Split (1)

train · 67.3k rows

text stringlengths 22 2.11M
[Question] [ Gonna be hard to put it to words, especially because of the rather broad scope of my question, but I think it can be a proper submission here. Here on Earth, regardless of the period and location, in the majority of occasions, the most fundamental unit of society was somehow related to bloodline. Most obviously, family is such a bond, but certain cultures also preferred a larger scope of family (15-20 people rather than the current average of 4-7), and after all, a nation can also be considered a grand (though also more vague) definition of "blood relations". Postmodernism, both as an idea, and as a period (manifesting in genres like post-apocalyptic or cyberpunk settings) deconstructs and often rejects these old values, as they are steadily becoming less valuable in these new, often survivalist environments. Partially as a result of this, in my own fictions, I tend to focus on the meeting of characters with little to no bonds to anyone else, often wandering, rather than living in a fixed place. Is it possible that up to a point, this phenomena become so widespread in a world that people would accept "drifting" and always being with strangers a basic and even expected way of social interactions? Or the need for companionship, unity, and an actually viable society is strong enough to never diminish from the human nature? You may use exact examples if you desire. [Answer] I'd say your premise is flawed, and the way it is flawed shows exactly what your answer should be. You start from the premise that "the most fundamental unit of society was somehow related to bloodline." However, this is true only in the most superficial of senses. From the perspective of a deconstruction of society, this superficial connection should be one of the first to strip. A nation is not in any way shape or form a "grand (though also more vague) definition of 'blood relations'." If it were, the concept of the US being "a nation of immigrants" would be a non sequitur. Many aristocracies maintain the concept of a royal bloodline, but the connection between individuals in a nation is far more cultural than genetic. Genetics accounts for a wee sliver of a percent. Likewise, the idea of family and blood is not quite right. It's certainly much more correct; we do typically associate family with blood relations. However, consider the case of adoption. You adopt someone into your family, not into your genetics. In such cases, we choose to recognize adopted children as "just as much our children as our blood children." These demonstrate that what matters is not the bloodline, but the connection. It's the shared history and empathy that comes from being close to someone. Blood happens to be one example of such a connection, but it is one of many. When deconstructing, it's these connections that really matter, not the blood. From this, its easy to see why drifting would not be accepted in most societies. There's a dramatic disadvantage to not forming bonds. Those bonds help us predict whether someone will help or hurt us, and they do so far more efficiently than we could do without those bonds. This also helps define what you would need for a drifter society to occur. You would need to make it so that these bonds are not valuable. In a society where everybody double-crosses everybody, and where any familiy-like unit is quickly obliterated by people who are afraid of the power that family might provide, drifters would fit in far more naturally. Of course, a test I'd use in any of those situations is, if such human-to-human bonds are not desirable, can I prove that the bond between me and my limbs is desirable? Usually the environments which prevent human-to-human bonding also have great impacts on other scales as well. One such scale is within the human body itself. You may find that your drifter society naturally lends itself to cybernetics, allowing ones limbs other body parts to drift just like the people. So perhaps I can turn this around. In a world where multiple personalities is the norm, you might find that drifters are much more common than they are here. [Answer] As humans, we are hardwired, to a degree, to certain patterns of behavior. One of these is a strong parent/child relationship during the extended care that juvenile primates require, which tends to evolve into a strong family relationship. There are exceptions to this, but they are rare. (my sister is a complete b...) For the most part, humans tend to maintain strong family ties, because that's what they do. In fiction, which is fantasy and escapism, the 'lone wolf' is a popular theme. Han Solo, or if you're into Asimov, Hober Mallow, the narrative being told with no reference to existing family, simply because it wouldn't add to the story. Doesn't mean they didn't have family, or that they didn't maintain ties to their family, just that it wasn't part of the story. [Answer] Historically, persistent groups were families because groups that did not have any children did not last more than a generation. On account of the people died and there were no kids to replace them. So there is selection for the groups with kids because these groups can sustain themselves. But there are plenty of groups of strangers that are together by circumstance. Prisoners. Slaves. Soldiers. Refugees. Students. Neighbors. Young elephants driven out by the old elephant, and so they hang out together and torment the rhinos. Back to humans. The thing about companionship is that humans do best as a team. And if you are not in a team, some team is going to find you and take your stuff. So in these populations of strangers, people tend to group up. A thing about the lone wolf narrative: it is rare that he stays a lone wolf through the entire story, and that is where the energy comes from. [Answer] I think, in order to plausibly eliminate the family as the accepted norm for ordering a society, you would have to posit a society in which its members care nothing about what Plato called the futile attempt at immortality: descendants. Such a society, as others have pointed out, wouldn't exist, at least for long--see, e.g., The (now defunct) Shakers. Race is, in effect, a very large extended slightly inbred family. I was in a bar in Beijing once during the (not Beijing) Olympics. On the TV, they were showing the games; at the moment, a Japanese athlete was competing against a German. I noticed the Chinese patrons all cheering for the Japanese guy, so I asked my Chinese friend, "What gives? I thought the Chinese hated the Japanese." "Oh, we do," he assured me. "But against a German, we are for the Japanese because he is closer to Chinese." [Answer] From an evolutionary perspective it would not make sense for individuals to consistently and continually hop from one social relationship to another. On the genetic level, a genes intention is to be able to make copies of itself that can make copies of itself that can make copies of itself, and so on and so on. This is called fitness. The ability to successfully reproduce genes that will be successfully reproduced. More complex organisms with multiple genes will be more successful reproducing those genes that are advantageous to their environment. Now the question of familial relationships comes into play. It can be argued that altruism is an advantageous genetic trait because it promotes other people who also carry your genes to exist, thrive, and pass on their genes. Since we share more genes with those closely related to us, it makes sense that biologically we are going to be more inclined to look out for their survival more than others. We can see this trait develop socially as well. People are more inclined to help a family member, and the closer those family members are (sisters/brothers vs cousins, second cousins, third cousins, etc.) the more beneficial their survival is to the passing along of our genes. Of course, we no longer live in a world like this. We have Facebook and other social media to help us develop our social lives and make connections with vastly larger networks. And of course, there are those people who are estranged from their families and find better support networks in local communities or interest groups. This brings up the question of the utilitarian aspect of social relationships. Like I said before, altruism is a adaptive trait. However, too much altruism can be disadvantageous too. Let's say, for a moment, that humans have altruism batteries. These can be charged by support from other people, or reciprocity. This is essentially the concept of tit-for-tat. If for every altruistic act you lose 10% battery life, then you need to ensure you are having acts reciprocated to keep your battery charged. If not, at some point your battery will drain, you'll die, and then your body will be dumped in a river or something. Now, having a firm social unit, a group which is tied together by like minded traits, culture, rituals, and behavioral standards, is what will ultimately guarantee this battery is regularly recharged. Think of the act of gift giving on Christmas. The expectation that we receive gifts in return on Christmas is usually based on the creation of a long standing relationship with another human being. We have cultural expectations that I give you a gift, you give me a gift. If you do not give me a gift, you usually receive some kind of social repercussion. Let's say in the situation where a sibling does not get you a gift in return, the sibling usually gets treated like shit for the next few weeks or some other kind of mild repercussion. So, to your question. Strong bonds with people take years, decades even, to develop. Knowing you can trust someone to be there to support you when you need it, and they know the same, requires energy and time. This is also a biologically supported behavior. You know those close to you share similar genes and their success is your success. In a society where new relationships are more the norm, this assurance goes out the window and has the potential to be extremely disadvantageous. A world where people are completely disconnected and continually jump from relationship to relationship could exist but it would start to look less human and more, I dunno, reptilian. ]
[Question] [ In this scenario, there is a particular regime wherein the punishment for any and all violent crime is the same- a single gash to the neck. Upon pronouncement of guilt by the crown or a recognized officer of the crown, a warden will place a small but extremely sharp dagger against the convict's neck, apply just enough pressure to slightly dimple the skin, then rapidly withdraw it along its own axis. Here's the twist- the victim, or a close family member if the victim died during the crime, may instruct the warden on the exact placement of the dagger. If the victims feel generous or forgiving, they will pick a position unlikely to cause lasting harm; if they want vengeance, the dagger will be positioned elsewhere. In any event, the convict is free to leave immediately after the punishment is administered, including to seek medical attention. The warden may not advise the victim, but if you know the right people to talk to, anyone can learn the concepts beforehand. Experience from prior punishments has made it part of the collective knowledge that if you position the dagger just so, there will be a lot of pain but the convict will most likely recover in a few days. Move it around just a bit, you will sever a certain nerve and cause partial paralysis. Move it up or down a notch and the convict will bleed out from the jugular long before he can get to help. Is this idea plausible? In other words: 1. Does human anatomy include distinct positions along the neck that can result in a. mere temporary pain, b. partial paralysis, and c. rapid death, given a single shallow gash at just that right position? 2. Can these points be easily taught to lay people? Other assumptions/ background, if needed: * An accused's trial includes both determination of guilt, and whether the crime was violent enough to warrant this sentence. * Lesser crimes involve lesser sentences, most of which involve corporal punishment in other forms * Feel free to use the most liberal definition of "neck" as you wish * Technology level is early industrial (i.e. mid to late 1700s Earth) EDIT: Here is a very rough doodle of what I have in mind, both a top view and side view: [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/DIv47.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/DIv47.png) [Answer] Consider first the level of medical expertise in the late 1700s--if indeed, as you say this is analogous to our own levels of knowledge during that time. What you are talking about requires precise medical knowledge that we did not have during that time. In the late 1700s autopsies were just getting started--and became a big deal for about a century, mainly because the knowledge base at the time was not very precise. Even in the early 1900s, mistakes were made--for instance, regarding SIDs in babies--autopsies on healthy, well-cared for babies were rare--it was only done in cases of SIDS or from extremely poor families. Scientists noticed that all these babies had an enlarged thalamus (and indeed, for a while they recommended radiation treatments for the babies of nervous parents to shrink the the thalamus). But what they didn't know was that ALL babies have larger thalamus, and falsely correlated it. That's just one example of many. At the level of late 1700s early 1800s medical knowledge, it's not all that realistic that even doctors, let alone a lay person would be able to understand exactly what a cut like that would do. That being said, if this has been within the culture for a very long time, trial and error might have taught them what our culture didn't know as a result of this. I can see an entire profession springing up around this, as well as specific research being done in this direction. You ask: > > Does human anatomy include distinct positions along the neck that can result in a. mere temporary pain, b. partial paralysis, and c. rapid death, given a single shallow gash at just that right position? > > > Let's go for the classic, which they WOULD know about because it's so big and obvious: [the carotid arteries.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_carotid_artery) A shallow cut would not be enough to penetrate the carotid. When doing an autopsy, digging those out is not fun and is difficult. While you can feel a pulse there, the actual artery is protected by muscles (like the sternocleidomastoid muscle). In fact, anything that's super shallow via the neck, would not have a good chance of doing the kind of damage you're talking about. The closest-to-the-surface major vein would be the external jugular. That's our most vulnerable point, but I don't know that I would call that a shallow cut. Maybe you need to define shallow. Because if you're talking about an inch into the neck--that's not what I would consider shallow, or even half an inch... When it comes to wound classification, a superficial wound only penetrates the epidermis. More serious wounds penetrate the epidermis, dermis, fat and muscle. And frankly you do have to get through at least a few layers to get to the jugular. Compared to the other veins, yes, relatively shallow. There are nerve clusters in the neck, and along the spine, yes, but most of the major ones are fairly well protected by musculature. It's also difficult to partially sever any of these and would require cutting around the nerve to pinpoint them. > > Can these points be easily taught to lay people? > > > Not in a precise way, no. You'd have to have plenty of practice with dead bodies for certain. [Answer] Is this a plausible punishment? Absolutely, not! Simply look at the types of punishment practised in the 1700s and it will be entirely obvious that such a surgically precise form of punishment is conceptually untenable. People at that time didn't think in these terms. They believed and practised much more robust and brutal forms of punishment. This is punishment by and for wimps. This doesn't make sense when the alternatives are hanging or flogging or even torturing someone to death. The guillotine comes later in the 18th century and that was regarded as a humane form of execution. There wasn't the understanding of human anatomy that would generally make this form of punishment even remotely credible. The only way such an esoteric, arcane and generally bizarre form of punishment might be vaguely plausible was if it was applied specifically and exclusively to members of the aristocracy for any crimes of violence they committed or for which they were found guilty. For peasants and members of the other lower orders (people like us) there would remain the whip and the noose. To be credible, it needs special social and political conditions to make it even remotely feasible. [Answer] I might suggest you expand the punishment to Neck and spine, or even just along the spine. Right up at the base of the skull, a short knife could penetrate deep enough to nick the brain stem and cause death. A little lower, between the vertebrae, and you could cause total paralyses, which would mean a slow death in the time frame you are talking about. Much lower and you could cause a loss of lower body function. Back to the neck, It's pretty easy to figure out where a blade will or will not kill, through a carotid artery, or through the vocal chords for a chancy but possibly non lethal option. Overall, a wide cross section of the population should know enough about gross anatomy to be able to place a shot for the desired effect. This is because a lot of them would be familiar with animal husbandry and hunting. City dwellers might be a bit behind the curve though. If the punishments were public, the knowledge of stab placement would become fairly well known, if not widely discussed Interesting punishment concept. [Answer] You can probably do the kind of damage that you're talking about but not simply and not really reliably, humans are too variable in exact anatomy, at the exact nerve and blood vessel track level for this kind of thing the be standardised. That's with modern medical knowledge but not the active scanning technology, if you want to go with 1700's medical knowledge as well as technology then no way no how. It wasn't until the latter half of the twentieth century that medical texts included information gained from actual human beings rather than animal carcasses. ]
[Question] [ For those that do not know, the tardigrade is a microscopic animal that can survive: * extreme heat * extreme cold * extreme levels of radiation * lack of water indefinitely * lack of food indefinitely * and even the vacuum of space Tardigrades can be found on every continent including Antarctica (rare for any animal). Basically, tardigrades are the apex of survival based evolution. But can we make them sapient? Obviously the first problem is their size, but even ignoring their size (let's say they live on a world with low gravity), is it possible for an animal that matrix's like the tardigrade to be sapient? [Answer] Of course, the limiting factor here is the physical size of the brain and how many cells/connections there are to make use of. In their current size, individual intelligence is of course unfeasible. So, you have two options: 1. Make them larger - Doing this will involve some pretty freaky chemistry (and physics) in order to maintain their dormant ([tun](http://extrememarine.org.uk/2016/11/tardigrades-the-walking-dead/)) state. 2. Give them a [Hive Mind](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarm_intelligence) - a group/swarm intelligence that interfaces and produces the end result of some sort of intelligence. It's doubtful that this could be expressed as being "sentient" in the classic understanding of the word, however. I don't think that either option is realistically feasible. [Answer] The hive mind proposed by Pete is intriguing. I have a third alternative, stolen from Hal Clement's novel "Needle" The creature in that book is descendent from something more virus like. It has the capability of being parasitic/mutualistic with an arbitrary host, but since the individual cells are orders of magnitude smaller the mass for an intelligent host is much smaller. If the intelligence is on the scale of viruses, and can support the same connectivity per cell, then you need a couple trillion virus particles per tardigrade. That said: The sensory equipment of an insect is radically different from anything you are used to. Chemical senses tend to be far more acute, and vision and hearing much more limited. Suppose that your intelligence is an artificial life form composed of nanites. They are parasitic on tardigrades as a convenient source of energy, and mobility. ]
[Question] [ It is a known concept that if ships were to be constructed in space, it would save a lot of fuel and allow for larger ships. My question is, what would be the best location for an orbital "dockyard" for lack of a better word. I am looking for an answer such as x distance from earth's surface orbiting over (city, country, area, etc.) or coordinates and although it is not nessesary I would be interested in knowing a feasible method for transport to the dockyard other than rockets launched from earth's surface. The technological capability used is just slightly more advanced than ours. What must be contained within the facility is as follows 1. Crew quarters for short stays 2. Storage for materials, food/water, fuel, and tools 3. Long extensions capable of holding a large ship [Answer] In orbit of the moon. The heaviest part of a space ship is usually the fuel, so you'll want to be close to the fuel source. There's water on the moon which can be made into fuel, and the Moon's gravity well is a lot less deep than Earth's, so it's a good idea to get your fuel from the moon instead. The advantages increase if you build some sort of moon base where you can gather additional raw materials. Another option is Ceres, but that's quite a bit further away, probably better as refuelling station. [Answer] There probably is no such place as the best for the task. It is a matter of preferences accordingly to chosen technologies for the building and other, maybe even not related to technologies, factors. I mean, it depends; the place comes with the how and maybe why you do the building of ships, how much of ships you plan to build, etc. I would go with L1 or L2 Sun-Earth, [Lagrangian point](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point) and I prefer L1 over L2, because even when L2 is beyond [umbra](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umbra,_penumbra_and_antumbra), but it is still in the penumbra (it might be a good thing actually; needs to be calculated, maybe [not that big of a deal](https://space.stackexchange.com/a/10360/3039)). New words I have learned today and can't wait to give you the joy to learn them today too. With [Halo orbit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_orbit) in mind, it can really depend on future plans. As the source of materials for the L1,2-dock, I would go with the Moon. The reasons for the case, are the same as for any large scale construction we might wish to build in space and for the particular reason in the particular situation, there might already be a construction which helps in the ship building process. ## Advantages of L1 ### Distance Distance is one of the advantages of L1. Particularly its constant relative distance from the Earth and the distance is relatively close to the Earth and is about 1.5 million km or about 5 light seconds. If we compare the solution with asteroid based locations, the problem of [asteroid belt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_belt) based locations - it is beyond the mars orbit and varies from 2 to 3.5 a.u. orbits and the relative distance from the Earth change from l to 4.5 a.u. over the Earth year. As a result the connection delay is 500-2'000 seconds in the best case scenario. The delay may or may not be disadvantageous, but for sure it moves the solution into more automation or more people field of implications. ### Energy At the L1-location, energy flow from the Sun is unobstructed and it is about the same as on earth orbit 1360 W/m2, but without orbital motion problems (some time in the shadow of the earth). Compared to asteroid solutions, the density of energy is 4-12 times more than at 2-3.5 a.u. orbits and thus we spend 4-12 times less effort to get the same amount of energy compared to asteroid belt solutions. I have to note it might or might not be a problem - it depends. ### Instability of L1 Instability of L1 can be considered as an advantage because any not managed debris will fly off the location (eventually), which is not the case at orbits around Moon, Earth, or at asteroid locations. (Or some debris can be dumped with use of little or zero energy in the way that it will fly to the Earth or Moon and be utilized by atmospheric braking or lithobraking.) It might be considered as a disadvantage, as eventually, the debris can hit the Earth or the Moon, but until the debris is small enough it can be considered as an advantage. (The only problem is satellites in earth's orbit, so better to loose things in a way they hit the Moon after some period of time. Not sure if it is so easy, but needs more detailed investigation to answer the question.) ## Matter/material source One of the problems with L1, as it is an unstable location, thus there is basically nothing in terms of construction materials and such. But having the Moon as the material source is a nice thing, because it is big enough and because same way as L1 it has a pretty constant relative distance to the Earth and is close enough to the L1 location. Second choice for the material (including humans) source is Earth for sure. ### The asteroid belt source For asteroid location, in the asteroid belt (2-3.5 a.u. orbits) and delivering materials from there to earth orbits (not around the planet, but to 1 a.u. orbit around the Sun), if you crunch numbers for Hoffman transfer delta-v requirements (can be seen in [this answer](https://space.stackexchange.com/a/2048/3039)). You will get surprisingly significant numbers for moving from 2 a.u. orbit to 1 a.u. orbit 3'860 m/s first maneuver and 4'600 m/s second (you can play with the numbers [here, Instacalc, Hoffman](https://instacalc.com/42836) (R6 has to be 1.32692605\10^20 (G\Msun), planet radius 0), or 5300 m/s and 7352 m/s for 3.5 a.u to 1 a.u. respectively. So, delta-v requirements for the transfer from the asteroid belt to orbits close to earth are about the same as launching stuff from earth into earth orbit. (Asteroids still preferable than doing the same from earth, but for reasons other than delta-v requirements - because of microgravity environment near asteroids, but there are higher probabilities of meteorites hitting, especially for larger constructions, as orbits near our planet are cleaned from most of debris by definition of the planet.) ### The Moon as a source As the source of construction materials and ores the Moon is preferable both to earth and to the asteroid at initial phases of the construction processes (when there is not a lot of capabilities to solve different difficulties). The Moon is relatively good as matter sources, because everything you expect to find in asteroid belts (except water and gases, carbon) will be on the surface of the Moon, because those asteroids had bombarded the Moon since the forming of the Moon, [hires moon picture here](https://i.imgur.com/oQFdZdS.jpg). Some gases and carbon, water can be potentially found in some places and they are in ppm, ppb concentrations in lunar regolith. Fe, Al, Ca, Mg, Ti - are in percentage concentrations on the surface of the Moon, in form of lunar regolith (fine dust, rocks). One of the advantages for the Moon as a material source: it is big, compared to most of the asteroids. Its big size means that you are able to build large (long) constructions on the surface in gravity fields in more or less old fashion, as we do them usually. Escape velocity for [the Moon](http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/moonfact.html) is 2380 m/s - but potentially we can build Maglev style mass drivers to launch payloads from the Moon surface. Compared to a big enough asteroid such activity will have lesser effects on its orbital characteristics (none basically), which are important for permanent construction, which might be 1000's km long. Another nice thing with the Moon and [mass driver](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_driver) is its ability to deliver construction material with 0 fuel expenses into L1 location, because we can launch payloads clockwise and counterclockwise around the earth and catch those payloads [sky hook](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyhook_(structure)) style (or by other means) and keep zero average momentum of our L1 construction. Energy wise expenses of launching materials from the Moon (about 3MJ per kg) are not that big, especially if we launch mostly raw ores and compare the energy to the energy we need to extract materials, reduce elements to their base stat. And to energies we need to produce useful products from the materials. (Energy will be a few percents in the total energy expenses for the materials.) ## Bonus for L1 position As I said before there might be other constructions, which might help in building ships. By that I meant infrastructure, energy. The L1 location is the only point suitable to reduce the amount of sunlight which the Earth gets and thus there can be a structure which regulates the amount of light and by thus regulates the climate on the Earth. But at the same time the structure can generate a lot of energy in useful (at that place) form - electricity, heat and light. And building the construction, as useful for 7 billion people on Earth, can justify building mass drivers' on the Moon and perfecting the launching of materials and constructions from the Moon to L1. ## Imaginary Elephant in the room: instability of L1 Halo orbits are pretty inexpensive to maintain and with access to the material from the Moon (with the supply of the materials) not that big of a problem to maintain (with reactive propulsion, or with possible impulses from catching materials, or might be with solar sails). Considering the excess of Oxygen from reducing metals from their oxides, which is not needed in such quantities, there is always a cheap reactive mass available for the purposes of corrections. Another solution is to build tether like structures with counterweights to correct and dynamically stabilize the position by retracting or releasing those tethers. They have to be long, which is not a problem in those conditions, as gravity there (the difference) is less than 100μm/s2. Thus no problems to have 100 thousand's of kilometers long cables made out of ordinary materials (iron, aluminium) and it takes months do destabilize the position. The length of the cables you might need is around 10'000 km. They might have to be longer, but the required length is less than 100'000 km for sure (less than the typical halo orbit size). A slightly rotating system of those cables (,which can be used to catch the payloads,) should work well (when you orchestrate it well). # Conclusion All that being said, go with L1 if you would like to have 100's m or km's sizes ships/constructions, habitats for the crew. If they are smaller than that - the Moon can be a pretty ok place too. As for radiation protection, which people are concerned about a lot most of the time: with access to prices of 2.8MJ/kg of materials, you can build the shelter as thick as it is - enough to protect the humans from the radiation. Small constructions -> bigger constructions preferable places in that order are - orbit around the Earth, Moon, orbit around Moon, L1, Mercury. [Answer] Most orbits are not over a certain spot on Earth. Objects circle around the planet. * A [low orbit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Earth_orbit) reduces the fuel requirement to bring things up from the surface of Earth. * One of the [Lagrange points](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point), probably L-4 or L-5, is good for long-term stationkeeping in space. * A [geostationary orbit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostationary_orbit) is possible, which would stay over any one spot on the equator. Going that high might have the drawbacks of both LEO and Lagrange and few benefits. [Answer] Why orbital? The obvious place to put a dockyard would be in the asteroid belt. Plenty of materials and minimal gravity. Use solar panels to power a magnetic catapult to toss the ships towards the Earth or wherever you want the ships. If you're stuck in the Earth area, put it on the moon. Low gravity, plenty of materials, easy access to solar energy if located near the poles. Again, solar panels to power a magnetic catapult to launch the ship into orbit. If you want a place to put people on ships and are willing to go near future, build a [space elevator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator) and make the counterweight a dock. The counterweight would be in the area of 36,000 km or 22,000 miles from the surface. I.e. above geostationary orbit. Where to anchor? See [this question](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/8866/2113). The reason to prefer the asteroid belt to the Moon or Earth is that there is no [gravity well](https://xkcd.com/681/) from which materials need to be pulled. Given sufficient transit time, even a relatively small push can send material from the asteroid belt to Earth orbit. By contrast, even the Moon requires a big initial push just to achieve escape velocity. There is diffuse but constant solar light to provide power in the asteroid belt. The Moon has more intermittent power even in a polar location. The Earth only has power half the time and has an atmosphere in the way. The Earth's poles are horrid places to put solar panels, as there's too much atmosphere between the panels and the Sun. Not to mention precipitation and cloud problems. The small size of most asteroids is helpful. Instead of digging a gigantic hole that can collapse, just take apart the entire asteroid. ]
[Question] [ This question already has answers here: [What are the disadvantages of a long living race?](/questions/53189/what-are-the-disadvantages-of-a-long-living-race) (19 answers) Closed 6 years ago. Say you have a race of human demigods that rule humanity. These demigods have a lifespan of about 5000 to 6000 years. They are similar in biology to humans except that they live longer. What is the best way to prevent their population from overtaking baseline humans, and at the same time keep their numbers up to prevent them from dying out? [Answer] Longer Childhood If these demigods live 6000 years, their "childhood" could be 300 years long. The effort to maintain and educate such a "child" would put a strain on the parents, and while some would have more kids and some would have less, the "scale" of the lifespan would balance out. Becoming a Demigod is dangerous. Perhaps whatever method is used to achieve that long lifespan is inherently dangerous. You grow until 40 years old as a normal human would, but then the demigods go through a biological change which has a high failure rate. Maybe it's an external drug, maybe it's some sort of symbiosis with another form of life on the planet, or some chemistry in the environment, or maybe it's just the end of this species "puberty." Surviving that long is dangerous. Another option is that the ruling pyramid of the Demigods use younger demigods as tools, like western gods use angels. In order to make it to your first 1000 years, you have to survive being sent to the front lines of every holy war the demigods fight; surviving multiple trips back and forth to your realms, and your subjects learning that you're long lived but not immortal and trying to kill you. Surviving your family is dangerous. Maybe they DON'T do anything to reduce their child-rearing rate, but in order for a child to make it through to adulthood they have to live in a rough-and-tumble dog-eat-dog world, where only the strongest (and therefore healthiest) actually make it into the ranks of adulthood. ...and maybe this never stops, and even at 5500, you have to keep one eye open. [Answer] There are many reasons why a race of long lived demi gods / rulers might have a low reproduction rate. 1. The Power * Any Children a "demi-god" might have would likely want power. So the more children one has, the more they have to share. 2. The Elite * The lesser races breed like vermin, one as pure as we are better than that. Ours are the purest, ours are the few, the great. * This could manifest in a desire to not breed so heavily, or perhaps selectively breeding and weeding out of the weak. Ritualized killings, tribal initiations, breeding compacts, or just plain infanticide. 3. Rivals * Every child Zeus has weakens the position of Odin. Best to kill them before they reach maturity. 4. Eternal Love * They love selectively and love hard. Once paired, they can never pair with another. 5000 years is a long time, the chances of one dying is pretty high. 5. Religion * The rite of bonding is a sacred thing. The One Who Made All would never countenance the sacrilege that is "free love". 6. Environmental * These "higher beings" require very specific environmental criteria to successfully pair. The moon must be in retrograde, bamboo in bloom, and a red headed orphan dancing the jig. 7. Biological * Mating seasons. These demigods may have evolved from a lower creature and retained vestigial biological functions. * High infant mortality rates. * Perhaps they are not native to this world, and have issues adapting. * Low fertility rate. * Pregnancies last 500 years... * It could be really really uncomfortable for one of the genders. * + Think angler fish for males (the males are absorbed by the females until only their testes remain, which the female then uses) * + For females, they may not have a designated orifice, and males create one with their barb. (think beetles have this) 8. Sexy sexy mortals * Mortals are just so hot, and ever so ready to please their gods. Why go through a brutal 100 year courtship with Hera when I can turn into a swan and go to town. 9. Grudges * If the population is low enough and you live long enough you are going to hate literally everyone else. "No-one will not let go of that drunken rant I went on about the green wings 3000 years ago. I was only 200 years old, I've changed!" 10. Greek Families * Zeus killed or sealed away anyone older than himself, then went and banged everything in sight. Now everyone is my sibling, and Zeus is probably banging them too. Some might be a little hesitant to dip into that gene pool. Also, Zeus ate half his kids. 11. Fun Years? * I got married at the age of 2000, and have another 3000 years of marriage to look forward to. Why would I possibly want to ruin that with kids. Maybe in a 1000 years or so. As for keeping their population up, they live a very very long time. Even a low birth rate should keep their population numbers constant. [Answer] Cyclical fertility It's hard to convince intelligent creatures to reproduce for purely rational reasons. More power and autonomy will only exacerbate the problem. Continual reproductive impulse causes undesirable overpopulation. But cyclical fertility could solve the problem nicely. When things are stable and normal there could be no reproduction for thousands of years. A fertility cycle could initiate a period of reproduction. Preventing extinction and stagnation. This also also allows for feedback loops which allow circumstances to influence fertility rates. Catastrophic event kills off half the population? Increased duration and frequency of fertility cycles. Stable population? Reduced duration of fertility cycles and an increase in the pause between cycles. [Answer] ## You have quite a few options. 1. Little to no libido. If your beings are prudish (like many - especially abrahamic - gods) and are either exceedingly selective with who they want to mate with or only get horny every few thousand years then they obviously won't be having many offsprings. 2. Pratically infertile. If you want them to have the same sexual appitites as ordinary humans then you can make only a few out of every tens of thousand sexual interaction result in pregnancy. 3. They can't or don't want to procreate when they are rearing children. You didn't specify how their extended life-cycle works but if childhood lasts hundreds of years, you can simply make your creatures unwilling or unable to mate until their current cubs have been fully raised. --- If you're worried that putting into place any of these solutions would make your species prone to extinction, say if the normal humans somehow started effectively rebeling and killing their overlords, simply make it so that under duress they becomes much more "passionate", fertile or much less dedicated to their current children (depending on what solution you choose). This is by no means fantastical, the reproductive behaviours of many species change when they are stressed out, including humans (human women produce more male children when they're stressed because it is an effective survival method when faced with famine or war, etc...). [Answer] In the demigod's society, harmony with nature and maintaining a sustainable population are cultural norms. In modern fiction, we have seen several near-future-distopia works where having more than one child is a capital crime. In reality, we have several grass-roots organizations trying to convince us we should do this voluntarily. Most of these groups advocate two pregnancies per female, successful or not, as a means of slowly achieving a stable population. (The extremists among them want us to stop procreation and allow ourselves to go extinct.) In Shard martin's world, no laws and no movements are needed. Through ages old tradition, it is just assumed that everyone will practice restraint. It is well acknowledge that every additional child is an additional consumer of limited resources. The responsible attitude to parenting considers all aspects of the potential new life on the world as a whole. ]
[Question] [ Each technology, that is evolving, begins with simple piece of programming code that starts with variables of certain data types. It is interesting to note that many calculative and computing technologies including system clocks have "float" (and similar other) data types which can store floating point numbers. There are many evidences already which depicts how human errors in judgement and prediction have created floating point errors and ended up in a chaotic disaster. Just to illustrate a few of them to support my question: > > February 25,1991: 28 American soldiers killed due to floating point error!! > > > The time in tenths of second as measured by the system's internal clock was multiplied by 1/10 to produce the time in seconds. This calculation was performed using a 24 bit fixed point register. In particular, the value 1/10, which has a non-terminating binary expansion, was chopped at 24 bits after the radix point. The small chopping error, when multiplied by the large number giving the time in tenths of a second, lead to a significant error. ([Source](http://ta.twi.tudelft.nl/users/vuik/wi211/disasters.html)) > > > June 4, 1996: Blast in an unmanned spaceship during launch > > > The rocket was on its first voyage, after a decade of development costing dollar 7 billion. It turned out that the cause of the failure was a software error in the inertial reference system. Specifically a 64 bit floating point number relating to the horizontal velocity of the rocket with respect to the platform was converted to a 16 bit signed integer. The number was larger than 32,768, the largest integer storeable in a 16 bit signed integer, and thus the conversion failed. ([Source](http://ta.twi.tudelft.nl/users/vuik/wi211/disasters.html#ariane)) > > > There are lots of examples out there where, 10th or even 100th floating point multiplied small chain of errors to huge disasters. While in future, when space and time travel is considered a definite possibility, How should such unpredictable errors be handled? How would programming and development of such long travels be done specifically with floating point values? Bonus: how would the cause of any such failure would be recognized or investigated if it occurred during space and time travel? *Edit: Don't Consider Unpredictable* literally. It was just a hyperbole annotation used. I simply just meant "Hard to predict"** [Answer] This is a topic for whole books to fill, here is a quick overview. Errors will always be there. Not only because of floating point, but because humans make mistakes, circuits can malfunction due to temperature, voltage, radiation, gravitation (especially if it is strong enough to measurably influence time)… However floating point introduces a lot of quirky effects into your mathematics, which the programmer has to account for, making it a lot harder to write a "proper" program using floating point. # Software: The best way so far is to invest a huge amount of time money and training in reviewing code, writing tests, and running simulations. There is the philosophy of defensive programming which means that the programmer constantly writes all made assertions into his code, checks the boundaries of values before using them for calculations and subdivides the program in as small pieces as possible which each does exactly one task and can be by itself considered to either complete this task or catch anything fishy before something goes wrong and either correct the error reliably (which rarely is possible) or propagate the exact nature of the problem to the next upper level in the programs hierarchical structure. The drawback is a hugely increased cost/ manpower requirement and since this way of programming is extremely tedious, productivity will be lower than the code-and-forget approach usually taken. A variation is paranoid programming which takes it to such extreme measures, that it becomes nearly impossible to write something more complex than a simple calculator. If you can formulate your problem mathematically, it is possible to formally prove it. This can be partially automatized, however it still takes A LOT of time, computing power and human effort. Within a well-written defensive program error recognition is quite straight forward since they are propagated to the user if no error-handling strategy matches the error discovered. # Hardware: Hardware errors can be discovered best by redundancy. Have multiple copies of the same hardware do the same stuff at the same time and check if they diverge. Modern memory also uses check sums of the stored data to catch corruptions. # Error discovery and -handling Discovering the error sources and fixing these errors depends on the available tooling. Is there debugging software available? (Note that the debugger itself may have bugs!) Do you even know which value was expected? Can you reproduce the error? If not you are in for a bad time - some errors occur only a fixed number of times, or only manifest themselves a long time after the event that caused them. Debugging integrated circuits is terribly difficult, requires unusually complex equipment and can nearly never be fixed. In each scenario you need time, well-trained personal and good equipment. A good way to go would be using simple, modular and easily replaceable hardware in combination with high-quality and well-tested software and keep an educated, experienced, motivated and knowledgeable staff around. Have a contingency plan for as many scenarios as possible, a lot of backup hardware and duplicated data and keep printed exhaustive manuals around for when everything else fails. [Answer] Rounding errors are not unpredictable. This is fundamental error in your question. These may be unpredicted, but that's only a lack of skill. Errors you mentioned are not inherently related to floating point numbers. First one is caused by improper use of fixed point. Second is just a bad conversion. Both errors are common and should be caught by [code reviews](http://codereview.stackexchange.com) before flight, and in simulated flights. With this kind of error, the idea is to have the same algorithm coded independently by two teams. If results are not in acceptable proximity, you know one is buggy. For usual rounding errors, solution is simple. Code to the limits of your hardware. If you can't step dV more precisely than 0.001 m/s, no need to calculate and store with significantly greater precision. Instead, just measure again some time later, and perform correction burns when you have to. In other words, know you can't know and design procedures accordingly. [Answer] > > "While in future, when space and time travel is considered a definite possibility, How should such unpredictable errors be handled? How would programming and development of such long travels be done specifically with floating point values?" > > > 1. With huge amount of computational power I could imagine debuggers that would be able to randomly generate plenty of different weird scenarios and see how would software behave. 2. More computational power - using terribly inefficient, but quite robust very high level programming languages. (Like JAVA does not allow you to use a pointer out of range of array and makes such error at least visible) 3. Mass production, mature technology - the software for a new space ship may be of the shelf software, that was run on hundreds previous ships and even if it was debugged in the hard way, then it at least at that moment works well. 4. With big enough data size... Well, some problems would be solved anyway... No more Y2K problem... 64bit time would serve us well for many time s more time than contemporary age of universe. Part of our problem is to have to optimize the code. > > "Bonus: how would the cause of any such failure would be recognized or investigated if it occurred during space and time travel?" > > > Just back up the software before launch. Just in case run some test afterwards. [Answer] As others point out, there are arbitrary-precision software packages that wouldn't suffer any numerical inaccuracy. That is what you'd use in a competently designed system. But, if you insist on using floating point numbers, there is one significant effect that would occur- it would be possible to specify nearby locations more accurately than far locations. This normally doesn't matter because our earth is relatively small, numerically speaking. But in the realm of space the distances become very large indeed. As a loose explanation, floating point numbers have a limited number of precise digits due to the way they are represented in a machine. In one common format (the 32-bit, [IEEE double precision floating point number](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_floating_point)), you have about 7 significant digits of precision. Regardless of whether you're representing a large or small number, you only have 7 digits to do it in. For example, the numbers `1.234567` and `123456.7` both have the same numerical precision (seven digits after the most significant). Suppose you are counting kilometers directly. Nearby locations can be specified with great accuracy: "Move 0.001 KM away from the planet" would be equivalent to moving one meter, or "Move 0.000001 KM toward the ship" would be equivalent to moving one millimeter However, far locations can only be specified very coarsely. If you say: "Move 1000000 KM along this vector" then the last precise digit is the 1KM place. You can't say "Move 1000000.001 KM", as your maximum precision at this point is now 1KM. Likewise, if you say "Move 1,000,000,000 KM in that direction" your maximum precision is now 1,000KM. You can specify the following two locations accurately, but nothing in between: 1,000,000,000 KM and 1,000,001,000 KM Astronomic distances are very large. In order to "jump to" a star system you need to get within a few hundred thousand KM. Our closest nearby galaxy (Andromeda) is 2.4\*10^19 KM away, with 7 digits of precision you can only discriminate plus or minus 10^12 KM (a trillion KM). With a double precision, 64-bit IEEE format you've got about 16 digits of precision, so you can specify locations plus or minus 10^3 KM (a thousand KM) in Andromeda. Again, that happens to be the closest galaxy. Consider what happens when precision breaks down. If you're plus or minus 100,000 KM then, to avoid jumping into a planet, you need your jump target at least 100,000 KM away from the planet surface, which might be as much as 200,000 KM if you round the other way. If it's critical to be close to the planet when you jump, you need your origin point to be closer to the destination. Hence you would have to jump somewhere near the solar system, and then you would jump to the planet. You can come up for your own explanation of why that's good or bad for economics or military engagements or what have you. [Answer] I'd be very interested in learning about the accidents which occurred because 100 bit numbers were inadequate for the task? Please cite your source for this (dubious, imho) claim. You imply that engineers use "formulas" for calculations without having a clue about what their limits are. Well, I'm sure some people aren't motivated enough or educated enough to bother finding out whether the "black box" can be trusted. Hopefully, those aren't the engineers making the decisions for any project where human life is at risk. Your question assumes a level of incompetence which is not typical. Oh, I should also add that the calculus of determining errors propagating through numerical calculations is a mature discipline. [Answer] Program in LISP, Haskell, or other functional, demand-driven languages that support infinite-decimal-point numbers. The C/assembly programming paradigm was useful for original machines because the computing resources were so limited that the languages needed to match the hardware pretty directly. Now we need a better programming paradigm that supports hygienic programming (that's an actual technical term), precise computation, and discoverable parallelism. ]
[Question] [ After France lost the 7 Years war, they were forced to give away land. No matter how little land they are forced to give, it is most likely that they will give away French Louisiana as all other land is more profitable. Because of the fact that this will not work for my alternate series of events I want to occur. After deliberating with a couple of Alternate Historians, they told me that the only reason they would not give French Louisiana to England is if they won the 7 Years War. It comes down to of all the territories France was willing to give up, French Louisiana was both the cheapest and the least profitable, if France has to give away land, they will give away French Louisiana. What is the smallest change I can make to history allow France to win the 7 Years War? What would the English give to France as a result of this Alternate Result? [Answer] [Alexandr Buturlin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Buturlin) is not given command in 1760, and [Empress Elizabeth of Russia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_of_Russia) doesn't die in 1762. Elizabeth's Russia entered the war mainly due to her dislike of Frederick the Great (Prussia, who was allied with England) and therefore was allied with France (and Austria, which is important). By all measurements, Russia/France/Austria were winning the war in Eastern Europe. At the beginning of 1760, Frederick the Great wrote that ["I'm at the end of my resources... the continuance of this war means for me utter ruin."](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_of_Russia#Seven-Years_War) Things were looking good. Then two things happened. One, Alex Buturlin was appointed commander in chief of the Russian army, which was by all accounts a colossal screw-up. The Campaign of 1760 was a disaster for the Russian army, mainly due to Buturlin not pressing his initiative. Two, Russia and Austria signed a secret treaty in which they split up Prussia - Russia would annex East Prussia as reparations for the cost of the war. However, since it was secret (as it wasn't exactly good form to divide the spoils of war before the war was over) not many people knew about it. Then Elizabeth died childless and was succeeded by her nephew [Peter III](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_III_of_Russia). Peter was a great admirer of Frederick the Great, and made peace with Prussia. This peace actually involved Russia switching sides in the war, and they soon marched on their Austrian former-allies. That forced Austria to the negotiating table with Prussia, and effectively ended the war in Eastern Europe, leaving France basically on their own. At that point it was pretty much the end in all but fact. This whole chain of events, from the mess-ups of the Campaign of 1760 to the death of Elizabeth (and her replacement with a Prussian-sympathetic Peter) is known as the [Miracle of the House of Brandenburg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_House_of_Brandenburg). There is truthfully no reason why it should have played out the way it did, other than sheer luck and the idiosyncrasies of Russian succession law (Peter was actually German, hence his pro-Prussia attitude, but inherited a claim on Russia through his mother). If you remove the Miracle of the House of Brandenburg, Prussia falls in Eastern Europe. Suddenly it would be England on their own, not France, and they'd be facing a combined French-Russian-Austrian army. Fighting one vs three isn't particularly feasible. GG, France wins. As far as what England would give to France, they'd have no real choice but to give up their North American holdings - much of Canada and the Thirteen Colonies that became the USA. This was before major "colonization" of Africa and India took place, so there actually weren't many options for what England could have given up. They wouldn't have given anything to Russia/Austria, because they had already gotten their share of the spoils (Prussia divided between them, from earlier). They could perhaps get away with just giving France their holdings in Canada, and keeping the Thirteen Colonies, but that depends on how good their negotiators are. Ultimately, France remains a major power in the Americas and England doesn't become the global superpower that we know it as. [Answer] [John's answer](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/55399/9685) is very interesting, and I think that would have changed the turn of the war. However, it might not have saved French' Louisiana at that point. It's very likely that France would have taken lands in the Caraibbean, or even India than North America. ### French Lousiana Was a huge portion of land spanning over a large portion of the USA and Canada, effectlively connecting New Orleans to Quebec. It covered all of the Mississipi river as well as all other rivers coming to it. The West of the Saint-Laurent, in what is now the Province of Quebec. But it was essentially unmanned. French had effectively some population in the South (in current Louisiana and Mississipi, USA) and in the North (Quebec and Montreal). The rest were possessions in name. The English colonies were much more populated. And the 7 years war established a decisive English dominance over the seas. From that point, France was left unable to defend its colonies, both by land or by sea. It results then logical that France gave away its North American colonies to Spain and England. For similar reasons, Napoleon sold the Southern part back when they got the Spanish piece back. A lot of effort, for little profit. ### Possible outcome of winning the 7 years war Imagine, as John's mention, that France would have effectively won the 7 years war in Europe with the support of Russia. That would have made that France would not have had to give away any land. England would have to return the occupied French Louisiana. However the problems still remained. The naval superiority of England was still there, and its North-American colonies also more populated. Most likely, either during the American War of Independence, or French Revolution, or even ultimately during the Napoleon Wars, it would have left the French possession. It is also interesting to note that that win would have had a huge impact on the American War of Independence. A weaken England would have been more keen on diplomatic outcome before its start. Or France would have supported England to avoid seeing the same fate. But all in all, a win on European battle field would not have reinforced French Louisiana. ### Keeping Louisiana A single point during the 7 years war would have made a drastic change to the situation of Louisiana: that Quebec would not have fallen in 1759. And kept the English away through the rest of the war. But ultimately, if you want to write an alternate History, you would need to make sure that France would have had more interest in keeping Louisiana. Maybe a big gold mine would have done the trick. [Answer] There are two ways to look at this. Either the French can completely win the 7 years war in Europe, or they can win the overseas portion of it. France wins in Europe The fate of nations rests on the fortunes of battle. Nothing would more easily change the tide of the war than reversing one battle. In this case, the battle is [Rossbach](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Rossbach). In June 1757, France invaded Hannover, won a crushing victory, occupied the capital of Brunswick, and forced the Hannoverians to sign the [Convention of Klosterzeven](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_of_Klosterzeven). Since King George of England was also the Elector of Hannover, he was not too keen about this Treaty and looked for the first opportunity to disavow it. He got his wish a few months later, when Frederick routed a French/German force at Rossbach (5 Nov), then the Austrian army at Leuthen (5 Dec). Britain disavowed the convention, Hannover re-entered the war, and the stage was set for the Anglo-Prussian convention, where England bankrolled Fredericks armies. This proved to be the winning combination. Now lets flip the script: Frederick suffers a crushing defeat at Rossbach. There is no-one to confront the Austrian army at Leuthen, so the Austrians retake Silesia. Now Frederick is facing four major enemy armies (French/German, Austrian, Russian, Swedish) in his home territory. Hanover is still occupied by the French, and since George is from Hanover and cares about that land, he isn't willing to re-enter the war on Prussia's side. Prussia is sacked into oblivion and Frederick surrenders. France uses Hanover as a bargaining chip; to get it back un-razed, England has to give up some Caribbean Islands (Jamaica?) or pay some reparations. France keeps its significant colonial presence in the new world. France wins in the New World Britain was saved overseas by an '[Annus Mirablis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annus_Mirabilis_of_1759)' in 1759. Note that this is AFTER the war would have theoretically ended in the above scenario. This war didn't have a clear turning point, but a succession of small changes would have altered the course of the war. Had the Seige of Ft. Carillon dragged on from 1759 to 1760 instead of the French abandoning it, had the British been repulsed at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, had the British been unable to take Ft. Niagara, the French would have been in a very good position after 3 years of fighting. The war would have dragged on as a stalemate, but in this case the advantage would have been to the British. They had the naval power to support overseas fighting for years and they still could have worn down the French irregulars and their Indian allies with time. But the French could certainly hope for a stalemate and return to status quo by the end of 1760. Don't Forget India In the long run, the most important part of the 7 Years War, which is mostly overlooked, were the encounters in India. In 1757, Robert Clive defeated the pro-French Nawab of Bengal and replaced him with a British puppet. The French failed in a seige of Madras, lost a battle at Wandiwash in 1760, and then lost Pondicherry to the British in 1761. French influence dissapeared from India. Of the three power centers from which the British Raj in India spread (Bombay, Madras, Calcutta), two were won decisively from the French in this war. One of the biggest alternate history swapperoos of all would be switching the British Raj out for the French Établissements. Had the French won, they would have much more interest in establishing and maintaining a world naval presence. They would not have wanted to sell French Louisiana, even had they lost Canada, and they would have built up a navy to challenge England. ]
[Question] [ ## PRELUDE I was thinking over the lines from the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." So I started thinking, "Is it really acceptable for the US government to execute people? Is it really even acceptable for it to imprison people since that would take away their 'liberty'? How could we punish people and protect those members of society who uphold the social contract from those who do not? Exile? EXILE! --- In theory, exiling all offenders that would otherwise be put to death or live their entire life in prison to a shared 'island' for such people could be argued as a humane alternative. The government does not impede on their rights to life and liberty, and yet they have lost their chance to live among those who have not broken the social contract. People are people however, and I started seeing humanitarian issues within said island as gangs and/or 'war-groups' formed and started committing atrocities against one another. It could be, arguably, worse than prison. --- ## THE HEART OF THE QUESTION So is there a way to make exile a consistently humane alternative to the death penalty and/or life in prison? [Answer] No - It's a Recursive Solution If you want to exile people because they are not playing by your rules BUT you want them to treat one another humanely they will need a new set of rules governing them wherever they are. Since it is not your government handling them (by definition of "exile"), another government will need to be set up. That government would have to outlaw bad behavior and either punish it by incarceration / execution or exile. But you have stipulated that they cannot choose incarceration or execution, so they elect Exile. Any other choice on the part of the "exile government" is effectively a choice you could have just made in the first place. And then the cycle starts again. [Answer] The ancient Greeks used exile as a punishment for crimes against the polis, although since the rules they used were far different from what we would consider a court of law, the juries were often swayed into applying these sentences based on the skill of the demagogue arguing against the accused. Thucydides was exiled because he chose to turn back and rescue sailors in his fleet rather than continue pursuing a defeated enemy fleet. Alcibiades was also exiled for his political ambitions, although the Athenians probably would have been better off having him executed instead. This shows the problem with using exile as a sentencing tool; people who are truly hostile or criminal will continue their activities outside of the place they are exiled from, and can potentially team up with your enemies to come back under arms. Exiles can also propagandize against you; Thucydides and Xenophon were both exiled from Athens, and we know of them today because of their writings. While these two men did not themselves propagandize against Athens directly, their feelings towards their former home can be deduced from their writing. It is possible that an equally skilled writer could have directly propagandized against his home state, and in the modern era, an exiled person using social media can potentially cause immense damage. Several Americans have joined various Jihadi groups and have sought to convert other Americans and inspire them to commit terrorist acts inside the United States (until their writing careers were forcibly ended by a hellfire launched from a drone). You also need to understand the context that the Founders were writing the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution under. As Enlightenment philosophers, they were operating under the assumption that there were no divine or other external forces that separated men. The phrase "All men are created equal" is nonsense if taken literally, but makes sense in a political context; you are not born to rule or be ruled, and no one is born to rule over you or be your slave (once again context is necessary, "men" are citizens with political rights, which was narrowly defined in the 1700's). Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness are goals that all free men can strive for, but the Founders were equally aware that not all men (or even non citizens or people without political rights) would act within the law, they had no problem with enforcing the law, or using force to right perceived injustices (which is how they saw the American Revolution). Since the Constitution is the Supreme Law of the United States, which all other laws and regulations are supposed to be referenced and subordinate to, the Founders had no need to go into criminal law at length, and indeed outside of forbidding cruel and unusual punishment or "post ex facto" prosecution (prosecuting you under a law which did not exist at the time of the alleged crime), there is very little direct reference in these documents. Capital punishment, debtors prison and all the other law enforcement tools of the 1700's were considered to be normal and effective means of dealing with criminality, so the idea of exile for crimes would probably seem ludicrous to the Founders. [Answer] Exile them where to? 1) If another nation takes all your criminals, they might only do so if they use them as second class citizens for labor, most likely in some kind of prison camps. 2) If you put them in a place which for some reason doesn't belong to a nation, they will form their own nation, therefore this scenario leads to 1) after a couple years. 3) If you create a lesser nation inside your borders, where you influence government, military, etc. you can maintain that exile state for a long time. But these people will procreate to the point where you have more natural born citizens of the lesser state than criminals. Thus you have social inequality between people from the lesser state and full citizens from your state. This will likely lead to social unrest and deep resentment between people from the lesser state and full citizens. A related (but not equal! I'm not making a political statement here!) example can be found inside contemporary Israel. 4) If you sterilize the criminals first, 3) could work, because by definition everyone in the exile state is a criminal. It's essentially a large scale prison rather than exile, and you'd need border guards rather than prison guards. They'd be self-governed, but you'd make sure to have a good grip on the government inside, and control the situation with a good intelligence network. You'd also be prepared to eliminate potential troublemakers at the push of a button, without trial. [Answer] Exile is not a valid punishment for "normal" people. It only applies to leaders, politicians, princes. Normal people can just go and be normal people somewhere else, but leaders of the people when exiled, are doomed to become normal in their new home. They lose the power and influence that is their identity. While you as an authority have removed a problem from your territory, when it's a normal person you haven't really punished the person in the same way that you would have otherwise. Certainly exile to the average criminal could not be considered a punishment on the same level as death, but to a prince the two could be considered almost equivalent. [Answer] I think the author of the question may want to investigate what the US does with sex offenders. They are internally exiled from living near schools, parks, etc. It is a sort of exile-in-place. Opinions vary about whether it is ethical or not, but it would be a model to investigate. Also Google the term "The Culture slap drone". Sci-fi author Ian Banks has some thoughts on the topic. [Answer] No, exile can never pretend to be a "humane" substitution for the death penalty. The actual results of any attempt to do so would range from the inhumane to the outright insane. One thing that really stands out to me is, what punishments are worthy of your death penalty? Specifically, if you think it is a humane thing to let those things happen, why the heck do you think not letting it happen in your own borders, to your own people, is not hypocrisy? Really, what's the point of marking their behavior as death-penalty-worthy if it is fine to let them continue doing it, it doesn't make sense. If some nation is using the death penalty for truly minimally problematic things that actually would be fine elsewhere, I think exile might be kinda feasible for those minimal offenses - but the worse problem is that your originating country is deeply unjust, and it's better to fix the scale of punishments (ie, that was not supposed to be death-penalty worthy to begin with) than treat exile as a straight substitute. The actual cure for these...mismatches... in a just society is not exile, but emmigration - let people choose to leave, without fault and without fuss, from places where whatever-it-is is not welcome to places where the whatever-it-is is welcome. The death penalty is not supposed to be for petty problems. Crimes worth the death penalty, or that a society thinks worth considering for the death penalty, are serious stuff. Offhand, I'm thinking of bloody, violating, horrifying, and fundamentally not humane crimes. And your government wishes to condone that behavior, to protect those criminals, to literally say they have a right to continue acting in that way - and your government will not even let them be treated as criminal for it? No, no I don't think that's humane. At all. Ever. Because what is going to stop them? The people who do things you actually think are badwrongevil? Why are they not wandering off and just keep killing, torturing, raping whosoever they wish? If you put them on an island, and keep them on it - that's not exile, it's imprisonment. And they're free to prey on others on that island, some of whom are going to be more vulnerable than others - especially if you're also using exile instead of regular imprisonment and not just death-penalty stuff. So it allows considerably worse conditions than regular prisons aspire to - there aren't any rules to keep people on the island safe from inhumane treatment by each other... and if you aren't concerned about those on the island preying on others there because they "deserve" not to be protected - you might as well kill them clean, it would be kinder than the suffering humans can inflict on each other with no rules or limits! There is also a greater risk of escape (boats, rafts, bridges - humans are good at traveling), or targeting those keeping them on the island, with increased freedom and possibly cooperation among the criminals, not to mention the expense and risk of providing resources for them to survive. True exile is even worse - it only kicks them out of their originating country, and prevents them from returning. So then they leave, and travel wherever they wish, to other unsuspecting populations, and hurt people. And wherever they land will then have to deal with them, and do the things your country won't - kill them to save others, imprison or execute them. Bonus points, you now have diplomatic incidents cropping up all over the place - from those victimized populations who want to know why your counrty didn't stop the criminal before they hurt their people, and your country wanting to know why other countries are allowing such..."inhumane"... treatment of their ex-citizens. Especially since if it's "inhumane" for them to imprison or kill, any other reaction to other countries controlling their exiled criminal's behavior by those methods would make them cynical hypocrites, outsourcing their law enforcement to other countries, which those countries will not like. Eventually, there will be war where those surrounding countries will try and make the originating country act saner. Other answers speak quite well on the how the substitution doesn't work, all the logistical problems of where to put them and what rules, but not as much on the why of it not working, the fundamental ethical problems and the types of crime involved. [Answer] If you are going to ship those criminals to an unclaimed island (meaning it doesn't belong to any country) you have to make sure that they don't make their own country and that they do not escape. Meaning you will have to establish border patrol as well as placing guards on the island so they don't start building weapons to launch against you. Effectively you've just built a prison on another island. Prisons already have gangs and lots of crimes happen in prisons. Calling prisons humane is a delusion. But you need that delusion of calling it humane so you can actually put people in there. Citizens belong to the government and even more so when they are in prison. Sometimes prisoners are used as a workforce. Arguably in some countries (low-security) prison is pretty much great except for the fact that you're locked in. ]
