefying blood.”
>
>
> Jacquel grasped her heart, cut it at its top, turned it about in his
> hand, examining it. He stepped on his switch and said ”There are two
> lacerations of the myocardium; a 1.5 cm centimeter laceration in the
> right ventricle and they 1.8 cm laceration penetrating the left
> ventricle”. Jacquel removed each lung. The left lung had been stabbed
> and was half collapsed. He weighed them, and the heart, and he
> photographed the wounds. From each lung he sliced a small piece of
> tissue, which he placed into a jar.
>
>
> “Formaldehyde,” whispered Mr. Ibis helpfully.
>
>
> Jacquel continued to talk to the microphone, describing what he was
> doing, what he saw, as he removed the girl’s liver, stomach, spleen,
> pancreas, both kidneys, uterus, and the ovaries.He weighed each organ,
> recorded them as normal and uninjured. From each organ he took a small
> slice and put it into a jar of formaldehyde.
>
>
> From the heart, liver, and from one of the kidneys, he cut an
> additional slice. These pieces he chewed, slowly, making them last,
> while he worked.
>
>
> Somehow it seemed to Shadow a good thing for him to do: respectful,
> not obscene.
>
>
>
American Gods; Neil Gaiman.
Your Wendigos need flesh to survive. It is not the calories they need; they can eat what humans eat. It is the humanity of the flesh. They need it but they do not need much. In their roles as mortician, coroner, diener they have access to the flesh of the dead. They take what little they need from the bodies that they care for. No-one notices.
[Answer]
**Funeral Directors**
If they can survive on corpses, a lot of bits can go missing at a crematorium before the oven. The family still gets a pile of ash with no idea what's actually in the ash or if it's all of their loved one.
There would be plenty to eat and nobody would go missing.
If they need to eat live prey then you have to worry about missing people.
[Answer]
# All wendigos must flee to war-torn regions.
In the modern era, a pack or society of wendigos could hide out in various conflict zones. But since not ALL will be willing to give up the comforts of modern life, some who try to make modern life work will be caught, and that ends it for everyone.
Syria, Somalia... wherever war has humans dying in large numbers with our civilization tech disrupted, there the wendigos could thrive undetected. BUT it only works as long as no one suspects the existence of wendigos. As soon as two or three get caught in the modern world, people will be on guard even in war-torn areas. We watch for Ebola outbreaks even in the Congo right now. Anything that preys on humans will be terminated quickly, even an intelligent hunter, unless it is truly a lone wolf. But wendigos have families. I don’t see how they can stay hidden.
Your story could be about the extinction of the species.
[Answer]
I hope not.
This question and the answers, including mine , might be useful: [How can a secret, murderous cult remain secret?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/106499/how-can-a-secret-murderous-cult-remain-secret/106579#106579)[1](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/106499/how-can-a-secret-murderous-cult-remain-secret/106579#106579)
As we all know, human serial killers are arrested from time to time. And some of those serial killers are at least on and off cannibals. So I can imagine that if the shapeshifters can eat other food but merely prefer human meat, they have code that when one his caught they have to stay in human form and eat normal food in prison and pretend to be human until or unless they can escape from jail. Thus humans will think the shapeshifters they catch are merely human criminals.
I note that the shapeshifters should not have human identities which stand up to close examination since if their biographica information was correct they would have grwon up among humans and become socialized with humans and wouldn't want to treat humans as prey. Thus every shapeshifter that is caught would be known to be using a fake identiy and to be of unknown actual biography.
And I wonder how many, if any, cannibalistic serial killers have ever been caught whose public identities are found to be totally fake and whose real origins are unknown. That should be a very small group of people, which provides some sort of maximum number of man eating shapeshifters that can be caught each year and mistaken for human serial killers.
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[Question]
[
In my setting, a magic cast is able to alter the fate of a given person.
In this context, fate is not "set in stone" from the moment you are born, but rather given by the endless chain of causes and consequences given by your actions and everyone's else. So, someone "destiny" is like a tapestry given by a number of threads. One's choices may switch some threads or change some colors, but will never modify the whole picture.
Now, fate-magic users are able to make major changes to one's "destiny". From simple games of sheer luck (a dice rolling on a side instead of another, a coin flip) to actual skills (a person faring well in a sword fight, even if he never trained with a sword before) to, potentially, life altering changes (a person being born in a family different than its own, or never being born at all).
Those changes can be seen as "weaving" the tapestry in the example in a different way; e.g. shifting all the threads until the target person becomes a "good swordsman", as if he trained for his whole life. The intended effect may be temporary or permanent.
## **Now, as you well imagine, I do need some interesting drawbacks to this magic.**
I've got some safeguards in place, but they are not enough against a form of magic that can potentially rewrite history:
1. The usual rule of "the bigger the change, the more effort the magic requires" still apply, but it's not enough imho.
2. One limit is given by the ability of the user to see the future and the past (divination is a thing in this world). For example, let's say you are tasked with saving the king. You foresee that he will die from an heart attack, due being overweight, on the following day. To "fix" that, you should change a considerable size of his past in order to make him eat healtier foods. But that's months of history to rewrite and it might be unfeasible. If only you had foreseen that sooner ...
3. Another limit is given, in-world, by society. Strong marks of binding are placed on fate-mages in order to keep them tame. A mark of binding is a spell that keeps you from doing certain things, e.g. disobeying to your superior. Fate mages are kept on close watch by an international council. The warlords and the leaders of this world are interested in keeping the mages binded, since a unbinded mage could potentially destroy them out of spite. This is similar to what happens in DragonAge: Origins.
While both 2 and 3 are fine limits to the fate-mage powers, I'm not satisfied. A very talented fate mage could, for whatever reason, escape the marking process and just start wreaking havoc. While this is a nice concept per se, I'd like some plausible drawback other than "getting tired".
**Related:**
* [Magic as Luck Control](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/13285/magic-as-luck-control)
* [My magic system "pays the price" by drawing its energy from the future: should that affect luck, heat, or life?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/111409/my-magic-system-pays-the-price-by-drawing-its-energy-from-the-future-should-t)
[Answer]
**[Psychosis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychosis)**
In order the modify the tapestry, you must first comprehensively grasp the weave of the area you are modifying - the fate mage must internalize the threads that must be manipulated, which necessarily leaves an imprint of the weave on the fate mage's mind. The problem is that once the modification has been made, that imprint *does not* (by definition) match the new state of the tapestry. This causes dissonance with the mage's observed reality. This isn't a big deal for small localized changes, particularly if the events are of the sort that we routinely discard from our memory anyway. But the greater and wider the change the more severe the effect, and it is cumulative, ultimately leading to severe psychosis in a reckless practitioner.
[Answer]
Fate is a 0 sum game. No person is luckier than another, in the long run everyone will have half their coin flips be wins, and half be losses.
Now the trick is to win the coin flip when you bet the gold, not the copper. This is where the magic comes in, you make this big bet coin flip lucky, and walk away. You know by choosing this to be a win, a loss is coming your way soon. Just play it safer for a while, and the loss should be minor.
The problem is the more you use the power, the more bad luck debt you build. If you alter your fate that every roll in the casino is going to go your way, you are very likely to be hit by an out of control horse walking out and find yourself dead.
Any mage that alters fate knows he is borrowing against the future. Lady luck always collects, and not often how we wish. This is why every mage thinks twice before being in debt to her.
[Answer]
You could play the evil genie game. You wish for wealth but not where it comes from, so the genie will kill a loved one and have you inherit the wealth.
The fate mages would create their own fates by changing past events, but each event has an effect outside of the mage's reach. Change the eating habits of the king to buy a few more days for more extensive magic, but this will have effects for the people who sold foodstuffs and all the interactions they had from appointments, things they heard or learned, people they met, accidents that did or didnt happen and especially when and where you have sex has immense consequences for when you get pregnant and what spermcell reached the egg or not.
So basically short-term changes are easy to oversee the consequences. But if you start fiddling with large timescales you can radically change everything about your life in unexpected ways. Teach yourself swordfighting? Most of your current friends dont know you as they werent part of that type of scene and you have a completely different set of friends and family history.
Small things like a dice-roll can be manipulated by a single fatemage. But for larger scale changes like the king's food habits or learning sword fighting? You'd better bring a lot of mages. One changes the food habits while the rest continuously guides the altered fates of the people around it as closely to their original fates to reduce the amount of impossibly complex changes it would otherwise bring. Even so some changes are too radical for the fates to make true, IE "a bag of gold fell out of the sky and made me rich" or "the king suddenly turned into a jovial man and didnt jealously conquer his neighbours". The changes required to pull it off and the subsequent fate ripples are too large to handle.
[Answer]
**Lose free will.**
The more you use Fate, the more prominent your weave is, in the tapestry. Harder to modify your own as each cast interlocks your own mark with more stitches.
One who avoids any Fate manipulation, an agent of chaos, could go against PROPHESY.
You who have dabbed in it, could alter it by the skin of your teeth.
Some who are so enamored with fate, are unable to alter it. The very prophesy will be written in stone for them.
Gain knowledge and lose free will.
**The gifts of the gods seldom are without a price.**
[Answer]
**Weaving Fate is a lot like actual weaving.**
If you need to get a thread to a certain "lane" you must swap it with another thread. Swapping in good luck in the next coin flip could be as easy as swapping in another closely related event (a guaranteed fail on your next flip) or the farther you swap the more threads that shift by one space (instead of a guaranteed fail on the next flip you guarantee to burn your next meal).
However many permutations that lead to these less harmful results can cause lots of unintended consequences in those threads. so moving from catastrophic events in your future timeline to a minor one could cascade into a thousand really bad luck events to mitigate the threads you moved.
God forbid you bungle your weaving and create a knot!
[Answer]
The price is a dear one as FATE pushes back.
Fate itself is self-aware and doesn't like being trifled with.
Any mage who pushes too hard against FATE will enourage the wrath of FATE. FATE is also unpredictable and may ignore some slights, and not others, so there is always a risk. FATE may get frustrated with all of these mages interfering, and punish a mage as an example to others.
FATE is fickle, temperamental, vengeful, and unpredictable. Mages tempting fate will be cautious/
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[Question]
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I have a **post-apocalyptic** scenario, set in the ruins of an American metropolis with **flooded streets**. Boats are used most of the time, but aircrafts have advantages, for battle or if you have to get on top of some skyscraper ruin.
With the *apocalypse* some decades ago, I tend to **compare the post apocalyptic world** to the situation in present-day **developing world countries**:
The **rich can afford advanced weapons and lifestyle** while the poor live as farmers or fishers under primitive circumstances (mixing in some exceptions that are necessary and easily available).
The only difference: While a nowadays those things are ordered from industrialized countries, there is no industrialized country left (or at least known) in the post apocalyptic world. Instead **scavenged technology** is filling that gap, if it can be reconditioned and run.
\*\*For one-person flights I discovered a really badass and simple aircraft that actually works: [the Paravelo\*\*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcr_Y6DFi5Q) (and here is [another clip of the takeoff](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UCssh7VS7U)).
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## I need big aircrafts for transportation, travel and battle, that can land on water and on dry land.
More specific:
**One impressive looking flagship** (kind of a **flying siege tower**) and
some **transporters for soldiers and goods**.
I thought about going with **airships** but if you have completely different ideas for a physically working badass aircrafts that are not too technologically advanced just post them below.
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1. Materials:
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**Scavenged materials** are an obvious choice, living in the remains of a metropolis.
Empty gasoline barrels (metal or plastic) or plastic tubes as floating bodies for the catamaran. Aluminum traffic signs (big highway lane/direction signs) as floor or walls. Some plastic sheets maybe somehow for the actual balloon.
On the other hand there are **natural resources**: Bamboo is very light but bending and strong, it could be used for some scaffolding constructions (cf. Chinese skyscraper scaffoldings; there actually was an airship with a bamboo frame) and maybe rattan mattes/basket constructions.
Do you have any more ideas for materials/constructions that could be used (either natural or scavenged materials)?
2. Buoyancy:
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A lifting gas should be **easy and cheap to produce with primitive means** (cf. retrieving **helium** while most of the earth is under water?) and **safe enough not to burst into flames by one burning arrow** (cf. **hydrogen**).
(Not saying it may not be flammable at all - storywise nothing is more boring than an invincible weapon. It only shouldn't be too easy to shoot them down.)
I thought about using **hot air** or **steam** for the lift, ideally by burning wood or straw (one of the first experimental airships in France burned straw and fabric) or another resource that is easy to produce in a pre-industrial society. Is that efficient enough to keep an airship flying for some hours with 7 to 15 people aboard and some transported goods and weapons, given the materials used in point 1? (On the other hand I don’t have an aluminum frame or a luxurious, hotel-like lounge as provided in the Hindenburg). Especially carrying wood (to provide heat) seems to be way overweight for an airship. How could a steam-balloon work with limited technical possibilities?
3. Drive:
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**I guess the use of scavenged material and technology can be compared to non-renewable resources in our time: As long as there is enough of them it's more self-evident to use them instead of inventing/producing own stuff that is more costly, takes more time to build and works less effective.**
[Gasoline is not very durable but **electricity** is quite easy to produce](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWmEgu1iP_E&feature=youtu.be) and there are other things to burn (like **alcohol** or even **[coconut oil](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Coconut_Revolution)**) to keep old, modified motors running.
Otherwise a **hot air turbine** or a **steam engine** could be built into the oven heating the balloon.
(**Sails don’t work for airships** because there is not enough water/air resistance to choose a direction willingly, the whole ship would just be gone with the wind all the time.)
Especially the drive by ***manpower*** is interesting: People are quite inefficient as power source but there are (special lightweight, one-person) pedal-powered blimps. So - could one make that work and even be agile and quick? An **air galley** (a modified version of the normal airships with pedals for the propellers) would make an interesting aircraft for slave traders...
4. Shape:
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How important is **streamline** for an airship? The airship doesn't have to win races but should be able to keep up with sailing ships on the water. Would a catamaran boat with a cabin on top as gondola be a big disatvantage, compared to the classical fantasy monohull airship-ship-gondolas?
5. Floating body:
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Do airships need a floating body (not a balloon but a keel or catamaran boat hull or a raft made of plastic cans) to land on water?
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I know that is more than one question, but they are linked somehow (like using an oven for a thermal airship could be combined with a hot air turbine for propellers)
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Don't forget, **stories are about conflict**. So ***some* weakness and level of risk** in any means of transportation, weapon or defense **are a positive thing**. It means there is some danger for your hero (which keeps your audience/player invested) and a possibility to fight the antagonists back.
[Answer]
>
> hydrogen is too weak – one flaming arrow and the approaching flying
> battle-platform turns into (cinematographically appealing) fireworks.
>
>
>
Only if your engineers are idiots. The cinematic flames from the Hindenburg crash are *not* burning hydrogen--they are from the combusting envelope, which was basically painted with jet fuel. The hydrogen didn't *help*, and in fairness there were good reasons for the envelope being constructed as it was, being originally designed to be filled with helium, but hydrogen is not as dangerous in airships as people commonly believe.
If your ship is well-designed, especially knowing that it will be going into battle, there will be no way for a flaming arrow to get anywhere close to the hydrogen, short of catastrophic damage to the point that you've already lost the battle anyway. The outer hull of a rigid airship does not contain the lifting gas directly--rather, it is a protective and aerodynamic structure surrounding a series of more-nearly-spherical internal ballonets. Make the external hull sheathing out of something non-flammable, and you'll be fine. Make it out of something that will burn when hit with an arrow, and fill it with lifting gas directly rather than using partitioned ballonets, and it won't matter what lifting gas you use--your ship is going down anyway.
Ideally, you'd fill the interstitial space with some other inert buffer gas, like nitrogen, but that might be difficult for your recovering civilization to source.
Steam-lifted airships are technically possible, but extremely tricky. It's a decent lifting gas, and makes it very easy to control buoyancy by allowing some to recondense into water, but the ballonets must be extremely well insulated, and it takes a *lot* of energy to boil all that water and *keep* it hot even with good insulation. And if one of the ballonets is damaged in flight, maintenance is just about impossible--rather than a lazy diffusion of hydrogen into the hull, which you can slap a patch over at leisure, you'll have a jet of superheated steam waiting to scald your crew to death.
A decent compromise might be to use [syngas](https://www.clarke-energy.com/synthesis-gas-syngas/). The CO content makes leaks somewhat toxic, but in-flight maintenance is still possible if done quickly, and if the hull is kept well-ventilated. It can be produced with a wood gasifier, but unlike a steam balloon or a straight hot air balloon, you don't need to carry enough fuel to keep the lifting gas hot for the whole flight--just enough to *generate* the lifting gas in the first place, and maybe heat/cool it for fine buoyancy control.
Syngas also has the advantage of being useful fuel for engines. There have been cars designed to run on wood gasifiers, so if you can build or recover some decent lightweight internal combustion engines, you don't necessarily need to find or carry gasoline or diesel fuel; you can run them off the same gas generator that supplies your ballonets.
If you want it to go reasonably fast, streamlining is important. That's why rigid airships are cigar-shaped, rather than spherical. But a catamaran arrangement, with two lifting hulls encasing parallel series of ballonets, is perfectly fine for an airship, just as it is for a ship-ship. The problem with putting a cabin on top is roll instability; an airship is suspended *within* its medium, not on top of it like a watercraft, so roll is not counteracted by differential buoyant forces as it is for a regular catamaran. You can have a small cabin sticking out the top, but you will need to ensure that most of the weight of the airship is concentrated at the bottom, or it will just flip over shortly after you leave the water.
As for materials, lacquered cloth is traditional for making balloons to hold lifting gas. You could use that for ballonets, but I would stick to plastic sheeting, or just plain canvas, for the exterior envelope, for fire safety.
[Answer]
Early aircraft were build out of wood, canvas and wire, and this construction extended to flying boats as well. Some flying boats simply used pontoons strapped to the airplane where landing gear went, while more advanced ones used hydrodynamic hulls.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/KIJj5.jpg)
*Felixstowe F2. 1917*
So even using WWI era technology, you still can build capable flying boats.
The larger problem is how to power them. Salvaged piston engines from cars or light trucks likely have the power needed, but might fail to work since the electronic components and computers needed to run engines since the 1980's will likely have failed. Gas turbine engines from small helicopters or light aircraft could still work, so long as they have been carefully stored (one that has been sitting on the runway for years or decades will have rusted solid). The other issue is a high energy fuel. Aviation gasoline, ordinary gas, diesel and JP-8 all have relatively short shelf lives (months to a few years at best), so your post apocalyptic society either needs to be able to drill for new oil, create some sort of synthetic fuel or even power aircraft engines by wood gas (this is a low performance option and fills the engines with tar and other gunk)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/QRqnl.jpg)
*Simple wood gas generator*
Flying boats can be amphibians, and many different types have been made, from medium sized water bombers to large anti submarine patrol craft. Larger airplanes need more room, so take off, landing or flying down streets is going to be a challenge.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/IxLKa.jpg)
*Canadair CL-215 Amphibian*
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZjfXr.jpg)
*ShinMaywa US-2 as an example of a large seaplane*
So building an airframe even out of salvaged materials isn't all that difficult, the real problem is going to be getting a decent power supply. Going electric is not going to be the answer, batteries only have about 1/20th the energy density of hydrocarbon fuels, and advanced battery packs like on a Tesla car use sophisticated temperature control and electronics to get the maximum energy in and out of the battery. Once again, in a post apocalyptic environment, getting and keeping things like that working may be far more difficult than is possible for most people.
<https://electrek.co/2017/08/24/tesla-model-3-exclusive-battery-pack-architecture/>
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[Question]
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This is my first post on Stack Exchange, so I'm not sure if this follows the right format. Let me know what I can change to make this more helpful on the site. Anyways, let's get to the backstory of the question:
I've been working on a near-future, technothriller novel for some time now: to remove a lot of the nuance, the plot is about a young engineer who is kidnapped, experimented on, and turned into a half-dragon (yeah, it's crazy) by a "rogue" research group, and has to prevent the research group from enabling biological terrorist attacks with the nanites used to change him. The setting is on Earth in the 2030s, and it has a spy novel tone to it: something like Jason Bourne or Jack Ryan. There will be lots of advanced technology, some politics, secret agencies, and *plenty* of gunfights.
The plot is still in development, but I've written out some test scenes, and the main thing I've noticed is that my action sequences always seem a bit contrived and illogical. Why worry about the drop off of a skyscraper if you can just fly off? Why figure out how you’re going to climb up to the top of this balcony is you can just fly up to it? (and etc.) I’ve always asked myself questions like these whenever I write action scenes. It definitely doesn't help that the main character is an engineer, and a very observant and resourceful person to boot, so it seems extremely contrived for him not to exploit his wings in a way that reduces risk. I've figured out some solutions to fix this, but they all have their drawbacks. Here they are in order from most drawbacks to least.
1. **Remove the wings.** This is probably the most obvious fix, but it has a big drawback. In short, Arronians (the name for the half-dragons) are actually a whole race living in secrecy in their own country (called Arromark) in (spoilers). They are essentially Draconic Humanoids with feathers. I don't want this race to fit to the "lizard people conspiracy" trope, so giving them wings, feathers, and a modern culture was an attempt at differentiating from this. Removing the wings might blur the line between a new race and lizard people too much, but I could be wrong.
2. **Put most of the action scenes in tight spaces.** Currently, Arronians have a wingspan of 10 feet or more. These large feathered wings would obviously be difficult to use in tight hallways and indoor spaces. This does sort of match the Mission Impossible-esque tone I'm looking for, but the drawback here is that wings would almost seem useless. Sure, they're an extra way to communicate emotion and they look cool, but they won't help the plot if they aren't used in some way.
These next two solutions are more about withholding the wings until he is “ready” to use him.
3. **Wings are artificial, so they have to be earned.** I could make it part of the Arronians’ culture that earning a pair of wings is a pursuit of character and great deeds or something. Arronians could have vestigial wings leftover and they might see it as if they were “meant to fly”, so they go about building working wings to fulfill this. Since the novel is set in the 2030s, the tech for useable wings on an already light body is plausible, especially for a race that’s more focused on developing them. The only problem is that it would take a lot of time for artificial wings to ingrain into their culture, and depending on when they were developed, it seems unrealistic.
4. **Wings are non-intuitive, so they have to be learned and earned.** It's possible that I could write in a character-based requirement for flying: you have to get over your flaws for flying to be intuitive. Honestly, if having two extra limbs mounted to your back wasn’t hard enough for your human brain to accept, try using them to maneuver in 3D space. Flying has to be somewhat automatic and instinctual, and this could only be unlocked by a character getting over their own fears and flaws. This does also add a great symbol for character growth. However, I want to be at least somewhat plausible in terms of scientific accuracy, and this might be too hand-wavy for my setting.
This is where Stack Exchange comes in: **What limitations can I put on wings for more tense/risky action scenes? How can I limit flight so it isn’t overpowered for physical obstacles?**
[Answer]
The limits for wings are pretty straightforward, given that you're trying for some degree of realism. Anything human-sized, with the mass of a human plus however much the wings add, is pushing the limits of flight. I won't call it impossible to fly, not when even larger pterosaurs have done it, but wings big enough to allow more than gliding for a humanoid are going to be very long: I would guess 5 metres at minimum for wingspan (tip to tip), possibly more.
Before I dive into this breakdown of flight and its hazards, I should warn you that it may be overwhelming. Not every story needs this degree of analysis, and of those not many need to actually display that analysis to the reader.
This is with the intent of helping you set rules to define what your fliers can or cannot do, which is helpful for self-consistency (basically, not contradicting yourself). Those rules don't have to be limiting your creativity, though: this sort of analysis gives you lots of sources for dramatic tension by exploiting the resulting strengths and weaknesses and can often provide inspiration.
**The Mundane World**
The musculature needed to power those monster wings is going to have to be similarly monstrous. These fliers are going to have massive chests simply to accommodate the huge muscles they're going to need to flap those wings: the flight muscles take up around 20% of body mass in most flying animals. I don't know where the assorted organs are going to get pushed around to by that problem, but note that the lungs and heart are also going to have to grow to about double the typical human size to keep up with the demands of that musculature. Reader's questions regarding the resulting appearance are up to you to deal with, but if nothing else these guys will need to eat accordingly. Assuming they are otherwise largely human apart from the wings, they're all going to be chomping down on food like champion weightlifters if they're using those wings at all.
You also need to keep the local temperature in mind. Open wings expose lots of surface area to the air. In tropical or desert regions, this does wonderful things for keeping you from overheating. In a colder climate, however (picture pretty much anywhere that can reliably expect to receive at least some snow each winter), this is a liability, because you're at risk of freezing to death very rapidly. Eating more for extra energy to produce more heat will help (I'm assuming your humanoids remain warm-blooded), but there's a limit to how much that can do for you in the face of that ridiculous amount of surface area. Clothing isn't going to be a viable solution: even if you could do it for those wings (I'd like to see someone try it!), the bulk and weight is probably going to cripple the ability to actually, you know, *fly*. There's a reason all the larger birds and bats of the modern world are native to the tropics. Your protagonist is going to want to stay far away from places like Canada or Russia, and trapping them there could be very effective for their enemies (see: dramatic potential).
It's worth noting that physical exertion in itself is not necessarily a problem: if the body can appropriately support the strain of powered flight (basically, you need an oversized heart and lungs to supply the necessary oxygen to the flight muscles, as noted above), this has the side effect of rendering you pretty much immune to fatigue. Barring severe thirst or starvation, you'd be able to fly for hours as long as the sky was cooperative, or run a marathon without too much trouble, so endurance will actually be very impressive in most cases.
**Takeoff**
Given the size of these flying humanoids, you *will* be bounded when it comes to taking off under your own strength, and convenient cliff sides or balconies probably won't be that common. The force needed to make that crucial leap into the air, at that weight, simply cannot be supplied aerobically (via oxygen), and anaerobic muscle contractions come at a price that mean you are incapable of lifting off too often. I'm running off [this very useful source](http://markwitton-com.blogspot.com/2018/05/why-we-think-giant-pterosaurs-could-fly.html) for details: it's based on pterosaurs, but the relevant principles here don't change that much between pterosaurs and the largest birds (which face the same problem).
Essentially, you've got about 60 to 90 seconds to get into the air and find a good source of lift (most likely a thermal or a suitable wind pattern) before the muscles falter and require some rest. This is entirely feasible at the speed you'll be moving (covered in detail in the next section) since you can cover some distance to reach the spot in question, as long as there aren't obstacles in the way. Still, it means that if you get ambushed and try to fly out of the area, you will be limited in how much distance you can open up in that first burst; if you can't find cover within a range of about two kilometres (yes, you're really going that fast), you could run into problems if you're forced to circle around a thermal while you recover. Also, if it's cold (nighttime, during winter, etc.), you're going to have a harder time staying aloft.
**Flight**
The large wings introduce another problem: maneuverability is going to be limited, especially with bird-like wings. You've already noticed that this is a problem in tight confines; the wingspan alone means you need plenty of space around you in the air to avoid crashing into anything. The main roads in your typical downtown would probably be flyable, but trying the alleyways would be for the daredevils, as it would border on suicidal. As for tight turns, I can't necessarily rule those out entirely, since folding one wing in could plausibly make a quick spin, but you'd need room to fall before opening your wings again, so flying too close to the ground could be a problem.
It's also important to understand that staying airborne requires speed; given the sizes we're dealing with here, you're going to need a lot of it, which can be good or bad depending on the situation. Based on the source I linked, you're soaring almost as fast as somebody driving on the highway (think 70 to 80 kilometres per hour as a rough *minimum*, because you're quite possibly exceeding 100, and definitely will be if you exert yourself). On the one hand, pursuers are going to have a hard time catching up if you're on the move, since you won't be limited by those silly things called roads. On the other hand, lift is provided mostly by how much air is moving under the wings, which is largely determined by airspeed (outside of hovering, which is impossible for biological wings to manage at anything near human size). There are ways to adjust your angle of attack or your wing shape to move the limits around, but essentially there's a minimum speed for you to stay aloft, and it's pretty high in your case. Even if your wings could support tight turns, you're going fast enough that trying that is likely to splatter you over the face of something.
**Combat**
You mention gunfights, which lends me the impression that these guys might be trying to fire guns from the air. That is a **Very Bad Idea** for a few reasons, but the biggest one is accuracy. Even the horse archers of the Mongols and so on saw their accuracy plunge when firing on the move, and they were on more or less level ground; trying to aim for a single attacker who is likely behind cover while you're moving in three dimensions at once is an excellent way to waste ammunition while the other guy takes the time to line up a nice easy shot on the giant target that you've made yourself into. There's also recoil: in the air, you don't have anything to brace yourself against, so the first shot you take is going to spoil your aim pretty badly for a few seconds, which means any sort of rapid-fire weapon is idiocy (you'd probably be limited to handguns in terms of practical firearms, which don't tend to fare well compared to rifles in a firefight). In short, they would probably stay on the ground in any sort of shootout.
Also, think back to that huge wingspan. Five metres or more, and wings require a lot of surface area to function. That's one **giant** target for anybody with a ranged weapon, especially at close range; you describe the wings as being bird-like, with feathers, but anything like a net or a spreading weapon (think video-game-shotgun, not standard rifle) is going to do horrible damage. Lots of things for you to think about before you open your wings anywhere near your enemies.
**Conclusion**
Reality sometimes offers all the answers you need. You don't have to invent any sort of societal constraints or obviously contrived situations to keep these wings from being overpowered: working (more or less) within the confines of realism offers plenty of ways to do that just with physics and biology.
It's worth noting that wings, in nature, are evolved arms: I'm aware of how many sources of fiction like to have flying humans with wings coming out their backs, but evolution says that's creating two extra limbs from nowhere (in other words, thoroughly absurd). Most such stories do rather require their flying humans to have usable hands, though, so it's usually necessary to overlook this fine point for the sake of a good story. I suppose my point here is that **perfect obedience to realism and science is less important than internal consistency** in a story: if you need to bend something, then bend it. Just make very sure you don't bend it the other way later, because that would be very sloppy writing.
[Answer]
/Why worry about the drop off of a skyscraper if you can just fly off? Why figure out how you’re going to climb up to the top of this balcony is you can just fly up to it? (/
**Go with it!**
He does not worry about the drop off. He worries about how exposed to gunfire he is while flying away from the people who chased him off the drop off, or worries about pulling up in time from the very steep dive he did to get out of range of those people left on the roof.
He does not worry about getting to the balcony. He worries about who is in the room behind it that he cannot see as he pops up onto it. He worries about the people below who saw where he went cutting off his escape through the building.
If your character has flight power, have that be countered by opponents that are more numerous than he is or are better armed than he is. And after you do that, counter him with an enemy who is smarter than he is, and an enemy who is far tougher than he is. All of them know he can fly (or figure it out quick), and they are ready for that,
Don't limit him. Lean into awesomeness and expand his enemies to match him!
[Answer]
Physically arduous (which they are. Birds have to eat *lots* of food).
Take-off takes long. Some birds rarely touch earth because taking off is a serious issue. This is coupled with being physically arduous.
Mentally taxing. You need to pay attention to each detail of muscle movement, in a non-intuitive way. Then you can't pay attention to anything else.
Weather. WW 2 airplanes couldn't fly at night, or in fog, or in rain or...
Only children can fly. Adults get too big.
[Answer]
The physical stresses the wings can endure limit how fast they can accelerate, slow down, bank, and pull out of dives. Modern aircraft suffer from this limitation and have the potential to snap their wings off if they fly too fast.
Flying for a bird is a whole body thing. They have to maintain the alignment of their resultant lift vector acting on their center of mass aligned with the force of gravity and momentum acting on their bodies. Otherwise, they spin, and roll as they fly. This means anticipating the proper rigidity and tension of their entire body, in reaction to the forces they are subject to and generating.
So, like ballet and sky diving, a great deal of physicality and practice is required to do more than just fly across a wide open field. Flying down a street and turning a corner would be hard. They'd envy the birds, flying since they left the nest, that made it look so easy.
[Answer]
I think the option 4 you mentioned yourself is a viable point, especially if you want 'enemy' arronians to fly while your protagonist can't.
Birds, fish and other animals that move in a completely three dimensional environment on a daily basis tend to have a very different brain; the 'small brain', which makes up hardly a quarter of the total human brain, is WAY larger in those animals, as it is responsible for your movement inside your environment. Aside from having a third dimension to worry about, you also have air (or water) currents to worry about, wind, thermal differences, you name it.
With all the genetic engineering done to turn a human into a dragon, the small brain may grow to the nessessary size to handle this new form of movement, but you would still have to learn how to fly just like you once learned how to walk, which takes long enough for a child and probably longer for a fully matured adult.
This can easily add to all the other problems; flight in itself is exhausting and risky enough in itself, but especially for someone who is only just learning to explore this new way of movement like a toddler taking his first upright steps.
Dropping of a skyscraper? As easy as jumping of a bed. IF you know how to balance to avoid hitting your head, not to mention landing on your feet/breaking the fall to actually run/fly away after your grand escape...
[Answer]
One potential limitation might be the physicality of the wings or the act of flying.
I mean, we don't think about it a lot, because human-folk have reached a stage where for most people it often doesn't matter much if we're temporarily less than capable, especially for, well, a minor injury. But a sprain or a strain would be a much bigger problem for, say, an animal, because it relies on its body intensely for its day-to-day living. Very minor conditions or injuries do become a bigger deal for those who rely on their bodies extensively - in human folk that would include athletes or those with physically demanding and/or dangerous jobs.
So, your character may not be in a position to be casual about the use of their wings in certain situations, while being perfectly capable in others. Or maybe not even incapable of using them, but it may be more risky or more costly to do so, leaving them a last resort instead of a first resort.
A minor sprain or pulled muscle in a wing might be a big problem in flight. Or a couple people already mentioned how much energy flight takes - it might be much more difficult to fly (or to fly well) if tired or hungry than it would be to walk or even run under the same conditions. And you mention the dragons have feathered wings, well, lost or bent feathers, for example, might cause a lot of problems in flight - minor adjustments of wing and tail feathers are used to balance and direct one's flight quite a bit, having a change in feathered profile would mean unexpected adjustments to that airflow and it may be quite difficult, especially for one not that experienced in flying.
Or, heck, environmental conditions - if it's raining, that will affect feathers and flight capability in ways that will take adjustment or experience to be confident in. Or if it's too cold, the extra loss of heat from wings may be an unexpected factor (someone else's answer mentioned that before, I think). Or ice or snow buildup on feathers in cold conditions, its not just a matter of keeping warm, it can change the airflow and the spacing or adjustment of feathers, and that can interfere in flying. Even regular windy conditions might be something your character doesn't think is going to be a game changer, until it is cause he's not experienced in compensating for that.
And since he's not experienced, it may be more likely to happen that some minor misjudgement happens, and harder for him to compensate. So somebody pushes him off a building, well, maybe snapping his wings open to fly down went down just a hair too fast or at a slightly wrong angle, and now you have a pulled muscle to make it more problematic to fly up to the balcony later. Or something damages a few feathers, but he's otherwise fine, but later he's finding it so much harder to steer (maybe he didn't think it'd be a problem, or as much of a problem, until he tried flying next). Maybe the pushing-off-a-building thing was shortly after someone with great precision shoots off a few feather-ends, and your guy thinks he missed (not hurt) till he realizes it's actually flight-sabotage, halfway down (frantic midflight compensation!). Or maybe someone bullet-clips the feathers as he's gliding down (or up), so you get midair shenanigans as he's trying to rebalance.
It is also quite possible that another limitation might be, well, instinct and impulse. Not necessarily about flying, either, but about using the wings, or thinking to, or thinking not to, in emergency situations. If he's unexpectedly shoved off a building, it may take a bit for him to pull out of fear-of-falling to go, oh yeah I can open my wings (possibly enough to make catching himself strenuous or result in aforementioned sprain).
He would certainly think about flying up to a balcony when trying to get there, or any other calm, planning scenario, but maybe his first instinct wouldn't be flying away when an explosion or a stream of bullets have him in a rush or caught in the middle of doing something else. Or maybe it is his first instinct, but it really would have been best to do something else in that specific scenario (and being less experienced, he has to learn that the hard way). Again, even just realizing a bit late, needing just a few seconds to think, might give an opening for something else to go wrong.
If you want to avoid having damage-to-wings be just an easy out, you could make it sometimes work correctly, and other times in-universe on purpose, or a direct consequence of something he did earlier to get out of a situation, or the result of getting away with something once because wings, and later someone uses that against them as a trap, or makes sure whatever they tried last time didn't work again.
[Answer]
The Arronians could have full wings, but not be able to use them without some kind of gadget helping.
The wings would simply hang down their backs or stay folded neatly, but either the muscles in the wings simply aren't strong enough to allow the Arronians to fly, or there aren't enough muscles in the wings.
To allow the Arronians to fly, they would need some kind of gadget that allowed them to use muscles in other parts of their bodies as well as those in their wings. The gadgets could be fairly bulky, so that the main characters might not always carry them around.
Arronians would perhaps spend most of their time just walking around, using their gadgets only for longer distances, or for battle.
I don't know what this gadget would look like, but I think it would answer your question, since the possibility of a gadget breaking in mid-flight or of having forgotten or decided not to bring one's gadget would certainly add some tension to action scenes.
[Answer]
Use the biology of feathered wings to give him a selection of combat moves and disadvantages which regular humans don't have. Plus some considerations he may never have thought of unless he's a pilot or a bird watcher.
**Gunfire (or sword wielding ninjas) might [clip his wings.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wing_clipping)**
If a bunch of flight feathers get mangled or cut off, he'll have his ability to fly either limited or ended until he grows some new ones. He might discover that the hard way when he jumps off that skyscraper.
**Feathers don't feel pain**
He might not even realise the [flight control surfaces](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_control_surfaces) of his wings are damaged until he tries to take off. He gets into the air fine, but can't steer or do a controlled landing.
**Swans can break a man's arm - [or maybe not](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17736292)**
He's heard this, and he's been using his wings as extra limbs in hand to hand combat. But he hasn't really figured out which parts of the wing bones are ok to thump people with or to block/parry blows, and which hurt like hell and give him the flight equivalent of limping. Oh dear, he's injured his right wing muscles, tendons and/or bones and veers to the right now every time he flies, because something has stiffened up or swollen.
**What sort of flight are his wings optimised for?**
This shows the various [types of bird wings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_flight#/media/File:FlightSilhouettes.svg):
* *High Aspect Ratio* - stamina for long distance soaring/gliding but require a long run with lots of flapping before you can take off. Use air currents and the wind to assist their flight, so use up very little energy to fly (albatross).
* *Low Aspect Ratio, high lift, slotted wings* - good for soaring/gliding as the above, and you can just leap into the air without having to run along the ground flapping madly. However they need thermals to power their soaring, and thermals don't form over water. Their flight uses more energy than the High Aspect Ratio kind.
* *Pointed long wings* - speed. Plus you can use flapping flight for long journeys of hundreds of kilometres. Uses a ton of energy to fuel this flight. (falcon, swift)
* *Elliptical wings* - agility. Very manoeuvrable in tight spaces and have a really fast take off speed (crow, pheasant, many songbirds). Again it uses lots of energy.
He might assume that he can do all of these things equally well, but discover he's great at an explosive, almost-straight-up take off like a pigeon, but is rubbish at gliding long distances and ditches into the water the first time he tries to soar like an albatross. Pick the limitations that fit your story best.
**What's his turning circle when in flight?**
Jumping off that skyscraper into the alleyway below might be fine, but if the alley is too narrow to make a turn, he might smack into the building opposite. Some bats can almost turn on a wingtip. The birds that can do it are the ones which can hover, like hummingbirds. Everything else has to bank and turn. Also even if an albatross with a 3 metre wingspan managed to magically develop the powers to turn on a wingtip, it would still need a minimum 6 metre wide space to do it in.
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[Question]
[
A hang-glider or a gyro-glider would suffice also, with the purpose of actually working.
I was hoping it wouldn't require a motor, because I doubt a motor could be built in medieval times.
If it could be built, how much manpower and resources would go into one single one? Would it be viable to mass produce in military applications (surprise attack on lower altitude enemies)? How reliable would the thing(s) work?
[Answer]
# Gyroglider
I would say no. It will be impossible to get bearings for the rotor that can turn easy enough and avoid running hot or seizing up. Plus the problems with the glider.
# Fixed-Wing Glider
It will be problematic to get the structure strong enough and light enough at the same time. Getting materials for the wings will difficult, too. Imported bamboo and silk?
The next problem are the control surfaces. That could be overcome with a basic [hang glider](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hang_gliding), but for anything larger than that you probably need steel wires (and bearings, again).
[Answer]
A hang-glider could certainly be built. Back in the 1970s, people made their own out of bamboo and canvas. Otto Lilienthal did too.
And they all died with alarming regularity too. It turns out that designing the right stall characteristics is not so straightforward, and if you get it wrong then you simply fall out of the sky and die. Even with 1970s knowledge of aeronautics, it still took a decade to get reasonably safe hang-gliders. So building the hang-glider, yes. *Knowing what dimensions* to build a *working* hang-glider, probably not.
As for engines, absolutely not. Nothing before the internal combustion engine had the power-to-weight ratio to let an aircraft sustain flight. So they aren't going to be flying around and dropping bombs. Steam engines were used for propelling airships in the 1800s, and the development of the ICE alongside improvements in steam power for heavy transport allowed further development of ultra-lightweight steam engines which made steam-powered aeroplanes technically possible (although only after the ICE was already a better solution). But medieval technology would have had problems even constructing a beam pumping engine and certainly could not have allowed the construction of steam vehicles, never mind steam aircraft. So no powered aircraft would be possible with pre-1800's technology.
If we assume for the sake of plot that someone managed to build a working hang-glider though, there is another use for it, which is reconnaissance. With a carriage fitted with a winch and several fast horses it would be possible to get a hang-glider to a reasonable altitude from which you could see the enemy's army. A Montgolfier balloon would be a much easier solution though - still an anachronism, but less so, and much easier to launch too.
[Answer]
Since it's been determined that a motorised machine is out of the question, and also that even until recently, gliders were pretty much death traps, we might as well have fun answering the subquestion involving getting a flying weapon from a higher to a lower place with some stealth.
To which end,
allow me to introduce the **Trebuchet Launched Warbird**!
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/axCoC.jpg)
In this image from an ancient manuscript in the Puddlian Library, we can see the Warbird awaiting launch. The graceful and powerful descent of the trebuchet weight lifts the long arm thus yanking the Warbird by the short tow rope. The massive weight drives the light craft to an incredible upward velocity.
Up up and over the edge of high Fortress Rockberg! Her graceful arc will send the bird out over the jagged rocks and her silent downward glide will surely take those Foreign buggers down below by surprise!
There are, of course, a few ... ahem ... minor kinks to be worked out. What with the trip being one-way and all. But surely the lads of the Rockbergian Army shall be queuing up to do their bit for King and Country all the same!