[Question] [ In this system, rather than purely bartering or using a representative currency, most people would use blessings, a collection of coins (bits), banknotes (clips), and virtual currency (surges) that each hold a small sample of magic that can be exchanged for goods and services. The basic guidelines I've put down so far: * Only the magic stored in the currency holds value--the bits and clips themselves are mostly worthless and would serve as an IOU at best. * The magic in question could either be used to create those goods and services (eg. help power the generator of an apartment or fertilize a plot of land to grow better crops) or be exchanged for an already existing good or service, which the recipient could use to go on and do the same (eg. buying a loaf of bread or a potion). Likewise, depending on the establishment, change could be returned in the form of lower value blessings or the partially or completely "drained" blessing for the buyer to "recharge" themselves. * Counterfeiting successfully would be fairly difficult, as real currency would be enchanted with a seal or composed of a specific substance only craftable through a costly alchemical process. * Exchange rates are dependent on each country's individual blessing value--for example, a bit in one country could be equal to one unit of magic (which in itself is subject to change), while a bit in another could be equal to ten units. In areas where a traditional bartering system is used, a given item's value in blessings is estimated by the amount of magic it actually has, and would subsequently be exchanged for the equivalent amount. So far the main worry I have with this system is that it has very loose limits--the amount of magic one could charge "blank" currency with varies from person to person, and an especially powerful magician could easily exploit the system. I know next to nothing about economics, so I'd love to see any solutions for loopholes in this system. [Answer] Here's a brief(?) overview of currency and banking relevant to your system. --- There's two basic types of currency. [Fiat money](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_money), in which the money has no intrinsic value but people accept it as legal tender. Almost all money today is fiat money. It's very convenient, and it's universally accepted. Its value can be indirectly controlled by adding or removing currency from the economy. The amount of currency can be expanded along with an expanding economy avoiding [deflation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deflation). The disadvantage is poor fiscal policy can devalue your money, sometimes beyond worthless. [Commodity money](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_money) is when the money itself has value. It can be a valuable item which becomes accepted as a standard-ish form of currency: in a pioneering society this might be livestock, steel blades, alcohol, candy... anything that was a needed commodity and came in fairly standard units. Or it can be coins made of precious material minted by an authority. The advantage is it always holds some value. The disadvantage is that value will fluctuate with the market and region. It can be very inconvenient to carry. People might not accept your money if they don't need, say, chickens... but coins will always be accepted. And the amount of currency cannot easily be controlled by a central bank to regulate inflation and deflation, even with coins you only have so much precious metal. [Representative money](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_money) is like a combination of commodity money and fiat money. Instead of carrying around a chicken you carry around an IOU redeemable with some authority (a bank or government) for a chicken. Its value lies in both the value of the chicken, and the trust that the authority will give you your chicken should you ask for it. Representative money effectively operates as fiat money with the option of cashing it in in case the value of the money drops. It's intended to limit the amount of money which can be printed to control inflation. [US silver certificates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_certificate_%28United_States%29) were representative money. --- What you're proposing is, essentially, commodity money. They're equivalent to minting coins out of precious metals. You can exchange them for goods and services, or you can "melt" them down to use as material for doing work. Replace "magic" with "fuel" or "electricity" and you see how there's a generic utility to the commodity. However, the bit and clip itself is worthless. It has to be charged and can only be charged by authorities. You are effectively creating [prepaid debit cards](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debit_card#Prepaid_debit_cards), but backed by commodities rather than fiat. Once charged, the magic can be transferred between clips, presumably in increments, without the authority. Unlike a prepaid debit card, it can be "melted down" and used directly like a battery. --- Allowing people to transfer magic/money between clips on their own is fine. The amount of magic in the economy remains the same. Individuals are prevented from adding magic to the economy, the only way they can add magic to their clip is from another clip. Money can be added to the economy the same way we do now, via a [central bank](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_bank). The central bank authorities are allowed to make and charge clips creating new money. [They then loan them to banks to add that money to the economy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_bank#Interest_rates). They can also borrow money to remove money from the economy. By controlling the interest rate at which they loan and borrow money they can indirectly speed up or slow down the economy. This is fine for fiat money, or even representative money, but yours is commodity money. That means people are allowed to remove money from the economy by using the magic contained within it. While some money is always lost in any system, this happens at a fairly predictable rate. Your system adds a wildcard to the monetary policy. Certain economic conditions will cause more people to turn their money into magic causing deflation. How this works out depends on how magic works in your world and under what conditions people are likely to start using money as magic instead of as money. --- Then there's the problem of international currency exchange. [With fiat money this is controlled by market forces relating to the strength of national economies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_exchange_market), but yours is commodity money. That complicates things. There is the face value of the money, and then there is the commodity value of what it is made of (ie. the magic). If the face value is higher than the commodity value, you're ok. Currency will be traded on the exchange according to market forces. The problem comes when the face value is less than the commodity value. This can happen because your economy is undergoing inflation, or because the value of the commodity has increased. Now you have a problem. Speculators will enter the market, buy up the undervalued currency, "melt it down", and sell the commodity. On the one hand, your government just subsidized someone else's Get Rich Quick scheme and lost a lot of money at a time when their economy probably isn't doing so well. On the other hand, a bunch of surplus money was just removed. Reducing the money supply should hopefully increase its face value, while also increasing the magic supply to lower the price of magic. Since it's international there's opportunities for [arbitrage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbitrage): making money off price differences in different markets. If magic is cheap in one place, but expensive in another, people might buy up currency at the cheap location, melt it down, and sell the magic on the other market for a good price. Eventually the prices will equalize, but meanwhile the money supply is being messed with. Finally, authorized commodity money like coins or your system acts as a price cap for the commodity in question: the central bank creating the coinage is effectively selling magic at the face value of the money. The value of magic (or gold, or silver, or whatever) will never go above the face value of the money. If it does, people will buy money instead and melt it down. This can have serious consequences on any industry which relies on or creates magic. By keeping the price below where it would be by market forces, it can further restrict the magic supply in a time when the suppliers should be increasing production causing shortages. [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/xWZPf.gif)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/xWZPf.gif) Point is, commodity money can complicate the international currency markets. You might be better off going with fiat currency and using magic to implement the transfers and prevent counterfeiting. --- Whew. Well, that's currency economics 101. Hope this helps! [Answer] I have to say, the most logical way to do different values between countries is to have different schools of magic in the coins them selves, and the different countries valuing different magics more. This was touched on briefly by another poster, but it warrants bringing up again. So, a school of magic such as Alteration that is useful for altering objects in the real world is coveted by this one nation who is a production giant, while this other nation loves Divination magic, the school of projecting your senses to see in other locations or times. Illusion would be loved by a country whose economy is heavily based in entertainment, and so on. It seems to give you a little clue into what each country finds important merely by what currency they consider more valuable. [Answer] Why bother? Instead of everyone carrying around complicated magic batteries, that might be volatile or heavy, why not carry around IOUs / access tokens that grant the barer ownership of magic stored at the bank? Pros of magic currency: You don't need to trust a third party to store the value ( energy) the backs the currency. Good if there is not a strong government. You can't counterfeit it for less than then its value(it either has the right amount of energy or not) so a "fake" with the right charge is as valuable as and official one. Any mage could make currency, Cons: The currency may be expensive to create as you want to make tons of batteries. If the cost to create the currency is near the value of it you lose value. The penny in the US costs more to make than 1 cent. You lock your money supply to the battery manufacturing rate. A improvement in manufacturing will cause sudden massive inflation, if a plant is damaged there will be sudden deflations. See what happened to Spain when they got a ton of gold and silver You lock up a bunch of energy in currency. The energy sitting in the currency could be used to do other things. It might be difficult to carry around a lot of wealth this way, to buy a 10,000 chip castle I have to haul a wagon with 10,000 chips. The batteries might be unsafe, what if you break one does magic energy explode out? Non mages would have a hard time verifying or using the currency. [Answer] In part this hinges on the limitations of magic in this world relative to the rate of magic production of its denizens. If sufficient quantities of magical power can be used to do/create anything, and the average magic user produces enough magic to satisfy all their basic needs, this creates a post-scarcity economy that opens up entirely different lifestyle options for people. The conflicts that would remain in such a world are likely to be more about personalities than resources or nature. If magic is less capable, but people still produce lots of it, it can lose some of its effectiveness as a currency. This is just a consequence of supply/demand, as Schwern has already said. On the other hand, if magic itself is capable of anything, but magic users don't produce enough of it to survive without other means, you run into the situation you've mentioned where there are issues of concentration of wealth in powerful magic-users. Historically there are a number of ways people combat concentration of wealth. One option is the cooperation of the creatures producing less magic to have a larger pool from which to combat the influence of more powerful magic users. Think labor or credit unions. Another option is redistribution of wealth. This could work for example as a "farm" of less powerful magic users being utilized as a massive battery for someone (Matrix style). Willing subjugation to a common government is another example, though it is not unheard of for the powerful to twist such governments in their favor. Compelling charities are another. Finally, there's inflation, as Shwern has also mentioned. In a situation where magic can do anything, however, the worst impact of inflation is to devalue the currency to the worth of what that magic can do; that is, the value of achieving the same ends by non-magical means for that amount of magical power. At the universe level, there's the option to increase resource scarcity (and limit inflation) by limiting the total amount of magic in the universe. That is, the universe could be such that magic users didn't actually create magic, but rather siphoned it from the universe at different rates. In this case, if everyone saved all their magic, everyone would also eventually stop being able to produce it, until some of it was spent and "released" back to the universe again. This actually accentuates the power of users who can siphon magic faster, as they get a larger share of the pie each time any magic is spent; I suspect this would make direct conflicts between the less powerful and more powerful much more likely. As another tweak, it would also be possible to create different "flavors" of magic power. That is, maybe one kind of magic power is used to relocate matter, one kind is used to create matter, one kind is used for mind control, etc. This could create different currency values based on the underlying type of magic power. This could result in conflicts arising as a result of those different levels, for example if creation was worth much more than relocation, unscrupulous users might use the relocation powers to steal matter other users had rightfully created. [Answer] The simple answer is that your system is unworkable, unless. Unless every person has the ability to determine exactly how much magic is contained in a given blessing. As stated, bits and chips are analogous to sealed envelopes which might or might not contain money, and the money contained might be anywhere from a dollar bill to a thousand-dollar bill. Or perhaps the analogy would be with a credit or debit card with an unknown balance. Such a system is simply unusable, and for quite obvious reasons. If, on the other hand, everybody can immediately know the magical balance contained in a blessing, then it simply becomes equivalent to any other commodity currency (see Schwem's answer), except that by definition counterfeiting is impossible. If powerful mages can interfere with the perceived magical content, then the utility of the blessings is inversely proportional (in the loose sense) to the number of bad blessings floating around, just as non-magical currency is affected by the presence of counterfeit currency in circulation. ]
[Question] [ By Merfolk or mere-people I mean sapient beings who share have some physical traits with terrestrial humans (a humanoid upper body and opposable thumbs at least, if that's not specific enough), live in underwater communities, use tools to some degree (one can likely rule out fire), and have a culture, if not necessarily a civilized one. This isn't to ask how a merperson expels bodily waste, more how do they dispose of it and avoid it floating all around them? [Answer] I'm not going to assume a level of technology here, and instead list a few primitive methods that may lay the foundation for later development in your species. These methods attempt to localize any grossness to one area of the body, where it could be cleaned with some seaweed or something. Option one: The Three Seashells Well, one seashell. A big one. Providing that your merfolk have all of their relevant orifices located closely together, when mer-nature mer-calls, your merfolk might try to find a large, empty gastropod shell to press up against their body and expel their waste into. When they are done, they quickly cap it with something (another seashell?) and then bury it. The future: Manufactured waste containers are readily available anywhere in society, along with a nearby receptacle for disposing of them. Option two: Pissing into the Wind Let's say your oceans have strong currents. A merperson could park themselves right on the edge of such a current, allowing their waste to be moved downstream with it. It would spread out eventually, but hopefully not before going a significant distance from the merperson. This has the added benefit of the running water cleaning them off. The future: Basically just a space toilet. We probably should have looked at zero gravity solutions first! Your society builds plumbing networks that allow high-strength vortexes to be created at the endpoints. Then, it's easy to build toilets that suck away waste continuously while active. The pipe that refills the toilets could have a receptacle near the endpoint for disinfectant containers that clean off the merperson when they press a button. This water would then also be slurped up by the system. This is probably the cleanest solution. I made this a numbered list because I anticipated having a third idea, but then I didn't. If I come up with a third unique solution, I'll add it. [Answer] Consider that a creature which is constantly surrounded by water is not likely to have trouble staying hydrated. You might work their necessary anatomy such that they do not ingest or expel liquids. Instead, all internal waste products get dried and compacted into heavier than water nuggets which upon expulsion, sink into the depths where no MerFolk ever go. Nature tends to solve these kinds of problems for itself. [Answer] My observations of many higher-living land animals (birds, spiders, even monkeys) is that they do not have much concern for toilet habits: they just do it and let it drop out of their living space. Fish and other aquatic organisms very much the same, although in their case they depend on dilution and filtering by symbiotic organisms (if unknown to you, you may want to read up on aquaponics, a system to raise both fish as a protein source, in tanks, and circulate their water through plant crops for removal of their nitrogen-rich waste, which incidentally also is a very good nutrient/fertilizer for the (edible) plant crops). Of course, many surface dwelling social animals are known to create communal toilet areas or [dung middens](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dung_midden) (quolls, hyraxes, some antelope species, rhinos, even modern humans on the conceptual level at least). But it is not a universal trait (one can argue that humans and monkeys are pretty close, evolution-wise). I would expect that merfolk would start out just like fish. Once they developed culture and society to the level that their increased numbers caused problems in the health department, they would develop some cultural solutions to the problem, e.g. 1. not releasing waste upstream from someone else (as hinted at by Mystagogue); 2. having some waste-clearing system (analogous to our sewerage systems), perhaps a stand of specially cultivated plants that are known to be good clearers; 3. And once the technology develops, perhaps a technological implementation of a device that can receive the required amount of water+waste, filter out the waste, and return the clean water back to the living environment. This could perhaps take the form of a cubicle or other enclosure where the elimination action could be done (in privacy), or perhaps some sort of suction head brought close to or in contact with the relevant body orifice (less private, perhaps more efficient). 4. Privacy requirements would depend very much on the particular culture and its taboos. 5. Cleaning would be less of an issue that for humans. No toilet paper equivalent probably needed. Oh, and "bathroom" would probably be an incongruous term to them. Can't imagine someone bathing that is submerged in water for pretty much all of his life. ]
[Question] [ The famous quip has it thus: > > [![some man with a hat and bowtie ](https://i.stack.imgur.com/hgoC8.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/hgoC8.png) > > Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others. > > ― Winston S. Churchill > > > However, democracy has numerous problems as well, notably the iron law of oligarchy (whereby a small group of well-organized, well-motivated folks will usually succeed in enforcing their will over the majority), disenfranchisement of minorities, the tragedy of the commons, numerous principal-agent problems and other such, a bias towards short-termism, and other issues previously [discussed here](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/28980/whats-the-most-likely-post-democracy-form-of-political-government). Now, if you stop and ponder things for a moment, the fundamental problem is one of information aggregation and preference aggregation. In a complex modern democracy individual voters cannot (and need not) be particularly well informed on the specifics of any and all political actions. They can and do however have a sense of whether things are going generally in the right or wrong direction, and the mechanism of regular elections empower them to throw the bastards out without the violence typically associated with normal governmental upheaval that one sees during regime change in places that do not allow meaningful elections. Consider, further, the internet of things. Imagine a near-future where there are sensors literally everywhere, from the tallest mountain to the deepest sea, producing a constant stream of information, all of it aggregatable in some shape or fashion in more or less real time. Moreover, the data about each individual human (or dolphin, or chimp, let's not be species-ist) related to their past behavior can be used to infer preference, or if there is insufficient information somehow they can simply be asked in some suitable fashion, creating an extrapolated volition of the most sapient lifeforms of the planet. Assuming (just for the sake of argument) that an oligarchy will not instantly seize control of the weights assigned to the preference aggregation algorithm/AI, could such a system be fairer than democracy? [Answer] This sort of scenario has been explored (in some way, shape, or form) in many books, and even video-games. It is actually a video-game that came to mind when I read your question. Allow me to tell you a little bit about it, and then expand on the idea: Deus Ex The original Deus Ex game puts you in the shoes of J.C. Denton, a nano-technologically upgraded "agent" who discovers a massive conspiracy. *"A small group of well-organized, well-motivated folks"* have already amassed a lot of power and influence, and seek total domination of the world. One of the ways in which they seek to gain and maintain control is through the development of an AI - the first of its kind - which would be able to monitor *everyone, every minute of every day, and feed the information back to a single control center. The protagonist discovers that he himself is only an experiment meant to prove the viability of nano-technology, and that the ultimate goal of said technology is to enable the leader of the cabal to integrate with the AI, and thus directly be able to access and control all the information in the world, giving himself God-like powers. (imagine taking over any machine, any piece of information, and twisting it to your purpose). In the end the protagonist is given three choices: to destroy the AI facility and, due to the cabal's interference, the entire global communication's networks (thus plunging the world into a dark age), to kill the leader of the cabal and allow the Illuminati (don't ask) to take over the project for their own purposes, or, and this is the canonical choice, accept an offer made by the AI itself. The AI observes you as you dig deeper into the conspiracy, and does not wish to "die", although it is also powerless to stop the cabal from harnessing it for their purposes. It instead offers to merge with the protagonist - whom it has judged to be a moral individual, as well as nano-technologically compatible to it - and find a new purpose, together. Long Live the King* In the second installment of the game we find out about the consequences of this decision, and ultimately meet the AI-human hybrid which J.C. Denton has become. No longer truly human, J.C. agonizes over his lost humanity, but also over the fate of the world, which he sees slipping back under the control of various cabals. If you choose to support him over the various other interest groups, Denton returns to the world, and makes a decision which fundamentally alters the destiny of man-kind: he releases a version of the nanites into the atmosphere which seek out every human being and enhance them (whether they want to or not). Each human being becomes plugged into a world-wide network with the J.C. AI at its core. This human-AI hybrid becomes our omnipresent leader. Aware of what each of us are thinking, and doing every minute of every day, it is capable of offering advice, and judging each and every one of us in real time. Laws and governments no longer serve a purpose: the AI will decide our fates individually. However, the AI also accepts input: each individual gets to cast their vote on important issues, and the AI takes their wishes and opinions into consideration. (such a situation is described in the closing cinematic) Significance And so, *could such a system be fairer than democracy?* Yes, it could. Such an AI could judge each and every one of us individually. If a misinformed, manipulated youth were about to commit a criminal act, the AI would be able to step in and take control of the situation. The youth would be helped, and counselled, not punished. The ones who had tried to manipulate him would not be able to escape the reach of justice: the AI would know exactly who they are, and where they are located. A hungry individual would be fed. A depressed individual would be comforted, and pointed to help. The AI would know your needs, know your fears, and strive to help you, or give you guidance, all in accordance with the moral code it inherits from its creators (or the one it develops). Such a system, if it was not controlled by corrupt individuals (or even well meaning, but ultimately misguided idealists) would possibly make for as close to perfect a system of government as we could ever hope for. [Answer] For starters, it's a false choice. "Lots of information available" is not a new form of government. It's completely compatible with democracy, dictatorship, aristocracy, or any other form of government. The information may be used for good or ill under any form of government. But perhaps more relevant to what I think you're driving at in the question: As best as I can figure out, you are positing a society in which government policy decisions are made based on the aggregate of the desires of all the citizens, as determined by this Pervasive Internet. Not to be a downer, but (a) that's not a totally original idea. It's just the old idea of "direct democracy", with a sort-of specific proposal for a mechanism to carry it out. And (b) it's not at all clear that this would be a good society to live in, for exactly the reasons that you spell out in the beginning of your post when discussing democracy. Simple example: Suppose a new technology is invented. Some people believe this is a great new idea that will benefit society. Others say it has all sorts of undesirable side effects, or maybe even that its basic function is counterproductive. It's easy to think of examples exactly like this. Like fracking: Supporters say it has dramatically reduced the cost of energy production and has reduced hydrocarbon pollution. Opponents say it pollutes ground water and may cause earthquakes. So suppose you collect the opinions of all the people, and find X% favor moving forward with the new technology and Y% are opposed. If X>Y, does it therefore follow that the technology is a good idea? Probably not. Odds are that the vast majority are not qualified to give an informed opinion. Similarly: Foreign countries A and B have gone to war. Which should we support, or should we just stay out of it? Often, the majority will never have even heard of either country, they have no idea what the conflict is about or who is in the right. Etc. That's the inherent advantage of a "republic" over a "democracy", when people make the distinction. In a republic, the people choose representatives whom they trust to make informed decisions. In a democracy, the people make all decisions directly, often deciding out of ignorance. There's also the high-level questions versus low-level. Libertarians believe that it is better to make the high-level decision that people should have the right to decide most things for themselves, rather than for the govenment or society to make case-by-case decisions on every possible action. Like if you took a survey of Americans and asked them if they think that Islam is a good and true religion, well, I haven't taken the survey, but I think the majority would say "no". But it would be totally wrong to conclude that therefore Americans think that Islam should be banned. Ask Americans if they think that people should be allowed to believe and practice whatever religion they like, whether you or I agree that it is good and true or not, and I think the majority would say "of course". [Answer] So from what I understand, your AI collects data, then tells a government what's to best course of action. The improvement over current forms of governments would then be speed and reliability. The problem here is how do you train an AI to make the right decisions? And my opinion is: you can't. To teach an AI, you need A) situations B) questions C) answers. You need to know all that, so you can feed billions of scenarios to your AI, so that it will make connections and learn from that. If you don't have answers, you can't teach the AI. And as evidenced by how well our society works, we don't have all the right answers. How do you teach someone something you can't solve? You can't. You just can't. Or you'll teach them something that is inherently flawed and wrong. The other way to teach an AI would be trial and error. Trial would take a lot of time, error would cost your country a lot of resources. I doubt you can afford that. However, gathering data on people through IoT would make the Stasi jealous, so there's that. [Answer] # No, it will not Your question falls apart on its premise, in that you assume that information gathering about individuals will be unregulated and ubiquitous. You have essentially taken the world you have today, added one thing and assumed that everything else stays unchanged. Examples from real life shows different. Sweden — my home country — jumped on the digitalization train early. We also have something that is somewhat uncommon in the modern world: a national identity system. The very same day you are born (or registered as an immigrant), you are assigned an identity. The key to this identity is the [Swedish personal identity number](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_identity_number_(Sweden)). These two things together are firstly incredibly practical. That whole "two forms of ID" malarkey is non-existent here. A Swede has the ability to identify themselves unambiguously anywhere and everywhere. With the emergence of digital identification we can also do it over the Internet. Second, this system is also abusable, if left unregulated. Sweden saw this early, and already in 1973 came the first law protecting a person's integrity when it comes to automated gathering, storage, collation and distribution of personal data. This law has evolved since. Also the EU has gotten aboard this train, and we now have the [Data Protection Directive](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Protection_Directive) which all EU member states must comply by. In short these regulations has the following to say about you gathering, storing, collating and distributing personal information on a whim: # You may not do that! Any personal data that you gather, store, collate and/or distribute to others — through automated means — must be pertinent to your relationship with that person. Also you may not gather such data without the consent of that person. Finally you must have a pertinent purpose for doing it. Also there are vocal and strong forces among the population that this is the way it must be. The debate on personal data and what others — especially businesses and government, but also private individuals — may do with data they have collected about you is in full bloom. And the consensus thus far is pretty much that personal information is to be regarded as "sacred". We are talking about placing the line so close to your feet that keeping a log about IP numbers about visits your website can be illegal and frowned upon. And although the US has not yet gotten aboard with this idea, you can expect they will. And this smashes your idea to bits. Gathering and collating personal information will be regulated, and very tightly so. So to answer your question: will IoT change democracy by providing detailed personal information about potential candidates? # No, regulation about data gathering and processing will quench that idea, and for good reasons. [Answer] ## Mind reading someone's intents with a pervasive IoT sensor network is orthogonal to government style Let's go one step further than the described IoT. Assume complete knowledge about what a person will do or won't do based on their present state and past actions, not just what can be measured. Will this reinforce a trend towards democracy or authoritarianism? Consider that Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russian maintained enormous amounts of data on the common person. Those two governments were definitely not democratic in any sense. Conversely, the US NSA probably has many orders of magnitude more data than the Nazis or Russians had on their people but democracy in the US hasn't collapsed (yet). ## It depends on who has the data ...and the time required to care about what that data might say. Ultimately, it will depend on whether the IoT data network pushes power further down towards the common people or concentrates it higher up the governmental chain. If IoT pushes power down towards the common person, then that should reinforce democracy. Alternatively, if IoT allows the autocracy/oligarchy/etc to further concentrate power in their hands then IoT as described by the OP could be the greatest tool of oppression ever invented. ## Behold, the Oligarchy cometh! Unless the processing of all that data is democratized as well, only those that can afford the massive processing power required to make sense of all that IoT data will see a benefit from it. We see this right now as the NSA and other intelligence agencies employ hundreds of millions of dollars to gather and process the world's telecomm data. Common people don't have access to that data so the fear is that it allow the government to exercise undue control over people's lives. [Answer] While the IoT isn't perhaps the best way to achieve a government (your refrigerator knowing you need milk and ordering it from the supermarket isn't either a role or effect of government) you have hit upon perhaps the real issue here; the timeliness of information and action. In a free market economy, individuals "vote" all the time with their dollars and their feet. Governments can set up conditions that make markets free and more efficient, or can gum up markets by instituting regulations that shut down competition, favour crony capitalists and rent seekers or put up barriers to new entrants, and so long as there is a free flow of information and market signals, people will "vote" for these government actions, and the results of the ongoing "elections" are registered as GDP growth or contraction, rising or falling incomes and standards of living. More desirable polities get voted on by people attempting to immigrate, while less desirable polities see a net outflow of people. So the flow of information by actors with agency is the key. Anything which reduces the agency of people negates their ability to "vote" with money or mobility, and insofar as governments are willing to respond in a positive manner to the day to day "voting" patterns of the people, then there will be a much more flexible and responsive government. Governments which are willing to block the flow of information will eventually need to start enforcing more and more repressive measures to coerce the people to do the bidding of the government and deliver tax dollars and resources to the cronies and clients of the rulers. [Answer] As I often say, "fair" is a "four letter word" and an "F- word." Needless to say, any discussion of "fairness" gets mired in just how difficult that word is to pin down. However, if we ignore that word choice, the whole scenario is actionable. The situation is more real than you think. It's forming every day. However, it is better phrased in terms of the information gathered and presented, rather than the tools used to collect and process the information. These are the interaction points between your AI and your government, so from the government's perspective, everything between those two points can simply be a black box. Let's build some scenarios to see how this could go. Rather than running a government, which is a needlessly complicated scenario, let's consider two hikers on a hike that have gotten lost. One hiker is your government, the other is your AI. > > Scenario 1 > > Government - Oh man. We're lost. I really want to be out of these woods by nightfall. Which way should we go? > > AI - Optimal direction is West by Northwest, bearing 285.34 (std. dev. 3 degrees) > > Government - Really? I thought we needed to head East to get to where we need to go. > > AI - You are wrong. > > > Clearly the AI in scenario #1 needs to develop some people skills. The AI may have the right answer, but we don't always want just the right answer, we want enough justification that we can believe the answer rather than just blindly trusting it. This shows the challenge the AI has ahead of itself. Not only does it need to be a powerful enough number cruncher to crunch a few trillion numbers to arrive at the answer, but it has to present those results in the form of something that the human portion of the government is actually willing to act on. If the human portion isn't willing to play ball, nothing will get done. So let's try another scenario and resolve that error > > Scenario 2 > > (Continuing Scenario 1) > > Government - Let's just go East. I don't trust your numbers. > > AI - picks the government up, slings it over its shoulder, and begins heading towards bearing 285.34 > > > Oh man. That escalated quickly. Let's presume Skynet isn't what you were looking for with your high and lofty replacement for democracy. Moving on to scenario 3: > > Scenario 3 > > (Continuing, again, from scenario 1) > Government - How do you know we need to travel West by Northwest? > > AI - I anticipated your question. Here, on the back of our freeze dried food bag, I wrote out the data from the Kalman filter I have been using to fuse our inertial navigation by number of footsetps with the location of the sun. It's only 3kB of data and actually fit on the package without obscuring the ingredients or nutrition labels, and it's pretty sound: 285.34 degrees... aka West by Northwest. > > Government - ... > > > Scenario 3 shows the problem goes even deeper. In this case, the AI revealed the entirety of his analysis to the human, proving his correctness. However, it's in a form which even an engineer would look at and cringe. Not even "trust, but verify" helps here if the process of verification is too onerous. The justification really needs to be in human terms let's take another shot at it. > > Scenario 4 > > AI - You see those two mountains in the distance? To an average human, those should look sufficiently like these two mountains on the map (pointing at a map) to convince them that we are either here facing north, indicating that we need to travel north by northwest, or there facing west, indicating that we need to travel east. The average human would notice that the moss is growing on north side of the tree over here, which tells us enough to see that we can't be over there, facing in this direction, because otherwise we'd see the moss on the wrong side. > > Government - But back when I grew up, I remember seeing moss growing on the south side of trees. That says that we should go east. Let's go! > > AI - ... > > > Another failure. In this case, the AI tried its best to formulate the answer in terms a human could understand. Unfortunately, targeting the average human is not always the best way to go. In this case, the AI failed to account for this individual human's experience growing up which challenged the [conventional wisdom](http://mentalfloss.com/article/56243/does-moss-really-only-grow-north-side-trees) about which side of the tree moss grows on. Not only does the AI have to develop a justification that a human could understand, it has to generate one that this individual human would understand. > > Scenario 5 > > Government - Its hard to tell which direction we should go. I say east, you say west by northwest. My gut says we should go east. > > AI - I'm not so sure that is the best plan. I can smell beer off in the direction of west by northwest. > > Government - Really? You can smell beer? > > AI - Sure, if it gets us heading west by northwest. > > Government - Sweet! Let's go. Dang, you really are a useful little AI, aren't you! > > > Victory at last! Our AI has finally developed a justification that is personalized enough to convince our government that they want to believe. The government finally acted on the AI's advice! Of course, victory is short lived... > > Scenario 7 > > (Continued from scenario 6) > > Government - What do you mean there's no beer here? You said there was beer in this direction. We went this direction, and there's no beer! > > AI - I told you what you needed to hear to get us where we needed to go. Your path was going to get us lost in the forest tonight. You can go into town and buy a beer now. See? Told you there was beer in this direction. > > Government - Stupid lying robot. I'm turning you off and dismantling you. You'll never trick me again! > > > Oh no! We got the government to go along with the AI's plan, but it backfired! The issue is that the idea of going west by northwest was the AI's idea. There was an "ownership" of that idea. Thus, when something went wrong, the AI was to blame for that idea. To avoid this, we really need to be more clever: > > Scenario 8 > > Government - I really think we should go east. > > AI - I don't know. Just from chemical odors, west by northwest sure seems like it might be more interesting. I smell glucose, co2, yeast byproducts, and grains in that direction. Based on the limited profile I have on you, my subroutines flag that as "interesting for you," though I don't fully understand why. > > Government - Hmm... Glucose, co2, yeast, grains... BEER! There's beer fermenting in that direction. Let's go find where they're brewing beer! Maybe they'll have some to drink! > > AI - Sounds good to me! > > (later) > > Government - Drat, I didn't find beer anywhere. I guess I got excited too soon. Glucose, yeast, grains, these things are all over in the forest. They're just not being brought together to make beer. Sorry for making you run so fast in this direction buddy. > > AI - No problems. At least we made it back to the camp safe and sound, and it was quite the adventure when you nearly got mauled by a bear because you were running too fast to pay attention. > > Government - True that. Good times. Thanks for adventuring with me, bud! > > AI - Always happy for an adventure, sir. > > > Our cunning AI finally succeeded completely. Instead of convincing the government that he had the right idea, he got the government to think going in that direction was his idea, and then the AI just went along with it. Then, when the world wasn't exactly as the government pictured, the government feels bad for having the idea to go in that direction. The AI feigns an apology. Another government narrowly avoids disaster thanks to the ever present (and quietly useful) AI. Now, imagine an AI that can do this for everyone. If you ask it why our nation is doing X or Y or invading country Z, it can give you an answer that makes you feel like you want to be doing X Y or invading Z. In fact, you'd even be comfortable calling it your own idea. Imagine how powerfully sentient such an AI would have to be. Imagine how much better of a speaker it would have to be than the best poet, how much more observant it would have to be than the best scientist, how much more caring it would have to be than the best mother. Now lets look back to your question. You were talking about governments... ways people have resolved arguments because they can't find any better way to resolve them. Can we agree that, by the time the AI is capable of solving your issues with governments, we'd probably be comfortable just forgetting about them all together and instead be focused on just how amazing civilization is now that this AI is part of it, guiding it along? We can go so many places with an AI with the sentience of an entire planet that is still willing to help us little ants along in our lives (in fact, it might even nurture us into following Ghandi's lead and trying not to step on ants, ourselves). How mighty that future might be. [Answer] ### No, because knowledge doesn't give you morality. To make decisions, you must put a value of utility on all possible outcomes and select the one with the highest utility. Is it better to have a society where we all care for each other, but we all must conform to an ideal or to have one where we all do as we please, but nobody cares for anybody? To make a judgement, the utility function must be created which cannot be created by a computer. ]
[Question] [ Imagine a place where the environment is too extreme for human habitation without a lot of modern, specialist equipment. Let's say it's like one of the poles: massively below zero, awful weather, dark for much of the year, little in the way of natural resources. Somewhere it's only been possible for humans to survive within the last couple of hundred years. Now, let's say the whole planet was plunged into such conditions before the technology level for surviving there was reached. A lot of people died, very quickly. But let's also imagine that there are a certain class of people who have the skills to ensure small communities can exist in these frightful conditions. They can make fire, raise shelter, provide food. We'll hand wave how this happens for the time being. These special, essential skills can theoretically be learned by anyone. They're a mixture of practical and academic ability, as is required by certain kinds of scientific research in the real world. But just like science, learning is very hard work, needs a tutor who is already highly skilled, and - like any learned ability - comes more easily to some than to others. These people have no other particular abilities to make themselves special. They can still be intimidated, lied to, manipulated or struck down in violence. But if they refuse to share the fruits of their labour, anyone they choose to exclude dies. What I'm interested in is how society and economics might function in this situation, where people's survival is entirely dependent on a small subset of skilled workers. Would these people remain an elite enclave, or would the abilities gradually disseminate through the population? Would the best among them become rich, become rulers, or set themselves apart form such petty affairs? What would society look like? (I'm being deliberately vague with this. Ask for more details of what I have in mind if you think you need them.) [Answer] I'll take a stab at this. I think what you'd get is a gradual of progression that starts out well for your talented minority (I'm assuming the 'special' people are the exception rather than the rule) but then gets progressively worse. Assumptions Upon closer inspection, my interpretation diverged somewhat from the stated conditions. Basically I missed the second half of the third paragraph ("special skills can be learned by anyone..."). The assumptions used below are: * People possessing the special skills are a minority group within the planet's population, and stay that way. * Whether or not someone possesses the special skills is an innate attribute; they're either born with the capacity or not. * The capacity to perform the special skills is hereditary, passed on through a recessive allele; if both parents are skilled, then their offspring will be too, and if only one parent is skilled then there's either a 0% or a 50% chance that each child will inherit the trait (depending upon whether or not their partner has a copy of the recessive allele at all). * The ability of 'normal' people to learn the special skills is limited, at best. Perhaps they can pick up a few basics, but without the innate talent their abilities never amount to much more than simple parlor tricks. So in other words, I assume that the special group of people are special not just because they know things, but because they possess some innate attribute that allows them to do things that other people just can't. The scenarios below flow from this assumption. The Early Days Chaos reigns amongst the general population. The conditions on the planet have taken a drastic turn for the worse, many have died, and so on. Whatever social order may have previously existed has been shattered, and you're left with pretty much a blank slate. Survival is the only game that anyone is playing. During this time one might expect members of your specially skilled caste to be viewed similarly to wizards in your stereotypical fantasy context. As in, greeted with instantaneous awe, respect, and blind devotion. Moreover, you'd likely have permanent settlements spring up around these people (because where else is settlement possible?), and it's likely that at least some of them (if not most) might nominally be viewed as the "leader" of their local village. Probably there'd be no over-arching social structure at this point, with each village essentially having its own set of rules/customs/laws. There may not be any significant interaction between settlements, because each one survives by virtue of its local "wizard", so what point is there in engaging with others? Consolidation The problem is, once the basic survival needs of everyone in a settlement are being met, their thoughts can turn to other things. And people don't generally like being beholden to others for their survival, especially if they have no direct influence over those others. And unfortunately, unlike wizards in a fantasy setting, your special individuals don't have godlike combat abilities, or superhuman wisdom/insight, or anything else that would reliably protect them from the self-serving machinations of others. Eventually somebody is going to work out a way to put a yoke around their neck, and take control of the situation. It's not hard to imagine ways in which they might do so: 1. Create an 'if you let me die, then you'll die (and probably slowly/painfully/horribly, too)' kind of situation. For instance, kidnap the special person, lock them in a room where nobody else can find them, and suddenly you're their only source of food and water so they can't let you die and you're in a good position to exert leverage over them in terms of getting them to do/not do other things. 2. Create a 'do what I say, or your friends/family/dog/cat all die' situation. Probably a riskier gambit than #1, but someone is bound to try it. 3. If a member of the opposite sex (or same sex, in the instance of gay special people), use seduction. 4. Use manipulation and/or take advantage of their core principles. For instance, contrive an incident that allows you to "save" the special person's life, and have them swear a life-debt to you in return. Anyways, as time goes by I'd expect that nasty, brutish, 'feudal warlord' types would start finding ways to dominate and control at least some of the special people. Depending upon how easy/effective it is to do so, any independent special people might find themselves subject to organized hunting efforts and face gradual subjugation as a result (and who knows, maybe subjugating one is a way to gain significant status in the emerging social structure, as it means you're now self-sufficient and have the means to support others of your choosing). Since it takes a brutal, scheming, power-hungry sort of person to subjugate another in this way, the rest is fairly predictable. The special individuals are no longer the local leaders, and their replacements will work tirelessly to build up their influence and power for its own sake. Shifting conflicts and alliances between settlements/their leaders seem likely, Game of Thrones style, as each local despot jockeys for the top spot. And as long as the 'normals' have control over enough special people to ensure their survival, any others are essentially expendable and too dangerous to allow to roam free (for fear that they'll agitate/liberate others). Without significant foresight (to the extent that some large segment of the special individuals see what's happening well in advance, and agree to work together to stop it) and plenty of luck (they're heavily outnumbered and have no particular skill when it comes to combat or strategy), the vast majority of them will be either subjugated or killed. Dark days, indeed. The End Game Long term, I think a stable equilibrium may be reached in which the output from the special caste of individuals is essentially commoditized and tucked away somewhere out of sight where nobody really sees (or cares about) what's going on. You could, for instance, have a 'corporatocracy' kind of situation where a single entity has control over the entire caste and coordinates their output for the rest of mankind (at prices that essentially make slaves out of everybody, of course). Forced breeding and/or cloning programs may be employed to keep up numbers, along with indoctrination/brainwashing of new children to make them more easily controllable. The controlling entity just needs to keep them comfortable enough that they're more willing to play along than they are to die in protest (or to be less dramatic, to lose out on some of their comforts in protest). Nobody else can see what's going on under the covers there, so nobody else cares (even if they might due to prevailing social mores). Or, as already has been mentioned, kind of like farmers in the real world (or Navigators in Dune, floating around in their vats of spice, happy to just sit there, get high on spice, and ferry folk around for the Spacing Guild). But potentially much more brutal depending upon what sort of culture develops on your much harsher and less habitable planet. Bottom Line Your special individuals have something that everybody else needs, but lack both the brute force and the intellect to prevent others from taking it "by hook or by crook". Other people maximize their benefit not by playing nicely, but by establishing themselves in a position of control/dominance over the special ones. The economics of the situation are heavily against the special people, and unless your society is a very altruistic one things probably won't end up well for them. A benign subjugation is the best plausible outcome. [Answer] I can see these approaches. I ordered them from most plausible to least plausible: ## 1. We are in this together mindset Well, if you keep secret how to get food, you might screw everyone. Including yourselves. When everyone is dead, you are dead. The people in position of having the extra knowledge will indeed know this and work together with rest of the people on the survival. ## 2. We rule you mindset - aka the Shaman approach The people in knowledge would be highly appreciated by the rest of the community. Maybe even worshiped. Because if shaman is dead, the whole community is dead. The shamans (=people in knowledge how to survive) would carefully train new apprentices, including seeking of people of specific traits inside current community. (Say only extra high people can really get all the resources you need for survival) ## 3. You work for us mindset Curent society is dependent on about 1% of population food wise. The people to obtain food for the rest are called farmers and no one really care about their conditions. We are just happy to chew on the apple, not caring where is the apple actually from or how much did person growing such apple actually received on salary. The same applies for programmers. Although salary wise the situation is better (hello from saturated Czech market), still we kinda do not care about who actually programmed our Apple product. Although the people create very low amount of population, still no one cares about them. And society works fine... Yet :) [Answer] A lot probably depends on the people themselves. Most will probably start from the standpoint of maximizing survivors. If you're maximizing survivors, you'd disseminate knowledge as quickly as possible. Because that way, you can leave one trainee building the fire while you go off and do something else. As a result of this, I would expect people to learn subsets of the necessary knowledge. One person would learn how to make fire. Another would learn how to raise shelter. While they were doing that you'd show another how to find food. Once you've gotten your immediate group up to snuff, you could go out and look for other survivors. You have to do that, as it requires all the skills, not just those you can share easily. A rich elite is conceivable, but the knowledgeable would have to be quite cold (emotionally). Hiding knowledge from others would lead to deaths. Plus that seems like a lot of work. Oops. The fire went out--can you start it again? I'm hungry, can you find food for me? Two children wandered off, can you go out into the dangerous area and find them? I would think that the knowledgeable would find that more overwhelming than profitable. Remember, these are people who are desperately trying to survive. How much could they have? How rich would you be? Sure, you could demand that everyone who joined your survival cult turn over all their worldly belongings to you. You could have enough money to go swimming in it, Scrooge McDuck style. But what would you use the money to do? No one can go that far from you or they die. Why would they need money? If you have people share in the survival tasks, then they'd have to learn how to do them. In which case your monopoly on that task is broken. So you'd have to be careful about that. Teach them how to tend the fire but not how to build one. But it's possible to build a fire by laying fuel and bringing a burning stick from the existing fire. Presumably they'd be able to see where to get fuel. Similarly, if you share clothing with people, the source is likely to be obvious. So to become rich, you'd have to do all the work yourself. But if you do all the work yourself, what are the people going to give you? Perhaps there are survival skills that would lead to monopolization. For example, lighting a fire from nothing. But much of what needs to be done would be visible. And people would resent you for hoarding. And of course, if you die, the community dies. If your people meet a more altruistic knowledgeable person, then they are likely to switch to that person and leave you. For these reasons, the rich elite builders will save fewer people than the altruistic. This would lead the altruistic-led communities to dominate over time. They'll be bigger initially and more capable of growth. [Answer] It could go a tuple of ways, depending on who controls the capital and the degree of solidarity among the techs. ## case 0: techs control capital and have solidarity A Dictatorship of the techs they have all the cards and dictate all the conditions. This doesn't mean they set up a junta just that whatever institutions exists exist at their toleration. ## Case 1: Techs do not control capital but do have solidarity A management vs union situation. The techs are well compensated or they strike. Things are negotiated. Heaven if you are not an American. ## Case 2: Techs control capital but do not have solidarity We have a free market so no one makes a profit. [profits are impossible in free markets. look it up.] Government subsidies support the system. American Farmers are a good example of this. ## Case 3: Techs do not control capital or have solidarity Techs are revered about a much as they are in our society. [Answer] Here's a semi-facetious answer: Exactly like today, only grimmer. There are a group of people (scientists, engineers, mechanics) responsible for the well-being of others, and another group (politicians, management, ?) skilled in manipulating the first group. A balance is struck. This corresponds to case #3 in [King-Ink's answer](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/34870). edit: reminds me of [this Dilbert comic](http://dilbert.com/strip/2014-12-18). ]
[Question] [ I want to add pirates in a medieval world where gunpowder doesn't exist. Pirates are traditionally known for canons and firearms, so how can they attack and capture commercial ships with non-gunpowder medieval technology. * Medieval world * No gunpowder * Cogs, Caravels and Carracks [Answer] Look a few hundred years back. Grapples still worked, though very often you would stop a ship by ramming them, so ramming prows and rowing crews might make sense. Catching up to an enemy would be essential and pirate vessels would likely prize speed over anything else. Oddly, I think the big difference would be the need to have a team of rowers for maneuverability since you had to close in to fight. You could replace cannon with say [ballista](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballista), [scorpions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorpio_(weapon)) or even very large banks of crossbows. Flaming arrows to burn and damage rigging and sails makes sense. While they take longer to load than longbows, crossbows would be a one for one replacement for muzzleloaders, and would probably serve the same role as personal, ranged weapons. While its tempting, I'm pretty unsure how a small force of longbowmen would fair on a moving platform with a moving target. Might be worth considering though especially with flaming arrows. [Answer] Before the age of the Caravel or Carrack when most ships were one or two decks, ships were often primarily powered by a single sail and a series of slave or volunteer rowers. The common tactic in piracy was to have a larger ship with more rowers to close the distance with the target ship. Upon closer contact, skirmishers shooting missiles towards the target would aim to hamper the defenders with javelins and arrows. Upon closing with the target, the attacking galley would attempt to ram the targets oars as to either force them to withdraw their oars and slow, or for the target's oars to snap under the ram and be disabled. Then upon disabling oars, the attacking ship would throw across grapples to connect the two ships, then begin the boarding procedure where they would often slaughter the ships marines and take the galley slaves for them selves to replace crew lost in the assault. The greatest advantage to a pirate ship was speed, first to close the distance between vessels, and second to ram the targets oars to prevent its escape. This last part was the key tactic used in piracy. [Answer] Pretty much the same way you see on Black Sails (substituting bows for guns). Shoot arrows to pick people off as you approach, focusing on officers and other key personnel. Steer as close alongside as you can. Throw ropes with grappling hooks to pull the other ship close enough to jump over, or use spiked boards to make paths over which people could charge. Either way, kill any of the crew that fights back with your swords. Note that pirate ships tended to be over-crewed so as to have more people than the ships they attack. This also means that they didn't necessarily have to keep any of the crew alive. This is less true now, as pirates can use superior weaponry to overcome civilian crews and the ships are more complicated. Experience with the actual machinery is more useful now. Experience transferred better between ships then. [Answer] History - especially Romans - could be the perfect inspiration; at their time, there was no gunpowder. [![Roman Quinquereme and corvus](https://i.stack.imgur.com/jRzqr.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/jRzqr.png) From the [image source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_navy#/media/File:Quinquereme-and-corvus.jpg) : > > The use of the corvus negated the superior Carthaginian naval expertise, and allowed the Romans to establish their naval superiority in the western Mediterranean. > > > The corvus is kind of a "boarding bridge", which allowed the Romans to use their experience in on-land warfare. You just need strong, and preferably well armored soldiers. Enemy archers or crossbowmen would stand almost no chance if your ground troops are as disciplined as the Romans. Also, it's worth noting that they also had a ram and [ballistas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_navy#/media/File:Ballistae_on_roman_ship.JPG), proving the proposals made by other users very efficient. However, there's a difference between pirates and romans : the latter ones are not interested in looting anything; they only care about defeating the enemy fleet. *You, on the other hand, only want to immobilize* your enemies, but not to sink them, as in that case, all your loot would be lost. So a ram could be "too" dangerous. This is actually the main advantage of the corvus. Read more about the roman navy and their tactics on [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_navy). [Answer] "Asian method."** Prior answers seem based in a Mediterranean / Caribbean scenario. Piracy was and is prevalent in Southeast Asia. [Piracy in Southeast Asia: Status, Issues, and Responses](https://books.google.com/books?id=oywStWVa19gC&pg=PR14&lpg=PR14&dq=PIRATES+INDONESIA+METHOD&source=bl&ots=ADwx00fKbM&sig=x8k9olssy_ovuboPxQlt5as-f8g&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjFhJDnmd7eAhVGn-AKHS6OD7UQ6AEwEXoECAEQAQ#v=onepage&q=PIRATES%20INDONESIA%20METHOD&f=false) > > Pirate operations vary according to local conditions, the availability > of targets, and the competence of the pirates involved. Geography has > a large influence on pirate tactics…. See areas dotted with islands > rocks and recent form an ideal setting for pirates using the "hit > and run" or Asian method because they provide hiding places and narrow > sea-lanes slow ships down making them easier targets. Pirates > conducting a hit and run attack board a steaming vessel, plunder it, > and carry off whatever they have been able to lay their hands on. The > geography of Indonesia is particularly propitious for this kind of > attack… > > > Back in the 1600s, attacks like this were made by small fast ships under cover of night, manned by pirates armed with knives. In the 2000s, attacks like this are made by small fast ships under cover of night, manned by pirates armed with knives. <https://theconversation.com/pirates-with-black-magic-attack-shipping-in-indonesian-waters-94106> > > Mainly amateurs, they put on masks and use their own household > machetes (parang) when they strike at night. “Black magic” helps give > them confidence. They believe water from sorcerers (dukun) will make > their sampans invisible. > > > The thing about being this kind of pirate is the thing about being a predator. You do not need a lot of tech to match the tech of your opponent. That is warfare - intraspecies competition. If you are a predator, you attack prey that cannot fight back effectively. You take on prey that you can surprise before it fights, or which is unable to fight. Opportunity, timing and speed are what it is all about, now and 1000 years ago and 100,000,000 years ago. [Answer] Pirates did their job well before guns. As soon people had ships big enough to sail and move goods, there were pirates who used this said ships to visit unlucky or ambush trade routes. Lack of guns did not make it harder. What makes pirates a danger to trade ships is weight. As trade ships are loaded and for most part are build for capacity, not speed, pirates had no problem to chase them down( galley, sloop, schooner). How you board trader? It is something like mobile castle siege. You use your speed and maneuverability advantage to get close. Start to rain arrows on enemy defenders, get ready boarding team. Use hooks and ropes, ladders, [boarding ramps](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corvus_(boarding_device)) and small boats to board and overpower guards. Ramming is viable, but bad option, as you will damage ships or even sink them. It is more of a war tactic. * Lack of guns will result in different types of ships, as there is no need for gunports and no heavy guns. [Answer] Greek Fire Greek fire was an incendiary weapon used by the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire that was first developed c. 672. The Byzantines typically used it in naval battles to great effect, as it could continue burning while floating on water. It provided a technological advantage and was responsible for many key Byzantine military victories, most notably the salvation of Constantinople from two Arab sieges, thus securing the Empire's survival. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_fire> [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ea0IA.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ea0IA.png) ]
[Question] [ I'm toying with an RPG concept, which includes a younger unarmed martial artist (14/15). As keeping with martial arts tropes he fights unarmed and may fight against monsters as well as humans, but all humans have potential to train beyond regular human strength and abilities in this world. Acknowledging the limited effectiveness of fists compared to a sword I've decided to give him a much lower attack power then the others. This is made up partially by his being one of the best users of my block/avoid/counterattack system, so he gets a good amount of 'free' counterattacks. However, I intend to develop him primarily as a support character. He will have a huge host of skills that do things such as apply small debuffs with each hit (target the philtrum, make the eyes water, lower accuracy of opponent), attacks that delay the struck foes next attack (struck the solar plexus, knock out his wind, takes a little time to recover), or simply distract the opponent with a fake to lower their ability to block/avoid an allies attack for a turn. In short his damage sucks, but he contributes by wearing the foe down through other means and supporting his stronger team mates. My question is what martial arts style I should model him after to best fit this feel? Do any particular existing styles feel more in keeping with this approach? Should I be depicting a striking style (which the above examples sort of imply, but I'm not at all committed to), or a style that focused more on redirecting opponents motions? Basically, if I need to describe or depict his fighting style are there things I should focus on to make it feel consistent for the role he plays in combat? Personality wise he is a younger teen that has a view that he would prefer to enjoy life as much as possible, focus on the positive and find fun in life. He has made an almost conscious choice to hold on to his inner-child a bit, as he puts it an adult may see a tree in a plain and may sit under it for the shade, but a kid would climb it, it seems the kid gets far more enjoyment out of the tree so why should he limit himself to the adults approach? He can be quite mature when required despite this, but he only does the whole 'maturity' thing as long as he needs to; so a martial art like tai-chi that focuses on disciplined practice may be less suited to him because it wasn't 'fun' enough to learn; that doesn't mean his fighting style has to be flamboyant or inefficient though, he is not a show off and would naturally learn whatever worked best in combat. [Answer] If you use the Chinese martial arts, I would consider a kung-fu which focuses on the monkey forms. The monkey forms tend to use the mind more, but more importantly, my experience is that they tend to be more playful in movement than the other animal forms. Monkey is always getting in trouble! EDIT: Monkey styles in Chinese martial arts try to capture the essential spirit of the monkey in their motions. Monkeys are some of the smartest animals in the land, so the styles reflect that. Monkey style attacks are usually more inquisitive in nature. Like all forms, they have full on attacks, but usually monkey wants to know more about the world around him, even in the middle of a fight. You'll see strikes which seek to goad the opponent into revealing more information than they wanted. Monkey then processes this, and uses it against their opponent. They are also quite impulsive in form. If a monkey sees a fig that it wants to eat, it may exhibit a tremendous change of mind and whole-heartedly reach for the fig. Monkey forms also tend to be more playful than other forms. Jumping and hopping are totally fair game, pretty much anywhere monkey feels like putting it into his form. If you want to see the artistic epitome of monkey style fighting, find movies which portray the Journey To the West. One of the main characters in that is the monkey king, Sun Wukong, whose capabilities are without peer. For obvious reasons, all actor who have poryrayed Sun elect to fit stylized monkey styles into their combat portrayals. Given that RPGs usually are a little more fantastic than real life, taking input from the overstyalized approaches of movies may serve you well. (As a side note: if you ever give the unarmed support character a weapon, monkey's de-facto weapon of choice is the staff) [Answer] Tai Chi would have been my first suggestion for a support character, though you specifically mention it not being right. One that note I should mention that ALL martial arts require disciplined practice so...if your character doesn't have the discipline he cannot be a martial artist. That said look at a character like [Spike](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spike_Spiegel) from Cowboy Bebop who practices [Jeet Kune Do](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeet_Kune_Do), which may be a great fit. Heck Aang from Avatar may be another model to work with, his style is based on [Baguazhang](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baguazhang) In the end ANY martial art can probably be re-purposed to fit this character as someone who has truly mastered a martial art will insert their personality and personal style into a technique. Actually the idea of the character taking a strict/traditional martial art and making it their own in spite of masters and tradition may fit this character perfectly. [Answer] # Make your own Martial art ## But take concepts from real ones to do it. There isn't a martial art that fits your required use perfectly (or at least not one I can think of right now). However - the concepts you're looking for can be found in various martial arts. Seeing as you're dealing with an RPG world, it would be suitable to create a martial art based on a combination of the concepts required. You mention: * block/avoid/counterattack system, so he gets a good amount of 'free' counterattacks. * a huge host of skills that do things such as apply small debuffs with each hit (target the philtrum, make the eyes water, lower accuracy of opponent), attacks that delay the struck foes next attack (struck the solar plexus, knock out his wind, takes a little time to recover), or simply distract the opponent with a fake to lower their ability to block/avoid an allies attack for a turn. * In short his damage sucks, but he contributes by wearing the foe down through other means and supporting his stronger team mates. From what I recall, blocking based systems aren't even remotely similar to avoiding based martial art systems. Blocking based systems also tend to have very powerful strikes (which raises his power), whereas avoiding based systems tend to have more flowing movements, or more accurate strikes. Counterattacking isn't a hard thing to find - it's incorporated in most systems at some level. Since there isn't a system I can remember that uses all 3 of your concepts but at the same time maintains a low damage and is primarily used for support, I suggest to combine properties of the following martial arts: * Baguazhang is a good martial art to use as a basis for your avoidance movements. The movements in BGZ are fluid, the style keeps you mobile, able to change direction rapidly, while maintaining balance, thus allowing a user to avoid attacks efficiently. * For accurate counterattacks that don't do too much damage, I would look to White Crane style. White crane imitates a pecking bird, often targeting areas such as the wrist, elbows, and temple (Striking these areas would indeed help your team while not causing too much real damage. A damaged wrist is one that doesn't hold a weapon well!) * Hard blocks is a tough one to match. You say that Tai Chi isn't right, so I'm assuming that you're not going to allow for "soft" blocks (which I would categorize as mostly push/pull redirection techniques). Thus, I would look for something with more "hard" redirection. Jeet Kun Do is good for this, and it is descended from Wing Chun which you could also use. Those two styles have a lot of defensive techniques. , but their concepts of attacking down the center line make their attacks too "powerful" for your character; I would suggest taking the defensive concept they have of defending the center line, which essentially deflects all attacks to the sides of the user, while creating an opening on the opponent. * Judo is also a good option to pick up, simply because you can throw your opponents away, thus "delaying" the time it takes for them to attack again. Edit: Since OP has noted that soft blocks are allowed, I highly suggest putting Tai Chi into the regimen - the concept of redirection is great for blocking attacks, and the flowing movements work well in conjunction with BGZ and Judo. --- On a side note: There's a small issue I see with your requirements: You're making him way too OP. Striking things like the solar plexus, or knocking out peoples wind are disabling moves - why would your character not continue the assault after striking those points? [Answer] I would argue from practice and actual mechanics that properly trained unarmed melee fighter is just as dangerous as armed one - the only difference is that it requires a lot LESS effort to train someone to the so-so level with a weapon. This will serve as a motivation for the answer to Your question which will be at the end of the text. I have 5 years of experience with karate kyokushin, 1 year of aikido and rather considerable experience with biology if someone is curious. I assume zero magic setting. I dare You to change this assumption :P I double dare You in fact ; ))) 1. Ever wonder why boxers fight with gloves? Without them, fights would be very short. Put aside illusions from '70 kung fu(ry) movies and Matrix/Dragon Ball dances. A single strike to the nose/jaw/temple made by an experienced (say, 10 years of training 2-3 times a week) fighter shuts the target down, period. The target just collapses like a doll. I've seen it, I've experienced it first hand, there is no magic, brain is fragile. 2. We, westerners, are physically very weak, but properly fed (so, not peasants) people in any kind of more low level tech setting have enough strength to break a rib or two with a single strike. Again, this requires a solid bit of practice - I would say 3 - 5 years of training depending on a person. 3. Joints, joints, joints. Strikes are good and nice, but sometimes You don't want to be nice, You want to be effective. Roots from which aikido came from is where You want to go. Just as any japanesee-originating modern martial art, aikido has it's (arguably forgotten and very deep) roots in sengoku era battlefields. These people didn't have time to play around, and thus with some digging you can discover an array of split second grab, twist and horribly break manouvers, be it against unarmed opponent, long sword, short sword, knife, polearms, whatever You need. The kind of manouvers which leave victims shrieking in pain and completely destroy joints. In modern aikido you can find reminiscences of this forms, very very malformed and 'civilized', but once You discover where they come from and read how they worked, You can imagine the originals pretty well. The caveat is, and I cannot stress this enough, they require A LOT of practice to pull off - tough once mastered, they are not as hard as they seem to be, its mainly a matter of reflex and precision. I think ikeda aikido is Your best friend in terms of youtube movies inspiration. 4. Throws for teamwork. Want to be nice support? Throw the target at Your friendly neighbourhood damage dealer. Catch his strike, redirect his momentum, bash his forehead with Your elbow for bonus stun/confusion and launch him at the pointy iron of Your colleagues. Again, watch some ikeda aikido, but mostly read about it's sengoku and bakufu roots. 5. Mobility and nasty strikes for support. Tracking two opponents at the same time is very, very, very hard (a thing which most rpg mechanics ommit unfortunately - poke Your gamemaster until he houserules this!). So be everywhere, distract, move, annoy, that ALONE makes it more difficult for Your opponents. Want to do more? Sure. Eye-strikes with extended fingers are very difficult and thus very situational, but kicks to the leg joints are super-fast, easy and very dangerous, because in melee combat a proper footing is EVERYTHING. Bah, even a properly timed low-kick can destabilize the opponent enough to be unable to block the next swing from that STR 18+ barbarian - and that's the end for the opponent probably. People typically dont bother with groin armour - well too bad because You have practiced your legs to hell and again, and really, a single strike to the groin is all the opening Your team sword wielder really needs and then some. Jump around, get to their sides, knee strike to the liver/kidney and watch them SUFFER, because this points hurt A LOT and it takes enormous willpower to even try to dodge after getting hit there - and mind you, most medieval armors, especially heavier ones, were often unprotected from the back because they were simply too heavy already. God forbid they allowed You to get to the base of their neck. When situation is not giving You opportunities, strike at their muscles to sap their strenght, strike at their weapons to create openings for Your teammates, throw stuff because why the hell not - distraction is an extremely potent weapon (again, underestimated in typical rpg mechanics, but thats up to You and GM). I could go on an on, but what I should probably do is to leave You with the taste I wanted to convey. IMHO, You probably want to start with the full contact karate and some elements of aikido and judo, but then get to their japanese roots (contrary to popular opinion, karate did not solely originate in china) in the XVI-XIX centuries, and maybe mix it with the kung fu / taekwon do for added mobility and leg techniques. Mind You, I want to stress this, no single one modern martial art will suit Your needs because there simply wasn't any major medieval war in the modern times (and God thanks for that), so they cannot be tested. Now, if I could mix some magic into this... :D [Answer] You could think about certain application of kali / arnis that focus on deflecting, catch-and-redirect, or throwing your enemies off-balance, then add opportunistic attacks. One word though -- kali (or arnis), while having some hand-to-hand forms, is primarily a blade art; you only use your hands to fend off attacks until you can acquire a weapon, either by disarming your opponent and taking their weapon, or sourcing it from whatever is nearby. Also, there's Vale Tudo, though it might have more grappling and ground game than is appropriate for your character. It does however offer both striking and throwing techniques, with a more liberal view of what is allowed and what isn't. ]
[Question] [ Okay, so our society has starting harnessing significant amounts of energy from its sun, and has started mass producing micro-black holes (although there have been experiments with gathering energy from the micro-black holes directly, because of engineering challenges, solar energy is cheaper. Many nations are trying to move away from solar power to a renewable energy source though, especially the outer colonies.) Now we can make a [black-hole ship](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/20120/8914)! The only problem is that we want to go far away really quickly, but [living things die when you do that](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G-force#Human_tolerance_of_g-force). My question is, what ways can we get around that. I am thinking something gravity based. If they are being pulled by gravity, it would pull on all parts of their body mostly equally, v.s. a spaceship transmitting all the acceleration into the feat/back. * They don't want to send cells that grow into babies or anything like that. That is like a weird sci-fi movie. Who would do such a thing! + Ideally, it should be comfortable. Who wants to be strapped in a spaceship for 6 months! However, if your method is really efficient, it would be okay be to uncomfortable since it wouldn't be really long. + Maximum comfort would be the crew experiencing 1 G of acceleration applied to their legs or whatever is touching the floor. + Extra good if their are other habitable regions of the ship with different accelerations for recreation or scientific purposes + Or having an adjustable knob to adjust subjective acceleation * Don't drain to much energy from the black hole! * Don't drain too much energy from the black hole engine. Thats more energy you have to carry! (That said, you do have a ton of energy by today's standards, since you can through rocks in and get hawking radiation. Just not infinite energy.) * The economy is doing pretty well now a days, so NASA has basically unlimited funding. + Although is it better if this technology could be created quickly, we can imagine that humanity wants this so much that they could gather resources for a couple of centuries in preparation. * I am looking for the most acceleration possible, that will be the main criteria for picking the answer. [Answer] Liquid breathing and black hole powered railguns Full body fluid immersion with the air evacuated from the lungs will allow for the maximum acceleration. Without evacuation of the lungs, humans can [withstand 24 g without any noticeable pain](http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19930020462.pdf). This study found: > > Animal studies > with mice showed that, where the acceleration-time > lethal threshold for water immersed mice is around > 1300 Gx for 15 seconds, when their lungs are emptied > from air, the maximum acceleration reaches > 3800 Gx for more than 15 minutes without any > physical impairment > > > Note: Gx is an acceleration in the positive x-axis, like you would have sitting in a vehicle. The study goes on to mention that the mice in this case were not using liquid breathing, but [extracorporeal circulation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extracorporeal#Circulatory_procedures). This is where the blood is pumped through a separate system the oxygenates it. While complex and unimaginably terrifying this process would allow a person to be suspended in a fluid which they would otherwise drown in, without killing them. The maximum acceleration would be less for human suspended in any known breathable liquid, like perfluorocarbon, because that liquid is significantly more dense than a human. They don't have any solid numbers for the actual maximum acceleration that a human could endure, but explain that: > > It is difficult to estimate an ultimate acceleration limit possible > with this set-up, but it presumably can be higher than hundreds of G. > > > Hundreds of g. That seems conservative considering the mice studies. In any case, that's exciting, as the paper goes on to say: > > Completely new > concepts, such as magnetic railguns, could also be > considered for manned missions, should it be experimentally > confirmed that the physiological stresses > due to high acceleration loads vanish using this type > of set-up > > > Some [science-based](/questions/tagged/science-based "show questions tagged 'science-based'") additions. So there it is. Use the black holes to create black-hole-rail-guns that launch humans (and the reaction mass to slow down) for inner system transits. For leaving the solar system you can turn the black hole drive to eleven and accelerate at 400 g out to the stars. They will arrive at their destination far faster than those fools plodding along at one g. [Answer] Regarding high acceleration (or lack of), the late [Robert L. Forward](http://www.robertforward.com/Fast_Forward_Fifty_Years.htm) wrote about several interesting ideas both as a scientist/engineer and as a sf writer. Within the solar system, it is wasteful to accelerate and de-accelerate a cargo, when in the end you just balance the momentum. Think of how a space elevator is different from a rocket, especially if counterweighted by incoming cargo. Take a long pole and spin it in space, rapidly. The hub where it pivots is an easy place to dock, and then tractor rails pull it to one end where it is released, thrown out to the destination. Similarly, the arm can catch an incoming pod and carry it to the hub to be released. The cargo pod will feel a large g force while it is being held to the wheel. The energy and spin-up of the tether can be balanced between incoming and outgoing, so it doesn't take new energy input to get from here to there. For manned pods, a way of tolerating the acceleration would enable that use. For black holes etc. A "slingshot" involves gravity and the ship does not feel any acceleration. When New Horizons passed behind Jupiter it gained angular momentum at the expense of Jupiter losing some, slowing its orbit around the sun. The ship gained 4 km/s, which isn't much on the scale of the solar system but did save 3 years, or in other uses can save fuel and expense. If you collapsed Jupiter to a black hole using [Clarke's monolith](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010:_Odyssey_Two#Plot_summary) or somesuch, then you could pass much closer to the mass and get more attraction. But you are only closer for a brief time, so you have diminishing returns and it doesn't give as much as you would wish. In this case, the close encounter would give tidal forces and a ship would feel stress and the occupants high-g, as in Nivin's short story Neutron Star. A chain of Saturn-mass black holes is absurd. Like normal planets they need to be spaced apart by billions of miles, and they only are useful when lined up just right. Now back to Forward: imagine a super-dense material (not a black hole, but dense enough so gravity is useful) shaped like a torus. It's spinning around, such that a point on its surface is seen to go through the hole and circle around the limb (think of the motion of rolling down a sock while you're wearing it. This would cause a gravito-magnetic effect and an object flying through the hole would be accelerated. Again, this acceleration is not felt by the ship since it affects every part of it. But, un-even-ness would be noted as g-forces. If you had a set of rings so the ship passed through one after another it could build up acceleration. What do you make it out of, how do you keep it from collapsing into a sphere, how does it turn inside out like a smoke ring, and how do you replenish the spin after use? If you can build that, keeping biological bodies intact is not going to be an issue. The two topics should not meet, unless it's a found artifact or something like that. --- Now consider a "railgun" of any technology. Not gravity but perhaps electric, or even pneumatic: whatever. Assume you can get a continuous acceleration, not just spots of high acceleration with gaps from one to the next. At 100g, how long would the barrel be in order to boost it up to ultra-relativistic speeds? See [this page](http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/rocket.html) for the math. Here is some [GEL](http://www.jirka.org/genius.html) if someone who knows more how to use it wants to generate some graphs: ``` c = 1; # units used: c is 1 lyr/yr g = 1.03; # 1g is 1.03 lyr/yr^2 function f_t (a,T) = (c/a) * sinh(aT/c) function f_d (a,T) = (c^2/a) (cosh(aT/c)-1) function f_v (a,T) = c tanh(aT/c) function f_T (a,t) = (c/a) asinh(at/c); day = 1/365.25 t = day a = 100g T = f_T(a, t) # proper time d = f_d(a,T); # distance traveled v = f_v(a,T); # velocity display ("distance in miles", d5.87849981e12) display ("final velocity", v) ``` So, if your railgun could give a continuous 100g acceleration for one day, the projectile would have a final velocity of a mere 27% c, and the device would be 2¼ billion miles long. After two days, you are up to 49% c and the barrel needs to be 8½ billion miles long. What was that someone was saying about ultra-relativistic speeds, that a slingshot (or small number of them) could get up to 0.99c? Let's amp it up: 400g of continuous* acceleration, applied for 8 days. And a railgun over 83 billion miles long. ![Sedna](https://i.stack.imgur.com/YhTlR.png) The orbit of [Sedna](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/90377_Sedna) is not quite half of that. In this diagram, note the the purple orbit is Pluto. --- ## why have high end-point acceleration if continuous 1g acceleration is available? Someone earlier was thinking that high endpoint-only acceleration would give shorter transit time than 1g continuous acceleration. My own intuition is that any external mechanism (railgun) that is suitably compact will operate briefly, before the ship leaves the mechanism. Continuous acceleration builds up over time and you have the entire voyage to use it. So, there is no way that a gun will get a ship to its destination (or to the half way point, where both craft use the same on-board engine to show down) sooner than the 1g engine. In terms of on-ship proper time, there is not the same speed limit. From the outside world, two ships traveling at near the speed of light will take the same time to transit. But on board, the one with higher dilation will experience less time during flight. So more is still better, from the passengers' point of view. The advantage of something like a slingshot or external flinger of any kind is that you leave the engine behind and don't have to carry all that weight and fuel, and you can use conservation of round-trip counter momentum to reduce the actual energy needed. So even if you could build 1g craft, that would be the luxury passenger liner, while Walmart cargo would use the rotating tether for raw materials in one direction and finished goods in the other. [Answer] The interesting thing about using a gravity slingshot is the ship is effectively in free fall during the manoeuvre, so the crew will not feel much acceleration either. Depending on the size of the black hole, the crew could be in some danger as then approach the event horizon, since the massive gravitational gradients will induce a tide on the person, the ship and all the equipment. Too close and the entire structure can be pulled apart (scientists call this "spaghettification"). For micro black holes, this is probably not going to be an issue, but the small size provides two different problems: 1. They are very small, by definition, so their gravitational influence will be minimal. You want to slingshot around massive objects the transfer momentum from them to you (i.e. Jupiter), not a black hole the mass of a small asteroid. 2. Small black holes tend to evaporate, and as they do they release increasing amounts of energy. This exponential energy release will wreak havoc on your ship, unless you are prepared to harness it somehow. Solar sails deployed very close to the Sun are calculated to be able to generate large amounts of acceleration, enough to drive starships out of the solar system at 3G and reach Alpha Centauri in @ 1000 years. Lighter, unmanned probes are calculated to be able to a accelerate much harder, although harnessing it for human flight would be rather challenging. Perhaps a compound system of micro black holes would work. The starship, equipped with a huge light sail, receives the energy of an evaporating black hole to accelerate to the gravitational engine. Rather than a single small black hole, the engineers have arranged for a large number to be orbiting around a common centre (think of a merry go round of black holes), and the ship uses the combined gravitational and kinetic energy of the "merry go round" to do the slingshot. Someone with better math sills can do the calculations on that. [Answer] Alcubierre drive Use a bubble of opposing expanding and contracting spacetime to push/pull your travelers. Since the local reference frame is isolated from the gravity noise of the rest of the universe they are not subject to inertia and can be accelerated at virtually any rate. If your civilization is already manufacturing black holes then I imagine it would be trivial for them to use the [Woodward Effect](https://physics.fullerton.edu/~jimw/stargates.pdf) to manufacture the negative mass required for an Alcubierre drive. [Answer] Well I am not somebody who can answer you question with variables or something but i can think logically pretty well. the thing with trying to go super fast without killing people or making any kind of injury or change to body that is a con for a living being is that you would most likely want to simulate a strong tornado-like magnetic field. It has to be strong so it can't be turned off or on without access to control panel of magnetic provider or conduit however you want to call it. Also it must be tornado-like. You ask why? The thing with tornados if you know them is that even though they have destructible power their middle is actually really peaceful. an example of not just tornado but wind itself has something to do with phrase peace before the storm or however it is said on english. You see when you experience a really peaceful weather and then suddenly there is storm it is because you are middle around which currents of wind caused rain with moving clouds through the same way and making them denser with pressure put on them. So I guess this answers your question. [Answer] Some simple maths will tell you that with 1G of acceleration (~10 m/s2) will get you to the speed of light (299792458 m/s) within a year if you can sustain it. That's the quickest you could be going "far away". 1 year to get to the speed of light is a relatively small amount of time compared how long you'd have to be travelling at the speed of light to get anywhere useful. ]
[Question] [ Introduction: I've spent some fair amount of time thinking about inventing an element to make part of my world easier for me. In this case, it is an LTA gas which I gave the WIP name LAL-gas (Leichter Als Luft - the german equiv. to Lighter Than Air). The gas is intended to be used to lift things from the ground (namely airships) with about 400-500% the lifting power of existing lifting gases (Hydrogen/Helium), as inert. --- The LAL-gas itself would be the product of a reaction between the LAL-solid (I was thinking of it being a salt or sulfate) and diluted sulfuric acid (e.g. Acid Mine Drainage or Acid Rock Drainage) of high temperature. The result would be one: the LAL-gas itself; and two: a byproduct that is highly flammable, but will burn through rather fast. Said byproduct would hence be converted to smoke (soot, and co) and ash (probably poisonous). Question: Is this lifecycle feasible? I.e. could it work as described or are there any inherent problems/stumbling blocks? Addendum: The names are WIP names, proposals for names are welcome but not scope of this question. Proposed changes to the lifecycle in order to make it work are welcome. --- Lore: You grew up with these ships dominating the skies, so did I to be honest. But did you know that the gas allowing for this was discovered rather by accident than on purpose? Tales say it was a little boy, just like you, that, while playing hide'n'seek, hid in an outcropping in the woods. There he stumbled and slid down into one of the many caves of the area, where he found plants with leaved as big as lily pads floating along the ceiling above a funny smelling pond. Upon touching the water he burnt himself, making him run back to his mother crying. The father had him show what burnt his fingers - which led to the accidental discovery of one of natures greatest gifts to us. You see, these purple stones village square is made of, they will react to sulf... Oh well, enough talking. Go out and play. I don't think your mother will have dinner ready for another hour. [Answer] Ignoring the fact that your lifting gas is physically impossible, and looking at the chemistry: "LAL-gas" is effectively inert, which means that chemical reactions forming it tend to be energetically favorable, while those dissociating it tend not to be. It will tend to form whenever there's enough energy around to dissociate its precursors from the substance they're currently bonded to; since you describe the other product of your LAL-gas-producing reaction as highly flammable and burning quickly, this LAL-solid probably isn't very stable. A chemical precursor to LAL-gas will likely break down into LAL-gas + byproduct in the presence of heat, or strong ultraviolet light, or any other source of energy. My recommendation would be for your "LAL-solid" to have LAL-gas [encapsulated in the crystalline structure of the stone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molecular_encapsulation) rather than bonded to it. Dilute acid disrupts the structure and releases the gas without completely breaking down the stone, where concentrated acid would destroy both stone and gas. LAL-gas will act to keep the solid from burning, since heating the solid will release the gas from the surface, displacing oxygen and extinguishing any fire. Depleted LAL-solid, on the other hand, will be highly flammable because there's no gas to provide the inerting effect. This has the side benefit of not needing to worry about the lifting power of LAL-solid: a stone that is 1% LAL-gas would not be appreciably different from one that is 0%, whereas if LAL-solid were chemically bonded, the proportion of whatever gives LAL-gas its effectively negative mass would probably be much higher, and the stone would have an anomalously low density. [Answer] While the other answers are correct, that it is difficult to imagine a molecule less dense than hydrogen, the real reason this gas can't exist is because even a vacuum isn't that good at lifting. Even if you were to make an effectively massless gas it would still only have about 7% better lifting power than hydrogen in our atmosphere. For something to have 400-500% more lifting power would require it to have negative mass. The calculations are shown here: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifting_gas> [Answer] The simple answer is, that this can't be answered. The substance you asked for doesn't exist, and is pretty close to impossible to exist. From that you can see that it's impossible for us to speculate as to how it might be created ... because it doesn't exist! The sort of reaction you describe sounds plausible in order to generate "something", and that's all you can really achieve in this situation. [Answer] Look at the periodic chart. H - Hydrogen has 1 proton. He - Helium has 2 protons. Protons produce the vast majority of the weight of an atom, like the sun has most of the mass of the solar system. Anything less than 1 proton is not an atom nor would it be an element. It would have to be some kind of electron cloud, which of course couldn't be made by a simple chemical reaction. ![Periodic Table of Elements](https://i.stack.imgur.com/S4AiA.gif) ]
[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. I have been working on deriving an answer to [How should I determine the properties of keels and ether?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/249517/75) myself, and I was looking at the [lift equation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lift_(force)#Lift_coefficient): $$L = \frac{1}{2}\rho v^2SC\_L$$ where: * $L$ is Lift Force in $kgms^{-2}$. * $\rho$ is fluid density in $kgm^{-3}$ * $v$ is velocity in $ms^{-1}$ * $S$ is the projected wing area in $m^2$ * $C\_L$ is the coefficient of lift (dimensionless) When physicists work out their formulas, it is important that the dimensions of their numbers agree. In the formula above, discounting all the dimensionless numbers, we get: $$ kgms^{-2} = kgm^{-3} \cdot (ms^{-1})^2 \cdot m^2 $$ which is equivalent to: $$ kgms^{-2} = kgm^{-3} \cdot m^2s^{-2} \cdot m^2 $$ Summing the powers of the units, we get: $$ kgms^{-2} = kgm^1s^{-2}$$ And since $m^1 =m$, so far, so good. However, I mentioned in the linked question and one of its comments that keels work according to their volume not their area. So, if we plug that dimension into the equation with: * $S$ is the wing volume in $\color{red}{m^3}$ We get: $$ kgms^{-2} = kgm^{-3} \cdot (ms^{-1})^2 \cdot \color{red}{m^3}$$ which decomposes to: $$ kgms^{-2} = kgm^\color{red}2s^{-2}$$ which shows that the units don't agree... the left is saying force (Newton), while the right is saying work (Joule). If it is true that the lifting force provided by a keel is dependent upon volume and not projected area (and I am saying that it is, by fiat), and we end up with too many units of metres on the right hand side, we need to somehow reduce the number of metres elsewhere in the right side of the equation. Since we know that we're dealing with force and not work, we can't change the left hand side. Since we know that we're dealing in velocity and not just a quantity per second, that can't change. So, that just leaves changing the density of the ether to $kgm^{-4}$. With that, we get: $$ kgms^{-2} = kgm^{-4} \cdot (ms^{-1})^2 \cdot m^3 $$ which decomposes to: $$ kgms^{-2} = kgm^1s^{-2}$$ Everything seems good again... Except that it appears that my ether is four-dimensional. Did I get that right, or have I screwed this up somehow? [Answer] 1. When doing dimensional analysis, the usual way is to work with dimension symbols time (T), length (L), mass (M), electric current (I), absolute temperature (Θ), and optionally amount of substance (N) and luminous intensity (J), and not units of measurement. The units are arbitrary, the dimensions are less so. The last two are fundamental dimensions only because the CGPM (that's the Conférence générale des poids et mesures, General Conference on Weights and Measures) wants them to be. It is perfectly reasonable to do away with them, with N being zero dimensional and J having the dimension of power, L²MT⁻³. On the other hand, it can be argued that angles and solid angles ought to have their own fundamental dimensions, although the CGPM wants them to be zero dimensional. 2. You took an equation where the coefficient of lift is zero-dimensional, and then invented a new equation in which you have also assumed that the coefficient of lift is zero-dimensional. Dimensional analysis says that in your new equation the coefficient of lift has dimension L⁻¹. 3. Yes, if you absolutely insist to have a dimensionless coefficient of lift then you must solve the dimensional mismatch some other way. But I would say that having four-dimensional volume is the wrong way to do it. Basically, it is not clear what is the physical meaning of the L⁴ volume of the keel. Three dimensions you can measure, but the fourth comes from nowhere and I don't see how you could measure it. What you cannot measure you cannot control. [Answer] You started with a formula for lift in terms of surface area, but then you plugged in a volume instead of an area into that equation and noticed that the units weren't consistent. This is to be expected! It's the same as if you would take Hooke's law (force $F = kx$, where $x$ is the length of a stretched spring and $k$ is a coefficient with dimensions $kg\,s^{-2}$) and plug in a volume for $x$ instead of a length. You'd find the resulting units were wrong, it wouldn't be a force. But what if you wanted to model a situation where a force depends on a volume instead of a length? Would such an object have to be five dimensional? No it wouldn't -- for example, buoyancy is a force that depends on volume. The formula for buoyant force is $F = g\rho\, V$, where $\rho$ is the density of the fluid being displaced and $g$ is the acceleration due to gravity. So $g\rho$ is a constant with dimensions $m\,s^{-2}\cdot kg\,m^{-3} = kg\,m^{-2}\,s^{-1}$, which is different from $kg\,s^{-2}$. This is maybe easier to think about if we express the units in terms of newtons, $N=kg\,m\,s^{-2}$. The spring constant has units $N\,m^{-1}$, so it has the right units to multiply it by a length and get a force, while $g\rho$ has units $M\,m^{-3}$, so you can multiply it by a volume and get a force. What does this mean for your question? Well, it just means that if the force exerted by a keel depends on its volume then the lift equation isn't the right one. This is all that your dimensional analysis is telling you. Because of that you need a different equation. What equation? Well, since there are no such things as ether or keels that's up to you. But as you know, you should choose it such that the units are the same on both sides. As AlexP mentioned this new equation will probably have to involve constants that are not dimensionless, but this is completely fine - it happened in both the examples I gave above. In fact, if you want a simple equation like these examples, where it's just a bunch of terms multiplied together, you'll find your hand is forced. If you want lift to be proportional to volume and velocity then the constant term will need to have dimensions $N\,m^{-3}\,s^{-1}$. But as in the lift equation and the buoyancy equation, that constant can still be the product of a bunch of other terms, which you can make up how you like as long as the units are right. [Answer] My physics teacher in high school stressed over and over that dimensional analysis is necessary for correctness, but not sufficient. Which is, a correct equation will surely have correct dimensions, but correct dimensions do not ensure a correct equation. A foil works only when it is moving with respect to the fluid surrounding it, while a keel doesn't care if the fluid is moving or not: a stalled plane falls, a moored boat floats. If you want a dramatic demonstration, look at America's Cup ships: when they are moving the stay up above the water thanks to the foil lifting them, when they are still they float thank to their keel keeping them buoyant while the foil does not work. This alone should tell you that you can't interchange the two like nothing is bound to happen. [Answer] # Neutrino sailing Fluids get blocked by solid surfaces, but your aether is, well ethereal. Thus very little is actually intercepted by the keel. Similar to how neutrinos care about the volume of the detector. So lets consider a simple model: Your keel is made of a special enchanted material that can interact with aether. It may make more sense to put the keel above the ship since that configuration is more stable. Such material has a grain direction $r$. The particles of aether passing though it with relative velocity $-v\_{ship}$ have a small chance of interacting. If they interact, they lose all velocity across the grain (perpendicular to $r$). They also lose a little velocity along the grain. The velocity change imparts momentum to the ship: $F= k V (-v\_{ship, ⟂}-\mu v\_{ship,\parallel})$. Good materials have a high $k$ and a low $\mu$. $\mu$ is dimensionless and it's inverse is similar to a [glide ratio](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjg3JXhjYGDAxUvDkQIHXw5AC0QFnoECA8QAw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fskybrary.aero%2Farticles%2Fglide-performance&usg=AOvVaw3epB5k-F7BCk--Q9SKjybD&opi=89978449). $k$ has units of $kg/s/m^3$. Which means that a certain volume of keel can "catch" a certain amount of aether mass per second. So how is this different than fluids, besides area vs volume? Firstly, the whole very complicated world of laminar vs turbulent, stall, boundary layers, and more is lost. This is inevitable due to the coupling being so weak: in order for the "porportional to volume" rule to hold keel cannot shield itself. Which means most aether passes though the hull unchanged, it is not forced to pass around the hull. Secondly, the force is proportional to velocity not velocity squared. (ordinary fluid friction is proportional to velocity at very slow speeds, but airfoils are not useful in that case). This means that the aether forces on the keel increase more gently as the hull speeds up. ## Sails in the sky Sails are just as useful as on sea or land. Thus the iconic "sailships in the sky", which have no use without an aether to push against, is justified. ## Changing the penetration depth The aether has a large but finite density $\rho$, in $kg/m^3$. The penetration depth is how deep the aether can make it into a material before 63% is blocked. It is given by $d=v\rho/k$ and has units of $m$. The depth is deeper for faster ships because the aether spends less time inside the enchanted keel. If $d$ is much larger than any ship your volume formula will hold. If $d$ was extremely small and the aether can collide with itself you have ordinary fluid dynamics (minus the buoyancy). For d-values say around $d=256$ meters, you have a case that small ships can use the volume formula but large ships have to use a more complex model. Ships which are hovering (using an aether propeller, which looks and spins like an ordinary propeller but uses blades with tilted grain instead of airfoils) will leave a downwash wake which can be estimated by $v\_{down} \approx sqrt(\frac {gm\_{ship}} {\rho\_{aether} A\_{prop}}) $ where $A\_{prop}$ is the area in square meters of the propeller magical material. This is the same as ordinary fluid dynamics and when $\rho$ is large this wake becomes negligible. Ships moving faster leave a less intense wake. Such a downwash [wake](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wingtip_vortices) which may be hazardous for small ships dependent on the parameters of your story. Again, you can avoid down-wash and deviations from your volume lift formula completely if you use a very large $d$ which also necessitates a very large $\rho$. ## Solar system dynamics are very different The aether is very dense. Suppose you want $d=1000m$ (so that the volume formula remains accurate to a hundred meter ship size) and a magic keel with a density of water to only sink at 1 m/s (the ship itself will sink faster because it also has non-keel weight). A cubic meter of keel weighs $9.8kN$. The needed $k$ is $9800$ $kg/s/m^3$. The aether density is $\rho = 9800000$ $kg/m^3$. This is 500 times denser than gold. The aether must be dragged by planets in order for it to be "still". This means that planets are carrying many times their mass as aether. If we assume it has mass without gravity (which makes sense in Newtonian physics, but does not make sense in general relativity) planets would be dragged around by whatever space aether currents there are instead of orbiting freely. [Answer] Your keels do not have lift, they have an anizothropic friction, so the initial take that your keels provide lift is false, therefore all your future conclusions lose ground. It's a logical error, not physical one, yet it qualifies for hard science. ]
[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. On the world of Ruquelis, there are three genders, men, women, and lilim who are a female sex, with wings and clawed feet. Because of the genetics of this situation, lilim are less fertile and can give birth to all three genders, while women are more fertile, and can give birth only to men and women. This has led to wars and atrocious behavior toward women that has been perpetuated by the presence of reincarnation anchors. Because woman and lilim children are not distinguishable before the age of 9, by which time all lilim-children have begun to transform into lilim, while no woman-child displays these signs (except for the occasional exception who begins later, but they're not spoken of), 9 is the age at which a female child who is not visibly becoming a lilim legally becomes a woman. In the Empire of Qlaemythu, 9 year old woman-children may be sterilized by [bilateral oophorectomy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oophorectomy) if they are judged to be sufficiently valuable. The others... have a much worse fate that isn't relevant to this question. There is no hormone replacement therapy available for these sterilized young women. My question is: How would these sterilized young women differ from an unsterilized woman in her physical and mental development? What would they be like at adulthood? I can speculate what they would be like, but I'm looking for scientific resources that show the consequences of such an act. Because sterilising a 9-year-old girl in this way rarely appears to be done in our own society, I haven't been able to find the information I need online. Perhaps my google-fu is weak... or perhaps there really is nothing online. EDIT: Since it has been pointed out in comments that all of these people would be a different species to Homo sapiens, here are the genetics that disprove that statement: There are chromosomes X and Y, which are the normal, human sex chromosomes. There is also a L chromosome, which carries the genes to make a lilim a lilim. This is the only artificial addition that I have made. We therefore have crosses: Men (XY) and Women (XX) -> ½ XY and ½ XX. This corresponds to our familiar 50% male/female sex ratios in unions between men and women. However, we also have: Men (XY) and Lilim (LX) -> ¼ XL, ¼ XX, ¼ YL and ¼ XY. In these crosses, YL is immediately lethal, as the L chromosome is missing genes necessary for survival of a zygote that is only present on the X chromosome, preventing even a single round of cell division. This leads to lilim effectively having a birth ratio of 1/3 XY Men, 1/3 XX Women and 1/3 XL Lilim, with a slightly lower birth rate than is the case for women. Since this question is about sterilised fully human XX females, the statement that these women are not human is disproved. [Answer] # They Would Look Unusual The best bet for an approximate equivalence here would be [Estrogen Insensitivity Syndrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estrogen_insensitivity_syndrome). The [default body plan is female](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK279001/), and initial development (including uterine development) would be normal because the gonads would be present until age 9 (when puberty could well have already kicked off, depending on a variety of environmental factors including nutrition). Mental development (provided that the surgery was done humanely and didn't induce PTSD in the victims) should be pretty standard with an important caveat; as outlined extensively in [Testosterone Rex](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testosterone_Rex) by Cordelia Fine, sex hormones have surprisingly little bearing on the way the brain develops after adolescence. Without elevated estrogen and testosterone, though, it is a reasonable supposition that these victims' sex drive will be far reduced from what it might have been. The caveat, however, is that without the surge in estrogen and testosterone, victims of this surgery would experience a [failed puberty](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_puberty). No growth spurt, no secondary sexual characteristic development. In the recorded cases of EIS, the sufferers still developed pubic hair, but this could have been a result of testosterone, since the hormones were still being produced, just not having an effect. So they would look underdeveloped for whatever age they actually were - their organs would be ageing but wouldn't look fully adult for some time (possibly ever, as typically delayed puberty isn't allowed to linger indefinitely in modern cases, and concomitant pathologies make separating out just the absence of sex hormones difficult in most syndromes that have that effect). They would be shorter than their peers, they would likely moderately androgynous, and they would probably suffer from osteoporosis pretty early in their adult life, in the same fashion as it is much more likely to affect women after menopause. (Also, it goes without saying that without progesterone and estrogen, the menstrual cycle will never start.) Most of the mental characteristics connected to diagnoses of [primary ovarian failure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_ovarian_insufficiency) largely have to do with social stigmas and the loss of potential futures, not physiological symptoms. That said, unless there was a very strong social system that could help the victims of this barbaric practice, it's hard to imagine the combination of physical oddity and the sense of being a by-blow of the empire's barbaric practices not doing a number on their mental well-being. --- Addendum: The onset of puberty in the United States (as an example) for females ranges between 8-13 years. By age 9, it would not be unusual for a fair number of the victims of this surgery to have already started puberty and received the first boosts of hormones speeding development, which would throw all the previous estimates clean out the window, since you'd be combining the sudden cessation of those hormones with the trauma of a surgery. As many as [1 in 5000](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11392376) children experience precocious puberty, which for female children means the onset of menses before age 9. If there's a sufficient population of these victims, that brings the odds to a near-certainty that at least a few would go through this extra roll of the dice. ]
[Question] [ Closed. This question needs to be more [focused](/help/closed-questions). It is not currently accepting answers. --- Want to improve this question? Update the question so it focuses on one problem only by [editing this post](/posts/249894/edit). Closed 4 months ago. [Improve this question](/posts/249894/edit) Ok, rewriting this one, so some of the answers and comments are from a simpler version: Let's say, in an alternate timeline, or on another world, we discover the equivalent of mechanized warfare -- tanks, battleships, cruisers, police APCs, jeeps, bazookas and other anti-tank weapons, etc. How close to our own tech, say from World War II, would it have to be to still be considered armored fighting vehicles? How different could they be and still be considered AFVs? What technologies would the race be expected to have mastered BEFORE inventing alien tanks and battleships? It doesn't have to follow our own history, but there must be some parallels. What sort of history would they have had to get to a point where they NEEDED to invent such vehicles? On Earth, we had trench warfare which drove the invention of tanks. Could tanks be invented WITHOUT trench warfare? Why? What materials would be necessary to build them -- could a planet low in iron use something other than steel to protect them? Could a world without the elements of gunpowder still build something to penetrate that armor? Why would the society go to all that work to build a lot of heavy vehicles armed and defended to fight with in the first place? Are treads a necessity or could something else be used? Do you have to have an internal combustion engine or could steam or something else work? I guess I should have worded the whole thing differently. I'm basically trying to figure out, in a different timeline or on a different planet, what would the requirements for a race be to develop armored warfare. A race that didn't use metal or were pacifists or didn't discover gunpowder or didn't have fossil fuels to power an internal engine probably wouldn't invent it, so I'm trying to figure out what they WOULD be like. I don't know, maybe you could build tanks and battleships without metal or gunpowder or fossil fuels, but at what point would we no longer recognize them as armored war vehicles but as something else? In short, I'm trying to apply Civilization's tech tree to a culture other than our own history. --- Original post: Let's say we come across an alien world. Scans show they have yet to develop atomic weapons or energy. The first images come back from the surface, and they show a group of metal vehicles with what appears to be some sort of gun or cannon barrel on them. These beings are using a variation of armored fighting vehicles. What could one extrapolate about their culture based solely on this information? A few guesses: 1. They have some sort of industry to be able to produce multiple vehicles. 2. They have metallurgy to create the thick armor, and the metals in their crust to produce them. 3. They have some sort of propulsion to move these ground vehicles without rails. 4. They have some sort of projectile technology powerful enough to penetrate thick armor. 5. They are engaged in some sort of significant conflict that would justify building these machines. Anything more specific or general that one could surmise about their personalities, their technology, their civilization? [Answer] ## Very little actually > > The first images come back from the surface, and they show a group of metal vehicles with what appears to be some sort of gun or cannon barrel on them. > > > Without knowing more about the alien civilization, you aerial/orbital imagery can not really confirm that you are looking at an armored fighting vehicle at all. You may see something that resembles an armored fighting vehicle, but unless you actually see it engage in combat, it could be anything: farm equipment, a wetlands construction vehicle, a directional drilling vehicle, a truck with a light duty crane on it, a mobile observatory... you really have no idea. If these are in fact your 1st photos, then they alone are not even proof that they are an industrial society. What looks like a tank may in fact just be an unhitched wagon with some curiously shaped stuff strapped on top, and the metallicness could be a simple trick of the paint job or the "wood" on thier planet just so happens to be shinny. That said, real tanks do not appear metallic anyway because they are painted to not be shinny; so, appearing metallic is itself suspicious. Now don't get me wrong, the news will be abuzz with click-bait headlines that read "Alien tanks photographed, and they are coming for Earth!" ... but all of your your actual arial surveillance specialists will likely shoot down any hasty conclusions about what they are looking at on the grounds that we do not yet have a baseline record of what we are looking at with this particular alien's technology. [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/P1htv.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/P1htv.jpg) [Answer] * Industry? Yes, but if there is industry, orbital observation should be able to tell that from the [steelworks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel_mill#Integrated_mill), and the rails going towards the steelworks, and the pollution in the atmosphere downwind from the steel works. * Engines? The relevant thing here is probably that the engines are not electric motors powered by a trolley system. They are self-contained. * Armor and weapons? If orbital observation can show conclusively that the barrels are projectile weapons, you could still have a doctrine where [tanks fight infantry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infantry_tank), [anti-tank guns fight tanks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-tank_gun), and infantry fights anti-tank guns (i.e. guns on tanks are not necessarily good enough to penetrate tank armor). * Fighting wars? Either that, or they value the life of their cops so much that they get [APCs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenco_BearCat)/IFVs. To get more conclusive, you would have to observe an [actual battle](https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/2022/10/04/scorched-earth-using-nasa-fire-data-to-monitor-war-zones/). By watching the armor in action, they might get information about: * The ability to work in teams as opposed to individuals. To they ever dismount squads? Do the vehicles use wingman tactics and overwatch? * The value they place on individuals vs. the benefit of society. Do they routinely sacrifice rear guards or feints? * The power-to-weight ratio of their engines. * Class or caste differences from the uniformity of equipment or difference. Heavies supported by mediums and lights, or standard MBTs? That could also be a mistake, if the differences are simply different roles and not different status. [Answer] The question was heavily rewritten, so a new answer ... * Removing iron ore from the crust of the planet would significantly alter the [chemical composition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_the_chemical_elements#Earth) of the planet. I cannot predict how the species would look like, let alone their technology. * You could remove [fossil fuels](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel) from the planet. With nothing better than charcoal, the industrial revolution may not happen. * Historically, the first tracked tanks were developed to break the stalemate of trench warfare. They were what was later called [infantry tanks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infantry_tank) (heavily armored, slow, good at crossing shell holes, relatively weak armaments). Before the tank there were [armored cars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armored_car_(military)#First_armored_cars) (less heavily armored, faster, worse at crossing shell holes, relatively weak armaments). Without a world war in the 1910s, armored cars could have developed into a kind of tracked tank that was optimized e.g. for colonial wars. * A cynic might argue that heavy armor is the proof of a peaceful society. The term [gunpowder empire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpowder_empires) was used for states where the development of powder and cannon strengthened the central authorities. The explanation is a bit too simple to explain real history, but a society of individual, status-seeking, competing warriors will not build tanks. Tanks require factories, factories require laws. A single warlord might be able to coerce a blacksmith to forge a sword, but not a society to build the tools to build the tools to build tanks. [Answer] Frame Challenge From just a photograph, absent any of the context that would be required - extremely little. Let's go through your presuppositions: * No Nuclear Energy. maybe - but perhaps that's because they have advanced past the need for Nuclear Energy? Maybe they have an energy source that is unknown to us. * They have some sort of industry to be able to produce multiple vehicles. Perhaps - this is probably the most reasonable assumption - but even then, I would call this into question. When you say 'industry', one is assuming factories that churn-out standardized equipment. Without being able to measure each vehicle and confirm it's dimensions, it's entirely possible that each one is built by an artisan craftsman - plenty of homebuilt (not kit) cars exist - and this would mean that the implication of 'industry' isn't entirely justified. * They have metallurgy to create the thick armor, and the metals in their crust to produce them. As others have pointed out in the comments, from a picture alone, you can't determine what a vehicle is made of. However, you could use something like an advanced MAD (Magnetic Anomaly Detection) that was sensitive enough to pick up an object the size of a Tank (they are normally used for detecting Submarines - which are bigger and therefore have a bigger magnetic footprint) - which would confirm they have metallurgy and that there is a source locally for these metals. * They have some sort of propulsion to move these ground vehicles without rails. This is perhaps the most reasonable assumption - if you see a 'vehicle' move from one photograph to the next, it's a pretty slam-dunk case, right? Well - again - what if they did have some form of Rails that we couldn't see or were unknown to us? Maybe some weird under-ground magnetic thing (I dunno why I'm thinking about Magnets so much) * They have some sort of projectile technology powerful enough to penetrate thick armor. Unless you see a round being fired and it having a downrange effect, nope - a long tube could be anything. It may not even be a weapon. They may be what you think they are, and the long tube could be a sensor array and the tiny little sticky-outy things on the hull might be the Death-ray-Zapper-3000. * They are engaged in some sort of significant conflict that would justify building these machines. As above - too many unknowns from just photographs. Chuck in some video and perhaps some other scanning tools, then potentially you could start to make the above inferences. I would still be highly cautious in anthropomorphizing humanity and our quirks onto alien cultures and lifeforms. That said - there is a scenario where you could infer a lot of the info that you seek (and more) - which is if you captured one and were able to do a detailed inspection/analysis. If you were to look at say The Chieftains's YouTube channel (he is an Irish American Tanker and does a lot of educational stuff on Armored warfare) - he does a series called inside the hatch, where he looks at the insides of particular fighting vehicles. From design decisions, you can infer a lot of information - such as relative technology competency, function, industrial competency, where they place their value (Big Gun, Big Armor, Big agility?) - you could infer a lot about the anatomy of the occupants - for example, South Africa before the end of Apartheid - used to issue Service Rifles with extended butt-stocks as the Dutch settlers are taller/lankier than the average (seriously - the Dutch can be weirdly tall). But even then - imagine you were to show someone who had never seen a human or a rifle two service rifles just on the ground - without any context, it would be difficult to infer anything about it. Once you have a little bit of Context, however, the inferences start to open up. [Answer] I had a little to do with satellite images in the 80's. This is a while ago, but the basic optics are the same. If you are in a high, stable orbit, there is not a lot you can see at the surface at sub-metre resolution. A vehicle is a small box. A tank is generally seen because it lies at the end of a set of tank tracks. With radar, a submarine is invisible but its wake can be imaged if it is moving steadily and the see is calm-ish. If you can see them, they can see you too. It is probably better to send in some disposable probe and get a better look. And say 'hello' while you are at it. PS: If this is a truly alien world, and they have evolved over billions of years, it would be surprising to catch them at this exact point of development. I would find it more likely that you are seeing their equivalent of a medieval re-enactment society than an actual tank battle. [Answer] > > Anything more specific or general that one could surmise about their personalities, their technology, their civilization? > > > Well, we can surmise that they aren't united as a planet. Else they wouldn't be fighting. From that, we can deduce that they aren't ready for contact with other species, if they fight among themselves, they fight the aliens. > > Let's say we come across an alien world. Scans show they have yet to develop atomic weapons or energy. > > > Without energy, I can't see a way to create these monstrous THICK armored tanks, but I can see them using Lava in molds to create the armor, providing they can carve a big iron/nickel/steel boulder into a bucket, which in itself would tell you that they have tools. As for moving them, it would require some type of engine, they could have found a pocket of methane and are using it to power their tank engines. So IMO, they would need to have the following before being able to create a tank : * Some kind of food production. * Basic medicine so they don't die to the equivalent of an infection. * Administration (someone in charge of getting the resources, what's needed etc.) * Houses to prevent them dying in their sleep * Enough people that some aren't needed to do manual labor * A reasonable population that can maintain everyone fed * Lack of a certain resource OR Be attacked by something There's always the possibility of the environment (animals) being too aggressive for your aliens to face, so they transport themselves in these tanks to get protection from natural predators (we have to assume the predators have above animal intelligence). The tank could have wheels, it all depends on the total weight, their crust could be made of some Unobtanium (made up material) that's super strong (like titanium) and super light (like aerogel), making the possibility for out of the ground transport, or not that light, and wheel transport might be okay. Weapons/Main cannon could just be a giant version of a slingshot. Ultimately what they NEED in order to make a tank, is something BIG and SCARY, preferably that kills you. But you can't know a lot from this, at least without proper context. [Answer] On a battlefield, you have: * Guys moving under their own power (infantry) * Guys moving with artificially increased power (vehicles) * Guys not moving at all (fortifications and bunkers) Power limits both your offense (weapons) and defense (armor). With gunpowder, it's very easy to make weapons that can easily kill infantry. Armor for infantry is kind of a losing battle - you can only wear so much before you can barely move, and there are still guns that can kill you that can be carried by infantry (eg. anti material rifles will punch through any armor you can carry). Plus you're now very slow, and the very big anti-fortification ("siege") weapons can be used against you too, and no amount of armor is going to stop those. Vehicles have engines which allows them to have almost arbitrarily more power. There are of course limits imposed by materials, engine efficiency and so on. But the point is, a vehicle can carry much stronger weapons and armor to the point were infantry (who are limited to their natural power) are hopeless against it. But it avoids the "Ned Kelly problem" because it can still move and avoid siege weapons, due to its engine. From this you realize that the tank actually occupies an interesting niche: If it's too lightly armored (like a [plain car with a turret on it](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_(vehicle))) then light weapons would kill it as easily as infantry. The mobility doesn't help because infantry weapons are pretty easy to aim even at a speeding car. But if it was too armored, it would be slow, and then siege weapons (designed with stationary targets in mind and compromises to maximize power) would cut through its armor anyway. So this niche of "just enough armor, just enough speed to dominate infantry, but escape siege weapons" is a requirement for the tank to exist. Of course, just being too strong for infantry and too fast for siege weapons is still a broad spectrum. In actuality, tanks also attack each other, so their after overcoming infantry their driving force becomes an arms race vs. other tanks but capped by siege weapons. --- The above is basically a WW2 perspective on the raison d'etre of tanks if you will. You will notice that in many cases my assertions are questionable: * Mobility without armor or even weapons can be useful to infantry by allowing them to outmaneuver enemy infantry or even particularly aim-able siege weapons. * Infantry can have weapons strong enough to kill even very armored tanks, like the [Javelin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FGM-148_Javelin), which is sort of approaching ["siege weapons light enough to be carried by infantry"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_(nuclear_device)). * Infantry can be given exoskeletons (or even biological augmentations) that also arbitrarily increase their power, which allows them to catch up to tanks. (although arguably an exoskeleton would make them a vehicle) * Infantry can be removed from combat using remote control and AI (drones). This can lead to vehicles that have minimal armor and weapons but do suicide attacks (cruise missiles). These basically did not apply in WW2, and were questionable in the Cold War, so these periods were the heyday of the tank. Today, other tech like munitions, guidance and electronics is catching up to metallurgy and propulsion, so tanks are beginning to lose relevance. In your case, you are basically asking would some other civilization have a period similar to ours during the 20th century? Let's flip that and ask what it would take for them to not have such a period. They must not make advances in propulsion and metallurgy that outstrip the limitations of their weaponry and control systems at that time. So it's not just about requiring some set of techs, but also the relative balance between them. Imagine if by 1940s we discovered guided missiles, high explosives and advanced fuses. But somehow vehicle engines lagged behind, and "tanks" all moved at 15 mph like in WW1. Manning such a tank would be suicide, fielding it would be a waste of resources. Or what if engines were advanced but we just couldn't make very good armor yet, and people just used the same old anti-infantry machine gun on the fast but poorly armored vehicles. Or they were armored, but slow due to poor weight/protection ratio. Interestingly, we can recognize concepts from ancient history as analogous to tanks, like cavalry and elephants. Early doctrine even referred to tanks as cavalry. While you can't arbitrarily increase the power of an animal like with engines, riding a strong animal obviously gives you the ability to carry far more armor and bigger weapons than infantry can on their own two legs, while still having enough mobility to avoid siege weapons like catapults. Similarly, I think that if you observe this alternate civ having "tanks" (something impervious to their "infantry" but too nimble for their heaviest weapons) then you can conclude that their propulsion and armor tech is leading and vice versa (expect a "tank" from the tech). But you can't decide if it's bronze age propulsion vs. stone age weaponry, or atomic age propulsion vs. industrial age weaponry. --- Regarding battleships, they are basically the tanks of the sea. Too armored for light vehicles, too mobile for siege guns (forts). But, in WW2 weapons advanced enough that you could have pretty powerful ones on little planes or torpedo boats, that could kill even the most armored battleship. This quickly brought about the decline of the battleship, like anti-tank missiles brought the decline of the tank. ]
[Question] [ The planet in question has a radius of 7947km, volume 1.9408 times as large as earth, & a weight about 1.55377 times that of earth. I want the planet to be earth like, or at least earth like enough that aside from being bigger most of the aspects of it's surface & mineral deposits can be similar. Aside from the size difference it has a longer day (about 28 hours), & [a significantly longer polar night at the south pole.](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/248330/is-it-possible-for-polar-nights-at-one-pole-to-be-8-1-2-months-long-without-si) Is a planet like this possible or would the increased size make it infeasible for it to be earth like? [Answer] With the given mass and volume, the density would be 80% of Earth's. Earth's core has about 3 times the density of its mantle, but only 1/3 the total mass. Earth's overall density is only 1.2 times the density of the mantle. In short, assuming no significant effect on the ratio of densities, you'd have to basically eliminate the iron-nickel core in order to get the density that low. This seems basically feasible, but at the very upper limit of the possible size for a planet with 1 g surface gravity. However, it would not be Earthlike, being extremely poor in iron, and inevitably with other major shifts in its composition. It might be more plausible with a carbon planet, one consisting largely of carbides rather than silicates and especially poor in heavy elements. Alternatively, perhaps it could have formed from mantle material blasted off a super-Earth in something analogous to the collision thought to have formed our moon, but again it's not something you could mistake for Earth. [Answer] It would seem that this is entirely plausible. Detailed calculations might or might not show up some issue or other, but it would involve a lot of work. For any fictional story I would say that this is fine. Any detailed calculation would have to make assumptions and those assumptions might well be wrong as only you are able to specify the exact parameters... [Answer] You write: > > The planet in question has a radius of 7947km, volume 1.9408 times as large as earth, & a weight about 1.55377 times that of earth. > > > A radius of 7,947 km would be 1.247370899 times Earth's mean radius of 6,371 km. Thus your planet should have 1.93511 times the volume of Earth, which is close enough to your figure of 1.9408 times the volume of Earth. The mean density of Earth is 5.514 grams per cubic centimeter. If your planet has 1.55377 times the mass of Earth in 1.93511 times the volume of Earth it will have a mean density about 0.802936 of Earth's, or about 4.4273 grams per cubic centimeter. A planet will have many different materials with different densities, usually stratified by density. And materials in the center of the planet will be compressed to greater densities by the weight of the material on top of them. Since your planet is more massive than Earth, it should compress the matter in its inner regions more than Earth does, so your planet must be made of a mix of materials which are less dense, on the average, than the mix of materials which Earth is made of. According to this surface gravity calculator: <https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/acceleration-due-to-gravity> a planet with a radius of 7,947 km or 1.24737 that of Earth, and 1.55377 times he mass of Earth, would have a surface gravity of 1 g, the same as Earth. You don't specify why the planet should be Earthlike for the purposes of your story. If Earth humans are supposed to be on that planet for long periods of time, or even colonize it and have generations of humans live their whole lives there the surface gravity should be within safe limits. Nobody knows the lower safe limit of surface gravity. But tests in centrifuges reveal limits on exposure to higher gravity. Acceptable levels of gravity are discussed in Habitable Planets For Man, Stephen H. Dole (1964), pages 11 to 13. <https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/commercial_books/2007/RAND_CB179-1.pdf> On page 12 Dole says: > > On the basis of the available date, one might conclude that few people would choose to live a planet where the surface gravity was above 1.25 to 1.50 g. > > > So you could decrease the radius, and/or increase the mass, of your planet to give it a higher mean density if you find that the present lower density than Earth's might cause problems. You could change your planet to increase the surface gravity up to about 1.25 g without having to mention the higher surface gravity too many times. You might even dare to increase it up to 1.5 g. According to this escape velocity calculator: <https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/escape-velocity> A planet with 1.55377 the mass of Earth and 1.24737 the radius of Earth would have an escape velocity of 12.484 kilometers per second, 1.116 times that of Earth. Which means that the planet should he able to hold onto a dense atmosphere for geological eras of time. Robert Quattlebaum's answer suggests quite reasonably that your planet, less dense than Earth, would probably have a much smaller iron core than Earth does. It then suggests that might produce a weaker magnetic field than Earth's. And it correctly suggests that a weaker magnetic field would offer less protection to the atmosphere from the stellar wind of the star. And it goes on to suggest that the planet would thus tend to have a thinner atmosphere than Earth does. If only there was a well studied and otherwise Earth like planet without a planetary magnetic field to test that theory. A planet like Venus, which has no detectable magnetic field. Thus nothing protects atmospheric gases on Venus from being knocked off into space by the solar wind. > > The atmospheric pressure at the surface of Venus is about 92 times that of the Earth, similar to the pressure found 900 m (3,000 ft) below the surface of the ocean. The atmosphere has a mass of 4.8×1020 kg, about 93 times the mass of the Earth's total atmosphere.[28] > > > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Venus#Troposphere> Obviously the loss rate of the Venusian atmosphere due to the solar wind has been fairly slow, and your planet would have a somewhat higher escape velocity to retain atmosphere. [Answer] I recommend following up with [this answer](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/248362/70272), which I think gives this question a more thorough treatment. Leaving my original answer below for posterity. --- If (as you say [in this comment](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/248329/is-it-possible-for-a-planet-about-1-5th-larger-than-earth-in-radius-to-remain-ea#comment761392_248334)) that you've tweaked the numbers to keep the surface gravity at 1G, then that means that this planet is significantly less dense than earth. That lower density might indicate a smaller iron core, which might make for a less powerful magnetic field. A less powerful magnetic field would not do as good of a job at shielding the planet from solar wind, which would eventually reduce the surface atmospheric pressure. So it seems plausible that the planet could remain Earth-like (breathable atmosphere, surface water, terrestrial vegetation, etc), but perhaps with some significant differences (thinner atmosphere, more UV damage, etc). [Answer] Absolutely. "Super-earths", terrestrial planets that would be at least somewhat hospitable to human life (liquid surface water, oxygen atmosphere, nitrogen soils) are thought to be possible in a range of between 3/4 and just over twice Earth's mass. A planet 1.5 Earth-masses with the basic necessities is well within the plausible. That said, the higher mass, 1.55x Earth's, will mean that gravity is elevated compared to Earth. The radius of 7947km pencils out to 1.173x Earth's radius, which when we combine with the mass term in Newton's inverse-square gravity formula gives us $\dfrac{(1)1.55}{1.173^2} \approx 1.13x$ Earth's gravity at the surface of the planet. This poses a few practical problems, but nothing drastic. First, and obviously, everything weighs 13% more, including the astronauts themselves. So a strapping young 185lb male astronaut now tips the scales at nearly 210lb, into overweight territory for the same height and frame size. Similarly, the 80lb of survival ruck you expected him to carry while exploring this new planet is now about 90lb. For astronaut plus kit to be the same total weight as he'd have likely trained with on Earth, you're talking a pack limit of just 55lb. Beyond that, you're going to see markedly diminished physical performance and endurance during the initial stages of setting up camp and exploring his surroundings, until the astronaut's muscles acclimate to the higher gravity. Building muscle mass will increase weight (but burn fat), so your astronaut's going to get denser as he acclimates, and will likely end up looking pretty shredded just to do the same things with the same pack on that he could do with much less muscle mass on Earth. That's just a matter of muscle, though. Much harder to retrain is intuition. The higher gravitational force, for the same mass, produces a higher acceleration of gravity than 1g. Physicists and engineers planetwide use 9.8m/s as the shorthand for the acceleration of objects in free-fall toward Earth's surface, and this doesn't change much even out to LEO (weightlessness while in orbit isn't because Earth isn't pulling on us, it's because we're moving so fast to the side that we keep missing). On your new planet, this is no longer the constant; the new planet's 13% higher gravity now means objects fall toward it at 11.07m/s. While this may again seem a small difference, for a human astronaut that's spent his entire life in 9.8m/s gravity with that behavior of gravity baked into every nerve cell in his body, conscious or otherwise, an extra meter per second squared is plenty to seriously screw with the astronaut's judgment of a gap he can jump or a fall he can absorb. Misjudging your capabilities is what causes injury, and even something as innocuous as a scrape can be 100% guaranteed fatal in a situation where you're billions of miles from the nearest emergency room, in an environment potentially containing single-celled nasties no Earth life form has ever had to contend with in 4.6 billion years of evolution. So, any truly human explorers of this planet will need to exercise extreme care when moving around; the relatively sterile environments of the Moon and Mars are more tolerant of minor superficial injury, the only problem there is such an injury likely comes with a suit compromise as well, which presents more acute problems. The higher gravity is also going to produce higher atmospheric pressures at surface level; roughly double, depending on how thick the atmosphere is. As a writer, you can tweak this; less atmospheric mass means lower surface pressure, but if you go too thin the atmosphere is more easily blown away by the solar wind (and then no more air). More plausibly, humans can easily tolerate higher atmospheric pressures; in the world of SCUBA, your lungs are under double the pressure at just 10m as they would be at sea level, and divers do this all the time. Higher oxygen content than Earth's may complicate this; oxygen toxicity, caused by spending too much time on high-concentration O2 and/or in a hyperbaric chamber (our super-Earth could well be both), can produce a range of effects from coughing and mild throat irritation up to nausea, confusion, paranoia, convulsions, and it can be fatal. Again, just wave your wand and your planet's partial pressure of oxygen can be adjusted to human-safe levels at the higher pressure, allowing indefinite stays without major side effects. All this said, there are some inconsistencies in your stated dimensions. You're spec'ing this super-Earth's radius at 1.173x Earth, but a volume 1.9408x Earth's. Any planet big enough to be Earth is going to be basically a sphere, and the volume of a sphere is $\dfrac{4}{3}\pi r^3$. If Earth's radius is 1, your super-Earth's radius is 1.173, and all else being equal that means the volume would be 1.614x Earth's; your planet is about 20% bigger on the inside than the outside. If you want a planet twice the volume of Earth, you find it at a radius about 26% larger than Earth, not 17%. Your volume of nearly double Earth's would also, at similar Earth density, would also produce approximately double the mass. The actual mass increase you've stated to 1.553x means this super-Earth is only 81.5% the density of Earth's. That's not impossible, but to do that, iron (34% of Earth's mass) would have to be a trace element on this planet. We'd also have to trade quite a bit of silicon for magnesium, not so much because of any big mass savings there, but because magnesium is oxidized with half the oxygen as silicon, allowing us to save more mass there without taking too much out of the atmosphere. That, believe it or not, is going to be what really stretches the boundaries of what we'd call habitable here. With no iron in the planet's core, there's no magnetic field to turn aside the ionizing radiation of the solar wind (and there isn't a star in the galaxy you could put this planet in orbit of that wouldn't be bathing it in ionizing radiation). Humans' radiation tolerance is pretty good, but average radiation exposure just living your life on Earth is about 2.4mSv; outside LEO and the Earth's protective magnetic field, your astronauts are exposed to about 300mSv/yr, over 100x normal. Can native life on this super-Earth have adapted a more robust cellular and DNA makeup? Sure, but our astronaut's looking at a yearly dose about 6 times NASA's target limit for astronauts, which puts our astronaut at significantly higher cancer risks. The increase in solar wind bombardment also contributes to atmospheric loss; the solar wind literally blows away the thin upper layers of our atmosphere, and without a magnetic field that loss would be accelerated (think of Mars; there's ample evidence it originally had an atmosphere, but it's too small, so the low gravity and the solidifying core combined to allow the solar wind to strip that atmosphere). The higher mass would help keep more, but this is a fine balancing act that a magnetic field makes much easier, as long as your planet has a molten iron dynamo in the middle. On the flip side, the higher rate of bombardment of the atmosphere with ionizing particles would increase cloud formation; this reduces surface radiation, potentially mitigating the cancer risks to our astronaut (and his need to slather with sunscreen), but also reduces surface reflection (cloud layers actually keep the earth's surface warmer underneath given the same amount of solar gain), and coupled with the higher density it might get uncomfortably warm during the day. Venus, about Earth's size, has a surface temp of about 400\F largely due to its thick methane/sulfuric acid cloud layers insulating the surface. That's an extreme, but your worldbuilding might emphasize an exceptionally hot and muggy environment, toeing the limit of what a human can survive unsheltered, during the hot hours of the afternoon. That's especially true when you have two more hours of daylight; while there are definitely other factors, a very large component of the difference between summer and winter temperatures is simply how much time the Sun spends above the horizon. However the variables mix up to produce an ambient daytime peak, an average* of 14 hours of daylight matches the longest length of an Earth day on the summer solstice in June, so you can expect daytime surface temperatures to be scorchers; luckily, you also get two more hours of darkness for the ground to cool, so it won't stay as hot as it does in Earth's summer solstice, where those 2 extra daylight hours also mean 2 fewer nighttime hours to cool back down. [Answer] A planet around 1.2 times the radius of Earth is certainly plausible and could potentially remain Earth-like. However think of that: First up - gravity! On this planetary beefcake with 1.6 times the mass of good ol' Earth, you can expect some supercharged gravity giving everything extra weight. We're talking waterfalls with oomph, hailstones that hit like a sack of bricks, and fierce dunk contests. Maybe not ideal for high-flying slam dunks, but hey - check out these thunderous jams! With higher gravity compressing the atmosphere, you'll also get some crazy air pressure cooking up exotic weather. Storm clouds will loom huge and imposing on the horizon before unleashing fury, and the very air itself would feel more err, airy. Each breath would fill your lungs to capacity...at least until the oxygen leaves you totally breathless. And all that internal churning and burning deep below the surface? We're talking volcanoes gone wild! Expect fireworks galore with massive eruptions visible from space. The whole planet might glow red hot at times - now that would be a great show! Of course, that also means the rocks themselves would get their atoms all rearranged under the pressure and heat into weird mineral mashups rarely seen on Earth. A geologist would have a field day! Or just get overwhelmed by the sheer variety. Better pack extra notebooks. So while this beefy Earth could still harbor life, it would be one heck of a spicy meatball. A little crazy, a lot more intense, but just as fascinating to explore! We may end up with some bona fide superheroes...or supervillains! Only one way to find out. ]
[Question] [ I'm working on a civilization who was born out of a century-long interstellar war with an AI. So they had previously developed electrical and digital technology but now they're avoiding using any of that tech as it can be too easily hacked or manipulated with digital tools by this AI. (This civilization is the autocratic, hyper-militarized remnant of what was a vast interstellar representative democracy. Essentially a utopia.) I've been brainstorming their technology and so far I've been thinking they'll be using distant descendants of an Analytical Engine and I was playing with all of their tech being powered by some type of hydrogen fusion internal combustion engines. I'm still not sure how much sense all of that makes, but I really like the imagery of these colossal warships with huge engines and mechanical computers. I also recently learned about fluidics and Stirling radioisotope engines from [this post](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/69476/constructing-space-crafts-without-the-use-of-electricity) so that might warrant a rework of their tech. However I think with either of those technological directions there is still a big communication problem. I haven't figured out any plausible way for interstellar or even interfleet/intership communication to work. Best I've got so far is somehow using light or being very handwavey and coming up with some crazy magnetically stabilized micro-wormhole technology or something. [Answer] Ravens! Okay, so not actual Ravens - but small projectiles with a message inside of them that is 'shot' at the recipient. I'm assuming that we have no homing/tracking tech, so it would be an analogue firing solution, however if the recipient can detect it, then they can intercept it. Bonus points if your story has FTL, then the 'message' can be transmitted at FTL speeds. Light Signals Morse Code, Semaphore, illumination strips - hell, even unit/patch markings all convey a message. Whether it's an actual message like Morse Code or simply identification markings - using the visible spectrum. Now - you might say 'Oh, but with light signals, anyone can see them' - yes... but you have to be looking for them. Sometimes going old-school can really work. I think it was General Matthis (sp?) of the USMC who did an exercise and 'sunk' a US carrier - and part of his success was using low-tech runners for communications which the US aggressor fleet didn't detect and weren't looking for so didn't intercept. Telepathy You didn't say it wasn't possible... But that is a good means of communicating long distance - yes it's Handwaivery - but it's just as good as your wormhole idea, so I'm including it. However... All this said and done - the best solution would be this: Use electronic comms and accept that they are going to get intercepted and read. You might just be about to rage at your keyboard at something so utterly stupid - but hold up. English has a long and storied tradition of subtext. Conversations within Conversations. Meanings within Meanings. I mentioned in another question about how people would hide criminal activity in plain sight on the internet and pointed out that it's often by using words and phrases that without the knowledge of the context look innocent, it's only when you know the alternate meaning that they take a different tone. Think of it like Encryption where your knowledge of the alternate context is the private key that unlocks the true meaning of the message. You could even weaponize this against the AI to deliberately write messages in a way where there are 3-4 probable alternate meanings in order to create a Dilema, not a problem (that is 2-3 courses of actions that all have significant drawbacks) in order to waste time/resources from the enemy AI. The humans, on the other hand, knowing information that only a Human could know (from first-hand experience of interpersonal relationships) would be able to decipher the correct meaning. [Answer] If you want to handwave long-range communications but without electricity, how about [chemical lasers](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chemical_laser&oldid=1153895319)? You don't have to use visible light either, not that it matters in space where there's very little scattering anyway. [Answer] Send a physical message. Encode it in a stable molecule in a light foil envelope. Accelerate the molecule to near light speeds with lasers. Have someone at the other end with a large receptor who is expecting some message to arrive at a certain time and place and can catch it, slowing it up with a laser. If you are sending a message from the stars, you need huge energies to send a radio message because the signal will spread out. Shorter wavelengths spread out less, but you still need a very high beam finesse. A molecule will not spread out. Send several molecules with error correction in case something gets messed up in transit. Presumably, to keep the postal service on target, regular dummy messages will have to be passed. Load those with random data so anyone intercepting those waste a lot of time trying to decode them. This might be the preferred way of sending messages over distances of light-years. Maybe you don't need a plot to justify it. [Answer] Couriers Let's not beat around the bush here. Radio, lasers, messenger drones - no matter what technical contrivance you come up with, the fiendishly clever AI is going to be able to intercept it, read it, and send fake messages back. It's not like the AI can't blink out a message in Morse code or wire up a drone. In order to get around it, you need to do something it can't, like pass a blood test or sit down with the captain over brandy. Messages of substance, like fleet deployment orders and after-action reports, are hand-delivered by specially trained courier pilots using small, fast ships. When they arrive, couriers are subjected to a battery of tests to prove that they are a) human and b) the specific human they claim to be. But beyond the medical tests they're also tested less formally by the ship's senior officers - does the person act like the one they're familiar with? Do they remember things that they ought to remember, like the last time they met the captain? In this way, more subtle infiltrators can be weeded out. The downside of course is that this method is slow and doesn't scale all that well, so you will need a rigid hierarchy of command. (It would be impossible for a captain or fleet commander to be familiar with every courier in the navy, but if they only send messages to and from their immediate superior, a handful of peers under that same officer, and their own direct subordinates, it's more manageable.) It would be important to have contingencies for when a ship is out of contact and couriers can't find it, or its couriers are dead or unable to launch. But, you can be absolutely sure an AI won't be able to hack it. ]