[Answer]
In a medieval world with current knowledge of aerodynamics, yes. Nature provides enough tough materials to build a structure that a single human could use to glide a bit.
Problems:
1) With current knowledge, a design could, within a few months and with small loss of life and limb, be brought to perfection, but with then contemporary knowledge, it would be very hard, and could only be bought by many years of experimenting, and a host of lost pilots. You'd need to get medieval to find more testpilots. Hey...
2) This is about a glider. Not a good one, either. Optimistically a glide ratio of 3:1? (Every 3 meters you go forward are bought with one meter height loss (<https://www.britannica.com/sports/hang-gliding>)). High ground was coveted even then, So having to find an accessible yet steep hill overlooking your target, undefended, and then schlepping your gear up there, to surprise the enemy below? Not that many chances for that.
3) Using mechanisms to gain height, like winches, counterweights or mooring in a stiff breeze would add many more years of testing, invalidating many of the pure glider designs because they now also be able to survive these forces.
4) Birds, stones, arrows, and many other flying things were known in medieval times, so a commander getting credible info about the enemy being able to glide 'like a chicken with clipped wings' (or some such) could identify possible ambush-places that were made viable by such technology. And you have just been chucking people from your castle walls tied to tents for years now. This will not be a secret. People will be somewhat prepared.
5) Whether by time travelling aeronautics engineer (cum carpentry enthusiast (with a pinch of not getting burned as a witch)), or pure aristocratic bull-headedness, you now have gliders that can be packed like tents, a mobile launch system, fighter-pilots, and a bird-related nickname. Whence now?
[Answer]
I have a question: What counts as a "motor" for the purpose of this topic? A world record for human powered flight was awarded 30 years ago to a plane called Daedalus, which was flown by a super-fit Greek cyclist. I realize this isn't the same as a gyroplane, but it would have been possible to build during medieval time, assuming you had a King's budget.
Before you posted the illustration, I was picturing a small glider of some kind being deployed by hot-air balloon. While I could find no evidence of thermodynamic knowledge in medieval Europe, paper hot-air balloons existed in China pre- Marco Polo. (I believe they were used in funeral ceremony.)
Depending on how much of a stretch you're willing to accept, a combination of these ideas would theoretically make it "possible."
I hope my answer is acceptable. I've never responded to a question on Stack Exchange before.
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[Question]
[
I wanted to create a scene where two god-like characters are talking or fighting on a planet or fragment of planet to which they've teleported that's about to be obliterated by a black hole.
The characters are effectively gods so heat and gravity won't affect them too much. I wanted the black hole and stars being engulfed to fill the sky.
At what distance could a planet still have some surface to stand on as it orbits the black hole before turning completely into dust?
[Answer]
For this, we need to know two things: how close you can get to the center of mass of the black hole before the tidal forces tear you apart, and the radius of the event horizon.
The first is determined by the [Roche limit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roche_limit): $d = R\_m (2 M\_M/M\_m)^{1/3}$, where $R\_m$ is the radius of the smaller object, $M\_M$ is the mass of the larger object, and $M\_m$ is the mass of the smaller object. This assumes certain simplified conditions, so in practice, you may want to add a margin of error.
The second is defined by the [Schwarzschild radius](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwarzschild_radius): $r\_s = 2GM/c^2$, where G is the gravitational constant, M is the mass of the black hole, and c is the speed of light.
The Schwarzschild radius grows faster than the Roche Limit does, so as the black hole changes in mass, the distance between them changes as well.
Let's assume the planet is roughly comparable to Earth, and look at how close you can get to three different black holes: Cygnus X-1, the supermassive Sagittarius A\*, and the ultramassive black hole at the center of NGC 1277.
# Cygnus X-1
This was the first black hole discovered, and is a nice normal-sized example. Its mass is approximately 15 times that of the sun.
$d \approx 1.29 \times 10^9 m$.
$r\_s \approx 73 \times 10^3 m$.
The black hole fits into an area smaller than Earth, but its Roche Limit is a 17 thousand farther away than the event horizon. By the time you're anywhere near the event horizon, the effects of the tidal forces are [significant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghettification).
# Sagittarius A\*
This is the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. It masses about 4 million times more than the sun.
$d \approx 8.32 \times 10^{10} m$
$r\_s \approx 1.27 \times 10^{10} m$
The two are the same order of magnitude at this size. The black hole is about the size of the Sun, and the Roche Limit is a bit more than the orbit of Mercury at its widest.
# NGC 1277's black hole
The largest black hole ever found is the one in [NGC 1277](https://www.space.com/18668-biggest-black-hole-discovery.html). It has a mass of 17 billion solar masses and makes up 14% of the mass of its host galaxy.
$d \approx 1.35 \times 10^{12} m$
$r\_s \approx 5.05 \times 10^{13} m$
$d < r\_s$.
Which means that for a large enough black hole, so as long as you aren't actually *inside* the black hole, the planet isn't going to break apart from the tidal forces.
Orbits near a black hole [aren't stable](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innermost_stable_circular_orbit), though. You'll need an orbital radius of at least $3 r\_s$ if you want it to last. This is only a relevant factor in the largest of the three cases.
Of course, your orbital velocity at the minimum "safe" orbit around a supermassive black hole is around 0.3-0.4c, and you're constantly accelerating in the direction of the black hole, so you'll probably get some weird relativistic effects (I don't know enough general relativity to tell you what they'd be, though). And there's probably no way the planet will be able to keep an atmosphere. And if the black hole is still actively feeding, there will be probably be horrible levels of gamma radiation; I'd recommend an inactive black hole if you want to keep the temperature somewhat reasonable. But for a large enough black hole, as long the planet is *outside* the event horizon, it'll be an intact uninhabitable, superaccelerated, and possibly molten ball of iron.
**Edit:** Fixed a *major* error in calculations that was in the original version (Roche Limit was calculated as $(R\_m \* 2 M\_M/M\_m)^{1/3}$ instead of $R\_m (2 M\_M/M\_m)^{1/3}$, which would have placed the Roche Limit inside the event horizon).
**Edit 2**: There exists a black hole large enough that the original (and much more awesome) conclusion applies: there *does* exist a black hole where the Roche Limit is inside the event horizon!
[Answer]
*You want to know how close your planet would get to a supermassive black hole.*
# The Planet wouldn't get near the black hole itself. Not even near the Roche Limit.
***And I'll prove it.***
* The vicinity of a super massive black hole as the one at the centre of our galaxy is an extremley hot, turbulent, and magneticaly charged zone, it would also compass jets of charged particles, gamma radiation and (very hot) dust.
* The Black hole itself is thought to be in the order of 100,000 solar masses, the theoretical maximum limit being thought to be in the region of 50,000,000,000 (50 billion
solar masses) for an [ultramassive black hole](https://phys.org/news/2018-02-ultramassive-black-holes-far-off-galaxies.html).
**The Accretion disk:**
* This is proportional to the size of black hole, some are speculated to be thin and comparativley cool, just like a planetary disk. The one at the centre of the galaxy is wide, thick and hot.
* Velikhov-Chandrasekhar instability (or Balbus-Hawley instability) means that differential magnetic field densities in the disk make the material towards the centre of the disk move faster than that on the outside - more than would be accounted for by different orbital velocities at these distances. This signifies that there is huge friction surrounding huge vortices of superheated turbulent material constantly swirling in a dance around the centre.
* The plasma of the disk, highly electricaly conductive, carries currents of inconcievable magnitude, sporadically discharging to nearby regions of different charge in colossal lightning bolts as the maelstrom whirls about it's centre, ejecting a jet of energy from the poles of the black hole.
**How much energy is released in an accretion disk?**
>
> Accretion process can convert about 10 percent to over 40 percent of
> the mass of an object into energy as compared to around 0.7 percent
> for nuclear fusion processes.
>
>
>
* *That is, it (mass for mass) converts nearly 60 times more of the matter going into it than the sun converts it's own mass into free energy - heat, light, gamma rays, the energy of the jet being ejected from the poles.*
**The Polar Jets:**
These radiate energy in a concentrated beam on the axis of rotation of the disk. [In extreme cases](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasar#Quasar_subtypes), the total energy radiated by the disk and by the polar jets can equal thousands of times the total radiant light from all the stars in the rest of the galaxy combined. They can be seen [shining brightly from across the farthest reaches](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ULAS_J1342%2B0928) of the universe that *can be seen.*
>
> Relativistic beaming of the jet emission results in strong and rapid
> variability of the [jet's] brightness.
>
>
>
# Conclusion:
**On approaching the accretion disk:**
* *The planet would approach the disk boundry and melt, quickly being pulled apart by the magnetic fields and dissolve in the swirling motion of the disk in a blaze of gas plasma.*
**On approaching the polar jet:**
* *The planet entering the jet would be almost instantly vapourised and be carried away with the jet's (near light-speed) motion.*
QED.
The Planet wouldn't get near the black hole itself.
*References:*
<https://phys.org/news/2018-02-ultramassive-black-holes-far-off-galaxies.html>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accretion_disk#Magnetic_fields_and_jets>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetorotational_instability>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermassive_black_hole>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasar>
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[Question]
[
Today, dinosaurs, alligators, crocodiles, gharials and caimen are all that remains of a special group of reptiles called the archosaurs. Recently, it has been accepted by the public that birds did not evolve from dinosaurs but are themselves dinosaurs.
**But what if birds evolved from a *different* group of archosaurs?**
Unsurprisingly, as far as reptiles go, Crocodilia is as bird-like in anatomy and even behavior as we're going to get. In the distant past, there were crocodylomorphs of a great slew of varieties imaginable, so it would make sense, in an alternate Earth where pterosaurs definitely never existed and dinosaurs might not exist, for a crocodylomorph to become Aves, the traditional name for the avian dinosaurs, known vernacularly as "birds".
But giving benefit to the presumption that all crocodylomorphs shared at least one anatomical attribute that separated them from dinosaurs, would an avian crocodylomorph have certain and noticeable anatomical differences from avian dinosaurs that I should watch out for? Or would an avian crocodylomorph look exactly like an avian dinosaur?
[Answer]
Yes an avian Crocodylomorpha would look just like a regular bird, and would have to go through a stage that would just be a dinosaur by a different name. Your question is like asking for an orangutan like creature descended from monkeys but without ape characteristics. Crocodylomorpha is just too close to the early dinosaurs, the path to avian from them would be virtually indistinguishable from dinosaurs. The major differences in pseudosuchia groups(the group that includes dinosaurs and Crocodylomorpha) is ankle structure, that's the feature separating early crocs and early dinos, the shape of the ankle joint, which really is not going to make much difference on that long of an evolutionary line. Keep in mind there is more time between early dinosaurs and the first birds than there is between t-rex and us.
[Answer]
**By way of water.**
To get a flying tetrapod you need a predecessor that can spare two limbs from full time locomotion such that they can differentiate into wings. The ancestors of birds are thought to have been semibipedal and semiarboreal - they could run on their back legs which opened the possibility of differentiation of the forelimbs into appendages first to aid in jumping and then wings to flap and fly.
The prospect of a crocodylomorph running around on hind legs seems a stretch. But there is another way to free up the 2 forelimbs of a tetrapod.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/qEABr.jpg)
<http://novataxa.blogspot.com/2011/07/2010-geosaurus-dakosaurus.html>
>
> Metriorhynchids were a peculiar group of fully marine Mesozoic
> crocodylomorphs
>
>
>
This body plan is similar to other fully marine reptiles and mammals - a muscular tail in charge of propulsion and diminutive limbs used for steering, if that. Whales have done away completely with their hind limbs but looking over marine reptiles it seems like the forelimbs are what gets small.
In any case - here is a reasonable starting point for evolving a bird - a fully aquatic tail-propelled crocadylomorph which can spare its forelimbs for a new job.
We will accomplish this by way of the [flying fish](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_fish).
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/YUfb7.jpg)
The flying fish propels itself via its strong tail and then once out of the water, uses its differentiated forefins to sustain itself. They fly to escape predators but also because it is fast and effectively increases the size of their habitat by allowing them to skip over draggy dangerous water.
Hold that down vote! I am aware that flying fish do not fly, only glide. I assert that they never developed true flight because they are residents of the open ocean. There is no place for them to go except open water and open air. But our croc protobirds do have a place to go. Here is where they live.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/PIE80.jpg)
<https://www.marlimillerphoto.com/swamps.html>
The brackish cypress / mangrove swamps are good habitats for small predators. The croc protobirds make their livings here. But larger things live there too - including other crocodilians (as have always been the apex predators in such habitats) and larger croc protobirds. The juvenile croc protobirds can escape large predators, including their hungry great uncles, by putting on a burst of speed and then gliding, just as a flying fish.
Like the flying fish, a phenotype evolved for escaping predators can also be used to enlarge habitat - the croc protobird can skip over shallow water and swampy areas common in this ecosystem. Unlike the flying fish, the juvenile croc protobirds might sometimes find themselves in a tree at the end of their flight. Trees are full of insect life, and crabs are the apex predators here - all delicious meals for a juvenile croc protobird in a flight for its life one minute and in a banquet the next.
[Neoteny](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoteny) is a great method for evolution. Neotenous croc protobirds do not get big and waterbound, retaining their access to the safe havens and rich pickings of the mangroves. Initially the croc protobirds would have to get a runup in the water using the tail and then jump out to get into a tree. Once in the tree it will probably eventually have to go back into the water. This is analogous to the terrestrial ancestors of birds, which probably jumped or climbed into trees for safe havens / feeding but had to go back down the earth to get from tree to tree.
A croc protobird which can push off from a tree and use its flying fins to help it through the air to another tree can get access to trees unreachable from the water. I envision the long swimming tail becoming prehensile, in the way of chameleons. This crocdylomorph is on its way to becoming a bird.
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From an evolutionary perspective you need some incentive to develop flight, it doesn't happen just because some Crocodilia looks at the sky and wants to be up there.
The way to go (aside from the flying fish theory) is for tree dwellers to have some evolutionary advantage if they could fly. Now, modern crocodiles are not the best at climbing trees, but back in the good old days, some quadrupedal dinosaurs did.
Now whenever a tree dweller is chased by a gigger tree dweller that wants to eat it, it's neccessary to get away as fast and as far as possible. The fasted way to flee is to jump down from the tree, but there are more predetors lurking on the ground. So the *safest* way to flee is to jump to the next tree. The evolutionary race of arms creates ever better jumpers, until one is born with a mutated gene that gives it big, stretchy skin. Imagine a crocodilian flying squirrel.
The next step is, again, advanced by evolutionary advantages. The flying croc squirrel needs to evolve from a glider to a true flyer and therefore needs bigger wing-spread and better uplift. To get there, you need lots and lots of time for chance mutations and environmental changes that kill the worst flyers. That could bee food scarcity or flying predators.
In the end, the descendants of flying croc squirrel either develop feathers and look quite like birds, or they end up as scaly bats or flying foxes.
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>
> Would an avian crocodylomorph have certain and noticeable anatomical differences from avian dinosaurs that I should watch out for? Or would an avian crocodylomorph look exactly like an avian dinosaur?
>
>
>
Well, we don't have an actual example fitting your question, but we have a lot of examples which fit the same concept: would different species achieving the same complex function (flying in this case) have the same form?
This is what we call convergent evolution, and we can see for examples in dolphins or sea urchins. They definitely are not sharks nor descend from sharks, nevertheless they have evolved to have a very close resemblance. Their body is hydrodynamic, they have fins, so they look much more similar to sharks than to other mammals.
But of course if we dive a bit deeper we can see anatomical differences between sharks and water mammals. The breathing system is one, for example.
So, to answer your question, I would say that yes, there would be some differences, but you might have to carefully look for them.
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Positing flightless *proto-feathers* for insulation purposes (heck even full blown feathers unless you're going to argue penguins/dodos/emus aren't birds) and saying **any** group even non-crocodilia could have them but *especially* that group. (Ie we have feathered chimps and crocs).
Then the distinctions would ***almost always*** be present since the chance of two divergent species *converging* on similar profiles is *small*. The source of the distinction would be whatever set of divergent traits between two examples conflicted *least* with feathers. Which would be very few of them if you're looking at them for insulation and waterproofing. So you probably couldn't have camels with feathers, but I don't see any reason you couldn't have a rat with feathers.
Assuming you're not by circular logic locking your definition of bird down to what already exists as a bird... then maybe what you're really asking is not "How do I tell *birds* apart from *other birds*", but "How do I tell flying things with feathers apart from *other flying things with feathers*" with the precondition that they came from different sources, then the answer is you most likely don't. Within flying birds there's massive variation to the point that pegging down the essence of a bird is pretty hard. You can't ask the usual questions of "Does the skeleton match the generic profile?" because you've thrown out a bunch of those presuppositions by arguing for a different root species.
Taking some of those grounding for-granted things out: there's such a large variety in current birds that even the locked down definition is hyper vague. Four chamber heart? Humans. Endothermic vertebrates? Humans. Feathers? Penguin. Toothless beaked jaws? Platypus. Hard-shelled eggs? Platypus. High metabolic rate? Cheetah. Strong yet lightweight skeleton? Bats, Insects, Fish, Amphibians. The only thing that the definition *begs* for is feathers. Typically ones for flying but not necessarily. You could even hit all of them with a feathered, light-boned, high-metabolism platypus.
So as previously stated, my answers to the questions *"But giving benefit to the presumption that all crocodylomorphs shared at least one anatomical attribute that separated them from dinosaurs, would an avian crocodylomorph have certain and noticeable anatomical differences from avian dinosaurs that I should watch out for? Or would an avian crocodylomorph look exactly like an avian dinosaur?"* are:
**Yes. No.**
But my preferred answer would be the answer to this question: **"What about the definition of a bird are you allowed to change and still make it a bird?"**
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In the "Warlords" Universe Ceres is the diplomatic and economic hub of the asteroid belt dominated by the rule of the 'Governor' and the 'Intercessor' (The Speaker for the Hegemon herself).
Now I'm stuck on is terraforming Ceres actually possible? I so far haven't addressed the issue only writing lore and information that can fit with either a terraformed Ceres or one that isn't.
In my mind if Ceres *is* able to be Terraformed it might look something like this due to ice melting and the possible inner ocean either being brought to the surface or some other effect of the Terraforming process.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/BcEVE.jpg)
**What the Hegemony Wants:**
The Hegemony wants Ceres to be terraformed (if possible) either A: Have a breathable atmosphere or B: a 'safe' atmosphere that would need limited equipment to breath in.
Note: If you want to go into the economics Ceres could have Tholin based fuel industries for the miners of the belt and also become a playground for the rich and powerful of the asteroid belt (golfing course, resorts, ect)
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Our problem is [Clarke's Third Law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke%27s_three_laws), "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." As stated, the only answer that can be given is "yes" because it can always be magically terraformed.
What is the specific (very specific) tech level we're dealing with? Our own? The answer is no. Anything we develop in the next 50 years? The answer is still no.
Given that 95% of our current technology was developed in the last 150 years, what about 150 years from now? Terraformed? No. Populated? Likely! A habitable shell is little more than a permanent space ship. So, the answer is "yes" assuming that anybody wants to or that a good reason exists to do so.
300 years from now? I'm going to say yes, absolutely yes. But how? Prognosticating solutions is a pain in the rumpus. If you think about it, with today's technology we can't accurately and consistently predict tomorrow's weather. Environmentalists have been failing to predict the end of the world since the late 60s ([and still can't do it.](https://futurism.com/ozone-layer-not-recovering/)). My goal here isn't to start a debate over global warming and climate change. Polution sucks, we all know it, and we should be diligently working toward reducing and eliminating it. My point is, science is really good at gathering data and really bad at predicting what that means.
So, you shouldn't get your hopes up over my predictions.
**Atmosphere**
As Alexander points out in a comment, Ceres doesn't have enough gravity to hold an atmosphere in place. It's a bit distant from the sun, too, so even if there were an atmosphere, it's a bit chilly. Let's address these first.
* The idea of a Dyson Sphere has been around for a long time. Why not change that to a transparent shell? In fact, let's make it two (if my dual-pane windows are any indication, that's valuable). A bunch of Bussard Ramjets or Ion Thrusters to keep it in place and a station at one of the many connecting points to act as an air lock for shipping and we're good to go.
* More futuristically would be a magnetic shell that repels atmospheric atoms and molecules. A "Dyson Swarm" of satellites that generate said shell would be sufficient. Shipping would need appropriately polarized magnetic shielding of their own to cross through the barrier without inducing havoc-generating current throughout their ships' hulls and wiring, but we're dealing with enough magic at this point that it can be done.
* Warmth is easy. You need to power your civilization. No matter how you create power, you will always have waste heat. Ceres would have the lowest power bills in the universe due to the vast amount of electricity made available from the many heat-generating stations on the asteroid.
**Next, water**
Ceres is going to be *humid.* That's the price of a low gravity. I have no doubt plants will grow on the surface of Ceres, but watering the little green beasties is a whole lot of hurt. You can't simply turn on sprinklers as most of the water will be bouncing off your atmospheric shield. In fact, I can easily imagine *drowning* the population in an effort to irrigate the vegetation.
Rivers, streams, and ditches don't work, either. At least I have trouble with them. Low G simply plays merry mischief fluids. You'll have trouble just sitting at a cafe and sipping a soda (can you imagine carbonation in a low-G environment? There's an entire Monty Python skit right there!)
So, we're talking about piped water for *everything.* That'll cost a king's ransom. Not just a drip system for the plants, you need to hydrate the ground. Everywhere. Digging all those 2" wide troughs is inefficient, so we're talking about laying a grid of 2" wide soaker hose everywhere on the surface (where you want plants) and living with the high humidity that will result.
In fact, you'll need condensers to reclaim water from the humidity. But it can be done (300 years from now).
**Mowing long-and-weedy plants**
I'm only going to touch on plant control, but mowing your lawn will be a pain as plants quickly adapt to the low-G environment. They have heat and possibly enough light (easily solved with a bunch of aesthetically placed artificial sunlamps. We need parks, right?). They have water and we'll assume nutrients (transporting solids, like manure, would have been solved 200 years earlier). But they'll grow long and stingy in the environment. Mowing lawns in a low-G environment might be, well, a bit dangerous.
Behold! the Roomba Mark XX Low-G Lawn Robot! Complete with top-mounted ion thrusters to keep it near the ground and lawn-gobbling plasma surrounding the outer edge to cut the grass!
**Finally, comfortable walking**
The biggest problem with terraforming Ceres is getting around. Most likely people will be transported everywhere for comfort, but nothing will work better than the good-old magnetic boots!
Which, 300 years from now, will be a natural part of the soles of our shoes, including a bit of nano-computing AI to dynamically adjust the magnetic field strength so that, as we walk, only that part of the sole that *should* be in contact with the surface of the road, actually is in contact.
And everywhere we walk has some ferrous materials...
Which means that 2" soaker hose is now a 2cm soaker hose and the material it's made out of is magically magnetic (We love you, Arthur!) 'cause we want to stroll in the grassy wilderness of Ceres!
*As you can imagine, I've only touched on a fraction of 1% of the problem of terraforming Ceres. We don't know how to terraform Earth (but we try!), but it's a fun thought exercise.*
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Having any kind of atmosphere, in the natural sense, is pretty much not going to happen. With only 3% of Earth's gravity and no magnetosphere, Ceres has virtually no ability to retain atmosphere against the solar wind. Even Mars has difficulty holding a *useful* atmosphere, and it's substantially bigger and outgassier. If you try melting a subsurface ocean, what will happen is that sunlight will dissociate the water into H2 and O2, and the solar wind will ablate it off the top of the atmosphere until it's gone.
Now, it's not that big. A civilization that's into some low-grade megaengineering could build enclosures over large parts of Ceres's surface, which could be pressurized. However, gravity is your next problem: .03 *g* is not at all livable for humans for any significant length of time. You can run your base on a train around the surface, or spin up the entire asteroid, or various tricks of that nature.
Heat's another big problem. You're much too far from the Sun to rely on its heating, and unlike some of the gas giant moons, you don't have any tidal heating to help out. Basically, you'll need to generate your own heat.
All in all, it might be easier just to build a habitat *next* to Ceres. Give your rich and famous a lofty tower from which to look down on the toiling proles, etc.
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Your answer is a shellworld: ...inflated shells holding high pressure air around an otherwise airless world to create a breathable atmosphere. The pressure of the contained air supports the weight of the shell.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shellworld>
<https://www.space.com/23082-shell-worlds-planet-terraforming-technology-infographic.html>
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I am simply going to say: yes, it will be possible, but not on the *outer* surface.
The idea would be to hollow out Ceres, increase its rotation so that you'd get 1g when standing on the then *inner* surface.
It would be comparibly easy to fill the inner, carved out sphere with an atmosphere.
This is a bit like this hollow earth conspiracy or like a dyson sphere without the sun. Talking about the light source, this would have to be provided artificially of course as well as you would need locks to the outer surface for ships to pass through.
The idea of a hollowed out Ceres is essentially seen in The Expanse, albeit it not to the extent I described here.
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Is it possible to have an atmosphere that is essentially fog, but still be breathable by humans?
I'm basically looking to have an environment where visibility is very low (for suspense reasons) even in full daylight (which would obviously not be that bright in this case).
If such an atmosphere is technically possible, what effect would that have on plant/animal life? I assume that it would be like growing plants in constant misty rain, so only plants that thrive on lots of water would grow? But I am one of those not smart guys, so I could be way off.
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# Optical depth
Let's start by looking at the idea of [optical depth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_depth). Optical depth is a quantity that describes how light is attenuated as it travels through a medium. There are two commonly used equations for optical depth, $\tau$. In a homogeneous1 medium, they are
$$\tau=n\sigma x,\quad\tau=\kappa\rho x$$
Here, $n$ and $\rho$ are the number and mass densities of the medium, $\sigma$ is the cross-sectional area for absorption2, $\kappa$ is a quantity called the *opacity* of the medium, and $x$ is the distance traveled by light. As an example, if light travels through a uniform slab of optical depth $\tau(x)$, the intensity of the light after traveling a distance $x$ will be
$$I(x)=I\_0e^{-\tau(x)}=I\_0e^{-n\sigma x}=I\_0e^{-\kappa\rho x}$$
In stellar astrophysics, the surface of the Sun - the edge of its photosphere - is [defined as the radius $r$ at which $\tau=2/3$](https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/a/22457/2153). In general, we can say that an object is *opaque* if $\tau\geq 1$.
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1 In reality, most mediums are not of uniform density, and so we would rewrite the first equation as$\tau(x)=\int\_0^xN(x')\sigma dx'$, where $N(x)$ is the column density. However, on your planet, I'd guess that over short distances, $N$ is approximately uniform.
2 $\sigma$ is usually wavelength-dependent, and should really be written as $\sigma\_\lambda$. The same goes for the opacity.
# Scattering cross-sections
When talking about scattering in gases, there are two main regimes. When the scattering of light of wavelength $\lambda$ is due to particles of diameter $d$, the theory of [Rayleigh scattering](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayleigh_scattering) holds when $d\ll\lambda$ and the more general [Mie scattering](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mie_scattering) holds when $d\simeq\lambda$. Now, for visible light, $\lambda\sim10^{-7}$ meters. In air, the Rayleigh approximation holds well, but [for fog, $d\sim10^{-6}$ meters](https://www.atoptics.co.uk/droplets/clouds.htm), and Mie theory would be more appropriate.
Regrettably, all solutions for the cross-sections in Mie scattering are numerical, not analytical. I'm going to therefore try to use Rayleigh scattering as an example. Let's calculate some cross-sections. Assuming that air has an index of refraction $n'$3 and mean particle diameter $d$, we get
$$\sigma\_{\text{air}}=\frac{2\pi^5}{3}\frac{d\_{\text{air}}^6}{\lambda^4}\left(\frac{n\_{\text{air}}'^2-1}{n\_{\text{air}}'^2+2}\right)^2$$
For [air at standard temperature and pressure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_refractive_indices), $n\_{\text{air}}'\approx1.000293$, and $d\_{\text{air}}\sim2\times10^{-9}$ meters, generously. If we pick light midway through the visible spectrum - say, green light with $\lambda=550$ nm - then we find that $\sigma\_{\text{air}}\sim5\times10^{-33}$ square meters.
For fog, let's bite the bullet and use the same approximation. We'll say $d\_{\text{fog}}\sim5\times10^{-6}$ meters. I wasn't able to find great figures for the index of refraction, but [this group](https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00295262/document) indicates $n\_{\text{fog}}'\approx1.5$ for some fogs. Using the same formula gives me $\sigma\_{\text{fog}}\sim3\times10^{-6}$ square meters - much larger than $\sigma\_{\text{air}}$, as one would expect.
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3 I'm using $n'$ and not the normal $n$ here so as to not confuse it with number density, $n$.
# Putting it together
It should now be clear that the dominant source of extinction is due to fog. The number densities of air and fog should be relatively similar, and so $n\_{\text{fog}}\sigma\_{\text{fog}}\gg n\_{\text{air}}\sigma\_{\text{air}}$. We can therefore say that the optical depth is largely thanks to fog. Now, say we define "opaque" as meaning that $\tau=1$ at a distance of $x=1$ meters. We then would need to have a number density of
$$n\_{\text{fog}}=\frac{\tau}{\sigma\_{\text{fog}}x}\approx3.32\times10^5\text{ particles/m}^3$$
which comes out to $1.7\times10^{-7}$ kg/m$^3$ . . . which is much less dense than water vapor, by a factor of about $10^6$. **Clearly, the Rayleigh approximation fails.**
# Applying Mie theory
So, fortunately, smart people out there have built tools that let the rest of us calculate some important factors. I used [this Mie scattering calculator](https://omlc.org/calc/mie_calc.html). Plugging in a radius of $d=5$ microns, a light wavelength of $\lambda=550$ nm, and an index of refraction of $n\_{\text{fog}}'=1.5$ (and an imaginary index of refraction of $-0.3$, as given in the linked paper), the calculator gave me $\sigma\_{\text{fog}}\sim3\times10^{-8}$ square meters, lower than our Rayleigh result by a factor of 100. This, then, means a number density of $n\_{\text{fog}}\approx3.32\times10^7$ particles per cubic meter, and a mass density off of water vapor by a factor of $10^4$, rather than $10^6$.
Now, you wouldn't expect the atmosphere to have the density of water vapor. On Earth, fog constitutes a much smaller fraction of air, which is why we don't suffocate on a foggy day. The factor of $10^4$, then, seems somewhat reasonable, though possibly off by an order of magnitude or so. At any rate, Mie theory does, as expected, give a much better result, and it seems like the sort of atmosphere you require would not be unreasonable.
# What could cause this?
[The Grand Banks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Banks_of_Newfoundland) are arguably the foggiest place on Earth, where the warm Gulf Stream mixes with the cold Labrador current. However, that sort of mixing won't occur planet-wide - this is the only place on Earth it occurs on such a large scale - as currents of different temperatures will only meet like this in certain regions.
The [Swiss Plateau](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Plateau) might be a better example. [Fully foggy days occur from November to January](https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/joc.3714), and slightly less foggier days occur between October and February. This happens [because of a specific kind of temperature inversion](https://www.swisseduc.ch/immersion/geo/meteo/weather/docs/weather_situations.pdf), thanks to a wind current called a [bise](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bise), which interacts with the mountains. Turbulence underneath the inversion layer leads to low-level stratus clouds and, eventually, fog. Again, though, we have the problem that this sort of current won't occur everywhere in the world.
[San Francisco](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_fog) provides another interesting case. The Bay Area has great conditions for fog: moisture from the Pacific, a large temperature gradient between ocean currents and the land, and mountains to further trap clouds and fog. This sort of coastal region isn't foggy year-round, but when fog develops, it becomes extremely thick.
Essentially, the ingredients you want for really thick fog are
* Some sort of temperature gradient, whether that be colliding air/water currents or temperature differences between land and sea.
* A source of moisture, such as an ocean.
* Mountains or valleys to trap the fog and low-level clouds and prevent them from dissipating.
Combine elements from these three regions, hand-wave the currents a bit, and you have the potential for some very foggy regions. I'm thinking plenty of coastlines, plenty of mountains and valleys, and lots and lots of water.
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Fog is just a suspension of minute droplets of water/liquid in the atmosphere. If the atmosphere was breathable before the fog, it stays breathable also with the fog.
There are cities in our world where fog is notoriously a major aspect of their life, still they flourish (think London or Frisco).
Water based fog can be highly beneficial for life: in the Namib desert the only supply of water comes from the fog forming on the dunes thanks to the close-by ocean.
Things can be different if the fog contains other chemicals: a fog of sulfuric acid would be highly aggressive and therefore not suitable for life forms. Such a case happens with smog (see Beijing or London), which is fine dispersion of fog and other pollutants.
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There's a difference between humid and foggy. Humid is what you get in swamps. We don't necessarily want that. Fog occurs for many reasons, but I believe the most popular is warm water and cold air. This is why there's a miniature bank of fog over the road where the river crosses under it early spring and late fall.
So, you need to heat the water and cool the air. How could you do this?
* A thin mantle (warm magma is near the surface, think "hot springs" all over the planet, including the ocean), shallow oceans, and a planet near the outer extreme of the habitable zone (cool air). The closer the planet is to the sun, the thinner the mantle must be.
* A heavily ruptured mantle (TONS of active volcanos) on a world with few if any continents (islands everywhere). Deep oceans are OK with this one and it can be better situated in the habitable zone.
Cheers!
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On earth, all sorts of machines require heavy oils and lubricants in order to function correctly, be it bearing grease, engine oil, transmission fluid or hydraulic oil, the majority of which are produced from heavy petroleum fractions.
Most plastics, such as polyethylene, ABS, or PVC, are synthesized from materials that ultimately come from petroleum.
Even when gasoline is no longer being burned for energy, oil and plastics are still needed.
While it's possible to synthesize fundamentally the same products from more basic raw materials, it's a lot more expensive to do it that way (although this is at least partially due to the way the demand for gasoline and diesel help subsidize the cost of fractions that might otherwise be unusable.)
If crude petroleum isn't available though, such as when colonizing a planet or mining asteroids in space, how would this be dealt with?
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You would use [tholins](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tholin)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/OEtrF.jpg)
<https://nai.nasa.gov/annual-reports/2013/jpl-titan/task-341-nuclear-magnetic-resonance-spectroscopy-studies-of-titan-organic-analogues-analytical-potential/>
>
> Tholins (after the Greek θολός (tholós) "hazy" or "muddy"; from the
> ancient Greek word meaning "sepia ink") are a wide variety of organic
> compounds formed by solar ultraviolet irradiation or cosmic rays from
> simple carbon-containing compounds such as carbon dioxide (CO2),
> methane (CH4) or ethane (C2H6), often in combination with nitrogen
> (N2). Tholins do not form naturally on modern-day Earth, but they are
> found in great abundance on the surface of icy bodies in the outer
> Solar System, and as reddish aerosols in the atmosphere of outer Solar
> System planets and moons.
>
>
>
Tholins are complex hydrocarbons which could serve as industrial feedstock as well as (or better than) terrestrial petrochemicals. Better because petrochemicals have a large proportion of extremely long high molecular weight "asphaltenes" which complicated the handling of petrochemicals. Tholins, being formed under conditions of much lower concentration, would not have that cumbersome high MW component.
Tholins would not be available in deep space, but nothing is available in deep space. Pretty much anywhere else that there is not an abundance of oxygen your tholins will be there for the collecting.
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>
> If crude petroleum isn't available though, such as when colonizing a planet or mining asteroids in space, how would this be dealt with?
>
>
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When you go doing these things, you are supposed to take your fuel and cargo along with you.
If you want to know about having a sustainable industry for materials and fuels, though, you just go for the alternatives.
You can mine asteroids for ice. With something to separate oxygen from hydrogen and a power source (such as solar panels, or RTG's), you will be producing your own fuel and oxydizer.
As for colonies, [not all plastics come from petroleum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioplastic). An economy based on these and tech inovation can make bioplastics become cheaper than regular plastic.
Remember that humanity did not have petroleum for most of its history, and it never stopped us from exploring and spreading around. Petroleum is just one resource that we are using now. Someday it should be replaced by other resources. Even if we still end up using some, it will not be the most used source for cheap material and fuel - just like wood ceased being fuel and vehicle building material at some point too.
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Grow plants. You have to do this for oxygen and food anyway, so you can use the inedible parts for plastics, lubricants, and so on. E.g. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioplastic> <http://www.besustainablemagazine.com/cms2/bio-based-lubricants-from-vegetable-oils/>
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Polyethylene is comprised of the chemical formula C2H4. It's made from hydrocarbons on earth because thats the most common way to refine them.
* <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyethylene#Properties>
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/iARP1.png)
There's plenty of carbon and hydrogen in space. The question is what will you use to refine it to produce usable chemicals and materials for your space exploration.
Not all lubricants are based on hydrocarbons. As an example, I am a big fan of high temperature lithium grease.
Good luck with your space factory.
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**A Fun Side Effect of Fusion Energy is Infinite Hydrocarbon compounds**
Hydrocarbons (oil) can be chemically produced from well... hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen molecules. Its just really REALLY energy intensive to the point of being ludicrous at the moment. If you have reliable and mature fusion reactors you basically have so much surplus energy that you quickly have the problem of trying to find out ways to get rid of it. In a post-fusion energy economy energy becomes so cheap that you can now economically perform actions that formerly were scientifically possible but economically infeasible. We're talking transmuting lead or bismuth into gold with particle accelerators, mass-manufacturing diamonds from carbon, and even synthesizing hydrocarbons (oil) from base elements. So to answer your question, all your space oil production needs is hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon (some of the most common elements in the universe) and a reasonably sized fusion reactor powering a refinery where energy intensive processes that would have bankrupt entire nations prior to the advent of fusion energy now take place 24/7 for pennies on the dollar.
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Chemical compounds that should be usable as feedstocks for making plastics, lubricants and so on are available in the asteroid belt. Samples arrive on Earth on the form of [carbonaceous chondrite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbonaceous_chondrite) meteorites. These contain significant amounts of water as well as a wide variety of organic compounds.
These will need different processing to petroleum, but you would need to redesign your chemical factories to operate in space anyway. The efficient way to set up chemical industry in space would be to find the asteroids that are the [parent bodies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteorite_classification) for carbonaceous chondrites, and put the factories there.
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Imagine a world somewhat like today’s. Two servers, halfway across the world from each other, decide to declare war on each other. How would one server attempt to kill the personnel in the other server?
Notes:
The stratagem should cause as little harm as possible to civilians, and definitely not to the attackers (aka nuclear war is out of the question)
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**Right. This asks for a precise and logic approach. Plenty of cycles available, yes?**
1. Identify every single person (while protecting the id of your own crew).
This of course includes any server backup and backup power facility crew. Not only name, address, social security number, but also mobile number, facebook page, twitter account, IP number, you get the picture.
2. Select a method per person that can be utilized simultaneously.
This must be achievable digitally. There are SO many options:
* Out as criminal snitch of organised crime.
Provided with the proper
documentation a sniper/hired killer/whatever will turn up on the doorstep any night soon. Discrete, professional, good success rate.
* Drive mad significant other by providing evidence of marital straying.
Only works if there is usable material present in the private life of the target, of course. Many many married targets will qualify. If not already present, planting a deadly weapon in the house is mandatory.
* Hack law enforcement systems to include target on most wanted terrorist list.
This will work quite nicely for (shy) bachelors.
* Hack car, drive off bridge.
Hacking airplanes lacks precision, so...
* Hack medical system and tinker with prescription drug doses.
Allergy info will help here, a lot.
3. Have a plan B in reserve for any survivors.
For these and such persons that live off the grid you'll need to contract some hired killers directly. And/or poison the office coffee machine.
[Answer]
Broadcast fake news stories that the nations are divided into two groups, let's call them Blue and Red, and convince everyone that they are one of the two colors, and then give them any excuse to not like each other, and then sit back and let biology do the rest. As long as the machines can control the news narrative, various propaganda experiments over the last few decades show that the machines could get the populace into a pretty nasty frenzy fairly quickly.
[Answer]
**JavaScriptCoder dramatically changed this question after I came up with an answer**
The original question was how to make cyber war lethal. I even addressed issues with a military-only option before the question change. It is my belief that cyberwarfare will not be clean or tidy. Once it starts, civilians will die.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/xKgEA.jpg)
* Shut down all computers in hospitals
* Shut down all air traffic control systems
* Shut down all banking systems
You could skip the first steps, but if you could do coordinated attacks, all of these systems usually have their own backup power. You could try and order a full scale attack with the military and hope the retaliation wipes out the country. There's enough protections in place that this would most likely not work. But if you're looking for scenarios, it's a great one. Don't turn our military on our civilians, turn another military into the attacker.
Then...
* Shut down the electrical grid
Chaos will rear it's head and do the follow-up work for you. With no power, many industries stop working. With so much emphasis on electronic currency, most countries would fail to be able to function in a normal fashion.
I bet the ppeppers are the first to go. ;)
Good luck with anarchy.
[Answer]
* Hack the home automation in the homes of the personnel or in the office where the servers stand. Try to create lethal effects -- fans in the air conditioning overheat and ignite accumulated dust, meanwhile the light goes off, and so on.
* Hack driverless cars or delivery drones and cause accidents on the road.
* Go into medical systems and cause them to prescribe a lethal cocktail.
* **Cause the police to go after them, with "when in doubt, shoot" orders.** Make them appear to be dangerous terrorists, maybe.
* For that matter, get them arrested and they're out of the picture, too. Repeat until there is no fully qualified replacement.
[Answer]
As ideas get stolen all the time, I'll cite this one from Neal Stephenson's 'Snow Crash', just because it's so hilariously insane:
**Spoilers**
Create a computer virus, that is written in an ancient Sumerian dialect. Because Sumerian is old, obviously this means also that it's primitive, in a sense that it is somehow fundamentally understood by your brain's visual center (an old part of your brain).
In this way you can write a virus that generates images. Those images encode some Sumerian shutdown-commands into your brain if you look at them. Next, you go crazy and then you die.
So essentially you just have to have this second layer of 'kill yourself' commands in some porn and find out what porn the enemy likes.
[Answer]
* Have the heating system hacked. to much pressure in the boiler and
BOOM. (there are safeties, but they are also controlled electronical)
* freezer gets hacked, and overheats -> fire
* pacemaker gets hacked...
* get personnel fired/arrested with illegal stuff on there computers.
* leak classified information and blame a worker
* post on social media in the name of one worker...
* server gets overclocked so they will more likely destroy themselves
* yeah, self driving cars or cars with automatic parking help.
* steal all their money so they can't pay electric bill
* hack electric company and make them believe they didn't get paid
[Answer]
I assume you're looking to justify something like the "Ghost in the Shell" precedent of people apparently being electrocuted when they're hacked and/or how people in the Matrix die when something happens to them in the virtual world.