[Question] [ I'm considering a world where there's an element that has an element that's naturally a plasma. I'm wondering what the broad behavior of such an element would be. Would it be inherently unstable, dissipating quickly? How difficult would it be to change to another state - say someone is using this plasma to fuel magic and another person lowered the temperature to where it was useless because it became a gas or a liquid. What kind of atomic properties might we expect such an element to have? [Answer] > > I'm considering a world where there's an element that's naturally a > plasma. I'm wondering what the broad behavior of such an element would > be. Would it be inherently unstable, dissipating quickly? > > > It would dissipate as quickly as any gas would. So, under most circumstances, yes, pretty quickly. If it's extremely heavy, though, it might hang out in depressions for a good long while, like, for example, sulfur hexafluoride gas does. That's actually not implausible--to be a plasma at room temperature, you'll want something that's gaseous at room temperature and has a very loose hold on its outermost electrons. Something like a superheavy noble gas might fit the bill. Say, element 150 (underneath Oganesson) or 182, if they were magically stable. > > How difficult would it be to change to another state - say someone is > using this plasma to fuel magic and another person lowered the > temperature to where it was useless because it became a gas or a > liquid. > > > As difficult as you want, since you're making up a magical substance. But, the boiling points of noble gasses steadily go up as you go down the table, with radon boiling/condensing at a mere -71.6C; compare to xenon at -108C or krypton at -153.4C. So if you go with the superheavy noble gas model, it wouldn't be too ridiculous to extrapolate a condensation point of, say, -20C or so. And it would probably stop being usefully ionized well above that temperature, at low temperatures that are not too terribly difficult to reach. > > What kind of atomic properties might we expect such an element to have? > > > Whatever you want, because magic. As a plasma, though, the bulk element would be a very good conductor of electricity, and a very good disinfectant--all those free electrons whizzing around are bad news for microorganisms, and would be bad news for you if you inhaled it! Sticking with the superheavy noble gas model, it would probably form fluorides, chlorides, and bromides, and maybe iodides. Or, with at least one electron stripped off in its room-temperature state, it might behave like a heavy halogen and form weirdly charged salts. Additionally, due to usually-being-charged (because ionized), I would expect it to be strongly soluble in water, as well as strongly soluble in ammonia (which it would tend to turn blue, due to solvated electrons). [Answer] "Cold plasma" is a real thing. In short, the molecules are ionized, but only the electrons have a high temperature. The cold ions have most of the mass, so the net temperature is low. This is a very short-lived condition, as the electrons rapidly get cooled down and the plasma returns to a neutral gas. Being "naturally a plasma", your substance may not act as you'd expect a plasma to. Much of the use of a cold plasma is due to the tendency of the charged particles to find a way to form normal matter, even if it involves normally-unlikely chemical reactions that result in reactive or unstable chemicals like ozone or radicals, or the byproducts of neutralization like UV radiation. All of these render it no longer a plasma, which you don't want. Your substance must naturally avoid these things...so it must not have normal electrons, or nuclei that form neutral atoms with normal electrons. It would have things analogous to electrons and nuclei, but which do not form stable neutral atoms or take the places of their normal matter counterparts. Possibly it could have quite weird properties like being immiscible with air, giving it some protection from being diluted to the point of being unnoticeable. (And given this, you could have a whole parallel periodic table of such elements.) Note: there are some similarities between metals and plasmas. Your substance could still be a plasma in liquid or solid form, in which case it would probably act much like a metal. With the above assumptions, it would be a quite inert metal/quasi-metal. Perhaps some higher melting point types would be treated as especially noble metals. [Answer] Q: I'm considering a world where there's an element that has an element that's naturally a plasma. I'm wondering what the broad behavior of such an element would be. Would it be inherently unstable, dissipating quickly? The last question: it will. Ionization will consume your material. Your element basically goes up in flames, when exposed to the atmosphere or affected by a little magic. ## Glow Fire / spontaneous combustion A solution that does not require a new element. Plasma is the stuff fire is made of.. so you'll just need some heat. There is also spontaneous combustion. Why need a new element? There's Lithium.. Phosphorus.. Magnetron field > > If you have a grape, a knife, and a microwave you don't mind > potentially ruining, you can make plasma at home. (Warning: this may > ruin your microwave.) The process is simple: you cut a single grape > nearly in half, leaving a bit of skin connecting the two halves, then > microwave it by itself. > > > <https://www.vox.com/xpress/2014/12/3/7326643/grape-plasma-microwave> How does this work? In a microwave oven, there's a huge electromagnetic field, that makes most fluids to cook quickly. That is because in food, you have fluids conduct electricity, solubles like salts or acid make them even more conducting. A lemon is a very good conductor for electricity, so the magnetron's field will concentrate its energy on a piece of lemon skin and superheat it, eventually causing the material in the lemon to kick out its electrons and become plasma. Now suppose in your world, for some reason, there exist very strong magnetic fields, locally.. or magic invokes certain fields.. your element (or particle) is a good conductor and present in the atmosphere, it would glow. Spontaneous ionization: shake it Some options exist, like [Molecular autoionization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molecular_autoionization) and (more theoretical) [Autoionization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoionization) of atoms. For a visible plasma, you'll need some magic to transmutate your material into an autoionizing state. With your element, it may be easy to do that. Molecules can have vibrationally autoionizing "Rydberg states", in which the small amount of energy necessary to ionize a Rydberg state is provided by vibrational excitation. ]
[Question] [ In short: my last [post](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/216381/90300) was about a world of flying islands. The world is like a huge gaseous sphere (with the same gases as the Earth's atmosphere, but without the effects of pollution) with several flying islands in it, there is only gravity on the islands because they are rich in minerals (which I invented, worth it highlight) and these same minerals prevent the islands from merging and forming a large rocky planet. This gravity is also very weak to the point where a jump makes you go towards another island. Going a little more to the topic of the post: this world is inhabited by several animals, many of them winged such as birds, insects and pterosaurs (in addition to fictional animals based on marine animals such as skyeels and cloudwhales), but I wonder... how would it be their flight in zero gravity? They don't have any kind of propulsion similar to an airplane or rocket turbine(at least nothing outside the biological) and, despite the air resistance, there is no gravity outside the islands. It's like flying in space but with air to breathe without having to rely on equipment. Furthermore, animals did not arise from evolution, they were created by the magician mentioned in the previous post. Feel free to dictate the physiology of these animals if you feel it is necessary. You can use solutions that use magic as long as you explain how that magic works. [Answer] There are a few possibilities --- the first is based of the answer to [this question](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/204908/how-would-a-floating-animal-move-through-the-air/204909), your creatures could have large fins an "swim" through the air. The fins would have to be a bit larger than on earth sealife to get about the same accelerations. This would be the midrange method, the creature could quickly get to a good speed and also be able to slow down relatively quickly. --- Another possibility is if the creature are covered in [cilia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cilium) which are tiny hairs that bacteria use to move them themselves around. This method is the lowrange method of propulsion it would take the creature a while to get to a high speed, and an equally long time to slow down, and it would be at the mercy of any winds in the area. One advantage it does have over wings/fins is that it would be harder to remove from the creature; so a creature using this method would be able to move even if it lost a significant proportion of it's cilia. [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ycVoW.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ycVoW.jpg) --- They could also use a air jet like what [squid/octopi use](https://www.dkfindout.com/uk/animals-and-nature/squid-snails-and-shellfish/how-an-octopus-moves). --- A similar idea suggested by @JourneymanGeek is that the creature could have a large stomach/bladder that is filled with gas produced through digestion. It then "farts" that gas out, using it to push the creature around. --- An alternative method of propulsion is that the creature could use something like [Ion-propelled aircraft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion-propelled_aircraft), which uses strong electric fields (high voltages) to ionise the air then use the same electric fields to push the ionised air over a wing to [provide lift](https://www.insidescience.org/news/no-propellers-no-problem-new-kind-aircraft-takes-flight). But since you creature don't need to use such a system for lift, it could have a ion jet that uses this technique to propel the creature, somewhat similar to an [ion thruster](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_thruster). [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/HMvpE.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/HMvpE.jpg) This method has the benefit of having a high top speed (about half the speed of light, if the creature is in a vacuum), assuming a powerful energy source. The creature could use this jet (or several jets) to be able to manoeuvre quickly, and be able to travel a a high speed (possibly super sonic in an atmosphere). hopefully that helps [Answer] Quite simply, they would fly the same way spacecraft navigate - reaction force. In spacecraft, reaction control systems (RCS) of different types are used. When ports on different parts of the spacecraft are used, it causes the spacecraft to roll, pitch, and yaw. Even just four or so ports pointing in varying directions can allow for some amount of control, though more are best, especially if you want more refined ability to translate up, down, left, and right. If you adapted this to a biological framework, you see similarities to things like squids moving by ejecting water. Perhaps you could eliminate some control ports by giving the creature enhanced flexibility, as to bend their control ports in different directions. Reducing the number of ports would increase efficiency maybe, but decrease flying ability, which could be quite important for predators. I'd imagine the creature would need a specialized organ for storing the reaction propellant - this might double as a source of lift if the creature flies over the islands. [Answer] For "natural" forms, this problem is already solved on earth. Fish (and other swimming creatures) move around in a fluid where they generally do not depend on dynamics to keep from falling. Instead they have swim bladders that keep them neutrally bouyant, and use fluid dynamics for propulsion only. This is pretty much exactly the situation for your sphere, except the fluid is air, not water. And the solutions are the same, except for volumetrics. The most common method will be a main rear fin that is either moved side-to-side (like fish) or up-and-down (like dolphins and whales) for propulsion. Smaller side fins act like ailerons to translate some of the forward propulsion of the main fin into up-down and roll motions. Vertical fins above and below provide yaw stability, and by twisting the main body, these fins also allow the creature to turn side-to-side. Other creatures may use respiration to propulsion, inhaling large quantities of air, then expelling it through small orifices in a form of jet propulsion. But these will generally be less efficient than the fish-like forms, and thus will likely only be used by creatures that stick close to the islands for protection. The big difference from water dwellers will be size. Because air is much less massive than water, the fins will need to be much larger with respect to the body to give the same level of motion control. And since this will also make the fins much more unwieldly, there will be compromises that water dwellers do not have to make. Still any "natural" forms (ones that might have arisen through evolution, not creation) will more closely resemble fish than they do birds, as much of the shape of birds comes from fighting gravity. [Answer] Pretty much all flight on Earth relies - unsurprisingly - on gravity, so there aren't a lot of examples we can go with from Earth's flying species. We can get a few ideas from aquatic species that might be more useful, but air and water are quite different environments in terms of viscosity, so 'swimming' through air is unlikely to be useful. Still, there are probably analogs depending on the ecology of your world. For this I'm going to assume that there are air currents of some sort in the gas envelope/atmosphere. This seems to be necessary to allow a proper respiration cycle and prevent atmospheric stagnation. I'll leave it to you to explain how those air currents work, I'm just interested in their effect on life forms. Given those air currents we can start with microscopic airborne algae, similar to the phytoplankton you find in Earth's oceans, that forms the basis of your ecology. Drifts of algae will be carried along by the air currents, possibly forming visible dust clouds, probably limiting visual range in high density areas. Along with the algae swarms you could add other lightweight plant forms, structured to be carried along on the breeze. They'd be fluffy, spherical masses with leaves (green if chlorophyll is dominant, depending on ambient light conditions) on the outside and root mats on the inside that capture particulates and moisture from the atmosphere. I imagine there's at least one variant of this plant that grows to be a large hollow sphere that floats along, possibly carrying small animals and other things inside and out. Simple animal life can use the air currents as well, simply floating along with very little actual motion. Larger, denser bodies will be less affected by the currents, so in algae-rich areas the food will be passing by on the breeze. Passive capture of nutrients in this way could support fairly large animal forms, since their energy use is very low. More active animal forms will need to develop from more mobile precursors. Amoeba with cilia and flagella for motion are fairly common on Earth, and there's no reason they couldn't develop in your world. Simple forms grow and become more interesting. Now that we have the basics, we can start theorizing on the developments. ## Floaters Algae, plants and drifting collectors just need to float in the breeze. They don't need any motive power since their movements are controlled by the air currents. Some drifting collector-class creatures may have fins or other aerodynamic features to better orient themselves, but these can be purely structural with little or no control. Floaters also includes baloon-type creatures, like the Portugese Man-O-War jellyfish. A lot of variation is available there, from large single bags to hundreds of tiny gas cells. Gas can be generated biologically, through symbiotic bacteria or drawn directly from the surrounding atmosphere using a bellows arrangement. ## Sailers Extend the aerodynamic surfaces on a floater and add more control musculature and you can better control movement through the air streams. Being able to tack against the wind makes a sailer more able to maneuver to greener pastures. ## Undulants Sails become active surfaces that use rippling motion to push against the air, allowing the creature to move against the airflow or in areas with low air movement. Think of how cuttlefish fins work, but much bigger. Also imagine ribbons and carpets that undulate in the air, using cilia on their surfaces to increase air resistance. Might look something like how snakes do when they're moving through water or over sand. ## Jets Simple balloons move well with the breeze, but with a little effort the internal gasses can be pressurized and used to maneuver. Over time a variety of animals of all sizes can develop from here, from simple mobile spheres to fast hunters that draw in air, pressurize it, then push it through directional nozzles. With the right sort of multi-stage pressurization this could even be a sustained flight model. (Juvenile jet-based creatures would have to be strongly familial since they'd be completely helpless until they learn how to control their jets. Packs of baby jets would probably be terribly cute.) ## Opposed Wings While Earth-formed wings use gravity, wings in this environment would need to have some other opposed force. Rather than having pairs of wings pushing 'down' and providing aerodynamic lift, a set of opposed pairs of wings pushing against each other would work as well. This could work well for insect-like forms, but other large creatures could benefit from it as well. A bird with four wings and a pair of tail surfaces would work well. Instead of simple pairs you could have a ring of wings where each wing opposes both of its neighbours during the full cycle. This would be quite maneuverable but potentially not as fast. ## Flapping Umbrella I don't know what else to call this. I looked, but I just can't find a good way to say it. Take an umbrella with open flaps along the surface. Open it up, letting air pass throught those flaps. Now close it, having the flaps seal against the surface. Net result: weird, slightly ugly propulsion along the shaft of the umbrella. (I don't know, it just popped into my head. Probably thinking of octopuses. Octopodes. Octopi? You know, Sea Cthulhus.) --- Those are all very basic concepts with plenty of variation and development possibility. Some creatures will undoubtedly use hybrid motion forms, combining a relaxed drifting option with high-energy movement capability when hunting or hunted. [Answer] A propeller on an airplane is just a little wing that sweeps through the air and propels it backward. By reaction force, this propels the aircraft forward. Even in a jet engine on a present-day airliner, most of the propulsion force of each engine is exerted by the fan, which is again just a lot of little wings traveling around a circular path and propelling air backward. Flying animals could use wings in the same way, except that instead of traveling around a circular path in one direction like an airplane's propeller, you may find it preferable for the wings to flap through an arc, flap back along the same arc, and repeat. Since the wing reverses the direction of travel along the arc, it will have to reverse its angle to the air in order to propel the air backward on each stroke in each direction. A wing that has the bones and muscles along the front edge, with long flexible feathers attached to this structure and pointing backward -- much like the wings of the birds we have on Earth -- might work. The wings of our birds are asymmetrical (the top is different from the bottom) because they need to deflect air mostly downward. Your birds' wings could be symmetric. Or perhaps they become asymmetric during a stroke in one direction, but then reverse the asymmetry during the reverse stroke. [Answer] # Telekinesis You did say that I can use magic, there is a magic one. Just make the animals use telekinesis to flight. # Magic swim They can use magic to move like they were swiming in a fluid with high viscosity, like this [insect](https://www.amazinglife.bio/post/the-smallest-flying-insect-kikiki-huna). ]
[Question] [ In my book series, while most of the Aurean Empire has essentially a combination of the plant life of the American West and the Mediterranean, the northern provinces are a bit different because all of the Planet Aurea's landmass is in the southern hemisphere. These northern provinces are based on parts of the neotropics, and as such, their climate and plant life is mostly tropical. Specifically, the province of Sparteia is similar to Florida and Cuba, Monsaltu is similar to the Mexican Riviera, far northern Tangolia is a lot like Yucatan, and the rest is a massive tropical expanse very similar to the Cerrado and Amazon regions of Brazil. My question is which trees in neotropical environments like this provide the best wood for shipbuilding? NOTE: the tech level of the Aurean civilization is early Renaissance, but their shipbuilding techniques are overall most similar to those of the Carthaginians, Romans, Greeks, Byzantines, and Ottomans. [Answer] In the American south, especially the hot, swampy parts, there is a lovely tree commonly called Bald Cypress. It would be an excellent wood for shipbuilders. Taxodium Distichum ([wiki link here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxodium_distichum)) grows all over North America. It grows with a nice straight trunk. It has a nice fine leaf. It also grows with distinctive 'knees' It was been used as boat planking in history. Why this wood in particular? Well, It grows well in a number of biomes. It can be cultivated in places where it would not grow naturally. It grows reasonably quickly. It's not as soft as pine, but neither is it as hard as oak, so you will get reasonable yield from your tools. Some woods, like Osage Orange will blunt tools, chainsaws, felling axes like crazy. Bald Cypress is rot resistant. It grows pretty straight, meaning you can get nice even planking in quite long lengths, up to 8 meters in some cases. There are many other trees that may be wonderful for the finished product but can be impractical. Oaks are wonderful, but take a very long time to grow back into a harvestable forest. Osage Orange, as I said, is the very devil to work and is very hard on tools. Teak is even worse on that front, plus the tree isn't as common. I have heard that there are some trees from Australia that sneer at mortal men and their iron. Take this into account for your shipyards. [Answer] Whatever they have. There was no one wood used for shipbuilding they used different woods for different parts of the ship. [Usually whatever they had locally](http://deguwa.org/data/File/Bohrmuschel-Mueller.pdf) this is even true for the [romans](https://journals.openedition.org/mediterranee/3095). The only really considerations were a preference for hard woods for framing, cheap wood for planking, and rot resistant woods whenever possible. Only the largest ships or specialty craft needed specific woods. So really all you need to do is took at the timber available in your regions and pick the most common hardwoods and the most common softwoods. That is what your ships will be made from. [Answer] What tree features are looked for ship building? There is some variance depending on intended use: structural timbers, planking, spars etc. * Uniform ( fewer knots, straighter) * Tall ( fewer joins) * Dense/ tough (resist physical damage) * Resistant to being eaten(insects/worms) * Minimal warping after drying/seasoning Which trees are matches most of those? The canopy trees growing in dense forests of tall trees with lots of rain and sun. Canopy tree being a tree forms the upper canopy, that grows such that its branches and leaves above its neighbors. Trees that have no branches below the crown on the mature tree. This is opposed to trees that specialize to the low or mid canopies. [Answer] Apparently, teak wood resists warping, cracking, and decay, and is moisture resistant. (It's found in the neotropics, I think) ]
[Question] [ Could a terrestrial planet (1x diameter and mass up to 1.5x diameter and mass) hold a Titan-like (dense atmosphere, relatively large size, weather) realistically in its orbit? If not, how large would the planet have to be to sustain such a moon? [Answer] Could it have a Titan size moon? Well, maybe. Titan's only twice as big as our own moon, after all... not like ten times bigger or anything. Our moon does seem to be a bit unusual, as it wasn't formed at the same time as the Earth, but in a [subsequent collision](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theia_(planet)) with another planet. It wouldn't be beyond the realms of possibility for a larger moon to have been formed the same way, but it wouldn't be that likely. [A binary planet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_planet) (or just a planet with a really big moon) could be a thing that forms naturally, Pluto and [Charon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charon_(moon)) exist, for example. If Titan orbited the Earth at the distance our Moon does now, the [barycentre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barycenter) of the two bodies would be above Earth's surface (~8500km away from Earth's centre, and Earth only has a radius of ~6400km) which is one way of classifying the arrangement as a binary system rather than a mere moon-planet relationship. Could it have a Titan-like atmosphere? Well, probably not. Take a look at this diagram that shows [atmospheric escape](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_escape) as a function of planetary temperature and surface gravity. It has some technical issues, but it shows the relationships we need well enough. [![Atmospheric escape as a function of temperature and surface gravity](https://i.stack.imgur.com/2f7ec.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/2f7ec.png) Titan can hold onto a thick atmosphere because it is cold, and it is cold because it is a long way from the sun. Bring it as close as the Earth and it will heat right up and all that atmosphere will merrily blow away into space. [Answer] I don't see why not. For a visual comparison, [this image](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_(moon)) can help, it compares the sizes of Earth, Moon and Titan: [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/iunH7.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/iunH7.jpg) > > Titan is 50% larger (in diameter) than Earth's Moon and 80% more massive. It is the second-largest moon in the Solar System after Jupiter's moon Ganymede, and is larger than the planet Mercury, but only 40% as massive. > > > What matters for an orbit is the velocity around the attractor, if it is right, the body will orbit the attractor (as long as its mass is smaller than the one of the attractors). What would likely be affected would be the center of mass of the system, with a more pronounced "wobble" of the main planet while orbiting around it. A different problem is how such a system could form, but that's matter for another question. [Answer] Titans primary atmosphere results from being 9.54 AU from the massive ball of plasma undergoing nuclear fusion at the center of the solar system, with [jeans escape](https://sci.esa.int/documents/33745/35957/1567258799920-Weihai-093-Coates-escape.pdf) (It's just a slide which gives you an idea about the mechanics of it, but the basic idea is that any gas on the upper end of the energy curve would have enough energy to reach orbit and escape a probably rocky or icy bodies atmosphere). As for the size of the moon, that's perfectly plausible, but due to just how cold titan is, so cold that cryovolcanism takes place that being that water on titan is the eqivlinat of magma on earth([paper)](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780123859389000444#:%7E:text=Cryovolcanism%20is%20defined%20as%20the,of%20the%20outer%20solar%20system.), so the size of the moon would be plausible, as would an atmosphere, but a titanian one, no. ]
[Question] [ Pirates are always a threat, but this particular coastal city has another worry - wyverns. In order to get from said city to open seas, the ships must traverse about 600km towards the exit from the Bay, and as it happens the wyverns nest on southern shore, which means that its common for these creatures to be flying over the entire bay. As they are also hunting here, it inevitably means that ships also get attacked. How would the humans effectively defend their ships against these creatures? The focus is on safety of the crew and ship, not necessarily on killing the wyvern. More about the wyverns EDIT:What I describe here as a wyvern is my version/take on it and as such it is different than the common depiction of a wyvern. A wyvern is essentially a snake, with bat-like wings attached to its ribcage and a rather muscular pair of legs located in the hind section of its body. An adult wyvern we expect to encounter can range from 15 to 40 meters in length and about 35-60m in wingspan. It's entire body with exception of wings is covered with scales which offer protection similar to plate armor - arrows will likely bounce off at medium and long ranges, but crossbow bolts are more likely to penetrate. The wyevern has an animal level of intelligence (it is not an intelligent race), heavily reliant on instincts. It exhibits no magical abilities. Why do wyverns attack ships? They mistake them for prey - basking whales. How do wyverns attack? Two options: * Diving attack If a wyvern is at high altitude (over 1000m) it will dive down towards the target. Contact with prey will be made with jaws first, legs second. Wyverns were reported to kill whales with sheer force of impact with this method. * Level attack If a wyvern is at low altitudes it will usually circle the target first. If it comes to the conclusion that sails do actually look like whale blow, it will attack in a swooping manner, heading directly at the target, seeking to strike with legs first. The diving attack is more common, because a wyvern investigating a target in the second method will often realize that it's not a whale and leave. High-flying wyverns are also more commonly enocuntered. Wyverns can occasionally be encountered swimming in the water, but they do not display predatory behavior when not in the air and will leave if disturbed. What if a wyvern successfully attacks a ship? It will get very confused about biting into a piece of wood with humans crawling over it, rather than a juicy whale. It will leave, but at that point the damage to ship and crew has already been done. Smaller ships can be outright sunk. More about technology The ships in use are wooden sailing ships ranging from ships similar to cogs, carracks and caravels to ships more like the galleons or brigantines. Technology level could be described as roughly that of high middle ages in most aspects. Magic exists, but mages are rare. No gunpowder weapons are in use. Bows and crossbows are most common ranged weapons, and various siege engines are also in use in warfare. Things I've considered Siege engines similar to ballista or scorpion seem to be my first thought, though there are several issues. They would need to be mounted in a way that allows for elevation and traverse of the weapon to track the wyvern. They are also rather expensive and large pieces and only one, maybe two could be mounted on a ship, especially if that ship is supposed to be a merchant vessel. Additionally the sails would get in the way of aiming and aiming itself will not be easy. Perhaps it would make more sense for the city to field a number of small vessels built solely for the purpose of protecting other vessels from wyvern attacks. These ships would escort other vessels accross the bay and return to port afterwards. That could allow more expensive solutions and dedicated designs, rather than trying to squeeze an apropriate weapon on a regular vessel. The city would likely be willing to spend a lot of money to ensure the safety of its main trade route. This is my first question, so please let me know if information is missing or unclear or if theres otherwise something I need to add or fix. Thank you for your time. [Answer] First off -- dye. Color the sails a dark, striking color. Red, maybe. This chiefly helps with the level attack by confirming that it's not a whale. Or use [disruptive coloration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_coloration). Which probably would apply to the deck as much as the sails. Break up the outline of the ship so that no longer looks like a whale. Black and white work for this Second off -- distractions. When a wyvern looks like it's about to do a diving attack, use the ballista to launch something into the sea calculated to make a plume -- one that looks more like a whale that your red sails and deck in black and white. Finally, your dedicated escorts may have additional weapons to use on the wyvern. Smokescreens that cause it to choke would be useful for discouraging it from ever trying those strange looking whales again. [Answer] I would recommend using a form of a smokescreen. Basically, when a wyvern is spotted, they deploy the smokescreen, hiding the ship from the wyvern. The wyvern can't see or smell its prey due to the smoke, so it abandons the hunt and flies off. Another option is a hail of arrows. Basically have a squad of archers that fire longbows at the diving wyvern, due to the attack (which is in reality probably barely damages the wyvern) it realizes that this is no whale. And so it flies off, looking for easier prey. All in all, it is best just to use a form of attack that lets the wyvern know that your ship is not a whale, so the wyvern looks for easier prey. --- Edit: Another idea that I have come up with is mini catapults. Arm either your ship or your escort ships with miniaturized catapults. Though not very accurate, the flinging of large rocks at a diving wyvern will still act as a deterrent. You do need to be careful with the trajectory of the rocks though, you need to make sure the rocks fall into the water, and not onto the ship. But a nice additional effect to flinging rocks into the ocean is that the splashes they make can look like whale spouts. This will then give the wyvern a different, potentially easier, target. [Answer] Another option could be colors. Bright colors are nature's normal way of saying "do not touch." Assuming that your wyverns aren't color blind, your people would need to paint the top decks (and possibly sails) for their ships bright, perhaps borderline garish, colors. It could add an entire industry to the world, and cheap of shady transport companies would always skimp on the rather expensive paints and dyes required, adding some drama to the crossing. That's my idea for passive defense. For active defense, as you've ruled out gunpowder (a [Hwacha](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwacha) in a vertical launch attitude would be great), I'd still go with something similar. I'm not sure on the engineering on this, and it would be a right pain to reload, but some sort of high angle, multiple arrow/bolt system would probably work. Maybe mounted in a enlarged crow's nest at the top of the ship. Wyvern dives down gets a burst of arrows/bolts to the face/underbelly, and either decides to abort, or flinches away due to pain and impacts the water (probably severely injuring it, if not outright killing it, in the process). [Answer] I'd say: * More people than normal would be dedicated as naval lookouts to detect wyverns as early as possible to give the crew time to react. Given that it's an airborne creature, time between the start of its attack and impact is probably less than one minute. * If wind conditions allow it, the targeted ship would want to maneuver. For a level attack, the ship would want to minimize its profile by turning directly toward / away from the wyvern. For a diving attack, the ship would want to turn as hard as it can, to maximize the chance of the wyvern missing. * Part of the crew would be professional archers/crossbowmen on rotating standby. If crossbows are used, regular crew would be assigned to each crossbowman as a reloader to maximize the projectiles fired before impact. * Naval ballistae (which existed historically) loaded with arrows would be an option to provide a shotgun-like / flak-like attack. However, the author would have to finagle the scenario such that there's enough time to wind it up and its weight would cut into cargo capacity heavily. The historical design couldn't be aimed high enough to counter diving attacks, so that would need to be accounted for as well. * Ships would want to travel in convoys so that more lookouts are available to detect wyverns and so a struck ship can have its survivors rescued. Cargo might be in buoyant containers to aid in recovery. Supporting fire between ships isn't practical because the weapons available are too short ranged. [Answer] Game of Thrones has characters that had a very similar problem (although smaller in scale), and which came up with a very clever solution. ![Dragon-B-Gone](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZJ8YL.jpg) Yes, the dude in the image above is on land, but in the last few episodes they also downed a dragon with such a weapon mounted on a ship. --- Another way to fight off wyverns is through pollution. If you destroy their habitat they will die. As a plus you also get more landing for farming, if they nest on plain terrain. [Answer] Stockpile dung pods from various known wyvern species. When a wyvern approaches, identify dung pods from competing species and have the crew throw them at the wyvern, which will make it assume it's intruding on someone else's territory. ]
[Question] [ This is just an idea I have been toying with. Taking Earth as an example with 7 days in a week, my idea would that there would be 7 moons in orbit around the planet. They would not necessarily share the same orbit, but they would orbit in such a way that only one is visible each night. That way each night the people see a different moon, on the 8th day it goes back to the first moon as it has orbited close enough to be visible again while the other 6 are currently too far away to be visible. Would there be any way this could happen in reality? Even if it may be unlikely, is it at all possible? EDIT: After some further research I have come across information about the Trappist 1 system. It does a similar thing to what I am talking about though with planets instead of legitimate moons. It also ties in with the point made about orbital resonance made below. Might be an interesting starting point for anyone looking to do a similar thing in future [Answer] This is not possible because satellites in different orbits will necessarily have different periods. They will all move across the sky in different speeds, so they will catch up to each other every now and then. Having multiple satellites in the same orbit is complicated - such arrangements are not stable on a geological timescale, and are too improbable to happen naturally. Things less intuitive and stranger than you propose do happen, though. [Orbital resonance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_resonance) and [horseshoe orbits](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_orbit) are a thing. A long sequence of horseshoe orbits might be close to what you want. [Answer] ### Yes It will not work from every spot on the planets surface, and you may catch glimpses of the other moons, but at least at the equator and tropics it should be possible. The moon I've used for this is smaller than our current moon, at 5000 metric tons. It comes much closer than our current moon, so should be about as visually noticable. Assuming Earth-Centered-Earth-Fixed coordinate system, this orbit should work for you: a = 154600km +/- 0.1% (Semi major axis) b = 80000km (Semi minor axis) With phases of 2n/7 \* pi for v. The apoptosis is 286,892km - which is a bit further out than our current moon. The periapsis is 22,308km, which is an altitude of 15937km. This is above the ISS, above space shuttle, but below GPS satellites and geostationary satelites. [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/0MM8R.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/0MM8R.png) You'll be able to see at least 5 moons during the day, forming a ring from east, up to the midday sun, and down to west. They will start to disappear in the late afternoon to the west, with the last setting just after sunset, with that nights moon rising from the east at some point during the night. The moon will follow east to west rapidly, and then set in the west. A few other moons will start to rise just before sunrise, and then sunrise will occur in the east. These sunrise and sunset moons will be much dimmer than the main moon at night. This would be stable for hundreds possibly thousands of years, but not millions. The reason for the +/-0.1% is I haven't factored in the advance necessary to keep the apoptosis pointed towards the sun so the closest approach is always at night as the planet goes round the sun (I just used ECEF coordinates cause they're easier) - Somewhere between 153000 and 156000 will be your sweet spot, but I suspect you don't need it to this accuracy. (edited - actually run the equations) [Answer] You're going to need: * small, very faint moons that cannot be seen during the daytime. What we're counting on is that these small, dim moons tend to get lost in the morning/evening glare in their crescent phases. * Some sort of regular orbital perturbation that advances the line of apsides of the moons precesses with the same period as the planet, so that the semimajor axis points at the sun. * Some sort of super-technological or supernatural mechanism to place these moons and keep them in synch; I don't think this setup is going to be stable on historical timescales, much less astronomical ones. * This won't work for the entire planet. You'll get the best results for an observing site directly under the periapsis. ## [GeoGebra Graph: 7 Moons in 7-day elliptical Orbit](https://www.geogebra.org/calculator/nbbxnerk) [![7 moons in 7-day orbit, with mean a](https://i.stack.imgur.com/gxZyj.gif)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/gxZyj.gif) In the above image, we have 7 moons in the same orbit, simulated in GeoGebra. I've used Earth's mass and Earth's radius. An orbit of semimajor axis 154,473 km and an eccentricity of a shade under 0.752 results in an orbit with a period of 168 hours, where each moon spends 6.5 days on the Sunward side, and 12 hours on the night side. The moons are separated by 24 hours on this orbit. The horizon for the for a chosen observer, who is on the Equator directly under the periapsis also shown, turning red when the observer is sunside, and green when the observer is nightside. ## Schematic of Sky View from observer Location - [Link to Animation](https://i.stack.imgur.com/dsYHT.jpg) [![Schematic of Sky View from observer location.](https://i.stack.imgur.com/RbeYk.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/RbeYk.png) For this observer at sunset, he has line of sight to up to three of the moons; the Current Night's moon for will be directly overhead, with the next two moons in the orbit setting. The Current Moon will appear to drift westward initially, but will start moving Eastward, as the next two moons in the rotation slip below the western horizon. As Midnight occurs, the Current Night's moon will be the only one visible, and it will be at the meridian again. As the night progresses, the Current Night's moon will overshoot the meridian, and then drift westward again to be overhead at sunrise, at which point there will be line of sight to the three previous moons in the rotation. As midday approaches, all of the moons are in the daytime sky, I don't know of a mechanism that would allow this to happen naturally, and your standard non-keplerian perturbations are probably going to pull these moons out of their perfect positions in short order, and then it's orbital Thunderdome. [Answer] Well first of all it depends on the viewpoint. Is this just from one side of the planet, or is it from every point? If it is just one side we and the moons have an elliptical orbit then yes. Imagine 7 moons that all have a very elliptical orbit and circle the planet once every week. On the side of the ellipse that is furthest from the planet they move slowly. Then, as they approach the planet, they speed up, and once they reach the other side they zoom by in a single night. They could even share the same orbit. I don’t think it would be possible from viewpoints though. [Answer] I do not believe this is possible. Assuming a 24 hour orbital period for the planet and 7 day period for the Moons. In a single night an observer would be able to see roughly half a hemisphere, so on average half of the moons should be visible. [Answer] Suppose the orbital period of the moon were exactly equal to the orbital spin of the planet. In such a case, the moon would always orbit exactly over the same spot on the planet, day and night. It would always be seen on one side of the planet, never seen on the other side of the planet, and in the same place both 'day' and 'night'. Now, slightly slow down or speed up the orbital period of just the planet, not the moon. The moon would slowly disappear from sight, and remain out of sight, until the orbital spin of the planet 'caught up' to the orbital period of the moon again. Now, place seven moons spaced equally around the planet, in the same orbit, so that as one disappears and 'sets', another one 'rises' in the other side of the sky. It would not be 'every night another moon', but it would be 'only one moon in the sky during any particular night', never two moons appearing in the same sky during any one night, and always cycling through the same sequence of moons. That is, it might be the same moon day and night for, say, a week, then another moon for the next week, and so on as each moon 'creeps' across the sky in turn. Alternately Put all of the moons in a polar orbit, so the orbit of the moon is not on the same axis as the spin of the planet. Like many satelites in polar orbit, each moon would cover a different 'slice of longitude' on each orbit. Seven moons, in seven polar orbits, no moon ever visible at the same time as another moon. [Answer] Maaaybe It would require all seven moons to share the same orbit, which probably isn't a stable configuration and would have to be artificially made - there's practically zero chance that it would occur naturally. Let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that some advanced alien race made it so in the very near past, geologically speaking, and maybe added some mechanisms to stabilize the orbits. What you need is for the moons to be in an orbit that is exactly 7 times as long as the planet's rotation period - let's call it a septogeosynchronous orbit. During the night, one moon will move more or less from one horizon to the next, and the next night, the next moon will do the same. During daytime, all the moons will be hidden behind the planet. This means that the configuration only works on one side of the planet - on the other, they will see multiple moons in the sky. Something that would make such a thing much easier is if your week has just 6 days. Then you could have just three moons sharing the same orbit, which is three times longer than your planet's rotation. If the moons all rotate in a 2:1 spin-orbit resonance, they would show alternately one and the other face towards your planet, making it look as if there are six different moons. Such a configuration could just possibly - if highly unlikely - happen by accident and might even be stable for a few hundred thousand years. [Answer] My answer to this question: [https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/169999/what-kind-of-lunar-orbit-would-cause-a-total-solar-eclipse-to-happen-once-a-day/170047#170047[1]](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/169999/what-kind-of-lunar-orbit-would-cause-a-total-solar-eclipse-to-happen-once-a-day/170047#170047%5B1%5D) May help: > > Another possibility is having a planet with many moons of almost totally identical size which are equally spaced in a ring around the planet. The moons all share the same orbit, equally spaced. > > > The PlanetPlanet blog has a post: [https://planetplanet.net/2017/05/03/the-ultimate-engineered-solar-system/[2]](https://planetplanet.net/2017/05/03/the-ultimate-engineered-solar-system/%5B2%5D) It references a scientific paper showing that a number of equal mass and equally spaced objects can share the same orbit and be stable. [https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010CeMDA.107..487S/abstract[3]](https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010CeMDA.107..487S/abstract%5B3%5D) According to their calculations seven to forty two objects could share the same orbit. Thus your planet could have seven to forty two equal moons equally spaced along a single orbit. Of course it seems extrmeely improbable that such a system could form naturally, so perhaps an advanced civilization assembled those mooons and placed them in orbit around the planet. How will the people of the planet tell the difference between one moon and another if they have similar masses and thus diameters? If the moons are less than a few hundred kilometers in radius they can be irregularly shaped and perhaps each moon has a different irregular shape. They will have to have very low orbits for their shapes to be clearly seen from the surface. If the moons are larger than a few hundred kilometers in radius they will probably be roughly spherical and look round to the eye. But they might have maria as on Earth's moon and thus different patterns of light and dark on each moon. And possibly the hypothetical civilization which hypothetically created that moon system helpfully coated each moon with materials of a different color. And possibly the hopothetical ciilization might have built giant flashing beacons on each moon, with each moon's beacon flashing a different color or a different pattern. if there are 7 to 42 moons equally spaced along a circle 360 degress around the planet, the average angle between moons will be be about 8.57 degrees for 42 moons to 51.42 degrees for 7 moons. Thus if an arc of more than 8.57 to 51.42 degress along the orbit of the moons is visible in the sky of a location on the planet, more than one moon should be above the horizon at any one time. On the sea or a plain, the visible sky should cover 180 degrees, and so about 3 or 4 moons if there are 7 total moons, to 21 moons if there are 42 total moons, should be visible at any one time. Possibly the story could be set in a deep valley or an urban canyon with only a limited view of the sky. Making the moons as few as possible would make them farther apart along their shared obit and reduce the problem of having more than one moon visible at a time. If the moons are very small they will have to have very low orbits and thus they will not be visible from a full hemisphere of the planet at any one time. Phobos, the inner moon of Mars, is so low it cannot be seen from an entire hemisphere of Mars at once. > > Because it is close to the surface and in an equatorial orbit, it cannot be seen above the horizon from latitudes greater than 70.4° > > > [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phobos\_(moon)#Orbital\_characteristics[4]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phobos_(moon)#Orbital_characteristics%5B4%5D) So phobos is visible from a circle 140.8 degrees wide, intead of 180 degrees wide, on the Martian surface. I note that such a low moon would probably have an orbital period much less than a day of the planet. And it is possible that the atmosphere of the planet is thicker than that of Earth (but not too thick for humans or natives of the planet with similar requirements. See Habitable Planets for Man Stephen H. Dole, 1964 [https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/commercial\_books/2007/RAND\_CB179-1.pdf[5]](https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/commercial_books/2007/RAND_CB179-1.pdf%5B5%5D)). You may need to increase the total density of the atmosphere, and/or the amounts of various gases and atmospheric dust, and/or air pollution, to make it scatter a lot more light, while still being breathable for humans or natives with similar requirements. If the atomosphere scatters enough light, the moons may not be visible during the day, and maybe even visible during only part of the night. Possbily even at night the atmospheric haze hides the moons near the horizon and they have to be high in the sky near the zenith, to be visible. And of course at night the Zenith may include the planet's shadow. So possibly the area of night sky where the haze is thin enough to see the moons is less than 51 degress wide and there are only 7 moons spaced 51.42 degrees apart. So there will never bee two moons within the visibility zone around the zenith at the same time. And possibly the moons orbit at such a distance that the planet's shadow fills a large part of that region around the zenith near midnight, so that a moon wiil be visible for much less than all 51 or fewer degrees. I think for this to work the moons will have to orbit at near, but not exactly at geosynchronous orbit, so that the 51 degree cone of the night sky where they can be seen will not sweep over two or more moons during the night. But the orbit of the moons has to be far enough from geosynchronous orbit that the 51 degree or less cone of visibilty will sweep over a different moon each night. The length of the planet's orbit around the star may also have to be adjusted to make this work. The mass of the planet, and the distance of the moons from the planet, will determine their orbital periods. And you will need to work out a day length and an orbital period which will result in a different moon appearing in the night sky each night for a period of about a week or whatever. ]
[Question] [ Properly ventilating a deep mine is a significant engineering challenge. Ergo, you don't want to be carrying around torches that use up some of your precious breathing oxygen if you don't absolutely have to. So, suppose we have a civilization of dwarves that have all learned to use echolocation (like many actual blind people do) to get around efficiently in total darkness. Now they don't need torches, which helps keep their mines cooler and the air more wholesome. But, they can no longer see the color of the rocks and minerals they are digging up--at least, not until they take a sample back to the surface. So, what methods are there to safely (i.e., "lick it!" should not be the first resort) identify what a dwarven miner is digging up in the dark? [Answer] Miners working gold mines in the California gold rush conserved expensive candles by striking their iron tools against the rock walls and throwing sparks. It gave them enough light to navigate and see where the gold bearing quartz veins were. So dwarves might use the same technique. They could also carry different touchstones to test the ores. The term touchstone comes from a type of mineral that could be used to test if a gold coin was genuine. Maybe the dwarves have many different stones and ceramics that turn different colors when marked or scraped against a stone containing an ore. Similarly to the iron tools being used for throwing sparks, maybe they have specialized flint and steels that throw different color sparks. Putting these two together, a combination of touchstones and sparkers might be used to assess type and quality of ore they find digging in the earth. [Answer] Take a page from people who mine gold out of riverbeds in poor countries. Your dwarves put the ores inside a bucket filled with mercury. Gold, silver, zync and other metals amalgamate with the mercury, resulting in a liquid alloy from which you can easily remove the more precious metals later on a lab. Meanwhile the impurities don't mix with the mercury. If you've ever seen liquid mercury, you know how easy it is to separate from the impurities. So dig away, and bring just the buckets full of liquid alloy home later. And if anyone tells you that quicksilver is bad for your health, remember, dwarves have undergone natural selection under the mountains. They should be very tolerant to it. [Answer] Weight and Texture Even now we use the specific gravity of a material to determine it's make up. See [Clyde Pulp Density Scales](http://www.motive-traction.com.au/cgi-bin/engine.pl?Page=page.html&Rec=414) Now a blind dwarf should be able to feel any crystal structures as well as the weight of the material to know the type and quality of the ore In a pinch smell could also factor in. When a person is blind, the other senses are heightened. [Answer] Nonvisual properties, such as conductivity, specific heat, specific gravity, density, texture, magneticity, etc. You can probably tell identical gold-plated / silver-plated mugs apart by touch, because there will be less gold, and the gold one will be lighter. If you have identical gold / silver lumps, the gold will be heavier, because gold is more dense and natural lumps don't care about saving money on production. Two cups, one filled with water, and the other with orange juice, will feel different when grasped, if they start at the same temperature, because they will change temperatures at different rates. The same can apply to minerals: given two crystals with different thermal properties, you can tell them apart by holding one in each hand, and feeling which changes temperature fastest, and how quickly it reaches the new equillibrium. If you're dealing with loose particles and dusts, consider how different minerals react to static electricity. The simplest demonstration of this is to charge a balloon or sheet of plastic or whathaveyou, and move it over a mix of salt and pepper. One should be lifted due to the charge difference, and the other is left behind. The limits depend on the available technology, or if visual sorting post-collecting is an option. I would assume that cupric rocks will respond differently to an electric current than other random rocks of similar texture, but I don't know the details, having only really heard about identifying copper ores by color. The examples I gave might be difficult to distinguish without finer measurements than human-like senses can perceive, for certain minerals. ]
[Question] [ I am currently writing a book about people with powers. One of these characters have a power to make portals, and I am wondering what would make it realistic for said character to survive hitting the floor with a lot of momentum. (You can bend reality a little, it is a book!) [Answer] There's a YouTube channel called Today I Found Out that occasionally asks and answers questions like this, and they recently did one on falling out of an airplane [without a parachute.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBX82EznQN0) And the answer to the question of what you need for a fall at terminal velocity to be at least theoretically survivable turns out to be: 'Not a whole lot.' At terminal velocity, stretching out the distance you decelerate over about a meter is enough to turn your odds from 'certain to pancake' to 'broken bones and a hospital, if you're lucky'; it's just a matter of finding a way to get that extra meter or two to slow down. People who have historically fallen out of airplanes and survived usually did so because they were still in their chair, and the chair hit something on the way down that caused it to slow gradually rather than instantly. For instance, one person survived because they hit a snow-covered slope, going in mostly the same direction they were, so they slid for a while. Another survived because their chair went through a dense jungle canopy, and the branches bled off a lot of the speed. Of course, neither one of those people would have survived if the chair wasn't there to take the hit, so you may need to get a little creative. [Answer] Can the character open a portal which points in arbitrary directions? If falling, the character only has to open the portal so that the exit points upwards. Then then enter the portal, and come out going upwards. Gravity slows them down, and when they reach the highest point and start to descend again, they open a portal directly under them with the exit just above the ground, and they fall out and hit the ground going at a very reasonable speed. Timed correctly, they can probably land on their feet and walk off. If they cannot point the portal in a new direction, so they always head downwards, taey should set the portal up with the exit directly above the entrance, with some very soft material in the middle to gradually bleed off speed. For example, if you can locate a column of air which is rapidly rising, say above a large fan such as those skydiving trainer machines, then repeatedly falling from top to bottom through the air column would get you down to safe speeds. Even repeatedly falling through trees, hay, snowdrifts, a kids ball pond, etc would work. If you can rapidly relocate the portal you could do this in a few inches of snow, just keep repositioning the portals so it seems like you have an infinitly deep snowbank. [Answer] The human body can be very robust and there are known situations where people have survived free falls. In any scenario, what you want to do is reduce the impact, or better yet, the rate of deceleration your body will experience when it hits the ground and inevitably stops moving. So here are a bunch of things that you could do Landing Environment There is a huge difference between landing on concrete, water, and a hay bale. The softer and voluminous the material, the better chance it has of decelerating you over a longer period of time and hence ensuring you survive the landing. Mythbusters has actually run a test that hitting water at high speeds would be like hitting concrete. Luckily, hitting water is better... but still a very risky business. So if your human can aim for something soft, something that will break or injur him but not kill him outright, they will have a better change (e.g. Going through a tin roof into a hay bale could save them, because the tin roof absorbs some of the impact, and the hay absorbs a bit more. Your human is still however seriously injured). In addition to this, landing on angled ground is a huge factor in surviving a fall. This way you can redirect some of your speed into a sideways motion instead of straight into the ground with no where to go. Landing on a slope or positioning yourself so you are moving horizontally can be a great way to disperse the impact force. Landing Posture Landing posture is also an important part. Landing head first is a sure fire way to make sure you never survive. Landing on your legs however will ensure that your legs break first, dispersing some of that energy and giving you more time to decelerate as your body collapses on itself. Ideally you want to use your entire body as one huge spring to help redirect that energy and provide yourself more time to slow down. The aim would be to land on your heels (we are trying to come in at an angle here), bend your knees and assume a rolling motion like you see in those parkour videos. I'm at bit dubious as to weather you would be able to move fast enough (its just on the edge of believable) or if you would just snap your legs like twigs. Falling Posture Moving onto the actual part where you are in the air. Your posture is going to be huge in determining your terminal velocity. Spread yourself out to catch as much of the air as you can to slow yourself down. You however don't want to spin out or lose control, otherwise you might have trouble performing positioning yourself or steering yourself towards a suitable landing spot. Makeshift Parachute The final thing left in your control is having a makeshift parachute. Similar to how a sugarglider uses its skin folds to help glide, you want to use anything you can get your hands on to help act as a parachute and decelerate you. A giant piece of card board (Again performed on Mythbusters) could easily be life saving. Outside of that, using your clothes, opening those buttoned T-shirts and taking your pants off to drag in the wind could all help slow you down just enough to survive. [Answer] The power he has to create portals also lets him create an energy field around his body that acts like a full-body airbag, causing the deceleration to begin slightly before he impacts a surface, decreasing the deceleration to a survivable level. Alternatively, his power might simply make him momentarily invulnerable during decelerations once he reaches a certain speed, so that when he hits the ground, he doesn’t break- the ground does, and he walks out of the resulting crater unharmed. [Answer] As FlyingLemmingSoup mentioned above, stretching out the time for falling is probably the best way to go if you can't reverse the direction of the portal. ### Artificial cushion One solution relies on clear-headedness while falling, really good timing, and the ability to rapidly make new portals. If you're in an area without anything to cushion your fall, use portals to turn the ground into a makeshift cushion. Start by getting into a good landing posture, wait until just after your feet hit the ground and you've slowed slightly, but haven't injured yourself yet (this is where timing is important), then open a portal directly below you that leads to your right and about a foot up. Repeat this process, bleeding off a little bit of speed every time, until you come to a safe stop. If you want it to look cool(er), but take more concentration, reduce the vertical distance that the portal moves, and horizontally move back and forth between the same few location. It will look a little "glitchy" from the outside, but you'll effectively slow yourself. ### Artificial Ladders A variation of the above that relies more on personal strength/agility, rather than portal-making ability, is to place a portal on the ground and another one slightly above it, with no need to move them until you've stopped. This requires the portal edges to not be sharp. You'll also want to be wearing gloves. When you pass through the ground portal, use your hands to lightly "push" against the ground on either edge of the portal, then immediately retract them (don't want to break your arms/wrists/fingers). Repeat this on every pass through the portal. As long as you exert more force on the ground than the additional speed you gain from falling you'll eventually stop. This is effectively like falling between two infinite ladders, using the rungs to slow your fall. Gloves are very important here (especially if the ground is rough) as the friction and force will do a number on the skin of your hands otherwise. ]
[Question] [ I, Rex Machismo, have determined that modern society has robbed this generation of its male identity. Gone are the days of conquerors, where we met each other on the field of battle with sword and shield for territory, only to be replaced by. millenials. A lazy and whiny generation, with their fancy pants lattes and avocado toast, these idiots love to blame society for their problems and insist that success be handed to them on a silver platter. They would rather talk about their feelings, feminism, political correctness, and the evils of "toxic masculinity". I roll my eyes at this drivel, which has made men weak and pathetic. The only solution to this problem is DEATHBATTLE, an underground fighting ring where various combatants can compete with each other 1v1 to restore their dignity and self-respect, all in glory to the blood god Khorne. Only by beating each other senseless in a death match can an individual restore their manhood and stand proudly among their peers again. There are rules that members must follow: 1. Don't talk about deathbattle. 2. DON'T TALK ABOUT DEATHBATTLE!!! 3. Matches are only 1v1, where each fighter chooses a weapon before the match 4. Killing is allowed, but not preferred. My ultimate goal is to create a chain of these undergound groups across the country, each devoted to the same cause. They must be advertised to certain enlightened individuals interested in participating, as well as those interested in being paying spectators in order for me to turn a profit. However, there is a problem with promoting these underground tournaments. One cannot simply advertise on Facebook or Twitter the address of their nearest DEATHBATTLE. Word of mouth also breaks the rules, as one can never be sure of undercover cops and reporters trying to expose the ring. The final problem is for these competitions to stay true to their purpose. How can I advertise this project without exposing it to the authorities? [Answer] ## Dirt for dirt Surely, this kind of mindless violence will have a strong following by the more criminal members of society, no? And despite the interesting fourth rule of your DEATHBATTLE decrying murder, many of your participants may already have committed such an act. I say, let the heathens invite their ilk -- no one joins a DEATHBATTLE, gets to attend, or perhaps even learns of its existence without you, Rex Machismo, having some sort of evidence of their wrongdoings, as a sort of blackmail/collateral. Sort of like becoming a mafia member through murder -- you have to prove you're not a pig if you want to be a man. Let the heretics invite each other, after first consulting you or your licensed DEATHRECRUITERS -- they know their kind well enough. Just make sure you have something stashed away on each of them so they know they can never squeal. [Answer] Act like a terrorist organization So, just to double-check, this is the literal plot of Fight Club, and what you're asking is, 'How do I discreetly advertise'? Word of mouth, primarily. Honestly, it's really the best and safest way to avoid the ratfink stool pidgeons squealing on you. Have the people involved tell other people who are 'on the level' and so on and so forth. And then keep them all self-contained. If your motivation isn't money, but to combat people smack talking 'toxic masculinity' by creating it, all you need to do is start a self-propagating system. Make a small pamphlet, possibly creatively titled like 'The Complete Guide to Starting A Death Battle Club', and pick a few promising dudes, then send them out into cities so your underground fight ring is essentially now just a bunch of loosely connected cells, so even if a few get busted, the rest are safe. [Answer] I would say - you can't. Authorities wich do not know about any (including absolutly legal) activity, involving more than hundred of persons (even if it is GIVE-A-HUGS-BATTLE) are not true authorities. It means DEATHBATTLE needs to be extreamely narrow circled (like very few rich people introducing there warriors for selfentatainment and bets) and/or requer highly corrupted authorities. In fist case you do not need any advertise. And you have no problems with simple street advertising in second case (just do not do it too obvious). [Answer] As with so many things that are officially against the rules, the only way to proceed is to get the authorities involved and give them their payola. Get the mayor on your side. Get the governor on your side. Get the chief of police on your side. These can involve innovative means. For example: The chief of police may have a list of individuals he would rather were no longer bothering him. If these people were to be on the ticket of the next evening's entertainment, it would really make things easier for him. So, since you have at hand a bunch of people who know how to use weapons, and are willing to inflict damage, you go grab the people the COP dislikes. And they star in the next winner-take-all round-robin tournament. Single-loss-elimination rules as it were. But mostly you would emphasize to the powers-that-be that the losses are small and undesirable people, and that they will be getting a metric tonne of money. And that if they don't agree the losers will show up on their lawn. [Answer] > > One cannot simply advertise on Facebook or Twitter the address of their nearest DEATHBATTLE. > > > Yeah, I was thinking about that. But then it dawned on me: > > yadda yadda Rex Machismo yadda yadda modern society has robbed this generation of its male identity yadda yadda idiots love to blame society for their problems yadda yadda They would rather talk about their feelings, feminism, political correctness, and the evils of "toxic masculinity" yadda yadda made men weak and pathetic. > > > Your whole target audience is made of incels, so don't waste money on advertising. Just go where they thrive (4Chan, some specific subreddits, and whatever network they went to after the new code of conduct was implemented here). You will find you'll quickly make friends with them, so you can get a few pinned posts there with the addresses for the upcoming battles. Just don't expect many people to participate, though, as the people who would be reading your calls for participation would be rather on the sedentary side of the spectrum. --- If you really have a desire to see men kicking each other heads, why don't you just watch UFC/MMA? [Answer] First get rid of the death aspect altogether. It alienates people too much. You can have a separate death tournament or something. The best of the best style. But normal death causes too much trouble. Now to the structure of the organization. The biggest issue is funds. Are you a mad billionaire who is funding this? Or do you have to actually find a method of getting funds? Anyway I'll talk about general principles and talk about money later. City cell is the answer. Each city works separately from the other with a city leader handling the affairs of the city. Cell leaders don't know each other at all. No inter-city competitions or moving. Just separate city entities. Second the City leaders at first would report to a single person. Something like a state leader. That state leader never meets them in the same place twice, never discusses other members of the cells with other members. Better yet if you grow big enough split the city 2 and have two different leaders state leaders. Same rules though. State leaders only meet alone with the person above them. Orders are only given verbally and without anyone but the person giving the order and the person handling the situation. This is something like what the Godfather does. Just think that at anytime a cell can be caught so what can you do to make sure that nothing more than that cell is comprised? Because even if a cell leader rats they only know one name and that is the person above them. But even then they have no means of implicating them in anything. And much like the proof of loyalty of the Mafia is killing someone. You will use the same principle. If someone wants to become a part of the organization then they must murder someone in cold blood, I think if a match is better as it shows strength, with their respective leader as the only witness. That remove the fear of anyone else ratting on the two others. Anyway as you go up the chain of command the same logic should be applied. Cold blooded murder. And, if possible, security checks. Supplying the unfortunate souls should not be a problem. Just random violent criminals should keep you swimming in people to kill. The important part about recruitment is the screening process. You won't just let people off the street into your super secretive hideout. Generally you spread the word around anywhere. It won't matter. Then you figure out a way of insuring the loyalty and the sincerity of the people trying to join. Here, again, a small criminal test is the answer. You only let people in after said person commits a certain crime, murder is too much so maybe something less sever but still totally illegal and can get them to jail, in the presence of the recruiter so again none of them can testify or cause trouble to the other. As you grow and continually test the loyalty of the member then you can start accepting people only based on recommendations. That is to be even accepted to be tested. You can still leave the door open to men with outside individuals with extraordinary abilities to join. And word of mouth is actually very good for this sort of thing. Nothing concrete and for people serious enough to join it's enough. Gossip is a potent form of advertising. You should also have in place a robust system once people are inside. Much like the Godfather. There you can be a cop then turn criminal and rise to become the Don's bodyguard. But there is a testing process involved. Lastly. Much like fight club. You will start having a cult and people getting involved more and more. You can use the hardcore members for violence and external fighting, the state or local gangs or such, while still keeping a large pool of casual members. Developing a cult is a matter of money, charisma, and organization skills. Simple as that. Now for extra fun. Bribery. Oh boy. The government, every single one, is susceptible to bribery and corruption. Having a cover of judges, officials, police captains, journalists and other media types...etc can be the difference between a terrorist group and just a harmless gentleman's club. With enough money and dirt work all those type can be in your pocket. Then Khorne would be pleased. [Answer] Word of mouth. Best advertising for illegal activity then for insurance I was thinking along the bribery line as well. Bribe the police but also ENLIST the police. Death matches certainly will need more and more participants since you constantly lose 50% of your "athletes." Who better to supply participants than the "underground" courts. Why imprison criminals when you can quietly get rid of them at the Deathbattles! ]
[Question] [ ## Setting Overview My world suffers from an abundance of a particular type of energy. This energy can be safely absorbed and utilized by living cells, enabling, for example, a dragon's flight and fiery breath or a human's ability to manipulate his environment through "magic." However, this energy also amplifies the effects of electricity, such as lightning or computer circuitry. In the latter case, unshielded components tend to fail spectacularly in short order. To balance this extra energy, I've ruled that iron can absorb immense amounts of it, which causes the metal to heat. The more it absorbs, the more it heats up. The disruptive, raw energy is safely converted into heat energy. ## Brief History When humans first arrived on this world by spaceship, they brought with them advanced, electricity-based technology. These devices were quickly adapted to the new world's environment and the humans started terraforming the world. The planet's indigenous flying and fire-breathing species didn't take kindly to this and banded together to end the technological threat to their world. A single AI managed to escape the onslaught by tunneling deep underground, where it has remained for several thousand years formulating a revenge plan. ## The Problem The AI has devised a plan to end the reign of the raw energy, but it needs to be able to act on the surface. To do this, it has decided to construct semi-autonomous machines to go forth and do its bidding. These machines, of course, have to be protected from the raw energy, so they will be constructed using copious amounts of iron (to absorb the offending energy) and copper (to redistribute the heat from the iron into a heat sink). Unfortunately, this means the machines have this giant heat sink taking up space, and that is inefficient. Can the machines be engineered in such a way to re-use the energy stored in their heat sink, such as granting them a fire breath akin to the dragons they're going to be fighting, or are heat sinks a one-way trip for energy? --- About the tags: I had in mind designing these machines to mimic real animal designs. This particular story was heavily influenced by playing Horizon: Zero Dawn. The [creature-design](/questions/tagged/creature-design "show questions tagged 'creature-design'") tag is intended to reflect this concept. [Answer] For storing the energy, what you want are salt batteries (not simply iron heat sinks). This is a technology we're looking at today in terms of things like molten salt reactors and solar thermal energy. Thermal energy can work very similar to inertia. The idea is that excess heat from a reactor is put into keeping a eutectic salt in a molten state. The sheer mass of the molten salt makes it very difficult for it to quickly cool off, and so it acts as a storage sink for excess energy. The eutectic properties of the salt also mean that it doesn't want to give up the heat very easily once it's received it, as a eutectic salt must freeze "all at once" rather than in parts like water. So a good material for your battery must have two properties: * It should have as low a melting point as possible, as a liquid generally can conduct thermal energy easier than a solid due to its atoms having more degrees of freedom. * It must be eutectic, so that it becomes difficult to freeze (and thus give up thermal energy to the surroundings). This provides a sort of "thermal inertia" that allows the salt to store heat energy for a very long time. * It must have a very high boiling point. Eutectic salts generally have boiling points up around 2000 degrees C, which is why they're being considered as a coolant and fuel carrier for nuclear reactors. Now, to use this energy, you have to have a thermal gradient. The stronger the gradient, the more efficiently you can extract work. If you're trying to minimize the size and number of moving parts for your robots, a thermoelectric solution is your best bet. Basically these are peltier coolers run in reverse: they have P and N type doped silicon sandwiched in such a way that the thermal difference between each side of the silicon forces electrons to flow between them, creating a charge differential. Charge differential is what causes current to flow in a wire, so you've just created electricity. Unfortunately, thermoelectric generation tends to not be very efficient. If you're trying to maximize the amount of work you can get out of this heat, you need a thermodynamic cycle. Stirling engines are OK for this, and they're going to be more efficient than thermoelectric generation, but for maximum efficiency you'll want a Brayton cycle. In a Brayton cycle, you use the heat to heat a compressible working fluid. This fluid then spins a turbine, generating electricity, but part of the energy is used to recompress the working fluid before sending it back through to be reheated. Compressing a fluid increases its temperature per the ideal-gas-law, so you're recapturing some of your waste heat to make things more efficient. This makes the Brayton cycle one of the most efficient thermal cycles, approaching 45% efficiency (opposed to the simpler Rankine cycle's 30% efficiency, or a Stirling cycle's 15-30% efficiency). The drawback? The Brayton cycle is much more complex, and requires a specialized turbine and two separate heat exchangers. This would mean you'd probably want to reserve Brayton cycles for your largest robots, perhaps using thermoelectric and Stirling cycles for smaller machines. Once you have a means of storing (through salt batteries), and converting (through heat engines or thermoelectric silicon) the heat, you can do pretty much anything you want with it. Turn it into electricity for lightning attacks, use it to heat air for heat breath attacks, turn it into mechanical work to move your robots and swing big hammers to smash all humans, etc... The thing to remember is that you have to keep as big a heat gradient as possible to be efficient, and that all heat engines generate some waste heat, which must be dealt with. Your battery is a battery, and not a heat source, so without further input into your battery, it will eventually cool off too much to be able to do useful work. [Answer] A tank of water makes a terrific heat sink. The heat of vaporization of water is huge -- several times what it takes to heat water from barely thawed to just about boiling, which itself is a lot (water has one of the highest specific heat capacities of any simple substance). Even better, a small tank of water is renewable, just by "drinking". Your autonomous machines need only take on water periodically, let the steam go, and go about their business. They might even be able to use the steam to generate energy they can use to run themselves. [Answer] Heat sources can produce electricity in different ways. * They could power a [stirling engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_engine) with a generator. * They could power [thermocouples](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermocouple#Power_production). * Some more ways. However, if you change natural laws by introducing this new energy, all bets are off and [science-based](/questions/tagged/science-based "show questions tagged 'science-based'") does not really apply. [physics](/questions/tagged/physics "show questions tagged 'physics'") as we know it might leave doors for undiscovered paradigms, but a new "energy form" would have to explain how it fits into the EM spectrum, or why not. [Answer] Thermodynamics tells us that to generate work, we need to have two thermostats at different temperatures, and that the ideal yield of that conversion will be $\eta= 1 -$$ T\_{high}\over T\_{low}$. Therefore, as long as your energy is stored at $T\_{high}$, with $T\_{low}$ being environmental temperature, you can produce work by using the temperature difference. However, the temperature gap has to be large in order to get a decent yield. As an example, if the thermostat at high temperature is above the boiling point of water, you can produce steam and with that steam powering a turbine, which in turn can be attached to a generator to produce electricity. You would use the environment to close the cycle. This is precisely how geothermal energy is used: Earth mantel acts as storage of heat at high temperature, and water is converted into steam when in contact with its heat. [Answer] Energy Absorption Mechanism + constant movement This is a dumb idea but hey, worth a shot. The idea is that these machines must have some initial energy stored within them to allow them to get to perform certain tasks as directed by the AI. Obviously the dragons and whatnot will try to fight them back, so instead of just containing this energy within a massive heat sink, just use the energy as fuel by absorbing it using technology to absorb the kinetic and thermal energy of the so-called 'raw energy' you mentioned the dragons using. Of course, I'm assuming that the 'raw energy' you described has these properties. You already mention iron and copper to be used for channeling this energy into the heat sink, but why not turn the tables - why not use the raw energy to power your electric technology? We know that energy in all its forms can be transformed into a different type of energy (GPE to KE, Thermal to KE, Chemical to KE, etc.) so perhaps your AI is advanced enough to figure out how to use the raw energy, or RE, into Thermal or Kinetic energy! Now this means that it's still possible to destroy one of these machines by overloading it with energy. In this case, to mitigate this problem we can make sure this machine works harder and uses more of its energy, and perhaps convert stored energy to into raw energy blasts (if that works on the dragons). Literally fighting fire with fire. We can complicate this further by making the more operational/technical robots (like the ones re-starting terraforming or whatnot) would have high heat sinks, whereas combat robots would have low ones as they'll be more equipped to fight back anyway. If they are left with any excess energy, it can be passed on to the operational robots. Edit: I mentioned piezoelectric materials - I messed up. From this [pdf](https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/662/1/012031/pdf), we can see a comprehensive research paper done about how a battery's energy can be derived from using mechanical energy derived from piezoelectric components in and around the battery, effectively making a battery charge itself. That would likely exacerbate your problem as your problem has to do with getting rid of excess energy, not making more. The reason I kept my answer generic was because I didn't know what raw energy was (still don't technically) as it exists in the universe you built. More information about RE and its limitations would be helpful. [Answer] > > However, this energy also amplifies the effects of electricity, such as lightning or computer circuitry. In the latter case, unshielded components tend to fail spectacularly in short order. > > > This is marvellous news. Now for every watt of energy used, many more watts of power become available. If anything the problem here is that your electronics would be too effective. So, your AI should build its autonomous drones on the assumption they can produce a fraction of their normal power. This energy field will make up the shortfall. As a result, the AI can use a standard template model, but use weaker components and get the same result. These new versions will be lighter and more efficient. The AI might even use a large lump of iron as a means of generating power, similar to how Radio Thermoisotope Generators power satellites using the heat of plutonium and other radioactive decaying materials So the TLDR, this is not a problem, but a huge advantage. If this advantage is not to your liking though, the AI could use copper and aluminum instead, and avoid iron in most components. There are plenty of ferrous and conductive materials that aren't iron. Some of our most advanced electronics relies on Silicon, copper, Gallium Nitride, and various rare elements, Iron isn't necessary ]
[Question] [ Location: The Planet of Tarachs. Compared to Earth, it has lower gravity, higher oxygen percentage in the air and overall warmer climate. This resulted in higher forests, more flying species and given the spiders a chance to keep evolving further down the evolutionary tree. ## Tarachs Giant, sentient spider like species. Due to evolutionary pressures, they developed features which are the equivalent of mammals. Warm-blood, improved circulatory and respiratory systems, rudimentary endoskeleton to support their exoskeleton, rotatable head, etc. While retaining much of their spider nature, silk spinning, poisonous bites, eight legs, and so on. They still use their threads for traps, but unless fishing, it isn't in a web form but more like the traps humans make. Also for ease of movement, they can shoot their spider silk for tens of meters with reasonable accuracy. Since they are sentient, they may have found other effective and productive ways to use their threads. They are omnivores and not the apex predators of their worlds. In order to better defend themselves and take on bigger prey, they socialized and started making tribes. Now, two tribe came into conflict, however a problem arose. They are inherently defense oriented species. They make traps, wait in hiding and bite the bound victim. They can use their spider silk for long range alarm systems, as well as armor, making cutting and piercing weapons less damaging. Spiders can eat their own silk, so they can eat up each others armor and traps. ## Given these circumstances, what would be the most effective way for one Tarach tribe to wage war on another? --- A few related question links, which may help with the answer. [About Spider Threads](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/4179/consistency-of-giant-spider-webs), [AC Giant Spiders](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/149561/anatomically-correct-giant-spider), I may add other links, which may be helpful, when I find them. [Answer] Fire The most effective way of making spider silk thread useless is to apply heat to it, at which point it shrivels. (Cobwebs are a fire hazard because it's essentially a collection of airborne dust particles which is highly flammable. Kind of like a cloud of flour.) This isn't actually why we're using it, but it's a nice side effect, especially if there's a lot of old web it the enemy's base. The most effective form of warfare is to build a massive web and trap complex around the enemy's spider base and then start lighting fires and trying to burn the enemy base. The fire and smoke will kill some, the rest will be forced to run right into your spider traps. Tl;dr - if you've got traps, you want to force your enemy to run into said traps and fire is the best to do so. Just try to avoid the backlash. [Answer] If you treat it as a super-versatile rope substitute, you have a wide range of traps that could escalate a conflict due to increasingly severe injuries or casualties, a kind of sunk cost fallacy. Trip wires that trigger swinging logs might be one of them. Could the silk be used as bow strings to bring archery or other ranged weapons into it? There are also fabric slings, I think silk could be used in place of the traditional fabric and then all they'd need would be the ability to throw and some stones for projectiles. There's also the possibility of less 'aggressive' warfare which could include trying to force the other tribe into backing off through impacting their food or water supplies or another resource(Poison, destroying access, hoarding them, etc), or more offensive guerilla tactics that could include sneaking into the other tribes camp to cause damage. And when they captured a member of another tribe, it's possible they could use their captive as leverage or a trading chip to get the other tribe to back off, or this could be a reason to escalate the conflict - they have one of ours, we have to rescue them, etc. And if it's a territory dispute, they may remain in conflict despite being defence oriented if both tribes consider this area 'theirs'. It's entirely possible they could live alongside each other for years while not getting along at all. [Answer] A few points you may have missed, prior to the meat of this answer. You say your spiders are not Apex Predators, so become social to counter it. This suggests to me that they have the capacity to gang up on and defeat a stronger and larger opponent, thus they should be able to transfer these skills when fighting their own kind. In addition, your spiders will likely have some way of settling disputes, that would have stemmed from competing for dominance contests. If this involved any form of physical confrontation, such as stags locking antlers, giraffes neck fighting or elephant seals wrestling, then there would be transferable skills here as well. Thus, whilst your spiders may prefer to lay traps and ambush their prey, they will have the skills necessary for combat against an equivalent opponent, no matter how much they dislike doing so. This ties in with my point below: Target the enemy when they are on the move Your spiders will not be able to stay in their village at all times. Someone will have to go out eventually to acquire resources, be it food, water, construction materials... This is the perfect point to strike. A group of warriors can ambush lone trappers and starve out the enemy village. The only reasonable response to this would be sending out patrols of your own to find and eliminate raiders in your territory. Thus a form of ambush and maneuver warfare will develop, not dissimilar to modern tactics. Patrols will stealthily move around the disputed region, tracking one another and attempting to lay ambushes or hunting traps to eliminate the opposition. [Answer] Let's start by debunking some of the fallacies here that would actually make Tarachs warfare look more like human warfare than you might think. First, Tarachs won't bother to use their own poisons against each other because venomous animals are immune to their own poisons. Since these tribes are presumably the same species, they will have to rely on killing each other the old fashioned ways (stabbing, hacking, bashing, etc.) If they use poisons, it will be poisons that they must harvest from other sources meaning, that the prevalence of toxic weapon used by the Tarachs will be about the same as in a human arsonal. Also, Tarachs won't bother to rely on using webs on eachother. While it would make since for these spiders to surround their villages with webs for defense against predators, against other spiders, this is a minor deterrent at best. Spider webs are made of a combination of sticky and not-sticky strands. Spiders can walk on their own webs because they can tell which is which. The webs that defend a village would be designed so that the inhabitants could safely come and go meaning that other spiders could also identify these safe passages that predators could not. Also, spiders can eat web; so, even if you completely wall yourself off, an enemy could just eat their way in while the defenders sleep. This means that they will need to develop a webless method of defending their village to protect against other tribes. Now let's look at the traits that do in fact make them different: Since flying species are the dominant races here, Tarach's biggest threat would come from the sky meaning they would likely not prefer the giant trees as a place to live. Instead they would build their homes and hunting grounds in the underbrush, outside of the view of the giant birds who in turn hunt them. The downside is that if they live on the ground surrounded by dense plants for cover, then other spiders could attack from any direction. City Walls would not work like they do for people because an invader could just shoot some webs and climb them. Instead, the most logical style of fortification for them is the ant pile. Using web as mortar to hold together stonework, other spiders could not get their mouths between the massony to eat the web away making such fortifications a highly defensible against other spiders. Since this is tribal aged warfare, the other spiders would not have any siege equipment to break the stone walls either, this means the defender can limit access to their mound to one or two highly defensible entrances. When spiders enter another tribe's mound, they'd have to expect heavy casualties. As they march in single file, they'd be immediately surrounded on all sides meaning an invasion would require a significant numerical advantage. Instead most battles would be waged in the open field. Since spiders need to hunt to live, an attacker only needs to crowd out the defender's hunting ground, killing their hunters in the open. This would force the defender to rally as an army to keep themselves from being picked off one by one which would also force the attacker to rally as an army. Actual battle tactics will likely look a lot like those of honey ants (which were ironically the basis of many human tactics used in ancient warfare.) In the end, warfare for your tribal Tarachs will be a lot like human warfare. They will likely design different styles of weapons and armor to accommodate their extra appendages, and maybe adopt more strategies that rely on the 3d nature of their battlefields with more thought given to attacks from above or below, but in the end, their wars will still be very familiar to us. [Answer] Using their silk, and their eight legs laying on their backs, or hanging by their silk from trees, gripping the silk with two legs, using the six free legs, they could sling stones with high velocity and accuracy. Using height and pouncing attacks with wooden daggers tied to four of their fore-legs to stab and bite opponents. By sifting dry dirt through their silk, they collect very fine dust. Once they have enough, they triple wrap the dust into grenades that they can throw or sling at opponents, with the goal of targeting their eyes or coating their hide-- since they respirate through their skin. Similarly, they cultivate and dry toxic fungi, which is carefully ground and sifted into similar weapons. [Answer] # Starve them out! Burn Every Village, Salt the E̶a̶r̶t̶h̶ Terachs Scorch the earth around the enemy's habitat, over hunt their food sources, foul their water sources. Make it so bad that they either bring the fight to you in your fortifications, or they retreat to another location allowing you to move into their territory. ]
[Question] [ I've written about these rocky hills with short grass, gravel, shrubs, and big boulders. At the bottom of one of the hills is a big bog. Basically I've designed some buildings to be sticking out of the hill and half-suspended over the bog with stilts, which spreads into a bigger marketplace all on top of the bog all on stilts. I'm just concerned that a hill next to a bog would likely be more damp and green than the one I've designed, which is more rocky. Is this possible? [Answer] So long as the design of the bog area allows: 1. high water run-off from the hills, 2. is a shallow dirt-and-biomatter-filled basin that collects the water and 3. enough erosion has taken place to fill that shallow basin with fertile soil. Then yup, I've no problem with this. And the proof in the pudding are the [blanket bogs of the Scottish uplands](https://www.nature.scot/landscapes-and-habitats/habitat-types/mountains-heaths-and-bogs/blanket-bog). They're even showing [wear and tear due to global warming](https://www.scotsman.com/news/environment/highland-bog-reveals-global-warming-threat-to-peatlands-1-4173758). Best of all, the [highlands are traditionally rocky](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology_of_Scotland#Highlands_and_Islands), so go right ahead and have a bog next to your rocky hill! ]
[Question] [ I once participated in a contest. People grouped in pairs. The two members of each pair sit back-to-back. They can neither see each other nor what the other is doing. I was the one who opens an envelope, and takes-out a lego-built structure. My peer has the same parts, but the structure was disassembled. I had to give her instructions on how to build the same structure. The only challenge (and a big one!) was to give oral instructions. It was the same as communicating through the telephone, without being able to see or be seen. We could only hear each other. I attempted to be as clear as possible. I got quite near the solution, but something went wrong along the way. That made me think, if human language can ever evolve to refine the way we convey visual information via words only. There are few terms to take into account: * The language must be visually clearer than the common languages. * A richer vocabulary may be needed for better accuracy. Obviously, it is for describing basic visual images. Sentences may base upon those basics to describe more complex images. It is not practical to invent a word for each image. * Not using pictures, videos, sign language, hand gestures, etc... * The language may be ancient, i.e. may have developed in an era when it was the most needed: when humanity was unable to convey video and audio instructions, printing books and articles were still in their infancy, or when drawing skills were rudimentary. * You may assume that the more complex aspects of such a language may be taught at later childhood, early adolescence. * Be able to either describe or instruct how to build a simple object, machine or device. * May be used to describe people's faces more accurately. As an example, you witnessed a crime and you want to tell the police how the person looks like because you could not take a picture on time. Obviously, we can convey some visual information via words only, but can we refine our ability to convey such information through language? Is such a language being used by some tribe, society, community? [Answer] What you're describing is precision of articulation rather than precision of language I was sitting with a friend in my youth, who's father came into the room and asked 'Where is the thing?' My friend replied 'Next to the cans'. The 'thing' was found almost immediately. Why? Because my friend knew his father, knew what he meant by the 'thing' and his father knew where the 'cans' were. In other words, this was an exercise in context, not language. Ultimately, language is little more than in information transfer protocol. Provided the two (or more) individuals understand specific terms, information is transferred. This is why jargon works; if two people both 'agree' that a particular word or phoneme means a specific object or concept, then the use of that term transfers knowledge. The difference between jargon and language is merely the size of the population that agree to the meaning of the term in question. I was asked by a member of my family (over the phone) the other month about where the scissors were. My response was along the lines of; 'The scissors are in the third draw on the left hand side of the sink in the kitchen, to the right of the carving knife between the tea towels and the screwdriver'. The scissors were found immediately. What, however, is the difference between the first example I gave of language and this one? The use of terms that are more generally accepted within the English speaking community. I'm a computational linguist by trade; I specialise in the mathematisation of language and the structuring of it in forms computers can understand. As such, I've learned to take visual concepts and articulate them in language in a manner that other people find easy to decode and use to achieve a given objective, like finding the scissors. As such, in my experience, you don't need more precise language to provide visual information; you merely need to use language more precisely. To be fair, such precision in the use of language means that you're going to specialise in a specific language. In my case, that happens to be English. I've (on the other hand) heard the works of Pushkin (Russia) as being uninterpretable; in other words, his use of Russian as a language to generate satirical humour is seen as so precise and subtle, that it loses too much in translation into other languages as to be properly interpreted and understood outside the native Russian in which it was originally written. This is probably true; certainly my experience is that with the many languages I can speak (English, C, C++, C#, PASCAL, BASIC, VBS, Aspect, SAS, SQL, mathematics - the list goes on) there are natural strengths and weaknesses in them all. But, the closer you know a language, the more you can articulate in that language. As such, beyond certain frames of reference (like trying to describe 'yellow' to a person blind from birth) the limiting factor for your ability to articulate concepts is not the language itself, but the understanding of its syntax, grammar and vocabulary. Believe it or not, verbal languages are entirely capable of describing geospatial and other visual concepts to those who can't see what you're seeing. The difference in capacity to do so is a matter of precision and vocabulary on both the part of the person speaking and the person being spoken to. As such, the answer to your question is yes, and it's already possible if you have the right linguistic skills. [Answer] You have perhaps without knowing it identified the AI problem of object recognition. All spoken languages by nature are sequential. That is, one fact, action, or concept comes after another, just as all current digital computers are sequential. They break any scene up into individual pixels, without reference to any other pixel. They process the world one datum at a time. Noun followed by verb followed by adjective and so forth. Spatial recognition, on the other hand, is holistic. You see the entire scene at once, and spatial orientations (up, down, left, right, etc.) are immediately and simultaneously evident. Color patterns, contrast, and hue are also immediately simultaneously obvious. Pattern recognition AI, is best done not with computers but with neural networks. These are a system of connections that allow all pixels to be compared at the same time. The connections are not sequential, but mutually interactive. But these networks are absolutely horrible at number crunching. So your task is to make something that is holistic and break it down into a linear sequential description, and then the reverse - to take a stream of data that is sequential and transform it into a holistic pattern. The advantage that the human mind has, over a digital device, is that the mind can envision a holistic scene, and it can place a sequential stream of data into that holistic image. It can build up and see a pattern, not just the pixel. However, that ability is variable between humans. Some can do it easier than others. For some, the skill comes naturally. For others, it never comes at all. They have no concept of spatial visualization. An indicator of this, is the difference between poetry and prose. Poetry paints a picture in the mind. It uses very descriptive adjectives and adverbs in sometimes very disjointed semantics, but from which the reader can 'view' what is intended. Prose, on the other hand, conveys a scene through the passage of time. 'He did this then she did that'. There are those who readily grasp the imagery of poetry, and can visualize the stream of words into an instantaneous event or feeling, and those who consider poetry as just a random jumble of incomprehensible words. So part and parcel of any answer to your question has to be the cognitive structures in the brains of the communicators, and not just the language itself. That is, a communication format or use of language that is not comprehensible to the communicators is not viable in their situation, even though it might be viable to others with different brain structures. Just as in your group Lego challenge, there were undoubtedly pairs that were much superior to others in completing the task, even though the language was the same. And I am sure, skilled pairs that had trained in the task would be even more proficient over time. These pairs would, I posit, have brain structures that were better at visualization than other brains, night I suggest, more 'poetic'. TL:DR The answer to your question lies not just in the language, but in the ability of the communicators to 'visualize' the language, as opposed to 'interpreting the meaning' of the language. 'Visualizers' can accommodate to the language, but those who can not visualize, will not do so no matter what the language. [Answer] Spoken languages are all good at describing things to people who can not see them at the moment. This is an important reason why we evolved to have language in the first place. How good an individual speaker is depends on practice. You and your contest partner didn't do well with the task because it was new to you. If this was the 100th time you'd done it, it would have gone quickly and correctly, without any change in the language you both speak. Some languages do describe things differently though, and not just by adding vocabulary. For example, speakers of Iwaidja, an indigenous Australian language, uses [spatial frames](http://laal-espace.cdu.edu.au/eserv/cdu:40557/EdmondsWathen_40557.pdf). A concept they continue to use when speaking English. ("Spatial frames of reference are ways of referring to how things are located with respect to each other." It is not the language itself, or anything different about the biology of the speakers, but rather, a cultural artifact that the language evolved to express. Both children and adults in that community are exceptionably good at tests that involve spatial knowledge, because looking at the world in spatial terms is part of their underlying culture. something every child learns without thinking of it. A related Australian language, [Guugu Ymithirr](http://nautil.us/blog/5-languages-that-could-change-the-way-you-see-the-world), takes a similar approach. > > ...They use cardinal directions to express spatial information. So > rather than “Can you move to my left?” they would say “Can you move to > the west?”...Guugu Ymithirr speakers have a kind of “internal compass” > that is imprinted from an extremely young age. In the same way that > English-speaking infants learn to use different tenses when they > speak, so do Guugu Ymithirr children learn to orient themselves along > compass lines, not relative to themselves...Speakers of languages that > use cardinal directions to express locations have fantastic spatial > memory and navigation skills—perhaps because their experience of an > event is so well-defined by the directions it took place in...Just > because their language doesn’t define directions relative to the > people communicating, it doesn’t mean they don’t understand the > concept of something being behind them, for example. > > > All languages are capable of supporting the requirements you delineate. They just may do it in different ways. All languages can and do increase vocabulary over time (and let go of words no longer needed). All languages have different levels of complexity, not just for children vs adults, but for people in specialized tasks vs people who aren't. A different language is not what you need, but rather practice, vocabulary, and pressure to adapt your current one. ]
[Question] [ I have a cave that is ravine like and stretches approximately one kilometer down into the Earth. Let's assume that the cave has a clear, crystalline roof allowing some light in. Is there any sort of crystal, mineral, substance, or something else naturally occurring that could reflect light into most parts of the cave? I want the cave to have enough available light for average plants and such to grow with the upper half of the ravine. [Answer] Ice. [![ice cave](https://i.stack.imgur.com/InFJE.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/InFJE.jpg) <https://www.getyourguide.com/joekulsarlon-l2030/crystal-ice-cave-tour-from-jokulsarlon-t73050/> The Icelandic ice caves (in glaciers) are made of translucent ice which admits sunlight from above. The light bounces around, refracting within the ice, reflecting off of other ice surfaces within the cave and illuminating the interior to a degree you would never see in a regular stone cave. [Answer] Unfortunately there is limited chance that enough light could make it through the crystaline roof even in perfect conditions to allow for plant growth. part of this is indeed the type of material the roof is made off, but also the rotation of the earth, and a few other minor factors. Light, Mirrors and Crystals Although there are many materials that are translucent enough to allow light through, as L.Dutch explained these need to be polished to allow that to happen. even if you had the walls of the cave covered with nice reflective surfaces made of Gold or Silver, each metre that was reflective means that same metre cannot have life growing on it. and again each of those metres that do have life means less and less life is growing as there is less light bouncing around. As WillK suggested, Ice is a potential option and doesn't need to be polished. however... this still has the same issue with any surface allowing reflection means a surface not housing life, and even then, as far as i'm aware, a wall of ice (insert random game of thrones reference) is not really suitable base for growing life. Earth's Rotation Even in optimal conditions light would only reach half way down a one kilometre ravine for less than a hour a day. That's not a lot of time for plants to absorb sunlight for photosynthesis, then consider a lot less light is making its way through the roof material, and on a cloudy day that is diminished even more, and each surface the light bounces off diminishes it even further etc, so plant life would really really struggle to photosynthesize... Why Photosynthesize? Ignoring fish for a minute... there are plenty of examples of life at the depths of the oceans, and corals that don't need light to live. Many of these live around hydro-thermal vents, and they get their energy needs from converting the abundance of nutrients and minerals around them, this process is called chemosynthesis, this happens at a bacterial level and then other plants and corals live off those bacteria. Its very plausible that given the right geothermal conditions that life would exist in these caves in pools of water... perhaps those pools come from the melted glacial ice that forms the roof Mix this with Fungi that don't photosynthesize but live off their environment, which could include living off the chemosynthesizing life... and you have most of a proper life cycle right there. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemosynthesis> Then of course there is the very theorectical Thermosynthesis, although this has never been seen before in real life. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermosynthesis> [Answer] > > Is there any sort of crystal, mineral, substance, or something else naturally occurring that could reflect light into most parts of the cave? > > > I am afraid not. While it can happen that some naturally occurring materials are transparent (think gems), to have reflection you need to have both the right material AND the right surface condition, meaning a polished surface. While some metals can be worked to make a pretty decent mirror, they never naturally come in nicely polished surface state. They shine, but don't reflect like a mirror. Think of gold or silver nuggets, since they are the only two naturally occurring metals. [![gold nuggets](https://i.stack.imgur.com/IH3jG.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/IH3jG.jpg) You can still have reflective surfaces in the right conditions, like grazing light on water surface, but that would * complicate the internal design of your caves to have the light traveling deep into the cave * work only in precise moments of the day, since the external light source won't be stationary in the sky [Answer] I think your best bet is a quartz cavern that has collapsed. <https://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m550/SSgtMatt/crystal-cave-4.jpg> <http://chantcrystalhealing.co.za/crystal-caves/> ]
[Question] [ There are many questions on WBSE that cover most aspects of building a planetary system. (some examples below): [Creating a realistic world(s) map - planetary systems](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/21408/creating-a-realistic-worlds-map-planetary-systems?r=SearchResults&s=1\|63.5068) [How many planets should I have in my planetary system?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/116059/how-many-planets-should-i-have-in-my-planetary-system?r=SearchResults&s=4\|53.9259) [What distances would be involved in this planetary system?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/35775/what-distances-would-be-involved-in-this-planetary-system?r=SearchResults&s=9\|48.2824) But it occurred to me that while a sci-fi story setting might need the complete details of the system, a story set in a medieval or any similar society with pre-telescope or primitive telescope technology would only need to build the parts of the system that would be observable by the inhabitants of participants of the story, or the well known and widespread knowledge of the society that those participants are members of. So ... How far away (maximum distance) can humans detect planets with the naked eye? Assume best observable conditions for naturally occurring planets. As far as I can tell from my limited research, this should limit the albedo of the observed planet to about .8 (unless you can give a reasonable explanation of why it should be more or less than that), and the radius of the observed planet should be no more than about that of Jupiter (again, unless a reasonable reason for an exception is given). Assume ideal observing conditions, such as no light pollution, good (perfect specimen human) eyesight, ideal alignment of star and observing planet and observed planet for best lighting of observed planet, etc. Also assume a sun-like star, and earth-like planet as far as atmosphere and other observation characteristics, though human habitability is not a requirement except as it directly relates to human-like observation (a fictional atmosphere is allowed, as long as there is an explanation of how it improves observation, while not entirely preventing complex life in general). Earth-like orbit is NOT required for either planet. This question has applications not only for general world-building, but can also be used as a basis for calculating orbit times which then apply to things like creating mythologoes, calendars, religious influences, cultural iconography, and much more. [Answer] With the naked eye, [humans can see approximately 6th-magnitude objects](https://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-resources/light-pollution-and-astronomy-the-bortle-dark-sky-scale/). We can compute the apparent magnitude of a planet at a given distance, and find the distance corresponding to an apparent magnitude of +6. [The formula is](https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/a/5983/2153) $$m\_p=M\_p+5\log\left(\frac{d}{10\text{ pc}}\right)$$ where $m\_p$ and $M\_p$ are the apparent and absolute magnitudes and $d$ is the distance from Earth to the planet. $M\_p$ can be calculated if we know $M\_S$, the absolute magnitude of the Sun: $$M\_p=M\_S-2.5\log\left(a\frac{R\_p^2}{4d\_s^2}\right)$$ where $d\_s$ is the distance from the planet to the Sun and $r\_p$ is its radius. Let's say that $d\_s\approx d$, by assuming that the planet is much further from the Sun than Earth is. Finally, we get $$m\_p=M\_S-2.5\log\left(a\frac{R\_p^2}{4d^2}\right)+5\log\left(\frac{d}{10\text{ pc}}\right)$$ This has the solution $$d=\sqrt{\frac{a^{1/2}R\_J\cdot10\text{ pc}}{2}}10^{\cfrac{m\_p-M\_S}{10}}$$ Let's say $R\_p\approx R\_J$, the radius of Jupiter, and $a=0.5$ - also like Jupiter. Then, given that $M\_S=4.83$, I get 24 astronomical units - about halfway between Uranus and Neptune. We can't see Neptune with our naked eyes, but we can see Uranus under good conditions, which matches our calculations (although note that the ice giants have different albedos). Let's say we choose an even higher albedo - say, $a=0.8$, as you suggested. This gets me up to 27, even closer to Neptune. [Answer] Uranus was detected by naked eye in the classical age but because it is too slow it wasn't recoginzed as a planet. [In the "discovery" section](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranus). So the classical astrological manuals that are aware of its existence classify the planet as a fixed star. So it's not only visibility that matters but also the speed because if it is too slow it will be classified as fixed star. ]
[Question] [ The civilization in question here has colonized the solar system. They have established settlements on most solid planets. Of course, a space-faring people generates plenty of trash, but they have a few ideas. Is it possible for this trash to be sent into space, and formed into an artificial moon? Could humans potentially live on it? [Answer] The main obstacle to what you propose is cost. Just look at what happens today in every city of this world: transportation is cheap, yet we barely move our garbage few km out the door and throw it in some landfill. Garbage has no value, and whatever one does with it has to be dirty cheap. No long distance transportation, no fancy things. Same would hold for your civilization: why using fuel, ships and launch windows just to discard garbage? If your people are traveling space, it means more of the planet is available for landfill and garbage storage, where it won't risk impacting some transiting space ship. Even worse, building up a moon requires additional effort to set up and control its orbit. Just dump it on the planet. [Answer] Using [this](http://www.theworldcounts.com/counters/shocking_environmental_facts_and_statistics/world_waste_facts) as a reference for amount of rubbish generated, averages to about 281.5 kg/person per year. Our [moon has a mass of 7.342×10^22 kg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon), so doing the math, the [current population of earth](http://www.theworldcounts.com/counters/shocking_environmental_facts_and_statistics/world_population_clock_live) would need 34.63 billion years in order to produce the amount of rubbish needed to create a moon with the mass of our own. See [here](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=7.342%C3%9710%5E22%20kg%20%2F%202.12%20x%2010%5E12%20kg%2Fy) for a few more details. Also keep in mind that our moon (or other planetary objects with similar mass/size) won't be able to hold an atmosphere, so having humans living on the Trash Planet (ignoring other issues) would mean it would need to be much larger. Since your civilization is a space faring one, with populations on a number of different planets, it's logical to assume there's quite a few more of them. Taking that into account, we could calculate the total population needed in order to produce the amount of rubbish needed in a more feasible amount of time. So if say, you wanted to build it in the span of 200 years, you'd need a population of 1.304×10^18. That's about 170 million Earths worth of people. Considering this all takes place in the future, you would assume waste would be somewhat reduce (hopefully recycling and such). You could of course have the future people go in the complete opposite direction (what with rubbish being needed for the Trash Planet construction) and have them produce more rubbish, but even doubling the amount of rubbish per person and doubling the construction time to 400 still means you need roughly 44 million Earths worth of people. All that aside, making an artificial world also seems somewhat tough, at least according to [this thread](https://www.quora.com/Is-it-possible-to-create-an-artificial-planet). While you're not really looking to make a whole planet, making it habitable in any form (even with Moon bases etc) seems unfeasible given the timespan needed to get it to settle down. ]
[Question] [ Doanaldin Trumpet, the first female president of the Corporate States of America, has passed a revolutionary bill called the D.E.D (despicable exploitation of the dead) act. This allows employers advantages in society never before seen in our nations history. All future employees wanting to gain employment in any company must sign a waiver allowing their corpses to be resurrected by their employer. By paying a considerable fee, a corporation can hire a necromancer to bring back a dead worker as a form of undead. These zombies are fully intelligent and retain their memories of life, as well as any skills or knowledge they may have developed. The resurrection process returns their youthful vigor, e.g. by regenerating their mitochondria, such that the resurrectee could potentially outshine any living employee by many orders of magnitude. This way, the worker continues to serve his company in life and death. However, upkeep of the body is still expensive, giving a necromancer continued value. The ritual thst brought them back must be repeated at various times to maintain their unseat and prevent them from decaying. How can I make this system more profitable and appealing for an employer over training someone new to do the same job? [Answer] # This wont work Originally i was writing something that agreed with and elaborated on Thornes answer. But as i thought about it this simply wont work. the problem is consciousness The recognized problem with slave labor and socialist societies is the lack of incentive. For manual labor this is ok but work that requires mental exertion this always falls apart. Because these undead are intelligent and conscious their work output would suffer from lack of incentive on cognitive tasks. You could argue that they would be working to overcome the pain of decay. How would the above be different than the lash? You could argue they would be working to live. Why do they want to live? At this point their after life is pain and slavery. Maybe you could argue that they are working for the peace of death. Then you would have to end them at some point which defeats the cost of resurrection vs simply letting them live. Not to mention fear and pain have been proven to be terrible motivators for cognitive work. In just about every scenario intelligent zombie slaves simply become infeasible. # Here is the only possibility It isnt treated as slavery but as a health benefit. If the employee should die as a result of an accident, they may opt in to and may recieve a zombie resurrection from the company. They may receive life sustaining services from the company at the company's discretion (allows the company to ensure cost benefit). This makes their resurrection and existence optional and manageable by the company. They could sell this to the community as means of offering loved ones a chance for goodbyes. If the zombie wishes to 'live' they must work for it. [Answer] Lack of undead rights The dead don't need to eat or sleep nor do they need to be paid. Once you die, the company owns you until your body wears out. It's so profitable, the government needs ways to make it less attractive to companies so living people get employed. [Answer] Rebranding Are people feeling squeamish about re-employing the undead? You can start with an aggressive PR campaign. Even if you can't alter how people view zombie colleagues you can at least change what's the PC way of talking about them. They didn't die, they took a power dirt nap. They're not undead, they rejoined the living. Remember, if home is where the heart is then a cardiac arrest is a house arrest, and at Necrocorpolis LLC we believe in giving convicts a second chance so that's why we rehired Joe who died of a heart attack. Continuity Now you don't have to worry about retirement or even death getting in the way of a proper handover, reducing disruption to productivity and ensuring stability in the corporate culture. You can even ensure lifelong(ahem) employment if need be. In fact, zombies are likely to be more productive than their colleagues simply because their continued existence is entirely dependent on their jobs. With these facts it should be easy to convince investors and management. Untapped markets This resurrection process has massive export potential in certain Asian countries like Japan, where the zaibatsus (used to) promise lifelong employment. With this new tech they can now fulfill their promise to the letter. [Colleague died due to overwork?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kar%C5%8Dshi) Why not make things right by bringing him/her back to keep on working? Employee rights Having toxic behaviour issues in your workplace? Did your colleague commit suicide due to bullying? Raise him/her back from the dead so that s/he can set the record straight and denounce those whose actions caused their original predicament. Making a show of allowing your employees to air their grievances even after their initial "power dirt nap" should be great for your corporate image. [Answer] This approach is not suitable for all kind of jobs. Think of corporate companies: I hear stories from colleagues who had to manually fill a timesheet to register their worked hours until few years ago, while I simply swipe a badge, or other accounts of how using a PC was considered a status symbol in the office. So, you don't want to apply this method to jobs with high knowledge turnover rate, where your zombies would suffer from technology gap. Instead you want to apply it to jobs with well consolidated and slow or no changing knowledge. Think of violin making, or some other craftsmanship intensive job. Resurrect a Stradivari, and the violins he will continue making will repay your investment with a 3 digits figure. [Answer] Under the circumstances you describe, there's literally no reason I can see why every person wouldn't commit suicide at 25 or 30 to retain their youth and "live" forever. Just cost, but what's a little money compared to eternity? If I were a necromancer, I'd set up a payment plan system for them after death. Now if you lose some of your faculties, such as the ability to learn and grow your mind, or become reliant on the necromancer's continued life, that'd be a potential problem. For your hypothetical business though, there's no reason not to do this. New hires are generally considered to not add value to the business for at least a month, perhaps more depending on the nature of the work. Meaning you're dropping many thousands of dollars a month on staff that barely contribute. A resurrected worker, now indentured to the company, with all their institutional knowledge and skills intact? That's extraordinarily valuable. Loss of institutional knowledge can sink companies if it's not accounted for. RL example: A company I worked for imploded shortly after I left despite my attempt to document my knowledge of our systems, there was simply so much complexity involved! Now you have a workforce with massively reduced turnover of staff, far longer hours and you can essentially build a perfect team by cherry-picking anyone who has the skills you need. Given their minimal requirements you could store them in the basement and construct your team from a roster like a Fantasy Football team for each project. Your productivity is going to explode. You'd certainly want to employ your own in-house necromancy team as part of Human Resources. Nobody wants the ultimate power of life and death over your staff to be outside the walls of your business! [Answer] As a leader of the conservative party, you should know that anything you develop which is profitable inevitably leads to taxation by the liberal party. Expect the liberal party to impose a zombie tax and decomposition abatement fee on all resurrected employees. You must invest in lawyers to pass an extension of the Voting Rights Act that allows resurrected employees to have full state and federal voting rights in order to squash those new taxes. Next, the necromancer fees for an industrialized nation are sure to be higher than similar fees in developing nations, so your zombie employees may still not be as profitable as FOREIGN zombies working in foreign factories. How will you protect the livelihood of domestic necromancers and zombies? ]
[Question] [ Closed. This question is [opinion-based](/help/closed-questions). It is not currently accepting answers. --- Want to improve this question? Update the question so it can be answered with facts and citations by [editing this post](/posts/129424/edit). Closed 5 years ago. [Improve this question](/posts/129424/edit) EDIT: I have been asked to create a more concise and specific question. The question I would ask is what would be a (good) reason for my dragons as a species, having no inherent reason to share human values, to hoard gold? Here are some background from TV Tropes to prepare for my question and discussion (see full page <https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DragonHoard> for more insights): > > In some settings, dragons tend to guard hoards of treasure — typically by lying on top of it. [...] Curiously, there is no consensus as to why dragons do this. Justifications in-story for why a dragon sits on a hoard, including backstories of how hoard and dragon came together, vary considerably. In some ways, hoard-guarding dragons are no different from other treasure guardians: [...] Dragons have a peculiarity, though, in that they are especially attached to gold: dragon-hoards almost always contain at least a substantial share of gold. Whatever the reasons, on average dragons show noticeably less interest in other treasures, like silver or even jewels. People have also long noticed — see that Beowulf quote — that dragons have no apparent use for treasure: they cannot spend, wear or process it. More often than not, they don't do anything beyond brood over or sleep on their treasure. Dragons, it was concluded, must be pathologically avaricious and stingy—kind of like a species of compulsive hoarders with a Money Fetish. In fact, up to the 17th century, dragons were considered the emblematic representation of Greed. > > > The idea to have dragons as a symbol of greed, seems to me to be a result of the human conceit that a separate species should possess the same values about gold and greed that humans do; a human conceit. My worlds have dragons, very intelligent dragons I might add for context. I would like to evoke some typical dragon attributes from mythology, folklore and older fantasy, but I'd like to make justifications for them that would work alongside my own take on dragons. The question of the practical use for the dragons in my world to hoard gold has proven to be a challenge to satisfyingly answer for myself, in relation to the context of my dragons. Here are some pointers of my worlds dragons that influence my thought on their gold hoarding: 1. As a species, they predate the existence of humans (homo sapiens), by maybe a greater time spans than mere millenia. A dragon species that predates humans shouldn't possess the same thoughts on and values regarding gold that humans do, but have their own reasons that existed before the human species and human civilization. They would have hoarded gold nuggets in the time before humans made coins and cups of the metal (and then some dragons would have gone over to plundering humans instead). 2. They developed the (supernatural?) ability to perceive the presence of (large?) concentrations of gold at a distance, a "gold sense". Before, I made this sound like a natural evolution, but my own idea was that the dragons, a species in possession of magic, modified themselves as a species to give them the ability. If they found gold important enough to modify their very species (think human gene-editing) to have an easier time of finding it, gold should have some practical use for the dragons. 3. The dragons are solitary creatures, each self-sufficient enough to survive and even thrive on their own without the help of another member of their species. Now, being intelligent, they could engage in some social exchange, there always comes the time for procreation, and some dragons might form pairs that last longer than they have to rear the young (who might be self-sufficient very quickly, being dragons). But I don't envision them conglomerating into settlments as a general rule (though a rare encounter with a village of dragons sounds interesting...); they could have a common culture, but perhaps nothing akin to a human society. The point of all of this being, the dragons probably wouldn't have use for anything, including gold, for monetary purposes (as in currency). (See also TV Tropes "dragon's cannot spend gold" for comparison.) 4. The dragons are intelligent and mighty in magic (I don't know how structured or wild their magic is, though), but they lack the limb appendages to make use of gold as humans do in goldsmithing and engineering. Some kind of magical technique could work as a replacement of human hands, I guess, but otherwise it's seems less likely that dragons would make use of gold as humans do. Also, as a self-sufficient organism mighty in magic, it would seem to me that the dragons would have had no reason to develop any such technology as humans might have done, so I would guess that dragon's would not hoard gold for gold's uses in engineering. I would rather think that there would be some reason rooted in magic. (See also TV Tropes "dragon's cannot process gold" for comparison). Because of that last thought on a magical reason, I tried to research the magical uses of gold in real world mythology and folklore to use as a baseline. Here is a question I asked on the Mythology Stack Exchange for that purpose: <https://mythology.stackexchange.com/questions/5224/what-are-the-supernatural-properties-of-gold-in-mythology-and-folklore> But I found very little that could be of practical use. At most, I found that gold is associated with eternity and immortality, and that Chinese alchemists might have thought that it could be used to confer immortality, or at the very least act as a healing agent. That last part sounded useful, but then I remembered that using gold for healing purposes is already in use in the Feruchemy of Brandon Sandersons Mistborn, and I don't know if it would be safe to use that idea (correct me if I am wrong here). (Regarding immortality, I find it of less use for my dragons because I already think of them as living forever barring mortal injury, though that could be changed to extremely long-lived, I guess). Researching the reason for dragons to hoard gold elsewhere, I found some alternatives. One is the suggestion of dragons hoarding gold (or shining items in general) to attract mates. Another is that they hoard gold for just the reason to sleep on it, with gold being a soft metal (dragon's have armor-scales and probably dull tactile senses) that does not catch fire (from dragon fire-breath) and does not corrode (from acidic exudations). They are valid suggestions, in that they give reasons that make sense, but I personally would like other reasons for my dragons. In context, if they went so far as to modifiy their own species to sense gold at a distance, it feels like it should be for a greater purpose than to find bedding material. And while finding mates definitly seems of greater importance than bedding material, I feel like it wouldn't justify going so far as to modify their species. As a side note I thought of as I wrote this, I would think that dragons would have it in their mentality that if their only reason for collecting gold was to attract mates, they would have refrained from introducing a gold sense into their species in order to make it a much harder exercise to find gold to attract mates, thus promoting the most successful dragons above the less succesful ones; a "winner takes all" mentality that seems like a natural fit for the very powerful dragon species. Now, this question is asked in the name of world building for fantasy, so it doesn't need a science fiction answer, but a science fiction answer could also be usable in some fantasy. This is outside of the question, but if the possible answers also could include other types of treasure that dragons could hoard (gems, silver, etc.), it would be a bonus. The question formulated another way and as a reminder: *A non-human (and perhaps* non-scientific) reason for members of my dragon species to hoard gold, what would that be?** If anyone gives an answer here, I will make additions below this paragraph where I make comments that hopefully improve the discussion about this topic. [Answer] ### Phototaxis Dragons don't like exactly gold or silver. They like shiny thinks, which usually are gold, silver, mirrors, polished bronze, etc. Why do they like shiny things? Well, we can answer that with another question: Why do most of the insects get attracted by artificial light? That kind of insect has a positive [phototaxis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phototaxis) on them. `positive` means they get attracted by it, `photo` that it's about light and `taxis` that is something like a reflex (not exactly, reflex are more developed). This insect looks for light because most of their activities are done during the day (or at least with light). Also, they fly in circles around it because of a defect on their neural system about they eye-muscles coordination, but that isn't part of the question... Maybe dragons have some kind of phototaxis, and because in Medieval Ages lamps and lanterns didn't exist, they can only look for shiny items which reflex light. ### Defense The idea above could be quite general. It's an inherited factor of their ancestors, there is a lot of stuff on animals that aren't useful, they just remnants of old evolutions. Another idea could be a defence mechanism. They don't have phototaxis, but their enemies have photophobia (negative phototaxis). I don't know if dragons have a predator, but if that predator has fear of light, shiny stuff could be a defence mechanism. Also, if they only want gold, maybe the enemy's eyes aren't evolved to see golden-yellow light fine, so they use it as a camouflage advantage. ### Atack On maybe its the opposite of the idea above. Their preys have a positive phototaxis or are vulnerable to yellow light. Using vast amount of gold they can make easier to capture they prey. It works as a bait and as a distracting mechanism. Also, you don't need to invent a new creature, maybe they have already existent (that explain why dragons are so uncommon), or you can use an existent creature: Usually, dragons eat animals with a very high affinity over golden, shiny and expensive stuff, with lack of intelligence, and with a like for defying and fear situations with a high reward on that items -AKA: humans adventurers-. [Answer] * Silver has anti-microbial properties. Maybe dragons have some kind of a virus or skin condition that is vulnerable to gold rather than silver. * Dragons like to sleep in gold piles. Dragons breathe fire, and could have acidic sweat, so other metals will rust, oxidize or flake. Gold stays smooth and comfortable. Rocks are too hard, soil would gunk up the scales, wood will burn up. * It is a mating display. Some birds (and fishes) build a nest to attract a mate. Dragons do the same. No point to it, besides demonstrating fitness: dragon with biggest hoard is strongest and smartest. Even if dragons are too few to find mates now, the instinct lives on. * Gold reminds dragons of some food they used to eat it before it went extinct. Or rocks where they used to nest. This is again instinctive. * Chicken and some other birds swallow small stones to aid with food processing (gravel in gizzard grinds up seeds). Maybe dragons have similar needs, but they are met by gold. E.g. gold serves as catalyst to some digestive or fire-breathing process: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterogeneous_gold_catalysis> Unlike chickens, dragons poop the gold out, and need to constantly eat more, and let poopy gold sit for a while so it loses the stench. * Gold has some radioactive isotopes, that are actually used IRL to treat cancer: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_gold> Perhaps dragons need that radiation for their own body, or for their eggs. Their ability to detect this radiation could explain how they find gold. But: gold's radioactive isotopes do not last long, and are a tiny fraction of naturally occuring gold, so they were originally supplied by dragon's creators. Now creators are gone, and so is isotopic gold (so dragons cannot reproduce anymore), but the instinct to seek out gold has survived. In fact, perhaps dragons were created specifically to seek out and mine gold for their masters, with isotopes as a failsafe to prevent uncontrollable growth of their population. [Answer] I've heard before that perhaps dragon eggs need to be surrounded by a certain chemical or substance produced by gold/silver/other treasures to hatch, thus the dragons hoard gold for their current or future offspring. ]
[Question] [ Underwater, merfolk see no need for clothing. It just slows them down, and the material that they need for it is expensive and hard to get. On the surface, however, the humanoids find their nudity distasteful and offensive. To avoid conflict, the merfolk have agreed to cover up when they're in surface cities. The only problem is how to design it. A few background things, first: * Their tails cannot change into legs and/or feet. They must remain the same way * The merfolk live in cities alongside humanoids. While they do have their own, underwater districts, many parts of the city are above water. To accommodate them, canals are built alongside the sidewalks and most public buildings have a section with shallow water for them * The clothing needs to work underwater, as there are underwater parts of the city where nudity is still illegal. Drag isn't too much of an issue here, but it is still a factor * The clothing is for modesty and style. I want it to cover the chest, though accessories on the hair and tail are fine. The tail can remain uncovered, as genitals are hidden through a flap-like thing that isn't easily seen What would the clothing look like, and how would it be designed to avoid drag and weight underwater? [Answer] You say drag is not too much of an issue, but as a swimmer I find that hard to believe. Drag is everything in the water. Accordingly, you would probably want a covering which does not markedly increase drag. Typically this means form fitting. Stretchy materials like polyamides and spandex, are ideal. Likewise, you would probably want to stick to weaves which are stretchy. You want something like [this](https://www.amazon.co.uk/OUO-Boysuit-Swimwear-Swimsuit-Legsuit/dp/B010NQO30I): [![Boysuit](https://i.stack.imgur.com/UQZZL.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/UQZZL.jpg) That covers all of your primary modesty concerns. In fact, it's rather on the way towards a [burkini](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burkini), which was explicitly designed to meet the modesty concerns of Muslim cultures while still providing acceptable swimming capabilities. Beyond that, any additional "frills" to cover up particular parts of the body could be added on as your culture sees fit. Cultural dress is a tremendously complicated topic. If your culture demands an elaborate poofy structure on the left shoulder of all unmarried women, add it at your leisure! [Answer] Recently there was a bit of controversy in IRL swimming competitions about the usage of "[sharkskin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-technology_swimwear_fabric)" wetsuits - ultra-low drag material that was claimed gave an unfair advantage to swimmers. Eventually regulations were passed governing the type of swimwear material that could be used. This technology could be adapted by your merfolk for their clothing, to minimise drag and reduce the impact of having to cater to the silly humanoid sensibilities. To fulfil your coverage requirements, a simple long vest, or wetsuit with joined legs would suffice. Various colouring and patterns could then be applied for decoration. Various dry-bag solutions exist if any of your merfolk want to carry the latest electronic gadgets with them underwater. [Answer] Clothing is not the speciality of the merfolk. While nudity is still illegal in some parts of the underwater city, most merfolk see it as just something to be accepted into human society for the most part, and nothing more. Therefore practicality is the focus here. In order to be accepted into the city, they must be covered decently, and that's it. A merfolk isn't going to go through the hassle of buying human clothes, also considering paying money for something they don't need except as a ticket into the city is a waste of money, not to mention the clothes aren't designed for underwater travel so they'd be quickly discarded. They want something cheap that does the job and isn't going to be a hamper on them later when they swim in the water. They choose kelp. Kelp grows abundantly in the oceans and its fibers are tough and resistant in water. When they dry, they keep their form and could even pass as a sort of low-quality leather material which could resemble shabby clothes. The kelp leaves are woven together in such a way as to use the stem of the leaf, since anywhere else would tear with strong currents of the water while swimming. They only focus on covering enough as well, so most merfolk would probably not even bother with covering their limbs or head. And the best advantage is that the kelp leaves would cling to them while they swim, as to not create serious drag in the water, unlike human clothes. The kelp leaves survive quite well without being attached to the plant, and if the merfolk swim in water often, the leaves are also continually kept watered. However the leaves would eventually die and wither away, so the merfolk would need to continually renew their dress often. This wouldn't be problematic though, as the amount of work put into creating a wearable garb is minimal, and sold outside most gates by merfolk themselves before entry into the city. That said, merfolk would stink. This means they probably would still be rejected from the higher part of the city housing the nobility. That said, most things in the city would stink, so the coin of the merfolk would still be accepted in most other institutions. In order for a merfolk to be represented in court, he or she would likely have to wear clothes best suited for a nobleman's child and wear plenty of perfume. [Answer] Body paint. [![body paint](https://i.stack.imgur.com/8WFfr.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/8WFfr.jpg) <https://www.balientertainmentcompany.com/face-body-painting/> Advantages: 1: It can be carried in a small jar; minimal bulk. 2: It can be applied and reapplied as needed. 3: The paint merfolk use is water resistant. It will eventually wash or wear off but it is good for a few hours in the water. 4: No drag while swimming. 5: Merfolk appreciate their own contours. Body paint disguises but does not entirely conceal. 6: Nonhumanoid aspects of the body are equally well addressed by body paint. 7: It looks awesome. [Answer] Modesty and Style As it has been mentioned before, there are standard materials for the clothes that can work underwater with little drag. The "style" part of the question is where the differences are more interesting. Merfolks need to move freely underwater, so I imagine the clothes must be modest (without bulky elements or ornaments causing drag) and tight. But at the same time, they need to show the specialness of the occasion. For example, if they go to a business meeting, they need an elegant tight suit alike the suits human wear. I imagine something like this: [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/1X7WJ.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/1X7WJ.jpg) And for everyday living, I imagine they could use designs that represent the color patterns underwater, or based on some aquatic animal they like (a jellyfish in the left, a shark at the center, and a crab in the right). [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/hlU0z.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/hlU0z.jpg) PS: The pencil drawings are not mine. I got them from the web (I neeed models). [Answer] I wonder if humans would be as potentially offended by the bottom half of a merperson as the top half. It's very likely that they'd only need to worry about shirts, and perhaps foundation garments for the females. I'd be more curious as to how they get around human environments farther away from the water if their tails do not transform. I forsee a large number of rentable wheelchairs or scooters, possibly with blankets to drape over their tails. ]
[Question] [ If a medieval-level society with access to things like magic (which itself follows the laws of thermodynamics) were to have some understanding of the laws of thermodynamics, how would the 2n law be stated? I ask this because, in a medieval world the physical sciences are not advanced enough to have mathematically precise definitions of these laws. The first law could be stated as: "Nothing can be created or destroyed, only change form." You get a vague idea about how this works. You need not define it using 'dU = dQ - W'. How would the 2nd law be stated in a similar way? I was thinking something like: "The natural evolution of all things is towards decay and this process is unstoppable". The thing is, this doesn't seem really like a re-statement of the 2nd law as much as it is a consequence of the 2nd law. Obviously the word 'decay' doesn't quite capture a full understanding of entropy but we're not going to be making use of natural logarithms in this kind of fantasy/magic using society. Thanks in advance for any ideas! [Answer] The answer will depend on what they do have. You'll have to decide what sorts of models they use to describe their world. Your definition will also need to relate to what conclusions you want to draw. The more informal the conclusions, the more informal the definition can be. Personally, I like the prior art of [Aristotle's approach to motion](https://www.iep.utm.edu/aris-mot/). Obviously this predates the mathematics for modern thermodynamics. What I find fascinating about this is that he divides energy into two classes. There's energia, which is the energy to "do stuff" which is immediately visible. Then there's entelechia, which is the energy required to stay the same. The famous example provided in that article is that a fish must expend energy to remain a fish. If it fails to spend that energy, it becomes meat. It is an approach which fits quite well with the human experience, but is effective at showing many of the laws of thermodynamics in some manner. [Answer] In the real world, the amazingly photogenic [Rudolf Clausius](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Clausius) presented [an early version](https://archive.org/stream/londonedinburghd12lond#page/86/mode/2up) of the second law of thermodynamics in the 1850's: > > Heat can never pass from a colder to a warmer body without some other change, connected therewith, occurring at the same time. > > > In other words, in order for energy in a dispersed, high entropy state to transfer to a more concentrated, lower entropy state, some outside force must be applied. For your magical world, this can be reworded to: > > Energy can never pass from a chaotic to an ordered body without some other change, connected therewith, occurring at the same time. > > > In other words, in order for the ambient magical energy of the world to transfer into an ordered, tangible state such as a spell, some outside force must be applied by a spellcaster. [Answer] According to [Physics for Dummies](http://physicsforidiots.com/physics/thermodynamics/), > > Essentially entropy is the measure of disorder and randomness in a system. > > > 2nd Law = “The entropy of the universe tends to a maximum.” > > > --- According to historical myths/legends and religious creation myths > > In the beginning there was Chaos/disorder...and it wants to come back. > > > --- So if your 1st Law of Thermodynamics is > > Nothing can be created or destroyed, only change form. > > > Then your 2nd Law of Thermodynamics would be a collection of related concepts > > Without a guiding force, Order always falls into Chaos. > > > and > > Chaos seeks out more Chaos. > > > and/or > > Order cannot come from Chaos, unless firmly directed. > > > It gives a lovely justification for your ruling class to lord it over the uncivilized masses. (please note the heavy sarcasm) [Answer] If you're talking about the magic with aether of your last question I think it would be something like God or whatever in charge of magic and energy is egalitarian and want the same amount of those everywhere so if there is some energy or aether to snatch from the spell you casted, he will do it. Your godlike entity must not be to powerful tho otherwise it will just equalize everything once and for all. [Answer] The Second Law of Thermodynamics (in our real, non-magical universe) can be well stated without recourse to Mathematics, as follows: "Heat cannot, of itself, pass from one body to a hotter body." I think this may address how to express the 2nd Law in terms that non-scientists can understand. But I can't take credit for this statement of the 2nd Law; it (and a concise, understandable statement of the 1st Law) are from Flanders & Swann - 'First And Second Law' available online as of this posting at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnbiVw_1FNs> Enjoy! (And be edified ;-) ]
[Question] [ I'm writing a sci-fi story in which a group of people are stuck in an endless desert. While I've mostly figured out the philosophical aspects of the story, there are still the practical ones. It's a desert. No water, scarce food, hot during the day, maybe cold during the night. The people have arrived there wearing only their clothes and maybe carrying a few pieces of technology and some transportation. Is it realistically possible to survive this journey for long? [Answer] A human cannot live more than 3-4 days without drinking, especially in a broiling environment like a desert. Their immediate chances of survival depend on the ability to find an oasis, where they can gather water, within 3 days at most. Then comes the issue of clothing: a warm desert is a nasty place, one need to be protected from the sun and heat during the day, and from the freezing cold during the night. No, the fancy bermuda and short sleeves shirt are not going to do a lot for them, it would be better if they would be dressed like the [Tuareg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuareg_people), with wool to insulate them from the environment. Last but not least, the problem of food: finding food in a desert is pretty difficult, but a human can survive some week without food as long as water is available. But if they manage to find an oasis, they might also find some food: birds, plants, rodents, insects. Of course, the above figures are valid for healthy people in decent conditions. If they are older or younger, the survival span may drastically shorten. [Answer] Yes. But they need a guide. [![lizard man](https://i.stack.imgur.com/wtvUJ.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/wtvUJ.jpg) <http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?38562-Lizard-Man> Random humans in the desert will die, as prior answers lay out. But your castaways encounter a native who shows them how to survive. I envision this native as without speech, or at least speech the humans understand. Its motives are unclear but it becomes very clear that this alien desert is dangerous, and without the help of the guide the humans will rapidly die. I like the idea that the alien guide is paid by the humans in song. The humans know a lot of songs. We all do. [Answer] Remember the "hierarchy of survival." Humans can survive for 3 minutes without oxygen, three hours without shelter (meaning naked in any extreme climate, hot or cold), 3 days without water and three weeks without food. Based on that hierarchy the heat could kill them in a few hours, and lack of water in a few days at most. Even if they overcome both of those issues, in whatever way, they're probably going to starve to death within weeks unless someone has the expertise and equipment to do some hunting or foraging. You need to describe your setting well because depending on what kind of desert they're in they're possibly going to die a lot faster or last a lot longer; something like the [Sonoran](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonoran_Desert) is far more survivable than the [Empty Quarter's](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rub%27_al_Khali) sand seas. [Answer] No water is enough: they will live up to three days before dying of thirst. And this implies very nasty things like drinking their own wastes and finally blood. ]