Normally electrocution wouldn't be possible however if the people in your world have invasive brain-computer interfaces like implanted electrode arrays then taking control of said interface could enable an attacker to attack the person's brain directly. It seems unlikely that there wouldn't be some sort of failsafe mechanism to prevent excessive voltage being supplied to the electrodes however perhaps the attacker uses it to induce an epileptic fit (implanted electrodes are currently used to treat severe epilepsy) or overwhelm the target with nonsensical/nauseating sensations, severe motion sickness might not kill the target but it could make them wish they were dead.
[Answer]
People seem to forget there are many ways to covertly use technology to eliminate you opponent in the right manner:
* Drones: use personal drones and modify them to [have a gun](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjtkcetla3sAhVHp1kKHTohD3cQyCkwAHoECAQQAw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DFI--wFfipvA&usg=AOvVaw1BNl6PvUiEZSaKKMBFSkrQ) or contain explosives to attack your opponent. Even if you don't directly want to kill the target, you can damage critical infrastructure this way.
* Steal information from places like social media and money through hacking. The money can help you purchase what you need to destroy the other side while damaging their finances and ingraining paranoia. You can use hacks to gain money by directly attacking your targets or convincing others to digitally give you less traceable currencies like Bitcoin. [North Korea used cyberattacks](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-cyber-un-idUSKCN1UV1ZX) to make $2 billion US Dollars.
* Target power grids, trains of target, or [even the stock market](http://www.hometownannapolis.com/news/top/2010/09/24-11/Clarke-More-defense-needed-in-cyberspace.html) to damage the economy of the opponent's nation or source of income. Take advantage of any chaos caused by economic collapse, power outages, and train derailments/problems however you see fit.
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In the same vein as Harry Potter's "you-know-who", "he-should-not-be-named", and such, sometimes certain words become taboo, even *when in private conversation.*
**In a tribe, what could cause celestial object name become a taboo?**
I'm planning to have a tribe with many restrictions on referring to celestial objects. They know the existence of sun, moon, and stars, and have the words for them, but refuse to use it even in writing and conversation. They simply refer to them with pronouns, such as "it" or "them".
>
> "Do you want to watch it set?" "No, we better watch it rise tomorrow."
>
>
> "They are so misaligned this night. Something bad is bound to happen soon."
>
>
>
I imagine the tribe has nomadic life in a desert. They encounter the sun, moon, and stars everyday, but never to refer to them directly.
**Note:** This is set in a fantasy world, and there's quite substantial magic around. Mentioned just in case it is relevant to your answer.
[Answer]
## Sacred
Some words are considered sacred. This is true especially for names that refer to deities. For example, [the Hebrew name of God](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetragrammaton) is usually referred by [Adonai](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_God_in_Judaism#Adonai).
In your example, the celestial objects may be worshipped, and referred sun as "He", moon as "She", and stars as "They".
## Fear
Some will avoid certain word because of fear of what the word refers to. For example, [Lord Voldemort](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Voldemort) in Harry Potter series is repeatedly referred to as "You-Know-Who", "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named", or simply by his title "the Dark Lord". Speaking the word is equal of summoning the figure, which should not be done.
## Spell
The name of the celestial object has similar pronunciation of a spell. Saying "So'" invokes a fireball to the direction of your finger currently point to. Saying "Lune" emits a freezing blizzard within 18 feet.
That's why to avoid accidental spell casting, celestial object names are forbidden from being said.
[Answer]
### The leader says so
For some reason the leader of your tribe fears the stars. Maybe his mother told him that the stars will come down and kill everyone he loves if he doesn't eat his vegetables, or he read an old story about a mystical dragon hiding in the firmament that will come down to hunt you if you defile its name, but there was no name mentioned.
Whatever the exact reason for this superstitious fear is: he command everyone to never ever refer to the celestial objects again. Everyone who is caught giving the things-hanging-above a name will be killed immediately.
When his son or daughter is born he tells them his stories - how an evil dragon once killed a tribe nearby because the people didn't listen to his words. Or how the angel of destruction will come down if you anger the gods above by naming the things-hanging-above. The new leader will take this as a truth and keep up the tradition of killing everyone who dares to name the things-hanging-above.
After a handful of generations most of the normal people will believe these legends, too. And because of the fear of being killed without any form of trial thry will teach their children to never name the things-hanging-above. And then you have your taboo.
**You just need one leader with too much power and tell him a few horror stories when he's a child.**
[Answer]
Naming them draws their (malevolent) attention.
In some European lore, mischievous supernatural beings are referred to by circumlocutions to avoid accidentally insulting them and drawing bad luck.
Reference: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aos_S%C3%AD>
[Answer]
If your fantasy world has a high-tech history (perhaps a beyond-nuclear war which broke the laws of physics; allowing magic to re-enter the world)...
Then the stars above might actually have a history which warrant fear and discretion when speaking their names. Some of the stars might actually be pre-war satellites, assassination satellites which can literally call down hell-fire (lasers) upon man-size targets on the ground.
If the last tech users had radio-based voice control over those satellites, then during their last battle against your tribe, they may have called out the name of each satellite, invoking its attack protocol. When the stars responded by killing your tribesmen's grandfathers, that would leave the survivors with a tremendous reverence for the spoken name of each star.
Lacking the necessary radio equipment, the tribesmen are in no real danger of invoking a satellite attack, but they don't know that. So a tradition of fear propogates itself down across the generations.
[Answer]
**They are exiles**
Imagine that stars, sun and moon are not celestial objects, they are exiled powerful beings. Sun was their leader who ruled YourWorldNamium with his ferocious hand, burning everyone and everything that dared to oppose him. Lune was his beloved one, but she was cold as ice and cruel to everything that lives. And there were many of those who followed them silently in their wake. But their reign didn't last long since YourPowerfulGoodGods engaged in a war with them and won it. The leaders and their countless followers were exiled far away to the cosmic emptiness, allowed only to see the world they once ruled. Later, YourGoodGods left YourWorldNamium, seeking retirement in some higher plane of existence.
That left the world with Sun, Lune and the stars hanging in the sky. Exiles can only see their former land. But even now people feel the chilling wind in the freezing desert during the Lune's night; they also feel an unbearable heat that comes from enraged Sun during the day. Your tribe still carries the memories of old days and they know who are those beings above them and why these beings shouldn't be referred by their names. These are exiles.
[Answer]
**They are naked goddesses.**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/9lyvF.jpg)
<https://www.criminalelement.com/blogs/2013/04/warning-virgins-bathing-ahead-andy-adams-greek-mythology-ovid-actaeon-artemis-diana>
Why would a good looking bunch of goddesses care if some dude saw them naked? But they do. In the myth of Diana and Actaeon, Actaeon stumbles into the bathers and of course checks them out. And is turned into a stag and torn apart by his own dogs. The takeaway principle I think is stated best by Seinfeld.
>
> “Looking at cleavage is like looking at the sun. You don't stare at
> it. It's too risky. Ya get a sense of it and then you look away.”
>
>
>
Naked goddesses in the sky actually combine both of these risky actions. Keep your eyes on your driving. Maybe a raised eyebrow to your buddy who caught a glimpse. Say nothing. Don't look again.
[Answer]
One word:
**Apophenia**
*Is the tendency to attribute meaning to perceived connections or patterns between seemingly unrelated things.*
Let's say that a catastrophe occurs while someone in a small comunity says the name, like a shaman or a bishop, and this catastrophe kills alot of innocents and destroys a lot of buildings and homes.
Years after people still struggle to recover from the catastrophe and the government or those in charge have not yet recovered from the coup, people in the streets between whispers continues to say that the celestial body is unlucky, but it is only that, gossip and chatter.
Then it happens again, another famous and unrelated figure again publicly pronounces the name and another great disaster or devastation occurs, (it can be the same or different).
People blame the celestial body and finally finally, when someone returns to pronounce the name, small disasters follow, small tremors, droughts, floods.
All begin to blame the celestial body because they see no other explanation.
*Others remember what happened in 2016 and the Oscar-Dicaprio Oscar*
*(I still blame him for everything that happened and I have no evidence of it)*
[Answer]
Religious skizims or endless debate.
Everyone sees the stars. No one knows what they are for sure, but that doesn't stop them from having an opinion. Loudly. In the past various people have said the things in the sky are this or that, that they want this or that. This lead to many really useless meetings, a lot of bad feelings and some fighting. The tribe now has turned their backs on everything related to the sky to preserve peace.
"If you are going to fight about it NOBOBY gets the sky."
Magic
The people who know the stars use them for magic (like astrology or seasons if you don't like fireballs) and reserve their names to themselves. If you are caught practicing magic without a license you can expect seven years of flies in your soup.
[Answer]
The celestial objects are the source of magical power. Their true names are words of power: fine.
But that makes powerful magic very easy, which would lead to catastrophe. The true names would be state secrets, guarded by much more than taboo: more like guilds of assassins defending the stability of reality.
The celestial objects are malevolent gods, insane, spiteful, watchful--
or at least prideful bordering on psychotic. *Any* conversations about them, offend them. Words used to refer to them regularly attract their notice, which is always bad.
So, you have to instead talk all around the subject. The more you talk about it, the more circuitous you have to be.
This is pretty similar to Frankin's and user2851843's, but not identical.
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[
Women are able to use magic by absorbing energy from a parallel dimension called the aether. They are able to access this dimension through a metaphysical organ in the body called the gate of life. By concentrating, this gate can "open" and absorb energy from the aether to produce spells in the real world. Magic is slow and complex, taking minutes to hours to perform. However, it can be powerful depending on the spell (growing crops, healing, etc) All women are born with this ability, but some are better at it than others. In this scenario, pregnancy would be treated like a long spell, taking the course of months. Men are still required for conception, but Energy must be absorbed through the gate from the aether to grow the fetus. Women are far more "in tune" with their reproductive cycle and functions. The mother can literally feel the life growing inside of her, and can communicate with it in some limited way.
I would like to expand on this premise and use magic in a way that actively influences the genes of a fetus. I want it to be effective and safe for the most part, but not completely remove danger or negative consequences. How can I use magic to this effect? What should be the risks involved?
[Answer]
As any well-educated woman knows, to effect genetic changes one uses the spell *"ingeniatrix genetica"* with its subclauses; for example *"ingeniatrix genetica oculos cyaneos"* to make the child's eyes blue, or *"ingeniatrix genetica intellectualem"* to make the child have a superior IQ. With enough aetheric energy available one can use more complex spells, such as *"ingeniatrix genetica bellissimam dominatricem"* to have a very beautiful and assertive daughter.
Prepare against side effects by superadding the spell *"effectûs laterales prohibitrix"* as soon as possible, ideally within 10 days after conception.
This is really Genetic Automagic 101; I would have thought that such basic genetic engineering spells were taught in girls' finishing schools throughout the realm, except possibly in some empoverished rural areas.
[Answer]
One obvious goal of a magically manipulative mother would be to influence the size and strength of her fetal daughter's gates of life organ. The potential upside is that her daughter's magical abilities will outshine all other fem-mages of her age. The down side is that that daughter will someday become a teenager with all of the normal animosity and angst. Being the mother of such a powerful daughter will likely be a dangerous and potentially fatal endeavor.
[Answer]
Magic as an essential tool for pre-industrial genetic engineering has been widely used in two franchises: Geneforge and Ravnica. Additionally, your description of women is reminiscent of the Bene-Gesserit.
# Geneforge
The Geneforge series by [Spiderweb Software](http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com/) follows a conflict between the [Shapers](http://geneforge.wikia.com/wiki/Shapers) and their [creations](http://geneforge.wikia.com/wiki/Creations). The Shapers are a sect of magicians who learned how to use magic to create and manipulate life. First they learned that magic applied to certain reagents (such as a reptile egg) would modify the embryos within. Through massive amounts of trial and error they learned which applications of magic produced optimized results such as breathing fire ([Fyora](http://geneforge.wikia.com/wiki/Fyora)), semi-intelligent [servants](http://geneforge.wikia.com/wiki/Serviles), or entire ecosystems. Then they learned how to magically charge organic reagents into a universal reagent: [essence](http://geneforge.wikia.com/wiki/Essence).
Eventually, they learned how to create a (magical?) microscope. In doing so they were able to view the fundamental 'scrolls' (DNA) in all living things. Then by mapping these scrolls and tracking what changed with magical application, they learned how to vastly improve their techniques in a targeted manner rather than through endless trial and error. This culminated in the creation of the [Geneforge](http://geneforge.wikia.com/wiki/Geneforge_(Device)), a pool of essence designed to rewrite and augment the scrolls of a shaper or creation.
# Simic Combine
In the Magic The Gathering plane of Ravnica, a city covers the entire plane and is controlled by 10 guilds. One of the guilds, the [Simic Combine](http://mtg.gamepedia.com/Simic_Combine), was created to preserve the health of all life-forms on the plane. Eventually, one of its Guild Masters, [Momir Vig](http://mtg.gamepedia.com/Momir_Vig), decided to lead the guild in a new direction: to improve life. Drawing upon their study of life, medicines, and biomancy. In particular their biomancers uses biomancy to mutate lifeforms or create new biotools such as the [Cytoplasts](http://mtg.gamepedia.com/Project_Kraj).
# Bene-Gesserit
In Frank Herbert's [Dune Saga](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_(franchise)), the most active and prominent faction is the [Bene Gesserit](http://dune.wikia.com/wiki/Bene_Gesserit). They are a powerful and ancient order of women with a host of physical and mental abilities that earn them the moniker of "witches". In particular, by taking a poison that brings them to the edge of death, they gain the ability to control their internal biochemistry and access the memories of their female ancestors. The former enables them to create an antidote to the poison before it kills them. Those who fail this 'trial' die. In several instances it's pointed out that their biochemical control enables them to create poisons, or alter pregnancies up to and including determining the gender of their child.
# Your Case
You state the following:
>
> Women are able to use magic by absorbing energy from a parallel dimension called the aether.
>
>
> Magic is slow and complex, taking minutes to hours to perform.
>
>
> In this scenario, pregnancy would be treated like a long spell, taking the course of months.
>
>
>
Taking after Geneforge, these women can use trial and error to modify the zygote, embryo, or fetus. and track which applications of magic creates preferable alterations.
Since
>
> The mother can literally feel the life growing inside of her, and can communicate with it in some limited way.
>
>
>
It follows that the mother can track which applications of magic created which effects. (Cause > effect)
Keeping track of this information and teaching it to new initiates much like the Shapers of Geneforge would enable them to build upon the knowledge and refine their processes. Furthermore, as Henry Taylor suggested, it would be optimal for these women to refine and optimize their child's life organ (and/or create the organ in a male child).
Furthermore, I recommend you refine your definition of her internal sense of the pregnancy and communication. The level of sensory input will strongly determine their ability to make precise changes and record/confirm the result. Similarly, the communication opens another door. Do you mean she can communicate with the unborn child? At what point (embryo, brain development, etc...). Similarly why is she able to sense the pregnancy as opposed to her own body, and at what point can this enable the same control (or at least sense) of biochemical control like the Bene Gesserit?
[Answer]
I think that trying to directly change the genes is going to be too dangerous and too complex to manage. We've been intensively studying the human genome for decades, and we're not even close to being able to reliably say what genes are necessary for specific traits.
Rather, magic should be used to blend the foetal genome with that of another person or animal who has a desired trait, or to mold the body's features 'blindly'.
## Blending
This would involve a woman focusing on a person or animal who has the desired trait - let's say blue eyes - and creating a connection between the desired one and the foetus. The woman wouldn't know exactly what was happening, but the magic would make the foetal DNA more like that of the desired one. The woman would get a 'feeling' when the change had been accomplished.
She could only change one trait at a time, and there would always be the possibility of other traits changing along with the one she wanted, or the new trait mixing unpredictably with existing traits. For example, she might want to copy a great politician's intelligence, but accidentally get his sociopathy along with it, or she might copy blonde hair and blue eyes into a foetus that already has reduced melanin production, and accidentally make her child albino.
## Molding
This would be a rather hit-and-miss method, with a woman using a meditative state to blindly "Change" the foetus, and observe the result. If she liked the result, she could make the change permanent; if not, she could reverse it. The more deeply a mother could meditate, the more detail she could see in the result of a change - untrained mothers would only be able to see the effect of a change in the next few weeks, fully trained and enlightened women would be able to see the result up to the age of about ten years.
[Answer]
Why does genes need to be modified to engineer your children? In a world with magical child birth, you can just say that the magic present while the child is in gestation is what molds the person instead of explaining it with genes. In that way, you can easily say that magic coming from different sources can be used to cast a spell to enhance the pregnancy and making more powerful children. Maybe if a second women shares her aether energy with the mother is enough to alter the child.
What ever side effect you choose could be magical in the world's context. Maybe having been birthed with more than 1 person's aether magic can make children that are insane because they have multiple personalities that don't mix. Or incompatible aethers can make a child unable to do magic entirely because they cancel out.
[Answer]
During the pregnancy spell, the mother can manipulate the genes of their offspring by channeling the energy of the aether through people (or maybe even animals?).
This channeling will slowly alter the DNA of the offspring with the genes of the subject being channeled through. This channeling can only be done in close proximity and with deliberate effort.
This allows the mother to create amalgams of genes from people she identifies as having valuable genes. This of course can go wrong by combining genes in bad ways. And it can also go well by careful selection to get just the right set of genes.
It also allows the possibility of making genetic clones. Channeling through a single individual for the duration of the spell would cause all the genes to be the same as the target individual.
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[Question]
[
Given a semi-nomadic culture of arctic "hunter gatherers" with trade routes to the South, would it be impossible for them to develop metallurgy?
The setup I had in mind was that they trade ivory and/or furs for raw material and/or partially refined metal, take it home to their permanent winter camp and bang out some respectable tools and weapons over the long winters. Is this setup believable and realistic?
I'm asking largely because some have suggested that people who didn't really bother to develop agriculture or domestication, for the most part, wouldn't be technologically advanced enough, or somehow wouldn't be able to support a smith and forge.
Seems to me that if their hunting grounds were rich, and they're largely stuck indoors during the winter anyway, why not hone a craft?
They may have picked up the basics from their trading partners, but over time, could they become more or less experts in a medieval to early renaissance world?
[Answer]
I think with a permanent settlement and therefore forge it's not too unrealistic that your're tribe could developed advanced metallurgy. One absolute requirement for this is resource availability in their territory, but that's an easy fix. If you want them to trade their metal items (or have better ones then others) they might have access to an unique ore, maybe from meteorites in the area or something else.
The biggest problem I see is burnable material - in the Arctic that is neither easy to come by, nor is it a good idea to 'waste' it in a smelter, when you need to keep your homes warm. It seems a bit unrealistic to me, that they would gather wood over the summer to then use it for metalworking in the winter (there seems no good reason to do this).
The best solution I can come up with would be natural resources near their settlement (pick one from coal, oil or natural heat from volcanic activity). This also gives you a reason why they would settle at this place before developing metallurgy.
[Answer]
I don't see any obvious reasons why that couldn't work.
Fuel, as noted by some other answers, could be an issue if your people live entirely on the treeless [tundra](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tundra), but if they spend any time at all (perhaps only winters) in or near the [taiga](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiga), they'll have plenty of wood to burn for fuel. [Reindeer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reindeer) (which, even if not domesticated, were traditionally one of the main sources of meat and furs for arctic hunter-gatherers) live in both regions, often migrating between them, so it's perfectly reasonable for your arctic people to follow them.
As for "wasting" heat that could by used for staying warm (pointed out as a potential problem in some other answers), the obvious solution is to build your forge *inside* the hut or tent or dugout that you're living in. You're going to be heating that space anyway, so you might as well get some useful work out of it. Build your forge with a big pile of rocks to store the heat, fire it up in the evening, work some metal while you're waiting for the rocks to heat up, and finally douse the fire and let the rocks keep the place warm all night while you sleep.
As a bonus, you can also use the stored heat for cooking food, and the same structure can also serve as a [sauna](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_sauna#Smoke_sauna) for washing up. Minus the forging, that's pretty much how a traditional Finnish *savupirtti* ("smoke cottage") worked, and I see no reason why something similar couldn't work for your people, too. Of course, you don't *have* to combine all those functions into one structure, but if heat and fuel are scarce, that's one way to optimize it.
The biggest issue I see with your scenario, however, is economic: if the metal is not produced locally, why would traders bother to haul it all the way up north as raw ingots, when they could probably (especially early on, before your arctic smithing tradition was established) make a much better profit hauling finished goods instead? Traditionally, metal was usually either worked locally close to where it was mined, or it was traded to cities where smiths and other craftsmen would gather. Your proposed system, with scattered smiths in the arctic working on traded metal, kind of runs counter to that pattern.
That said, I don't think that's an insurmountable issue. Certainly many places historically had village smiths, specializing in simple repairs and adaptations of existing tools. It doesn't seem entirely implausible for some basic metalworking skills to become a useful and established trait among your arctic population, especially if trade in metal goods was common but irregular (so that metal tools would be reasonably common, but not always easily replaced if they broke), making the ability to repair them useful.
Getting the necessary skills introduced in the first place could be an issue, but that could plausibly come down to a one-time event, maybe even a single trained smith fleeing to or being captured by the arctic folk. And once established, it's entirely plausible that your arctic folk might develop some unique small-scale metalcrafting tricks or traditions that would justify exporting their produce, at least as specialty items or curiosities. Instead of importing raw metal, they might still (mostly) import simple metal tools and weapons and rework them (for practical reasons, or just to decorate them), but that could still allow the maintenance of a local smithing tradition.
[Answer]
TLDR; It's possible that this could work, but it would not be in the interest of your trading partners.
The biggest problem with this scenario is that if they don't have the metal ore to begin with, it is unlikely they would be able to compete. The Southern trading partners in this case are providing the metal, why would they not craft their own tools and weapons and trade these for the ivory and pelts instead? This would ensure that your semi-nomadic tribe is reliant upon their technology giving a major strategic advantage.
Not only this, but while your nomads are crafting tools in the winter, the Southerners can do so all year round. They also have more resources to spare (since they aren't going to trade away all of their refined metal) than your people would and so can afford to experiment leading to more advanced techniques.
The only way you can make this scenario work is if either your ivory is valuable enough for the trading partners to give up their technological advantage, or if your nomads have access to their own ore and it is the fuel that is supplied since iron will always be more valuable than wood or coal even in arctic conditions. Fuel is single use, a metal tool can last years with proper care.
Alternatively, have your Southerners destroyed by war/famine/plague etc. and their knowledge of metallurgy lost. This is unlikely to work and even if it did would not be a long-term situation.
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I like the idea of a geothermal forge that was raised earlier, if your community could develop a way of safely using it. I imagine someone skilled in understanding an active lava flow quickly creating a smelter in its path out of brick, only to return later to break open the (hopefully) still exposed top and remove the ingot inside. This individual would be highly regarded in the community for his bravery, and possibly even seen as being slightly mystic, transforming one thing into another. Another scenario is a very active flow that predictably travels through a channel of some sort, or better yet, a deep crevise with a pool at the bottom into which they can lower a crucible.
The thing I like most about this answer is that it provides a reason for the craft to have developed here specifically - the heat put out by a lava flow could be much higher than anything anyone else has learned to create. (I'm assuming no one in your world has developed the furnace). This could allow them to fully melt lower temperature alloys such as copper and bronze, allowing them to create castings. It also gives them a reason to live in such a place - the heat from geothermal activity could make the surrounding area just warm enough to survive, and even attract other wildlife.
If you're willing to stretch the truth just a little bit, there *have* been lava flows on earth [in excess of 1600 C](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komatiite), they just haven't happened for a *very* long time. Temperatures this high would have allowed for creation of high-carbon steel and steel castings. If you can imagine a way for these super-hot lava flows to continue (maybe the result of some very deep convection current that creates a hot spot), then this would be ideal for metalworking. Understanding of the hydrodynamics of the mantle would obviously be well beyond the limits of your community, however, so you likely wouldn't have to mention at all *why* it is as hot as it is, only that this community is the only one with access to such high temperatures.
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If it's semi-nomadic, and they have a permanent base to return to every set period of time (preferably once a year, on an earth-like planet) then
there is only a small chance this would happen, the main problem is this, the fuel, and needed materials needed to maintain such a forge in a barren arctic environment (A coal mine would work) is practically impossible, you would need your ivory to be made of gold if you want european traders to come to the arctic carrying the needed supply to maintain such a thing...
a more realistic scenario would be mining of metals, and then trading them in turn for readily made tools/weapons.
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As other commentators mentioned, it is rather hard to get fuel for metallurgy in the Arctic. But you can get metallurgy if there is metal just lying around - hundreds and thousands tons of meteorite pieces, made from high quality iron-nickel alloy. Then all you have to do is just cold forge it into shape required.
It happened in real life - Inuit made iron tools from 30 ton meteorite via cold forging. Details here <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_York_meteorite>
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The Inuit used to use native meteoric iron before European contact and Native Americans further south used native copper, both were processed using little or no heat. If there was a surface accessible seam of coal on their annual round (which wouldn't be at all unrealistic) then fuel wouldn't even be that much of a problem especially if they camp close to the seam for the winter. They *could* conceivably reach a high level of craft if they had the incentive and supplies to do the job, the control factors are regular supplies of raw materials and actually having a market domestic or export that demands product and can repay the material and labour expenses involved.
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Ten thousand random adults have been magically transported from Earth to an Earth-like planet with a surface gravity of 1.5g. The planet is otherwise completely habitable (enough sun, the right temperature, right mix of amino acids in the flora and fauna, plenty of fresh surface water etc.) There is no coming back to Earth and there is no communication possible with Earth.
**How long or how many generations would it take this group of humans to evolve to deal with the extra gravity?** Gene editing isn't possible since no tech came with this group. It's just raw survival of the fittest.
The 10K people are all at least 18 years old and in reasonable health. It's a clean 50/50 split between male and female. There are at least 100 doctors and 1000 engineers in the group.
## Out of Scope
Political concerns, warring factions, technology troubles, diseases not related to the extra gravity are all out of scope. The troubles with being magically transported to a new planet and starting civilization from scratch have been well covered elsewhere.
I've chosen 1.5g to be strenuous but survivable.
[Related question](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/40793/10364) about higher $g$ environments.
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The question of how many generations is moot; evolution is not a destination. If they survive, they survive. But what do they do to survive? And how does this affect the *direction* of their evolution over time? Before evolution can begin, natural selection of both individuals and cultural practices will be at play.
The first few weeks would be sheer hell for these unlucky transported souls. The change in gravity wouldn't kill them instantly, but would wear them down, hour-by-hour, day-by-day.
It would be hard on their hearts and circulatory systems. Their blood would weigh 50% more than on Earth, so their hearts would have to work 50% harder to push it around. The elasticity of their blood vessels would be put to the test. Varicose veins would abound. Many would perish by hemorrhagic stroke, and many more would be sporting blotchy, red skin. Feet would swell. Breathing would be difficult, as their diaphragms would have to push up against air and lungs that are now 50% heavier. Blood/oxygen levels would be lower than normal. Fainting and passing out would be common, and would often be deadly; they'd hit the ground with 50% more force. On top of this, their Earth-acquired reflexes and coordination would be hopelessly out of kilter. Bones would be broken, joints wrought, and ankles sprained.
On top of that, they would be extremely vulnerable to the predators inhabiting this world. On Earth, we were spear throwing, long distance running primates. On HeavyEarth, both running and throwing abilities would be severely handicapped. Catching food would be as probable as being food.
Many people would probably die in the first few months, if not weeks. Pregnancy would, in many cases, end up being deadly. The population would bottleneck.
Refuge would be found in salty water. The first generation would head towards the sea; floating would bring them relief from the weight of the world. Sweet relief from sore bones, joints and bulging blood vessels. Pregnant women, and new mothers would spend a lot of time in the water. Young children would grow up being very able swimmers. As on Earth, where the first human migrations followed the shoreline, so too would the transported humans. Net fishing would become a main source of food. The cultural practice of spending time in the water would be rewarded with longer life and more offspring.
Over time, adaptations would start arising that would be both advantageous to the gravity and also the sea. Stronger hearts, stronger veins, bigger lungs, stronger bones, webbed digits and upward pointing noses. Perhaps less hair and more blubber. Maybe even eventually an impressive dorsal fin...
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# 10,000 people
*Survival situation*
* A percentage will be fit and healthy, they will hopefully just be clumsy, uncomfortable and tired.
* A percentage will be unfit and overweight, they will really struggle quite a lot. If they're a Western group, this percentage could be quite high, many of them could die.
* A percentage will have some sort of cardiovascular medical condition, this group will probably die quickly.
# 6 months to a year
*Some sort of culture is established, acceptance of situation.*
* Group 3 are gone
* Group 2 are either relatively fit or gone, some of them may have survived the initial transition better than group 1 due to energy reserves.
* Group 1 if they found adequate food supplies before their own personal meagre reserves ran out could be adapting comparatively well.
They'll all be stronger and fitter than before, though as a species may need to rest more than on Earth, very few are carrying any extra weight round the waist. They may start considering having children by this point.
# 1st new generation
*Possible high infant mortality, possible high maternal mortality, depending on culture and achieved technology level. Ideally vaccines and some immunity to local diseases.*
Born into high gravity, they may not walk as early as Earth born children but they're the surviving children of the fittest and toughest of the 10,000. The evolutionary curve is going to be quite steep for this generation, but children adapt well. Could well have a lower life expectancy than on Earth just through extra load.
# 2nd new generation
They may not meet their grandparents, that constant high load is going to wear out hearts considerably faster. Now though they're the children of the survivors who, in their turn, were the children of the survivors. They were born to this. Effective adaptation to this new environment will only take a few more generations at most.
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The first generation should survive but have lots of problems to overcome strength wise and probably die fairly young of heart attacks.
But I would think the second generation would be adapted and fare better and each generation steadily become more adapted. Kids bodies are much more adaptable to environments as they grow in them than adults.
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Humans are very resilient and adaptable. Humans have carved out a niche in nearly every ecological environment from the arctic to the arid desert. They have done so without evolving. A Himalayan human who lived all his life in a colder, low-pressure environment could live happily and reproduce with humans living on the plains of Africa.
The first generation would struggle to move for a few months. After that, musculature would build up, their endurance would increase and bone structures would adapt. They might have problems in their 40's or 50's with joint problems, vision problems, and circulation.
Within three to five generations, subtle differences in heavier bone structure, stronger joints, and increased musculature. The differences would amount to a new race (as in the minor adaptations among people groups we are called races) but still human.
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It could take thousands of generations, it might never happen.
It doesn't matter much what happens to your body during your lifetime... those changes are not written into your DNA; which is the only thing passed on to your offspring. So even if you work out all day every day and become a bodybuilder, just like your father did, and just like our grandfather, there's absolutely no chance that your son will have an easier time of it.
My favorite example of this is that jews have been **cutting off their foreskin** for hundreds and hundreds of generations, yet each new generation just stubbornly gets born with foreskin again. And again. And again.
To make a genetic change requires a mutation, which is a random event. And in your case, probably very many mutations to make a stocky, muscled human with an advanced heart and circulatory system which can thrive in the increased gravity. Even if you breed any mutations that do occur, like the pedigree of **a prized stallion**, it could take forever as you wait for all the mutations you want/need to occur by chance.
Unfortunately, such a breeding program is the *best* case scenario, too. Modern humans have so much exogenetic factors that genetic mutations contribute almost nothing to our survival chances. We're born helpless and useless and underdeveloped, just to support our big brain. Because the brain learns culture and society, and culture and society improve your chances of survival more than muscles. (at least it did for many generations. The last few seem to have gotten more stupid).
Survival of the fittest is also survival of the most attractive, so even in the very unlikely event that all the right mutations take place, maybe your first squat, muscled, no-necked barrel chested **dwarves** are technically better suited for 1.5g, but they just aren't hot enough to pull some chicks.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/igPvc.jpg)
*Does anyone feel like reproducing?*
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I'll focus on *genetic shift*; e.g. biological evolution.
It depends greatly on the technology and civilization level.
If people survive and live normal lives as-is, thanks to the engineers and city life, then no evolution will take place. Other issues will overwhelm any small effect of reproductive bias.
If technology is knocked back to pre-industrial times, child mortality is high, large families are needed for a mostly rural lifestyle, then children who are better suited will survive.
Now the question is how long will it take for useful varieties to appear? This is a complete unknown, but note that the human gene pool is very shallow and still shows the effects of previous bottlenecks — this might be *why* we invented technology rather than adapting to new environments! Note the difference: brown bears turned into polar bears; humans learned how to make warm clothes.
On the other hand, overall stature might be “easy” as a simple change in hormones. People might become significantly smaller over a period of a few generations. In this case, we are still talking 5 to 10 generations though.
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The only way evolution happens is if a certain trait makes it more likely for people to reproduce. Some other answers have answered that people would become short and stocky in a few generations, but that's wayyy to fast.
Let me explain. Being at 1.5g is about the same as gaining 50% of your body weight. So a 6', 160 pound person would have an extra 80 pounds on his back. After a short time, say 1 year, he will be used to this weight. His muscles will grow and he will be much stronger, faster, and have more stamina than when he arrived.
A 5'5" 110 pound man would transform into a 165 pound man. And just like his buddy, after a short time he will become stronger, faster, and have more stamina.
But the only way for evolution to occur is for one of these people to have more kids than the other. Is one of these people necessarily more attractive to the women of this society? No. Over the generation, neither of these people would have a decided advantage based on just their new weight. There are a thousand other things that are evaluated. Personality, success, etc. Assuming the colonists society is not too unlike our own, physical specs will take a back seat to other traits.
In conclusion, people would row to be much stronger than the average earth human fairly quickly, then not much would be different.
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**~A few thousand to ten thousand generations, with the latter being more likely**
It is basically impossible to say, mostly becasue we don't know what adaptations are necessary in detail and even if we did predicting the evolution of such things is speculative at best. Plus as has been said evolution is not a destination, there is no end point to adaptation, problems may well persist forever. Evolution is full of things we are just stuck with, like bad backs, from using things in ways they never originally evolved for, and different gravity would definitely fall under that.
That all said you can come up with a safe estimate for when said people will be **physiologically distinct** from other humans. In 2-3 million years we know a new hominid species can evolve so when in doubt go with that. That comes out to around ~10,000 generations as a safe estimate.
Also consider it took humans ~3000 years/~130 generations to evolve lactose tolerance after we domesticated cattle so there is your bare unbelievable minimum. You should increase that by an order of magnitude considering you are talking about a whole suite of adaptations even for a minimum.
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On the world I am building (Let's call it Bob for simplicity's sake), the days last 9 years. As a result of this, the living beings on Bob must migrate across the planet to avoid the encroaching night. Now, obviously if Bob had continents like Earth, this would be impossible for animals (like the ones that would evolve into sapient beings.). So to combat this, Bob lacks oceans, he instead has large lakes (like the Caspian Sea) scattered every couple thousand kilometers.
Now, without oceans, the weather becomes a bit messed up, specifically the precipitation cycle. Only areas within a few hundred miles (at best) of a lake would get rain, and rarely at that. So, how do I permit rain forests to appear on Bob?
On a world, were rain is rare and not widespread, how can rain dependent biomes like rainforests develop?
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# Lakes + Mountains = Rainforest
Funny you should mention the Caspian Sea in your question. Look at the southern end of the Caspian Sea here:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Wi8xP.jpg)
Surrounded by dry desert on pretty much all sides, there is a dark green forested strip, covered with clouds. This is a result of northerly winds over the lake interacting with the [Alborz mountains](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alborz).
The result is heavy rainfall year round, although it is dryer in the summer. The mountain heights cause heavy snowfall on the high pastures in wintertime, and the melting snow inundates the lower forests all summer long. The result is cool, wet, mountain rainforest. No other ingredients required.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/fgjZG.jpg)
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It seems unlikely that quickly growing roots could circumnavigate the planet in 9 years. But I have a way you could do it. Hopefully I'm not too far off what you are trying to achieve.
Imagine a huge root system that goes around the planet in a belt, draws it's nourishment from whatever lakes are around. As night falls on part of it, it's basically autumn, the trees lose their leaves, the local roots draw in what they can and go dormant while the trees eventually die and fertilise the earth while the roots lie waiting below the frost for the next spring/day. Mushrooms spring up etc,.
With the areas that are just lighting up the roots feel the change and start putting out shoots and growing very fast for 9 years. So you have a moving rain forest in a belt around the entire planet where it's daytime and a bit of the night. Thickest and biggest at the trailing edge, and more sparse and younger trees at the leading edge.
The rain forest fauna would have to move with it, but I can imagine all sorts of specialists that might thrive in the leading and trailing edges and among the dying trees in the night.
They can do the things like throw seeds everywhere, have symbiotic relationships with animals etc, as well. It helps them spread and compete.
You could even have the rain forests only appear in suitable places, with pine type trees in suitable environments for them, all depends what roots are waiting for the sun to warm them.
This is probably the only way you could have specialist rain forest fauna. Otherwise they'd all die waiting 9 years in the dark for the seeds to sprout, if everything moves then they can evolve to move with it. The reason I use roots instead of seeds, is the water supply problem. Roots can store a lot, and with 9 years you can move water for a lot of km if you're imaginative about it.
If the different species had all evolved to share water for instance, you could basically have a suitable environment for all plants with water permeating through for hundreds of kilometres over time. So grasslands, wetlands, the whole deal.
Basically you're just transporting the water underground instead of in the clouds.
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Remember that since this is an alien planet it doesn't need to follow the normal rules of the plant/animal dichotomy here on Earth. Even if they do, they don't need to look like Earth rainforest to have a similar sort ecosystem/niche.
I don't see why the 9 year long nights are particularly a problem, as the "Plants" will have the 9 year long days to collect extra energy to store up for hibernation.
Tapping into geothermal energy is also possible as a way of staying alive, maybe even allowing some small stationary animal life depending on how much can be collected and put to use.
Another option for night survival could be semi-carnivorous supplements, possibly acquired through a symbiotic relationship with a species of swarming/social animals who hibernate(or even remain active?) inside it during the night-winters.
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The water comes from the ground, and from the sea, that's nothing new, the rainforest set lower than the sea level, and the seas are somehow connected with the ground, and water is leaking in there here's a useful pic:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/nF9EQ.gif)
Basically, the sea's pressure can press the water through cracks in the containing layer ( the "vízzáró")
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Assuming some kind of "warp gate" or "Space lane" that makes FTL travel between different stars feasible... What goods would be most likely to be traded? Especially, what would Earth want to import vs export compared to colony planets.
To expand on this, I'm developing a "space trading" game where you haul goods from one system to the next (similar in some ways to the [Empire Builder Rails games](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamefamily/51/empire-builder-rail-games) and I'm trying to pick about 10-20 cargoes (colonists would likely be a cargo!) that would make thematic sense to import or export from Sol and it's various colonies.
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In the absence of some rare unobtamium style plot device mineral, I could still see the following being viable:
* Biological products from species that require hard to reproduce environments (high gravity, low gravity, live on a gas giant, whatever)
* Cultural items (art, food, etc) that while they could be reproduced elsewhere, would not be "authentic"
* Manufactured goods which are monopolized either through specialized expertise that has been built up and would be difficult/expensive to duplicate, or through legal means such as copyright or patents
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All resources fall into 4 categories: Raw Resources, Completed Goods, Food, and Labor. The majorly of trade involves the first three but Food and Raw Resources tend to be the biggest.
Earth because of its large level of development and placement in the [green zone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumstellar_habitable_zone) would most likely import raw resources and export Food and Completed Goods.
Far Mining colonies would most likely be importing Food, Processed Goods, and Labor.
Colonies in the "green zone" of their stars could very well create agriculture hubs and begin exporting Food as well.
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More raw materials for refining and processing. If done on a big enough scale, mining space ore could become cheaper then earth mining. You don't have to worry about pollution from the mining either.
There are also certain isotopes of some materials that just don't form on Earth on a large enough scale that are abundant elsewhere.
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In space, mining asteroids is easy. Building up organic material is hard, especially if you don't have a working ecosystem already. Conversely, mining can be hard to do on Earth, but if you want organic material just go outside and do some gardening - pull some weeds, dig some dirt, that kind of thing. A clever entrepreneur could make a fortune trading space-mined gold for Earth dirt and Earth dirt for space-mined gold. The gold would be valuable on Earth because it's *gold*, at least until people catch on (and even then they can still sell other metals like titanium or iron); the dirt would be valuable because it can form a base for terrestrial plants, which will grow and produce MORE dirt. Eventually, the economy will settle, but someone getting in quickly will make a fortune selling cheap things for cheap things.
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I'm writing an SF novel concerning a superman who learns about the value of Ni-Fe asteroids and gets greedy.
So he locates a huge, 20 $\times$ 14 km, asteroid and flies it to earth orbit. Then he decides to lower the $1.8 \times 10^{13}$ tonne, Manhattan-sized chunk of iron down on the ground. I'm considering the desert southwest in the USA; he buys land out in the middle of nowhere.
How would that work out for him? Would the nickel-iron sink into the ground? Cause earthquakes? Will he get hammered with law suits?
Superguy has only the basic 4 powers--flight, invulnerability, strength, speed. No telekinesis, super ventriloquism, etc. The planetoid is potato shaped. What will happen under earth gravity if it's lowered at one point, ie, his 2 hands?
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**He can't do it**
Assuming that this is one crazy strong man who can fly (a-la Klark Cent... No, not the [other guy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superman)), this is impossible.
The reason is nothing to do with the man: It's to do with the weight of iron he's holding. Iron (and nickel iron) doesn't have the structural properties to be able to hold together while he lowers it to the ground. He might be fine, but as soon as he starts to slow the asteroid down and gravity really takes hold the iron will start to flow *around him* or, if crumbly enough, the edges will just start to fall away and re-enter of their own accord.
At that point he's just accidentally caused an extinction level event.
**Solutions**
*A super sling*
Whatever his clothes are made out of, use more of that unobtanium to make a sling capable of supporting the rock. If you don't want to completely wrap it up then you'd best have a degree in geoengineering, structural engineering and a couple of engineering disciplines we haven't even invented yet in order to keep it in one piece. If you do wrap the whole thing up the mass of iron will deform according to the folds of the material, heating as it does so and creating the weirdest variant on [hung yoghurt](http://www.cookrepublic.com/how-to-make-hung-yogurt/) ever. When he's slowed the rock down, put it on the ground and let go the asteroid will then flow outward over the surrounding landscape in a giant wave, scouring pretty much everything from it's path until it reaches some kind of equilibrium with the surrounding bedrock. If he's bought a big enough lump of land, cleared re-entry with the appropriate authorities and doesn't mind the ecological devastation then all that's left to do is mine and refine.
*Super friends or Super Drones*
Use multiple friends or drones to help bring the rock down without breaking up. Again: You really need a few degrees and some good structural analysis equipment for this: plus an awful lot of help. Or some insanely good super-drones and a helpful robotic butler. The rock won't deform as you bring it down but it's still going to flow when you put it on the ground, generating a lot of heat and destroying pretty much anything nearby in a molten metal [wave of doom](https://what-if.xkcd.com/12/).