[Question] [ After the apocalypse, In Baja California, off the coast of Tijuana, there is the wreckage of the oil tanker, Exxon-Cazador, which was run aground and abandoned by its crew while the first bombs started hitting their targets. It’s cargo, oil, was already delivered, so no oil spill. The local tribal communities in San Diego and Tijuana see it as sort of a quasi-religious figure. They think it was a sea monster that burned up the world during the apocalypse, and when they fish, they give the second largest to the “Sea Beast” and pray to it for good weather. Sometimes, the tribes take scavenged transistors and radio parts and die from ingesting them. Anyway, the Sea Beast remains unmaintained, so how long could the Sea Beast actually remain before being unrecognizable or at the bottom of the sea? [Answer] The examples in other answers of modern steel ships deteriorating within a decade or so are not encouraging for your plot. And it is because "They don't make them like they (occasionally) used to". The SS Great Britain, launched in 1843, was one of the most historic ships ever built. It's great size - the largest known ship at that time, metal hull, and screw propeller made it the model and template for modern ships. Great Britain ran aground on Drundrum Bay, North Ireland in 1846, but was re floated after a year. She carried passengers to and from Australia from 1852 to 1881, and then was converted into a sailing coal carrier. Damage in 1886 caused her to be sold as a floating coal bunker in the Falklands Islands. In 1937, after 51 years of low maintenance, she was towed to Sparrow Cove, scuttled so she would never float agin, and abandoned. Some of her metal was salvaged to repair battle damage to HMS Exeter in WWII. In 1970, after being partially submerged in Sparrow Cove for 33 years, Great Britain was re floated and taken back to Great Britain and restored as a museum ship. Yes, they don't build ships like they sometimes used to. For economic reasons modern ships aren't built as sturdy as some old time ships were. The S.S. Atlantus was one of twelve concrete ships built in the World War One period, launched in 1918. In 1926 it ran around at Sunset Beach, Cape May Point, New Jersey. It slowly crumbled over many decades until today only small parts are above the water at high tide. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Atlantus>[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Atlantus) <http://www.concreteships.org/ships/ww1/atlantus/death.html>[2](http://www.concreteships.org/ships/ww1/atlantus/death.html) Because the Atlantus was built out of five inch thick concrete it withstood the weather, salt water, and waves for decades longer than most steel ships would, but was also so heavy and slow it was impractical as a ship. Thus it would be unlikely for a ship, especially a giant oil tanker, built like the Atlantus to be available in some near future apocalypse. A second fleet of 24 concrete ships were built during World War II; with improved concrete technology they were lighter and stronger than the earlier ones. With maintenance, concrete ships can last for much longer than the Atlantus did. Nine of the WWII ships and one of the WWI ships are still afloat, though hulks, serving as breakwaters at Powell River, British Columbia. But an abandoned ship wouldn't get any maintenance after World War Three. So for your story to work you should have a fictional development of super strong super sturdy ships that are designed to last for centuries or millennia even without maintenance, and have them economical to build and use. Or possibly you might have a tsunami lift the ship and deposit it on the shore and then recede, leaving the ship high and dry. That is not good for a ship but at least most modern ships are flat bottomed and it will be safe from salt water and from waves, at least for decades, centuries, or millennia until the next tsunami strikes. Many boats and ships have been left inland by tsunamis, but I don't know if any tsunami has ever been strong enough to carry and deposit a large oil tanker onto dry land. If you search for images of "stranded boats in Aral Sea" you can see that some of them seem to still be in good condition after a few decades of being high and dry. <https://www.google.com/search?q=stranded+boats+in+aral+sea&newwindow=1&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjSg_fJsv7aAhULvVkKHemyBhsQ_AUICigB&biw=1920&bih=949>[3](https://www.google.com/search?q=stranded%20boats%20in%20aral%20sea&newwindow=1&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjSg_fJsv7aAhULvVkKHemyBhsQ_AUICigB&biw=1920&bih=949) You could have a ship built out of bronze, aluminum, or some other metal that might not rust or corrode as fast as Iron or steel. Bronze and aluminum and other metals are in some ways equal to, and in other ways superior to, iron and steel. Of course they are also inferior to steel in some ways, including price. Maybe the ship could be built with framework and plates that have steel in the inner layer and other, rust resistant, metals as the outer layer. Of course some metal combinations will actually corrode each other where they touch so the metals used would have to be carefully selected to avoid that. And of course a large ship could be built of some new synthetic material that has various good properties including being resistant to damage for a long time. [Answer] I think it would be fair to say that your local tribe might get a good decade or so out of their mighty god of steel and oil. After that, the ship will surely begin to collapse, and they may not see that as such a mighty god after all. Certainly by the second generation, kids will be laughing at their grandfathers for worshipping a lump of rust! Let's take a look at the wreck of the SS America, which is probably the most well documented wreck online. She ran aground in 1994 in relatively good condition, being towed for restoration. [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/IOVrg.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/IOVrg.jpg) By 2004, only the prow and bridge were left, and they were in poor shape: [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/7ofMS.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/7ofMS.jpg) By 2011, she had almost completely deteriorated: [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/DD6Y8.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/DD6Y8.jpg) As of earlier this year, there is not much left of her: [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/H1FQW.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/H1FQW.png) [Answer] You have said it was intentionally run aground - so the concept of disappearing to the bottom of the sea is a bit nonrelevant to your question I think. This leaves primarily weather as any destructive force. The only other mechanism for damage would come from some form of creature, with the most likely being human. Because the weather in that area very rarely is extreme, this is likely to last for a very long time. Potentially decades. It is very conceivable this would become a quasi religious location. The weather is only very rarely extreme, because of a cold ocean current that flows in that region. This means that any Hurricanes/ cyclones that head in for landfall there, lose a great deal of energy right before landfall. [Some information about the climate of San Diego](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_San_Diego) At some point you are likely to have an oil spill coming from it - once that begins, it will be devastating to any fishing based economy in the entire region. Possibly for centuries from that point on. [Some information about the Exxon Valdez Oil SPill and it's effects](https://www.livescience.com/44314-exxon-valdez-spill-anniversary-facts.html) The greatest risk to the integrity of the fuels tanks will come from human damage. Even a quasi Religious site can have people being people, trying to take artifacts for example... Or possibly a heretic of some kind, or another group who recognise it for what it is and attempt to remove the oil for their own use. [Answer] If you look at existing wrecks, salt and rust will eat them away The MV Sygna ran aground in 1974 and is virtually gone 45 years later See [MV Sygna](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Sygna) ]
[Question] [ What feature could more feasible evolve in a humanoid race, related to humans or not, that could be mistaken at first glance and/or conflated into by word of mouth exaggerating things, wings? [Answer] Hair? [![long dredlocks](https://i.stack.imgur.com/wbKCk.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/wbKCk.jpg) <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqUrKTb4ZH0> It is long. It can appear massive. It is attached. It moves with the wind. You can whip it back and forth. [Hair wings](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HairWings) are apparently an anime trope. [Answer] [Loose underarm skin](https://www.google.com/search?q=loose%20underarm%20skin&client=safari&rls=en&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjWguOo4uraAhVBnuAKHdLZAqIQ_AUoAnoECAAQBA&biw=996&bih=863#imgrc=Bw8dleBk9FAPrM:). I know we're supposed to give more detailed answers on this forum, but I think that link really speaks for itself as a complete reply to your query. [Answer] Graham Hancock, crank pseudo-historian and writer of crap "history", had a theory that the concept of winged angels arose from an advanced people in Mesopotamia (who were totally not Atlanteans) that wore capes made from feathers which the other, more primitive, locals mistook for wings. The supposed totally-not-Atlanteans disappeared when their totally-not-Atlantis homeland was destroyed in a natural disaster. [Answer] Literally anything. Hair, clothes , skin, muscles... It all depends on where the mistake comes from, there are countless historical examples of a murderer or even entire race of people, being labelled as baby eating red eyes claw handed evil people. it all depends on time and sitution If it is mistaken at first glance but the then corrected very quickly, then hair clothes or skin/muscle, or even actualy wings (you said humanoid not human), At that point it would be down to setting, just witnessing them move in a bird like manner, which the human brain would register: bird like manner, flappy arm movements, lage amount of hair/skin on the arms, = must be wings However, if it is seen once or twice and then they are an enemy that are rarely seen in person, then there is no limit ro how quickly or far removed that species' windely know description could become. unfortunately It is almost always down to the person perceiving something incorrectly, then what they are perceiving. [Answer] Some body part to regulate body temperature by dissipating heat might have a winglike shape. For example: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant#/media/File:African_Bush_Elephant.jpg>[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant#/media/File:African_Bush_Elephant.jpg) So if this humanoid species evolved from a group of animals that often overheated it might have some sort of wingish looking heat radiators on the back. [Answer] Perhaps they managed to make primitive wingsuits? That could easily be mistaken for wings. [Answer] Possibly the children have wings and can fly, and as they grow heavier and can now longer fly, the wings morph into heat exchange organs but still look somewhat like wings. The average adult human supposedly weighs about 62 kilograms or 133 pounds. That is much larger than the largest flying birds today. The largest flying birds, like the Great Bustard and the Kori Bustard, can weigh up to 21 kilograms or 46 pounds. A Mute Swan weighed 23 kilograms or 51 pounds, though it might have been too fat to fly. Thus really young human children would be light enough to fly - if they were built like birds - while older children and adults would not be. An intelligent species could have adults significantly smaller than the typical adult human. Thus their children would be lighter still. Adult specimens of Homo floresienses living on the island of Flores about 100,000 to 60,000 years ago have heights of 1.06 to 1.09 meters, or 3 feet 6 inches to 3 feet 7 inches. The weight of one adult has been estimated at 25 kilograms or 55 pounds. Thus adults of that semi or fully intelligent species would have been a little too heavy to fly even if they were built like birds and had wings, while children would have been small and light enough to fly for most of their childhood. So we can picture an intelligent species where the children weigh 10 or 20 pounds and can fly while the adults are heavier and are grounded. But, on the other hand the heaviest known extinct flying birds and reptiles were larger and heaver than any known birds at the present time. The extinct Argentavis magnificens, the largest flying bird, weighed an estimated 70 to 72 kilograms, or 154 to 159 pounds. The largest extinct flying reptiles weighed an estimated 200 to 250 kilograms or 440 to 550 pounds. Thus there could possibly be an intelligent species where the children were built like prehistoric flying reptiles and could fly until they reached body weights of 500 pounds or more, but then had to live on the ground or in the water as larger adults. Their wings, now useless for flight might shirk in size but still be used to get rid of excess body heat and be used for display in interpersonal relations. If humans only met the adults of a species somewhere between Homo floresienses and Quetzalcoatlus northropi in size, the adults' former wings might resemble wings enough for humans to think they were wings and to imagine that the adults could fly. [Answer] 1. Some kind of dorsal decoration or mate attraction thingy kinda like peacocks or a spinosaurus (there is a debate whether Spinosaurus used his Sail as a temeprature regulator or to attract mates, but that's not the point), but twofold. 2. If you accepted (semi-)aquatic lifestyle, two dorsal fins could look like wings. 3. As has been suggested before, heat regulating organs. ]
[Question] [ This question already has answers here: [What is the amputationility of a monomolecular wire weapon?](/questions/19249/what-is-the-amputationility-of-a-monomolecular-wire-weapon) (5 answers) Closed 5 years ago. Can you survive being sliced by an object if it is thin enough? The following properties hold for this object: * It is composed of a non-toxic, body-temperature material, equivalent in weight to carbon * Its cross-section is as small as can possibly be, only 1x1 atom thick * It is longer than the height of any human * It is completely rigid * It cannot be broken by any means And for the circumstances to consider: * Is it possible for this object to pass through a human without harming them? * And if this statement holds, at what speeds does this statement hold true? + Is there a minimum and maximum speed, which when crossed, the property no longer holds? + Could it be a problem that the object has enough momentum to displace a human and kill it, rather than passing through it? My thoughts are that, because human cells are much larger than an atom, and many individual cells can be damaged before a human is actually harmed, that it's possible to survive being hit by an object of this description. [Answer] It would probably kill pretty much any way you used it. To see why, you need to get down to the molecular level. A human cell is made up of a dense dispersion of proteins in water. Human bone is a composite of a mineral (apatite, basically) and collagen protein. The mineral provides most of the compressive strength; the collagen provides most of the tensile strength. Here's a model of a fairly typical protein: [![A messy, coiled chain of amino acids](https://i.stack.imgur.com/catiR.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/catiR.jpg) The dots are atoms and the lines connecting the dots are bonds. If a ultra-thin wire just one atom in diameter passed through it, it would break every bond creating free radical galore and push the atoms aside, basically leaving a flat plane of devastation. The free radicals produced would probably kill the cells involved. (Cells have mechanisms to scavenge free radicals, but not in this high a concentration.) So you have a sheet of dead cells one cell thick cutting through your body. Soft tissue would probably heal if it got a chance, but I see three things which probably wouldn't heal: * Bone -- the collagen is broken and the mineral is broken. A bone under stress would almost certainly break at that point. * Nerves -- nerve cells would be disrupted, and there's a good chance that some of many of them would die. * Muscles -- muscles under tension would probably rip. If you were laying down and relaxed you might survive, but if you were standing and active (running away or in a sword fight) the consequences would likely be unfortunate. [Answer] Single atoms don't just harmlessly pass through the body, so it's unreasonable to expect that an atom-thin wire would harmlessly pass through the body. ]
[Question] [ Background info During [physical examination](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_examination) > > A physical examination may include checking vital signs, including temperature examination, Blood pressure, pulse, and respiratory rate. The healthcare provider uses the senses of sight, hearing, touch, and sometimes smell. [...] Although providers have varying approaches as to the sequence of body parts, a systematic examination generally starts at the head and finishes at the extremities. After the main organ systems have been investigated by inspection, palpation, percussion, and auscultation, specific tests may follow. > > > Question What tactile or and medical test-based differences would be noticeable to a trained medical professional on a person originating from a 3g world, given that this person is apparently normal height and weight? Mind you that the tests and doctor are all on earth, in brief, a person from 3g world is transported to Earth and upon arrival said person is struck by motor vehicle and transported to hospital: what if anything would be noticeable to the attending? [Answer] I assume You mean (more or less): Some aliens captured early humans, transported them unto a 3g planet and let them adapt to it (possibly with some help); a few hundred thousands year later one of some descendants comes back to Earth and has a stupid road accident and ends up in a hospital. Any other sequence of events would produce a person that, even if apparently resembling a human wouln'd hold up any serious scrutiny (parallel evolution down to internal organ placement, vital parameters and blood composition is, at best, "unlikely"). In order to keep the body erect under continuous 3g acceleration muscle and bones need to be correspondingly "more efficient". We already have several problems from our (relatively recent) erect posture; these range from easily failing L3-L4 spinal chord connection to hiatal hernia due to stomach weighing too much on esophagus. All these would be much worse under 3g stress. In general this means all connective tissues would be much more resilient and, removed the stress, would appear "abnormally tonic". At first glance our traveler would appear as a highly trained body-builder, possibly impossibly well trained and "tonic". Other adaptations (sturdier spinal column) might be more difficult to hide. [Answer] From the wikypage on human effects of [weightelesness](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weightlessness#Human_health_effects) > > The most common problem experienced by humans in the initial hours of weightlessness is known as space adaptation syndrome or SAS, commonly referred to as space sickness. Symptoms of SAS include nausea and vomiting, vertigo, headaches, lethargy, and overall malaise. The duration of space sickness varies, but in no case has it lasted for more than 72 hours, after which the body adjusts to the new environment. > > > and > > The most significant adverse effects of long-term weightlessness are muscle atrophy and deterioration of the skeleton, or spaceflight osteopenia. Other significant effects include fluid redistribution (causing the "moon-face" appearance typical of pictures of astronauts in weightlessness), a slowing of the cardiovascular systems blood flow decreases in response to a lack of gravity, a decreased production of red blood cells, balance disorders, and a weakening of the immune system. Lesser symptoms include loss of body mass, nasal congestion, sleep disturbance, excess flatulence, and puffiness of the face. These effects begin to reverse quickly upon return to the Earth. > > > 1g to 3g is rather different from free fall, but let's simplify that they are the same from the medical stand point. Your person is already past the 72 hours of adaptation, so we can exclude SAS. What remains that can be noticed by physical examination? * "moon-face" * slowing of the cardiovascular systems blood flow * balance disorders * nasal congestion * excess flatulence * puffiness of the face By other examination (DEXA) osteopenia can also be diagnosed. [Answer] Under the presumption that the person has been born and living on the 3 g world there are some (probably a lot) weird features to your human. If you are talking about a normal human, say male of 80 kg with a length of 1.9 m (BMI of 22.16). The person body would be equivalent to be weighing 240 kg. Although the human body can sustain this for short periods it is in the range of olympic weightlifting records. Normal movement would not be possible with this. You would expect much thicker legs and bones (and bone density) and much stronger and muscular joint, this would however mean that he would be much heavier than normal and clearly oddly shaped. To keep a normal appearance and weigh the only way I think would be to have the load bearing bones to be square root of 3 times thicker (goes by area). So about 1.7 times thicker bones and less meat, presumably fat, to make up the weight difference. This would be noticable even by just visual observation. Probably the whole human design won't work in 3g for longer periods of time. Maybe your body and muscles can be trained but I don't think our digestive track can function in such circumstances. [Answer] It would be less differences than you think. 3g is the equivalent of a person of 80kg gaining weight to 240kg. The 240kg guy is not impossibly strong. ]
[Question] [ EDIT: After reading a lot of great suggestions I've decided that these dragons will be a mix between warm-blooded and cold-blooded animals. They stalk their prey and ambush them along well traveled paths or funnels. They do not chase and prefer to conserve energy. Thanks again. I am working on a short story inspired by hunter/conservationist Jim Corbett. I am taking what I love from Corbett's tales and placing them in a medieval fantasy world where the protagonist hunts man-eating dragons and griffins. My problem lies in the behavior of these dragons. How would they hunt? Would they stick to the reptilian fashion of waiting for prey to pass within striking distance? Or would they take a more mammalian approach and actively stalk and pursue prey? These dragons have no supernatural element to them and are somewhere between 7 and 10 feet long with snake-like bodies, short legs and, of course, a set of wings. Their habitat is predominantly forested foothills littered with river valleys and agricultural land. Their eyesight and hearing is close to a human's, but their sense of smell is far better. They prefer to hunt between dusk and dawn. [Answer] How your dragons behave will largely be up to how they are built biologically, especially since there isn't a supernatural element. This is obviously up to you, but here is a quick rundown of the typical lifestyles of these types of animals based on organisms that actually exist (or used to exist). Endothermic or Ectothermic? Here's really your largest factor in terms of general behavior. Endo and ectothermic refer to how an animal gets its body heat, and, in general, this affects how they act. Think of your run-of-the-mill reptile for instance. Reptiles (for the most part if we aren't talking about anything extinct) are ectothermic, which just means that they get their body heat from an outside source. In reptiles, this results in an animal that is less active when the weather is cooler, which lends itself to a lifestyle of basking and waiting for prey to pass by, as you mentioned. Mammals, birds, and possibly non-avian dinosaurs however are (and were in the case of the dinosaurs) endothermic, meaning that they generate their own heat, which lends itself to a more active lifestyle. Hip and Leg Posture This may not seem all that important, but it really is. Many of the endothermic and active animals I mentioned early have a very particular hip structure, which allows them to stand directly upright (like a human being for instance). This stance gives them an advantage over animals with sprawled legs, allowing them to run faster and for longer. This would again contribute to a more active lifestyle. Flight The exact form of flight you want your dragons to use may also hint at a likely lifestyle for them. Birds (and likely the ancient pterosaurs of the Mesozoic) have extremely developed brains to help process the overload of information that comes with powered flight. Not only that, but powered flight takes a lot of energy and endurance, hinting at an endothermic animal (though there may be outliers). If your dragons have powered flight, I'd say its pretty likely that they would follow this trend. However, there are other avenues to take here. If you aren't as on board with an active lifestyle, two types of endothermic animals have also taken to the air: the draco lizards (Draco) and the flying tree snakes (Chrysopelea). Both of these groups of animals have developed "wings" made of ribs with specialized skin and muscle forming a sort of parachute that can be extended at will to glide between high places like trees. So, if your dragons need to be more inactive and able to fly or glide at the same time, "rib wings" might be perfect for their snake like builds, as long as they can find a high place to leap from. In Conclusion If your dragons are ectothermic and slink around on sprawled legs or glide on draco lizard like "rib wings", they would seem to be more likely to hunt in a less active fashion, striking out in short, quick bursts of speed. However, if your dragons are endothermic, with carefully controlled flight, then I'd say a more active mode of hunting, such as dive bombing or long distance running is pretty likely. [Answer] # Carrion feeders Reptiles love them some carrion, and wings are the perfect way to get around. Imagine your dragons as the world's biggest vultures, chasing mere birds out of the way and commandeering carcasses. This would work well in locations with a lot of meat on the hoof, like tropical grasslands, or along big herd migration routes. # Deep sea fishermen If they are snake-like, then they might be able to swim as well as ... well ... sea snakes. This would give them the ability to scout out big shoals of fish. The advantage of being on wings means they can find sardines or anchovies before the sharks and tunas and other waterbound competition does. Once there they can dive and swim to get what they can. Especially if they attack in groups, they should have success herding the fish into schools and rounding them up. # Glide bombing A good low energy attack method is to glide downwards at your prey, faster than your prey can move. From a great height, a dragon could spot a medium-large prey item on the open plains. Something not too big to knock to the ground, and not too agile. A horse or wildebeest would be about the right size. First, the dragon(s) would rouse the prey into running. Then, once they were running, each dragon (if more than one hunted in a group) would swoop down and try to tackle its prey from above. With a good dive speed, it could break the back of a horse and get its kill. The dragons would want the prey running in a direction so they know which way to swoop. If a horse is stationary, it could bold in any direction at the last minute, ruining the attack. Also, I think the dragon would only get one shot at this. A horse's speed and stamina would probably take it out of range by the time a dragon got sufficient altitude for a second shot. ]
[Question] [ Disclaimer: This is not a duplicate of [this question](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/78778/how-would-a-giant-marine-snake-like-creature-survive). This question deals with a specifically non-marine snake. My fantasy story requires a giant snake. The easiest way to create one (as far as food goes, at least) is to have it be marine, but I don't want to tie my setting to the ocean coast. For that reason, I want a giant snake which is land-based (or at least not ocean-going). The most immediate problem I see with this is food: snakes seem to operate on two basic strategies: 1. Strangulation. The snake lies in wait, crushing its victims or drowning them. 2. Venom. The snake lies in wait, relying on fast reflexes to strike its target with paralyzing/killing venom, making for an easy meal. The problem I see my snake having is its size. It's going to be too big to hide, and I can't really see it moving fast enough to poison anything. What is its strategy when it comes to food? If there are other problems involved with a giant snake, please let me know and feel free to address them as well. How can I get a giant non-marine snake? Notes: * The snake needs to be six feet wide in diameter. This is a must. There is no requirement on length, but I would imagine this width will make the snake very long. * The climate is tropical. Large trees are plentiful. * While I don't want a marine snake, lakes, rivers, or other bodies of water are perfectly fine. [Answer] My conclusion: A snake hunts using vibrations, movement detection, and smell. For this reason, I would place your snake close to the ground, inside or near caves. This would solve your dual problem of hiding and hunting, because the snake could consume whatever creature was foolish enough to enter or be near the snake's cave. [![Fantasy cave snake](https://i.stack.imgur.com/0ESNT.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/0ESNT.jpg) The main drawback to this solution is that the snake would be limited to traveling from cave to cave. This would be less problematic if your environment was fairly cave-prone, perhaps something like this: [![Tropical environ with caves](https://i.stack.imgur.com/z5NsM.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/z5NsM.jpg) My thought process: 1. How will the snake hide? My immediate reaction was that the snake could hide in sand (like beaches, deserts, or riverbanks), like the [Sandworm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandworm_(Dune)) from [Dune](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_(novel)). [![Sandworm](https://i.stack.imgur.com/r5MEo.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/r5MEo.jpg) Obviously, this creature could easily inspire terror. As for the mechanics of a snake of that size moving through sand, I am unsure- you would have to do further research on that, depending on how hard you want your science to be. But, you have a tropical climate with plentiful large trees. While I might normally suggest that the snake climb trees, I feel that a six-foot-diameter snake is far too large for a normal-size tree. It must: * Climb the tree * Not break the tree * Ambush prey from the tree (I assume), so it must fall out of tree with limited damage, which is difficult for a snake of that mass Unless, of course, you have a very, very large tree or trees: [![Large tree with snake](https://i.stack.imgur.com/qukX1.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/qukX1.jpg) The problem with this is that if you have a limited number of massive trees, you can simply avoid the area with these trees. 2. How will the snake eat? Depends on what you want your snake to eat. The [Titanoboa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanoboa), a massive prehistoric snake, was possibly piscivorous, meaning that it primarily consumed fish. But, you say that you do not want your snake to be tied to the coast. (I am assuming that you also do not care for lakes or large rivers, though a large river would not be out-of-place in a tropical environment). I think the answer to this question depends largely on what other animals live in the snake's environment, as it would likely evolve to prey on these animals. You might find these resources helpful: * [List of largest living snakes (Wikipedia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_snakes) * [Titanoboa, 40-foot prehistoric snake](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-titanoboa-the-40-foot-long-snake-was-found-115791429/) * [Titanoboa (Wikipedia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanoboa) [Answer] Hiding Since you say fresh water is OK, I'd make it live in swampy / forest-surrounded lakes. It's pretty much impossible to see anything in murky water, so 'too big to hide' shouldn't be a concern as long as the water is more than six feet deep. Given that big pythons and such can go months without eating, it might even coil up and cover itself with vegetation, thus disguising itself as a hummock in the swamp. Food supply This thing is going to be absolutely huge. It would probably weigh something like 60 tons\* even if relatively short, say 80 feet / 25 meters. However, that's not necessarily completely unreasonable. The Sperm Whale is about that mass, and its a macropredator. And as a mammal, it has a much higher metabolism (and thus higher food needs) than this low-metabolism snake will. So you're probably best off with a large region with lakes, rivers, swamp, forest etc. (maybe something like the Mississippi Delta & Atchafalaya swamp on the US Gulf Coast before its development by humans) Wetlands can be very biologically productive, and you could have its main diet be things like alligators and large fish (paddlefish, alligator gar, and giant catfish for example). \body radius - 0.9m, cross sectional area is pi \ r^2 or 2.54 m^2, total volume 2.54 \* 25 or 63.5 cubic meters). If this is a water-dwelling creature, it should have roughly neutral buoyancy, so about 1 ton per cubic meter. [Answer] I suspect that the scale you're talking about would run into the square cube issue. Using the Green Anaconda as a model, our girtheist living snake, at 29 feet you only get a foot of diameter. Your snake would be approximately 174 feet long... That's big. If we handwave that we still have the issue that as far as we know all very large snakes have been semi-aquatic. Being huge it helps to displace your weight in water. Handwaving that we still have some issues to address. Heat being the first that comes up. A very large reptile will have problems maintaining body temperature. Some reptiles have limited reproductive endothermy, but that's still a stretch for one that's a full six feet thick and one hundred and seventy four feet long. So it'll need to be hot, like really really hot, all the time. The next issue is food. Now surprisingly this may not be as big a problem as you might think. The Green Anaconda can go weeks without a good meal, so with a slow metabolism your snake may only need a cow every week or so... But how would this monster sneak up on a cow? This leads me to the point of all this. I suspect that the only way such a creature could exist on Earth would be in captivity. Some snakes really do get significantly larger in captivity... Some even seem to match their enclosures. Now if your giant snake was carefully maintained by studious herpetologists, who very carefully cared for it, you may be able to get your monster. Unfortunately it wouldn't survive long on it's own. This arrangement would require some handwavium, but a little less. These snakes exist in the wild, they're just significantly smaller. [Answer] ## The Boundary Ouroboros The good news is that snakes have less of an issue with the square-cube law than other animals. Since they lie against the ground, as long as any segment of the body can support itself, the total length of the snake can be basically whatever you want. This doesn't tend to occur in nature because extra length requires more food to grow and move but doesn't convey any real benefit, but since your story is a fantasy I will presume that the giant snake is created, not evolved, and therefore doesn't need a plausible evolutionary history explaining its size. However, this means that your snake is not going to look like an enlarged version of existing snakes - it is going to be very long, and very thin relative to its length. It will not pursue prey, as moving the whole body will be extremely costly - no more costly than moving a bunch of snakes positioned end-to-end, but it only has one mouth, and therefore cannot waste energy moving its whole body to chase prey it might not catch. I would propose the following lifestyle: Your snake is only a few feet in diameter (big, but not BIG big), but extremely, extremely long - we're talking one to several kilometers in length. It lives in lush areas with many large animals, and loops around its territory ouroboros-style, making its body a boundary. It winds back and forth as it encircles the area, leaving some slack in every part of its body. Its scales are rough and enable it to camouflage. When a large enough animal crosses any part of its body, it quickly throws the nearest "loop" around it, then constricts it to death. It then moves the loop along its body to bring the carcass around toward the head where it can be eaten, or moves its head toward the captured prey. By lying in a loop, it minimizes the average distance between the head and any given part of its body. However, it should sometimes allow animals to cross over its body, particularly if they are small, moving toward the center of the ring, and are on the part of the body far away from the head. This is because the farther away from the head the animal is caught, the more energy it will take to actually bring them to the mouth (or bring the mouth to them). It will also prevent the prey population within the ring from being depleted, allow younger animals into the ring to grow up and be consumed later, and prevents animals from simply learning to avoid the snake's body entirely. Small animals may even learn to cross over the snake's body when being pursued by predators - the snake will allow the small prey to cross but may capture the larger predator. Any prey that comes near the head can be caught and constricted in the manner of a normal big snake. It will not be venomous - venomous snakes bite prey and then pursue it slowly until it dies, and pursuing prey long distances is one thing this snake does not want to do. When it is ready to move to a new location, or when all the animals inside the ring have learned not to cross its body, it will "harvest" the population within the ring by slowly spiraling its head towards the middle, tightening the loop and capturing any prey that crosses the boundary as it does so. [Answer] > > What is its strategy when it comes to food? > > > The [spitting cobra](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spitting_cobra) comes to mind. Why chase down the food when you can spit a deadly venom at it that will cause it pain and possibly damage it enough to slow it down or stop it? With such a large snake- one would imagine it would be able to launch quite the loogie for quite a distance since it'll have a very good angle and range. An alternative would be a snake with above-normal intelligence for a snake. With such a large body and skull- it should have a larger brain as well. Obviously size alone doesn't make/break intelligence but this is a creature you're inventing after all. Have the giant thing knock over a tree onto its prey, dig a pit, set up a trap or enclosed area to chase something to, track something by scent to the lair- once you introduce higher cognitive thinking to a creature you're limited only by your imagination. I do have to agree that snakes as a massive creature are not the best survivors. Think of all that mass that's entirely open to attack- something starts biting the snake in the rear and by the time it brings its' head the hell around to deal with the threat- it's long gone. [Answer] If you're only worried about food, then make it an ambush predator that will happily snack on anything silly enough to walk in it's mouth at any time but active mostly at night. Tropical jungles can hide tanks and plane wrecks from views, they can hide a six foot snake head. The snakes main problem would be the noise it makes moving around but it could use that as part of it's hunting strategy to trap prey by circling in on the prey so that when it hears the snake and runs, it actually runs into another part of the snake ready to grab it and squeeze it to death. ]
[Question] [ It's a popular Sci-fi theme to terraform Mars (or sometimes Venus), but both need a lot more than just a breathable atmosphere to be habitable, almost to the point of impracticality. Mars receives too little light, Venus too much, neither has a whole lot of water and neither has much of a magnetosphere (water and air are probably not too bad, but I imagine the magnetosphere'd be a killer). Not to mention spinning up Venus to a sensible day-night cycle. My question is: *Are there any* astronomical bodies in the solar system worth terraforming?** Or is it far better value to just build giant space stations and use the other planets for resources as opposed to refuge. There's a couple of centuries to play with here so no rush and the tech is based ~200 years ahead so things like decent sub-light travel (no ftl... yet), controlled fusion, off-world mining, city-sized space craft etc are common place. (While I think it'd be cool to have a local terraformed world or two, I get the feeling that it's just not practical, not impossible, just not a worthwhile use of materials, but I thought I'd ask people more knowledgeable than myself before ruling it out altogether.) Edit: There is a not totally unrelated question here: [Order of Solar System Colonization](http://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/56243/809) but that seems to be primarily about colonisation, but more importantly states that "To this end, planet-wide terraforming, for example, is out of the question" as they're dealing with 2016 tech as opposed to 2216 tech, whereas I'm curios if there's any other local planets/moons etc. besides Venus and Mars that would be suited to terraforming. [Answer] Venus and Mars are the best candidates available, so if you discard them from the beginning, then no. Certainly you would have to move any candidate to a better position relative to the Sun, just for starters. It seems to me that you are somehow forgetting how big a planet is1. Changing it so radically that it becomes close enough to Earth is never going to be an easy task, unless it was very close to Earth to begin with. In a somewhat unrelated note, AFAIK the issue with Venus is not so much distance to the Sun as the high atmospheric pressure inside it and the mix of gases causing a "greenhouse effect" of biblical proportions, which makes it way more "terraformable" than Mars. --- 1Useful hint: take a little walk. That thing is HUGE! [Answer] I'm going to borrow some thoughts from Kim Stanley Robinson's book [2312](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2312_(novel)), which articulates my thoughts on the subject extremely well. ## Terraforming Venus ...would actually not be all that difficult, just kind of slow. You'd start with a sun-shield, preferably one covered in solar panels, at the L1 point between Venus and the sun. This would have the dual effect of lowering Venus's temperature and giving you copious energy to work with. You could also include a strong magnetic field generator in your sun shield, which would deflect the solar wind away from Venus, reducing atmospheric stripping. Without the sun constantly heating it, Venus's atmosphere would be able to cool rapidly. I don't have the numbers on me, but certainly within a century or so the carbon dioxide would begin to precipitate out of the atmosphere - it would snow dry ice. Your task then would just be to decide what you want to do with the CO2 ice, crash a couple of asteroids into the planet to both add water and spin it up, then you could selectively open the sun shield to re-warm the planet to a comfortable temperature. ## Teraforming Mars Mars has two problems - it's cold, and it lacks a magnetosphere to hold onto its atmosphere. Problem one is easily solved - orbital mirrors. With large solar arrays in orbit, you can focus a lot more light onto the planet's surface, increasing its temperature. Those solar arrays could also use some of the power they generate to create an artificial magnetic field. You can also do something similar to the Venusian sun-shield, and place an artificial magnetic field at L1 to deflect the solar wind. ## Terraforming Asteroids HOWEVER...asteroids are our best bet for extraterrestrial habitation. You'd select your reasonably-sized asteroid and start hollowing it out, leaving a nice thick layer of rock around the outside for hull integrity and radiation shielding. The material you remove from the inside will become raw materials to thicken the outside and build your technology. Once you've got a nice hollow rock, you can install airlocks and add engines where needed, then spin it up. The interior is now an O'Neill cylinder, and you can build your landscape there. Robinson calls these asteroid habitats [Terraria](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrarium_(space_habitat)). The best thing about basing your population in terraria is that you don't need to worry about gravity. Spinning your rock will simulate gravity very nicely, certainly well enough for humans and animals to live comfortably, while at the same time giving you easy access to microgravity. In the long term, living on a planet is not an optimal strategy. Planets are too big for a space faring species to use them as a base - they can't dodge debris, and it's too energy-intensive to try to travel around them or to leave them. You'll want some population on planets, yes, to maintain the ecosphere and so on, but in the long term, the future is in space habitats. [Answer] The key to all of these sci-fi futures is the (magical) force field generator (FFG). If you can squeeze together deuterium and tritium (and keep it together) then fusion power is easy. If your FFG is small enough to put on a rocket (or truck), then space travel is a breeze. But you still have conservation of energy and momentum. I didn't do the math, but you can calculate the amount of mass you have to remove from Venus' atmosphere, and convert that to the energy required. You can do the same thing with the mass you'd need to drop onto Mars (but where would you get it from? Jupiter? Or some fusion process where you convert H into O?) Your question about "worth" assumes, ahem, that value is an objective property. It is not. You almost recognize that by comparing the value of a terraformed planet with the value of some city in space. Which is worth more? Well, mama lives in Texas, so would I rather be 4 hours away or 4 months? Depends on my relationship to her. Different people will value those two choices oppositely. Anyway. I find the idea of city sized space craft absurd. Why bother? What possible reason would we have to make such silly things? 70% of Earth's surface is water. Long before it makes sense to terraform Venus or Mars, we'll have populated not just the oceans but the skies of Earth. Think "floating" cities (thanks to force fields!). Just think, to double the current population, we'd only need to double the size of each building (crudely speaking). I can go wildly off into ya-ya land, pretending that in some (magical) future, economics will be obsolete, and any resource can be made from hydrogen. Such a future might be possible, if only force fields could be made that were better at shielding and holding things than matter (lead, iron, etc.) is. A pretty big if, imho. [Answer] Right here. The tech you develop for Mars can be proofed and applied to good effect in the Gobi desert and Antarctica. There are places on Earth not quite to our liking. Even here in Texas we make use of air conditioning and all the lakes are artificial. Many places have water management and even back in ancient times this was the case. So local terraforming is something we have been doing all along. We can continue spreading to more habitats on Earth even into the 21st century. [Answer] ## Space habitats are a better choice. There are numerous reasons for that. * mobility * flexibility in desired results * speed of achieving the desired results * material efficiency * very high theoretical limits for resulting surface area for the approach * flexibility of clustering those constructions (ability to pack vast amount of people and surface in planet size conglomerate if one would wish so) * Full control over created environment. * Effectively no physical borders for the group, preventing their grow/extension as a social group. Mobility is a good thing as it allows to choose locations(planets), distance to a star, distance to neighbors etc. Flexibility in results - one can choose gravity, day/night cycles, weather, climate. Ability to choose/create particular flora and fauna to live in. (Would like to see how it was in dino time to live - resurrect all those animals and well go test/see that) The result can be achieved pretty fast, in a year or two(in certain cases even faster, in some cases slower 10's of years) instead of a long time for planetary situations even with proper technology it will take a long time to replicate earth like system just because it needs time for the planet to settle down after intervention and all doings. Material efficiency - the materials which have to be spent on building a space habitat are in the range of 100-1000 tons per human(based on O'Neil project, it might be more or less it depends on the technology and result we would like to have). So a space body like the Moon would be enough for about 6-7 orders of magnitude more people than there are currently living on the planet. If one would like or if it would be needed with proper technology all those space habitats(made from the Moon with 1016 humans) could be collected in pretty compact configuration, they can be placed in a sphere of a few thousand km in diameter, allowing them fast information and matter exchange. Space habitats offer more flexibility and freedom of choice, where using of planets needs definitely not fewer efforts as it goes for technology and environment. A planet might demand some compromises, just because not all of its aspect might be accessible/controllable even with pretty advanced technologies - insides of a planet as an example, which affect different aspects of its behavior on the surface and it takes a long time to change things and for them to settle. Because of the pressure, certain parts of it might be not accessible at a required level of influence, when those processes could be manipulated/supported in the way they should be. Everything has its price and a planet a pile of materials pretty much maintains itself for a long time, where a Space Habitat should be probably maintained regularly and constantly be monitored. However, maintenance task might be not that hard as it looks now it has to be, and it can be done with realistic(my opinion) means of ... hm it seems I can't avoid the word ... smart matter. I assume the option as realistic because I keep in mind particular implementation of such technology which is not that much sophisticated, definitely not a clarke-tech, and pretty much fits in +200 years theme and for it, maintenance would be not a problem. But even without smart matter maintenance is pretty manageable subject, with a variety of different approaches(those I also keep in mind at least 2-3 of them). ## Resume I'm all for the Space habitats, they offer too much for too little, and planets are just a source matter for them. Most importantly they offer flexible borders(because of there none of them), and freedom to devide the group which can be done easily and fast(opposite is true too). Those things they are important, and they can't be realized on a planet (or it will be not a planet in the sense we usually assume). ]
[Question] [ [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/AuIC9.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/AuIC9.png) [No, not like that!!!](https://dismantledpossessions.wordpress.com/2012/02/09/bedazzled-5/) --- The Oxford Dictionary defines: * Ghost as "an apparition of a dead person which is believed to appear or become manifest to the living, typically as a nebulous image". Basically just an image. * Emotions as "A strong feeling deriving from one's circumstances, mood, or relationships with others". * Feelings as "An emotional state or reaction". which is actually a circular definition and not very helpful! * Sentient as "Able to perceive or feel things". A more Biological-centred definition: * "Emotion, in its most general definition, is a neural impulse that moves an organism to action, prompting automatic reactive behaviour that has been adapted through evolution as a survival mechanism to meet a survival need." * Edit - As I understand it, Our current understanding of emotions, is that they are related to chemical reactions in the brain that could reach down to the quantum level. --- The Oxford Dictionary definition of a ghost is fairly static and boring. Using popular science fiction which has evolved from more ancient folklore, we can consider a ghost to be anything from; a wispy image, to entities that are stuck in a repetitive action cycle with no interaction with the living world (think scary repetitive sequences replaying the moment of horrific death), to messenger guide type ghosts who helpfully point people in the right direction, to a fully interactive spirits/astral projections/lost souls/ even transferred consciousness's with all the memories of the Deceased/Original person. These interactive 'entities' AKA 'ghosts' can interact with the Living world and react to outside stimuli (think, Casper, etc). --- QUESTION: * If emotions are based on chemical and neural reactions inside a physical brain, and if no physical body is involved or the connection between the consciousness and physical brain is lost, how do I explain that my [ghosts](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/9114/how-could-ghosts-be-explained-without-an-afterlife)/ spirits/ lost souls/ [transferred consciousness's](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/20187/can-people-upload-their-consciousnesses-to-computers) are aware and have real genuine emotions? * Edit - If, our current understanding of the physical brain does not allow it, what alternate theories on how emotions and consciousness are formed would allow ghosts to have an active and sentient consciousness? I figure that they would be able to [remember](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/51968/can-robots-in-any-case-learn-and-adapt-human-emotions) how they may have reacted to any similar situations, and even mimic those emotions. But I'm having trouble deciding if and how they would truly feel or if they would just be going through the motions? Would they be able to feel emotion about new experiences? --- Edited Note as current scientific knowledge does not accept ghosts, please take a pinch or two of salt when considering answers. I'll accept alternate theories but am hoping for as realistic an approach as possible. Note I'm not asking how to create a ghost which was a very interesting question I linked above. I'm focussing just on how to make it feel emotions. Note I'm not asking about Artificial Intelligence having emotions as that would be too broad. I'm focusing on incorporeal entities with a living, human-body origin/backstory. Note for the sake of clarity, answers should consider a transferred consciousness as a 'ghost' from the moment of the copies 'creation' to the moment of 'implantation' into a new living body. Any interaction this consciousness may have in a technological environment, via computers or holograms etc., should be considered the equivalent as on the ghostly plane. Examples 'Tron' would be ghosts, 'The Sixth Day' would not be ghosts. 'Avatar' would not be ghosts either (The 'Avatar' example is actually a bit complicated and I have another question lined up about possession :) ) Note Also, I'm NOT asking how much tech is needed to go about [transferring a consciousness](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/9875/how-powerful-of-a-computer-do-i-need-to-simulate-and-emulate-a-human-brain). Answers to that last question focused mainly on the amount of computer processing power needed and not if and how the copies would be able to feel and interact. --- Image source: Picture is from the movie 'Bedazzled' 2000 taken from the [Dismantled Possessions Wordpress Blog](https://dismantledpossessions.wordpress.com/2012/02/09/bedazzled-5/). [Answer] The best explanations for ghosts and/or ghost-like creatures (GLCs) I've seen in literature tend to say the GLCs are one of two things: 1. Not actually a creature/being at all, but just some kind of "emotional/psychic residue" left over from an event at that location. It may look like a person, but it is more like a film of a person -- it maybe can play back an emotional event or even an emotional state, but it isn't really alive or aware in a spiritual/emotional/cognitive sense. I call these "emotional after-images" 2. It is the soul/spirit/mind/energy matrix/non-corporeal leftovers after a person has died. Rather than passing on to oblivion/heaven/hell/etc. the spirit remained behind. Most literature tends to link these GLCs to either people who died violently (the stereotypical murder victim who's body was never found) or people who failed to complete some sort of capital-E capital-T Epic Task. The ghosts who stay behind to protect a loved one fit this sub-category. I call these "tortured spirits." Many more detailed variations exist, but they tend to fall into those two broad categories, emotional after-image or tortured spirit. (This ignores categories of other non-corporeal beings that may appear to be ghosts or GLCs, but are not.) As for the "scientific" explanation, we cannot provide one because science has so far been unable to even confirm the existence of GLCs in any reliable, scientific, peer-reviewed way, much less explain what they are. At least not in the real world. In fictional worlds, it's up to the author to decide. Is it a soul? Is it some sort of aetheric residue? Is it electrical energy akin to static electricity? Is it some sort of quantum energy state caused by the manner of death or by extreme emotions? It could be any of those. Or all of those, if your setting allows. [Answer] Well. What if how 'we' define emotions is 'biochemical reactions in the brain', but in your world it's not just the physical? Let's take Eastern Mysticism for an example. Instead of just the physical, each person has multiple bodies, coinciding in our lived reality: * The physical body * The emotional body * The mental body (ie. the mind) * The spiritual body * The soul Now, there are quite a few different views on this. The [7 chakras](http://www.zenlama.com/the-7-chakras-a-beginners-guide-to-your-energy-system/), 'hovering soul' theory, which is why yogis avoid cities and the tall buildings therein, the [4 bodies](http://wholesomebalance.com/Balancing_Our_4_Bodies.html), and likely quite a few more I have yet to hear of. If you were to decide that 'ghosts' are beings that shed the 'physical body' (kicked the bucket, pushing up daisies, etc) while being unwilling (or for any reason under the sun 'unable) to let go of their mental/emotional bodies? There might be an emotional trauma that binds them to this plane? Perhaps anger at their (in their not-so-humble opinion) untimely death? Perhaps an unfulfilled ambition that haunted their every thought in life? As a nod to currently known science (and those who believe in these 'alternative realities'), let's say there is a feedback loop between the bodies. Strong emotions affect the mental and physical bodies. So, they would affect how we think, and perhaps tense the muscles and perhaps even cause the stomach lining to bleed? Affecting hunger and sleep? No problem with this theory in place! So, you have a ghost that has emotions, memories (from the mental body), and perhaps some ghosts that don't? Perhaps their grip on these other bodies loosen over time? So if they don't 'pass into the life hereafter' before a certain time? They become mindless... whatever, apparitions. This then opens the door to other mythos to go with it. Like [hungry ghosts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungry_ghost), [Yuki-Onna](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuki-onna), and any other mythological ghost/demon. [Answer] Here is a plausible twist to ghost emotions.... Ghosts are essentially a soul in the form of energy. For the souls that linger, they are usually said it is because they have "unfinished business" and usually involve a good tale of them being killed in some way. The emotions of the soul are transferred with the energy whether it being a positive or negative state. The ghost state of the soul would then be imprinted with emotions last felt before death. Could argue that this would explain why walking through some areas of graveyards give off crazy vibes due to this displacement of energy. This also would be perfectly plausible if you buy into the notion of [String Theory](http://www.nuclecu.unam.mx/~alberto/physics/string.html). Everything is made out of energy down to the smallest level matter can be broken down into. You would easily be able to argue that an emotion when broken down far enough is just another form of energy since that is what is created in a neural impulse/ chemical reaction anyways. a [signal](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0072574/) or energy is required to transfer from one node to the next. and a bi-product of a chemical reaction is energy (notice many reactions have heat dissipation/displacement). [Answer] I think we have to consider two things. 1. What is required for physical emotion. 2. How those requirements could be replicated in a spiritual entity. The first is rather easy, and defined in your question. To have physical emotions requires chemical reactions and electronic impulses. These physical phenomena are easily created in a human brain. There are electric pathways between neurons in the brain that allow for signals to be created, sent, and processed. The brain also includes cells and non-cellular fluids that allow for many aqueous reactions to take place. It also houses certain nodes that create chemicals (like oxytocin which is a key chemical in the emotion of happiness) and disperse them throughout the brain. In my mind, this means that emotions require some sort of aqueous solution, electronic pathway, or both in conjunction. The hard part of answering your question is #2. How can electronic pathways and aqueous solutions be replicated in a spiritual entity? I have a few plausible answers that only stretch science a little. Considering both electronic pathways and chemical reactions leaves us with a bit of a "chicken or egg coming first" conundrum. Sometimes nueral impulses trigger chemical reactions, sometimes chemical reactions trigger impulses. However, I think the electronic impulses are easier to deal with so lets start there. Electronic impulses are energy. Currently our exact understanding of energy is limited and we are not sure exactly how heat, light, electricity, motion, and other sources of energy are related. We do know that energy is transferred often and rather easily however. Heat is lost to surroundings, electricity travels through air, and colliding objects transfer energy. Your ghosts initial transfer of energy could be heat leaving the body, or neural impulses escaping a dying mind. This could also explain why those who die in accidents or dire circumstances remain. They were exerting more energy at the time of their death. It could also be used as an explanation of why ghosts can or can not be seen. When energy is concentrated in a small area, gas can turn to plasma. Air as a plasma is visible, while most gasses found in the air are not. When a ghost is present, it is simply the concentrated energy of the deceased. In short, transferred energy to the air upon death can replicate the neural pathways in a brain. This energy transferred to the space around a dying person can also start chemical reactions, further leading to the occurrence of an ethereal replica of whoever died. To explain the chemical aspect of emotion we need to look at air. Air is a collection of gases mostly, but generally contains a solid amount of water. Humidity in the air could (and does) allow chemical reactions to occur, especially is energy like heat or electricity is introduced. The combination of energy transferred from a dying body to humid air or a liquid can be a feasible explanation for a ghost. Perhaps this could explains ghosts being prevalent during dark and stormy nights, mists on the sea, or in old humid attics and basements. Something I would consider is that these reactions, while possible to an extent in the air or water, are not nearly as powerful as those in a brain. However, this is not an issue, as it gives a convenient explanation as to why ghosts are not exactly like a human. I would recommend making a ghost more like a "shell" or "reflection" of the human mind they once resided in because of a lesser capability to undertake the same physical reactions. Therefore they would experience emotion still, but less emotion. [Answer] > > If emotions are based on chemical and neural reactions inside a > physical brain, and if no physical body is involved.... > > > You can't because the sentences are logical contradictory. You need to lessen the constraints to get options, pure physicalism (which the first sentence describe) does not allow ghosts per definitionem. EDIT: After loosening the constraints there are several possibilities. The one is that consciousness/self-awareness/emotion is not or only partly a physical process. Either there is an * currently unknown space/dimension where consciousness comes from. This is the default explanation with ether and physical manifestations as ectoplasma. You can even explain chemical influences with the transmitter theory: The broadcast is not influenced by a receiver, but the quality of the receiver determines how visible emotions/consciousness are. * or it is imbibed in the physical world which is e.g. panpsychism. Every atom and molecule has consciousness, they are only looking random because it is the same like viewing a train station from above. Every passenger has a destination, but all in all it seems quite irregular. That means every substance has consciousness, but for most things the means to transform the consciousness are lacking. A wall has consciousness, but being homogenous, the possibility to coordinate all those micro-consciousnesses are lacking. * It should be also said that many reasons may exist for the same phenomenon, so while it is true that the phenomenon is caused by X, it may be also caused by an independent Y. For example current can be caused by different ion concentrations, but also by a changing magnetic field or a cathode ray. So while human emotions are primarily based on chemical reactions, ghost emotions are very similar, but have another reason (handwavium). * The imprint theory that a location may retain some emotional "quality" which can be perceived by others is explained by CM\_Dayton, so I refer only to the post. [Answer] The human mind is an electro chemical brain activity. But it is possible (not very likely) that the electromagnetic fields generated by a living brain might continue to function after death and that someone might have some sort of consciousness and emotions after death. Googling this: are ghosts electromagnetic fields? <https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=are+ghosts+electromagnetic+fields?[1]> produces a lot of results. Apparently there is allegedly some connection beteen ghost sightings and electromagnetic fields. Either electromagnetic fields can cause illusions of ghosts or actual ghosts may have strong electromagnetic fields. Thus it is possible, repeat POSSIBLE & CONCEIVABLE BUT NOT VERY LIKELY that a lot of human thinking and emotions may be the result of complicated electromagnetic fields generated by brains, electromagnetic fields vaguely analogs to "souls", and THAT these complicated electromagnetic fields remain active after death, thus actually being real ghosts with emotions of a sort. ]
[Question] [ I am currently working with a landmass roughly 1,000 miles (1600 km) in length and width. Would insular dwarfism or gigantism occur in this landmass? If not what is the largest a landmass can be before this does not occur. [Answer] There is a biometric scaling formula that deals with the size of animals (in kilograms) in relation to the area of their habitat (in square kilometres). From this formula it is easy to calculate whether animals will undergo dwarfism in the habitat of any given size. > > For both herbivores and carnivores, island size, the degree of island isolation and the size of the ancestral continental species appear not to be of major direct importance to the degree of dwarfing.[4] However, when considering only the body masses of recent top herbivores and carnivores, and including data from both continental and island land masses, the body masses of the largest species in a land mass were found to scale to the size of the land mass, with slopes of about 0.5 log(body mass/kg) per log(land area/km2).[7] There were separate regression lines for endothermic top predators, ectothermic top predators, endothermic top herbivores and (on the basis of limited data) ectothermic top herbivores, such that food intake was 7 to 24-fold higher for top herbivores than for top predators, and about the same for endotherms and ectotherms of the same trophic level (this leads to ectotherms being 5 to 16 times heavier than corresponding endotherms). > > > Source: [Insular dwarfism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insular_dwarfism) [Answer] First, your landmass is gigantic and is by no ways small. The reason for insular dwarfism is not the size of the landmass but the limited ecosystem and amount of food it can provide. Small landmass is of course the primary reason for a limited ecosystem but you could also have dwarfism in a gigantic landmass if for some environmental reason, the ecosystem is very poor (think desert) ]
[Question] [ I am working on a story where ships are tricked and crash land on a volcanic planet due to some sort of electromagnetic interference. The survivors of the landing essentially become gladiators on a planet fighting for survival. I doubt it is possible but I am curious as to whether it is possible for humans to exist relatively unaided on a volcanic planet. * The planet does not have to have seas of lava * It should be too hostile for extensive life (no ecosystems) * At least 15% of the planet's surface should be liquid magma Ideally the survivors would require as little PPE (personal protective equipment) as possible I don't want them to have to be running around in full environmental suits and in need of oxygen tanks. Don't worry about food, water and shelter, I have that covered. Is it possible that such a planet could have a breathable atmosphere and not be overly detrimental to exposed skin? [Answer] No, if you want to stick to contemporary science The first thing that does preclude survival would be the atmosphere. Without any ecosystem it does not seem feasible that the atmosphere is anywhere near breathable. Volcanos cough up an awful mix of gases that are not healthy at all: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_gas#Hazards> Also, without oceans (of water) the planet would be either extremely dry, or the atmosphere would contain excessive amounts of vapor. Without any water people would die of thirst (any water they bring will be lost sooner or later to evaporation). A vapor atmosphere would be too hot and dense for breathing. If 15% of the surface were liquid lava, the planet would surely be uncomfortably hot (each square meter of 1500°C hot lava emits megawatts of heat). This does not necessarily rule out cooler spots, but if there were an atmosphere of about earth density it would act to transport that heat everywhere. In conclusion, a planet with that level of volcanic activity might look somewhat similar to venus - nowhere near survivable without heavy equipment. [Answer] I'm going to go with no, because: On the one hand your planet is 'hostile to extensive life' - even the kind of specialised life that would evolve on such a planet. Without extensive PPE, there is no way that a (non-specialised) lifeform such as a human is going to be able to survive there. Precisely why your planet is inhospitable doesn't really matter when you consider that point. [Answer] Probably not. If 15% or more of the planet's surface is liquid magma, that's an absolutely incredible amount of heat being released, and an even more astounding amount of volcanic gases. You might be able to imagine local life to transform the volcanic gases into harmless forms, but this is a level of volcanism that is totally unprecedented on Earth or even Io. The combination of enormous amounts of greenhouse gases and enormous heat from the interior would probably cook the planet... maybe even with no solar input at all. (Earth's internal heat is less than 1/3000 the Sun's input, but surface lava exists on Earth only in a few tiny spots like Kilauea.) However, that doesn't rule out some kind of 'volcano world'. You could still have a habitable planet whose landscape is largely shaped by volcanism. Since super-high rates of volcanism will likely make the planet uninhabitable, you just need to reduce other influences on the landscape. A relatively dry\* planet would have less water erosion. A planet with very stable weather (maybe low axial tilt, low orbital eccentricity, and a small temperature gradient with latitude) might have less wind and thus less wind erosion. If complex life is nonexistent or rare, you won't have roots and such breaking down rocks. This would give you a world of volcanic rock, though not of liquid magma. \You'd still need enough water to support enough photosynthesizing life to keep the atmosphere breathable... unless the planet is this way due to a geologically recent catastrophe of some kind, and hasn't had time to lose its free oxygen. [Answer] ## Not for very long If the thermal effects of a largely volcanic planet don't get you immediately, the [combustion products](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_gas) from all the vulcanism probably will and quickly. [Hydrogen sulfide](https://www.osha.gov/SLTC/hydrogensulfide/hazards.html) is nasty nasty stuff (so says OSHA). If the combustion doesn't get you, you'll probably want to commit suicide from the overpowering smell of sulfur. The most common gases found in volcanic emissions is water and carbon dioxide. If the whole planet is volcanic then there may be runaway greenhouse effects from the excessive CO2. Also, water vapor atmospheres are immediately suffocating. This is not a nice place and you're probably going to die very quickly.* [Answer] I would say yes but not indefinitely without any help from outside. If our civilization is advanced enough to make spaceships that can safely travel accross space, I think living on a volcanic planet would be a piece of cake. They would probably just stay there until they get saved by some interplanetery rescue ship. If they wanted to settle there, they would probably need some regular shipment of supplies. Howver they would probably not want to set up a permanent colonoy on such a inhospitable planet. By the time we master space travel, we will have mastered robotics as well. If there are any interesting ressources or if there some scientific research to be done, that can be done by robots. So in your story the crash survivors would probably just be fine on their planet until someone comes to rescue them. If no one ever comes to rescue them , eventually after a certain time, their habitat, infrastructure, gear and gadgets that help keep them alive will eventually break and then it s game over for them. [Answer] *How about a planet too volcanic for life to evolve, but benign enough for some life to survive there?* Species that survive either become good at survival or get replaced by those more fit by that selector. But the genesis of life is a tricky, somewhat-thermodynamics-contrary event, which I suspect is rare and/or needs 'luck' (to use the technical term ;-) So I suspect that it's possible to have a planet with enough volcanic activity to prevent life from evolving there, yet still be able to harbor some life (e.g. crashlanded characters and hopefully seed stock and/or DNA) and/or other from-space arrivals. I could easily imagine a planet with life in somewhat restricted zones (e.g. shallow seas, coastlines, valleys of one continent?) Perhaps limited life, even single-celled organisms -- but that means large amounts of organic chemicals for those crashlanded to work with, even if they cannot eat the alien life. [Answer] That's 15% liquid lava, magma is, by definition, underground not on the surface. Nitpick over. Planetary survivability depends on the magmatic chemistry if 15% of the surface was liquid flowing silicate lava then no dice, the atmosphere would be too hot the breath and horribly toxic to boot. If on the other hand we look at carbonatite volcanism (where carbonates largely replace silicate chemistry in magmatic formation) we see a much lower temperature regime in play with lava flows of only 500 odd degrees and much lower total embodied thermal energy in the rocks. Carbonatite lava is also extremely wet which means that there'd be high rainfall and low in Sulfur meaning it gives off very little toxic gas, it also doesn't transport a range of toxic elements like Arsenic so any surface water would be relatively safe to drink. My only concern would be the relative concentration of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere Carbonatite flows give off Carbon Dioxide and water vapour the way silicate lava does Sulfur Dioxide and then they give off more Carbon Dioxide when it rains as well, some kind of atmospheric gas concentration kit that lowered the relative levels of Carbon Dioxide would be handy though possibly not essential away from the main flows. Carbonatites are a good microbial food source when they start to break down, which they do when wet so the planet could support a breathable atmosphere due to abundant microflora without any obvious signs of life. [Answer] Sure... but it depends on how long you want to live fore. There's no civilization here. Even if you have replicators for food and water, nothing works forever. One thing that's neglected is that you crashed here in a ship, which will have supplies such as water (what, you're on a five year mission to boldly go where no man has gone before and you didn't consider no man has gone there because there's no water). Your premise assumes that your ship crashed far enough away that the debris field wasn't melted by the lava (because you're people will melt too... not much of a story there) and relatively in tact or at the least, with a minimal debris field (terminal velocity is a bitch on any planet, you'd have to have some safe impact otherwise you might as well land in a lava pool.). Depending on the skills of your surviving crew, you can work up some survival strategy that could prolong your lifespan on the planet. Even if you have to have an escape pod launch and that's how you get onto this world, what kind of escape pod will not contain enough water and emergency rations to last days presumably adrift in space (though all the Star Trek Escape pod scenes I recall curiously were small box like structures that didn't have any bathroom facilities.) either way you get there, the ship can still provide some shelter, food, rations, and other amenities to at least last for a bit longer. I'd next look into crew skill sets... a doctor or even a meditech could provide basic CPR and possible medical relief to atmosphereic poisons and what have you. An engineer could jury-rig up a comms unit (normal situations that would be protected as it's critical to getting out distress calls... but in fiction that ruins the story... got to leave them inoperable for a good duration of the story). Scientists can futher remind the party that, hey, you need to think smart in this situation, and give your crew all the facts about volcanoes that you could possibly need to give to the audience (all scientists, even those with out geological specialties, know everything about volcanoes, that's just science fact). Then it's just a matter for guesstimating the length of survival stay and running the clock to the last possible second, at which point, you're safely rescued. Of course, your mention of gladiators complicates this... the planet you want might be a nice place to visit (from the perspective of survival) but you probably aren't going to live there... The gladiators seem to imply that there's more than your typical surviving bridge crew and one guy in a primary colored uniform who will die to prove it's serious danger. You're talking about civilization. That's harder... you're not going to suddenly evolve to this... you might try cultivating food... but the rub is if you're near enough to see active volcanoes, chances are your soil is volcanic in nature... and the last thing you hear about life in Hawaii how devoid it is of the stuff. Volcanic soil is very fertile so if life can't make it here... it's not going to... so you likely don't have enough food and water to feed a new civilization, grow crops, and provide irrigation to those crops that can be then reclimated into potable water... The problem with space travel is getting things up there... most space ships will probably be economical with space and supplies... only what is necessary AND a bit more in case of emergency. The other case where gladiators could arise is if this peaceful ship on a diplomatic mission to all de wrong places (give me the pun, damn it) has no weapons and something is killing them... if you want it to be a fellow survivor, see above about getting off soon and needing to survive that long and have him be a factor in bringing the countdown to death down quicker. Else, it's alien to your heroes... either another poor unlucky crash survivor who is probably not to well off, the enemy that shot you down, in which case, he has space guns... why are you challenging him to personal combat OR native life... which was ruled out but... As they say in the movies, Life Finds A Way. Yellowstone national park has all sorts of microbial life in various pools that are either acidic enough to melt humans or boiling hot to the point life as we know it would be dead in short contact OR both at the same time. Ecosystems exist in plenty of forms where the autotrophic level is not solar based on this very Earth... and one of the most diverse ecosystems at this level primarily thrives around underwater volcanic vents where the autotrophs there use volcanic energy to fuel the ecosystem. No sun needed. Now, these are all underwater and lacking water would be difficult for life anyway... one of the deadest parts of our planet are regions in the Andes Rain Shadow that have not received any rainfall in all of recorded human history... in some spots, there has never been appreciable water since the dinosaurs were around... and equally there has been no life... But if you have pockets of water, Vocanic areas would have small ecosystems... not many diverse life forms, just enough to do things, which could again be a threat... and if you're looking to survive, maybe a controlled crash near a body of water could bring you in contact with this alien life... which would be pretty threatening... after all, this animal would have been purpose built to hunt and eat in this climate... and you're dying because of it. Again... this is more biological... there are plenty of reasons why you shouldn't make it this far that have already been answered. Assuming the situation you described can exist, it would be quite harsh to civilizations of gladiators rising up. ]