*Super speed*
Break it up in orbit and bring it down in small chunks with your super speed. You're pretty fast after all! Dig with your hands and deliver straight to the refinery. Cuts down on the land needed, the awkward business of negotiating air rights and bonus: No massive ecological destruction. Just don't go so fast that you accidentally superheat the metal with your hands. Also be prepared to spend a lot of your life mining this thing. If you think ahead enough you could potentially break it into large chunks that won't disintegrate as you bring them down and set up a 'meteor graveyard' mining operation. Just be careful as you do.
One last note: in 2015 the world produced just over 330,000,000,000 tonnes of iron *ore* (pre refining). You have five times that amount in near-refined product. Expect the prices of both iron and nickel to crash overnight.
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I must disagree with Joe Bloggs. While at first glance his argument is right there's a problem with it:
It is obvious that kryptonite-phobe can somehow apply force to a whole object rather than just at the point of contact. There are two oft-repeated examples of this at work:
1) The manipulation of objects that by no stretch of the imagination could hold together given how they are lifted.
2) The acceleration of objects at crushing g levels, yet they are unharmed.
To a lesser degree we even see this based on his outfit. There are occasions where he has moved at accelerations that would have overcome any possible chemical bond holding his attire together--yet he has never been stripped naked even when chasing c.
And to take it farther he has been known to move at velocities that would be utterly lethal to nearby observers, yet they are unharmed. Thus I conclude that his flight is actually in some fashion a warp drive and that he can extend his warp field to surround anything he's touching.
Thus I can conclude he can land the asteroid. However, the problem isn't over yet. I suspect the asteroid does not have the strength to avoid collapsing under it's own weight. I am not going to bother to figure this out, though, because there's no doubt the ground underneath does not have the strength to support it. It is much denser than rock, this is the equivalent of a mountain 43km high. That is **far** beyond the tallest possible mountain--it sinks. Even when it has sunk to it's own depth it's still the equivalent of a 29km mountain--it doesn't stop.
The asteroid sinks into the Earth and doesn't stop until it reaches the inner core.
Figuring out the rate at which it sinks is too far beyond my knowledge, I'm not even going to attempt it.
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# It goes horribly, horribly wrong.
>
> Then he decides to lower the 1.8×1013 tonne, Manhattan-sized chunk of iron down on the ground. I'm considering the desert southwest in the USA; he buys land out in the middle of nowhere.
>
>
>
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/qC5yn.jpg)
As soon as the magic lifting-and-integrity-maintaining field lifts off (if it never kicked in, the asteroid lands as a firestorm several tens of kilometers wide, scouring half the West US clean of life and probably triggering a nuclear winter), about two thirds of your average asteroid will crumble on the ground. But that's not enough, the asteroid doesn't spread on a wide enough surface. If it's "solid iron", scrap the two thirds - the asteroid will at most break in three or four pieces, tops.
We now have a mass of very dense material on the surface, and the crust *cannot take the strain*. The If the crust was thin enough you would get a puncture and a lava lake several kilometres across, as well as some really fierce earthquakes.
Unfortunately, the crust is not thin enough and doesn't fracture - yet. Rather, it starts bending and *sinking* in the middle - the process will take days or, hopefully, weeks, giving time to evacuate the whole West coast and Japan, New Zealand and the Philippines. Not nearly enough time of course; deaths number in the tens of thousands by relocation shock and accidents alone, and there will be several hopefully minor quakes. It's possible we'll have already lost Los Angeles at this point, but then again, maybe not. Yet.
The key phrase [here](http://www.umich.edu/~gs265/isost.html) is unfortunately "lithospheric bending dominates over fracturing". Bending is very, very bad news.
After some time, the strain exceeds the crustal resistence. Fracture ensues, the asteroid is lost to the depths of the mantle, and an area several kilometers long **rebounds**. The magnitude of the event defies imagination - think the Toba Eruption, the Yellowstone disaster and a baker's dozen of Krakatoas packet together. It's not a remake of the Chicxulub Impact, not even by far, but that's precious small comfort. We'll still get the lava lake and nuclear winter, but not just yet.
The whiplash effect triggers the San Andreas fault in such a way that you can wave California goodbye, but that's still nothing - the crust at that point is probably several hundred meters below equilibrium. *Ten meters* are more than enough for a seven or eight Richter quake.
A slice of the Pacific Ocean is displaced by those several hundred meters, not instantly but in a matter of hours, and starts traveling towards Japan and the Chinese and Australian coasts at a speed of about 800 kilometer per hour (depends on water depth). People more than two miles off the coast will probably survive.
Upon arrival, shoaling brakes the wave to about 80-100 kmph, but it still strikes like the fist of Poseidon, and boy is Poseidon pissed off. We lose all the Pacific islands, so much of New Zealand and Philippines that it isn't funny, a good chunk of Japan (that actually depends), most cities on the Chinese coast. The quantity of water involved is at least one order of magnitude above that of a tsunami, because a chunk of the West Coast of the US has now *lifted* above equilibrium.
Several others tsunamis of more or less the same magnitude follow.
Before departing for parts unknown, Klark Cent is heard whispering "Oh sh\*t".
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**Entry:**
Some of the asteroid would inevitably burnt up as the asteroid enters earths atmosphere reducing the size of the asteroid but not it's speed. As the asteroid starts falling to earth its speed will start increasing rapidly meaning its impact would be more powerful.
**Impact**
The asteroid will crash into earth. The asteroid isn't large enough to end life on earth but it's impact will still cause a large crater and earthquakes which would inevitably cause some damage to nearby properties, which could prompt a lawsuit.
Once the asteroid has hit the ground it would be so hot from entry that it would probably start sinking. This would also delay the mining of the asteroid as humans won't be able to mine it.
Also he wouldn't be able to determine exactly where it lands so he would need to purchase a large area of land to compensate any error in his calculations
He could land the asteroid however he would get hammered by lawsuits for the damage caused by the impact and the earthquakes and the harvesting wouldn't be immediate due to heat and also the asteroid sinking into the ground.
**Lowers Gently**
If he lowers the asteroid gently then the asteroid would sink into the ground when it lands however there shouldn't be any other problems as the force shouldn't be large enough to cause massive earthquakes.
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Can't he simply move the object to orbit Earth, build a facility on the asteroid that mines the mineral and ship it to the ground in thermally shielded boxes?
In this way he achieves:
* ability to control the inflow of material (control the price he sells the mineral)
* ability to protect its property (if you try to take it over, some big box may fall *by accident* on your capital, whooops...)
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I'm currently trying to build a world where there is no animal that is like a horse, for example mule, or donkey, or horse.
What animal could be ridden by humans if the animals were the same size as a horse?
For example, what if there was a big spider that could be ridden, or a wolf that has an acceptable size to travel with a man.
On top of that, how would men battle with this kind of rideable animal, and tools that will be used: saddle, weapons ... ? Also, how well will humans be able to travel over long distances?
I think that Dinotopia is a good example to illustrate what I am looking for, but without dinosaurs.
**Edit:** I'm not sure I was totally understood. Here I'm not looking for existing animals that are horse-sized, but animals that normally are smaller.
What kind of small animal have a good temperament, Strength and stamina to be ridden. Only mammals? or insect could be chosen? The horse-sized duck is a good one because it's amphibious.
**For example**: could a horse-sized squirrel be a good mount?
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## Whatever was around.
[How about cows](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18UPCJdt08k), or camels, [reindeer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqEI6gLFLOQ), llamas, [ostriches](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plk35VYDKZE), elephants.
Take your pick, anything big enough, strong enough, *and trainable* can be ridden.
## What makes a good riding animal?
Temperament, strength, stamina, diet. Not necessarily in that order, ideally you want a herd herbivore of some sort.
**Temperament** is a key one here, rhinos have strength, but you're not going to try riding one more than once. Deer could be too flighty when threatened, most species are also too fragile to carry load. Lone animals could be a bit obstreperous with constant enforced company, you want a group or herd animal, used to constant company, where you can replace the "herd" with yourself. You need an animal that is calm in the presence of humans, able to be trained to obey rather than to make its own decisions in stressful circumstances.
**Carnivores** tend to be difficult to handle, expensive to feed and ultimately they carry the risk that you'll be on the menu at some point. Small carnivores, cats and dogs for example, make good companion and hunting animals, but large carnivores, say [bears](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/38502/would-a-bear-cavalry-be-feasible/), lions, or tigers, are really a no go. Most herbivores are able to live on grass, conveniently one of the most common plants in the world, and hence saving you a large amount of required cargo to feed the animal.
**Strength and stamina** are important simply to make them viable as cargo animals giving you extra range. If they don't have both then they become a burden rather than a benefit. When you travel you need to carry extra food and supplies for the sake of the animal, if they lack the strength to carry their own food and yours (and you), or they lack the stamina to give you extra range over what you'd have walking, then it's not worth riding.
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**Anatomy capable of bearing adult human weight is required.**
At minimum, the larger half of adults must be able to support an adult human + essential tack (saddle or equivalent) in an also-human-compatible riding position and posture.
If I recall correctly, Lamas can be used to bear loads, but not human riders; their spines just can't take that much weight on their only feasible mounting location. A Stegosaurus would have limited riding postures, without an elaborate (heavy) saddle to span over Stegy's back spines.
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Guns Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond deals with this. Obviously there are lots of animals big enough to carry people but which were not domesticated to do it. For example African elephants. Indian elephants carry people all over. Romans and North Africans knew this. So why not domesticate African elephants? Answer: they are jerks. Camels are jerks too but maybe there were fewer options so people were more persistent trying. Ostriches can be ridden but offer few advantages over a horse.
In your SF you can make up what you like and say it can be ridden. Alien riding animal is fine for background color but not that interesting. Another banth.
But a twist: maybe a large and semisentient alien animal can be ridden because it carries its young that way (like anteaters), and having a rider triggers maternal instinct. Or the smaller males mount the females on mating and go around that way for some time (like damselflies) and so riding the animal is like mating with it. A short SF (or funny substory) could be about human colonists who realize they can ride this alien animal and proceed to do so, not realizing the later ramifications that interaction will produce.
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Ants. Ants are capable of carrying objects 50 times their own body weight, have stamina, are easy to grow, can live in groups, can be mind-controlled by certain fungi (so perhaps we can manipulate this) and don't have the necessity to proliferate or eat. Plus, they can walk on walls and ceiling.
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I see at least some conditions:
* Docility (we can agree, that one of the worst things that can happen is that the animal will be disobedient or even aggressive)
* Speed (what is the point of slow "vehicle")
* Battle usability (obviously, if you need to use them in battles)
* Comfortability (this is probably not that important (just nice to have), saddles would be invented really quickly for any kind of animal and in battle, it is not the thing you are looking for).
* Special abilities (only I can think about is flying or stings)
From this, I think that a suitable answer would be...
**...cheetah**
* It is more docile than most of other carnivores. (see [this link](https://pethelpful.com/exotic-pets/about-pet-cheetahs))
* It surely is fast. And as was mentioned in the comments it would be great for shorter distances.
* It is a beast, after all, so in battle, it can bite your enemies.
* It is similarly comfortable as the horses.
**...eagle, falcon** (or something similar)
* Falconry is pretty common in some countries, so it is possible to train these birds.
* Usability in battle is also quite obvious.
* Flying!
* Comfortability may be an issue, I am not sure if it has the right constellation to carry a man.
* I am thinking about howl (because of night vision as special ability), but I still think that falcon is better.
**...dog**
* They surely are docile. We (as human kind) have a plenty of experience with training dogs for strange purposes. I am sure, that is would be also doable.
* Speed isn't always a strong point, but some dog breeds would excel even in that (sighthound)
* They are even some dog fighting breeds.
* Comfortability will be also no worse than when riding a horse.
* There are really a lot of different kinds of dogs, so if whole dog world would be bigger, there will be a good chance to choice the perfect match for every single rider (just imagine that).
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Welcome to Smooth World.
Most of this planet (at least two thirds, but preferably more) has only tiny differences in elevation, 30-40cm at most. No hills, no mountains, no valleys. Even plains found on Earth usually have a fair amount of difference in elevation, but not Smooth World. From a far enough distance the surface of this world seems to be mostly flat and smooth, hence its name.
The "smooth" surface of this planet is mostly covered in soil and a fairly even coverage of a grass like plant.
The remaining third (preferably less) of the world is comprised of whatever it takes to make this planet capable of supporting human life. I'm imagining this would be an ocean, but I am open to any ideas that makes this world capable of supporting life.
The world is approximately the same size as Earth, possibly the same kind of make up. I'm imagining that this world has no moon and is particularly old to facilitate the overall smoothness, but I am totally flexible on these points if they don't make any scientific sense.
How can I make Smooth World capable of supporting human life? I'm thinking of things like, a breathable atmosphere, protection from the radiation of space etc etc. We can assume that the humans living there have brought food, water and shelter with them.
The greater the "smooth" surface of this world, the better. If I have two good answers, but one of them has a greater percentage of smooth surface, that answer will get marked as correct. Ideally I'd want a world that was 100% smooth, but I don't think I'd be able to make it habitable if it was like this, but please correct me if I'm wrong here.
So, in addition to making this world scientifically feasible, I have two questions:
* What will I need in this remaining "non-smooth" part to make this world habitable?
* What will the weather be like on this world? More stormy or less stormy?
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I think you might need to refine your definition of "smooth" some: for instance, you want there to be oceans as well, but by definition their bottoms will be at a significantly (hundreds to thousands of metres) lower elevation than the rest of the planet, so I guess you meant the landmasses? Also, would it be ok for you if the large "smooth" landmass would be at a higher elevation as a sort of dry steppe/desert highland? In that kind of setup, there would be large elevation differences involved in the transition between the deep sea to the shore to the highlands.
Further difficulties in having an ocean: if the planet has a moon of significant size, you'd get tides. These would wash up material (sand/soil), and since the land area is very flat, you'd get absolutely MASSIVE tidal flats. This kinds of makes it difficult to build anything lasting, which would make habitation tricky, but maybe not impossible. Maybe everything is built on platforms that float during high tide, and the local vegetation has adapted to repeated submersion. I just noticed you wrote that you were thinking you wouldn't have a moon, which would admittedly resolve the tide issue. I recalled a tidbit that the moon would have protected from asteroids, but based on a quick lookup just now, that seems dubious. Other benefits of having a moon have been suggested, however, including e.g. tidal forces helping to stabilize both oceans and the atmosphere, and the same tidal forces may also play a part in keeping the outer, liquid metal core flowing (due to friction against the tidal forces slowing down its cooling process). Having a moon is probably optional, but I'd say it would probably help in forming and maintaining a habitable planet, especially if the planet is supposed to have been capable of supporting life for a long time.
Another major complication regarding smoothness that I though of is weather, which you expect the world to have. If there's any significant amount of rainfall, either the surface would have to be very porous, with a water table fairly deep, or you'd end up with drainage issues, and any rainwater would quickly gouge channels into the landscape, forming rivers. Rain could also result in vast areas of soggy swampland.
Lastly, there's an issue of how did it end up this flat? You can't have active tectonics, or you'd get subduction, volcanoes, and tectonic plates colliding create mountain ranges as well. So the mantle, at least, would have to be cooled down to be a solid. You'd also need a lot of erosion to get rid of past meteor impacts, any mountains that used to exist, etc. Both of these would require a very old planet.
My suggestions on how to make this somewhat plausible:
- Make it Earth-sized, for similar gravity. A high enough gravity is also required to retain an atmosphere; on the Moon or on Mars, gases slowly escape to space
- A rocky, earth-like planet, but with a solid mantle that's been that way for eons, so there are no remaining signs of tectonic activity
- However, to protect from solar winds and cosmic radiation, it would be preferable to have a magnetic field, i.e. the planet needs to have a liquid metal core
- Save yourself the trouble of trying to work out tides etc. by making the entire world a flat desert. Think of the flat areas of Mars, or Tatooine. The flattest areas on earth are salt flats (not counting atolls, since they rise quite a bit from the seabed).
- Maybe there are a few small hilly areas remaining, the last remnants of the largest mountain ranges of bygone eras. Or a couple of small but deep basins with shallow seas in them, if you really still want to have some oceans.
I think that's about it. I can't think of anything else required for a breathable atmosphere, even if it would probably be very thin and dry in this kind of environment. Protection from cosmic radiation is covered. You could still have Tatooine-style moisture collectors (or check out actual-modern day technology, e.g. <http://themindunleashed.com/2016/10/this-wind-powered-water-condenser-can-pull-11-gallons-of-clean-water-out-of-air-each-day-for-drinking.html>), and climate-controlled (cooled, heated, moister air, etc.) greenhouses for farming, even if you have to import the technology, fertilizer and such. Long-term this is cheaper and more comfortable than just importing all your actual food. Energy could be supplied by wind and solar power, both plentiful (more on that below), plus fission, fusion, or whatever future-tech you may want to use. The local grass could possibly be used as a raw material for fibers (including textiles, cardboard, chipboard...), bioplastics, maybe biofuel if that's needed, etc.
So, moving onto the area I have perhaps the most credentials for: weather (I've studied some Earth sciences in general, but meteorology most of all). Without a lot of moisture to handle heat transport from the equator to the poles, you'd get quite large differences in temperature depending on what latitude you're on. This would also create quite fast winds, at least sporadically if not constantly. On Venus, this has developed to an extreme situation where it has been suggested that Venus used to rotate in the same direction as the rest of the planets, but the runaway greenhouse effect of its dense atmosphere has created such strong winds in the direction opposite to that "usual" direction of rotation that over billions of years, the wind blowing in an opposite direction to the planet's rotation slowed, then stopped, and ultimately reversed it's direction of rotation. Take this with a grain of salt though, tidal locking effects from the sun probably played a part, if indeed it did rotate in the "common" direction originally. Plus for our "desert planet" thought experiment, we have a thin atmosphere, and it would also be further away from the sun, more similar to Mars or a slightly more distant and thus cooler Earth in that sense.
So the winds would be powerful. Have a look at the storm in the movie *The Martian* for inspiration. Solar power would also be relatively plentiful and above all reliable, if the atmosphere is fairly dry and thus there are little or no clouds (maybe some thin cirrus or such would form rarely). Other weather effects could include sparse fogs, dust/sandstorms, and Mars at least regularly sees snowfalls composed of dry ice (frozen carbon dioxide) near its poles, because it's so cold there. It sublimates directly from its gaseous state to a solid one, falls to the ground, and when the seasons turn/temperature rises, sublimates directly back to a gas again. Thus, if you have more of a "cold Tatooine" than Mars, water-based snow might be plausible in the colder regions near the poles. I mentioned earlier that outright rain would be problematic, but maybe some very light and sparse drizzle might happen on occasion, with the droplets just heavy enough they don't stay suspended in the air as a mist/fog. If this happens, it would happen during a fog, condensing out of the fog itself, not rain clouds.
I hope this was helpful, and provided some food for thought at least.
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Flatworld for sure is possible, but there need to be some special conditions to make it so.
One way would be a high erosion world. High erosion can be achieved with strong and continuous winds, that take away every elevation like a grinder. However, this is an environment very hostile to people, that you can't say it is a hospitable planet, and plant life might not be possible in the way we are used to - and building any structure there will create a massive dune just behind. Such planetoids will tend to be made from sand or similar fine grain material. Think Dune or Tatooine, sans any mountains.
Next way to get a flat planet would be a water world, placed just at the point where the whole thing doesn't result in a superheated steam atmosphere and no ice crust covering the planet covering ocean. However, this is not a solid soil surface as asked. Think... Waterworld vor visualisation.
A variant of the water planet would be to have the whole "ocean" be very very flat and turn the whole planet into a giant swamp. With small alterations, a planetwide mix of swamp, bog and fens could make a very interesting setting. On the other hand, it is still not a very hospitable planet, but one could very easily farm rice on it if one uses a little pump and can manage to get a rice variant that can cope with those conditions. In parts, it might look like Dagobah in Star Wars, if you need a visual reference.
Drying down the planet a bit more makes it very tough: as soon as large parts fall dry, erosion has to take over to keep the planet surface flat and keep it smooth. That is unless the planet has been made artificially and the population takes the place of erosion. In that case, a very regulated water system could provide the rain and drainage needed to keep the only slightly elevated land in an arable condition. Having a meter of depths into the furthest channels and then a tilt to the main channels and lakes where water can evaporate might suffice to get it running, but I am not an agriculture engineer. Anyway, such a planet dug into 'fields' might work. Your idea of 25-30% water surface water coverage in these channels and lakes to provide the rain might allow several variants of agriculture, which depend on artificial weather patterns created by where bodies of water are kept in what size - the more water a plant needs, the closer it has to be towards a water vapor source. In such a system, trees will be the main means of breaking the wind and keeping the surface from eroding the channels and turning the whole planet into a dried up dustball.
However, there is a third hospitable planet system, that might do the trick besides Swampworld and Farmworld: Jungleworld. Jungleworld will not rely on water from outside, it has a very wet mangrove floor and day weather cycles, where the coming evening comes with heavy rainfall and the ground swamping up, while the morning and early day are ok, the rest of the day it is dominated by a wet heat close to 100% of humidity. Some larger, ever changing rivers will cut the neverending woods in different areas, and as the trees grow upwards and fall, they build up soil that is washed into the rivers and then building up at other points to new shallows, new trees growing... you get the point: if left alone, maps of the planet will outdate in a manner of months, seasons are unheard of. It might look like Kashyk from Star Wars if you need to visualize it somewhat, but a better depiction might be documentations about the African or Amazonian rainforests.
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# An ocean world that looks like a flat land world
If the smooth world has ocean over its entire surface, with floating interconnected plant rafts covering large regions, then it would have very little variation in elevation, and even with a moon tides would be minimal (significant tidal ranges on Earth are due to interaction with land masses). This would give the appearance of very flat land.
This would not require the ocean bed to be particularly flat, just restricted to never breaking the surface of the water. This means the planet need not be old. It can still have a liquid metal core with a magnetic field, providing shielding from radiation.
If the plant coverage of the ocean is sufficiently deep, and also spread out far enough to minimise movement due to waves, then it may not be immediately obvious to people walking on the surface that they are not on a land mass.
There is now no need to have an exception to the smooth landscape for one third of the planet's surface. Even if the majority of the ocean surface is obscured by the plant growth, preventing evaporation, there will still be plenty of water entering the atmosphere through transpiration of the plants. There should be sufficient oxygen and water in the atmosphere to make it comfortably breathable to humans. Water vapour will also contribute to the protection from radiation, and the oxygen rich atmosphere will allow for the formation of an ozone layer.
This would be a world covered in grassy plains, although not necessarily having any soil beneath. However, if soil is important to your setting then you could make the raft deeper. There could then be plants that grow on the surface, rooting into the decaying matter on the raft, rather than directly into the ocean below. The mat of organic material need not necessarily be solely plant based. The surface plants could be growing on an underlying fungal layer that gets no light but gets it nutrients from the plants above (perhaps in a symbiotic mutually beneficial relationship).
It isn't clear whether you require the presence or absence of animal life in your world. Depending on what suits your requirements, this could be a world where animal life did not develop, or developed only in the ocean beneath the plains, or made the transition to land/flying animals. The fact that the planet need not be old should allow for flexibility in the stage it has reached in animal evolution.
Over time there may be some loss of essential minerals as dead organisms sink to the ocean floor as [marine snow](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_snow). You may want to design a cycle involving organisms that bring up material from the ocean floor, in order to explain the long term stability of these huge rafts. If you want this level of detail, the explanation would need to show that as much material is brought up from the sea bed as is deposited as marine snow.
# Weather
You ask about whether this world would be stormy. The wind speed will depend on the variation in surface temperature. The higher the difference in temperature between different regions, the higher the wind speed. An ocean world is likely to have less variation in temperature as heat is not trapped in fixed land masses - ocean currents are free to redistribute heat evenly.
If you want to fine tune the wind speed you could choose the length of day to give more or less temperature variation. A fast planetary rotation (a short day) will give less time for the day side to heat up and the night side to cool down, keeping the surface temperature more even. Making the day longer will cause more temperature variation and higher winds.
Increasing the temperature variation is also likely to increase rainfall, which can be triggered where regions of atmosphere at different temperatures meet.
The colour of the organic raft and the plant life growing on it may also affect the weather. If there are large regions with very dark coloured plants, and other regions with very light coloured plants, then the dark regions absorbing more light will become warmer, leading to heating of the atmosphere above, and cool winds blowing into the dark regions as the heated air rises.
If this leads to more rainfall on the lighter regions, derived from water vapour that rose over the darker regions, then this may reinforce the distinct regions. For example, the lighter plants may require rainfall, and the darker plants may be intolerant of it. Perhaps the lighter plants require fresh water and the darker plants have deep roots that prefer salt water from the ocean below.
So this type of world gives you plenty of flexibility in choosing weather that suits your purpose.
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# To make this world habitable, you will need to consider the following:
**What made the world flat?** If it was geological (i.e. erosion), the planet would have to be tectonically dead. Life *as we know it* would cease to exist, as there would be no recycling of the lithosphere. Furthermore, a geologically dead planet does not have a magnetosphere, solar flares can cause mutations or even mass extinction events. Though if we consider alien lifeforms, they might survive by having a different composition. If it was external (i.e. another civilization deciding to flat the world out), the consequences can be mostly ignored, as alien tech cannot be analyzed scientifically.
**How high is the "continent" with respect to the sea?** To have seas, you need to have two different landmasses with different hights. If the continent is too low (i.e. under 5 meters), any variation of the ocean level will flood all the habitable lands near the oceans. (Think about waves, they can reach a meter high. Even higher during storms.)
**Waterways would be impossible.** No mountains, no high altitude glaciers. No glaciers, no rivers. No rivers... well no rivers and lakes. You would either have seas or oceans. Did I also mention that there would be no islands in the ocean, as islands are basically mountains.
Furthermore, you have to get rid of tropical areas with too much rain, as an abundance of rain will carve rivers throughout the land, and you want to avoid that.
Since there would be no rivers, a huge part of a big continent might be inhospitable (arid).
## So going back to your question:
**The best and most habitable smooth world would be** a ocean world with smaller continents, with spread-out seas within it. Most people would live near the seas within the continent, and stay far away from the ocean, as slight variations of the ocean level floods the land. Some plant life can deal with the rising oceans, so maybe some clever humans might find a way to live on top of those plants.
**If you go the easy route** a less habitable world (arid world) works too, no oceans, only many scattered seas. And humans only live near the small sea-oases.
P.S. weather patterns cannot be deduced from the geological standpoint only, there are many other factors. That question warrants a new post/topic entirely.
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Two major features are unavoidable on this planet, from which you can draw other conclusions:
**1. Heinous wind**
Weather patterns caused by heat differences across the planet would cause heinous wind basically everywhere, and chances are they are as regular and predictable as tradewinds. The upper atmosphere of gas giants (look at Jupiter timelapses) give you some idea of what standing pattern winds could look like on a planet with no surface features to impede weather.
**2.The last third is likely a desert**
All your water is in aquifers, or at least, if your soil-supported plant life lost a considerable amount of its biomass, it would be. You state that two thirds of your planet is covered in soil, and you could explain this as a way to have a regular water cycle: Water in the soil and the plants themselves is more readily evaporated, clouds condense and drop rain somewhere else. But anywhere that your highly regularized weather pattern doesn't drop rain would be a desert. If you use the previous Jupiter example and establish latitudinal weather bands, you could have some very interesting configurations: One huge green band in the middle, or alternating, or what-have-you.
The other thing I find interesting is what your biomes will look like. With no waterways, your plantlife could be homogeneous across an entire latitude, instead of locally differentiated depending on a plant's specific adaptations.
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**Well, that's not the complete answer, just a "proposal":**
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> What will I need in this remaining "non-smooth" part to make this world habitable?
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Think of Stanislaw Lem's "Solaris": some kind of sentient being, instead of an actual ocean.
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> What will the weather be like on this world? More stormy or less stormy?
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**With smooth surface, Sun-like star and a regular "water ocean" the "seashores" of your continent will be somewhat habitable, however the deeper inside - the less life (desert).**
So, I propose the ocean as a somewhat "magical" sentient being, that actually can make the whole continent habitable, depending on it's powers or nature.
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[Edit] Well, the first issue that comes to mind is wind. One of the major causes of local weather patterns is the mixing of pockets of atmosphere whose temperature and humidity levels differ greatly. Relative elevation differences create places where higher/colder and lower/warmer fronts meet. So that's one major factor that makes Smooth World very atmospherically stable. Alternatively, you could create weather without elevation through Smooth World's surface materials, i.e. if there were unevenly distributed surface mineral deposits or blanket megaflora with significantly different capacities to absorb and release radiant energy, this would create regions of relatively different temperatures, causing wind/weather.)
I agree with you, you'll need the prerequisite ambient gas mix. You don't want to get too goofy with the basic mechanics of why they can breathe on the planet. As for the protection from solar radiation, you \*could get away with a weak to non-existent magnetosphere if you gave the planet a really thick hydrosphere, which would provide a means of watering the planet with constant mist and protect living organisms from radiation. (Water is a damn good radiation sink/shield, at least in terms of UV and radioactive decay types.)
If you're gonna ditch the oceans, you'll need a PROLIFIC mega-flora that will put water back out into the atmosphere, unless the planet is just very minimally populated. That would diminish the robustness of the global ecosystem, however. If you have a minimally populated planet, and its not super young, you'd have to back up to the solar system level and explain why almost no interstellar bodies/debris have disrupted the orbital equilibrium and wiped out life.
I assume you'll keep the whole chlorophyll/photosynthesis shtick, otherwise, you'll need a microbial alternative to act as an energy capture base AND carbon capture/O2 producer for all organic life.
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Imagine a planet covered in moss, whose growth is at the same time spurned and limited by the chemical reactions between the moss, the vapours it produces, and isotope variants of the vapour compound derived through radioactive decay. This is inspired by chemical the balance needed to keep a yeast colony alive, and the derivation of protective patinas or oxides that protect deeper levels of a metal at the expense of surface levels.
The moss produces a compound with a short half life that reduces to water after a certain amount of time, which then nourishes the moss to continue this cycle. Moreover, the release of radiation caused by radioactive decay kills the moss, but only the spores (or whatever moss is made of) at the surface. These older mosses might have used up their supply of whatever it is that makes them produce the compound, which might be associated with reproductive systems as well as with the development of protective cellular structures or iodine-producing glands that inhibit decay caused by radiation. This might also explain why no genetic mutations occur, and why the entire landscape is covered by this one species of moss and nothing else (it was probably introduced artificially through terraforming or whatnot). The compound floats like a vapour due to the atmospheric conditions of the planet, which provide a suitable balance of pressure and temperature for achieving this effect. The water might sink to the soil, though it would not be heavier than the broken-down compound so that still remains to be explained.
The entire soil surface of the planet is thus covered by a moss whose growth is gradual and consistent due to a regular trimming process. A radioactive vapour envelopes the layer of moss, forming a sort of lower atmosphere, which is itself bound by an upper stratosphere.
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One of the main questions I would have thought is about water distribution. The water has to be shallow enough that it doesn't cover the entire planet, but on a totally flat planet, how can this happen? Shouldn't it be entirely covered or entirely dry?
The answer is in the spin of the planet. The centripetal force attracts the water to be deepest at the equator, meaning it could be deeper there than at the poles, in fact, all other things being equal, the poles are deserts and you'd have to have the habitable zone between the poles and the equator.
Second are the tides. This all depends on satellites (e.g. the Moon) and the local star (the Sun). With these you could cause complete chaos with the water if you wanted, dragging it all over the planet, so that at some stage or another there is nowhere that's left untouched. If life on the planet is reasonably amphibious (or learned to float a long time ago) then tides could be used to fertilise the land.
Then you have problem of the "water cycle". That is Ocean => Evapouration => Clouds => Rain => River => Ocean. Our rain usually happens when warm air evapourates some water, then comes in contact with cold air which condenses it again. The problem now is what happens with the fallen rain without hills and slopes to carry it away? I imagine a lot of stagnant pools in the slightly lower areas not currently occupied by oceans, just waiting to be evapourated again or to seep underground. Tidal & centripetal forces would not necessarily be able to drag it back with any great force, and probably not with a consistent enough direction for it to carve out rivers.
In fact I think you'd need the planet to have a very precise amount of water - enough that some of it is above surface level and it doesn't all just seep into the ground, but not enough that it entirely covers the surface.
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At some point during the Cold War Earth experienced one or more failed alien invasions. Both the US and USSR had to face down this alien threat, and acted accordingly.
Established facts about the war:
* They managed to get around FTL limitations by employing surface-side wormholes
* The two world powers managed to ultimately stop the invasion by disabling the wormholes by brute force; pushing the aliens back into the wormholes and blowing the other side up with a nuclear payload.
* One (if not the only) reason the two sovereign powers succeeded is was the aliens underestimated the humans, and the humans were able to muster simple numbers in a rapid response to overwhelm the attacks.
* Alien stragglers were meticulously hunted down and cleaned up.
Any other details concerning the invasion the answers can fill in as they see fit, including if there was any cooperation (whatsoever) between the US and USSR. To clarify: any unstated details about the invasion(s) and the aliens are fair game.
So both the USSR and America had to deal with this invasion, and thankfully did. As it so happens, both came to the same conclusion: the people of Earth shouldn't know. Why? The 'why' is immaterial. The decision was made, and the governments set to work making it happen.
The question becomes: How did America and the USSR perform this massive coverup? What elements can be introduced to account for this? Preferably the answers use actual historic events such as the Korean War, the Vietnam War, or the Middle East Conflict.
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Before the Cold War began, aliens attempted their first invasion. This would have been around the end of WWII, over Germany. The aliens actually struck Berlin and shredded most of the Nazi party. The Battle of Berlin was actually the first battle against the aliens. Hitler's body was never found because the allies didn't kill him - he had already been taken out by the alien invaders.
The allies (notably the Russians and the Americans) swept up the alien forces, threw them back into their wormhole, and used this nifty new bomb the Americans had, to destroy the wormhole. The atom bomb had been in planning since the first signs of unfriendly alien inspection in the 1940s and was, in fact, not ready to be used as a bomb.
To destroy the wormhole, a pilot crew had to fly a transport plane full of plutonium and uranium into the wormhole and start the chain-reaction by hand. The aliens, being smarter than your average muskrat, had opened a wormhole over Japan as well, though this hole had been closed after the alien forces were dropped. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were hotbeds of alien forces, so the US scrambled to put together more atom bombs. They succeeded and obliterated both cities which, along with the clean-up in Germany, destroyed all evidence and killed all witnesses of the alien invasion.
Most of Europe was in tatters, the rest of the world didn't know about the alien attack and the US and the USSR were the only countries equipped to handle the assault and clean-up. Because tensions between the two countries had been high, the governments could not openly declare an alliance without explaining to their people that aliens were invading.
After two Great Wars, neither side was eager to inform the people of an alien invasion, so both sides kept the deal on the hush-hush. Because the USSR was closer to the epicenter of the invasion, it naturally reached out to protect the shattered Europe from the predicted second attack.
The media in the US spun this as an act of Communist aggression, which the US government embraced and encouraged, creating public support for a build-up of the only weapons known to be effective against the aliens: nukes.
“It must be the policy of the United States, to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation…by outside pressures.” (Harry Truman) - Not exactly a lie, but let's look at the subtext. The USSR took its cue from the US and began pushing anti-US propaganda, also building up an arsenal.
Meanwhile, both sides were hunting down the remnants of the alien forces, most of which had fled Germany and Japan by this time. The governments identified these fugitives as Nazi scientists, thus giving the people an explanation for why soldiers were tearing around South America, shooting people no one had ever heard of. Most of the following "proxy wars" between the USSR and the US were actually missions to roust pockets of the alien army.
The Bay of Pigs was actually a covert operation aimed at an alarmingly caffeinated group of aliens attacking the coffee fields and was a total success. Unfortunately, the Cubans had no idea what was going on, so the surviving forces were captured, leading to a Russian-attempted rescue mission.
Due to a few crossed wires, the US publicized the mission's cover (placing nukes in Cuba). This almost destroyed the entire cover-up as Pres. Kennedy was forced to issue an ultimatum and the Russians were forced to turn back.
What people don't realize is that nukes in Cuba was actually the US's idea to protect its southern flank in case of another alien invasion. We also wanted to place weapons in Canada, but they refused. In short, no missiles went to Cuba, however, the 'missile crisis' created enough of a diversion to spring the Bay of Pigs survivors, so no second attempt was made.
As years passed without another attempted invasion, both the US and the USSR began to reduce their nuclear stockpiles to reduce the risk of accidental discharge. Eventually, the USSR fell apart, ending the Cold War and the US/USSR alien task force alliance. At that point, the US began to drastically cut back its weapons because the new Russian government knew nothing of the alien war and, the Cold War guise having been so effective, we feared the new government might actually take it seriously.
The anti-alien preparations are still in place, and every so often, a new pocket of aliens rears its head, but the US mostly flies solo. The War on Terror is actually a cover to allow the US to take out both individuals and groups of supposed terrorists (actually the residual aliens and perhaps their human supporters). Maybe Russia is getting back into the battle? Going into Syria with us?
In short, massive cover-up began as a fortuitous accident and both war-weary sides just went with it, using the other country as an excuse for their anti-alien operations.
If you're not totally set on the idea that the USSR and the USA actually *did* repel the aliens, it would be pretty easy to back up a story in which the aliens were able to infiltrate both governments and gain control.
Perhaps the reason the Cold War never turned into a Real War was that the aliens had control of both sides. The build-up of nuclear weapons could be a plan on the part of the aliens; use the human technology to destroy the human defenses.
The whole mutually assured destruction thing might have thrown a wrench in their plans because the other humans in the war councils wouldn't let the Cold War turn into a real war. The several times that it almost did could be attempts by the aliens to reclaim the situation.
After the Cold War ended, the two sides, working together, launched a series of pointless, high-casualty wars intended to weaken and destroy the humans' two largest super-powers before launching their own invasion.
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I'll go at this from the opposite direction.
The USA and USSR cooperated to fight the aliens not because of any particular love or respect for each other, but because they would much rather rule the world than let someone or something else take over from them.
The reason for secrecy is to prevent notional allies from getting ideas such as "they're distracted, so we can do what we want", or "Let's use the alien tech to leapfrog past them and take over" or even "They've used up all their power against the aliens, so they can't stop us anymore".
Now in any really realistic scenario, they would probably decide that once the aliens have been defeated they should formalize their power and rule the world together in a CoDominium (and in some ways the Cold War did resemble that).
This could also be used to explain the various bushfire wars that were fought throughout the world after the Second World War. If the Aliens had landed on Earth using wormholes, they may not have had the ability to completely control where they were touching down. Alternatively, they can only bring small amounts of stuff through the wormholes, so want to avoid paces where the Superpowers could quickly mass forces. Wormholes in SE Asia, Southern Africa, parts of South America would answer either of these conditions, and so bushfire wars were ignited to cover the insertion of forces into places like Namibia, Afghanistan or Bolivia to deal with the problems.
To answer the final question of "why have we not benefitted from the alien invasions", the primary reason would probably be that the alien technology is so far advanced that we are not able to reverse engineer it. The USSR eventually went bankrupt due to the expense of maintaining their half of the secret CoDominium, supplying troops and equipment to stamp out alien invasions and trying to reverse engineer alien technology. President Ronald Reagan gave [tantalizing](https://socioecohistory.wordpress.com/2010/08/23/president-ronald-reagans-1987-speech-about-ufo-alien-invasion-at-united-nations/) [hints](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dL6PlM24JBQ) during his Administration (in this scenario, maybe trying out the idea of allowing the news of the invasion to be released).
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You have a few options for why.
1) The US didn't want the USSR to look like heroes for repelling the invasion as this would undermine their anti-soviet propaganda and vice-versa.
2) The nations had used up a large part of their army and nukes fighting the aliens and didn't want to admit this for fear that the other side might attack them. Especially for the USSR as they had less nukes to start with an relief mainly on bluffing.
3) Each side was trying to reverse engineer alien tech and didn't want the other side to know. This is similar to the attempts by the US to keep nuclear bombs secret during the research phase.
4) They are holding onto the knowledge so that when morale is low later on they can reveal that they beat the aliens renewing confidence in the army.
5) Each side would have to reveal that they spied on the other if they revealed information on the aliens. The US particularly tried to avoid being caught spying on the USSR and when they were caught, such as with long range spy plane U2, they tried to deny it. This was because spying made the US appear to be sneaky and evil in the world's eyes. The US may have discovered the aliens by spying on the USSR and don't want to admit this.
Most of these could be covered up fairly easily. Most of Russia was unexplored forest and stuff at the time with armies hidden in some areas so creating a special anti-alien squad wouldn't be hard. Russia, and to a lesser extent America, had heavy media censorship and could easily pass it of as a military exercise or something. The US had enough secret bases to also do this assuming aliens didn't attack populated areas. After all, who believes Deep South farmers when they talk about aliens.
Option 2 using up nukes and armies would be harder to cover up although the USSR has a real life solution. They used to only use about 20 planes in their parades and just fly them round a few times so it looked they had more. Do the same with armies and you will be fine. Release the names of the dead slowly and cover it up by invading Vietnam and claiming you had very heavy losses.
Option 3 could be covered by claiming the new inventions had been created by something along the lines of the Manhattan Project and using similar levels of secrecy. What the heck just continue the Manhattan project for that matter.
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With the help of inexpensive FTL transportation, humans have begun to spread across the stars. Many planets have been found with near-Earth atmospheres, while many others have been found that can easily be terraformed to support life. Due to the costs associated with development of a new colony, most new planets are settled by wealthy corporate blocks after buying a charter from the council of planets to do so.
**The Liberty Colony**
There are, of course, exceptions. One such exception is the Liberty colony. The Liberty colony was founded and funded by a wealthy group of Earth-based libertarians as a place where a government could be constructed from the ground up in alignment with libertarian ideals. Taxes and restrictions on personal activity are minimal, but so are government sponsored programs in areas like medicine, education, and fire suppression. If individuals want access to such services, it's expected that they will work hard, make money, and buy them.
**What does the government do?**
Privatized services include virtually everything the public uses on a daily basis. Power lines, roads, parks, fire departments, and police forces are all privatized. All schools are private, as are all clinics and hospitals, none of which are under any onus to provide free services to those who cannot afford them. The only major government funded entities are the courts and the military. The courts hear cases and determine acceptable punishments, which are then carried out by private police, private prisons, and bounty hunters. Courts also have the power to give warrants for arrest and search to private executors as well as to give warrants for taxation, though again, execution of taxation is carried out by private tax collecting companies. In addition, the courts handle election and appointment of government officials, though the powers of those government officials are strictly limited by the constitution.
The military is responsible for defending the Liberty colony from hostile foreign powers, as well as for being the ultimate authority in suppressing illegal police activity. The military is quite strong, and in the past has shown a willingness to quickly resort to heavy firepower when police forces refuse to comply, so military injunctions tend to be hastily followed by police forces.
**What is the colony like?**
The colony as a whole is fairly wealthy, with an export driven economy that focuses on selling high quality warships and weapon systems to virtually anyone. Of course, with heavy automation of the construction process, the majority of the funds streaming in through the shipyards don't fall into the hands of the common man. Most people subsist on either being small-scale sellers of goods and services illegal on most other planets, through service-based jobs supporting one another, or through local industries like farming and upholstery.
How would the lives of these merchants, farmers and upholsterers compare to the lives of individuals who live on more conventionally governed planets with higher taxes, but more services?
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A flat-mate in college once described to me Libertarianism as "Anarchy for the Rich". I've always liked this description, because it illustrates how a purely libertarian society would differ from an anarchist society. Many of my libertarian friends consider themselves anarchists as well, and even Emma Goldman said "all true anarchists [are] aristocrats." Although it is apparent she is speaking of the proportional relation between liberty and wealth, one has to study further to distinguish between this candid observation about society and her dreams for an ideal society toward which she and other anarchists of her day championed the unionization of labor, the eight our day, and many other worker's rights now considered base; all things people might today label as socialist or even communist. Libertarians and Anarchists might share a common distrust of government, but anarchists are made separable by a similar distrust of capitalism, and for good reason. Free, unrestricted markets disproportionately benefit those who are part of the market. Any effort to organize labor, or establish and provide any sort of sensible social contract in absence of any other governance, would at that moment be indistinguishable from government. Thus we find an irksome paradox seeking to undermine all pure ideals.
I don't think a libertarian world would be much different from earth now. Name one government capable of standing up to the oil industry. The cattle industry. Even with our hodgepodge political landscape, you can enter in and live comfortably in almost any society provided you have wealth. To remove even our meager, fledgling attempt at social welfare, seeking the unhindered behest of a free, liberal, and unregulated market would require a private security bloc as capable as and comparable to any fascist military; otherwise The Beast will attempt to regulate itself.
Your libertarians may enjoy a few generations of prosperity. Over time, however, a purely market driven economy entropically approaches fascism. Wealth only 'trickles up' in this environment. The advantage gained by those willing to pool their resources encourages corporatization, and the disparages so wrought are not limited to the market. Competition, regardless of what Adam Smith might have you believe, favors the greedy and egotistical, stifles innovation, and nothing is more counter to the largely altruistic tactics found in nature. There is no such thing as a free market, and there are many valuable pursuits that are neither profitable nor capable of inspiring investors with confidence. Without a body politic to organize the subsidization of new technologies, you are relying on sheer probability (and a healthy amount of off-world espionage) to bolster research. This probability diminishes as the wealth gap increases, as there are fewer people capable and crazy enough to gamble with innovation. Only the super-wealthy with extra-planetary interests will be allowed to participate in and benefit from science; most of your planet will be relegated to facilitating the exchange of frivolous commodities.
I come down off this, admittedly, high-minded flatulence of grossly miss-applied political theory and vastly sweeping generalizations to conclude: Chaos might just save those on your planet. The human capacity for charity might not compare to a socially responsible government's capacity for welfare, but the criminally opportunistic might just balance the scales. And who can say what is criminal? So long as your populous maintains healthy amount of effective piracy, you might stave monopoly. Money itself has less value in poorer societies, and in the shadows of your monolithic space age corporations the vast majority could function just fine trading favors and raw goods. However you are sharing the road with some unscrupulous companions. The worst environmental disasters of mankind could all be attributed to the headless pursuits of a free market (worsened by overpopulation). Being situated on another planet might likely liberate us this one, damning drawback; though the root cause is likely to manifest in some other, equally disastrous effect. Some genetic therapy could inadvertently and irrevocably corrupt the entire genome. A mass-driver might miss-fire and level a small city. Now these accidents will happen regardless of how society structures itself, but before you trivialize the semantical difference between a market-controlled society and a law-bound society, consider the plight of the humans who toil; at least a government can pretend to beholden to her people. The Market is a soulless and callous thing owing nothing to those who suffer it.
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Much depends on what story you want to tell. There could be *good* outcomes if everybody starts following the ideals and abuses are few enough that the system can cope. Or it could be dystopia.
* Without public services, people can *effectively* sell the life chances of their unborn children. Say Joe is an unskilled or semi-skilled worker and a single father. Having to look after the child means he can't work as many hours as before, and now there are two mouths to feed. Joe can't afford to send the child to a good school, and after a few years he has to take the child out of school completely to earn money. Another unskilled worker at low wages.
* When police is private and only courts are public, who will gather the evidence if Joe is robbed? Perhaps it will take a DNA match, or somebody has to check out an alibi. If Joe does that himself, the accused can always claim that Joe isn't even remotely qualified to do so.
* Perhaps it isn't robbery but fraud. Jane presented Joe with a contract that had some hidden loopholes. "He signed it," she says. "His responsibility to read and understand it." Never mind that Joe is a functional analphabet with just a few years of primary school.
That would mean the poor get poorer while the rich can look after themselves.
Or it all works. Without undue government interference, human industry and ingenuity is unleashed.
* If Joe doesn't like his present job, surely some Jane will sponsor him homesteading a farm. In exchange for a couple of percent ownership, Jane gives Joe a sturdy axe, some nails and other fittings, and some bags of seeds and food. If the farm prospers, Joe can buy that share back later. *Joe goes west, where the valleys are green and the plots are unclaimed.*
* When a devious dude from the East comes to defraud the honest homesteaders, the good neighbours keep an eye on him. If Jane tries to dazzle the court with fancy words, surely a jury of Joe's peers will run her out of town tarred and feathered. Common sense of right and wrong wins over legal loopholes.
Some more observations:
* Jack builds a water treatment plant, water mains, and sewer system. Jill later builds a power plant and power lines. One fine day the power line which is precariously hanging over main street comes down and causes a traffic jam. Almost everybody agrees that Jill should take the power lines underground. Except for Jack. He insists that there should be no interruption to his water services. When Jack got the permissions for his pipes, nobody had thought of power lines, so that case wasn't covered.
* Jack owns a privately build bridge and a toll road. Jill owns a toll road parallel to Jack's road and charges lower fees. What can Jack do? He could raise bridge tolls for people who didn't buy passage on his road first. A little change in his pricing scheme, surely he can offer a discount if somebody buys both tickets at once.
* Jack, Jane, Joe and Jill own telephone systems. They're connected by switchboards so people can call from one system to the other. Usually the systems are quite profitable, but problems with another of his enterprises mean Jack is short of capital. So Jane, Joe and Jill decide to upgrade their switchboard to a new and better standard. Jack can't follow suit, so his business has to fold. An illegal cartel or perfectly legal business?
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They wouldn't be "merchants, farmers and upholsterers". They'd all be lawyers. In a fully libertarian society, you can't (for example) build a house without negotiating a separate contract with every other landowner within 200 miles in which they agree not to let their land be used for a polluting activity, and to include that provision in any sale of their land. That's a *lot* of legal contracts.
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Okay, others have given politically-slanted answers, so I'll give mine. Disclaimer: None of this is provable fact. This is my opinion of how it would likely work in real life.
The economy booms. Without government regulation forcing people to waste time with red tape and follow "one size fits all" regulations, industry is free to spend their time producing useful products and services.
Technology booms. Companies no longer need the government's permission to introduce a new product. For example, new medicines can be brought to the market very quickly, rather than having to go through years of paperwork and bureaucracy to get government approval. I understand in the U.S. it now takes the FDA an average of 12 years to approve a new drug. 12 years during which people die even though the drug that could save their lives is sitting on the shelf.
Bureaucrats do not rule people's lives.
There is great exercise of freedom. Many competing religions and philosophies are practiced. There is vigorous debate on all sorts of questions, from the most practical to the most esoteric.
Many of the political conflicts we see in our society go away if we adopt the libertarian concept that "rights" mean things you are allowed to do whether your neighbors like it or not, rather than things you can force your neighbors to participate in whether they like it or not. For example, consider the debate over gay marriage: In a pure libertarian society, a person who disapproves of gay marriage cannot prevent two homosexuals from declaring themselves married. At the same time, a homosexual couple cannot force someone to provide services for their wedding, like providing a venue or baking a cake. (I'm sure people on both sides will protest that this is outrageous. Those who oppose gay marriage might say that society should not condone this and homosexuals should go to jail. People who support gay marriage might say that failing to provide services to a homosexual marriage is discrimination and people who do this should go to jail.)
Problems that have obvious solutions:
*Consumers will be victimized by unregulated products that are of low quality or even dangerous.* People rely on recommendations from friends and neighbors. Web sites or other forums spring up where people can review products. Organizations are formed that test products and certify them for quality and safety -- like Underwriters Laboratories and Consumer Reports in the United States.
*Big corporations will exploit the workers.* No, they won't. If the company treats you badly, you quit and go work somewhere else. Or you start your own business. In a libertarian society, starting a new business is easy: by definition, there's no red tape. You just declare yourself to be in business one day and you are. Sure, finding a new job isn't always easy. But people do it all the time.
*Big corporations will drive all the little companies out of business.* How? In a socialist society, big companies can destroy little ones by having the government make all sorts of complicated rules. At the least, for the big company to hire lawyers to figure out the rules is a small expense to them, one or two more employees on top of thousands, while to the little company it's one or two more employees on top of the one or two they already have, a huge expense. At best, the big company hires lobbyists who get all sorts of exemptions and special cases put into the rules that benefit them.
*Without government welfare programs, the poor will starve.* Before there were government welfare programs, private charities took care of the poor. Yes, the system was overwhelmed to some extent during the Great Depression, which led to support for government programs. But it's not at all clear that the government programs worked better than private charity. Government programs are inherently bureaucratic and wasteful. Private charities can provide help on a case by case basis, helping the truly needy while rejecting people who just don't feel like working and want a free ride. If you don't like the way a private charity makes its decisions -- if you think it's rejecting people because of their race or some other unfair criteria -- then don't give them money. Government programs pretty much have to have a book of rules, which means people have an incentive to search for loopholes rather than just get a job. If you don't like the government's rules, you can't just not pay your taxes.
Problems that are hard to solve:
*Private police forces protect the rich but not the poor.* If private police forces can arrest someone, what stops the rich man from having his police arrest anyone he doesn't like, or who inconveniences him? What happens when two rich men clash in their idea of justice, whether a genuine philosophical disagreement or a conflict of personal advantage? Do their policemen fight each other? Personally, I'd say that private police forces are carrying libertarianism too far. I'd keep the police as one of the few functions of government.
*Private roads* If roads are all private, who maintains them, and how is this paid for? If a private company runs the road in front of your house, do they charge you a toll to use it? If you refuse to pay the toll, can they block you from leaving your house? If so, what stops them from charging outrageus prices? Unless there are two roads to every house, there's no competition. It's pretty tough to just do without, as that means not leaving your home. The only limit is when they bankrupt you. In general, if there's no "public property", then almost everyone's home is surrounded by other people's property. What if they all put up fences and refuse to let you pass? It seems a libertarian society has to have some deviation from strict libertarianism to solve this problem, some provision for public property, or a right to pass through other people's private property without their consent.
*Pollution?* Pollution can impose significant costs on people who are not parties to a transaction. i.e. if a factory produces and sells a product, and generates pollution in the process, people can suffer who are neither the seller nor the buyer, and so who in a purely libertarian society have no control over the transaction. It's difficult to see how this problem can be solved without some sort of laws regulating pollution.
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Given a species that did not rely on the scientific method for discovery, but rather a 100% correct intuition (essentially they correctly guess how the universe works, every time)... under what circumstances do they decide to inquire, or cease inquiry? If they had a limitless hunger for knowledge, obviously they could make discoveries at an essentially infinite rate. So when and why would they choose to self-limit?
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You've devised a species with an alien intellect and mindset and should treat it as such. The problem you're having is one of perspective. Let me explain.
By our definition, inquiry means, "to seek information by questioning; ask." Humans lack the insight to look at a problem and say "Oh, right. That happened because of xyz." Instead, something happens and someone says, "Well, that was weird. What caused that?" Which leads to hypothesis and investigation. The following investigation often leads to other discoveries.
This species, however, doesn't find events to be weird. Maybe unexpected, but then the individual experiencing the event immediately knows what caused it. As a result, they won't be asking the leading questions and, thus, won't be inquiring. In fact, they may not have a word for "inquire" in their language(s). The species would probably careen from discovery to discovery, occasionally wondering (and immediately knowing) what would come from two events interacting.
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You raise an interesting philosophic question that challenges the words you choose to you. For example, "... make discoveries at an essentially infinite rate" implies a few things. First is that the concept of "discovery" makes any sense to them, and is valuable. Second is that they have the intuition that the universe is infinite (otherwise their intuition would tell them that infinite rates are bad news).
The wordings starts to dig at things like "what does it mean to have a 100% correct intuition. Does that mean that, if you flip a coin, they can call it every time? What if the flipping is done inside a box that they cannot see? The ability to correctly analyze that situation may imply they have a deeper connection to the universe than we can fathom. In such a case, what good is knowledge? What value would they have for it? If you create such an exotic creature, exotic results can come from it.
There is another line of reasoning, which I find particularly fun to play with: they could be "one with the universe." If you think about it, a 100% correct intuition all the time either means they are fully conscious, "knowing" themselves implicitly without any gathering of knowledge, or they only seek to find answers to questions their intuition is right for, or both. Such a being would be frighteningly powerful to us. If they did not want to be harmed, they simply would not be harmed because they would align themselves in a place where they can have 100% intuition, even with strange humans trying to attack them. They could effectively "ascend," using the Stargate SG-1 term for it, ascending to a higher plane where literally none of us can do anything to them they don't want.
If so, the concept of "knowledge" gets truly complicated indeed.
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They would quit when it most benefits whatever they value most. (Assuming, of course, that the intuition is applicable to its own use.)
In other words, they wouldn't, really. It's like asking when humans would give up thought. It's going to be fundamental to their mind and continually useful.
Intuitively understanding the universe around you would be huge. Just understanding *women* would be life changing.
If ET has to "turn their mind's eye" to a problem to use this ability, it would be more limited than if the intuition just feeds them every fact related to what they are working on.
They might need to contain this in-head to make use of it. Forgetting details, then, would mean they would get errors.
It could be like a really nice simulation of the universe running in their head, but need details to function, meaning they can be surprised, but they can explain it after the fact. (E.g. "The light from that star isn't what if should be. There must be life there. I wonder what kind.")
Along those lines, their intuition could always be right, but not always complete. That is, they could need to perform experiments to figure out which of their hypotheses are correct, knowing intuitively that all are possible and that the truth must be one of their list. That would still place then well above humanity and our (comparatively pitiful) science.
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Having 100% percent intuition is one thing, but applying it and validating it is another thing.
I guess what ends up happening is like this:
1. species sees something of interest,
2. species asks question
3. species applies flawless intuition,
4. species validates it against a quick test, makes a prediction
5. species moves on to cat videos
I suppose if they realized soon enough that they could always get the right answer, they would stop validating. But still, there doesnt seem to be any reason to stop asking; it's just as soon as you ask, you answer.
I think the question's point of interest is: if you can always answer your question, would the concept of a question develop? Its like saying if you have the ability to always develop the perfect approach to solving a puzzle, would there be a puzzle? Well, you'd still gotta solve a puzzle, and so the puzzle would still exist, and wouldn't be obsolete.
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Humans intuition is actually brains ability to detect patterns and inability to explain such patterns sometimes. So if a species has evolved perfect pattern detections that can work subconsciously. Then such species might have 100% correct intuition. If they have thirst for knowledge then they might try to guess how their intuition might work. If that continues then soon they might develop formal study methods like we do. At this point they might loose their intuition by trying to formalise it or they might never stop.
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The Being would only cease to inquire if the Being had to inspire to get a validation.If nobody could answer his questions any-longer due to lack of understanding or knowledge of these new accusations, The Being would start a spark of creativity and advance the species and there technology just by giving the species new ideas.So actually the being could inquire his intuitive thoughts and the species could validate them by proving there possible.
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An alien arrives on Earth as a representative/ambassador of their government. Let's assume they arrive by some means of stealth ship and that they have no "special powers" (other than the fact that they don't need sleep, food etc) and look human.
Their government has given them instructions not to demonstrate their stealth ship or draw unnecessary attention to themselves before they have had a chance to speak to the President of the USA and give a controlled first impression.
The alien goes to the front gate of the White House and demands to speak to the president, saying he won't leave until he is given a chance to speak to him. Since he does not require sleep, food etc, he can literally stand there for days on end waiting for his request to be fulfilled.
Questions:
* What would actually happen? Would he simply be left standing there forever or would he be arrested and on what charge?
* Is there a more realistic way of trying to get a meeting with the President of the USA under these circumstances?
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**Donate a very large sum of money to the political party in power.**
If the president has only had one term, you can do even better by donating directly to the re-election campaign. Then, you can discreetly make it known that you are behind said donation, and that you wish to meet with the president. They would be **obligated to give you a token amount of face time**, at which point you could attempt to speak to them. This would be the best moment at which to demonstrate any other advanced technology. If that's not an option, **choose your words carefully**, lest you be taken merely as a very rich crackpot!
*(I am making the assumption that if your species has mastered the finer points of space travel, then it can also counterfeit US currency or hack our banking system without too much trouble.)*
[Answer]
If the aliens are required by their government not to draw unnecessary attention to themselves then one thing they cannot do is stand in an immensely public place for days on end without sleep or food.
In 2003 the American magician David Blaine spent [44 days](http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/19/newsid_3700000/3700652.stm) suspended in a glass box over London, going without food for this time. It was a media sensation.
Admittedly, your alien ambassador isn't suspended in a box. But standing outside the White House for weeks would be noticed without the box, and even without the display of superhuman powers. The protester [Brian Haw](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Haw) became famous for simply camping in a tent in Parliament Square for years. The whole point of doing this right outside the Houses of Parliament was to be noticed by the media. Protests take place outside the White House for the same reason.
The alien needs to make his vigil somewhere where the public won't notice him but the authorities will.
Presumably the aliens have the means to tell where, say, secret work on Black Projects is carried out - the equivalents of [Area 51](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_51) that *aren't* famous. Since there really are extraterrestrials and UFOs in your universe, it's more than likely that the US government has some idea of this and a place to research the issue. If he knows of this place, the alien ambassador can probably spare himself the tedium of standing outside for ages. If he presents himself at the highly secret front door displaying detailed knowledge of what is done there he *will* be taken seriously. All he has to do to be believed completely by the base personnel is get them to take an X-ray, which given that this place actually *is* a base for research on aliens, should be easy to arrange. He won't get dissected. No one murders a peaceful emissary from a power which has already demonstrated superior technology for the trivial benefit of seeing how his insides work, particularly as he is offering to demonstrate that voluntarily.
None of this is remotely as cool as [Wingman4l7's answer](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/31820/9207), of course. But I think taking a side in the domestic politics of primitive species is against the First Contact (Isolated Planet) Protocol & Code of Conduct.
[Answer]
Just wear a sandwich board that says:
>
> Greetings, Mr. President, from the people of [planet name here].
>
>
>
This won't attract any unnecessary attention, since you will be dismissed as crazy. However, we all know that the president has access to privileged information and is aware of the existence of alien life (if not your planet in particular). He will at least send someone to make an enquiry.
You can respond to this enquiry by providing a piece of information about alien activity the president is aware of, which will be meaningful to the president but not the messenger.
If that is not possible, just make your best plea to meet the president and wait. You will be monitored, and it will be noticed that you don't need to eat or sleep. This will get you a meeting.
[Answer]
The trick is to persuade the president that you are who you claim to be, without persuading anyone else of this.
Since there are only about ten to twenty thousand cranks vying for his attention, this is going to be a complicated affair.
I'd say to use the stealth technology you have to place notes on the President's desk in the Oval Office (or other locations in the White House if the desk is monitored too closely). You will definitely have their attention after doing this a few times. Include in each note instructions which will tell the President how to demonstrate that he or she believes the claims. When these demonstrations are forthcoming, arrange the meeting.
Your chances of being treated with anything but respect are minimal at this point: "Mr. President, we can assume that whoever's behind this can institute regime change at will. Ticking them off is probably a bad idea."
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[Question]
[
We are at war with the Clegg, a fearsome tribe of warriors. Both sides have typical medieval weaponry but explosives have not been invented yet. We are fighting over an area of fertile land that lies between our territories.
When passing through a small village we discovered the beginning of a small outbreak of zombie-ism. Our commander - a very intelligent fellow - discovered from the villagers how this worked - it is passed on by biting. He captured all the zombies and has brought them along. They are kept in secure zombie-proof steel cages that are transported on wheels. The commander can create new zombies by forcing prisoners against the bars to be bitten. There is a limit to how many cages he can transport.
The other side has no zombies - yet. Nor would they know what they were or how to use them - yet.
The commander wants to use zombies as war weapons.
**Advantages**
1. A zombie army would be terrifying even to the most hardened opposition.
2. They would keep going until sufficient body parts had been hacked off to stop them moving forward.
3. By 'converting' enemy soldiers to zombies, they would increase their own numbers.
4. Unlike human solders, they need no food or supplies of any kind.
**Question**
What method could our commander use to control the zombies enough to send them against the foes rather than attacking his own soldiers?
The Clegg have no knowledge of zombies. How can our commander ensure that the Clegg don't learn how to create and control their own zombies and mount a counter-attack?
Is there any point in our commander even trying? Should he just give up, destroy the zombies and carry on with conventional fighting?
**Note**
Zombies will not attempt to bite or attack other zombies. They are only attracted towards live humans who they detect by sound and movement. They can walk or break into a shambling run.
[Answer]
The key here would be to limiting exposure with the zombies of your own soldiers, while maximizing exposure with the enemy.
To me it seems keeping a large amount of zombies would be impractical because:
* You'd need a lot of cages.
* The risk of them escaping increases with the more zombies you have
**Infiltrate Zombies into Villages**
I would suggest sending small groups of them against the enemy during night raids. Have a few soldiers pretend to be fleeing refugees, have them go into enemy villages with a disguised zombie cart, fling open the doors and have them ride off at full speed on horses. This is dangerous for your own soldiers, but maybe you'd offer them a promotion? If caught unawares, the village would be quickly infected and overrun, increasing the number of zombies and cutting off valuable supply lines from the enemy. If possible do this to enemy villages far from your borders, so you don't have to clean up after this. If this plan fails, all you've lost is a wagon full of zombies and a few soldiers.
**Alternative idea: Launch zombies with catapults or trebuchets.**
It was common practice during medieval times to launch the bodies of dead animals into enemy castles and forts to spread disease. If zombies could survive being launched (and still run or crawl around) this would be devastating to castle's defense, especially if they've had no prior contact with zombies.
For even more fun, light the zombies on fire right before launch, so they: bite enemies, set everything ablaze and then burn themselves out, thus ending the zombie threat so your own troops don't have to clean up later.
[Answer]
These zombies strike me as very similar to a fire or biological weapons attack. Sun Tzu offers a lot of guidance on the employment of [fire attacks](http://suntzusaid.com/book/12).
* Employ zombies at night as a fear weapon.
* Contaminate the enemy stores with whatever makes zombies into zombies.
* attack the supply trains.
* if there is a large camp of non-combatants surrounding the Clegg warriors, then infect the non-combatants. If warfare has never been practiced this way then it may galvanize the Clegg because you've killed their wives, children, cooks, armorers, and favorite attendants
* throw zombies into the enemy camp with trebuchets.
During long sieges, some generals would order diseased or plague bearing corpses to be thrown over the walls of a castle. Throwing a collection of zombies into the enemy camp is a similar technique though damage in mobility to the zombie when landing may limit their effectiveness.
The scary thing about this kind of attack is that the population of zombies may rapidly grow beyond your ability to control. Training your troops on the most effective anti-zombie tactics will be crucial.
[Answer]
Since you're a medieval army, you probably have no qualms with anti-civilian attacks. I imagine the zombies would be best used against the enemy civilian population and sources of reinforcements, well away from the disputed territory or your territory (hopefully on a different island). The idea is to sow chaos amongst the Cleggs without affecting your own side.
This way they may have to recall some of their own army to help deal with the problem, or at the very least, not be able to send reinforcements to help the army that faces you, and also you won't have to try and clean up a problem that has grown bigger than the one you originally faced, because, well, it's far away!
Sneak them in at night so that the problem becomes too big for the Cleggs to try and use the same tactic as you against you before they realise what's going on.
[Answer]
i think that its a really interesting idea and u should definitely try it but it might take some work. to answer your first question a method they could use is maybe open the cages and have the rest of the army a safe distance away. To answer the second question the commander can write the way to make zombies on paper and hide it away from the Clegg. and my answer to the third question is yes there is a point. Who knows maybe this will be a turning point in your world that could start a scientific revolution. Overall this is a really creative idea and you should defiantly keep it in mind.
[Answer]
You would need to start the zombie outbreak in the centrer of their population, not on the front lines of the conflict, or else both sides would be exposed.
But also, you need your enemy to win the conflict over the zombies, or else you have just replaced one enemy with another. (although, ideally, you want it to be as costly for them as possible.)
You need to create some simulations or develop some applied maths equations that take into account things like the rate of infection, and how quickly your enemy will learn and implement plans. Mathematicians and scientists need to come up with some number as to how many people to infect in the enemies capital in order that the zombie and enemy forces more or less annul each other.
They would then need to keep this process on course by either spreading or limiting infection as the scenario plays out in reality.
The real problem with this plan is that it could backfire. As soon as the enemy encounters zombies, they may devise a plan to infect you. You need to be way ahead of them in terms of zombie vacation.
[Answer]
Well, building on ideas from others, I now have my own thoughts.
New zombies are made by being bitten. Presumably this because of something in the zombies' saliva.
The commander could collect zombie saliva (I'm not quite sure how yet) and give buckets of it to his archers. Before firing they dip their arrow heads into it.
When the enemy soldiers become infected they are near their own side so they attack them first.
The only problem, as has been pointed out, is that this will result in huge numbers of zombies wandering about even if our side wins. They may be worse than the original enemy.
Therefore we have to devise a zombie trap. This could be a deep pit. There is a pole in the middle to which is tied a live enemy. The zombies are attracted to him but then fall into the pit.
[Answer]
It's not worth it unless you have some way to suppress the zombies yourself. After all, if you create a zombie army strong enough to destroy the Cleggs, well, it'd be easier to fight the Cleggs.
But let's say you have a shaman who can put the zombies to rest. Here's what you do...
Dress the zombies (carefully!) in Clegg clan garb, or armor, or whatever they wear. Keep them in the cage. Stage a fighting retreat and let the Cleggs overrun your "POW camp" and free the prisoners... ;D
] |
[Question]
[
Related, and in continuation to [How would societies be if created and populated only by young people?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/7168/2812) In the previous question I asked about society as it would exist in western/first world countries after an apocalyptic event.
This question on the other hand will focus on the **impact to third world countries**
## Background
* A leak of nanomachines led to the death of all people over the age of 21.
* Nanomachines are present in the bodies of the survivors, and prevents their growth once they reach the twenty-first year.
* Because the atmosphere is saturated with these nano machines, every newborn absorbs them
* Survivors are not immortal. They could still die of diseases and death from old age is because of the deterioration of brain cells.
The problem is basically the same: **How would societies in these areas be structured?**
Geographically I would like to focus on Central and South America, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
EDIT
- Physical growth stops, but the mental growth is another matter. The survivors do not suffer biological damage from nanomachines. They can accumulate more knowledge and memories, but the psychology and behavior will essentially remain the same that they have at the age of 21.
[Answer]
I live in Brazil and based on how things are here I would like to present my perspective from such event.
# **Slave Farms:**
Why? Because of gang wars/rampant crime - both expanding to rural areas and forming closed communities.
I really think that society would fall apart. The bad guys have weapons since they were children and it's not common for a citizen to own weapons in Brazil. That is, unless he works as a security guard / police officer. But the ones at that age are dead.
Bad guys have the advantage, weapons access and experience handling them. They would exploit the urban territory for food and entertainment until the first of those resources starts to become scarce.
Any good hearted people who decided to form a rural community or even an urban community would be constantly raided.
So, in the end, as I see it, the bad guys would eventually move to rural areas, where they would charge a fee (food) for not raiding a community, or they would simply enslave other young people to work in farms. Works best if they run raids to capture sons and daughters of farmers, or any other young person with experience working with agriculture.
One of the main reasons to actually move to rural areas is that no one knows how to run the power grid/water systems, sewers, etc. So, basically, going rural is the thing to do. Easier to send someone get water from a river/stream than trying to figure out how a water treatment facility works.
Also, because I really think criminals would have the upper hand, they probably wouldn't be much interested in learning anything if they can just order someone to fetch water, work on the fields.
# New Edit
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Going rural seems to me as the only reasonable way people could keep on surviving after the initial raids. Making too much raids mean the depletion of resources in a certain area. Soon the raids distance from the central point will increase more and more, making them even more dangerous and diminishing the power of the group over those scouts. If they find a nice cache of resources, why not have it for themselves? Also, new resources need to be produced, therefore people will seek the place those resources are stored, and eventually, where they're cultivated. Capturing farm workers and using them seems to me as the best option, and the only one that ensures future survival on a long term basis.
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Famine would happen a lot, and probably many farms could be raided by huge mobs of roving people looking for food, until they die of starvation or adopt cannibalism as an option.
Another thing. I think a system would be created to identify the oldest among those near immortal young ones. Maybe amount of tattoos, or some other markings, something to identify the leaders in a group.
# Extra - Religious Breakdown
Religion is big in Brazil. Many people follow evangelic preachers that are openly running a big scam. Yet they still believe in such figures of power.
Many people would believe this to be a punishment from God, the heavens, etc. Some preachers (they start training as teens) could build communities solely based on how they should act to be forgiven. Criminals have respect/fears of such leaders and that could be the base for a military/religious state ruled by preachers and criminals.
Obviously not everyone will suffer this religious impact, but those uneducated/poor will mostly believe it to be a divine punishment.
# Extra - What could a graphic designer do?
Also, many young people don't have knowledge suited to this new world. What could a graphic designer do? He will have to take arms, or plow fields...
People with practical knowledge would be favored, and get important positions inside a community. One example: Here in Brazil we don't hunt as people do in the US. So, what does it matter that an urban kid knows about books, videogames or has visited other countries?
# Extra - Psychological war - Criminals win
I added this because I figure it to be really important. Many people like to believe that they would fight for their lives against a home invader, or even a robber in the streets, when in reality people freeze.
Criminals, even young, can perform cruelties and have no regard for the lives of enemies. As an example, 2 girls (13/15) where approached by a few teens and taken to a house in an alley where they were gang raped (last week). Later, more young teens came to the house and raped them too. It was a total of 10 young men, most under 18. And now both girls hear shots daily near their houses because they reported this to the police. They identified 5 of them, and the remaining ones are trying to put fear on them to not give up anyone else to the police.
Young criminals fight endless wars for drug distribution and area control, and this happens daily here. They have the nerve for it, they are able to endure such situations of continuous lack of security/imminent danger.
So, common people wouldn't stand a chance against a group of such individuals attacking their homes, some would just break down, beg, try to bargain...
[Answer]
**First I want to define the nations we are looking at.**
The term *Third World* is actually a carry over from the [Cold War](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World), where:
* NATO and its allies were the First World
* Russia and its allies were the Second World
* All non-aligned nations were considered Third World. Included in the list of third world nations is both Switzerland and Somalia
So, Third World is a pretty obsolete reference but the usage you are applying is not at all uncommon.
**More accurately you are looking at [developing](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developing_country) or [least developed nations](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Least_developed_country).**
The least developed nations map doesn't leave us a whole lot to work with. Mainly Africa and a small portion of SE Asia.
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This map on the other hand breaks the world into four sections bases on the HDI (Human Development Index) and should serve well. (All images are from the wikipedia sites linked above)
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**So If we look at only the two lightest shades of blue that gives us:**
* Parts of Central and South America
* Most of Africa and the Middle East
* Most of SE Asia
**So there are some things these regions have in common.**
* Generally Warmer/Tropical
* Limited or Reduced access to technology (Less integrated into daily life)
* Limited access to Education
* Economic and Government instability
* Average population age is lower than in developed countries
**Some impacts will be similar globally**
* Initial deaths of 21+ folks will lead to massive amounts of follow on death
* Agriculture is impacted leading to starvation, no global food support means entire populations die or are displaced.
* Collapse of communication networks reduces the functional control to more localized government
* Some developed nations may stay in-tact but less developed nations tend to have weaker governments and would fall apart and have warlords
* Bungee Jumping and Bicycling accidents (no helmets) cause thousands of death with no parents around. *I couldn't help myself...*
**Lets break down some specifics by region:** I am not going to get into crazy specifics just some general ideas for each area.
Africa:
* About the same really. Of all regions Africa will be the least impacted it has a younger average age, higher birth rate and less technology.
Middle East:
* The developed regimes in the Middle East tend to be very dependent on Weapons and Surveillance technology. These nations will probably undergo revolution in some form or another when they are no longer able to effectively communicate and enforce their dictatorships. As un-assisted travel is particularly difficult in the desert they break into smaller enclaves. Resources will be a major issue as Water will be scarce with decay of desalination plants. Most likely there will be a lot of death and/or mass emigration.
Americas:
* The drug trade flourishes as drug cartels take over governance of their territories as the state cannot control them. Ironically the drug trade slowly dies up and they become legitimate local authorities.
SE Asia:
* Lots and lots of people, lots and lots of dead people. Disease runs rampant. Society completely collapses.
**Society in General:**
* It will be set back, more or less depending both on how many and how much is lost as well as how effectively people respond after the fact.
* Society will be broken down into smaller groups that it is today. Not just because of the population loss but because without modern communications governing larger areas is significantly more difficult. People will start identifying with more local groups, races, locations, etc than with the WWW for example.
* In general it makes the world smaller for people. In the case of people living in third world nations that tends to be the case anyway. Travel is difficult, technology is scarce, so things would likely change very little with the exception of a reduction, if not complete elimination of foreign influence (and support).
[Answer]
You need to distinguish categories of third-world nations (I use nations, based on common language, not countries based on borders drafted by colonial powers for political reasons):
* **Tribes surviving in marginal conditions on marginal lands** (Tibet, Andes, rainforest, New Guinea, polar areas): even if 15 year old is passable hunter, there might be needed more time to get experience to deal with rare situation (water holes during dry season, drying enough fish to last winter, etc). This last strike will topple those societies over: not immediately, but within few years, unless enough better, more productive land nearby will vacate and they can move there. But with most humans extinct, hunting should improve in few years, so if they will survive past the hump, they will be OK.
* **Societies living in productive agricultural areas, but with technologies a bit obsolete** (Thailand, Peru, Cuba, equatorial Africa, most of Brazil, India and China - BRIC): with more margin of error, survivors would learn by trial/error. Will not be able to advance technologically much.
* **Countries in less productive agriculture (importing lots of food now and exporting raw materials)** (like Saudi Arabia, Iran): would be worst hit. Will survive (around military/police campuses) but will have hardest time to establish productive agriculture and rebuild technology.
Areas with complicated geopolitics, no traditions of religious freedoms and history of centuries of wars (India/Pakistan, Sunni/Shiite divide in Muslim countries, Africa) may plunge to **civil/religious wars** if some charismatic leader decides (after a decade of recovery) to establish own kingdom. Building traditions supporting stable democratic society takes long time, and nanomachines wiped out exactly the part of population which learned the lesson.
So none of the third-world areas would be able to recover technology fast enough to compete with recovering developed countries (within a century or so). **Main reason would be lack of traditions of equitable society** (faster route to warlords), and smaller repositories (libraries) of knowledge to rebuild lost know-how.
[Answer]
Most of (sub-Saharan) Africa I think wouldn't be affected nearly as much. The old would be dead. Likely for many areas little warlords would take over and rule areas with an iron fist. Other areas, the more rural ones would likely just morn their dead and go on with their lives, maybe glad that the outside world is leaving them alone.
India would have a little breathing room, [currently %50](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_India) of the Indian population is 25 or less, so they would likely have the largest surviving population in the world. Granted they would also have the largest number of dead as well. So with 900,000,000 dead, the first problem would be sanitation and safety. Likely the cities would be abandoned, once they start moving they might migrate around to other countries. China would lose [about %80](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_China) of it's population and also have the problem of high number of bodies and no one to take care of them.
In all the countries children under 3 would likely die as well unless one of their parents was under 21 or their older siblings were able to take care of them.
[Answer]
**The societies created would be completely and utterly dependent on the artifacts of your particular methodology for limiting the mental age of the individuals.** It is impossible to say what would happen to society without knowing those details. One of the major things society accomplishes is that it raises the next generation. Some philosophers argue that is *the* purpose for society. We cannot figure out what society would look like until we understand what other factors affect the "raising" of the next generation. Otherwise, it's like trying to figure out where hockey players will go in a hockey game without considering the puck. Wayne Gretzky is famously quoted, "I never go where the puck is, I go where the puck will be.
In this answer, I will provide three answers, differing in how the 21-year limit is implemented. Two are simple and short. The third is more interesting.
**For all three options, the initial effect is the same, because society will be dominated by the sudden inexplicable death of the vast majority of their population, rather than by the longer term aging effects.** Fortunately for the third world countries, they will be less brutally affected by this than their first world brethren:
* There are more sustenance farmers in 3rd world areas. This means they will likely be able to grow their own food to survive.
* Their societies are less dependent on knowledge or wisdom that is gathered at an older age for survival. In particular, every farmer knows how to farm reasonably well by the time they're 18.
* They are used to inexplicable things happening. While first world citizens are frightened and wracking their brains for answers as to what happens, the third would nations are less likely to have panic issues.
**There will be a tremendous amount of power struggle.** All of those in power will have died, and in some places you won't even have anyone alive who remembers what peace felt like. In those areas, dozens of small time warlords will crop up and compete. They may even accidentally annihilate their own culture.
**And now for the long term effects.** All of these are dominated by society trying to work their way around the newfound limitations of 21-year old minds.
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**Option 1:** No new information can be assimilated into the mind after the 21st birthday besides short-term memory.
Relationships falter at 21 years old, because nobody can remember each other after that. This will be very similar to dealing with Alzheimers or Dementia. Few would live past 25, because the strain of not really knowing what is going on would be so intense.
Nobody would live past 21 by choice. Very quickly the under 21 crowd would figure out the nanobot's rules, and choose to die with honor before the effects of the nanobots can crush them. As a result, there is a very strong desire to go out with a bang. People will be taught to go full-speed ahead at all times, trying to get as big as possible before doing something incredible at the end of their life.
As secondary effects, society would develop around how to support a large number of individuals running without stops. **Well defined channels for how to live one's life would form, such as Warrior paths, Scholar paths, Politican paths, and so forth. Each one would accelerate an individual to their maximum potential before letting them go and seeing what they accomplish in the last few years of their life.**
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**Option 2:** New book-smarts knowledge (intellect) can be assimilated after the 21st birthday, but no new street-smarts (wisdom) can accrue.
Knowledge is power. We are usually entrusted with knowledge as we show the wisdom that we can use it wisely. Individuals could easily accrue 2-3x more knowledge than they have wisdom to temper. As a result, a large number of individuals would meet their demise by trying to wield more knowledge than they could handle. Consider someone who dedicates their life to the sword, and can gather the knowledge of a 60 year old Katana master, but has the temper of a 21 year old.
Society would quickly learn how this works. There would be a goal to gather as much knowledge as possible, and then become as calm and passive as possible. A common pattern would be for men to join a monastery before the age of 21, learning to cultivate their inner calm. That way, once they hit 21, they could continue to positively affect society without needing to collect more knowledge without end. Like in option 1: there would be a preference for suicide over losing control of one's self after the age of 21. Unlike option 1, this would probably occur closer to 30 or 40, when one's inner calm is simply no longer enough.
Society would quickly form around religion. **Children would have to be taught the wisdom of completing the bright portion of their lives *before* 21, and not waiting until 21 to start the dimmer portion of quiet contemplation.** A 21 year old who never meditated will find they can never meditate, and will have troubles like in option 1. **Religion is the easiest way to generate these "bigger than yourself" behaviors.**
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**Option 3:** The nanobots seek to preserve the 21-year limit with immaculate precision. Whenever someone learns something new after their 21st birthday, the nanomachines re-simulate the last 21 years, and find a way to create a consistent world where it appears the individual was born exactly 21 years ago, rather than his or her actual birth date. This could involve rewriting the memories of other individuals, as they would have interacted with eachother in new ways. New relationships would be struck, new complications would occur. Regardless, when the nanobots were done, a consistent worldview of all people will create the illusion that nobody was born more than 21 years ago.
This one is interesting because it creates an interesting dynamic for the living. There will be a glut of individuals apparently born 21 years ago, and a spattering of younglings. This will create a very strong bipolar culture. This could take the form of benevolent older siblings trying to bring their younger siblings up to the wave of 21 year olds. It could also take a repressive form of older siblings trying to make sure they are not crowded out by the new ones growing up.
Likely cultures would flicker back and forth between these extremes. Society would form to mitigate the flickering, to try to find balance. There would be attempts at population control to ensure a "correct" number of 21-year olds. Young individuals would quickly be taught to be cute and nonthreatening, in order to survive to the age of 21.
Interesting secondary effects would form around the nanobot's attempts to rebuild histories to be consistent. There would be a clear flavor to it, nanobot's preferences towards easy ways to make things consistent. Every now and then, nanobots might make a mistake. Eventually culture would realize that it is embedded in this fabric.
**Lovers would be highly passionate in this world for two reasons**. First, each embrace may be their last as anyone's learning may suddenly overwrite their entire relationship to maintain consistency. Second, separating a pair of closely entwined lovers would be harder for the nanobots. They would prefer to leave the lovers intact, because its easier than untangling them.
Physical marks of affection would gain popularity. It is much easier for nanobots to rewrite memories than it is to undo a physical marking. A common ritual might be to etch a line in one's wedding ring every year a couple is together. A couple may reminisce, looking back at a wedding ring whose marks shows they've been together from the age of 15 to well into their 30s, even though both of them swear its only been 7 years. **Love would truly conquer all.**
[Answer]
You're going to have an economic meltdown.
And very likely, technological too. (some from that breakdown in world trade)
A lot of knowledge and skill is locked up in older people's brains. Some just takes a long time to learn. How many doctors under 21 do you know, for example? Most math people take until post-grad to start doing anything novel.
How many oil supercargo tankers are run by captains under 21? Or, how about just crew? Train engineers? 747 pilots? And yeah, if you're a small-plane pilot you may think you could run a bigger plane... but you'd be wrong - how many of those kids are going to put themselves through training first? Who's going to train them? Semi-truck drivers in 3rd world countries may actually be doing better than in 1st world countries. That's just moving the things that need to get moved so 3rd world countries don't implode. Gasoline is major, so is food, and water. Much less tools and materials.