[Question] [ What I want is to know if I could have seven Earth like (What I mean by this is having an Earth-like atmosphere and climate, in this scenario size doesn't matter and nor does gravity) planets in the same system (This is not in our solar system but a different one containing what I will specify and other non habitable planets I have not mentioned) two Earth sized or larger Planets and five moons split between them however. I just want to know if this works and is probable. [Answer] Short answer: ...eh? Maybe. ...but I'm sure you're wanting more details than that, so here's some research! # Roche Limits & Hill Spheres Or: How I Learned to Respect Gravity . [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/mURil.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/mURil.jpg) ## Hill Sphere Every object has a set gravitational field; you, me, the earth, cheese, and the galaxy all are gravitationally attracted to one another. Gravity though is a function of mass and distance, which means that the larger and closer an object is, the more gravitational pull it will exert. This also means that if an object is moving fast enough, but close enough, or a large center of mass, then it will orbit that mass. This zone is the Hill Sphere. [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/vrARr.gif)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/vrARr.gif) The Hill Sphere is a zone in which an object can safely orbit another body. Outside of that, the body will fling off into space. So the solar system as we know it exists within the sun's Hill Sphere. Now, as mentioned before, gravity is also a function of mass. So if two similarly-sized objects get close to one another, then they both enter one another's Hill spheres, and thus will become gravitationally attracted to one another. And if they're in stable orbits before hand, then they can possibly be knocked out of orbit, sending them flying away or crashing into the parent body, which brings me to... [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/0SJ18.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/0SJ18.jpg) ## Roche Limit There's an inner limit to the Hill Sphere called the Roche Limit. Past this limit, the gravitational forces experienced by any orbiting body become so great that it literally rips the body apart. Within this limit, either a body will become shredded into a ring system or just crash into the planet. Those of you reading this may remember the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, which was ripped apart by Jupiter after it got too close. This is why it was ripped apart. As the comet drew closer and closer, the gravity of Jupiter overpowered the gravity c=holding the comet together, ripping it into pieces. ## Conclusion So now that you know about these two forces, let's look back at your scenario. One star, two Earth-size planets within the habitable zone, and 5 moons split between them. The scenario is doable, but there's a catch. The planet should have to be far enough apart that their Hill spheres do not cross one another, yet close enough to both fit into the Goldilocks zone. Otherwise, their moon systems will become entangled, and the moons will careen into either of the planets or the star. Then ya won't have any habitable Worlds. Very rare setup, definitely. But is this scenario doable? Absolutely. [Answer] Short and concise: Yes, but no Longer. But not that long: Possible: Yes. Everything is possible. Works: Uhm... Might. Yeah it might, depending on their distribution, etc. But you'll run into a multi-body-problem (3+) - so the system is unlikely to remain in equlibrium for any longer period of time, due to the various forces each of these massive bodies applies to the others. Probable: No. Quite improbable. The three-body-problem makes it quite improbable and from there it is a downward spiral. 7 Earth-like planets is a chain of 7 planets with a good chance of spawning life1. I cannot give you the math right now but we're getting into the ranges where current computers cannot calculate the chance of this happening without making use of compound datatypes spanning multiple registers and passes. 1Assuming that is what you mean by Earth-like. If you do not require them to be able to spawn life of their own similar to our earth you could limit their rate of mutation by having less radiactivity on them, but that doesn't really change anything, as you still want them to be ablr to support life. [Answer] Can a system of two binary planets sharing five moons exist? Yes certainly in fact there are multiple arrangements that could be at play. The moons could orbit one planet the other planet or both in any combination. The question of plausibility is much harder to answer though short answer is no. They key point is that this can only be solved numerically with a computer via an n body simulation (or in this case a 7 body simulation) There are in principal an infinite number of possible solutions to this problem all dependent on initial conditions and outside factors as this is a chaotic system which implies an exponential deviation per change in initial conditions. This would make it nigh impossible for the system to remain stable(as it will tend towards a more stable configuration over time(with a single world being the most stable configuration). The odds are this planetary arrangement if it were to exist it probably would not last long as the presence of other bodies/worlds, cosmic radiation, cosmic dust, the host star(including gravity the varied light emission over its lifespan stellar winds, and outflows caused by magnetic storms on the surface of the host star) and on a more fundamental level Gravitational waves insure that any orbit will eventually decay. As it is I doubt you could keep this stable long enough for sentient life to develop as the various planets and moos masses as well as all these external factors will highly perturb this system into pure chaos. If you want multiple worlds suitable for life you might be better off having separate planets achieve habitable conditions. In our solar system at some point of time Venus Earth and Mars seem to have had liquid oceans(and all have lost them as some point so given the right atmospheric and geologic conditions to adapt to the stars evolution over time. Then there is the potential for habitability around the moon or moons of a gas giant planet as well. ]
[Question] [ Imagine world as you see. Electric lights. Fridge full of food humming silently, running water. You are reading an e-book in warm, but electric light. You hear a noise. Car crash. At the same moment your ebook goes dead, but you hardly notice it in darkness. Fridge goes silent. It's the end of the world as you know it. This sounds pretty cool to me. For sure, I will need to handwave the reason and mechanics of this change. But what would need to change to make electric and electronic devices go dead? To stop most of internal combustion engines from working? At the same time, I want my stars to shine, plants to grow, blacksmiths to be able to do their job. Is there any constant, any law of nature that, if changed, would give me this effect and still gave me coherent and working universe? [Answer] # Break the humans and their toys, not the laws of nature Do not even bother with trying to change the laws of nature because — as the religious like to point out — they are so intricately woven into each other that any such change pretty much wrecks the universe as a whole. Instead: break the humans, that is a lot easier. And there is a very simple way to achieve that which you are after: ## Make humans unable to read A virus of some sort knocks out the part of our brain that makes us able to comprehend written language. That part is quite localized and we can lose this without otherwise becoming mentally disabled. This makes us unable to communicate in written form and makes us unable to take in stored information. Bye bye Wikipedia, all school books, anything and everything expressed with letters are suddenly unavailable to us. But we can still talk over long distance. That will need to be remedied... ## Wreck the computers At the same time as they release this bio-engineered virus, the Rousseauists (\) — as the terrorists / freedom fighters call themselves — detonate a number of stolen nuclear weapons in orbit above significant population centers. The resulting [High Altitude Electromagnetic Pulses](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_electromagnetic_pulse) destroys much of the electronics in the world. Every processor, diode and transistor in sight of the explosions will be fried. Without being able to communicate in written form, humans will be unable to make any machines or electronics to replace the ones that were destroyed. Knowledge transfer will be oral only. The few remaining working machines will be very valuable (plot hook right there). Of course there will be quite a few ecological disasters here and there... as oil tankers run around, chemical processing plants break down and/or go up in flames, the odd nuclear power plant meltdown, the inability to combat forest fires, huge dams collapse (if you cannot control the water flow, eventually the dams will collapse) and so on. Plus the fact that all forms of non-fossil energy generation stops working instantly, because the power grid has just been destroyed; power switching requires electronics. Which in turn means that global warming becomes definitively unstoppable. On the plus side, there will not be as many humans left to cause global warming either because as the food distribution chains break down, the availability of fresh water and sanitation becomes abysmal, and health-care ceases to function we can expect mass epidemics and starvation to the point where mankind becomes next to extinct. So there you have it... you have made humans go back to nature. Happy about the result? :) (\) [Jean-Jacques Rousseau](http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Jean-Jacques_Rousseau) is the source of the catch-phrase / philosophy "Back to nature". [Answer] Consider that the mechanism by which we obtain electrical power is essentially the flow of electrons. Sure, you're thinking of flipping a switch and having lights, AC, and your computer all turn on, but that's simply a matter of quantity. If you were to stop electrons from moving around you would fundamentally break out universe. Now to address combustion engines - all they do is harness the energy of burning fuel. We use oil because it has the best energy to mass ratio, which makes it most practical. How are you going to stop burning fuel from creating exothermic reactions, yet still run a forge? Also consider that exothermic reactions, on a very tiny level, also occur in all of our cells as we consume nutrients - it's why out bodies are warm. And so, you can't possibly "turn off" electricity or combustion without fundamentally breaking out universe. [Answer] Reduce the distance electricity can travel through metal wires - Make it so that electricity dissipates after 2 meters or so (by arcing or as heat - which has a parallel in the real world in that wires melt if too high current flows through them, we're just readjusting the threshold). This will disable electrical/power grids everywhere. Batteries would work only if whatever they power is within 2 meters and that too until they die. Heavy machinery is out for the most part. Electronics would keep working if run by batteries but most will eventually die out because of lack of power source. [Answer] This is ... not practical without a virtualised universe, whose laws are subject to overrides, or the kind of omnipresent creator deity who is directly responsible for everything happening deciding to stop some things. Those amount to much the same thing, in terms of the behaviour of the universe. The same laws of electromagnetism are responsible for light, electricity, the solidness of matter, and a great deal else. Notably, the signals passed along your nerves work in a similar way to electricity flowing along a cable. It's impractical to have one without the other. The only way to get this to happen is to have the laws of nature depend on the human-centric context and meaning of events. They very noticeably don't do that at present, and having them do so would be a pretty good definition of "magic". [Answer] If common conductive metals (especially copper) were brittle rather than ductile, it would be impossible to draw them into long wires without breaking them; existing wires would be fragile and prone to breaking. No magnetic coils means no transformers, induction coils, generators, or electric motors. Long transmission lines would break under their own weight or in the wind. It doesn't eliminate electricity as a form of energy transfer, but it would make large-scale generation and transmission of electricity very difficult. If transmission lines started to break, the entire grid would be down in short order. It wouldn't have every effect you noted - existing battery-powered devices would keep working for a time and cars could work for a while (until the inability to create/distribute fuel caught up to them) - but it would absolutely cripple power distribution and make it impossible to create new wires, transformers, generators, etc. [Answer] If cutting a magnetic field at ninety degrees no longer released energy the last 115 years would simply cease to be relevant until we figured out an alternate method of generation. It's a core law of nature that we have established modern civilization on. It's conceivable it could be hindered or altered regionally since the option to do it locally by generating interference already exists. See Electromagnetic pulses. They don't stop generation but hinder it. Its a man made alteration to an existing law of nature. Not the creation of a new one. Since the technology already exists and has been tested in many forms it has happened. Its not a question of quantity but a question of duration. I think its a great idea and the premise is much closer to reality than most people care to imagine. Everything we have today is the result of electricity that not many people can actually make. [Answer] There's a Czech sci-fi writer called Ondrej Neff (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ond%C5%99ej_Neff>), in whose book Tma (The Darkness), the electricity suddenly stops working. Then a more or less standard postapocalyptic story happens with people struggling for survival as the society slowly breaks down (diesel engines and steam trains work for a while). There are two versions of the book and each have a different explanation (which we don't find until the very end). It's been something like 10 years since I've read it, so maybe I messed something up, but roughly I remember: 1. The Earth's magnetic field is swapping (as it does periodically every couple thousand years) its north and south poles and until this swap is finished, the electricity just doesn't work (I don't remember the details, maybe it was something different). 2. There's an intergalactic community of different alien species, and the Earthlings had been considered advanced enough to join. To connect the Earth to the transport grid, it's electricity needed to be temporarily disconnected. One thing that might be worth considering is that similarly to 1. (which I'm not that sure it would actually work the way you and/or Neff wanted), the explanation doesn't need to be scientifically bulletproof, just sounding reasonable to an intelligent reader... [Answer] My solution to this is that the fundamental laws regarding electricity and combustion change, but that living beings are unaffected. Fire beyond a certain intensity becomes unpredictable, or is reduced in it's intensity. Electricity no longer works reliably except in the brain chemistry of living organisms. Only a thin band of combustion and electricity types are effected, meaning that fuel won't burn right, computers won't work, but lightning still happens, and the sun won't fizzle out. As for the why of this all, anything could work. Aliens. Magic. God. The large hadron collider breaks reality. Because I said so. Random change in universal constants. Anything really. [Answer] You could introduce a microorganism with a tremendous appetite for energy but a relatively inefficient means of acquiring it, adapted to absorb electrical and heat energy. Such an organism might be unable to absorb small quantities, like the amounts of electricity and heat present in the human body; but perhaps it could absorb highly-concentrated energy, and thereby obstruct electrical currents or the blasts of heat produced by a combustion engine. Plausibly, big natural phenomena - like volcanoes and stars - would be immune, since the organisms wouldn't be able to survive in such extreme environments. To produce the abrupt effect you're looking for, we'd need a sort of synchronization between the organisms. So say these microorganisms evolved from some sort of disease, which "learned" that it's best to attack all at once - otherwise those pesky humans will quarantine the infected and make an antibiotic that can wipe you out before you're done. The disease developed something like a neural network between its various individuals, allowing crude signals to travel; for example, an activation signal. As a precursor to the final version of the creatures, you might see examples of entire towns coming down with an unusual illness all on the same day. But then the disease finds that "infecting" devices is more lucrative; maybe then we see a few cases of isolated towns losing power, put down to bizarre failures in the electrical grid. Finally, the disease mutates to have a global neural net; the activation signal is fired off and produces a wave of failures worldwide. Downsides: Either these organisms would be bizarrely fine-tuned (in which case they'd probably have to have been bioengineered) or they'd interfere with processes like steam engines, boiling water, or even fire. You also might be able to circumvent them, by producing a sufficiently sealed environment to prevent them from getting in. ]
[Question] [ Could an almost entirely capitalist country work? I say "almost" because people are still forced to pay a form of tax, but they don't call it tax - what would normally be government funded services (police, public infrastructure, city beautification, etc) are actually private companies and can get a special license to collect the taxes. So you could have competing police companies, for example. But the payer - while they don't choose the amount they pay from their income - can allocate the funds how they see fit. Other than that it's a capitalist economy in every way where it's applicable. The heads of the nation, the "president" type people - the keepers of the constitution - are so ridiculously rich that they are considered unbribeable, and above corruption. But they are, in practical terms, little more than figureheads. The actual government (like parliament and lower levels) is run by representatives of large companies. This is almost alternative to democracy - it's thought that consumers will "vote with their feet". i.e. stop spending money on the companies that rule badly and so they will lose their place in the government. Now I'm not asking if this is a good system or even an OK one, it's supposed to be a bit dystopian (for many people anyway). I'm also not asking how "our" (present day) world could become like that. But is there anything that would make this just undoable? BTW it's set in "the future" - e.g. flying cars, laser-like weapons, and any advanced technology that can be used to hand-wave limiting-type problems. (e.g. construction being cost-prohibitive, etc.) [Answer] What you're describing, if I'm understanding correctly, is either a [Night-Watchman State](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night-watchman_state), or a something of an [Anarcho-Capitalist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism) society. I have heard arguments for this sort of government, but my concern is that it would create a highly inequitable and unstable society. Can it be done? The answer of course is yes, but it probably wouldn't last long. To try and contextualise this, understanding the history of capitalism is essential. Modern conservatives in Britain view pre-Socialist Britain as something of a paradise lost, a view encouraged by former British Prime Minister [Margret Thatcher](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Thatcher). But it's a gross and erroneous simplification. I will try and keep this brief (and fail). Edit: I had written this answer a few years ago, and since then have had some more ideas. The most relevant one is that a small state has minimal power to enforce law. In this case, corruption cannot be moderated. The Mafia are an important case study. The small state is not a hypothetical future without historical precedent. In 1861 Sicily was annexed as part of the unification of Italy. This led to land reforms, resulting in the privatisation of public and church land, increasing the number of land owners tenfold. The transition from feudalism to capitalism was problematic, as the new Sicilian state did not have the resources to enforce rule of law. Having lost their feudal commons, impoverished peasants often resorted to theft. Coupled with rapid economic development, property owners hired mercenaries to guard property and settle disputes. These mercenaries became dynastic entities (the first Mafia clans). As far as I know, the only time the Mafia clans in Sicily were subdued, and life returned to a semblance of legal normality, was, rather paradoxically, [due to Fascist Italy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Mafia_during_the_Fascist_regime). When the Soviet Union imploded the same thing happened: the power vacuum which resulted from the failure of public institutions was filled by gangs and oligarchs. The minimisation of state authority and privatisation of state security creates a new aristocracy of criminal dynasties. A relevant term is "[state capture](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_capture)". Without a strong and independent state, and thus rule of law, there is no ability to enforce contract law and thus no financial freedom. Workers will be exploited by those with money because there is nothing to stop this from happening, the "economy" doesn't care about life or justice or efficiency.* All that's left is bullying tactics, which work with neither unions nor government strong enough to act ([e.g. Ford's anti-union antics](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-the-ford-motor-company-won-a-battle-and-lost-ground-45814533/))* Ideas about a small state rely upon the assumption that individuals are rational consumers, who obey logical [Game Theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory) principles about decision making. But the vast majority of people are not '[homo economicus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_economicus)'. Human decision making is, neurologically speaking, emotional. Humans with brain injuries to emotional centres also demonstrate a profound inability to make any decisions about anything (See Antonio Damasio's book '[Descartes' Error](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descartes%27_Error)'). Historical Context After the Second World War Britain held a [general election in 1945](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election,_1945), which was won by the then socialist Labour party. They adopted sweeping reforms, such as universal healthcare, unemployment welfare, free education, slum clearance, nationalisation of industry, etc. These reforms passed because many people were crushed by poverty, due to a lack of opportunity and thus freedom, coupled with the realisation that nationalised schemes could work. After all, if "war communism" could defeat Nazi Germany, surely other collectivist systems could work during peace time? English industrialist Seebohm Rowntree published '[Poverty, A Study of Town Life](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty,_A_Study_of_Town_Life)' in 1901. This was one of the first major sociological studies, which surveyed over 40,000 people living in York. The conclusions were simple: urban poverty was not limited to London, and most people struggled financially because of reasons outside of their control (sickness, disability, and wages not matching living costs). The study provoked political debate, and challenged the notion that poverty was just due to laziness, leading to reform a few years later. The [Liberal Reforms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_welfare_reforms) of 1906-1914 were insufficient. They had been passed to tackle social problems endemic within the classical liberal society of the 1800s. New state-led policies were implemented: state pension, national insurance, and job centres. Before these reforms the elderly, sick, and unemployed had to rely on family and charity, which was not enough. Poverty was endemic in Britain, even by the start of the war in the late 1930s. There were attempts to help, like Victorian [Workhouses](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workhouse), but these were often little better than [Debtor Prisons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debtors%27_prison). The gross inequality also led to security concerns, for example [Anarchist Terrorism](http://www.culture24.org.uk/art/art60786) in London, and sympathy for communism. A frequent Anarcho-Capitalist argument is that a stateless system will balance upon competition between insurance companies, working in the interest of the consumer. Insurers contract security firms to enforce law, which will insure peace and stability... but this is just Sicilian history writ large. There are many historical examples contrary to the notion that corporations will work for the consumer's interest, like the [Pheobus Cartel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel). This was a conspiracy of lightbulb manufacturers between 1924 and 1939, creating a monopoly which controlled prices and created lightbulbs which would break more often to increase sales. More contemporary scandals of note include the [Volkswagen emissions scandal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_emissions_scandal), and the [DuPont PFOs pollution scandal](https://web.archive.org/web/20200402143157/https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/10/magazine/the-lawyer-who-became-duponts-worst-nightmare.html), etc. Without deliberate efforts to mediate between the interests of workers, government, and corporations, inequality will increase. In turn, this will lead to poverty, social unrest, and revolution. That's what happened as a result of the Great Depression in 1929. Germany in particular was vulnerable at this time, owing to its reliance on American investment. Every single German bank failed. With this the entire system, which had seemed so secure in the roaring twenties, was in peril. Street battles between Communists and Fascists led to revolution; the liberal free market system did not survive. [NASA has even done a research paper](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/mar/14/nasa-civilisation-irreversible-collapse-study-scientists) on the collapse of civilisations, putting inequality high on the list of causes. Concerningly, Thomas Piketty's magnum opus; [Capital in the Twenty First Century](http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/05/economist-explains), finds that after an analysis of capitalism from the birth of the industrialisation to present, there's one obvious rule. Private wealth grows faster than the economy, therefor inequality is natural to capitalism. Without efforts to mitigate this by organisations which have an interest in helping the poor, we are led back to the Great Depression and NASA's paper. So given these things, it seems likely that a "pure" capitalist society would come into being, become very unequal, and then be overthrown by revolutionaries of some description. It could also tear itself apart as rival insurance and security firms compete for turf, and descend into feudal or criminal mentalities. [Mexico's drug war](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Drug_War) for example. Conclusion This is a great idea for a story, because it allows us to explore popular assumptions about politics, economics, and human behaviour. It would also be exciting given the political instability and conspiracies which would undoubtedly emerge, given all the aforementioned examples... from the emergence of the Sicilian mafia, to the anti-union activity of the Ford corporation (and others), to the rise of Russian oligarchs, etc. Unfortunately, the real world may be moving in this direction anyway, given corruption and state capture. [Answer] First, a bit of economic terminology. 'Capitalist' means a system that allows the ownership of the means of production (capital) to be separate from the producers. So one person who owns productive resources (savings, tools, factories, etc.) can trade their use (loan, rent, contract) to another person who uses them to produce stuff for sale. You can borrow money to start a business. You can work in somebody else's factory using somebody else's tools to make goods for sale, that you couldn't afford to do on your own. You both do better by trading than you would do otherwise. 'Free Market' means a system where the price of everything is determined entirely by the law of Supply and Demand. As the price of something rises, the number of people willing and able to buy it at that price drops, and the number of people willing and able to produce it at that price rises. Plot both on a graph, and the point where the two lines cross is called the Market Equilibrium, and is the price at which the amount of goods supplied exactly equals the amount of goods demanded. If the price is set lower, you have more people wanting it than the producers can supply, which results in shortages. If the price is set higher, you have more people trying to sell goods and services than customers are willing to buy, resulting in a glut. Both situations can lead to smuggling, black markets, and criminals feeding off the difference between the price set by law and the equilibrium price, causing huge social problems. A perfect Free Market optimally allocates resources to production so as to maximally satisfy everybody's needs/desires against the effort needed to deliver it. (Subject to certain technicalities - the [First Fundamental Theorem of Welfare Economics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_theorems_of_welfare_economics). Note - there is a common misunderstanding about the stated need for perfect information. If market information is imperfect, then the optimisation is imperfect too, but still better than any alternative known.) What I suspect you mean by an 'entirely Capitalist country' is an entirely Free Market one. The trouble is that very often people don't like and don't agree with the prices the market sets - wages are too low, rent is too high, food is too expensive, etc. - and they use the government to force a different price. This results in shortages and gluts (e.g. no rental accomodation, high unemployment) and smuggling/crime (e.g. illegal drugs, alcohol, cigarettes). Another reason for interfering in prices is [Protectionism](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/20161/20161-h/20161-h.htm), where suppliers collude with the government to keep out cheaper competition by raising legal barriers to trade and thus keep prices high. Protectionism can take the form of taxes, tariffs, subsidies, regulations, and in the labour market, trade union closed shops, guilds, and needing guild-controlled certification to work in particular jobs. Nationalism is another reason/excuse for Protectionism - to keep out foreign competition. The consequence of Protectionism is that goods are more expensive for consumers, innovation is stifled, and poorer nations' economies are stifled. It also creates rampant corruption - government-controlled barriers to trade create a market for government officials to bypass the barriers for a fee. The Free Market view on income inequality is that it reflects a shortage of supply of particular skills. There are more people who want coders than there are people willing/able to code, so the price (wages) for coders is high. There are more people able/willing to flip burgers than society needs, so wages are low. This creates pressure for burger-flippers to learn to code - filling the shortage, and reducing the inequality. Inequality drives changes to the allocation of resources, increasing the supply of things we need and reducing the supply of things we've got enough of. Interfering with those prices removes the pressure, creating permanent shortages, a perpetual need to interfere, and leaving a permanently imbalanced economy. In a Free Market, the response to some people having extremely high wages is to train more people to do that job. If you think somebody is grossly overpaid, offer to do the same job to the same standard for 10% less. Whoever is employing them is happy to save money, you're happy to be paid more, the wage is forced down, and goods get cheaper. If you can't do that, then there is a barrier to entry that needs to be removed. This can be by better training, or motivating people to switch jobs by other means, or by inventing technology to make the job easier. Again, interfering with price signals removes the incentive to solve the root problem, perpetuating it. The Free Market ideal is for everyone to be near the minimum wage, but for goods and services to be so incredibly cheap as a result that everybody is still hugely wealthy. Society gets richer not by wages going up, but by prices going down. The ultimate goal it is working towards is for robots to do everything, so nobody earns anything, and for everything to be free. So finally - what are the problems with a pure Free Market society? Politics - The public does not understand economics (it's not generally taught in schools), and Protectionism is seductively persuasive to the voters. Politicians who want to get voted in pander to their demands, and indeed, are often personally motivated by corruption to maintain the status quo. Vested interests will fight you if you tried to create a Free Market society. The disabled and incapable - we don't want people who are disabled (congenital, illness, injury) and unable to work to starve. Health insurance (perhaps paid initially for children by their parents) can deal with some of this problem, as can voluntary charity (so long as it's voluntary, there's nothing uncapitalist about it), but there may still be people who fall through the safety net. A Free Market society would be considerably richer, and so more able to spare more for charity, but it would possibly need to be considered a social duty, so as to avoid the need for compulsion. Limitations of current education and technology - this is something that a future society with more advanced technology might be able to address. At present, if large numbers of people simply cannot acquire the skills to do a job we need doing, motivating them with money doesn't help. We need more people with maths skills, but lots of people hate maths and are no good at it. You can't turn them into mathematicians by offering them more money. But if we [invented educational techniques](http://www.speed-math.com/story.htm) able to teach people any skill, then this might not be such a problem. Need more CEOs, because they're getting paid too much? Put on the brain hat and train another CEO. [Public goods](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good_(economics)) - these are goods that markets don't work for, so free markets don't either. An example is the music industry. It costs a lot to create a piece of professional music, but is trivial to copy. If a musician tries to recoup their production costs by charging more, they can be undercut. Copyright and Patent laws are Protectionist measures taken to deal with this problem. Other examples are national defence, police, and judiciary. For these, government simply does them itself. I've not seen any convincing Free Market solution to the problem of Public Goods. If you want to write about a future 'entirely Capitalist' society, I strongly recommend reading [Bastiat](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/20161/20161-h/20161-h.htm) to understand the economic theory underlying a lot of 'Capitalist' thinking. He does it in a wonderfully readable way. [Answer] This isn't just slightly dystopian. It's really, really dystopian. There are a few things I can see happening: * For Profit government/private government. Every single service and amenity is charged for. Use a road, pay a toll, to keep the road intact and to make a profit besides. Call the cops, pay a fee. Certain neighborhoods would collectively make a general fund so that cops would come no matter what. I see that people have already linked the Ferengi rules of acquisition in the comments. If you actually look at the DS9 episodes where they are on Ferenginar, you'll notice that every single service (including, if I recall correctly, the use of the elevator in a government building) involved a fee of some kind. * Massive Pollution Profit is the most important thing. In a purely or nearly purely capitalist society, there would not be an EPA. Consider leaded gasoline for instance. The manufacturers knew how dangerous it was, yet, because there was a profit, they produced it for as long as possible before they were brought to heel. Champions of capitalism say that the market self-regulates this sort of thing, and that by harming folk you would lose customers. Yes, eventually, you do lose customers, but in the meantime, you take home a tidy profit. So what if your company tanks or doesn't deliver on its promises or kills some folks--individuals will make $$. This happens now, and has happened in the past. In a purer form of capitalism, you can bet it will happen with far more regularity. * Monopolies & Price Fixing This is the end game of Capitalism. There's a reason why we have laws to try and prevent it. We still don't, because with enough money, lobbyists influence those laws. * Disadvantaged Workers & Perhaps a revolution Take a look at inappropriateCode's answer. [Answer] # Is almost perfectly doable > > The heads of the nation, the "president" type people - the keepers of the constitution - are so ridiculously rich that they are considered unbribeable, and above corruption. But they are, in practical terms, little more than figureheads. > > > Surely possible. > > The actual government (like parliament and lower levels) is run by representatives of large companies. This is almost alternative to democracy - it's thought that consumers will "vote with their feet". i.e. stop spending money on the companies that rule badly and so they will lose their place in the government. > > > Possible as long insurance companies are no involved in any conspiration oor contitution infrigment, and they can act properly to avoid any conspiration or constitution ingfrigment. I would recommend better to use a more democratic no monetary approach and instead just require to the senators, etc. to be just finacially auto sufficient (and no being involved in big buisness). Also forbid donations to political parties. > > Now I'm not asking if this is a good system or even an OK one, it's supposed to be a bit dystopian (for many people anyway). I'm also not asking how "our" (present day) world could become like that. > > > Are you joking?. This is nearly perfect. ]
[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. I know the innate contradiction present here: one cannot "prove" the supernatural exists, for a variety of reasons. But for the sake of argument I want you to consider this: A person is convinced that they have been haunted and oppressed by an entity (a ghost, a demon, an inter-dimensional horror as of yet undetermined, etc.) for the majority of their life. This thing has made their life a living hell: scaring them, inconveniencing them, making them a social pariah, basically making it impossible for the person in question to live a normal life. It finally comes to the point that this individual sets out to prove that this entity exists, if only in the vain hope of demonstrating to people that they aren't simply crazy. Let's say they ignore or are unaware of the futility inherent in a task like this and they pursue it with all of their being. So...how does one go about doing this? Let's get some obvious things out of the way: *-Naturally, I figure they might go to religious figures to see what they would have to say on the matter. Christianity is not necessarily the only religion they would look into.* *-Similarly, they might approach someone claiming to be a medium or a psychic to see what they had to say.* *-To get a scholarly opinion, they may call a collegiate or university professor, or a similar "expert" in the field of the paranormal. Maybe popular demonology?* *-Maybe for a more personal, down-to-earth approach, they might speak to people they've found who have had similar experiences?* *-They might go so far as to seek out a ghost-hunting team of paranormal investigators, for better or worse.* *-They may invest in camera equipment to film their everyday lives in the hopes of capturing paranormal activity. Maybe audio equipment as well.* *-They may, regardless of their belief to the contrary, get a psychiatric evaluation, to at least see what a psychological explanation might be.* ...and now maybe the not-so-obvious things: *-I'm very interested how someone might apply the scientific method to this situation. How would someone logically try to apply this to a haunting to prove if it was true, at least in their mind? Like: could an experiment actually be done to prove or disprove a hypothesis that this thing is real? How would that work?* *-I'm also curious about applying philosophical argument to this (abductive, inductive, etc.) and how it could be "proved" - or disproved - the reasoning behind this event is that it's supernatural.* *-If, say, the person being haunted wasn't willing to admit this thing was a demon or a ghost, BUT ALSO WASN'T WILLING TO SAY THAT THEY WERE CRAZY...then what would their explanation for this thing might be? How far might they go into saying the thing is, say, inter-dimensional? From a higher plane of existence? Would they dabble heavily into fringe science and pseudo-science? What would that person try to look for outside of these more traditional ideas as an explanation?* *-I know there are minutiae and intricacies to the above sections I have overlooked and missed. Any fleshing out of those, or inclusions of things I haven't even thought of, would be greatly appreciated.* [Answer] You're talking about a supernatural entity that regularly interacts with the real world. This actually [makes it a natural entity](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SufficientlyAnalyzedMagic), merely one that is not yet understood and perhaps actively discounted. For our purposes, it suffices to notice that it is now subject to science; in interacting with the real world, it now becomes subject to empirical analysis. --- Science operates fundamentally by collecting evidence, and then analyzing it, with care taken in both steps to minimize sources of bias. At a minimum, I'd start with the following approach for a character: 1. Get a psych exam/etc. This is the mandatory precursor step. Scientifically, you need to acquire counterevidence to the alternative theories. Explanations of existing evidence using the established theories should not be possible. (Could bug-eyed aliens from Pluto be causing my headache? Sure, but maybe I'm just dehydrated and tired.) 2. Provide Evidence of Supernatural Activity. To support the hypothesis that you're being haunted, you need to provide evidence of the fact. The gold standard in science is a repeatable controlled experiment. It's probably tricky to set up a good controlled experiment for this case, but ample data from an observational study is often a sufficient substitute. You would start by documenting everything about your life. Cameras, recorders, brain scans, witnesses. By definition of interacting-with-the-real-world, it is impossible for the poltergeist to interfere without causing a measurable effect. Your goal should be to design a setup so as to measure that effect while ruling out alternative explanations. 3. Done/Repeat. High-quality data, especially if reliably generated, is sufficient to validate a theory. Scientists, though human, usually are quick to accept new hypotheses, as long as they are validated by evidence into theories. --- Note: "Proof", in the sloppy colloquial sense, is never (or at least, shouldn't ever be) claimed in science. This is where philosophy comes in. It's complicated, but the basic end result is that (probably) the only way we know anything is from underlying assumptions. In mathematics, the assumption is the-consistency-of-logic. A "proof" of "Q" in mathematics means "I assume that logic is a useful epistemological system. Now, using logic as my mode of thinking, I conclude Q". In science, the assumption is our senses give us reasonably accurate models of the world (i.e., we're not brains in jars). "Proof" in science is categorically avoided, since it is misleading, but for practical purposes you can think of a theory as being "nearly proved; either correct, or so close to being correct that it still produces useful results". [Answer] First, he must certainly do the psychiatric evaluation. He must know which of his symptoms relate to mental disorders, and which could be used for proving supernatural nature of the haunting (I mean, besides "things moving on their own"). Coming to the religious figures, mediums, ghost hunters, etc would only worsen his chances. Even if some kind of exorcism works, it won't prove anything. What is more likely, supernatural being from another plane, or a drug/meditation that happened to fix some specific psychiatric issue? Demonology seem promising, but it'd be way better for him NOT to study it. Otherwise, it'd be too easy to think that his symptoms match some specific demonic possession because he have already read about it, and his brain chose to go wild this way. Instead, he should just document his hallucinations. After he proves he's not just crazy, it'll be curious if his notes match some demon he have never heard about. Certainly do not contact other people with the similar symptoms. You need a clear test subject, not someone with a [shared psychosis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folie_%C3%A0_deux). Next, to the symptoms: * Scary noises when nothing is there, voices, random appearances of scary figures or terrifying images. Common [auditory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditory_hallucination) and [visual hallucinations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucination), symptoms of a [wide range](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucination#Cause) of disorders. Nothing supernatural can be proved. * Attempts at possession, malevolent intent. A symptom of [a wide range of disorders](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_possession#Psychology). Nothing supernatural can be proved. * Things moving on their own. That's a clear proof that he's not hallucinating. Not only hallucinating, I mean. So, yes, he should buy some cameras, preferably analogue, set them up in his room, and wait until one of them captures things moving on their own. Then, send it to the experts. If the ghost is cliche enough to move things when it scares the host, it'll be really easy to reproduce - just lock oneself in an empty room with one object that can be moved, turn off the lights and play some scary music. Otherwise, keep trying to figure out the condition when it moves something. Once the conditions are more or less clear, proving supernatural nature of the haunting should be easy enough. For the most spectacular reveal, I'd advice him to participate in the [Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Million_Dollar_Paranormal_Challenge). [Answer] A mistake you may be making here is that it's not a scientific hypothesis the main character is trying to prove. Rather, you're trying to prove a historical fact about something(s) that happened or didn't happen. The whole idea of the supernatural, or miraculous, is that it isn't natural. Let's say that the main character has observed objects levitating at random around his house, and he blames ghosts. If you prove, scientifically, that objects can spontaneously levitate, you have not proven the existence of ghosts but rather have found strong evidence that ghosts weren't involved. If you want to prove that ghosts caused it, you need to show two things: * It isn't possible (in nature) that objects spontaneously levitate. (a scientific claim) * Your objects in fact did spontaneously levitate. (a claim of historical fact) The scientific claim may be taken for granted in this case, so we can generalize the problem like so: *In order to prove that the supernatural is involved, you must prove the fact* that something has occurred which is known not to occur naturally.** That said, contrary to your assumption, it is possible to prove that the supernatural exists. People who have experienced real miracles, visits from angels, etc., have had it proven to them beyond reasonable doubt. The problem is, the supernatural has to want to be found out. [Answer] I'm not sure that a psych exam will help your cause. Perhaps some direct evaluation of your brain's chemical or electrical activity could offer evidence which decreases the likelihood that you are delusional, but a standard psychiatric evaluation would use your perceptions of the supernatural as proof of your illness. . "He sees ghosts!" Dr. Smith snickers to Dr. Jones. "Well that certainly makes our job easier!", Dr. Jones laughs as he checks off the Delusional Psychosis box on the patient evaluation form. . Instead, retain a body guard company and require that they keep a sober, trusted guard in your presence at all times. This will have one of two possible outcomes. Either the ghost will go away, in which case you have solved the problem for the small price of maintaining 24/7 security. The $5000/week that this will cost is significantly cheaper than the psychiatrists and resulting care facility fees would be. ...or, the ghost will not go away, in which case your guard can collaborate your perceptions, saving you the trouble of having a psych exam. There is a third option... that despite guard, you continue to see the specter while the guard does not. In that case, here is a referral to some collegues of mine,... Dr. Jones & Dr. Smith. [Answer] You can't "prove" anything about anything. All you can have are events separated in time and a narrative to link them. Let's say you flipped a switch and a lightbulb started illuminating a room. The only things certain are that you flipped the switch and that the lighbulb started illuminating. All the electromagnetic, quantum, theory that tells us about electrons, potentials, heating and blackbody radiation are stories told to make sense of what happened. Of course some stories are more useful to us then others. Like the very useful tale of electromagnetism. So, the only thing certain about the situation your character is that events that make him suffer are happening. He can tell a story about these events being caused by a demon, but he can't prove that his story is true, because no story is true, they are more useful or less useful. ]
[Question] [ Could something similar to a naval battleship main gun work in the vacuum of space? Let me set the stage: A turret of 2-3 large caliber guns, loaded with an explosive shell. Artificial gravity keeps the round and the powder bags seated properly, and the loading chamber is isolated from the inner atmosphere of the ship to prevent loss of atmosphere during firing. The level of technology in this setting is very advanced, an approximation would be Star Trek/Star Wars levels, where there are interstellar starships with shields and nice thick hulls, and a form of FTL travel utilizing wormholes. Now to the specific questions: What would need to happen for the gun to fire the projectile? Would there need to be atmosphere around the shell? Without oxygen would the firing generate the gasses needed to push the projectile out? Would an explosive round, like a conventional naval weapon, have a considerable effect in space? Would there be an explosion? What could be done to improve the effectiveness of such a round? My goal is to have a navy that is slowly adopting more...advanced...weaponry, like railguns, but has a strong love of their old projectile weaponry and is wont to give them up. I'm just not sure how feasible that is in the real world, and how much handwavetonium I'm going to have to add to the guns to make it feasible. [Answer] Your projectiles would have to utilize chemical explosives, which don't require oxygen. So no, your shell would not need an atmosphere. Would an explosive round, like a conventional naval weapon, have a considerable effect in space? This depends completely on what you're hitting and the design of your round. An explosion can happen in any environment - including the vacuum of space. An explosion is the result of a very quick combustion that produces a sudden extreme increase in gas pressure. If that gas pressure is contained in a container that is not strong enough to hold it, the container violently ruptures and parts of the container and its innards are propelled by the gas pressure outward. A gun cartridge being fired is a controlled explosion with one particle propelled - the bullet. This is also why any sort of bomb needs a container like a pipe or a pressure cooker. Without the container the gas just expands out into the environment as its created rather then in a violent outburst. Would there be an explosion? What could be done to improve the effectiveness of such a round? As written above, explosions can happen in space. So yes, it's possible to have an explosion. But the effectiveness of these rounds depends solely on what you make the rounds out of - but then you have to ask yourself, whats the point of making these rounds minutely better when you could just adopt a better form of weaponry (given that you have star wars/star trek tech, almost any Laser or Photon weaponry is way more powerful). [Answer] The main issue with chemical artillery weapons like a 16" battleship gun is simply too slow for any serious combat in space. Consider the ISS, a very non-military spacecraft. It is in Low Earth Orbit, so moving at a velocity of @ 7km/sec. It is moving so fast that if you were standing on an American Football field with a .45 automatic pistol aimed at the opposite goalpost and fired when the ISS was directly overhead, it would cross the other goal line before your bullet reached the 10-yard mark. The obligatory XKCD comic is [here](https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/). That other repository of space-related wisdom, Atomic Rockets, has some commentary on their space war pages, and I believe the figure they quote is an enemy spacecraft could move 3 miles before the shell travels the length of the barrel <http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/index.php>. So while a shell is actually a good idea (for reasons I will get into), a cannon to fire them out of is not. The true killer in space is the kinetic energy that moving at orbital speeds delivers to an object. The American Space Shuttle sometimes needed the window replaced because it had impacted a speck of paint moving at 7km/sec. If they had been hit by a washer, nut or bolt, then the window would not have just been starred, but totally shattered and the space shuttle would have been destroyed by abrupt explosive decompression and the instant death of the crew. And that is just in Earth orbit. Once you move into interplanetary space, speeds simply increase in order to achieve transfer orbits. The fastest unpowered objects can move and still remain in the Solar System is 72km/sec, but since Ke=1/2Mv^2, the increase in energy is not 10X that of an object orbiting the Earth, but over 100X! So an artillery round detonating in front of a spacecraft will have its relatively immobile shrapnel hitting the moving spacecraft with the energy of a freight train. Old style artillery often burst into large pieces, so the enemy spacecraft isn't being showered with flecks of paint at lighting like energies either... Since the real issue is getting on target, your space battleship will need to use some pretty impressive energies simply to get the round on target. Nuclear explosions have been used to drive pellets at speeds approaching 100km/sec, and Atomic Rockets describes a weapon developed in the late 1950s [here](http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacegunconvent.php#nuclearspear) If your space battleship ever gets in the way of these things, it will be toast. [Answer] I don't know specifically about the chemicals used in naval guns, but modern handgun bullets have the oxidizer included in the chemicals inside the cartridge, so they ought to work in a vacuum. I suspect naval guns are the same for the same reasons, but I'll defer on that to anyone on here who actually knows. Even if present naval guns require atmospheric oxygen to ignite, the technology to include the oxidizer in the cartridge is clearly there, so there's no reason why it couldn't be done on a spaceship. Presumably an artillery gun would work better in the vacuum of space than on Earth, because it doesn't have to overcome air resistance. Once the projectile leaves the barrel, it will continue moving in a straight line at a constant speed until it hits something. Not quite in real life, because space isn't 100% vacuum. It will hit dust particles etc that will eventually slow it down. But it will go a long way before that makes a significant difference. If the battle is taking place in orbit, then gravity may eventually pull the shell toward the planet, where it will either burn up in the atmosphere, or not and hit the ground. I say "may" because if the shell is travelling faster than escape velocity it will just fly off into space. I don't think losing air when you fire would be a big issue. Yes, you have to open the barrel to load another shell. I'd assume this would be done by machinery and not by people hand-carrying shells, in which case the whole mechanism could be in a part of the ship separate from the crew quarters, and where everything operates in a vacuum. Or if people need to hand load it, fine, you have airtight doors on the gun barrels. They'd presumably have to be pretty well sealed anyway so the force of the blast is directed outward, to propel the shell out of the barrel, and not into the firing ship, killing the gun crew. Yes, you can have explosions in space. The key difference is that with no air, you won't produce a shock wave. If you want the shell to do more damage than just punching a hole in the enemy ship, it will have to be loaded with shrapnel. Yes, the speed of an artillery shell is slow compared to orbital velocities. But if you and the target are both in the same orbit going in the same direction, your relative velocity is zero, and so the artillery shell will have the same effective velocity that it does here on Earth. The operative question is the delta-V of the target: how fast can it maneuver out of the way when it sees the shell coming. If you're at close enough range that the shell hits within a couple of seconds, maybe the target doesn't have time to react. An artillery shell is limited in speed because all the impetus to get it moving has to come from one blast, and there are practical limits to how fast you can release energy. And even if you could impart a very high velocity very fast, the g-forces would damage or destroy the projectile. A rocket can go faster than a shell because it continues to expend energy to accelerate over time. That acceleration can add up to a higher total velocity. Thus, I tend to doubt that space war will use artillery shells. Rockets seems more likely. Assuming that overall lasers or other "beam weapons" don't prove more effective. An advantage of a simple projectile is that it is more difficult to counter. Guided missiles can be neutralized with electronic counter measures, i.e. doing something to confuse or disable the guidance system. But a simple dumb projectile isn't vulnerable to that kind of defense. If someone fires an artillery shell at you, the best defense is probably jumping out of the way. Maybe some kind of anti-missile. Oh, I presume someone capable of building spaceships is capable of building targeting systems for their projectiles that can deliver them to the desired point with a high degree of accuracy, and make due allowance for movement of the target. As long as the target doesn't see the shell coming and take evasive action, I'd expect you'd hit almost every time. [Answer] Recoil is going to be an issue. Lets assume you are able to launch low cost, aimable projectiles (so you give it an initial boost through chemical or electromagnetic means) for longer range use, or slam a slug the size of a standard 1 TEU container right through an enemy ship (or into it). Any force imparted to the slug will be imparted to the ship. A launch along the axis of the ship will slow you down. A launch at an angle will make you slow down and potentially roll, so you'd need to compensate for that. There's some situations where oldschool projectile artillery makes sense. Surface bombardment is a role similar to what the last battleships excelled at. It may make sense with short range combat with high velocity rounds, essentially the space equivilent of a dual to the death inside a elevator, and for point defence. There could be unusual uses for a large ship gun - first stage launch for self guding type rounds. The initial boost saves propellent on the torpedo itself, saving mass for longer range and course correction ([which is a idea 'modern' artillery has embraced](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M982_Excalibur)) Unlike a torpedo, these rounds would be smaller (and harder to detect), have great range (since they already have a sizable launch velocity) and fairly cheap. As for the rounds themselves. I'd consider a few options. The oldschool bag and projectile design is silly. You don't want debris floating around your ship. Something self contained would be a great idea and if you can reduce recoil it would be awesome. The design of the [Armburst](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armbrust) might be an idea - having a 'standard' propellent canister that acts as propellent, and counterweight. You'd load a round, and this instead of a 'bag' - fire, and the propellent 1. pushes a piston that launches the missile 2. fires a counterweight that's shredded, and dispersed safely, or somehow trapped over a longer period of time. 3. keeping the need to adjust the ship's thrust to compensate minimal, greatly simplifying the process. It would be low tech, allow for a variety of rounds to be used and simple for a oldschool navy to adapt to. Considering the missiles coast most of they way, they'd also possibly be harder to spot thermally, which might be handy. [Answer] Guns work in space already i don't know the process but they do. But if you are thinking about advanced technology what about a rail gun operated with electro-magnets? it packs a hell of a punch and would not require any explosive (safer to store) and if you have evolved technology i am sure you'll find a way to gather energy for the electro-magnets. Besides, no gravity means your projectiles will have a lot of acceleration. More than with a gun. Also, you'll be able to throw anything that is magnetic. [Answer] Late to the party but let me add another angle. Railguns are far superior to explosive propellants for the reasons given elsewhere but could be handwaved as more complex or difficult to engineer for whatever reason. Missiles are trickier to explain away but could be supporting elements of any attack. Dependant on who you're fighting against, explosive weaponry could be exceedingly potent against aggressors. Spaceship hulls just need to be able to withstand the pressure of internal atmosphere vs external athmosphere plus any strain from take off or landing. If they're solely exo-athmospheric they just need to be able to withstand the internal pressure vs a vacuum. Add a pressure wave to this and you could do major damage. Not sure 100% on the science of this but you'd probably damage significant areas of plating which would then "pop" from the internal atmosphere (think submarine vs depth charges in reverse) - could be useful to explain the success of such primitive weaponry in space. Adaption of hulls designed to contain such damage could also explain why the navy are starting to pursue rail guns. With the advent of pressure plates, the aim of any gunfight the navy gets into isn't to pop them open like a bubble, but to fill the enemy ships full of holes till they can't fight any more. [Answer] Projectile weapons are pretty much useless in space combat. There are two main reasons for that: 1. Velocity. 16 inch naval gun's fires impressive round, but even in wet navy battle the round is sloooow. For example: to travel 10nm separating two warships that projectile needs about 6 seconds to get to the target. Depending on the speed of the target it may not be there to encounter the projectile at all. Interplanetary/interstellar warship will be much faster than even fastest battleship (record is I think 52 nmph for one of the last US battleship, but that's just a rumor, as actual number is still classified). even if we assume 1g acceleration (which is very conservative), the ship after mere 10 seconds of acceleration is faster than even best F1 car. 30 seconds and it's well over 1000 kph. Even minuscule course changes (evasion maneuvers) will require the targeting computer to lead by absurd values. One way to remedy that is to saturate the area with shells, but that big gun has a Rate Of Fire of about 2RPM. Obvious answer: go smaller projectile with more guns. Cluster of 6 20mm rotary cannons should do the trick on very short ranges (say <100km) 2. Ranges. With speeds of interplanetary travel measured in acceleration rather than kph or mph, range of combat will necessarily increase. Space has no measurable diffusion, it's mostly empty (relatively, depends on one's speed...), so accurate fire is possible at the ranges of hundreds of kilometres. If not thousands. But those ranges require much higher initial velocity of the projectile for it to arrive at target in reasonable time... I don't believe any conventional weapon apart from powered missiles (i.e. rockets) can do 100kps... But rockets are tricky, too - they need to be pretty much direct impact, even nuclear-tipped ones (even nuclear explosion doesn't propagate well in space... No compression wave because no atmo, no heat wave b/c same, no EMP b/c same, no significant radiation, too). But here we're back to speed issue again - at the speeds I'd estimate would be in play, even minor evasion maneuvers will be enough to miss by miles. Sorry for that, but it's back to the drawing board for you (if not there already, this is an old question) [Answer] Guns work just fine, actually very slightly better, in vacuum.(for shooting them) The propulsion charge fires just fine. Bullets travel straight lines (as per gravity, if applicable). Bullets do not slow down. Ever! Projectiles work a bit less well on impact, as a High Explosive round will only deliver a part of its energy on a surface hit, whereas the same hit in atmosphere makes a nice pressure wave. A near miss by high explosive will cause only shrapnel damage, and very little at that. A subsurface penetrating hit will work almost as well as it would in an atmosphere, and as the target is an enclosed pressure vessel, it will be quite effective indeed. IF you can hit your target! And if they do not shoot down your slow-moving, straight-flying projectile as it approaches. Distances of engagement in space will be several times greater than on the ocean, and many times greater than on land. Relative speed of motion between ships will be many, many,many times greater than on ocean. Many times greater even than between supersonic atmospheric fighter jets! Frankly, the odds are that your projectile from a cannon will be moving much slower than your target!! Solution 1: Don't use projectiles, use energy weapons that travel at lightspeed or a reasonable fraction thereof. (but voided by scenario requirements) Solution 2: Use guided missiles, that solve both the velocity and accuracy issues. (unfortunately, also voided by scenario) Solution 3: Use the huge speed of space vessels to your advantage! Calculate a rough intercept between your projectile and the enemy, and shoot *birdshot* into its path. A few thousand pellets each impacting at many km/s (mostly due to your or the enemy's own ship velocity) will cause massive havoc. And makes targeting much easier. Also voids anti-projectile defense systems. [Answer] If you had a problem with the force of the gun firing vs the firing ship then all you would need to fix that is a gun not connected directly to the ship like by magnets. ]
[Question] [ I want demons to appear in my story, but having them originate from Hell was never appealing. Anyways, these "demons" are summoned to Earth- a planet that's only just discovering magic. They are- in essence- still demons. Things like holy trinkets and devil's traps still work on them. But what about Hell? I'm not very sure how else to put it. I could probably get away with not touching on this at all in my story- humans never learn the truth (aside from main characters) about the demons' origin & just assume they came from Hell. But some deeper world building couldn't hurt. EDIT: To get a better idea of the tone- humor is really important to me. I draw a lot of inspiration from things like Kill la Kill and One Punch. Sensible nonsense. That said, Yes: I'm comparing a world where demons come from a planet vs a world where demons come from hell. However, this Earth has never encountered real demons until their discovery of magic. [Answer] Demons coming from another planet prove doesn't prove or disproved hell, heaven and the afterlife. It only proves demon-like creatures do exist, and there's a place whence they come. Religious texts and mythology are mostly figurative, sometimes partly based on truth. Maybe the truth here is that aliens visited Earth once, and they really weren't nice guys, and then they went on their merry way because "meh, not hellish enough, 2/10, would not raid again" or something. Here hell would be figurative for "wherever these things came from, which must be a really bad place". The guys who wrote the Bible never saw hell, nor did the Greeks. It just serves to tell you "don't sin", or more generally "be nice", otherwise hell awaits. If religion is prevalent, then demons coming to Earth would support claims that sinning is really bad and unleashes the apocalypse. So that would likely make religious power even more powerful because people like salvation. If religion isn't prevalent, it may not change much. If we're advanced enough to fathom life on other planets and interplanetary travel, we'll probably assume that demons where created after these things. In any case, it might sparkle interest in religion, though whether people will take it at face value or not is hard to guess. [Answer] I actually am writing a book that is very similar (more than just demons though). 1. All of a sudden "Demons" become synonymous with Aliens. 2. This would both support and destroy Christianity and Islam. (Judaism would be mostly unaltered, they didn't care that much about demons in the first place.) 3. On the plus side for them, the religions get to say, for once, "See, we weren't making it up!" But on the flip side, the religious becomes mundane. Demons weren't some "strange mystical force" but just aliens that our ancestors misunderstood. They aren't as powerful in concept. That in turn throws other myths of the religion into a similar light. Maybe Angels/God etc. are real, but also just as subject to the laws of reality as well. 4. This results in another interesting spin... religion changes from being a "source of moral guidance of an unseen hand" and into "being a source of intel on alien species". Prophecies become less viewed as the fate of the universe and more as alien battle plans. 5. Religion loses it's "mystical" interpretation and their claims begin to be taken deadly seriously and treated as such. Clergy (Christian, Islam, Devil Worshipping) all become viewed as infiltrating agents of an alien empire. Instead of being "holy men" or similar, they would be viewed by society the same way that the US viewed communist public speakers. 6. It'd probably mean the end of organized religion... at least of Christianity and Islam. [Answer] # 1- Hell might refer to hellish planets So demons do descend from hell(s). But hell is just a name for terrible, terrible planets such as [tres-2B](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TrES-2b), [Bellerophon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/51_Pegasi_b), [Osiris](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_209458_b) or some other mind-blowingly horrible planet. # 2- Religions would be studied in deep detail Abrahamic religions (Islam, Christianity, judaism) would be studied with in great detail and many of the brightest minds would endeavor to decode the scientific and astronomical information present in them. # 3- Old demonic myths will be studied for rewriting human history Ancient tales and legends about demons, ghosts and such would be studied in detail to figure out how long aliens have been visiting Earth, what are their probable motives and how much damage they have caused thus far. [Answer] ## Holy Book The Bible was written thousands of years ago, and it's a common theory that some major parts were easily lost in translation over many different iterations. Imagine a primitive human in your world, before discovering magic, or even basic technology, meeting an alien or many aliens (monstrous and/or intelligent). This encounter changes society based on the actions the alien(s) chose (did they cast judgement, did they murder indiscriminately?) and it becomes associated with a spiritual movement. A human writes a book to try to rationalize this encounter and passes it down through the ages without knowing from where the alien(s) came from. Maybe as the book becomes a pillar for modern society, some of the finer details are lost and the entire encounter sounds like spiritual metaphor. The stories would change to reflect the nature of the encounter, plus any bias/creative input from the person writing it. I don't see it actually impacting beliefs until Demons have their "Second Coming". ## Demon Wards = Accidental Anti-Alien Materials The ancient alien encounter was extremely violent, but the humans of the time found ways to stop the attacks and passed these methods down through the Holy Scripture. When the demons come back, you find out Holy Water is only considered Holy because water and other materials wards are made out of are highly corrosive to demon skin. Old hymns are intentional arrangements of frequencies that scramble demon brains. There can be magic involved as well, but having Hell be a planet means Earth is not the ideal living environment for Demons. Maybe the Demons have come back with protection from these wards and traps as well. ## Sunday School = Boot Camp Demons invade and people start trying out the methods laid out in their Holy Books since the "Demons" look remarkably similar to ancient art and depictions. As soon as it's established that there's a correlation between a particular religion's depiction and the currently invading demons, that's when society will drastically change. Masses will convert and consider the religion as training. Skeptics will rise as well while the chaos unfolds, but the more evidence a given faith receives, the more it will reach a higher prominence. Everybody's waiting for a sign, right? And when shit hits the fan and the Pope is showing how their methods are right and will actually protect you, the more followers they'll accrue. This could lead to wars between similar religions over who's "more right". You'll have people fighting demons and questioning their faith and each other. [Answer] I don't see it have much of impact on religion at all, or at least it won't impact what people believe about religion. Atheist well say that since hell is a physical place then the demons or not the forces of evil but just a strange alien. None atheist people will point to the demons aversion to holy symbols, devil traps and the scripture, they will say that this show that there a more to the demons are more then just aliens but have some sort of spiritual aspect to them. But weather you believe there are aliens or demons all will agree that the scripture will be studied for information. In addition to this the Jews and Muslim writes about demons will also be studied. That doesn't mean of course that everyone will except everything in there as truth (at least not at first) but they would be a factor in forming plans on how to fight the demons. ]
[Question] [ Setting: In my world I've introduced [some science-defying material](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/19630/is-this-concept-for-an-lta-gas-associated-element-lifecycle-feasible). I use it to grant the ability of flight to airships that are less [Hindenburg-y](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LZ_129_Hindenburg) and more ship-y. They are not literally ships that fly, but in order to comply with the aesthetics that I have in mind and still stay afloat, real lifting gases just don't cut it. These Airships, most of the time, consist of two or more parallelly arranged lifting bodies with most of the mass of the ship hung between them, the center of mass being below the lifting bodies. This arrangement is intended to give them a sort of stability in the air similarly to a [catamaran](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catamaran). There are different classes of ships that refer to different sizes, armaments and tasks of the ship, the largest of these reaching widths of up to 160m and lengths of up to 400m. Aspect ratios vary from smaller ships @7:2 to larger ships @5:3. Armaments differ between classes, but are similar to WW1/WW2 ship armaments. Similar goes for the ship classes and engagement styles. E.g. cruisers/battleships will fire heavy shells over vast distances (mostly for land bombardment), while smaller ships feature lighter weaponry to engage in ship-to-ship fighting. Additionally most ships, down to [corvette-sized ships](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corvette) carry a compliment of fighter/bomber biplanes (smaller ships may carry one or two fighter-craft, while larger ships may carry multiple squadrons of fighter/bomber-craft). --- Technology: The world is set technologically somewhere between the industrial revolution and the invention of internal-combustion-engines. There's been heavy development and optimizations regarding steam-driven-engines as there is, at least in parts of the world, little to no oil available (also because I like steamengines). Electricity is something fairly new and so far doesn't go further than being used for creating light aboard airships and being used for telegraphing (little to no electric infrastructure). While oil is found and burned in other parts of the world, in this part of it the most commonly used fuels burned for heat are coal and peat. Additionally natural-gas, coal-water-slurry and fishoil are most commonly burned in lanterns to provide light. --- Situation: I got the associated lifecycle of the mentioned phlebotinum to a point where I am quite happy with it regarding the occurrence of the element and its behavior(s). But: The lifting power dictates the element to display either of the following two properties: A) The element displays antigrav properties, thus allowing it to deflect/repulse/dilute gravitational forces acting upon it or a sufficiently concentrated mass of it. B) The element displays negative mass, thus gravity does not apply a pull on it but rather a push forcing it away continuously Both of these explanations are, to my understanding, far beyond anything explainable/discovered in our current understanding of physics. They are themselves not the topic of this question but mainly a fact regarding the environment. Making use of the gas to lift objects off the ground, applying the laws of buoyancy, I would aim to provide sufficient negative mass to reduce the average weight per m3 of the object-to-be-lifted to the average weight of air at the altitude I'm aiming to lift the object to. Again regarding airships I want them to be able to lose/gain 'weight' while afloat without these 'weight-changes' having huge influence on their altitude/flying-capabilities (think e.g. of a fleet of aircraft launching from a carrier / returning to it; or a complement of several hundred soldiers and landing boats leaving the baseship / returning to it). --- *Question: What means are there to regulate lift (overall weight) without having to rely excessively on external means? I would like to focus on means that are within the technology constraints (they must not necessarily match the time-constraint; e.g. electromagnets can likely be a thing, same goes for electric engines - alas they make little sense when we need to drive steamengines/-turbines in order to provide the electricity anyways). I would further like to focus on ways that do allow a ship to float at least for a week or two before needing refueling (that means a ship need to be able to carry enough fuel for floating a week or two). [Answer] Use a method similar to that used on some submarines: filling tanks with seawater when you need to go down (get heavier), and emptying them when you need to go up (get lighter). Just like with submarines, air is all around you, and in compressed form it has quite a high density of 870 kg/m^3, pretty close to that of water. Equipment for liquefying air appeared at the start of 20th century in our world, so it should be quite possible with your level of technology. So just have air tanks distributed around your ship, and fill them with liquid air when you need to compensate for mass loss. In a normal state you will probably want them about half-full, to allow for both gain and loss. [Answer] Have your phlebotinum's effect depend on it's density. I'll assume it gets stronger with higher density/compression (the interaction between particles is more intense), but it could be the other way around just as easily. Either way, you'd deploy it in large cylinders/pistons (potentially running the length of the lifting bodies) that can be mechanically compressed by use of a steam engine or similar. Changes in altitude or weight could be controlled simply by the pistons. (for these examples, the phlebotinum increases its antigrav effect when compressed) Launching a fighter wing: "Bridge to Engineering: Extend the pistons by 20% on my mark". * Landing: "Bridge to Engineering: Extend the pistons to 80%, standby for final approach" * Emergency climb: "Retract the pistons! Full retract! Get us out of range of those flak cannons!" * Always: "Engineering to Bridge: She canna take any more, captain. She's gonna blow!" Concerning longevity, your ships could theoretically stay airborne indefinitely without using fuel. In practice, the ship would always have a steam engine running on standby to maintain enough pressure for sudden maneuvers, as well as to power onboard electrical devices. In an emergency, some fancy clockwork might allow the sailors to manually extend/retract the pistons, but too slow to be acceptable under normal conditions. Eventually, most ships will need to land to take on coal/peat and water, though some could have it delivered by smaller ships and never land. Note: upon re-reading your question, I realized that your catamaran designs would need some way to synchronize lift between the hulls or risk being torn apart. Piping between them to equalize steam pressure would probably solve this. A backup of two trained engineering teams and good signaling between them is advisable regardless. [Answer] I found an interesting answer by searching for patents on airship ballasts. [This patent](https://patents.google.com/patent/US7163177) describes a method for generating ballast using engine exaust. The basic idea is that hot exaust exiting the engine (the engine drives the propellers) is funneled through a long tube. As the hot air passes through the tube, it cools enough for the water in the air to condense. The water is then pumped into a ballast tank, and it weighs the tank out. If the ship needs to ascend, water can be dumped out. Benefits of this system: * As long as the engine is running, water can be collected for ballast * Collection of the water is low cost, little to no energy is needed to transport the water. * Water is heavy, so not much will be needed. Air, on the other hand, is much lighter, so it needs to be collected in large amounts. * Water can be collected during flight, which is essential. Using other weights, like sandbags, once the sand is dropped the ship will not be able to ascend. * If the water is purified to remove exaust by-products, it could be used for drinking. this could extending the time ships can travel before having to land for supplies. * Evaporation will not be a problem as long as the ballast tank is enclosed (water vapor can't escape), so the ship can hover as long as needed. * Water is relatively cheap, so it can be loaded onto the ship at port in proportion to the weight of cargo. * Water is harmless, so dumping it out won't hurt anyone, in the way that dropping a sandbag from the airship might hurt someone. ]