The problem with technology is that if we stop doing some of it, we may be unable to pick it up again. If you quit pumping oil and processing it into gas, you may be unable to move big enough ships offshore to plant oil-rigs to pump the only remaining stuff available. If you don't have enough power to run the pumps, you can't get it up out of the ground. Etc.
Your kids are going to have to get it right, and get it right quick if they want any type of non-19th century technology. Most of the ore deposits left are deep, far/hard-to-reach and low quality. On the plus side, there is actually some child-labor in 3rd world countries, so they may have a clue for some of those things.
Much less keeping the networks up and running. Kiss your cellphones goodbye.
And won't that put a lot of hurt on 1st world teens. As well as 3rd world. Uptake of cellphones is pretty huge in 3rd world, since it's easier to put up towers than to run cable/fiber/copper. If there are no replacement parts, if there is no gas coming in to run the generators for these places (no power grids) - kiss all of that goodbye.
A lot of Africa is youth already, due to AIDs, etc.
Rampant warlordism. won't take a decade. Kids are being used to fight civil wars, they'll take their guns and keep on doing what they're doing. For places that're not in trouble now, kids will pick up existing armories / police weapons, and... there ya go. All the power, none of the experience, and all the youthful foibles and hormones. How many of them bothered to listen to their elders? What're the chances of them getting things right the first time? If it were easy, there wouldn't be so much trouble in the world right now.
[Answer]
If you look at the distribution of the global population
you can see that about 75% of the population would be wiped out. This would include 90% of the ownership rights within the population,
so what would you be left with:
lots of short term resources (food, fuel, land) I think, once the youth have dealt with the deceased population, they will take to theft of stocks (stockpiling) which will actually. depending on the level of society this will happen in two ways.
1. War torn Countries: These countries (most of central Africa), Lebanon, Gaza strip and the like) are brought up with war, children understand fighting and will resort to violent methods. they will end up with fighting factions whereby small micro colonies are established. Chances are, there will be a complete economic melt down in these countries and they will literally enter the dark ages for a decade or so.
2. First World Countries: There will be a lot of rioting and violence, however most of the educated youth will be more afraid than anything else, The critical component of success in this domain is actually communication - Provided that there is a period of "hybernation" (i.e. initial stockpiling then lock yourself away in the home) a small group of "elders" would do well to develop a plan to provide basic short term needs (in this case it would mostly be power and comms and distribution of food and water)
Initially the only comms which would be viable would be radio, this would require the setup of radio distribution points (handout of cellphones with radio, as well as radios, batteries and generator and solar charging stations) once this is established more coordinated efforts can be setup to restructure society to some degree.
A Flourishing economy in this case would probably, at its best be one whereby farming, forestry, fishing, energy and sanitation is operational. this could not happen at the economies of scale which most plants are currently geared to. however, it will not take long for groups to become somewhat functional. The greater effect will be the loss of education which will be lost to the youth we will essentially run the course of WW1 again.
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I guess you are looking to see if we will end up with some type of cultural equilibrium that moves forward faster and more consistently.
A 21 year old knows too little about the world to have firm believes (i.e. the opposite of you can`t teach an old dog new tricks). After a generation of 21 year old - now in the second generation - we would have dynamic culture based on current progress not based on old traditions.
This may lead to a much higher rate of equal believes, as unique believes have little time to manifest themselves as strong narratives. If it isn`t 100% practical ideas and believes may not survive because the people who have them won`t have much time to publicize them.
On the flip side:
Most `wise`people are over 21 - there will be little room for idealism or experimental philosophies. We will be stuck in practical society that doesn`t have room for evolution.
There will be more peacefulness and more cohesiveness as fundamental believe systems have little opportunity to establish themselves, but at the same time, society would not progress and there would be little change.
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The unit of measurement known as a Curie(after Pierre and Marie Curie) measures the rate of decay of Ra-226 in one second. It was originally measured at 3.7x10^10 decays per second. It has been more accurately measured to 3.6x10^10 decays per second.
I want to use the Curie and create a new unit of time measurement. I think if I measure how long it takes the radium to decay 1x10^10 I could create a new "second".
Is this even feasible? Is it reasonable to use this?
My thought process was to try and find a stable system to create a new unit of time measurement from it. It may be more ideal to use the more accurate measurement but I want to see if this is dumb or not.
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It depends on the span of time you wish to measure.
To measure a short/human scale time, you may struggle due to the inaccuracies inherent in decay.
But if you want to measure 'oh, it happened 10 billion years ago' and aren't sure who will be around to read the clock, then radioactive decay may be a solution.
Uranium-238 has a half life of 4.5 billion years. There is no mechanical or electrical clock that can function that long, but a container can be made that contains 1kg of uranium-238. 4.5 billion years later it will contain half a kilogram of uranium 238 and some thorium, protectinium, uranium 234 and a bunch of other elements in uranium's decay chain. Even if you don't know the initial mass, the ratios of elements tells you how old it is.
Fun fact, the voyager space probe carried some uranium 238 (as pure as we could make it) for exactly this reason - so a potential alien civilization could figure out how long it had been travelling for.
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# Radioactive decay is nonlinear and the decay products will change the alpha detection rate.
This will not work as an absolute measure because it’s not possible to measure just the radium decay, and over time the decay rate slows down. The rate of nuclear decay depends only on the isotope and the quantity of material present. The number you gave us for the Curie, is the count we would see if you had exactly one gram of Radium-226. The calculation for how much radium-226 you have at any given time is as follows:
$$N = N\_o\times\frac{t}{2}$$
Assuming you know that you started with *n* moles of radium (that will be $N\_o$ in the formula); we already know that the half life is 1,600 years, so as time (t) goes on you can see you have less radium. Less radium means slower decay rate. Each isotope has a decay constant (λ) that can simply be multiplied by the amount of the element to find the decay rate at a given time:
$$λ = ln(2) / T\_½$$
λ for 226Ra is ln(2)/1,600 years = $\frac{1.3737112e-11}{sec}$
With that constant in $s^{-1}$ (years were converted to seconds), you can predict how many counts per second you'll have from your radium. If you have exactly 1 mole of 226Ra, then you will have 8.2330422e+27 counts per second.
Why is that so much higher than your number? Because Radium is pretty heavy. To make one gram of radium-226, you only need 0.004424778761061947 moles of it, or exactly 2.6646641e+21 atoms. Let's try that out in the radioactive count formula:
$$ 2.6646641\times10^{21} \text{atoms} \times \frac{1.3737112\times10^{-11}}{sec} = 36604490741.7 \text{ counts per second.} $$
And that you will recognize is the Curie you referenced.
So there is no precise rate of alpha emissions from a sample of radium-226, the amount of radium you start with determines the rate of decay for the sample. But worse, it is also leaving behind daughter products, which are also producing alpha particles at very different rates. You will be detecting alpha particles from radium, and radon, polonium, and lead all the way down until it becomes stable as 206lead. As time goes on the radium, turning into other elements, will cause the detector to read alpha particles for those other elements, and your rate of detection is going to change. Overall this is a very small amount, and you can make a fairly precise clock using radium 226. But using it as a definition of a unit of time won’t work. When you lock up your block of radium and come back years later to measure it, you can’t reproduce those original numbers exactly. Because, it's no longer pure radium.
So what is it? Radium-226 (1600 year half life) yields an alpha particle and Radon-222. The half-life of radon-222 then is approximately 3.8 days. This means that after 3.8 days, half of the initial amount of radon-222 has emitted another alpha particle and transformed into polonium-218 (Po-218). Your alpha detector will see this and count it as a radon decay. Polonium-218 (Po-218) also undergoes alpha decay, emitting an alpha particle and transforming into lead-214 (Pb-214), and further screwing up your counts. Lead-214 (Pb-214) then undergoes beta decay, emitting a beta particle (an electron) and transforming into bismuth-214 (Bi-214). Beta particles won't register on your alpha detector Bismuth-214 (Bi-214) undergoes beta decay as well, transforming into polonium-214 (Po-214). Polonium-214 (Po-214) undergoes alpha decay with a half-life of approximately 164.3 microseconds, becoming lead-210 (Pb-210). Lead-210 (Pb-210) undergoes beta decay, transforming into polonium-210 (Po-210). Polonium-210 (Po-210) undergoes alpha decay, becoming lead-206 (Pb-206), which is a stable element. So, the decay chain of radium-226 ultimately leads to the stable element lead-206.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/BzkEc.gif)
(Decay chain of 226Ra)
If you were counting, that’s five alpha particles until Radium-226 becomes Lead-206, and only one of them were from the radium. It is incredibly complicated, but as the amount of radium goes down, you will see alpha particles coming out faster because the radon and polonium will be decaying.
This means that over time your initial block of radium will become a soup of several elements and the rates of decay for all of them are very different. Mostly you will have lead and radium at any given time since they linger longer. But as your radium turns into other stuff the rate at which alpha particles will be detected in any given second over time will constantly change.
Now to further confuse the problem, this isn't all guaranteed. I said that beta decay won't mess up your count, but that's not entirely true. 210Polonium has two other modes of decay: beta capture and spontaneous fission. When 210Po captures a beta (electron), it turns back into 210Pb. Now, 210Pb can also emit an electron in beta decay to become 210Bi, which in turn can create another alpha particle to return to Lead 208.
While you can keep very accurate time with a sample of Radium-226 for short intervals, it’s not something that would make a practical standard unit of measure.
[Answer]
Yes, you can me. But it is impractical. The decay of Radium-226, and any other radioactive element, is exponential. It slows down as more of it decays. So you can’t do simple math to figure out how many milliseconds would have passed if 1x10^10 decays occurred.
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In a world where superpowers exist, two office workers are trapped on the Nth floor of a burning skyscraper.
Superstrong Sam is 100 times as strong as a regular mortal. That means his muscles can exert 100 times the force that would normally be expected, and his bones and connecting tissues can withstand 100 times the force.
That means he can jump out the window no problem. Ignoring air resistance, he could fall 50 floors and only feel the impact as hard as a regular mortal falling 0.5 floors. Taking air resistance into account, even if the skyscraper is tall enough to reach terminal velocity, he would feel the impact as if it were only sqrt(1/100) = 1/10 of terminal velocity.
Sam's friend, Normal Norman, has no superpowers. If he jumps from a window more than a few floors up, he's going to go splat.
Is there anything Sam can do to save his friend?
If he also had the power of flight, he could do something. It would be more complex than shown in the Superman comics. You would need to accelerate downward to match velocity, grab the person, then decelerate.
But in this case, Sam cannot fly.
He could grab Norman, then jump. But is the sudden stop at the end, going to be any less lethal to Norman if he is being held by Sam than if he just hit the ground by himself?
He could jump, land, then shout "Jump, I'll catch you!" but is Norman going to survive hitting Sam, any better than he would survive hitting pavement?
Is there something else he could do that I am missing?
[Answer]
The short answer is "It depends from how high up Norman is falling - but maybe?"
If Sam catches Norman - he has the space of let's say 1.8 metres to dissipate all of Normans kinetic energy.
If Norman is falling at 120kph (34 m/s), he will cover the last 1.8 metres in his fall at 0.05s.
Decelerating from that speed in that time (yes, yes, I know that as you decelerate, the time increases - using easy maths) - thats 64 G worth of acceleration. Enough to cause serious injury and even Death...
*but not unsurvivable* - some Race car accidents have hit peak G loads IIRC of almost 200G.
Now, if Sam can increase the time by 4, (from 0.05 - to 0.2 s) - that's 17G - still gonna hurt, but much more likely to survive.
So - theoretically, Sam reaches up as high as he can - Arms outstretched tall - he's got a reach of about 60cm - so that's 2.4 Metres of distance. The moment Normans toes touch Sams hands, he starts to decelerate him, but also, he starts changing his direction from straight down, to an angle - converting some of his momentum away at an angle.
This change in direction increases the distance Sam has to decelerate Norman - which increases the time he has, which decreases the G-Forces felt - which ultimately decreases the injuries.
So - TL;DR - With perfect technique and timing, it's possible that Norman is wounded but otherwise alive.
[Answer]
Sam can
1. Grab many metallic objects, preferably as long and thin as possible. (Metal tubes used in chairs, perhaps)
2. tear them apart as necessary
3. bend them into shape so they hook into each other
4. Lower Norman using the chain he has made.
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I'm not feeling very mathy, but I'd guess the best option is for Sam to tell Norman to jump out and fall with his back toward the ground, on Sam's signal. Sam then jumps down and gives the signal. Using super intuition, Sam times his jump such that he is near the apex when catching Norman, reducing Norman's downward velocity but not enough to severely injure him. Sam should cradle Norman's head and neck with his right arm and his lower back with his left. Sam needs to make sure he lands upright and falls into a squat, reducing the impulse felt by Norman as he slows down over a slightly longer period .
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If there isn't fire venting out all sides of the building, climb down.
Sam breaks the window, Norman gets on his back and holds on. If they're in a building with an irregular surface where he can get a grip, Sam climbs down to an uninvolved floor, boots in a window, and they go looking for stairs.
[Answer]
Sam grabs Norman and jumps out the window.
As they are approaching the ground, Sam throws Norman upwards with enough force to offset the majority of Norman's downward velocity (Sam's increases, but he can take it). Sam can then carefully catch Norman to absorb as much of the remaining momentum as possible.
[Answer]
Frameshift:
There's no way Sam can arrest Norman's fall without inflicting lethal force on him in the process. Therefore, don't fall.
Sam finds some strong pieces of metal, drives them into the wall as stakes to support climbing down. If the wall isn't strong enough to support that Sam instead tears it away and grabs onto whatever is actually holding the building up. While it would be possible for the wall to be made of something strong enough Sam can't drive anything into it few buildings are actually made that way.
[Answer]
Hm... if Norman is not falling already then Sam can just hoist him up on his shoulders, tell him to hold on tight and climb down the walls. His superstrength will make the climb trivial and he likely can create grips by simply breaking hard to climb surfaces. He can also do this not for the entire height of the building but simpy climb past the fire and then they can walk down the stairs normally.
If there is a slope on the building somewhere, they can slide down even if it is very steep and Sam can use his strength to slow down the slide to acceptable levels and prevent them from falling off the slope. Probably can be done down some vertical walls too.
Sam can also break floors inside the building repeatedly and therefore create a series of relatively save points for Normann to jump down and get past the fire. Unless there is a completely burning floor, this can also be a viable escape strategy.
[Answer]
Sam jumps up to Norman and cradles him in one arm. With the other hand he claws his super-fingers into the stone wall and slides down like a cat would slide down a normal wall. This leave a big rut down the wall.
[Answer]
# Just fly down
A random person can generate 100J with a punch, a professional 400J. A 120 kilo duo moving at 10m/s has 6000J of energy. You can easily flap your arms twice a second, so even if you're untrained you can generate 20000J of energy with 100\* human strength. Just flap your arms and you should be able to fly down just fine, or slow your fall a lot. If you have any large objects with a lot of surface area like posters take those to act as makeshift wings.
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## The Setting
Let's make an imaginary machine powered by the sheer will of argument. Let's call it a cosmic anti-mass sowing machine, cause why the heck not. (If you can't tell, I don't expect this to work.) This machine could magically pluck wormholes out of cosmic foam, think [Kurzgezagts example](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9P6rdqiybaw) of how to make one.
What if we had a spherical, three dimensional wormhole, instead of my ideal square-shaped 2D hole in spacetime that I tried to brand the "phase-gate" machine.
## The Question
Let's say we make a wormhole... between two far-off places, let's say between Jupiter and Saturn and its equivalent point around some far off star, Proxima Centauri. We then built a magic armature around the wormhole to prop it open, and expand it to the size of earth, with a throat 10 meters long. As far as my understanding of wormholes goes, the space in the middle of the wormhole is just that, regular old empty space, just like the empty space out between the stars.
If this wormhole is big enough that tidal forces don't matter too much, what happens if we bring this cosmic sowing machine into the middle of the wormhole, pretending that this machine is the size of a standard earth sowing machine.
What happens if we turn it on and make a new pair of wormholes? And then we tow them out and expand them? Could we make more wormholes, inside of a wormhole? Is there a rule against this? And are they somehow related to the wormhole they were created in, so that if it were to be destroyed, it will cut all wormholes threaded through?
## The Why
Basically, the point of this is that if we were to transport a single wormhole off to a different star system, if we wanted another wormhole, say, as a backup incase someone were to destroy the original, do we have to transport it sub-light or can we make a new one inside of the old one and drag the ends out?
And if so, then if the old one is destroyed, is the new one also destroyed?
[Answer]
The answer more-or-less boils down to "it depends". The thing it depends upon is the nature of your [wormhole metric](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solutions_of_the_Einstein_field_equations), and the [magic unobtanium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wormhole#Raychaudhuri%27s_theorem_and_exotic_matter) you use to wedge the throat of the wormhole open and make it traversable.
For example, Orion's Arm, which put [quite a bit more thought into its wormhole physics](https://www.orionsarm.com/fm_store/Wormhole_Engineering_Overview.pdf) than it did with some other aspects of the setting, gives the answer "no". This is in part because their wormholes have mass, and mass interferes with the magical fields that prop the wormhole open. If you put too much mass too close to the throat of the wormhole, the wormhole collapses into a black hole because the magical force is no longer sufficient to do the job. If you try to push a tiny wormhole through a big wormhole, then the tiny one gets squished.
If *your* flavor of wormhole was somehow massless, you still have to deal with the spacetime distortions that are naturally induced by the [negative space wedgie](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NegativeSpaceWedgie) that holds the wormhole open... there will be all sorts of interesting tidal effects that similarly risk disrupting one or other of the wormholes involved.
So, yeah. The only person who can really answer your question is *you*, because the nature of *your* wormholes is defined by the constraints of *your* setting and story. There are no real-world wormholes, only theories and papers with varying degrees of plausibility and controversy. Orion's Arm style crunchy physics imposes constraints you may or may not want in your world (eg. you can only have a wormhole [*tree*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_(data_structure)), not a fully connected network) and if you want something different you'll be needing a different kind of wormhole and unless you're intending to do a PhD in applications of spacetime-torturing (which might interfere with the actual story-writing thing) you may as well just wave your hands and decide for yourself how you want your space magic to work.
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The space within a wormhole isn't fundamentally different from the space outside of a wormhole, it's just connected to the surrounding space in a different way. The throat of a wormhole, if spatially "flat" enough for spacecraft to travel through said wormhole, seems as good a place as any to put the end of another wormhole.
And the "throat" of a wormhole doesn't pass through the flat space between its ends "outside" the wormhole, it provides an alternate route. In principle, there is no difference between transporting one end through flat space to a distant destination, or transporting it through an existing wormhole to that destination. Whether that wormhole continues to exist shouldn't affect the wormholes that have been transported through it, unless they're actually something rather different from wormholes as described by current theory.
Of course, actual wormhole engineering may involve keeping them as far away from each other as possible to keep them from exploding. Alternatively, perhaps existing wormholes are a required part of the process of creating new ones, and you need access to a wormhole just to create a new one.
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**Crap... people have started answering your question**
There are some serious problems with your question. Unfortunately, the moment someone answers it, deleting it is no longer an option.
* *Remember for future reference!!! You are allowed one and only one question per post. Asking two or more questions is **literally** a reason to close a question. (VTC:Needs More Focus is specifically defined as "asking more than one question.") Thus, I'm only answering one question.*
But that is the least of your problems.
**There is no such thing as a 2D wormhole**
The pretty picture people are used to seeing, like the one below courtesy [Science News](https://www.sciencenews.org/article/black-hole-circling-wormhole-weird-gravitational-waves) (click to enlarge), is a simplified representation to help the general public comprehend the concept. That's because visualizing a 3D hole in space is *almost* as hard as visualizing a 4D cube.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/r7kIa.jpg)
Which leads people to think that traveling through a wormhole looks something like this (image courtesy [Live Science](https://www.livescience.com/building-a-wormhole-with-cosmic-strings.html), go read the article, it's pretty interesting):
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/cQY98.jpg)
Yeah. That's not what happens. The reality is that all wormholes (if they exist) are 3D and have spherical entry/exit points.0 3D universe, 3D wormholes. QED.
**Which means the trivial answer to your question is "no"**
It's no because there isn't a throat. Remember, that pretty 2D graph is showing you *space-time.* That visualization that looks like there's space to put something else *doesn't exist* because you, the traveler, *must always be on the plane of the graphic,* even in this simplified representation. There is no throat.
**But does that mean you can't have some worldbuilding fun in your universe?**
Why not! From the perspective of (\*ahem...\*) *real space* (if anyone knows what that really is...), there's a sphere somewhere near our solar system and a sphere somewhere near Alpha Centauri and the "distance" between the spheres is less than the real-space distance (light years) between the two stars.1
But what happens if you have two spheres in our local system *that happen to be right on top of each other?2*
Let's be outrageous and inconvenient. Let's use *spherical coordinates* with the center of our sun as (0°,0°,0) with one "zero degree" axis perpendicular to the galactic plane and the other a "meridian" drawn from the center of our Sun to the center of the galaxy. That ought to cause the celestial mechanics hobbyists to bust a vein.
So, both wormhole entrances are located at (0°, 45°, 5AU).3 One wormhole connects to Alpha Centauri and the other connects to Betelgeuse. In your world, if you enter either sphere at Alpha Centauri or Betelgeuse, you appear a short time later here at Sol.
**World rule: what happens when someone enters the sphere at Sol?**
* We admit that as yet undiscovered and undefined tidal forces (see footnote #2) tear your ship into curiously compressed strips.
But that's *boring!* Reality, even theoretical reality, is so overrated.
* Or we leave it up to quantum fate. You have a 50%/50% chance of appearing at one destination or the other.
But that's not exactly practical. On the other hand, you *could* set a rule that makes it practical.
* If you enter one hemisphere, you end up at one destination. Enter the other hemisphere, end up at the other destination. This also determines what happens if you exit the Sol sphere. One hemisphere or the other.
* If you rotate the ship along its approach vector clockwise, you end up at one location, rotate anti-clockwise takes you to the other.
* If you enter at one velocity (energy level) you get to one destination, at another velocity (energy level), you go to the other.4
Etc.
*In other words, you don't need to take "no" for the answer. You can step away from "science" (since we can't prove wormholes are real anyway) and set rules that, frankly, would be a pretty cool way of establishing wormhole travel for a civilization that can make them. It's no different from defining how time travel works.*
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0 *It's been 30 years since I last looked at wormhole theory with any significant concentration, but if I recall correctly, even the idea of "distance" when traveling through the wormhole really isn't expected to be true. Those two spheres, the "entrance" and "exit" are coincident in space-time. In other words, there aren't two spheres, there's one, and you can see it in two locations in spacetime due to the "fold." When you enter a sphere at Sol you are simultaneously exiting the same sphere at Alpha Centauri. No throat. There is no throat. Those 2D pictures have really been a disservice to people. (But I could be wrong....)*
1 *That statement will not only make celestial machinists howl, it'll make angels weep and devils laugh (read Footnote #0 after all). Wormhole travel is unlikely to be anything like what we saw on* Star Trek: Deep Space 9, *much less* Stargate. *It's represented better in* Intergalactic, *but it's still only guess work. Besides, what's the real value of wormholes when time from the perspective of your parents back on Earth slows for you as you approach light speed? Really, it's only that they're still alive when you arrive at your destination. It's no difference at all to you. And that statement might make physicists howl and all those angels cry again. Oh, well. In for a penny....*
2 *And we're going to ignore what we think (and probably will be) the space-shattering universe-ending implications of two wormhole termini sitting one on top of the other. Personally, methinks it's a bit like trying to force the north poles of two really powerful magnets to sit together. You can crush a Buick doing things like that, dontchaknow.*
3 *If that didn't make you roll your eyes and snort a quick burst of laughter, I can't help you.*
4 *Said energy levels might even be used to rationalize how you created two coincident wormhole termini, which is obviously a benefit because too many wormhole termini litters local space, making navigation a real pain in the neck. Besides, you never know what's going to happen when all those stellar winds come romping through those wormholes and hit our poor, defenseless sun.*
[Answer]
Okay, my serious attempt at an answer:
"Possibly"
Here is my reasoning - if we assume that a Wormhole is the result of bending spacetime, then it stands to reason that we could also bend spacetime in such a way that would allow this to happen...
But! I think that there would be severe limitations on the end-point of such a secondary wormhole.
If we imagine the classic piece of paper demonstration (y'know, where you fold it over) - in the process of folding once - no problem, but if we now try and fold that piece of paper again *our options for folding it become exponentially smaller with each fold* and some options aren't possible if we want to maintain the original wormhole.
just a single additional fold could potentially severe the original wormhole or could drastically alter it's properties.
As such, for most practical scenarios - it is better and more efficient to create a single wormhole, travel through it, then create another.
In addition - even using in-universe Maths and Science, it is incredibly difficult to predict what locations within a wormhole have which valid end-points - leaving it in the realm of high-risk (I'm presuming that this is part of the story - a Main character uses this strategy for great effect).
[Answer]
# Sure
To really picture a wormhole, fold a piece of paper and stab a pencil through it. Don’t bring the paper all the way together. That way, you have your travel distance. Now, fold the paper again, and stab it with something sharp enough to puncture a pencil. Now the resulting creation you have is called a wormhole to inside of a wormhole.
Theoretically, you can just keep stabbing things opening wormholes into the pencil wormhole, until there physically is no more space. (But you can always open wormholes into those wormholes into those wormholes, etc.)
If said pencil was destroyed, your wormholes would lose their anchor point and “snap” back to their other anchor point. (Pull a rubber band really far back and then let go for a demonstration.) Said wormholes to wormholes would also “snap back”.
That all said, this is back of the envelope work done based on stabbing pencils through sheets of paper. If this gets accepted, you owe me a new set pencils and paper
[Answer]
## Yes, no problem
JBH sounds confident about the dimensionality thing, but they didn't extend the metaphor far enough.
Imagine you're a 2D entity in a universe that's a 3D sphere. You can only access, and conceptualize, the sphere's surface. Your planet is a 2D circle and you walk on its 1D perimeter, knowing only up, down, forward, and backward.
If you traveled far enough in space, you'd get back to where you started. And if there were a hole through space, you could get to some other point faster; in this case space is a torus rather than a sphere. You still never go "through" the *center* of the hole like a 3D object would; you hug its edges, remaining embedded in the 2D surface.
This of course means you can enter the hole from any direction and still come out the other side (specifically, the direction you enter affects the direction you leave).
Inside the wormhole, you can travel perpendicular to its length and quickly wrap around the tube, ending up where you started. Some conceptions make this distance so small you can't really move at all, but you said there's space in there, so all that means is that the tube is wide enough to move around in (again, around its circumference, not through its center).
Then if the walls of the wormhole have area, you can just as easily punch another hole through that and come out somewhere else on the surface of the main sphere.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/4WBL4.png)
Everything above applies equally to a 3D universe embedded in a 4D sphere. From there, extrapolate from a sphere to a weird potato or intricate coral structure or whatever you want it to be, and throw out any bounds on distance, because more dimensions solve that problem, as easily as you can make any parts of a 1D string touch without really stretching anything.
So now you should be able to see what would happen if the first wormhole was destroyed. You'd probably have to close both ends individually to really cut off access via the sub-wormhole! Whatever holes remain might snap back into a slicker shape, including the ends becoming flat again… or maybe you decide you want dead-end wormholes to be a thing? Could someone get trapped in there if both ends get closed off? Are there loads of old wormholes or naturally-occurring pocket universes floating around in there? Lots of possibilities!
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[Question]
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The Great Depression (2030 - 2050) wiped out 2/3 of humanity, buried nation states and forced survivors to take concepts like democracy, sustainability and the environment really seriously.
The survivors faced the worst consequences of climate change, learned citizenship values and even rewrote the Universal Declaration of Human Rights stating that human beings have the right to peace, that proselytism is prohibited and that everyone has the right to an environment free of pollution.
The population did not recover easily. Even generations later the idea of having many children seems foreign to most, over the next two centuries the population grows slowly from 2.8 billion to still less than 5 billion.
However, it is a remarkably happy period for them: nuclear fusion is already a reality and the abundance of clean energy creates many opportunities. Different types of catalysts invented at about the same time at different research centers make water electrolysis efficient, with hydrogen-powered vehicles everywhere. Carbon allotropes allow for new constructions, lighter, more resistant, cheaper and even with the bonus of the raw material used being the 1.8 e+14 kg of carbon present in the excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
In fact, the success of using graphene, nanotubes and carbyne to build everything was so great that the concern was reversed! It was feared that it would withdraw too much.
Laws (and taboo, perhaps stronger than any law) prevented mining or any other activity that might create a new imbalance in the Earth's carbon cycle (as well as the cycles of nitrogen, water, phosphorus, etc.).
So in 2070 they decided to go back into space.
Not for a competition of countries.
Nor based on the ego of billionaires.
Inhabit other planets? Earth seemed a lot more spacious now with half the population it once was.
The concern for sustainability extended to space: rockets launched from the surface were a thing of the past, from the heroic era of space exploration (1957 - 2030). The elders spoke of [satellite constellations](https://www.astro.princeton.edu/%7Egbakos/satellites/), [rocket debris falling out of control](https://www.space.com/nasa-esa-space-chiefs-condemn-china-rocket-debris-crash), [methane tank explosions](https://everydayastronaut.com/rocket-pollution/), and other things that looked like an abomination.
The obvious choice was [Konstantin Tsiolkovski](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konstantin_Tsiolkovsky)'s concept. They would build a space elevator.
The material for this was already at hand. In fact, it was because they wanted so much more from it that they were going back to space. Carbyne wires.
It didn't take long for them to have a dispute: where to build the elevator? America? Africa? Indonesia? When Parliament was about to split so they decided on six elevators equidistant along the equator: Belem, Libreville, Maleh, Gebe, Phoenix and Darwin. To top it off, they approved the suggestion brought by Arthur Clarke almost 100 years earlier in [The Fountains of Paradise](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fountains_of_Paradise) a gigantic orbital ring connecting the elevators.
With so many minds now turned to space it was not a surprise when the technology to alter the orbits of asteroids and comets was improved and put to use. From the elevators it was very cheap to launch probes to reach the outer solar system that take blocks of ice from trans-Neptunian orbits towards the inner solar system. The dream of terraforming Mars and Venus was within reach. Launching many of them on Mars to recover the light elements lost in eons became a university project. Bringing in large chunks of rock and ice with enough energy to speed up Venus's rotation now just required patience.
If previously people sought to detect asteroids close to Earth to prevent a collision, now they wanted to find them in order to disassemble them into their basic elements.
The base industry was all moved to the Arthur Clarke geostationary ring. This made it necessary to create comfortable dwellings for human beings. Several housing models had already been imagined, designed, tested. The [O'Neill Cylinder](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder) was the most promising, but was discarded because of the [Coriolis effect](https://room.eu.com/article/investigation-of-the-coriolis-effect-in-rotating-space-platforms): the difference in gravity between the feet and heads of the inhabitants was greater than desired.
The station model chosen is a colossus: 45 km in diameter, 5 km wide. 300 meter high domes, self-sufficient with gas and water cycles complete and a controlled biosphere. Capacity for 200,000 permanent residents, or support 1 million under emergency conditions. Earth's gravity is emulated with a rotation every 300 seconds, 2.84 TWH of installed capacity in solar panels. Industrial installations that benefit from less gravity are placed between the living space and the central axis of the station, where the connection of the station with the elevators and with the surface of the Earth is made.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/iXsLG.jpg)
The stations multiply, the controlled environment for the industry is a factor. The idea of turning such an station into a kind of resort, like a private island appeals to others. Certain groups driven by a different religion, ideology or philosophy express interest. The complete structure of the Clarke ring is capable of supporting almost 16,000 stations, the materials are almost all already in space and the Earth's surface is getting cleaner.
Some even more eccentric ones act criminally and disconnect the stations of the ring. They call themselves *Wanderers* and [love to paraphrase Carl Sagan](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HS3TSXekjLo), while earthlings call them pirates.
In 2117, human beings finally set foot on Mars and this made the planet a place of pilgrimage. Muslims visit the vallis marinellis, which they call the Prophet's Valley. Buddhists dream of a retreat on top of Olympus and Christians see on Mars - [red like jasper](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation%2021%3A11&version=NIV) - the Celestial Jerusalem promised since the times of John the Evangelist. A stationary ring is built around Mars and the Catholic Church provides 12 space elevators, the 12 gates of Celestial Jerusalem. In the name's dispute they decide to call them by the names of the apostles rather than the tribes of Israel, and sponsor mass immigration of Christians from Earth to Mars, for, as Pope Leo 14 stated in 2142: "*Jesus said that the His kingdomis not of this world, the Earth; so we must make another world the kingdom of Our Savior*". One billion people emigrate from Earth to Mars over the next 100 years.
Thus the Earth became increasingly uninhabited.
And even with all the motivations given: controlled industrial environment, ease of obtaining raw materials, isolated communities, wealthy resorts, this still seems insufficient motivation to have 16,000 space stations in space (or 20,000 if you count the Martian, lunar and wandering).
Sorry for the long winded, the question, finally:
**What else would motivate humans to inhabit these space stations? What socioeconomic force would attract them?**
In 2240, 10,893 stations are built and they estimate to build another 5,079 by 2300. 773 million people live in them. There are another 1 billion humans on Mars (surface and ring) and another 10~50 million in wandering stations (government agents on Ceres and Vesta plus mining companies on the asteroids, aside the pirates). **Why would about 1 in 5 earthlings prefer to live in these stations than on the Earth's surface and still motivate the construction of so many?**
==========
**Some details that answers and comments make it necessary to add:**
Slow population growth from a population that is only a fraction of that it once was makes the live standard on Earth high and enjoyable for all.
The Christian exodus to Mars begins (~2140) shortly after the construction of the first stations in Earth's orbit (~2112) and this already creates a depopulation problem on the planet. Out of every 9 people, 2 will move to Mars.
The industrial activity does employ a lot of people, but still proportionally less than today where they are 10 ~ 12% of the workforce, therefore, not all the manufacturing industry in orbit will be a reason for this.
Low-gravity activities are easy to have, there are low-gravity stop stations in space elevator sessions, and like any entertainment activity, it will share attention with dozens of others.
Fashion works both ways: there will be Earth people willing to live in bucolic stations with the bored same weather and no rain just as there will be station-born people preferring a more diverse life on the surface.
The enormous depopulation of the surface makes cities want to attract as many people as possible, in addition to wanting to retain. Even the pope's religious call to change of planet will be evaluated by millions of Christians in their pros and cons with offers of permanence in Recife, Boston, Lisbon, Chennai or Abidjan.
Yet with all that, the equivalent of the entire population of Europe, or half of China, would rather live in orbit than on the surface of planets. Why?
=========
Kinda offtopic, answer the comment:
In the expedition to Mars in 2117 Alhazred, Carlson, Jackson, Hamilton, Lösch and Xuesen explore a cave in Nectaris, in the middle of the canyons of the Vallis Marinellis and find signs in Arabic dating from about 1500 years before, as well as strange vitrified black rocks in Mars that resemble the Kaaba.
Investigations confirm authenticity (Alhazred and Jackson had nothing to do with it) and create a commotion: how or what would have done it? What else would there be to investigate and now it was submerged in the protooceans of Mars?
Legends about Muhammad are revised. The idea that the Prophet lay somewhere between Heaven and Earth took on new meaning. The inscription saying in classical Arabic "From here I departed" was incontrovertible proof that the [Al Aqsa mentioned in the Holy Quran](https://quran.com/17?startingVerse=1) was nowhere in Arabia, Jerusalem or elsewhere on Earth. It really was "the furthest".
This also brought up the old suggestion that the relief of the valleys somehow forced [the name of the Prophet inscribed on the Martian surface](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMH9i13fF7w&ab_channel=NaseerHomoud), something that the current coastline reinforced.
Thus, without delay, Islamic law jurists proclaimed that every Muslim who has already performed the Hajj to Mecca should, as far as possible, try to make the pilgrimage to Al Aqsa on Mars.
However, Muslims are discouraged from living on Mars. Martian children will never be able to set foot on Earth and this prevents the main pilgrimage to Mecca.
[Answer]
**No Law in Space**
Many people are bored and frustrated with their utopian life on Earth. Rightly or wrongly, they want to go back to the bad old days of free market capitalism.
These people were causing a fuss. Since proselytism is illegal there is no way to convince them of the horrors of capitalism. The only option was to show them. The compromise was made to allow these people to set up their own capitalist state on the now empty orbital ring.
Of course, in line with the New Declaration, free passage is allowed to and from the ring at any moment. People can opt in and out of the capitalism if they change their mind.
[Answer]
**Low gravity feels good**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/k6PNi.png)
[source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alone_in_IZ_World)
Because in this bucolic future world the eating is good. And people don't smoke because ew. No diseases so people get old and the older they get, the bigger they get.
It is nice to float when you are that big. Pressure is off the joints and the backside. You can take a breath. You don't feel the Earth trying to pull you underground every second. Low grav environments are merciful to large folk and so that is where they go. And there get larger. It is OK! In this future world people don't judge.
[Answer]
**It's fashionable.**
*Live on earth? With all the dirt? And the....moo-skee-toes? Ugh. Sounds wretched. You know, I hear sometimes water just falls from the sky! Like you could be out shopping and now you're wet! I heard Nancy has a cousin who lives there. How embarrassing for her!*
As I reckon, humans do all kinds of things out of a sense of fashion, and we do it by the millions. Really just go cruise through google images for "fashion of the [insert decade here]" and wonder why people did any of that. Why were hats in style? Fashion. Why did they go out of style? Fashion. What's with the powdered wigs? Fashion. Why did sun glasses get huge? Fashion. (Typically, these things had some real roots. What you really need are some really popular people to start doing something and now everyone wants to do it.)
So I think if getting into space is generally affordable for a fifth of the population, and if that's where a lot of the high profile celebrities and pop artists are living, then you can start a snowball effect as people who want to be fashionable join the craze, which causes more people to join the craze, and next thing you know everyone wants to do it, *even if it doesn't really make any sense.*
Possibly just the developers had some really good commercials. Probably hired that same team that did the Old Spice commercials... *(Look at your house, now back to me. Look down. Look up. Where are you. You're on a space station, with the man your man could be like.)*
Also I think this explanation gives you a nice story leverage point if you ever need it: fashion can change quickly.
[Answer]
## It's where the work is.
Even in the Utopian world, people still want to do things. The orbital is a huge research and material processing complex, that needs people monitoring the drones that grab asteroids, researching strange findings, and experimenting.
Of course, despite the presence of treatments for the loss of bone density and so forth, coming down after being there for several months is painful, akin to rehab from a major physical injury. So, most workers on the ring live there pretty permanently, and many even have families living there. There's no real shortage of space (you just bolt on another living pod) and it's seen by people as a way of having less impact on the planet below.
[Answer]
Got it! Not exactly "no law" but the chance of live one non-urban life without the weight of all engessed surface laws under their heads.
Two generations after the end of great depression (2050) and the stablishment of city-estates these are a bit decadent. The new generation borned in 2070 ~ 2090 looks like the G.I. gen and gen Z (artist) rather the nomad (like gen X) generation of city-state founders. Artist archetip generations are more colectives and feel depressed in the big anonym of the big cities. In Earth, even live in Angra do Heroísmo in middle of north Atlantic ocean make you associate to society of Lisbon in their civic demands and rituals.
This is different in the stations: in Phoenix West 4,323 "Naha" they arent asked about the referendums of the neighbour Phoenix West 4,264 "Akita". They apply the old town meeting to discuss if will hire a new gardening teacher or start a class of yoga. In the past meeting they closed the low gravity orchidarium after a fungi contamination. Once a year, are questioned to affiliate in one federation of stations. Like the majority of stations the choose is no. Choose the deputies to represent the whole Clarke ring in the Parliament in New York is enough.
Of course, they will have childrens went be more individualistic (like baby boomers and gen X) and all those meetings to discuss obvious bored things tire their souls. Nothing happens there! And, look this whole blue planet under us! (Station Naha sit 35789 km above equador line at 174.7º west, near Baker Island, from this point can barely see Australia, New Guinea, New Zealand and Japan). Bachelor in oceanography and can explore the sea? Lets go! Darwin, Cingapore and Durban has the best courses!
Althoug, time pass, another generation more colectivist comes. The lifestyle chilling, drinking tea and learning bonsai, or just lay in a brazilian hammock enjoying Bowie singing Starman is attrative again.
The answer was everytime in my face: generation transition like Strauss Howe theory. Different legislation to orbit and surface is able to make the desire of one whole generation move on.
Thanks, Daron and JamieB, your answers bring nice insights. Willk, I still read this site because your answers around. Miss Renan and Adrian Colomitchi.
Sadly, all these comments of lazy answers claim "opinion based, close the question" each time more common in the forum block creativity and interaction. Enough of Worldbuilding to me.
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I'm looking for architectural inspiration for a city I'm designing, and I wonder what kind of building material would be used by the inhabitants.
They live at the foot of a mountain, relatively close to the sea, in a temperate forested region. A small river runs near the town, possibly giving access to silt and clay. The setting is medieval with minor magic (think heat or water producing, not gravity reversing or stuff like that).
The people living there have been for a few hundred years. They follow an animistic religion but are not (yet) based on any specific real world people.
What building materials would they most likely use? Cut stone for its durability? Mudbrick or clay for being quick? At the moment I'm leaning towards mudbrick / clay, but I just want to make sure.
[Answer]
The setting you describe has access to clay, stone, and timber, medieval technology, and low-level magic. Likely construction techniques:
* Cheap construction is likely to be some variation on [wattle and daub](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wattle_and_daub). Cutting timber is labor-intensive, and shaping it into boards is even more so. Wattle-and-daub construction economizes on timber by only using it for the frame.
* Durable construction is likely to be mortared [fieldstone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fieldstone). Mountains have vast amounts of broken stone lying around on them, and it's a lot easier to search for pieces that fit together reasonably well than it is to actively shape them to fit.
* You probably won't get brick construction. Fired bricks are typically made from a mix of clay and sand, and you don't mention sand as an available material. Sun-dried bricks typically use clay and straw, which you have, but sun-dried bricks don't hold up very well in wet climates. If you do have sand, firing your bricks using magic may be less labor-intensive than firing them using wood.
[Answer]
Since highest transport tech would be wheelbarrow or river barge. Bulk construction materials would be sourced locally, as in within 1 Km at most 5 Km. Anything else would be too expensive.
Initial buildings would have been whatever is quick. ie wood. But to minimize maintenance and prestige reasons stone would be the building material of choice for the wealthy. Brick would be of course an option depending on resources.
Unfired mud-brick //rammed earth would not be good long term.
But a mix of stone, wood, brick etc. woudl be expected.
Side note the town would be beside/on the river not 'near' because it means significant economic boost to have access to the river for transport.
[Answer]
Looking at the UK and Ireland, I would guess stone.
If the stone is breaking in relatively angular pieces, dry stone walling will work even for walls of buildings.
Stone that is a little less easy to stack can be glued together with mud (or dung in combination with mud.)
Also forest materials can be used to fill gaps, log houses in Sweden, for instance, use moss, which can also be used somehow with stone.
Wood would require a lot more work and is likely only used for those things stone does not work well, beams and doors (and possibly door and window frames.)
[Answer]
**Dung.**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/1fSQbm.jpg)
Stone. Yes, yes. Medieval buildings made of stone. How novel. And wood. Buildings made of wood? *Bizarrité!* What strange new world is this?
Nay, young JasperMW. Nay. You need new ideas to make your world a fresh and entrancing thing. That is why your people build their houses using dung.
<https://thegate.boardingarea.com/homes-constructed-with-cow-manure-in-villages-of-the-maasai-people-of-kenya-yes/>
>
> It started to make sense to me: cow manure is apparently waterproof.
> Reinforced with wood from dead tree trunks and branches, it is sturdy.
> It is obviously opaque. It apparently can insulate against the
> elements. It is free and plentiful, as the Maasai people have their
> own large herd of cattle.
>
>
>
Cow manure is just proof of principle. Your people collect and use their own dung as well as whatever other dung they can find which is mostly from the domestic marmots they keep. Dung is also collected from the herds of fiercely feral pygmy goats that wander their land and this is a rite of passage for your young people. When it is building season your people augment their diets with roughage, to make the dung more substantial. It is a community effort; the Dunging. Visitors are welcome and are always kept well fed during the Dunging.
Like the Maasai your people fortify their cunning cottages dung using plant materials - but rather than twigs they use aromatic herbs and flowers they collect in the nearby alpine meadows, as well as toasted hair from their own bodies.
[Answer]
## Stone, Mortar, and Limeplaster
>
> They live at the foot of a mountain... a small river runs near the town
>
>
>
As other questions have already pointed out, local stone is much easier to gather and stack, than wood is to chop down and carve, and this river will give the the best kind of stone for stacking. Anywhere you have a river that runs through a mountain, you get plentiful naturally occurring, ready to use stone. The faster flowing waters of mountain rivers wash away smaller sediments and leave behind riverbeds full of smooth stones that are just the right size to be used without needing any shaping at all. Just go out to the river with a wagon, load up, and come home with plenty of building materials.
While some slower moving parts of the river may produce silt and clay, these will likely be the exception more than the rule due to the proximity of the mountain.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/tHYDk.jpg)
In the Medieval period, the technology to make mortar was very well known. There were 2 general types: Ash and Limestone. Ash mortar was cheaper because all you needed for the cement was wood ash. Since every house was heated by and meal cooked by wood burning, ash was a very plentiful resource that was recycled into many things including mortar. Mixed into a mud it will cure to form a low grade concreate that will not dissolve in water like mud would, but is more prone to cracking from normal ware and tear than limestone mortar.
The higher quality mortar is made by heating limestone until it is red-hot and then dosing it with water which creates a chemical reaction forming quicklime. When mixed with mud, this creates a high grade mortar that can easily last for hundreds if not thousands of years. Limestone will be very common in a place like this; so, if you factor in that magic is used for heat instead of burning wood, then this may easily be the most used kind of mortar since you wont need to burn a lot of wood to get it up to heat, and wood ash will be less common with fewer reasons to burn wood in bulk.
Wood will only be used for widely used for roofing and doors, and maybe for windows. Another thing of note is that a lot of medieval architecture did not look like it looks today. Home owners would often coat the outside of both stone and wooden buildings with a lime plaster made of the same material they used for mortar, to give thier walls a smooth white finish. So most of your middle-to-upper class homes should be distinguished from your lower class stone and mortar homes by having a stucco looking façade instead of bare stonework.
[Answer]
After all the snooty replies, i think your best bet would be to honor the Incas who made buildings that have been quake proof for possibly millenia and also make method more efficient because it had to be labor intensive. Or else places were built by aliens!
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## Context
I am disigning a place called the Poisoned Sea, see this [question](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/223055/what-would-a-giant-corpse-island-actually-be-like) for description, there are clouds of purple plankton that eat the tough flesh of the dead God-Eaters and anything that enters the cloud of plankton.
* The plankton are zooplankton
* The plankton can consume an entire human body in roughly half a day
* On average human that swims into a cloud on the plankton without protection will last 2 minutes before sustaining life long internal injuries and 5 minutes before being fatality injured ether due to damage to the spine, circulatory system, and/or respiratory system.
* The plankton typically make large purple tides of themselves around recently deceased God-Eaters.
* The plankton are eaten specialized filter feeders.
## The Question
Are these Plankton reasonable in their feeding habits and speed?
[Answer]
Generally, organisms have two possible modes of consumption. They could be mechanical masticators... jaws/teeth/whatsits that mechanically cut or chew. Or, they could chemically pre-digest their prey. In the real world, many organisms rely on both to some degree, though the bulk of the damage will come from one or the other.
Mechanical action tends to require some parity in size, if only because while that army ant's mandibles can take a nip out of you, it only lasts a second before your arm (which has a mass twenty thousand times hers) will smash down Hulk-style and the ant is no more. Even swarming behaviors of many tiny organisms tend to not tackle living prey (exceptions exist but are rare).
Chemical pre-digestion is trickier. They could, in addition to dumping some weird acids/enzymes that start dissolving your skin, also dump any number of other chemicals into the water which would disable their prey. Nerve agents and paralytics and so forth. But, supposing you don't want to do that, it's difficult to imagine a chemical agent that would start dissolving human skin so quickly that within five minutes the victim is dead. Sea water doesn't make it impossible for an acid to dissolve, but its sheer volume tends to dilute things quickly, and tiny organisms have tiny reservoirs anyway. So it'd almost certainly have to be enzymatic in nature.
Perhaps the best approach would be a combination of both... these things attach themselves like barnacles, and *drill* into your skin. Then, to mitigate dilution, they dump the enzymes directly into these (sealed) wounds. If this were to cause them to release and reposition themselves, the resulting wound might have more surface area for more to attach. Repeat that three times a minute for the next few minutes, and a person might start to look more like a chum bucket. Maybe in such a time frame, they could open up an artery or a vein.
Though, if I wanted to make this sound more plausible, I'd probably back off on the "5 minutes and you're dead" stuff. Sure, with medieval medical science, pulling a person out of the water after 5 minutes might be a death sentence and even within a day or two (even today, if large areas of skin are destroyed, things can be dicey), but they'll still be speaking. Or more likely screaming "kill me now".
[Answer]
>
> 5 minutes before being fatality injured ether due to damage to the spine, circulatory system, and/or respiratory system.
>
>
>
Well, nothing plankton-sized is going to cause fatal traumatic injury in that sort of timescale.
What you'd need is some kind of secreted toxin. There are plenty of really unpleasant toxins produced by a range of different plankton... consider something like [saxitoxin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxitoxin) as an example of the upper range of toxicity in real-world plankton toxins.
Swimming around in an neurotoxic plankton bloom is likely to be quite bad for you in fairly short order. Permanent damage can occur without death, including damage to brain functionality, and disruption of organ functionality.
>
> The plankton can consume an entire human body in roughly half a day
>
>
>
This is quite a tall order, because people are Quite Large relative to the size of your average zooplankton, they're made of quite a lot of stuff that's hard to digest, and they have an awkward surface-area-to-volume ratio that makes it difficult to use sheer numbers to gobble them up.
That's not to say that quite a bit of damage couldn't be done.
[Myzocytosis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myzocytosis) is one mechanism used by some unicellular predators, where they have a special feeding tube that's injected into a target cell which is then drained of its tasty bits. Humans are covered with an inconvenient thick layer of dead cells which makes them awkward to consume this way, but there are all sorts of bits of them which are a bit more vulnerable and might be attackable. Imagine something that attacks the eyes and mouth, and various other orifices you might have lying around. It might feel like a very unpleasant burning sensation, but once the damage is done then the neurotoxin the beasties shed into the water can take effect much more quickly with the result that the victims might cough up a little blood and bleed out of their eye sockets and then just stop wailing and thrashing and expire quite quietly as their lungs stop working.
---
There's a fictional example of the sort of thing you want... Frank Schätzing's *The Swarm* includes an engineered bioweapon in the form of *Pfiesteria homicida*, a modified version of the real-world [Pfiesteria piscicida](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfiesteria_piscicida) which attacks with rapidly deadly neurotoxins. I can't find my copy right now, but I'll see if I can dig up some of the descriptive text from it.
[Answer]
**Cyanide.**
One of the few toxins that has the fast knockdown you want is cyanide.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanide_poisoning>
>
> Cyanide poisoning is poisoning that results from exposure to any of a
> number of forms of cyanide. Early symptoms include headache,
> dizziness, fast heart rate, shortness of breath, and vomiting. This
> phase may then be followed by seizures, slow heart rate, low blood
> pressure, loss of consciousness, and cardiac arrest. Onset of symptoms
> usually occurs within a few minutes. Some survivors have long-term
> neurological problems.
>
>
>
>
> If hydrogen cyanide is inhaled it can cause a coma with seizures,
> apnea, and cardiac arrest, with death following in a matter of
> seconds. At lower doses, loss of consciousness may be preceded by
> general weakness, dizziness, headaches, vertigo, confusion, and
> perceived difficulty in breathing. At the first stages of
> unconsciousness, breathing is often sufficient or even rapid, although
> the state of the person progresses towards a deep coma, sometimes
> accompanied by pulmonary edema, and finally cardiac arrest.
>
>
>
Some plankton can produce cyanide!
<https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.04.894782v1.full.pdf>
>
> Cyano-assassins: Widespread cyanogenic production from cyanobacteria
>
>
> ...In this study, we tested whether cyanobacteria are able, not only
> to reduce, but also to produce HCN. The production of HCN was
> examined in 7 cyanobacteria strains from all five principal sections
> of cyanobacteria, both non-heterocytous and heterocytous, representing
> a variety of lifestyles and habitats. Twenty-eight (28) strains were
> found positive for HCN production, with universal representation
> amongst 22 cyanobacterial planktic and epilithic genera inhabiting
>
> freshwater, brackish, marine (including sponges), and terrestrial
> (including anchialine) habitats.
>
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Your plankton swarm things near them and start kicking out the cyanide. It is absorbed cutaneously and within a few minutes is also in the air in the vicinity. Persons who realize what is going on within the first few minutes can stumble out of the water and possibly recover though might still die. Once it is volatile, if there is no breeze death comes in seconds for those who inhale it, and so the plankton can claim would be rescuers of the first victim.
Once the victims are dead the plankton can feed at their leisure in the manner of their kind.
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**Consider the jellyfish**
Stings from certain jellyfish can cause cardiac arrest and death in relatively short order, not to mention considerable pain. If your plankton have developed similar potent toxins and swarm in large numbers, it's certainly believable that they could disable and kill humans with relatively low effort. It's not like jellyfish are super complex species, they don't have brains/hearts, they're hundreds of millions of years old, and they are 98% water.
Once the plankton have disabled the large prey, it'd be a easy for them to scavenge from their remains to get all the sustenance they need. And it's not like any other predators/scavengers are going to try and get near to steal their quarry, because the plankton could disable them too.
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Assume that paramilitary siege weapons were proliferated to the general public after America fell. Details below, but basically short of multi-billion dollar tactical weapons such as advanced fighter jets and nuclear submarines, anything that can be built by a resourceful family in a well-equipped garage is available to [the Feudal Lords of America](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/227018/origins-of-the-feudal-lords-of-america). You want your dynasty safe when Uncle Sam can’t help you any more. What do we build?
# Weapons
I will set a weapons price cap at $500,000 in US equivalency, 2020 dollars. This price is not only the weapon but includes the research and production facility to design and test and make it. The cost estimate is not expecting hard science.
The premise here is based on the ROI: No siege victory will recover a cost greater than this in a reasonable time, and investing long-term is stupid when your neighbor may lay siege on you tomorrow just as well. A castle is designed to defend against local turf wars.
**Examples:** Per my limited knowledge, a neighbor may lay siege with weapons from the following list, which is ordered by availability from cheapest to most expensive:
* Sniper rifles,
* Assault rifles,
* mortars,
* flash-bangs,
* bazookas,
* fast rappelling gear,
* thermite,
* canons,
* RPG’s,
* artillery guns,
* armored tanks (primitive ballistic),
* catapults,
* private aircraft with bombs,
* dirty bombs,
* EMP weapons,
* chemical bombs,
* cyber warfare viruses (controlling or disabling fortification systems)
# Infrastructure
Metal and ore processing is available to most Lords at a high cost. Assume they have access to energy (which is what makes them Lords), so they can forge and shape metals and machinery. Manufacture a 6-ton canon will take a lot of metal away from something else. Having more than one tank is very unlikely. There is no federally regulated manufacturing infrastructure. Assume you are *not* the unfortunate neighbor of an iron mining dynasty, but you can trade with one as well as anyone else.
No first-world America weapons are left. They were used or have become unusable through neglect. One “may” renovate a tank, for example, but it has no support structure building custom parts or lubricants or artillery, so it is of little more use than a large rolling mass. A tank would be more effectively built anew.
**Given:** Castles of old were conceived very specifically to combat the weapons of that age. Battlements, towers, arrow slits, burning oil channels, motes, draw bridges; all engineered for weapons of that age. None of these features generally apply to modern siege weapons.
# Castle Materials
The typical castle has ready access to stone, concrete, brick, wood, and earth. Metals and ores are costly and need to balance between offensive and defensive applications. I.e., a dynasty building a fully armored assault regimen likely has a picket fence around their property, and vice versa. Build a tank and likely you have three less tractors working your fields.
# The fort
The fortification would be a routine safe seat of government as well as an emergency shelter, it would not normally wall off the whole community which may number as much as 25,000. It should provide short term emergency shelter for a siege of several weeks if needed, allowing time to secure outside help. So stores and warehousing materials to rebuild are part of the function.
# The adversary
It is peace time however there is no rapid response from the government if your property is attacked. The public generally disfavors war because everyone knows they could just as likely be next. So, castles plan for small paramilitary forces operating covertly or in a clandestine assault under direction of some Lord. A force would be expected to be no larger than 75 soldiers.
# What would a castle designed to repel modern paramilitary siege weapons look like?
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**Effectiveness:** The solution needs to be a deterrent, given that an impenetrable fortress can’t exist. A castle simply makes siege “not worth the expense.” Every dynasty still needs to meter the amount of pissing off they do. That’s my job as the story teller. Political correctness and all that, you know.
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Historically, fortresses mostly died out after WWII. Partly because the [Maginot line](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maginot_Line) gave them a bad reputation, even if it worked as it was supposed to -- blocking some obvious German and Italian avenues of approach, and allowing the mobile forces to concentrate *elsewhere*. Don't blame the line when that *elsewhere* was the wrong *elsewhere*. And partly because what happened to German fortifications after the Allies controlled the [air](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_bomb).
Fortunately, even a well-equipped garage won't do [four-engined prop bombers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Lancaster) or [420mm siege guns](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bertha_(howitzer)). The boring machinery for modern heavy artillery barrels is quite specialized, and so is the rifling. Even making a [Dahlgren](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahlgren_gun#XX-inch) would challenge your attackers with the sheer amount of steel. And look at the size of a WWII [aircraft factory](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Boeing_B-17F_production_line_Oct1942.jpg). WWI aircraft were much more feeble. So the things which killed the historical fort are going away.
Metal being on the *shortages* list puts a spanner into the works, but there were historical forts with non-[rebar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebar) concrete. And concrete is on the *ready access* list. (That's a bit strange, BTW, producing lots of cement is a major industrial undertaking.)
So take a look at the [Brialmont forts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Alexis_Brialmont#Fortress_design). On average, some 50,000 cubic metres of concrete, which would come to $10M or thereabouts in current prices if there is no discount for quantity. This would be proof against anything the 'garage workshop' standard can throw at it.
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**Islands.**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/4fbb6.jpg)
<https://mainehomedesign.com/bicentennial/fort-gorges/>
In a fallen but heavily armed US, roads will be impassably dangerous. Water travel will once again be important and so strong points must control waterways. As regards withstanding sieges, those wishing to attack an island fort must either have weapons able to reach the fort from the nearest land or be willing to approach by vulnerable boat.
The other advantage as regards a fiction is that most islands suitable for forts already have forts on them. Most of these forts are over a century old. Using an existing old structure in a fiction gives a launching point for creativity - imagine the persons taking over Fort Gorges (depicted) and what they would need to resist attack from the shore. Could you restore Fort Gorges to its original working situation with local materials? What would you add - maybe a spotting tower with a sniper? Working with and around real things makes a fiction more plausible.
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The real defense is not a physical defense, but the people.
When the Lords have the support of the people, they do not need to build a castle designed to force their will upon the local population.
Most castles built since the 1500's were built not to withstand a siege, but to impress the neighbors through ostentatious displays of wealth. Many human beings worship wealth and many have the belief that the wealthy person should be supported by being taxed. (And some even believe that a wealthy person will work for the good of all.)
Once the local population supports the castle, it becomes the seat of local government, the place where people go to get justice, and where regulations and permits are handled.
When the castle is where many people get some kind of justice, then the real defense against a mob trying to siege the castle is actually the people who live around the castle and will defend it to defend their way of life. So, if a neighboring country tries to pull together a massive army to invade and overthrow the Lords, the population will fight to the death to resist that invasion.
In the case of a small terrorist band sneaking in to attack, that is more a police action rather than an army action. Instead of trying to prevent, it is better to have fast response teams that can surround and deal with the small group.
Resilience is a better deterrence than meeting force directly.
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I love this setting. A bit like the colony (2010) reality tv show, and some parts of the walking dead, where they build the base. I always wanted shows to be more about this base building and less about just scavenging and fighting.
I would define goal as how to build a base spending the least resources, that would allow to defend against an opponent with the most resources possible. This way most opponents will not be interested in attacking, either because of the high cost of the attack itself, or low cost of the stored goods in comparison.
Concrete is of course better than sand, but it is also much more costly, especially if you consider complexity of getting it done, grinded and fired, after all the big machines are left far away or destroyed, and transportation cost becomes high. Metal is likely also to be too costly for the main structure, it is much better be used for tools, to pay for some active defences. So main part of the structure I would say to be made of sand, in particular sand bags. The bags themself can be mass produced even in low tech society, as long as fabric and sewing machine is present. They are also stored en mass in military bases, for this exact goal, fortifications.
Cloth itself, even plastic, will degrade under the UV, so the walls will have to be covered in paint or plaster or even dirt, and regularly updated. Not just for the looks, broken bags will not hold the sand as well.
Sandbags can be used to build several stories buildings too. Floor is to be made of timber, as only it can hold this type of load that floor needs.
Sand bags are also good against weather - wont be blown away like steel sheets. Good against fire weapons - even if bags will burn, the bulk, sand, wont burn. It is much more bullet proof than plywood or thin steel sheet. It provides cover against explosions, unlike lighter steel sheets that will be blown away. Sand bags are also not rusting and cheap to cover or replace. And even in case of earthquake sandbags are easy to put back in a wall. Sandbags are also used against flooding - they prevent the water from flowing, unlike almost any other solution. Closest alternative would be trenches, or lower-than-ground structures in general. But those are damp and require about 10 times as much work to do. Sandbag structure can be comfortable and dry, and even have much larger span, where trench-like structure would require massive excavation. Stones could be used in a similar manner as sandbags, but they require much more work to fit them, either with stone chipping, concrete filling or time consuming stone selection. Neither is anywhere as cheap, while the end result is similar. Stones are also much more rare to find, so delivery distance will be greater, which is bad, especially in hostile territory. Sandbag structure can be expanded from locally sourced material almost anywhere on the planet.
So far this gives protection from small firearms, fire weapons and small explosives, gives good firing position, allows to build massive structure even with small workforce, quickly and cheaply. Next level of threat is a perimeter breach, using trained troops at night or armored car, both are much more expensive.
For this cheapness of sandbags plays a major role again. Bunker defence idea goes like this: long corridors are ending with a gunspot, in a way that to reach the gun area, people must walk down the long corridor. Same works with sandbags labyrinth, even if there is no ceiling in that area. Main idea is to make all the defence directed one way - so that whenever people move from outside to inside - they are always seen. But when people walk from inside to outside - less so. This also simplifies detection - less places to put signal traps. And helps with the car - car wont be able to ram through many sandbags. And if people will try to just climb the bags, they can be seen from the central structure that is taller. Bunker defence type of labyrinth may seem expensive, but it gives just unthinkable advantage to the defenders. Just a few people can stop hundreds of attackers. And labyrinth can be used for storage, less expensive items from outside. Labyrinth made of walls going outside in zigzag, rather than normal walls that simply surround protected area.
At this point only heavier equipment can provide any sort of advantage. In particular high pressure flamethrower and mortar - they are effective against light bunkers and such structure.
Next level is to make free area all around the labyrinth to provide line of sight. Remove tall plants, ideally leave empty soil to remove any chance of cover for the incoming forces. This is where sandbags are useful again - the process of filling them in this area provides this territory without vegetation. Flamethrower, even high pressure one, needs to come closer, and lack of area to hide makes that much harder. With mortar it is a different story. It can fire further than the line of sight, and there is nothing that you can do about it. Labyrinth provides good protection statistically, chances to be close to a place that a mine will hit is low. And sandbags provide a good protection from shrapnel. If opponent is using modern mines, with proximity sensor, that explode several meters above the target, some sort of ceiling is needed. Solution in general is to use mortar of your own. Or if not, just wait. It will takes many tons of mines to make sure that such a labyrinth will stop defending. In particular gunspots at the end of straight paths could be used as reinforced spot, with ceiling and added protection, to make sure that not even infantry advancement during the borbardment will help.
Next level is siege. It cost time, and that is the most costly thing. To make sure that you are fine with it, make sure to have as much supplies as possible. And a large labyrinth helps with it. In particular rain collectors and solar pannels, all require area, and being able to protect this area makes required siege time almost impossibly long.
Next level is chemical weapons, forest fire, river flooding the whole area. They are especially good against bunkers, as those elements often heavier than air and go down. Not having a lower-than-ground structure helps a lot here. Having large area free of vegetation helps - it prevents forest fire from coming closer, it makes wind stronger, allowing smoke and gas to disperse quicker. In particular curdistan cooling tower can help a lot - provide cooling in a hot day, and also help with removing toxic gases much faster than any bunker ventilation could. Sure, fancy bunker ventilation can be better if it is really scaled up, but cost will be extreme. And against flooding sandbags are placed in entrances - allowing water to rise higher than the floor level, but not letting the water in, in extreme flooding people may take refuge in a central rower that is higher. Labyrinth of sandbags will make sure that at least dangerous surge of water is broken down into softer water increase. This way even in extreme case, like broken dam, the labyrinth will get partially destroyed, but not the central tower.
For any more significant threat this settlement will require much more people. And I would advice to have as much population united as possible, as this allows for even cooler defences.
Expenses: sewing machine and people knowing how to use it, parts and oil (1000 usd), generator and lots of fuel (1000), lots of fabric for bags and rain collector (1000), a few guns (1000), solar panels and batteries (1000). And a few months of work to fill the bags and put them in place.
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## Underground Fort
We've already seen what "modern war on the cheap" looks like - in Syria it looked like dropping IEDs out of helicopters, and in Ukraine it looks like long range dumb bombs (missiles, rockets, and artillery). In both cases, these weapons are used to indiscriminately bomb city centers, and appear to destroy even built up concrete structures pretty effectively.
So the defenders go underground - and without specialized "bunker buster" bombs, they are significantly safer.
## Planned vs Ad-hoc
For the most part, the warren of tunnels that sprout up under modern battlefields are ad-hoc: the tunnels came long after the city itself.
It's possible to build the tunnels first, and then the city. This might let you do things like build mini-forts above ground, where you can control choke points, or rapidly deploy anti-air weapons, or... any of innumerable different tactics you can think of once you go down this road.
The key is starting with the fort: assume you're going to build multiple, interconnected underground structures, and a warren of tunnels connecting them. **Now** design the rest of the city.
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### 500k is not enough.
M16s used to be sold to the government for about $650, the M27 that I was issued cost the government 1,300. I have no idea how much the new Sig rifles cost, but Infantry rifles are the modern spear. It's the foundation of your fighting force.
According to a 0341 Sgt that I pestered with too many questions a while ago, the ENTIRE mortar system with all of its extra toys costs millions of dollars. The tubes themselves are worth 200k (81mm M252 mortar).
M240s cost just under 7k, an M2 used to cost 1200 during WW2 (I do not know if that is adjusted for inflation or not) but the Army was paying 12k for them in 2012.
The point is if you want a properly equipped infantry company, just under 200 dudes, you are already going to be over budget. And a company is the smallest your force could be and still function in this role.
#### Sigfried line or Ostwall
You don't have to worry about MBTs but tanks and other improvised armored vehicles are still a problem. An M2 might do the trick but not alone and only on lighter vehicles. You'd need Dragons teeth and AT (Anti Tank) ditches. And A LOT of them. Fill in the gaps with anti-personnel, AT mines/IEDs, and a healthy serving of barbed wire and you have a decent outer perimeter.
For the inside where your defenders will fight, there's the 'survivability onion,' i.e. the best way to survive an engagement with the enemy is to not be seen in the first place. A trench network reinforced with concrete in key positions and extensively camouflaged. If built properly, only enemy indirect fire would be effective against your position.
Placing machine guns on positions with roads, river beds, or any other form of terrain that an enemy force would use to approach.
If you have AT weapons like RPGs or LAWs, those would be in positions near the machine guns but not the same position. This prevents you from losing all your firepower to one lucky mortar or artillery hit.
The mortars would sit in camouflaged firing pits near the 'keep'.
My personal experience says to not tie down your defense to one position but to remain mobile. Moving at least every 24 hours launching patrols to harass the enemy, or gain recon for an envelopment maneuver of the smaller invading force.
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1.Underground, put layers of earth and stone natural armor in your defense.
2. Reforced concrete, manmade armor works more effectively if your base is underground.
3. Missile defense systems and anti aircraft guns.
4. Air force, and artillery. Some times the best defense is offensive. If your airforce destroies thiers then it can't penetrate your defenses.
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Note that the fort mostly disappeared with the advent of gunpowder. There's a reason for that: It's cheaper to blow up fortifications than to build them.
Fortification got a limited reprieve in the form of the pillbox due to the difficulties in transporting the firepower needed to reduce it.
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So, I have a species of sapient aliens I'm designing, but I have one big problem: Cooking is widely (although not universally) considered to be a major factor in the evolution of sapience in humans, and this species has several features which would significantly slow the evolution of fire usage, and especially cooking.
In case you're wondering, the contra-indicators for fire usage and cooking are:
* They did not change their diet in the process of becoming sapient.
* They have fur and so do not need fire for warmth as much.
* They evolved in forests where fire is much more likely to get out of control than open plains.
For reference, this is a species is omnivorous but has a carnivore preference and cannot consume anything especially high in fiber. They are tool-users although not as heavily reliant on tools as humans. They are about 75% as large as a human on average, although it varies a lot based on sex and biological caste. They have a complex and hierarchical social structure which includes a biological caste system with sterile workers.
With that out of the way, how can they become sapient? Are these contra-indicators for cooking not as strong as I had feared? If you are of the opinion that cooking was not a major factor in the evolution of human sapience, it would be appreciated if you would give a clear and detailed description of why you believe this.
Answers that revolve around their sapience having been artificially engineered or granted by supernatural means will not be appreciated, as this question is strictly about natural evolution.
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Sapience is not a result of cooking,, but a requirement to be able to cook.
What cooking enables is more efficient usage of available food, thus allowing the *already*-sapient chef the additional free time to do something with their newfound sapience, rather than spend 99% of their time scrounging for more food.
Not proven, but *civilization* is likely impossible for a primitive species without first developing cooking (and, of course, developing the prerequisite use of fire).
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Well, I am in the camp that it is not cooking at all, it is just a higher caloric requirement.
Dolphins and Killer Whales and Octopi are all highly intelligent problem solvers that are clearly conscious, thinking beings. There is a great deal of evidence that Dolphins can communicate with each other vocally. Octopi can solve puzzles that the average 6 year old human cannot solve.
I'm not sure how you define "sapience", but I would include 3-4 old humans.
These sea animals are well on their way, and obviously they don't cook. But they are all expert and prolific hunters in an environment with plenty of calories, in fact so many calories that feeding themselves is very much a part-time job that does not occupy their whole day.
Which is all that caloric density does; cooking means you don't have to hunt so much or spend very much of your day eating, like grazers eating raw food must do.
I could say the same thing for tribal animals, like wild wolves. They don't cook. But they are quite smart; on par with 3-4 year old humans in terms of puzzle solving.
On top of that, all the sea creatures live in a dangerous environment with predators. The development of sapience is likely in response to that danger.
Your aliens can evolve sapience by
1. Being social tribal animals, this boosts intelligence by making social success a survival trait, and that requires understanding what others in your tribe are thinking or feeling; intelligence becomes an arms race against other humans: The smarter humans outfox the dumber humans in terms of reproduction.
2. Making calories fairly plentiful and easy to obtain.
3. Making the environment relatively dangerous, one in which outsmarting predators is a necessity, not only to protect one's self, but others, like the young or the elderly that still contribute to overall tribal survival (e.g. through childcare or food preparation without cooking; e.g. peeling, separating food from waste like skin, bones, organs, seeds, etc.)
Just like us humans, that are completely underwhelming in every aspect as physical predators\*, you design your environment so that sapience and high IQ are very instrumental in survival and reproduction, for a physically incompetent predator. (If adult humans with 2-year old mentalities had to compete with lions for prey, even if the lions were no danger to them, we'd go extinct pretty damn quick.)
* (We humans are good pursuit predators, but that is one step above scavengers, it is not really "hunting" like a big cat or even wolves that take down their prey; we run them until they have a heat stroke and **fall** down on their own. The same is true for traps and snares, we don't tackle a moose, we engineer a way to trick the moose into killing itself by falling into a spike pit or whatever.)
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## They don't need to cook, but they do need habitual fire use.
I can not express how important fire is to the development of technology. Nearly every invention humans have ever made uses fire at some point it its production. Without fire there is no metal, no glue, no leather, no pottery, no brick making, no mortar, no heat treating, no candle making, and way fewer options for carpentry, rope making, and textiles. Even something so simple as mounting a stone tip to a spear head or feathers to an arrow can not be done well enough to be worth it without fire to boil your resin.
Unless you create a reason for your aliens to make habitual use of fire, their tool using will never become much more advanced those used by Chimpanzees.
This means your species NEEDS a reason to make a fire every night to expose them to enough fire to make the accidental discoveries that led to the technologies which made the Mesolithic Period possible. While cooking is sometimes attributed to this reason, a far more likely reason for the rise of fire usage is warmth and light. Only after we started using it to do the obvious things (keep warm and see at night) would we start experimenting with it enough to discover other uses for it like cooking.
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> this is a species is omnivorous but has a carnivore preference and cannot consume anything especially high in fiber.
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This diet makes your species very likely to develop cooking once they have fire. Humans are perfectly capable of eating raw meat, it is actually the grains and roots in our diet that make cooking so important. Cooking breaks down fiber allowing us to eat plants that are otherwise too hard for us to digest. Cooking meat also has the benefit of preserving it better. If you want to take away cooking as a useful discovery, you need to make them herbivores. If they can eat a large varieties of nuts, roots, seeds, etc. without cooking and don't eat enough meat to need to preserve it, then cooking becomes a much less desirable use of fire.
The real reason for the development of fire is population growth or climate change. If thier population expands quickly or climate change rapidly contracts thier existing territory, they will not be able to stay in thier native temperate forests/jungles. Normally for a species this means they would hit a wall where thier population becomes restricted. But, if they discover fire, then they can migrate out of thier warm forests into the colder north in pursuit of more territory without having to wait on slow evolutionary processes.
So migration to colder climates plus a herbivore diet would give them a reason to develop habitual fire use without needing to develop cooking.
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Create another scarcity or challenge that requires the members of this species to cooperate, e.g. predators that only can be beaten by the cooperation of the multiple members, harsh weather that requires elaborate shelters, the sudden lack of some resource... Or if you want to take a more individualistic path, sexual selection: a mating ritual that becomes more and more complicated in each generation, and individuals that are more intelligent will perform better, therefore reproduce more.
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The evolution of sapience does not occur *because* of the use of fire or the invention of cooking. That is an advancement *made possible* by sapience.
Rather, sapience evolves because of other factors, revolving around a *need* for complex thought:
* A complex, dynamic social structure: Earth's most sapient species have a complex society. Social status may change depending upon relationships with others. Competition between individuals for higher social status exists.
* A challenging environment requiring improvisation and/or memorization of the location of essential resources and storage of those resources: It is thought that early humans survived a period of extreme drought, requiring that they memorize the locations at which water may be found, and carrying and storing water for later use away from its source.
That said, I am not sure that the OP's species has what it takes to become sapient.
That they have a 'complex and hierarchical social structure' and biological castes with sterile workers suggests that while their society has a certain degree of complexity, it is not likely *dynamic*. Each individual appears to be born or raised into a particular role, and there is likely little prospect of changing caste or social status. Without the possibility of social conflict and a struggle for position, that's one major stimulus for sapience missing.
Secondly, there is no suggestion that their environment presents them any problems that they haven't been able to solve through their biological adaptations. Perhaps some resources are seasonal, perhaps they require discriminating senses to identify, but this doesn't require great sapience. It may require a bit, but once their level of sapience is sufficient, there's little need for more.
Ants and bees also have sterile castes and a potentially challenging environment, but they have adapted to overcome their problems not with sapience, but with cooperation. Resources may be difficult to find, but by having many individuals foraging and reporting the location of resources, others can come and assist in the task of harvesting. This is likely the case with the OP's species: they don't likely need sapience because all the smarts they need is to recognize resources when they stumble across them, and the ability to notify others as to the location of the resources. Ants do that with pheromones. Bees do it by dancing. Neither requires much brainpower at all.
That's not to say that a species with castes couldn't become sapient. It would require that the caste that an individual takes on is *not* fixed, but is the result of internal social competition. If there are sterile castes, their sterility must be temporary, and in the event of the death or demotion of a breeder through social competition, a sterile individual must be able to be promoted to being a breeder. By encouraging internal social competition, this applies an evolutionary pressure toward greater sapience.
Of course, the OP may want their castes to by physiologically distinct. There is no reason why this could not occur, as long as the physiological changes are reversible and/or cumulative, with the reproductive caste having features of other castes as well as the ability to reproduce.
Another pressure toward sapience would be a changing environment. Perhaps the ancestral forests are dwindling, perhaps there are floods brought about by climate change. This species has been forced out of their comfortable ancestral home, and must now improvise or die. Many of them will likely die, but those that can improvise will survive and reproduce.
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I won't debate intelligence vs cooking, others have done an adequate job of that. I would disagree that cooking is the only way of breaking down fibers. We know that pounding meat, for instance, tenderizes it pretty well. So can the application of enzymes via fruit juice or other materials. Acids have also been shown to do this.
It's also possible to raise the temperature of something to the point where internal chemical reactions take place that don't require a fire. [Sous vide](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sous_vide#Temperature) is a whole branch of cooking devoted to that.
There's also nothing preventing people from domesticating crops or animals with a goal of improving digestibility. We've been doing that ourselves.
There's no denying that fire (and fire-related temperatures) go a long ways towards powering our civilization but that's completely separate from maintaining and growing intelligence.
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There are a number of mammal species on Earth which might possibly have intelligence ranges that overlap considerably with the intelligence range of humans. Thus members of those mammal species might possibly be considered to be sentient and thus people.
They include at least four species of apes (plus a number of now extinct species more closely related to *Homo sapiens*), plus three species of proboscideans (plus a number of now extinct species of proboscideans), plus about eighty to ninety species of cetaceans (plus now extinct species of cetaceans going back many millions of years).
And that is just the mammals. There are also some species of birds which might have high enough intelligences to be sentient.
And there are a number of highly intelligent cephalapod species which might possibly be sentient.
And of all those species with intelligence ranges similar to that of humans, species that might possibly be sentient and thus people, only *Homo sapiens* (and a few now extinct species closely related to *Homo sapiens*) have been known to use fire.
Thus there are reasons to doubt that the use of fire was a precondition, instead of a result, of sentience.
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I had a similar question when wondering if advanced sapient creatures would have soft facial features like humans because intelligence would lead to them cooking food so their strong animal jaws and large teeth would shrink over time with their softer food diet.
If heating food never takes place this will affect other advancements. Most chemistry involves heating materials so the advancement of many scientific fields will be hindered, although they could still choose to use fire for those purposes but still keep a raw food diet but it is unlikely that they will use fire for scientific processes and not cooking.
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Giants in my world are fairly human-looking, besides being 14ft tall on average. Giants are unable to normally communicate (due to their constant heavy breathing) but instead communicate through stomping their feet. Giants can often predict earthquakes because of how sensitive their feet are to vibrations, which also allows them to better understand other giants. It's highly debated on whether giants are as intelligent or below humans, because giants can't really express themselves easily due to their non spoken language and most humans don't understand it. Giants also aren't very advance, having only a very basic level of farming which is just herding wild cattle, and because they don't really fight wars with each other they just have basic spears. There's two types of giants, Frost Giants (everything above sums them up pretty well) and the Islander Giants which are about 2ft shorter then Frost Giants but have more well defined muscles and live in the tropics sailing from island to island. Giants tend to keep to themselves and both types only form small family units, and aren't exactly aggressive but will defend themselves fiercely.
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# The same way we treat elephants
Elephants are large creatures which can grow to be 13 feet tall which can't speak english. They're of another race. This has led to predictable treatment.
1. They are enslaved for labour and war.
2. They are used by rich kings to show off their wealth.
3. They're hunted as megafauna for their meat and body parts.
4. They are put in circuses to do tricks for us.
5. They are bred to make them more docile slaves.
Giants would be treated the same way. They're poorly organized and so can't resist enslavement, have families so they can probably be tamed by making a human take the role of the parent.
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Giants have skills they would be payed for, but they'll pay a lot back also.. for the unintended damages they inflict on other man's properties, with their communications.. *"sorry your house collapsed, I only made a joke"*
**People would be interested in their work force**
These giants would be nice workers in agriculture. They don't need oxen to plough, or an axe to fell a tree. In the cities, they would come in handy to help moving furniture.. build churches, like putting the [Baphomet statues](https://www.google.com/search?q=baphomet%20statue%20notre%20dame) on the ridges:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/vWfvP.jpg)
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They would probably be very afraid of giants because they would have a superhuman strenght and a nedieval society do not have enough powerful weapons and technology to take the giants down.
However even if the giants were nice people they could not live among "normal" people due to the extreme morphology and size difference. Both would be needed to treated and viewed as different alien species.
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I don't exactly want the science on how portals work (though I wouldn't complain if someone did), but I suppose they would work lore-wise. Portals can often be found behind long forgotten entrances, such as behind the doors of an ancient mausoleum.
The portals themselves are invisible and often unusable, meaning most people will pass through one without knowing that they did. The portals usually are only able to be used by things from the fantasy world, because what the portals try to do is to separate things from the fantasy world and Earth. But because the majority of the things from the fantasy world's ancestors come from Earth, the portals get confused on whether they belong on Earth or the other place, so they end up just being able to transverse them without any problem. The only exception are semi-intelligent gremlins, which can teleport between the worlds without the need for portals.
The biggest issue I'm facing is exactly how things from Earth would even get to the fantasy world. For instance, an elf can travel between the two, because its ancestors came from Earth and and it was born in the fantasy world. But how would said ancestors even get to the fantasy world? I was thinking maybe things that touch the gremlins while they're teleporting back to the fantasy world teleport along with them, but this is kind of underwhelming.
Note: Gremlins are the only things that are proven to not come from Earth. And I'm okay with any answer, as you can guess I'm pretty early in the process so currently nothing would really break the rules in my universe because I haven't really established any.
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I'm thinking back to the old Irish tales.
The [changeling](https://www.irishcelticjewels.com/celtic-wedding/2012/03/irish-mythology-the-changeling/) was a creature found in place of their own dear child by its parents, the baby having been stolen and replaced with an imposter. (Perhaps a Gremlin, perhaps something-else from the other world.)
The act of stealing an Elven baby and replacing it, created a new balance between the worlds, where before, only Gremlins could flit between the two, the presence of a "foreign body" in each world facilitated a new link between realms.
Feeling a constant pull towards their true-homes, acting as a two-way anchor allowing a passage to be created, the kidnapped elf and replacement creature were then able to create a portal back to their home-grounds. With both portal entrances created - one from each side- travel could begin.
Even with all back in their right place, the portal would still function, like picking a scab to keep a wound open, even if not picked for a while, the scar would still be there to be opened with a sharp poke.
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I think you are correct in thinking that Gremlins are the key to the answer, as they are the outlier as far as being the only species having this ability to travel without portals.
Maybe the Gremlins' ancestors used to be more advanced than they are now, and willfully travelled between the worlds for fun and profit, often mixing with early humans and, although officially frowned upon, occasionally mating, with unpredictable results. Some of these babies were born with pointy ears, some with horns and hooves, some were green and fanged. A few were lucky enough to be close enough to human or gremlin that they could pass for normal, but most were shunned and ostracised.
Eventually, those in charge decided that enough was enough, allocated earth as off limits, relocated the half human freaks to a new world and forgot all about the whole mess.
Millennia later, the Gremlins have regressed to semi-intelligence due to wandering down an evolutionary cul-de-sac, but the freaks have thrived, evolving into the different races in your fantasy world. Being half-human, they don't have such a strong ability to cross through into our world and back as the Gremlins, but if they can find a suitable weak spot they can sometimes break the barrier and cross.
This gives an opportunity for a human character to find out that they were also descended from a human/gremlin hybrid, albeit one that was passed off as human and missed the last boat to fantasy world. They can also pass through the portals.
Maybe others can, too..
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# Cats
Cats find gremlins delicious, and try to eat them whenever they can. This often leads to cats being transported to the fantasy world when the gremlin tries to teleport away. As such, most cats count as supernatural beings. They often know the locations of portals, and will head over to them to try and hunt more gremlins to eat.
Any human in close proximity to a cat can pass over. If they chase down their cat to see where they went they might end up in another world.
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I'll offer you two examples, one from D&D and one of my own.
**Planar Worlds**
If you ever read the planar setting for Forgotten Realms, all the different planar worlds are interconnected by the Astral Sea, a silvery between world realm. When one projects themselves to another plane, they are connected through a silvery cord. Few things can sever this cord, such as a githyanki's silver sword. The Githyanki is a race that lives natively to the astral sea and has the means to quickly traverse to different planes.
Your gremlins could model some ability after that of the githyanki.
**4th-Dimentional Axis**
I'm building two different worlds, one sci-fi and one fantasy, and because I really like medium-hardish science and hard magic worlds, I like to incorporate some scientific elements to my fantasy world and might someday try to link them while maintaining consistent rules between worlds. This has inspired me to consider that different planes are actually worlds linked to ours on a 4th-dimensional axis.
Part of this was inspired by a clip from YouTube's Action Lab. If you have a 1-dimensional world, that is, a line, inhabitants of this 1D world can only traverse from one end to the other by the distance of that line. However, in the 2D or 3D world, we can fold the line over and let the two ends meet.
If you draw a circle and a character on the same piece of paper, from the perspective of that 2D character he can only go two-directions to get to the otherside of the cirlce. However, as a 3-dimensional being, you can fold the paper and place the character on the other side of the circle.
Likewise, for us 3-dimesional beings, there may be ways to traverse or "teleport" to different locations through the 4th-dimensional axis, even if we cannot physically perceive this.
I plan to use this to explain teleportation and portals in my world. 4th dimension is not a "world" as bad old school sci-fi like to use. 4th dimension is an axis that can be traversed through. For paranormal phenomena, perhaps it is a result of an event from 4th-dimensionally adjacent world that is somehow bleeding into that of our own.
I don't have gremlins in my world, but perhaps they may naturally have the ability to perceive that 4th-dimensional axis, just like some humans are tetrachromatic and can see colors that most humans physically cannot perceive.
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I think a way you could do it is that for the specific fantasy world being traveled to, the person from earth can travel there because that specific fantasy world has some kind of strong connection to them. Maybe much of the world is arid, and they grew up in Arizona, and are now living away from home, feeling a yearning for that again.
Maybe an artist feels a draw towards a fantasy kingdom focused on celebrating many mediums of art.
Obviously this would be far, far more rare than normal travel between the worlds - but it's just the kind of thing you can justify to get a protagonist through.
The thing I find interesting is that this would then allow the traveler from Earth to easily return home, in contrast to a lot of portal fantasy/isekai. One could then perhaps make an "anchor" of sorts in the fantasy world to fix the connection there - maybe join some cause, find some good friend or lover -
Then the person would have a connection to both worlds, and could travel somewhat easily between them. You could even then bring the person you've become friends with to earth, as they now have a connection to earth by proxy through you (and of course there would be diminishing returns on this).
I could see a lot of interesting stories growing out of this, where someone's connection to the fantasy world becomes so affixed, their interest, connection, and therefore access to Earth begins to wane.
Hope that I'm not super misunderstanding your magic system here, hope that I provided some help.
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**Gremlins taught humans how to cross**
Perhaps voluntarily, perhaps by accident. Possibly both. Do Gremlins travel by using some innate power/aptitude, or do they have their own magic/method for crossing? If it's the latter, couldn't some humans somehow have learned their tricks and secrets, and then travelled back?
**Some humans inherited the ability to cross**
Alternatively, as others have suggested, if elves and other fantasy beings are the offspring of humans and Gremlins, could some of these half-humans have inherited this magic somehow?
Depending on your setting, it could happen that proximity to Gremlins could be enough to enable Gremlin-like abilities that could let humans cross to this other dimension/world.
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One moment, there are as much as two trillion different universes, all of which have their own collections of galaxies. The next, 4,543,000 universes still have their galaxy collections. What happened to the others?
The unfortunate answer is this--a hyperadvanced civilization had parasitized on those universes by sucking up all of the universes' most common element, hydrogen. First, they merged all the galaxies in their universe into one, revitalizing the hydrogen reserves needed to create stars. But the race is paranoid. The idea of the universe being dead--cold, dark, empty, quiet--is flat-out unacceptable to them. So they had some kind of technology to suck up every atom of hydrogen from other universes, turning their universe into a hyperdense ocean of hydrogen.
The lifespan of a star isn't necessarily defined by its size so much as how quickly it burns off its hydrogen. Blue giants heat up awfully fast, so they can live only like insects. Red dwarves, on the other hand, burn their hydrogen so slowly that they can stand for trillions of years. By feeding all the stars an excessive glut of hydrogen, will this prolong the Age of Stars indefinitely?
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This is an interesting question, but the answer probably isn't the one you're looking for. As with normal stars, these constantly-accreting objects will fuse hydrogen into heavier elements, then fuse some of those heavier elements into even heavier elements, and so and so forth, until you end up with an inert iron core that grows progressively bigger - and just like normal stars, they'll run into the issue not of having no fuel to burn but of not being able to support that core against its own gravity. It will collapse, presumably into a black hole.
I would argue, in fact, that this would bring about the end of the Stelliferous Era even quicker, though for slightly different reasons than Monty Wild argues. The dense "ocean" would be a ripe place for star formation to occur; as the initial generation of these massive, accreting stars dies, the resulting supernovae would send out shock waves, as normal supernovae do - but since they would be surrounded by enormous reservoirs of gas, it should be extremely easy to compress the surrounding gas and trigger a massive starburst. We see this in our universe (e.g. in Sco OB2, [Preibisch & Zinnecker 2001](https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2001ASPC..243..791P/abstract)), but not to the extent we would see in this ocean of hydrogen.
This would lead to something of a positive feedback loop - a [starburst galaxy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starburst_galaxy) on a scale never-before-seen. It's interesting to think about what the ultimate fate of this galaxy would be. The massive stars should presumably form strong winds, eventually combining into a [galactic superwind](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_superwind). This has the potential to bring balance to the system, ejecting some of the gas and putting an end to the starburst.
Once all the gas has either been consumed, ejected, or is simply too diffuse to collapse into new stars, however, you'd be left with a collection of stellar remnants - occasionally doing interesting things like interacting gravitationally or even merging (in exotic three-body encounters), but fairly inactive. The Stelliferous Era would be over - although it would have ended with quite the bang.
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**No**.
By adding all this hydrogen, existing stars will be made heavier, plus new stars will form, sweeping up the excess hydrogen into huge, dense stars, the stellifierous age will burn much more brightly, but also much more briefly, and all of these super-massive stars will eventually burn through their fuel, erupt into supernovas, and ultimately collapse into black holes and neutron stars.
Adding even more hydrogen to a universe so full of black holes and degenerate matter will only hasten the collapse of the degenerate matter into black holes.
If we continue to add hydrogen, this will only add to the mass of the black holes, hastening their mergers into more massive black holes.
If hydrogen is still added, I don't know what would happen when the entire universe becomes a single ultra-massive black hole.
**TL;DR**
Continuing to add hydrogen in an attempt to prolong the stelliferous era will serve only to hasten the end of the stelliferous era and ensure the collapse of the universe into degenerate matter and black holes, and ultimately produce a single universal black hole.
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Nope. Their universe is now more than a trillion times as massive as it was. Gravity wins, they'll get a very big crunch.
Clarifying: Our universe has approximately the amount of mass needed to eventually halt the expansion. They've brought a trillion times the mass into the universe, it's way, way more massive than needed to close it. Gravity will bring the expansion to a halt and everything will fall back in. What happens beyond that we do not know.
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# How to have humans evolve the same on multiple planets
In my fantasy universe, almost all sentient life, and most non-sentient life including humans, was teleported to hundreds of planets after a magiclysm (catastrophe caused by extreme amounts of magic stored in one place.) Although it's not the main setting, Earth exists, and I'd like humans to have evolved there, roughly 500,000 years ago. (Which is when they were teleported there)
How can I have humans be the same (or at least very similar) anatomically on all planets while still allowing for evolution?
Notes:
* Magic exists, but shouldn't be used to answer the question since Earth has no magic
* All the planets are roughly similar; Earth-like gravity, day/night cycle, and ecology, although some worlds vary slightly in the ecological aspect.
* All of the stars are sun-like yellow dwarf stars
* Technology levels are unimportant for this question, I just care about anatomy
* Assume something is Earth-like if you need to know something not listed, unless changing it will help justify the similar evolutions.
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Current science has proved through genetics that human species separated by up to a million years could and did interbreed.
So 500k years isn't an issue. They evolved slightly different morphology but Neandertals, Denisovans and perhaps even homo erectus and others were similar enough to interbreed with each other and our species. [Denisovan mtDNA is thought to have diverged from that of modern humans and Neanderthals about 1,313,500–779,300 years ago](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denisovan). Yet there were multiple interbreeding events with both modern humans and Neandertals.
Papuans have traces of at least four interbreeding events with other sorts of humans. Neandertal and what we call Denisovan (because we have no idea what they were as there is no fossil record), but in fact three separate events occurred called Denisovan introgressions for very divergent so called Denisovans (but the three were at least as different to each other as they are to Neandertals)
[According to this study it takes a million years](https://today.oregonstate.edu/archives/2011/aug/lasting-evolutionary-change-takes-about-one-million-years) for a species isolated from itself to become a new species. Other studies posit much longer periods of time. 500K just isn't long enough for enough divergence to take place in general terms. Only a major aberration in that time frame like the loss of a chromosome or other biological change could do it.
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**Genetic exchange.**
Earth has no magic. But other places do! And those folks in the magic places tend towards the homely thru no fault of their own. So when they want smoking hot hotties you know where those other folks come looking: Earth. Magic users of the human persuasion looking to reproduce make periodic forays to the Earth and round up our prime genetic material in the form of assorted hotties, then bring all of them back for the good breeding.
Thus the human types on the farflung regions of humandom keep looking human because of the continuous readdition of human genes.
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# Humans contain a now damaged mutation inhibitor.
To survive the radiation common with magic, humans originally contained several DNA sequences which inhibit mutations and changes to DNA. This slowed reproduction, but meant that DNA was much more stable.
While this has long since mutated into uselessness in favour of faster reproduction, and so isn't obvious to earth humans, this in most worlds prevented most large scale changes. Only in the last hundred thousand years or so have humans been able to mutate, and this wasn't enough for any especially radical changes.
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### It's all about the origin of life, the universe, and everything
Humans are everywhere because evolution was rigged from the start. And the two explanations below are not mutually exclusive.
**A universal pattern**
The universe is a great mystery. How it began, how it will end, or even will it end, there is no shortage of questions about it. Perhaps the universe was formed by an act of chaos, or perhaps an act of creation. Either way, it was formed with a pattern. Think of it as the code of a simulation, which creates emergent behaviour. There is some fluke or quirk, that funnels the program into patterns.
The universe has rules that we don't fully comprehend, and life as we know it is one of the patterns that emerges from it, and thus Earth-like ecosystems repeat throughout time and throughout space.
**A common ancestor**
Long ago, a sufficiently advanced race of predecessors seeded life across the universe. Accidentally or intentionally, they left the building blocks for life as they knew on a variety of suitable worlds. From there, having to face the similar environmental constraints, life evolved along similar paths.
Evolution isn't a completely chaotic process. Those that best fit their environment live long enough to perpetuate their genetic code, others go extinct. With the same starting point and the same conditions, it stands to reason that evolution would procude similar results.
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Nothing is unique on earth. The energy constraints, the plate tectonics, the environmental pressures. This physic of evolution, might make aliens at least mentally very similar to us.
Regarding human mimicry though, emulating the exact visuals, that would be wild. Why does that have to be natural though? Have several systems praolled by hostile nano-bots, who only allow there masters to exist? Humanity is gone, but due to its technology lingering on, all that is alive has to mimicry to be from earth at least on a visual level.
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The world for my current work in progress is a fiction American small town with about 500 residents and 100 kids, located in geographically isolated location which makes busing to larger nearby towns impractical. So I need to set up the smallest possible education facility to cover daycare, kindergarten along with 1st through 12th grade.
I figure that with such a small kid population, some of the age levels will have very few students, so I am hopeful that some adjacent years can be combined together, sharing one teacher and one teaching assistant across two classrooms. So I'm guessing that 12 teachers, 12 teachers assistants, two coaches, a nurse, an administrator/secretary and a janitor could cover the education requirements of my small town.
But 29 people is more than 5% of my total adult population, which seems excessive as I try to fill all the mandatory roles of a modern day community.
Have I missed any crucial role and are there any ways to reduce this staff requirements?
*BTW : There is a little bit of magic involved in the isolation of this town, so adherence to state educational standards and regulations is not required. I just need the town to appear to be educating its kids appropriately. I don't need that education to actually meet local accreditation requirements.*
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[Rise of Public Education in Early America](https://ushistoryscene.com/article/rise-of-public-education/) show quite a variation in student/teachers ratio and attitudes towards public education (and the expense for it).
I guess it may provide some ideas to the meta-question of "How much education a community actually needs and to what social ends?" as a prerequisite in answering "How many teachers an isolated American small town with about 500 residents and 100 kids *needs* and how many it can actually *afford*?"
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I lean strongly towards "If you think education is expensive, try ignorance Derek Bok" and, not being an American, it was quite an insightful reading about the evolution of education in US
From
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> the Puritan community began implementing new laws such as the Old Deluder Act of 1647. This decree, “ordered that every township in this jurisdiction, after the Lord hath increased them to fifty households shall forthwith appoint one within their town to teach all such children as shall resort to him to write and read.”
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going through
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> Northwest Ordinance of 1787, stating that; “religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.”
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and
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> Jefferson contended that “public happiness… should be rendered by liberal education worthy to receive, and able to guard the sacred deposit of the rights and liberties of their fellow citizens.” Jefferson spread the idea that a functional democracy required an educated citizenry
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then having the brakes put on
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> 1. Taxpayers worried that public education would result in higher taxes or that it would wrongly take money out of the pockets of the working-class to fund education for the rich.
> 2. Churches contended that public schools would fail to teach religion sufficiently, especially as prejudice towards immigrants and Catholics grew in major urban areas.
> 3. Private school teachers feared that they would face lower pay or even lose their jobs.
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(and the story doesn't end there)
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100 kids through 12 grades makes about 9 kids per grade.
1 teacher and 1 teacher assistant per grade seems way too much. For all my primary school I have had a single teacher following about 25 kids.
You can remove the teacher assistant and merge 3 grades in a single class under 1 teacher, with the oldest kids also helping with the youngest.
In this way you end up with just 3 teachers, which is manageable for a small community. Add 1 janitor, 1 principal and 1 administrator. If you need the nurse, you will rely on staff's first aid knowledge for simple cases, else you will call the village doctor.
Total 6 people to manage the school.
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I think I may be able to contribute a little bit from my own experience. I grew up in a rural area in Sweden (not US as in the question, but a country with high, modern standard of education) in the 1980's, in a village of roughly 600 people (about 300 in the main village, the rest scattered in smaller villages and isolated farms). I also know about others who have been schooled in similar sized villages, and know teachers who have worked in such schools.
The main thing my answer will say that differs from the the question and the other answers, that I think can be helpful to make a realistic story, is that there will not be as clear cut job descriptions as in the question. With so few people, your job description will be based on how you can be useful rather than an organization chart. (There won't be any "the janitor", there will be a "Martin".)
Our school was only grade 1-6, grades 7-9 was bussed around 1h away, the higher 3 to the nearest larger town also around 1h away.
All staff on these kinds of schools do multiple roles. Actually, all *people* in these kinds of villages do multiple roles.
For the grades 1-6, any adult with kid-handling-skills can teach all subjects except four: Sports and health, music, arts, shop. So, they had one class each but helped each other out on the subjects that required some special skills.
The school was divided in three classes:
1-2, the main teacher of which also took care of all education in sewing/knitting/etc shop-classes, and was the administrator and secretary of the school.
3-4, the main teacher of which also took care of sports for the 1-2, and taught all shop classes aimed at cooking/cleaning/etc. She also had arts, and was the librarian. The cooking etc. classes was not taught in the school but in her own kitchen. (Her property shared a border with the schoolyard. I think the unclear distinction between the school playground and her pretty garden, and the teaching involving knives and hot objects inside her home, might have made some insurance companies balk...)
She also had the after-school-activities for the kids who had to wait a bit longer for their parents to be able to pick them up, but that was not administered by the school - it was administered by the church.
5-6, the main teacher of which also was the headmaster, and took care of all music education.
Then there was a stereotypical manly-man, who taught sports, metal and wood-related shop, and was responsible for upkeep of the facilities. He was also one half of the two-man-team taking care of the gardening and the snow-plowing for the school and the church. (The school and the church were closely intertwined.)
Finally, there were two ladies doing the catering and the cleaning.
There was a nurse, but she was only present some hour per day. Rather than school nurse, she was the nurse for the whole village, driving around over the whole district checking up on elderly people - but with her office in the school building. (Which meant that even if she had only very limited office hours dedicated to the school children, she was passing by and could deal with emergencies several times per day.)
Other friend have gone to schools with setups of 1-3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9. 1-3 works fine, but higher grades than that can only be two at the times.
For grades 7-up you will need to have specialized teachers. They can realistically manage two specializations each. But they can all manage the lower grades.
The kids will need to be kept busy the whole school day, any gaps will lead to delinquent behaviours really quickly. But the younger kids have shorter days, and no kids have as long days as the adults.
So if you have one teacher per two years, you can cover the needed specializations, and still some. Three of them will have to be main teachers for the younger, but there will still be room for them to teach the olders - a bit of headache for the headmaster to piece the schedule together but fully possible. (Do not forget that also the headmaster can take quite many classes, even be one of the specializations.)
The support staff can take on some classes, but also be shared with church or home for elderly people. For example, cooking can be made both for the school, for any institution for elderly people, etc. that might exists.
So, i believe you will need:
* 6 teachers (if you really have all 12 grades), each with their different skills and interests. One of them double as headmaster, one of them double as administrator. They all do other small roles based on personality, skills and interests. (Librarian, therapist, school bus driver, whatever is needed...)
* 1 handyman, that also can handle teaching - and gardening. The handyman is shared with the church, which also shares their caretaker with the school - because many of their tasks simply require two hands 4-6 meters apart!
* 2 part-time cooks (and tasks for them for the rest of the time) - also here you simply must have more hands to be able to feed all 100 children at lunchtime, but then there will plenty of day left for those hands! (It is not impossible that teachers help out also with the serving.)
* Some nurse in the village, the priest, many other people; they will have small roles in the school. For example, in my village the school and the church shared a tractor for plowing snow. But it can often be the farmer on the nearest farm that get paid for keeping the paths clean with his tractor.
Frankly, the last three years of education are nothing but more specialization. I have a hard time believing there will be more than 8-9 years of schooling in an isolated village of such small size. Those wanting higher education *will* find a way to leave for a few years. Some of those who left then come back with their new skills (and a spouse, bringing in new blood, fighting the obvious inbreeding problem).
Actually, considering how important the school is for a society (our children are our future!), I think 5% of the population involved in the school is a severe underestimation. My guess would be that at least 20-25% of the adult population have at least some minor involvement in the school as volunteers!
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I'm approaching this as a [Fermi-Problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_problem), an estimate of numbers from proportions.
**100 Children**
They will have to be divided into groups or classes. With *just* 100 children, it is probably impractical to have one group each for K-12. Call it 6 groups with 16.7 students each.
**6 Classes**
A teacher *may* give fewer hours of classroom instruction per week than a student gets per week, depending on the grade. But on average the numbers can be roughly the same magnitude. So you average one teacher per class. There may be arrangements like part-time substitute teachers, but that can be considered an accounting fiction when several people share one full-time-position equivalent.
On top of that come a higher need for staff in the kindergarten group and some loose supervision of the older kids during library time or whatever. Call it 1 full-time-position-equivalent each.
**8 Teaching-or-similar staff**
Just how much in the way of management and support should an organization with 8 "frontline workers" need? That can differ with the expectation for paperwork and documentation, but I don't really think it should be more than 1.
That 1 support staff might be a quarter-time secretary, a quarter-time janitor and a half-time cleaner. The principal position is a "second hat" for one of the teachers.
**On top of that, catering.**
If the children and staff eat at school, lunch has to come from somewhere. With just 500 people total, that might be a second or third job for the people in the local diner, before the adult customers come in after work, or it could be employees of the school. That staff also depends on the availability of prepared ingredients.
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This estimate is sensitive to assumptions of class sizes and teaching hours per teacher. How long do they need to grade exams?
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There's an ongoing war with modern-day weapons (mainly guns). We're trying to develop a bio-weapon to just make soldiers unable to fight with guns while minimizing suffering, such that they're able to go back to their normal daily lives after the war.
My first idea is to make it so that the soldiers would tremble similar to Alzheimer's patients, making them unable to aim or even wield a gun properly, and the effects would wear off after a few weeks or so. The victims would have a hard time with daily activities, but at least the effects aren't long-lasting and the victims are alive and well after the war.
What bio-weapons would have similarly deathless and low-suffering effects while incapacitating enemy soldiers?
[Answer]
LSD has been tested by the British and USA military for that exact purpose
[video1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWodyapGNxI)
[video2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbSEU8Hv4lA)
[video3](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziqpwkhqTRs)
It is effective in extremely small doses while having tolerable [LD50](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_lethal_dose). Not sure why they rejected it but does it even matter?
[Answer]
There are multiple flawed options chemical gas, diseases (viruses, bacteria, etc.) and chemicals.
The problem with gas in military warfare is that gasmasks are easily available, as result you only hit civilians. Great for morale back home no matter the effects.
Diseases sound great at first thought: Infect the enemies and they are out cold for a few weeks and there are countless options in development in military labs around the world.
The problem is that in war you have lots of refugees that spread your potential diseases to the surrounding countries infecting new hosts ensuring that your diseases do not die out and at worst mutating.
It only gets worse from here, assuming you are fighting against guerilla warfare tactics hiding behind civilians.
Israel, for example, could add something to the water supply in Gaza to make sure their enemies can't concentrate, sleep or lose hand-eye coordination, before launching an assault.
As result, the enemies would just lay down their weapons pretending to be civilians and wait for the effects to die down. Meanwhile, everyone condemns their behaviour.
[Answer]
**Suppression or modulation of the Amygdala via gut flora or fauna**
*Suppression*
The Amygdala is a relatively tiny part of the brain with two hemisphere parts, but like the Hypofyse it has great influences on the humans. It's in the limbic system, which is considered to control the emotions. It is very important in fight or flight responses, like fear and anger.
Damage to the Amygdala can have wildly different results. Some afflicted can be docile, while others can have unprovoked fits of rage. From research into the Amygdala with trauma patients, where memory and certain stimuli can give them huge fear responses (although anger is also possible), we can see that there are ways to suppress the Amygdala. The way this happens is poorly understood. The most logical is suppression by brain impulses, much like the brain hemispheres can suppress each other in some areas. The other is hormones. Most likely both are involved in suppression of the Amygdala.
The biological attack will implant gut flora or fauna (bacteria/microscopic animals or plants). These can be very stable in growth and are much less affected by the immune system, as they're technically not inside the body proper. We're learning gut flora and fauna have huge impact on the welfare and eating habbits of the people in general. This is already used to change these habbits by placing flora and fauna from a healthy person into a sick/obese person. If enough can fight for a place in the gut, they can self sustain by changing the person's habbits in food and such. Only by a lot of effort or other grafts these gut flora/fauna can be removed again.
When the flora or fauna you spread among the soldiers settles, it'll secrete hormones that facilitate suppression of the Amygdala directly or indirectly. Much like real gut flora and fauna can.
With the Amygdala suppressed it is hard to engage in aggressive actions.
*Modulation*
Of course it isn't just that easy. Although the largest part of an army is affected, professional *highly trained* soldiers might actually become more effective without a strong fear or anger response. Their actions don't come from agression anymore, but training. The gut flora and fauna can still change this though. Much disease influence specific behaviour. Rabies makes you fear water. A cat parasite can induce a sort if love for cats in mice and humans. It is sometimes strangely specific, but the gut flora and fauna can do the same.
Instead of suppression, you use the Amygdala. A fear, disgust or aversion to violence can be influenced in the whole limbic system, with the Amygdala assisting for some of the negative responses to violence. In addition you can still suppress the Amygdala, as the negative emotions can still come through.
*Additionally*
The trick is to get the gut flora/fauna to be able to accept most kinds of foods, so it'll grow easily and supplant sone of the existing flora/fauna. To prevent your own soldiers from getting it, you can have the flora/fauna be weak against a certain food enzyme or the like. This can either be added to the food, or be already present in certain food that aren't given or irregularity given to soldiers.
The advantage is that the cause is unlikely to be discovered quickly, nor the 'antidote' found easily. If it is, you can alter the flora/fauna to lose the weakness and adding a different one.
*Conclusion*
Insertion of genetically modified gut bacteria can influence people long term, in a stable method that is hard to expel from the body. These people can live perfectly normal lives, though with less fear and anger, or with an aversion to violence. Although not incapable of
fightbor flight responses, they'll not be useful as soldiers. If nothing is done it can be permanent, though most people change eating habbits at some point that can (largely) remove the implanted gut flora or fauna.
The soldiers aversion can also turn into a larger scale aversion of the war, wanting to concede. They'll more readily accept defeat and giving up something than to fight.
[Answer]
## Tularemia
was the weapon formerly developed by the US military with this intention. See [this page at Johns Hopkins](https://www.jhsph.edu/research/centers-and-institutes/johns-hopkins-center-for-public-health-preparedness/tips/topics/Biologic_Weapons/tularemia2.htm) Hypothetically, with good treatment, the death rate might be limited to 2%. Note, however, that the death rate *can* be much worse under less-than-ideal conditions... which are probably to be expected in a war.
[Answer]
I'm thinking alcohol that has been packaged in particulate form where the shell dissolves when breathed in. Drunk soldiers can't fight right? You might need to breathe in a lot of it though...
And gas masks would deal with it. But maybe that's the point. It's not so dangerous or effective that you would bother to put on a gas mask.
Or weaponized laughing gas. Dosage is an issue though as it would be with pretty much every other similar weapon.
[Answer]
## Medical Nanobots
You don't need them drugged for weeks, just at the right time in the upcoming weeks when you need them out of commission.
To clarify, nanobots are a term used in the medical industry to refer to any variety of artificial, mass-producible, virus like things that can be use in all sorts of therapies. While some have more capabilities than others, preliminary research shows that they can be both programmed and remote-controlled for delivering highly targeted and on-demand therapies. Unlike most science-fiction nanobots, these are not tiny metallic robots, but rather organic devices that have been designed with all of the intentionality of a robot.
Given current technology, it would be possible to design a nanobot drug delivery system that could allow you to use aerosolized drugs that can be remotely triggered at any time in the future. Instead of leaving everyone drugged up for weeks (which is bad for your health) you can drug the whole enemy army with nanobots designed to store the drug in enemy soldiers' systems until needed. So, you could begin your offensive by dosing the whole enemy army with air raids. Then over the next few weeks as your ground forces roll in, you just transmit the activation signal as you move in, then any enemy soldiers or civilians who were exposed get a sudden dose of Azaperone painlessly knocking them out. The enemy troops will recover with a few hours, but by the time they do, they are already zip-tied in the backs of a trucks being sent off to the nearest POW camp.
... or if air deployed aerosols are too obvious or complicated, just contaminate the water supply or sell the enemy army tainted supplies, etc. Normally these attack vectors are obvious acts of aggression, but in this case, you can do it weeks or even months in advance without any obvious symptoms emerging. So you can take your time making sure the whole enemy army is drugged before anyone knows that you are attacking them.
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[Question]
[
A multimillionaire is going to hunt for Bigfoot in North America (let's just assume confined to USA). Capture preferred, kill acceptable. What would be the most sensible way to do it (highest success chance, yet still rationally economical)?
(Question partially inspired by the story of [Robert Bigelow and the NIDS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Institute_for_Discovery_Science))
Assume access to only the technology available today (2021) or that at least has applied prototypes existing today. Can hire others, etc.
Brief legal considerations that would have to be accounted for?
Assume nothing about Bigfoot itself other than that it exists and is likely large and humanoid in form. It may have natural abilities that allow it to avoid visual detection, it may have consciousness/intelligence, multiple, hostile, friendly, high physical strength, psychic/telepathic abilities at a certain range, electromagnetic sensitivity/[interference](https://youtu.be/pfHNoLKe6gk?t=3460), who knows what-else that could help evading human detection (just going w/ the assumption that there is at least one).
[Answer]
### Helicopters with FLIR paired with ground teams. $4mil
My employer used to do aerial imagining for big mine sites, and you can get a helicopter for aerial imaging for around a bulk discount of about \$1500 per hour for big jobs, and IR is one of the services they offer. I'm seeing 1-3k cost per hour estimates for this service around the world in a casual google - especially in police force budgets. So I'm calling it \$1500 per hour.
Big foot is unlikely to be in cities or on water, so your patrolling farmland, wilderness, and national parks. These are typically black at night on IR, with bigfoot showing up as bright white (I'm assuming hes warm blooded).
Your helicopter flies over the park and notes all the bright spots, and the ground team(s) go and investigate them. You'll surprise the odd bear, and the odd hiker, but you'll work through these false positives pretty quickly.
Say 10 helicopters and 30 ground teams working 8 hours after sunset. Per night your looking at 120k for the helicopters, 10k for ground team wages (pay better then minimum wage to get motivated staff obviously) and 15k for jeep rental. Call it $150k per night rounding up cause I may of forgotten something. \$1mil per week.
In that week you've covered about 100,000sqkm of wilderness. In a month you'll cover everything identified as "wilderness" in my causal googling (400,000sqkm). You've probably found him for $4million.
Id expect you to find him in the first few weeks, but if you want to be thoughrough 2 years later (cost 100 million) you've swept the entire USA.
[Answer]
**Money incentive**
The ingenuity of men is only surpassed by their stupidity. Some quote like that has been said by someone famous, and if it's not, it's still oddly applicable.
Do not underestimate what people do for money. Implement a bounty system. Verified traces can give you 1000 to 10.000 dollar while Bigfoot itself is worth 2 to 10 million or something. Give as much clues as you can, and people will start searching for you. Even sceptics can start searching for fear of missing out. Wildlife traps, methodical and random searches, shares of information on the internet and great trackers. People will do all sorts of things to try to find it without you having to lift a finger. Some people are stupid and just worth the extra eyes and might get lucky, while others are smart and employ advanced information gathering tactics. It is likely also the cheapest, as the whole community can potentially spend much more money that you offer. Especially if you compare it with hiring people.
The proof would be in either capturing it (dead or alive) or a good tip where bigfoot is for a lot of money from which you hire professionals. 90% or more is simply done for you in hopes of winning a lot of money as well as the thrill of the search.
[Answer]
**It's a crap job, but someone has to do it ...**
OK, the first thing you need to understand is that finding Big Foot(s) requires first of all cutting down that search area and I mean big time.
To do this you need to first of all set up patrols that find and test crap. Yes, I do mean excrement. Their sole function will be to perform a grid search for crap that does not match crap from species they do not know already.
This means collecting lots of crap, noting the GPS coordinates and sending it all in for automated analysis - you're doing this on an industrial scale and you need machines to do the testing.
If Big Foot(s) is(are) out there they have to expel crap sometime. When they do it will come up as an unidentified species. The unidentified ones could just be boring unknown species of something else, but you can do a lot with DNA analysis of those samples and identify which ones are related to known species and have a statistical likelihood of being a Big Foot.
Automated cameras and other search equipment can be used to monitor the entire localized area of interest. These can run 24/7 and computers can analyze images send back. Eventually they'll get a hit.
Now it's carefully trained hunters on the ground who can wait and watch and move in until they get the target.
**Just who the hell pays for all this ?**
The IRS, meaning the tax payer of course !
Happily these search programs can be funded as part of "normal" wildlife activity. Heck you might even get grants from international agencies to find all those new species they think we're looking for (but don't give a hoot about really). The universities and students will queue up to roam about examining crap, practically for free if you wave some eco-friendly flags at the suckers. We'll lose a few to cougars and bears, but it's not like students are hard to replace by cheap labor, so no problem.
This kind of thing takes time. It's a multi-decade search. But that's the great thing about tax payers - they die and they produce their own replacements, so the money ain't gonna dry up. It's government project so once it's on the books it's virtually impossible to stop and cost over-runs are expected and normal.
Eventually we'll find this Mr. Big Foot and tax that sucker to death. I mean, you knew that was the government's plan all along - grow the tax base.
[Answer]
**The government already knows.**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Bhp0P.jpg)
<https://www.npr.org/2019/09/05/758038714/can-president-trump-really-tweet-a-highly-classified-satellite-photo-yep-he-can>
The US has satellite images that let you count the stairs leading down to a damaged Iranian missile site. There are sophisticated image analysis software programs that let you search for shapes of interest. If there exist infrared images with the sharpness of the Iranian photo, they were not tweeted but there is no reason they could not exist. These images exist, and more. The federal government has known about Bigfoot for nearly a decade.
Bigfoot is interesting. Conspiracy to keep Bigfoot secret is more interesting. The rich man has power and wealth and begins to leverage it. He uses his money to make alliances with elected officials, who introduce him to people who know things, who introduce him to other people. And he learns that you should not roll over logs unless you are ready for what might be underneath.
[Answer]
**No wonder there have been so many forest fires in California lately.**
That Richie Mcbigbucks has been trying to flush out the bigfoot he suspects live in those forests.
Thing is, he doesn't even need much money to do that. He hires a professional arsonist (does that exist? It does now!) to start the fire(s) in such a way that it can't be traced back to them. Then he just sits back and waits for the fire to flush out the bigfoot.
His trusty elephant gun by his side, helicopter fueled and ready to go, Richie watches ALL media on multiple big screens, obsessed, waiting for any sign. He has killed all manner of beast all over the world. His home is filled with stuffed heads. Time to move on to the mythical! Bigfoot is next!
It hasn't worked yet... that bigfoot is wily... but one day!
And then... if he gets really lucky... *the abominable snowman*...
[Answer]
## Get other people to do the work for you.
The fastest way to very publicly issue a 5-50 million dollar prize for a live bigfoot or an intact carcass, preferably with some indications of what tests will be done to assess claims. The rest of your money is spent on experts and tests to assess claims. You will need a special dispensation for you and the prize winner from the government to get around endangered species harm and trafficking laws, so include some lobbying money.
You are going to get a lot of people sent to jail and destroy a lot of nature but you will have your results.
[Answer]
My best guess would be aerial drone deployed motion activated trail cameras. Thousands of them.
You send them out on a grid and they deploy and remain on station for as long as they can then return to home base to drop off images and recharge. Repeat as needed for as long as needed.
[Answer]
**You don't have to seek him, but only wait for him to seek you, using a suitable bait...**
Warning: no serious answer ahead
The problem is that it is difficult to search all the Rocky Mountains from Mexico to Canada in order to find a creature that could be the only existing individual of its species.
But you could lure it, if only you could find something tha bigfoot is irresistibly attracted. We know very little of the Bigfoot, but according to the existing footage and photos we have at our disposal of it, we can infer that there is a thing that seems to strongly attract it...
**~~Crappy~~ Low quality photocameras!**
Now that everybody has in the pcket a camera that can record a 4k movie with autofocus, gamma correction, night mode and so on, the poor Bigfoot has become even more evanescent. And this is obvious: he likes crappy cameras, but now that humans don't carry them anymore, he has decided to keep us at range.
Search museums, scrapyards and junk shops to gather some thousands low quality photo and videocameras, then place them in some dozens depots scattered through the Rocky Mountains. Obviously, these depots will be full of booby traps, nets and sharpshooter with soporific darts.
The temptations of hundreds of ~~crappy~~ low quality cameras all together will be so strong that Bigfoot will run to them forgetting its usual precaution, and so will be easily captured!
[Answer]
**Build a six-million dollar man.**
<https://headhuntersholosuite.fandom.com/wiki/Six_Million_Dollar_Man:_Bigfoot_V>
[Answer]
**Trained Snow Leopards!**
Snow leopard are exceedingly difficult to find in the wild. Film crews may track them for months without a sighting.
Nevertheless snow leopards have been found and filmed.
First catch a male and female snow leopard. Breed them and train the cubs from an early age to perform search and rescue. To begin with, they can find their parents or their human foster parents.
Now set them loose in the mountains where Bigfoot lives. They come back every night to camp for food. Your leopards have cameras mounted on their backs so you can see what they are up to. When they find a Bigfoot they will forcibly "rescue" it and bring it back.
---
Alternatively just use trained dogs. They will only need a footprint or some dung to get the scent and there you go!
] |
[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.
After seeing [this question](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/180237/how-would-a-desert-civilization-develop-their-battlesuits-and-powered-armors-eff), it occurred to me that power armor might not be viable due to cost, unreliability, and a high chance of catastrophic failure, but I feel like there are other considerations.
What are other issues that would make power armor not a viable platform in combat?
Note that this is the same universe in the question: [How would a desert civilization develop their battlesuits and powered armors efficiently?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/180237/how-would-a-desert-civilization-develop-their-battlesuits-and-powered-armors-eff)
[Answer]
**Power armor is purpose built for other purposes.**
Your power armor is intended for deep sea construction. Or external operations in an asteroid field full of micrometeorites. It offers formidable protection to the wearer against the dangers expected in its operating environment. It has cutters, welders, drills and punches; tools that could in theory be offensive weapons. It has no projectile weaponry. Its fastest mode of movement is an ejection seat burst to move away from an imminent explosion or containment failure.
It is really not the sort of thing that would be helpful in combat. Unless you were out of other options...
[Answer]
**Weapons are too good**
If a unarmoured soldier or a tiny drone can destroy said power armor with a point and click then power armour is pointless.
This could be armour piercing rounds, EMP weapons, nanites etc.
The whole point of armour is to protect you and there is no point wearing it if it doesn't do its job anymore.
**Cost**
If you can buy 200 tanks for the same cost as a mech and 200 tanks is better, you'd buy the tanks.
**Reliability**
Power armour has lots of joints and moving parts. These joints can get dirt in them and jam. Ideally the less moving parts a weapon has, the better.
**Repair**
A tank can be serviced in open field by a mechanic with some basic tools. What is needed for power armour to make repairs?
[Answer]
There is an idiom (I do not remember the soruce): "when diletants talk about war they talk about weapons and taktics, when professionals do - they talk about logistics"
* *How much distance can "mech regiment" cover in a day?*. Question here is not about there battle speed, but about how much time is needed to reposition this mechs and all their support, say 100 km to the west? Trough virgin jungles? For most cases tank regiments are much faster, since modern tanks can move quickly through any terrain for long times and can be used as tugs for less mobile vehicles to bring their supplies with them.
* *How long can mech battle and how long it reloads/refuels? How many attacks per day they can perfom?* In hard-scince world you can't fire shower of rockets every minute or two from a single rocket launcher. Tanks hold quite decent supply of ammo and can battle for hours and days (for less intensive battles). Planes hold small amount of shorts (2-10 rockets and about 10-20 bursts for gun), but are relativly fast to return to base and resupply and can perfom up to 10-20 attacks per day for close target. While all mech's I saw (even in BattleTech mega-techs) have visualy very limited space to hold battle supplies, and need to go all the way back to base for reloading (or put at risc supply teams). So they take worst from both and may be used only as a shocktroops to perfom 1-2 short attacks or counter attacks.
* *How much tech depends on supportive forces? How critical supply trucks/structures are?*. You don't need to destroy enemy tanks to get theam out of battle - you may just destroy their much "softer" fuel depots and convoys and tanks become usless (thats how USSR lost a huge lots of tanks in 1941 to Germans). You don't need to shoot down enemy planes - best anti-air is our tanks on their air-bases (thats how USSR lost a huge lots of planes in 1941 to Germans). But both task are not that easy to accomplish - with enough point defence enenemy can protect their "soft places". But the less, and harder to reach, this places are the smaller "attack surface" is and the more capable tanks and planes are. Techs again take worst from both. Does power armor requiers special transport? Does it requires stable eletricity source? Or may be a special base for maintance? How about hacking? All this are quite "soft" targets that need to be kept close to enemy - a large "surface" to defend!
* *How fast we can replenish the losses? How many we need to have in reserve?* Modern battle tanks tend to be quite complex to produce and quite short to live in a battle field, so countries tend to keep 10 times more in reserve than in troops. Those F-22 Raptors may be a perfect plane but they can't be replenished, since production line is closed. So it is almost useless fighting plane from strategic point of view. It can be used only in one-two alpha-strikes in big war wich might not be that deciding. So if you can produce only 10 battle suits in a year - you'd better produce none. Germans showed quite a good example of this during WWII with their wonderwaffer. For example, Me-262 was an ultimate fighter (despite all problems), but it had near zero effect - due to too misarable numbers compared to ally's bomber production.
[Answer]
Personal power armor has a lot of electronics. And that provides 2 major drawbacks.
First: It is a beacon for any EM sensors, making the wearer a very visible target.
Second: It is vulnerable to electronic jamming and to EMP weapons.
Power armor, when unpowered, typically is bulky and heavy. Making it difficult to move about when it malfunctions. Worse: If it locks up completely it may effectively act as a cage, because it prevents all movement.
So: You power up the armor. Enemy sensors “see” you. Hit you with an EMP pulse that fries your electronics. Now the enemy knows exactly where you are and you’re a sitting duck.
If you say EM can be shielded.... That shielding is going to add to the bulkiness and weight of the armor. Which means you need more power to operate it, which requires more shielding, etc...
[Answer]
Issues with uniformity
If there's one thing the armor likes, it's uniformity. They want reliable soldiers using tactics that have been proven for years if not decades.
Give a grunt power armor, and he's encouraged to show boat, improvise where he shouldn't and take risks based on ignorance or misunderstandings of its abilities
[Answer]
****Cost** Cost and Cost**
To be viable power armor would have to offer a measurable military advantage over the various forms of 'passive/non-powered armor systems and tracked/wheeled vehicles that might be available concurrently to the government concerned.
As an example I recall reading about a Senior German General with experience serving on the Russian Front during world War 2 who argued strongly against the adoption of the Tiger Tank because by the time this system was available for use Germany was on the defensive and for the cost (financial and resource) of one Tiger Tank something like fifteen plus (have to find the data) artillery or anti-tank guns could be produced.
In other words the cost of the weapon system (production and maintained included) might simply outweigh its utility to a significant degree.
[Answer]
Powered armor runs into the same science that prohibits the reality of "mechs," made popular by scifi. It's simple weight. Once an object reaches a certain size and mass it can no longer be supported on "legs." This is why tanks have treads - to disperse their tremendous weight along a length of wheels rather than on four or on legs. Were you to mount an Abrams for instance, on a pair of legs, those legs would almost immediately sink into the dirt. The same would hold for asphalt or concrete. In fact, most modern tanks will damage asphalt even with treads. So even with assisted mechanism to allow armor to be functional, the mass of the armor would make it impossible to use. How does it get to the battlefield? Aircraft? Too heavy. Vehicle? Too heavy. Self-flight might be an option but once it lands, it's still going to sink to some degree or tear up whatever it's walking on. Lightweight armor is still doable. But large armor like in the current video games like Titan Falls and such are physically impossible without giant mushroomed feet that would make walking all but impossible. This is one reason the creators of Centurion RPG developed the idea of hover tanks. They use anti-gravity engines to remain aloft slightly above the ground but mountainous terrain still remained an obstacle as did blocks and debris.
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