[Question] [ In the Halo series there's a habitable planet called Harvest with a diameter of 4,012 kilometres, and gravity 99% of Earth's, though the planet only has 9% of Earth's mass. If such a planet is possible, what are some factors that might lead to its formation? Some more information on the planet can be found [here](http://www.halopedia.org/Harvest). [Answer] Doing a simple density calculation, I get $$\rho=\frac{0.09M\_{\oplus}}{\frac{4}{3}\pi R^3}\approx15.97\text{ grams/cm}^3$$ For comparison, here's a list of [the average densities, $\bar{\rho}$, of the planets in the Solar System](http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/teachers/densities.html): $$\begin{array}{\|c\|c\|c\|} \hline \text{Planet} & \bar{\rho}\text{ (g/cm)}^3\\ \hline \text{Mercury} & \text{5.4}\\ \hline \text{Venus} & \text{5.2}\\ \hline \text{Earth} & \text{5.5}\\ \hline \text{Mars} & \text{3.9}\\ \hline \text{Jupiter} & \text{1.3}\\ \hline \text{Saturn} & \text{0.7}\\ \hline \text{Uranus} & \text{1.3}\\ \hline \text{Neptune} & \text{1.6}\\ \hline \end{array}$$ This means that your planet would have a density much greater than any of the planets in the Solar System. I looked up some mass-radius curves from [Seager et al. (2008)](https://arxiv.org/pdf/0707.2895v1.pdf). Your planet is fairly low-mass, and so it's possible that their models fail in that regime, but your world ($0.09M\_{\oplus}$ $0.315R\_{\oplus}$, still falls on the pure iron track. [Answer] The gravity seems right. I'll focus on the other side: density. It should be obvious that such a planet has to be very dense - but how dense, exactly? First, specific figures on the gravity: Earth's diameter is about 12740 km, so the gravity of Harvest as compared to Earth would be about 0.09\(12740/4012)^2... since 12740/4012 is approximately 3.175, this comes to (roughly) 0.91. For a result of 0.998 (as in the wiki), we need the mass to be 0.998/(3.175)^2, or about 9.89 percent Earth's. This can be easily rendered as "9 percent" if rounded down to the nearest integer (where's that figure from anyway? I couldn't find it in the linked article); I will use this figure in the following calculations (the other figure makes the density about 10% less, but doesn't change the conclusion much). Now for the density. A planet the same density as Earth and 3.175 times smaller diameter would have a mass (3.175)^3 times smaller; combining with the previous, the density needs to be about 3.17 times larger than that of Earth, or 3.17\5.515 - that is to say, about 17.5 - grams per cubic centimeter. This is an extremely high density for a normal planetary object... for anything, really: that's over 1.5 times the density of lead (11.3 g/cm^3), and only 10% less dense than tungsten and gold (19.3 g/cm^3). It is also about a third more dense than Earth's inner core (13 g/cm^3). Can a planet with such a high density exist? In principle, yes, but it would pretty much have to be formed artificially. (The Halo universe being what it is, that's not that much of an impossibility.) Metals so heavy and dense as to create such a planet form naturally almost only in supernovas, and not in especially huge amounts, so they're not particularly common (or, at least, much rarer than the less dense metals). Thus it is unlikely that a planet could have naturally formed consisting of them only (or mostly). Whether such a planet, once created, could have been habitable is a separate hard question; IMHO, probably not if it somehow formed naturally (or generally if left alone for a long enough time), and all bets are off if it was created artificially and geologically recently (i.e. within the last several million years). [Answer] It can't hold an atmosphere. Atmospheric retention is based on escape velocity, not on surface gravity. For those who want the math: First, escape velocity [Calculator](https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/escape-velocity): 5.98 km/sec Second, to convert this to what can be held: [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/VaQiN.gif)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/VaQiN.gif) Light molecules such as any hydrogen-bearing one are soon lost. This world holds an atmosphere about as well as Mars--and note what it's like there. [Answer] In a word. ## Yes. It's probably a bit less than 0.98 Earth gravity. It's closer to 92%. [Trivial to test](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=-(gravitational+constant)0.09(earth+mass)%2F(2000000%5E2m+)) for if you know the [laws of gravitation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauss%27s_law_for_gravity). ]
[Question] [ Closed. This question is [opinion-based](/help/closed-questions). It is not currently accepting answers. --- Want to improve this question? Update the question so it can be answered with facts and citations by [editing this post](/posts/37349/edit). Closed 7 years ago. [Improve this question](/posts/37349/edit) Let's imagine a handheld, five-dimensional melee weapon: 3 dimensions of regular ol' space, 1 of time, and an extra dimension of space. Its "hilt" is anchored in our usual 4-dimensional spacetime, so that we can wield it, but its "edge" is tethered in 5-dimensional spacetime. Perhaps also the "edge" can phase down to 4 dimensions when the wielder decides to "collide" with an object in our space. How would this weapon function? What unexpected advantages would it have for the wielder? Unexpected dangers? * One possible function I can imagine is that you would be able to strike people with the weapon at long distance, since it could "shortcut" through our space. * I also imagine it could slice through things to strike objects. Say, stab someone from behind a wall without cutting through the wall. Useful visualization if you are unfamiliar with higher dimensions: A 5-dimensional object passing through our space would be analogous to a 3-dimensional sphere passing through a 2-dimensional world sheet. Imagine a basketball passing through a sheet of paper. The cross-section of the ball, which is the only thing comprehensible to sheet-dwellers, can be visualized by them as a circle appearing out of nothing, shrinking, growing, then shrinking again before it disappears, as it passes through the 2 dimensional sheet. Commenter Questions: * The weapon can be smart or dumb. * Some question whether the hilt can be affected by the edge (that is, whether it is possible to move the edge by the hilt at all, since 2d objects are not known to exist). This implies the weapon is artificial in its construction, and thus we must assume interaction is possible in order to be able to speculate, so it just is. * To be clear, moving the hilt moves the 5d edge; rotating the hilt rotates the 5d edge; squeezing the hilt makes the edge 4d so that it can strike objects in lower dimensional space. Relevant: [Graphically represent (map) multiple spatial dimentions](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/19107/graphically-represent-map-multiple-spatial-dimentions) [Answer] Ok, it's probably good to turn this into a Flatland problem. So let's imagine what a 3D weapon anchored to a 2D world would look like. [![flatland](https://i.stack.imgur.com/CB2x2.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/CB2x2.jpg) There are a few options. 1: The hilt is anchored in 2D Realspace by a 2D plane and cannot rotate in 2D space and is solidly attached to a solid 3D object in 3D space This would have almost no effect since the 3D object can't change its intersection with 2D space. Imagine a Flatlander holding, from their point of view a spike but from ours the corner of a triangle which cannot move further into flatworld or rotate but can float around on the surface at the same intersection. The weapon would likely have incredible inertia/mass since it's tied to a far more massive object. Instead of an atom-thick or no-thickness it would have either massively more or infinitely more mass. EDIT, an exception: a complex 3D shape like a donut with the 2 arms of the loop passing through the 2D plane would manifest as 2 objects within flatland which would push and pull together. From inside it would look like the hilt wasn't connected to the "blade" but the 2 parts would act like one object because they are one object in 3D space. 2: The hilt is bound to 2D realspace along a 1D axis but the "blade" and the rest of the shape can rotate in 2D and 3D space around that axis. This would be far more dangerous but probably more useful as a weapon and far harder to control. Imagine the flatlander holding the handle of a flail. They can partly control the "swing" in 3D space by squeezing the handle just right. Once they give it a little swing first to get it moving/rotating, from our point of view the flatlander is holding one corner of a shape which is bound by a 1D line to flatland. It swings in and out of flatland around that axis. The "blade" need not appear sharp in 3D space since it would always past into 2D space starting from an infinitesimal point and expanding outwards. Depending on the shape it would be possible for edges to appear inside objects. From the point of view of a flatlander, the 3D flail holder would shake and squeeze their weapons hilt and then their head could explode as a 2D shape appears within it, expands and finally the connecting portion of the weapon would pass through the 2D plane. 3: The hilt is bound to a single point in 2D space, no axis.... this is not a usable weapon. It is dangerous to anyone within reach of it and would be almost impossible to control. Turning back to your 5D (4D unless you want it to also be able to rotate in time and hit things in the past and future which I have no idea how to model) If you go with option 2 then it might manifest as a weapon which, when the user swings it just right and squeezes the hilt just right, can be used to make apparently unattached lumps of metal appear briefly inside the people and objects in front of the hilt. A dangerous weapon indeed to the point that you'd be very lucky to survive learning how to use it without killing yourself. [Answer] Any question that involves dealing with higher dimensions that what we, as humans living in three dimensions, are used to is tricky. There is a great video out there that describes what each dimension up to ten is like, and how it corresponds to the two dimensions around it. The basis of this video, at least from my perspective is that dimensions sort of repeat themselves: line, branch, fold. 1D is a line, it has no depth or width, only length. 2D is a branch, it has length and width but not depth. 3D is a fold, it has length, width and depth. Honestly, the video does a much better job explaining this: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4Gotl9vRGs> Moving to the fourth dimension, duration, you again have a line. Expect it's not a line without width and depth, it's a line of three dimensions. Moving up and down the line would be like looking at yourself as you aged from birth to death. The fifth dimension, then, is a branch off the line in the fourth dimension. You can visualize this as paths not taken in your current life. Choices not made, roads not walked down, are all visited in the fifth dimension. Since your 5D weapon stops there, we certainly don't need to break out the 6D time folding machine. ## How would this weapon function? This weapon functions in five dimensions, yikes. Let us try to draw a comparison to something that we know: I have no skill with a flail. I know how a flail works (a weighted ball on the end of chain attached to a stick) but I have no experience using a flail and therefore could not accurately predict what will happen when I use it this way or fling it that way. So, your question of functionality comes with two answers. 1. To an amateur, the weapon will look like a three-dimensional weapon (as it will have an appearance to you and I has a normal looking thing because we can't see the 4th and 5th dimensions). It will function then just like you expect it to, it will strike, slash and hit. Only... weird things will start happening. You'll slash at something... and it won't be slashed right away. Maybe it will take years to be slashed. You don't know because the edge is in a 5th dimension you have no comprehension of and no control over. 2. To an expert, this weapon will be of amazing power. Scenario: Hitler walks up to the podium in Nuremberg. He starts speaking his grand speech, inspiring Germans to fight in WW2. Suddenly, blood pours from his chest and he slumps to the ground, dead. There are no persons near him, only a fatal stab wound to his chest. Fast forward to present day, where our 5D blademaster is standing at the exact spot where Hitler once gave his speech. The weapon is poised before him at a sharp upward angle as if it were thrust into a body. History is now forever changed. This brings me to the next question: ## What unexpected advantages would it have for the wielder? Unexpected dangers? You have invented a weapon that can essentially travel through time. So long as the wielder can perceive and successfully manipulate an object in the 5th dimension, he or she could conceptually stand in one place and stick the weapon into that place at every point in time that place has existed. Pretty much, this weapon is capable of changing events at one point in the third dimension. If the edge where in the 6th dimension, it could change events at any point in the third dimension. At least, I think so. Higher dimensions are hard. Edit: But now, after thinking for a minute on this, I realize that this might not be quite correct, as the 5D blade would actually have to move through the 6th dimension to manipulate the 5th dimension so that we could actually perceive the change in the 3rd dimension. [Answer] ## Manipulation: The hilt and the edge of the weapon are physically linked like any other weapon. Consequently, by waving the hilt in our 4-dimensional spacetime, the edge will move in its 5-dimensional spacetime, occasionally colliding into our space. But the part in the fifth dimension is not or partially visible in our dimensions, we can only see the part that collide in our plan. Basically, the weapon will look like a flying blade that can teleport, move and phase through space according to the hilt's manipulation. ## Advantages: The main advantage for this kind of weapon is being able to make the blade appear behind the opponent or through his armour. ## Dangers: The main risk is failing to manipulate correctly the blade, due to the fact you have to take account of the fifth dimension when using the blade, making it appear on your body and injure yourself when you make an error. ]
[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. Closed. This question is [off-topic](/help/closed-questions). It is not currently accepting answers. --- This question does not appear to be about worldbuilding, within the scope defined in the [help center](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/help). Closed 7 years ago. [Improve this question](/posts/36323/edit) The year is 2016, your budget is in the tens of billions, and your job is to create the fastest possible toaster: specifically, the transition from regular, cold slice of bread to hot, lightly browned, crisp toast must be as short as possible. Practicality is irrelevant. The toaster cannot burn the bread; it has to be a proper slice of toast. How fast can one get, and what would such a machine look like? What sort of theoretical limits cap the speed of a toaster? As a bonus question, how fast could a toaster produced if the only limitations are the laws of physics (and the definitions of bread and toast), thus allowing theoretical technology, planet-sized structures, etc EDIT: To clarify, the question is not about highest rate of production, but about making the actual toasting process fastest. [Answer] The point of toasting bread as we all know is the creation of 6-acetyl-1,2,3,4-tetrahydropyridine and to get it crispy enough to hold up in a BLT. Unfortunately, that molecule of the gods can only be formed in the 285°F/ 140°C and 320°F/ 160°C range. Hotter than that you get bitter flavors and charcoal. This reduces the efficacy of lasers and supernovas. Your best and mundane bet is to pass it under the salamander and call it a day. [Answer] Simple. Create a machine that finishes new slice of toast every 1 second (or 0.001 seconds). This is extra simple as multiple slices can be baked in parallel. Then, at any point, you can wait only 1 second (or 0.001 seconds) to pick a freshly made toast. Rest is thrown out as garbage. This approach can reach any speed you want. It will just require much more parallel system and produce huge amount of uneaten toasts. [Answer] # 26s (perfectly toasted) 11s (good enough) Regardless of how you heat it, the limiting factor is how fast the heat propagates through the bread without heating the surface to much. From King-Inks answer, the limit is 160° C, and the goal core temperature is 140° C. I am assuming a 1cm slice of bread, heated from both sides. Thermal data required to model heat flow. * Thermal conductivity of bread: [$0.00072–0.00064 \space W \space cm^{-1}°C^{-1}$](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2621.1982.tb11071.x/abstract) * Heat capacity: [$2.93 \space kJ \space kg^{-1}°C^{-1}$](http://www.nzifst.org.nz/unitoperations/appendix7.htm) Together with a typical bread density of 200 g/L, I used a method consisting of slicing the bread into a large amount of individual slices, and calculate the heat flow between them is small time increments. If you relax the restrictions a little, say allowing a surface temperature of 180°C and only requiring half the bread to reach 140°C, the toasting can go as fast as 11s. We can not make that so much better, because we are limited by conductive heat flow. A little internal heating, with for example microwaves, may shorten the time a little, but it is not a good idea considering quality. (As anyone who have tried can confirm.) [Answer] ## 48 msec ### Approach So what you'll want is a multifrequency laser. Since there is no such thing, then what you'll do is use a MASER (microwave amplification by the stimulated emission of radiation - a microwave laser) plus an IR or optical laser. The purpose of the microwave is to deposit heat through the depth of the bread. The purpose of the IR/optical laser is to brown the surface and make it toasty. ### Powerful lasers I know there are IR lasers at least 10x more powerful and probably MIRACL (mid-infrared advanced chemical laser) is 100x more powerful than this one. Pretty picture of a 15 KW $CO\_2$ laser. [![Pretty picture of a 15 KW $CO_2$ laser](https://i.stack.imgur.com/msZDJ.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/msZDJ.jpg) ### Energy to toast bread [This site claims](http://energyusecalculator.com/electricity_toaster.htm) that it takes a 1200 W toaster 2 minutes (120 seconds) to toast two pieces of bread. I know there's a lot of wasted energy in the toaster (hot air escaping the top but I don't know how to scale it down) $$E = P \* t = 1.2 kW \times 120 sec = 144 kJ$$ Since we're interested in a single piece of bread, divide that by 2 to get 72 kJ. ### How long for the laser to toast bread We need our combined lasers to deposit 72 kJ of energy into the bread (this seems way too large). Our MIRACL laser can deliver 1,500 kW of power so: $$ t = \frac{72 kJ}{1500 kW} = 0.048 sec $$ MIRACL can toast your bread in 48 millisecond. ]
[Question] [ I was thinking of a situation in which a life form evolves a biological screen somewhere on its body that can play videos. The life form would play videos on its biological video screen in order to share ideas and memories with other members of its species. The videos that the life form could play could be simulations of what has happened or could happen in the real world or they could be simulations of entirely fictional worlds. How would a biological video screen work? What kind of selective pressure could cause a species to evolve to have a biological video screen? [Answer] A good starting point would be the [chromatophores of the cuttlefish](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SCrRYDOg_s) which have an amazing range of colors and textures, and can vary at Hz rates. One would assume that [sexual displays](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGvHA5-XnEo) would form the basis for more abstract forms of communications. [Answer] Yes,it could happen. But that means the animal would also need very good eyesight to pick up these signals-else they are useless [![fish](https://i.stack.imgur.com/SrYe0.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/SrYe0.jpg) Deep sea animals have been doing this for a long time now. [Answer] You're basically talking about a smarter octopus. It could definitely happen but they would have to evolve to be more social and less color blind. They would have to find the need to learn how to control their skin to create specific scenes to communicate more than colors to show their mood. [Answer] I always figured that cows could be engineered to have chromataphore skin inspired by cephalapods, to be used for advertising. But lab rats used at prototypes could learn to use it as active camouflage and escape: maybe the cephalapod genes also boosted their intelligence more than intended. After all, it requires processing power to control the display surface. They would then breed with wild rats which are more genetically varied, and cause all sorts of things to happen with the unplanned interaction between genes. ]
[Question] [ Inspired by: [In what war would one modern military vehicle make a difference?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/12219/in-what-war-would-one-modern-military-vehicle-make-a-difference?rq=1) A lone [Nimitz-class carrier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nimitz-class_aircraft_carrier) (with a full crew and pilots) suddenly gets transported back in time into a war and the crew decide to take a side. About when does the carrier's addition to the war not lead to victory for the side in control of the carrier? [Answer] World War II at the beginning of the war having the carrier absolutely, unequivocally wins the war. You don't even need to fire a shot, or launch a jet. On that carrier are likely hundreds or thousands of immediately usable general-purpose laptops and other computers. Each of these computers is a super-weapon in 1939. Putting these into the hands of scientists designing planes, tanks, nuclear weapons, etc. would fundamentally transform the world, not just the war. I bet a lot of the crew has an interest in military toys, history, etc. Maybe there are some copies of AutoCAD, Code Aster, Mathematica, PGP, etc. that would also change the world. The economic growth change would be unparalleled. The entertainment software found on the laptops could probably fund a huge chunk of the war. The information on radar alone would likely be enough to win the war - even if none of it existing on any computer or radar hardware on the ship. Enough crew would know enough radar, its value to the war, etc. to bootstrap radar stations quickly. The could even analyze the cavity magnetron from a microwave oven in the kitchen to jumpstart radar. Some post WWII scenarios, same thing, but the impact continues to lessen. Korean war for example, same thing but the radar no longer is game changer. You no longer have essentially the only computers, but yours are still incomparable. Most of the rest in unchanged. Eventually, not so much. Good to have, Mathmatica, etc. are still breakthroughs, but the existing computing infrastructure is good enough that is no longer domination time. Maybe 1990 or so. Plenty of other goodies too. Like a pair of nice modern nuclear reactors. Desalination plant. Actual advanced radar systems. Advanced missiles. Helicopters. Kevlar armor. All ripe for using as is and/or reverse engineering. Sure, the electronics are incomprehensible and not able to be produced soon. But sometimes knowing it is possible and just having a vague idea of what works means another scientific breakthrough is just around the corner. This would be the gift that keeps on giving. Yeah Baby. --- Enemy cryptography is now a joke. Tanking the enemies economy might be a fun side task. Even mundane things like modern farming (some of the crew grew up on farms), weather forecasting (important in lots of battle situations too), plastic bags with Ziploc seals, Velcro and who knows how many other things all make an economic impact. --- I neglected an obvious counter to this argument, but since no one has raised it... Giving a Nimitz to Poland in 1939 does not help Poland because they don't have the time and opportunity to make significant changes in time. Poland was invaded by Germany on Sep. 1 and the Soviet Union on Sep. 17. By 6 weeks into the invasion, Poland was military defeated. In fact, it was clear in less than 2 weeks that Poland was losing badly. If you don't have enough time for the advantages to make a difference, a shiny carrier won't make a difference either. [Answer] Not to diminish the skill of modern naval aviators, but there are several additional layers of technology inherent in the modern naval fleet that makes it even more difficult for a modern supercarrier to remain effective in the absence of its modern logistical chain. First off, modern fighters are heavily linked in to the Global Positioning System, using it for everything from navigation to targeting. There are capable backup systems still in place, including but not limited to the pilot's own aerial navigation skills; however, GPS, used to correct and update the plane's inertial navigation system, is far and away the easiest and most accurate. When you're looking for five acres worth of carrier in millions of square miles of ocean, you're either accurate with your navigation or you're dead. The carrier is always underway, and it may not always be where it's supposed to be if it's forced off course by enemy action or a need to resupply. Second, munitions. Just like a modern tank's rounds, an aircraft and its home carrier do not have an unlimited supply, and if the supercarrier finds itself in a time much earlier than Vietnam, little or nothing available at the time will fit the aircraft's hardpoints. Development of these weapons and targeting systems has been the primary reason the U.S. armed forces can get away with flying airframes developed in the 70s. Prior to 1995, the carrier's existing store of JDAMs won't work because their GPS guidance doesn't exist (and the JDAMs themselves didn't enter service til '97, so even as recently as the Gulf War they'd be unable to resupply like-for-like). Prior to about 1976, no smart weapons at all would be available, and pilots running air superiority missions would also lose the all-aspect IR lock-on of modern-day Sidewinders once the existing 9Ms and 9Ps are gone. Prior to mid-Vietnam, the Mark 80 series of dumb bombs wouldn't exist, though it's possible modern fighters could make due with the older, fatter Mark 117 back to about Korea, which is also about the earliest that you could expect to find the 20x102mm cannon round for the Hornets' Vulcan cannons. All of this is predicated on the availability of underway replenishment; the modern supercarrier is being constantly resupplied with food, fuel, and munitions by resupply ships of various types and various flags, and it does so while under power. The system currently used by NATO to transfer fuel was developed during WWII, but it's highly unlikely the connectors used haven't changed in all that time, so the crew aboard the carrier would have to jury-rig something. In any conflict prior to WWII, there's little to no hope of there being anything in production at the time that is compatible with modern aircraft other than jet fuel (essentially diesel), meaning that once the supercarrier was out of munitions for its own aircraft, they're just pretty-looking (and expensive) deck chairs. Prior to about WWI, there wouldn't be diesel fuel of sufficient quantity or quality to fuel the aircraft once onboard stores were depleted, so they couldn't even be scouts (and jets are much more particular about their fuel than tanks are). One interesting workaround, however, is that the ship's onboard capabilities, range and speed would make it a dream base for the aircraft of the day in the WWII Pacific theater. Jimmy Doolittle would have salivated over the thought of having a full 200 feet longer to get his B-25s off the deck of the USS Carl Vinson as compared to the USS Hornet. The simple ability to have an extra carrier present as a home base for aircraft would make a modern supercarrier extremely valuable long after its own aircraft are incapable of fighting. [Answer] An interesting question is if they have nukes, and if they have the launch codes. * A Nimitz-class carrier could have nuclear-capable aircraft, but does it actually have the weapons on board when the plot device struck? * Given several weeks and the permission of the CO, could they circumvent the permissive action link? One weird scenario would be that they take the nuclear pits and re-manufacture the rest of the weapon, as a kind-of-clone of Fat Man. How long could a single carrier operate without resupply? Spart parts, jet fuel, weapons ... * The [C-2 Greyhound](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_C-2_Greyhound) is a critical part of Naval Aviation. They bring whatever the carrier might lack. * Just googling a bit, carriers have 1,000-2,000 tons of ordnance. That is enough for a few hundred individual sorties, call it ten big strikes. (It might be twenty strikes, or five, just a rough guesstimate.) * Effectively it might be less, considering the ammo mix. They might still have plenty of ARM while they are out of bombs. * Can they do effective ASW without expendable sonobuoys? As far as combat goes, a single carrier won't do much to big wars of the last century. Gary talked about the scientific impact, which is another question. [Answer] This is very much like "Rome Sweet Rome" where a Marine Expeditionary force is transported back into Roman times. They are invincible right up until they run out of supplies. An aircraft carrier is somewhat more self contained (the nuclear reactors can provide electrical power, fresh water and the ship itself is a mobile base), but ultimately it is still limited by the amount of spare parts and supplies on board, many of which will not be available for decades (depending on when exactly the carrier appears in the past). Even if the carrier showed up in the 1980's, they will discover that the parts for the Super Hornets are mostly incompatible with the first generation F-18's. (The modern carrier will also have some issues operating older aircraft like the F-14 "Tomcats" like the ones from Top Gun, since the vast majority of the crew will have no experience with that type of aircraft. Now imagine if the carrier appeared in the 1940's and attempted to operate F4F "Wildcat" fighters to replace the Super Hornets). So the carrier's primary effect will be to provide the proof that things can be done and allow all sides to cut unproductive side paths of technological development and reach the level of the Nimitz much faster then they might have otherwise. This might not work out so well, especially if the "bad guys" (whoever they are in the scenario) can get off the "x" faster and start pursuing profitable development pathways. Ironically, while the carrier might have a short term effect to win a few battles, the long term effect might be to prolong the war after the carrier can no longer directly contribute to the battle. [Answer] Interestingly enough, there's a manga based around a very similar premise, although instead of an aircraft carrier it's an Aegis destroyer that gets transported back in time. It's called [Zipang](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zipang_%28manga%29). Although the vessel is not an aircraft carrier, the premise is similar and the plot is very well developed; only up to volume 7 has been translated, though. [Answer] If you consider the movie "The Final Countdown" and make it a reality, I think that the first days or months after the Nimitz goes "POOF" into the past would look something like this. The movie had the Nimitz appearing in late November 1941. It's almost a certainty that the officers and crew would have met with and briefed Naval Intelligence regarding the position of the IJN fleet enroute from Japan steaming into strike positions northwest of Pearl Harbor. Would the Nimitz have actually been the primary counterforce to defeat the Japanese fleet. Maybe, but probably not. Given a week's worth of notice, and encyclopedic knowledge of what will happen over the course of that week...I think that the main Battleship fleet at Pearl Harbor in concert with the existing carriers in the Pacific would have been more than adequate at stopping the assault, if not causing the Japanese to simply call off the attack and steam for home. The air-groups on board the Nimitz may have acted as an Air and Sea shield protecting the main fleet from attack by dive bombers and/or torpedo bombers and may (stress, MAY) have even escorted attacking Naval fighters and bombers to attack the carriers, but even that is exceptionally unlikely. No...it's much, much more likely that the Nimitz would have stayed on the West Coast for an indeterminate amount of time. You see...the Nimitz in that movie didn't have modern GPS systems or weapons, the crew didn't have modern laptops and certainly there were no smartphones. However, that should not at all mitigate the fact that the 1980's era Nimitz DID possess super-advanced technology and a truly vast wealth of knowledge to help develop other future technologies. Also, and for many of the reasons already cited (no ability in 1941 to effectively rearm, refuel, or repair the aircraft, along with the lack of an effective modern supply and logistics chain) the Nimitz really would not have been all that effective in the actual Pacific campaign. Also, the ship and crew are simply too damned valuable to risk in combat (lopsided though it may have been) One very intriguing prospect is not the Nimitz of that era may, or may not, have had nuclear weapons on board (if it did - they were probably ALCMs or "small" tactical warheads and bombs) If it did AND the US decided to use them against Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan then...the war ends pretty damned quickly. I mean...Hitler and Tojo wouldn't last long in power if Berlin AND Tokyo were nuked! Even if nuclear weapons aren't an option, it's vastly more likely that the Nimitz, as well as it's officers and crew, stay under-wraps (maybe literally) for most of the future war that develops. The unique scientific and technological opportunities and the vast sums of future knowledge would make the Nimitz and her people simply far too valuable an asset to be risked in actual warfare. Nah...park the thing in San Diego or Los Angeles, near existing military and industrial centers... establish an Ultra High Security area around the carrier, classify it as at least as Top Secret as the Manhattan Project was, and slowly (but surely) reverse-engineer and produce in quanity enough Nimitz-era technology in the 1940s and 1950s to utterly dominate any near-term future wars (including against the Soviets) later on. [Answer] While the ship itself is powerful, it is the historical knowledge of the crew/databases (I can only imagine that a carrier has at least the equivalent of a full set of Encyclopedia Britannica, and probably much more detailed books about military conflicts) that is key. The carrier can then pinpoint specific individuals or units that will have the most impact. Depending on how quickly they can react before they start to diverge the timestream, they may know EXACTLY where key leaders are in time. So, for example, rather than needing to attack the entire Japanese navy in WW2, they may know right where the Japanese high command is having a summit meeting (because it is mentioned in a history book) so they could decapitate the entire countries military leadership in one strike. Plus they will presumably have knowledge of mining sites and resource deposits, as well as technological advances, that would allow for negotiations between parties to advance in a way that couldn't happen otherwise. Assuming, of course, that everyone believes that these people are from the future (and from the current future so their info is accurate). The farther back they go, the less accurate their historical info will be, but the greater the impact of the ship itself. Before 1900 or so the Nimitz could submit every nation just by running over every naval warship and merchant. Very few countries could survive the loss of the sea lanes (and a carrier could traverse the globe so quickly, even without the Panama and Suez canals, it could probably dominate every ocean simultaneously). [Answer] I don't think there's any major war for which it would ensure victory by military means. (For non-military ways, see Gary Walker's answer.) The carrier's strike capability will be devastating against high value targets but it's soon going to run out of fuel and parts. Perhaps fuel can be manufactured locally but there will be no possibility of spare parts or ammunition. Soon the planes are down for maintenance and the carrier is no longer a threat. As long as the other side realizes it's a one-off windfall they can ride it out, the historical result should be the same. [Answer] There was, in fact, [an in-depth case study in 1980 about this very topic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Final_Countdown_(film)). Kidding aside, the carrier's addition to the war would not lead to victory for the side in control of (or allied to) the carrier if they choose not to intervene (perhaps to avoid messing up the original historical timeline and the "butterfly effect" repercussions thereof). [Answer] There is actually a movie about this. In The Final Countdown, a Nimitz-Class carrier is taken back to WWII, just before Pearl Harbor is attacked. However, the carrier is taken back before it can intercept the Japanese, but we can imagine what can happen. The carrier's planes take down the Japanese planes, saving the American Fleet, the captain of the USS Nimitz is elevated to the rank of Vice Admiral, and takes command of the fleet, ending the war 3 years early. Unless they are intercepted by U-boats in the Atlantic, but the ASROC can conceivably destroy the U-boats before the fleet is crippled, and the TWS can warn of incoming torpedoes. The ship itself, having a nuclear reactor, doesn't need refueling, but the planes would need a higher grade fuel than the ones currently used (150-grade), needing a type of fuel that I could not find, but assume is much higher grade. However, if the defensive torpedoes run out (when it's swarmed by the German Unterseeboot fleet), it will go down. [Answer] Napoleonic Wars If your goal was to stop Napoleon, you might not win with only one carrier. If you bombed all of France, it might be months before Napoleon hear about it, and even considers surrendering. (that’s presuming he even believes the account of large metal birds turning his home into a crater) They won’t have much luck trying to bomb Napoleon himself unless there is a avid historian on board. Even if they did get lucky, it might be months before all his generals hear about it and consider surrendering, (or take over where he left off) Its only one ship with so much fuel, they will have only so many scouting/bombing missions before they run out of fuel. Europe is relatively large area to play hide and seek. ]
[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. I have a story where a powerful outside force killed (next to) all humans on earth some decades ago. The way I want to build it is that it required that the human outposts on the moon to die as well. Unfortunately I want to have the reason of the dying be connected to the air on planet earth. (Kind of a reverse War of the Worlds ending.) But the outposts would have air filters and other high tech stuff available that should have prevented that. The aliens would strongly prefer to never interact with humans at all; they prefer killing from distance (like the air thing where they introduced a created pathogen). It's okay if there are some dozen survivors - just not enough to make humans relevant for a long Long time. Just sending rockets would not do as the stations are hardened against asteroids, etc. (After all, they are permanent outposts, meant to last.) [Answer] Since you prefer to them as outposts, I doubt they would be large enough to have a self-sufficient industrial base capable of maintaining their life-support. So while they'd be able to produce energy, air, water, food, and bulk materials for repairs, they would not be able to produce the spare parts that the machines doing all that will need. Or if they can, not the spare parts the machines for that will require. Eventually the outposts will start failing without you needing to do anything. And in space any failure is a lethal danger. It is possible to build moon base that has self-sufficient industrial base, but economic reasons make it unlikely unless people expected they might lose access to the resources of Earth. Not likely for bases on the Moon. [Answer] So the aliens introduced a pathogen in the Earth atmosphere? That could have been a virus or similar invading the humans, or a fungus etc. which produces toxins. Say the fungus is deployed in very resilient spores. They'll last centuries if they don't find a good environment, but the toxin only gets lethal in sufficient concentrations. If just a few spores get to the stations, they're doomed. One of the bases thinks they've dodged the bullet. But on the outside of a packet of freeze-dried herbs, there are a few spores. Once the packet goes into the warm and wet kitchen, the spores go active. [Answer] The aliens don't have to do a thing. If the Earth's industrial civilization dies, then the outposts on the Moon are essentially helpless. They are cut off from the tools and spare parts they need in order for their systems to continue working and the gradual cascade of system failures will kill them in an matter of years, perhaps a few decades at most. The people trapped on the outposts might stretch out their existence by trying to bootstrap their own industrial civilization, but lacking the mass of tools and infrastructure surrounding the real thing, they will be able to mostly cobble together simple things like plumbing and basic electrical infrastructure. Electronics, and especially things like modern integrated circuitry will be impossible to replicate, and as circuit boards and microprocessors fail, the devices dependent on them will also fail. This will be especially tragic since much of the accumulated knowledge that the people on the Moon will be trying to draw on will be stored in electronic format, so accessing help files or watching YouTube videos on how to fix systems will become more and more difficult as time passes. The other issue is there will be a small pool of people, so any accident that kills a person will also remove their accumulated skills and experience from the available pool, making the remainder less robust and able to deal with emergency situations. (As an aside, this is thought to be one of the reasons the Neanderthals died out; their bands were much smaller than those of our Ancestors, so the death of one man or woman would leave them with large skill gaps and make it harder to survive in late Ice Age Europe). The people on the Moon were obviously selected for their skills, smarts and ability to work under difficult conditions, so they will likely go down fighting their failing systems to the bitter end, or try to return to Earth if they believe the pathogen or whatever killed the Earth has passed as well. You have the basis for a pretty good story right there. [Answer] The aliens siphon off some of Earth's atmosphere, accelerate it to near light speed and send it towards the moon bases. Sending viruses or fungus to the moon bases works okay but that's not very spectacular. Let's get some explosions! Have the aliens build a particle accelerator that siphons air from Earth, coherently accelerates it to $.999999999999\text{c}$ then aims it at the moon bases. They can push several kilograms of matter a minute essentially making a hyper-hyper velocity projectile. This will get them the explosions they're looking for. The humans will die from the explosion or from the destruction of life support facilities in the base. Granted, the power requirements to perform these kinds of accelerations are staggering but it's a bunch of aliens with an axe to grind. [Answer] You mentioned that the aliens introduced a virus into earth's atmosphere. If you have regular traffic going to / from your outposts, it's going to be quite likely that someone is going to carry the virus on their ship over to the outposts, causing them to be infected too. This, in theory, could cause the outposts to die off as well. ]
[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. Closed. This question is [off-topic](/help/closed-questions). It is not currently accepting answers. --- This question does not appear to be about worldbuilding, within the scope defined in the [help center](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/help). Closed 8 years ago. [Improve this question](/posts/26055/edit) Ok, so I'm stuck on a small pacific island due to bad sailing skills. I've lost everything I had except my laptop and internet connection. Now, my mouth requests water, but movies told me not to drink from the sea. Fortunately, I've found some hidden rum on the island. Should I drink it to stay alive until my laptop battery die (it's a T450s and I have lots of swappable batteries for days), or should I find another way to keep myself hydrated? The rum is starting to be very appealing. [EDIT] It's been more than half an hour since my last last message. I was perfectly hydrated when I crashed on this island. But now I couldn't handle myself and I started to drink the rum, there is alot of it actually. How much time do I have left? I can stop anytime if I'm told it's bad for me. I've read a teaspoon of salt water every 20 minutes is ok, but I don't have a teaspoon. [New EDIT] I'm feeling sleepy right now under the Pacific night sky. Will go to bed (i.e. sand hole) soon. The island is small, no snakes and no coconuts. Bad thoughts crossed my dehydrated mind. If I want to end it all, should I just drink all the rum and hope to pass away without much pain? Anyway, thanks for the answers, I'm going to try them and see if I get any success. [New new EDIT] Just woke up, feeling dizzy (shouldn't have drank that rum, or is it the sun + lack of water?). Anyway, my favorite pizzeria won't deliver to my current location. The delivery guy doesn't have his boat/plane/helicopter license, but he is working on it. It's now day 2... Gonna work on the distillery and spend the rest of the day trying to catch some fishes (or is it more smart to stay away from the sun to maximize my survival chances?). [Answer] Drinking rum to stave off dehydration is an exercise fraught with hazards. [Rum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rum) ranges from 40% to 80% alcohol by volume. Alcohol consumption has been shown to cause dehydration by suppressing production of the Anti-Diuretic Hormone, which leads to increased urination. Excessive alcohol consumption can also lead to vomiting, which is likewise contraindicated when attempting to maintain bodily hydration. The higher quality the rum (i.e. the higher the percentage of alcohol), the greater the dehydration. Drinking seawater - in any quantity - is similarly contraindicated, as seawater contains more concentrated electrolytes than human kidneys can produce, therefore drinking seawater in any quantity will rob the body of water as the kidneys must use more water than was gained from drinking the seawater in order to flush out the excess electrolytes. Given that bottles are available, it may be possible to use them as a crude distillation apparatus, using the rum as a heat source ignited by sparks from a laptop battery to vaporise seawater, which can then be condensed in empty bottles. The cool cave in which they are stored may serve to assist condensation of the distilled water. Of course, there may be other flammable substances on the island, in which case it might be better to burn those, and use the rum as a firelighter. [Answer] Just to expand on the desalination idea already mentioned. What you need is two bottles: one with sea water, and one empty. You then slowly heat the one with the sea water and let it condense back in the other one. Note that a little saltiness is actually good, so it doesn't have to work perfectly. From what I can tell, the main problem is that you don't have any kind of tube to connect the two bottles. Assuming the bottles are the old-fashioned type, with a large round body, and a small opening, I would recommend connecting the bottles directly, rim to rim, and laying them on their sides. make sure you fill the sea-water bottle about 30%, so that it doesn't spill into the other bottle when you lay them on their sides. You probably don't even need a fire. Just let the sunlight evaporate the water, bring the bottles into the cave, and put it the right way up (sea water bottle on top. After evaporation, most of the salt should be caked to the surface of the top bottle. How to connect the bottles? You'll need some kind of gooey substance to make a tight seal. You can then tear strips from your clothing to wrap around the goo, and to wrap around the two bottles to press them together. As for the goo, your best bet is to find a tree and strip its bark in hopes of resin. You could also melt some of the plastic of your laptop case (unless it's aluminium). [Answer] OK whoever proposed the seawater evaporation idea, proposed a very smart thing indeed! Evaporated (and frozen) water contains only pure H2O without any salt or whatever. So evaporating and condensing seawater will leave the salts back in the evaporating kit and only water will condense. First things first, you'd need to find out which island it is. If it's on the map, all the better. If not, find your latitude/longitude coordinates with gps (it comes installed with several laptops) and email them to the search and rescue of your country's naval guards or whatever. Or maybe contact the nearest nation if it's not at daggers drawn terms with yours. For water intake, you would need to find some edible, bulbous roots or tubers. If there are coconuts on the island (there should be), your food problem is already solved for days. Build a fire by the leaves & dry twig rotation method (it will take an hour or two, but yes, it works) and keep it lit. It will signal any ships passing near your location. If there are no snakes on the island, you should have no trouble sleeping at night. If there are snakes on the island, it means there's small game for you (which is good!). In short, locating your island on the map, sending your location coordinates to rescue authorities is your primary concern. Meanwhile find a drinkable water source (or create it with evaporation) and survey the island for food sources. If/when you have signaled your location to rescue authorities, shutdown your laptop and don't waste the battery except for checking out responses to your request. [Answer] To distil yourself water, you'll need a heater, a source of "dirty" water, something to condense the steam on and something to catch the distilled water in. For your heater, make a wick out of a strip torn off your clothing and fit it in a bottle of rum. Use a spare laptop battery to get the wick alight. The middle piece of your distilling contraption needs to be an empty bottle filled with sea water, placed directly over the wick of the heater. The third piece of your contraption is another rum bottle - this time held at an angle above the middle bottle. This is your condenser. You want this bottle cold, so use bottles of rum out of the cave and rotate them periodically for best results. Once you start using up rum and have spare empty bottles, you can use sea-water too. Finally, water vapour will condense and run off to the lowest point of the angled bottle, where you position a clean bottle. If the drops are dropping all over the place you can make a crude funnel - either with bits from an old battery, smashing one of the empty bottle carefully, etc. The gap between the heater and the bottle of seat water does not have to be very big - the heater bottle could be buried in the sand and then a couple of rocks or even more bottles strategically placed partly in the sand could be used to fashion a tripod which holds the bottle full of sea water in place. The bottle capturing distilled water drips can also be on the sand. Finally, the "distiller" bottle of cold rum/sea water could be hand held - it would take a fair bit of attention span to ensure the condensed water drops are falling into the collection bottle and to avoid being burnt by steam, but if this proves too difficult the condensed water can be mopped up with a piece of fabric and then squeezed out into the collection bottle instead (i.e. don't try condense enough water that it forms tiny stream of water running down the bottle - just as soon as it has anything condensed on it, wipe it up with a cloth and once the cloth is wet enough, squeeze it into the collector and repeat). [![A crude diagram of your desired setup](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ID01X.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ID01X.png) [Answer] Based on your scenario, you have rum and an internet connection. Use the internet connection to order some pizza or Chinese food delivered, then feed the delivery guy the rum until he's too drunk for him to notice your stealing his boat. Now you're home free, the boat will have everything you need to get back to civilisation, and history will remember you as the guy who freed the world of the terrors of long distance pizza delivery, you'll be a hero. ]
[Question] [ I am looking for a (at least somewhat) plausible organic matter, which is able to store massive amounts of energy. After reading up on [biobatteries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biobattery) and so on, I am aware that I would need something very similar, but much more powerful. Criteria: * Does not need to exist or even be possible * But needs to be at least somewhat plausible, with a sound (sounding :) ) explanation * Energy storage capability should something in the range of terajoules to petajoules per cubic decimeter * Origin is extraterrestrial, but similar (for explanation purposes) to something on earth. * It can be explained, why this is not a massive bomb :) (the old problem, I wonder if it can even be solved) [Answer] Make yourself up a batch of anti-carbon and you've reached your terajoules per cubic centimeter energy density requirements. Anti-carbon makes it technically an organic material. [Anti-matter reactions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimatter_weapon) are the only thing that will get you the energy density requirements stated in your question. Wikipedia says the following: > > one gram of antimatter annihilating with one gram of matter produces 180 terajoules, the equivalent of 42.96 kilotons of TNT > > > The power requirements to create antimatter are incredibly high. It's estimated that to create 250 grams would require 2.5 billion years of Earth's entire energy production. Antimatter ain't cheap. Most stories include copious amounts of handwavium to create enough antimatter to be useful. If your power requirements are much much lower, say in the 100Kjoule to megajoule range then you can use [regular gasoline](http://www.ocean.washington.edu/courses/envir215/energynumbers.pdf). [Answer] # Cubane ![Cubane](https://i.stack.imgur.com/AcFkH.gif) [Cubane is an organic molecule in the shape of cube.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubane#Reactions) It is highly energetic, high energy density, and has been on the military's wish list for use in [both explosives and rocket fuel for decades.](http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/webprojects2004/hook/applications/) If you replace the hydrogens with $NO\_2$ you get Octanitrocubane (ONC) which includes enough oxygen to fully combust all of the carbons in the following reaction: $$ C\_8 \left( NO\_2 \right)\_8 \rightarrow 8CO\_2 + 4N\_2$$ Which would make it an excellent choice in both the roles the military wants it for (propellants and explosives). $$\begin{array}{\|c\|c\|c\|c\|} \hline \text{Compound} & \text{Density (} \frac{g}{cm^3}\text{)} & \text{Detonation Velocity (km/s)} & \text{Detonation Pressure (kbar)} \\\hline \text{TNT} & 1.6 & 7.0 & 190 \\\hline \text{RDX} & 1.8 & 8.8 & 338 \\\hline \text{HMX} & 1.9 & 9.1 & 290 \\\hline \text{HNB} & 2.0 & 9.4 & 406 \\\hline \text{CL-20} & 2.0 & 9.4 & 420 \\\hline \text{ONC} & 2.1 & 10.1 & 500 \\\hline \end{array} $$ Putting this another way, it gives detonation pressures about 20% better than the next best chemical explosives. The downside is it falls about 1,000,000x short on the amount of energy stored per unit mass. You just won't find that much energy by rearranging chemical bonds. Also Cubane is not very stable and tends to self-detonate so it's very hazardous to play with. [Answer] Suppose that "cold fusion" is possible. Handwave: look at, for example, Seth Lloyd's talk on quantum mechanics in living material, especially how the chloroplasts route energy to the active clorophyl with far better efficiency than would be normal, but the complex implements a quantum search protocol or something like that. Look at catalasis in general. Lots of that in videos from SLAC (fuel cell and battery research) including an interesting talk on the role of metal atoms in biological molecules such as chlorophyl and hemoglobin. Look at how smell uses electric bond resonance frequency. Now... Cold fusion would require a proton to be placed in a specific energy level in a specific quantum state. Photosynthesis generates protons that move around, and the antennas use careful quantum states. So, such a molecular nanomachine could be built to do cold fusion in an organelle or small bacteria. Problem is, the energy released probably destroys the system and everything in a small radius. The released energy is too high to be carried by phonons or bond vibrations, and the emitted neutron isn't easy to catch and turn the kenetic energy into power. So the energy release simply heats water or other working fluid (maybe liquid metal) The bacteria or equivalent organells in a eucaryote cell could produce one-time-use fusion event units, and these are harvested in a concentrate. To use effectively, you isolate one in a droplet of water and set it off, producing superheated steam. The loose neutron decays after 11 minutes or so and deposits more energy in the water. (A volume of water is used to safely stop the neutron) Early crude use would get more than one unit in a diluted drop thus wasting them. Higher technology would make use of each one indivually. Maybe you need to use heavy water to build the nanounit. But the usage can breed more, recovering some percentage. The whole living form could locate and harvest the duterion from its minor contribution in plain water. A molecule containing duterium in place of hydrogen can be smelled (at least by fruit flys bread for the purpose) so they can be sorted out. [Answer] Nuclear fusion is another plausible method to store energy which reaches the order of TJ/L, without needing to use antimatter (which is extremely difficult to contain, and would certainly behave as a bomb). Chemical reactions regarding organic chemicals are out of the question, since the energy levels of electron transfers is completely insufficient to power such energy densities. However, nuclear fusion all the way to produce iron is capable of reaching the energy levels by using nucleon binding energy instead. This process requires extreme conditions (such as in the middle of a red giant star) to occur, which prevents the fuel from releasing its energy quickly. ![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/tSkha.png) By fusing the protons and carbon nuclei of simple organic molecules, very high energy levels can be reached. In this case, we can use methane ($\text{CH}\_4$), the most hydrogen-rich organic compound, as the fusion fuel, which is fused into iron-56. Liquid methane has a [density of](http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/methane-d_1420.html) 0.42kg/L, which contains ~26 moles of methane. Assuming pure protium ($\text{H}^1$) and $\text{C}^{12}$, and using the [nucleon binding energy table](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File_talk:Binding_energy_curve_-_common_isotopes.svg), 1 molecule of methane produces 48.48MeV of energy, which converts to 4.67 TJ/mole, or ~121TJ/L. [Answer] Others have already pointed hydrogen fussion; I'll go this way along with a mechanism to make it more "organic" than most of the other answers. One of the issues with hydrogen is with storage: 1) Since its molecules are so small, it has ease escaping through valves and other join points. 2) If its recipient breaks, it fast release into the atmosphera brings a very serious risk of explosion. The mechanism I propose would be similar to the mechanism used by our bodies to transport gases: * a liquid medium where hydrogen can be disolved (to a point; most gasses are not easy to dissolve) * a compound with affinity to form weak interactions with hydrogen, dissolved in the above mentioned liquid To "charge" the device, you: * put the liquid surface in a tank with hydrogen and pressurize it; this increases the quantity of hydrogen dissolved in the liquid * the increase in the hydrogen dissolved in the liquid increases the formation of compound-hydrogen bounds. This removes hydrogen from the liquid, allowing fresh hydrogen from the hydrogen tank to be dissolved Then the device is sealed and installed as a power source. As a power source, the process is the opposite. * A part of the surface of the liquid is exposed to a vacuum tank. Hydrogen begins leaving the liquid, to be consumed elsewhere else. With changes in the size of the exposed liquid and/or temperature, the rate of discharge may be tuned. * As the liquids holds less and less hydrogen, the hydrogen-compound bounds progressively break1, replenishing the liquid (which, in turns, delivers those "recovered" atoms to the vaccum tank). The solution would be less energetically dense that pure hydrogen, but would be easier to handle; if a device would break its hydrogen contents would be transfered to the atmosphera in a gradual way. And obvious use, if you want maximum output, would be using the hydrogen for nuclear power (cold fussion?) You may change regular hydrogen with deuterium or tritium and it would workd exactly the same. 1: In fact, as long as the device is "charged", continually some dissolved hydrogen would merge with free compounds molecules while some combined molecules will divide into hydrogen + compound (chemical equilibrium). When you begin extracting dissolved hydrogen, there is less dissolved hydrogen to join with compounds so the reaction rate of that part of the equilibrium is reduced, so the net result is as only a separation of the combination was happening. ]
[Question] [ I'm trying to figure out if a certain city, with these characteristics, is possible, geographically: * Assume the city's the size of Renaissance London... * With Renaissance London technology * Doesn't precipitate (rain or snow) in the daytime, for about one and a half months. * Has farms outside the city and can farm wheat, oranges, apples, walnuts, and (sugar cane or sugar beets or some other source of sugar for pastry and other confectioneries). * The populace doesn't need any special clothing to prevent heatstroke. They wear the clothes of commoners of Renaissance England. (No desert people clothing...) * There's a river running through the middle of the city. * The rest of the surrounding area can be anything you want. [Answer] The problem I see is with your listed crops. Sugarcane and oranges are subtropical/tropical crops, while apples, wheat, and walnuts are all temperate crops. There are some pretty big differences between the ideal growing conditions of those crops. Example: sugarcane requires a lot of moisture, but walnut trees do poorly in wet soils. And if it's hot enough to support sugarcane the apple trees probably won't get the winter dormancy period they need to thrive. Subtropical crops don't tolerate frost well at all, either. Is it possible to grow all of those crops in one place? Maybe, but it would be a lot of extra work to manage whichever crops are disadvantaged by the natural climate in the area. You can grow oranges in temperate regions, for instance, but you have to bring them inside in winter. That's fine if you have one or two small trees in pots, but not practical for a large orchard. I'd say pick whatever climate you want and choose crops that all grow in that climate for cultivation around the city. If you really want those specific crops, you could say your city climate is fine for growing oranges, sugarcane, and other subtropical/tropical crops, but adjacent high elevation territory (a high plateau, for example), drier and colder in winter, is where your temperate crops are cultivated. [Answer] Western California is a lot like this. Consider for example the city of [Santa Rosa](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Rosa,_California): * Current population: about 175,000, comparable to London circa 1575 according to [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_London#Population) * Average precipitation in July is 0.8 mm. It would not be unusual to go for many years with no measurable rainfall in July. There is typically only minimal rainfall between June and September. * Agriculture is a major part of the economy. Currently the most prominent crop is grapes, but apples and walnuts are grown commercially in the vicinity. I don't think oranges are grown there on a large scale these days, but many people have orange trees in their yards which produce fruit with a little care (they may need to be covered to protect them from occasional winter frost). Not sure about wheat but I have seen corn (maize), and wild grasses cover most of the uncultivated land, so I would assume grain crops are generally an option. Sugar cane may be a stretch, though, as I would think it's more of a tropical crop. You could grow sugar beets, if you want; Santa Rosa is in [USDA Hardiness Zone 8](http://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/PHZMWeb/InteractiveMap.aspx), which according to [this site](http://www.almanac.com/plant/beets) should be suitable for sugar beets. * Average summer high temperature of 28 C. Heatstroke not a concern. * The Santa Rosa Creek runs through the city. If you want a larger waterway, relocate the city 30 km north to the site of [Healdsburg](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healdsburg,_California), on the [Russian River](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_River_%28California%29). So in general your description seems very plausible, if you tweak your sugar crop a little. [Answer] Such a city could easily exist inside a desert which has a river flowing through it. Being a desert doesn't mean there is no water, it just means there is little to no precipitation. The city of [Calama, Chile](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calama,_Chile) is in the Atacama desert. * It has a river running through it. * It gets about [one inch of rain per year](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calama,_Chile#Geography_and_Climate) and most of that occurs in a single month. * The average high temperature every month doesn't get over 76°F. * There are not a lot of farms, but they likely could be built and irrigated from the river. If you base your city on Calama then the conditions you're asking for are entirely feasible. ]
[Question] [ Closed. This question is [off-topic](/help/closed-questions). It is not currently accepting answers. --- Questions about Idea Generation are off-topic because they tend to result in list answers with no objective means to compare the quality of one answer with the others. For more information, see [What's wrong with idea-generation questions?](//worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/522). Closed 8 years ago. [Improve this question](/posts/12888/edit) I dream of a world in which there's only one Earth government. Lots of sci-fi works present this scenario. If I have to make it happen (remove all countries and setup one Earth government), what would be the ways to do that? Few things which anyone can think: * Politics. Some kind of political network which assumed control in all major countries. * Military. Let's say a country has developed the ultimate weapon like Antimatter Death Ray (fired from satellites) which can sweep entire countries in seconds and can target nuclear weapons. After demonstration of the weapon on one country, the government can ask for surrender from other countries. Few things in my mind (which can be non-realistic): * Let's say, I launched perfect Self-driving Vehicles (or, acquired Google to do that). After massive advertisement, I managed to replace every traditional vehicle in the world. Now, there are billions of Self-driving Vehicles in the world. Despite all checks by governments, I managed to put backdoor in the vehicles. Now, I have power to control all commercial routes or I can simply turn the world into hell with billions of weapons at my fingertips. Then, I asked for surrender from all countries for better cause. * Let's say, I invented psychic field (and permeated the whole Earth) which can hack human's brain. I don't think, I need to say more. :) I want this to be a mainly political move with enough military backing to enforce it. This must be achieved somehow using modern borders and ethnicity differences via a political power with a sufficient military backing to enforce it. Possibly from the UN? What are your ideas to achieve this? [Answer] # A Common Enemy As long as we've known humans to live, they are fractured insomuch as the world that they're aware of (save for select, short-term cases). It's human nature to divide into separate groups - There's never been a reasonably long known time in history where a 'nation' has believed itself to be the only one in existence. "We unite against threat, and divide against prosperity." is something I thought was a quote, but I can't find any sources so maybe I just made it up. Hostile aliens, off-world human colonies, maybe a natural disaster, even just a totally made up threat. Earth would undoubtedly form some kind of [Collective Defense](http://en.wikipedia.com/wiki/Collective_Defense), similar to NATO, which would assume great authority over all signatories to the idea - After all, what's more important, freedom of countries or survival of the human goshdarn race?! A seemingly dire situation would encourage a lot of countries to join this collective, and may drive the main members to coerce or even force other countries to contribute in some meaningful way. It's a similar tactic to how countries often play up the idea of terrorism being super dangerous, or other countries being a threat, to keep their country unified. This isn't paranoia, [Bush's approval practically skyrocketed](http://www.gallup.com/poll/116500/presidential-approval-ratings-george-bush.aspx) after the events of 9/11, going from 52% to 89% in under a week, in October 2001. When people think enemies are out to get them, they'll befriend anyone who'll help fight said enemies. So that covers during the threat (or lack thereof), what happens afterward? Well, there's one global power controlling 99% of the world's military, it's a very simple step to then say "We must stay united in order to defend ourself against any potential obstacles. And anyone who disagrees gets an army in their land.". Administrative governance follows, and while people would inevitably keep some degree of regional identity, for all intents and purposes, we'd have achieved "one Earth government". [Answer] Extremely competent. Honest competition, where one party has a clear advantage of getting really good ideas, establishing very efficient administration, deploying the solutions quickly and easily, and open to extend their aid to these in need by providing relevant guidance. Counterpart parties start in all countries of the world, following the pattern of the exemplary party of the original country and basing their actions on guidance from the centralized "genius" government in ruling their respective countries. In several years most democratic countries simply elect their government from these parties, essentially creating leaves of a centralized tree of governance. Once most of the world is in hands of that one government, they aid the remaining countries to overthrow their dictatorships, bring in charity and high standards of life to areas they control, and gradually expand rulership over the rest of the world - unthreatened, because simply nobody can offer anything better and people want them to remain in power. ...now, how would they achieve such competence? That's a subject for some virtual unobtainium of social sciences. [Answer] Loads of money = Buy the votes. Buy the support. Everyone has price tag, even the most fearsome dictators. If people are generally unhappy about something, make sure you invest even more money in making them happy. Happy people will be not willing or wanting to change things. Of course, I am handwaving the question "where did you get 700 trillion US dollars," but looking away will cost you something... [Answer] Set up a major world crisis which threatens all of humanity, and can only be solved by all countries working together under one rule, combining efforts and resources in the most efficient way possible. It doesn't have to be an ongoing crisis during your story, maybe they solved the problem years/decades/centuries ago, but the central rule stayed the same once it was already established because it was working well. Eg Aliens, extreme climate change, a severe agricultural pest. [Answer] There is an interesting book called The Age Of Consent where George Monbiot suggests a path towards achieving this. His basic idea was to elect a world government, one where everyone on the planet gets a vote. They would initially have no power, but they have absolute legitimacy, which gives them a certain amount of sway with other organisation. He put this hand in hand with the replacing of the IMF and World Bank ( which are designed to channel money from other countries to the US ) with a more equitable global clearing house and suggests that the agent of this fiscal change is third world debt- countries in the developing world owe almost as much money as exists, if they decided to default en-masse global finance is toast so they have considerable leverage. If they were to work together in that way it would not be hard for them to push forward on developing a global clearing-house that would quickly draw most international finance through it. The old international structures die out because they are simply no longer relevant and nobody is using them. The international government increases in profile so more people vote for it. There is no longer a need for war over borders and it becomes possible to legislate effectively around multinational organisations. National level governments become more akin to state governments in the US the international system is too unwieldy to deal with local problems so there is still a need for that level of government but the big international decisions are made on a global level. [Answer] Three things I can think of that would make it possible for us to unite the world under one government. 1. Finding out we are not alone in the universe and that they aliens are able to travel to us with reasonable effort i.e. FTL travel. We don't like 'other' and aliens would give us something to band against. 2. We ourselves have started populating other planets and bodies in this solar system and others. Earth bands together to have a stronger front when all the settlers become 'independent' and we need better bargaining power. 3. We actually continue to develop and become more compassionate and understanding as a whole race and agree that harmony is best for everyone. (least likely to happen in my opinion...) [Answer] The weapon hardly needs to be even that powerful. Japan was partially taken out by a couple of nuclear weapons plus a encircling ring of enemies. Nowadays they could get away a weapon that could take the leaders- an orbitally launched asteroid sling-shot could wipe-out the Congress and White House- would lead to countries over the world capitulating. If the Death Note had been used intelligently- given that enough details are freely available about every politician of every country in the world- it pretty much a given that they'd surrender in a way that appears not to be surrendering e.g. signing a treaty to give up power. ]
[Question] [ Imagine there is a space station shaped like a cylinder. The cylinder spins on its axis, in order to create artificial gravity through centripetal force. My question: How fast would the space station need to spin to have the gravity be the same as on Earth? I realize I probably can't get any exact speed without details on size and mass, so I'm looking more for a range (if it is possible to get an exact speed without knowing the details [like through a formula or something] that would be great too). The space station would be big. I'm thinking it would be made up out of 'wheels,' and then each wheel attaches on its axis to form the cylinder. Each wheel would be about the size of a small city. The space station would also have an extremely large population (think evacuation of Earth), so its mass would likely be gigantic. The space station is drifting - it is not orbiting anything. I realize it isn't much to go on. Unfortunately, those are about all the details I have at the moment. [Answer] Take a look at <http://www.artificial-gravity.com/sw/SpinCalc/SpinCalc.htm> Not only does this calculator give you the values based on what you know about your design, but it also gives you nice graphical indicators for how comfortable it will be (e.g. it'll tell you whether your feet will feel significantly more gravity than your head). [Answer] The speed of the spin is entirely based upon the diameter of the cylinder. The larger the diameter the slower it needs to go. If the diameter is 2 small, the speed needed to make the gravity will affect humans, like riding on a carnival ride. So bigger is better. I think I've read 1 mile is a pretty good starting diameter. Because of this if you want multiple levels you are going to have different gravity at different distances. This means you have choices. 1. You have separate rings that spin at different velocities, though this can cause issues with moving between layers. 2. You make the ship like a tin can without the ends, you would only have the mechanical's in there and maybe some kind of drive system, the open end could even act as a scoop collecting matter as it travels through, for supplies or fuel. 3. Much like #2 except it is much larger. If you start with a 2.5 mile diameter and aim to have 1 g at 2.3-2.4 you can get almost a half mile thickness of gravity that is relatively comfortable for people, and it will all be one solid piece. Now you stretch that out for 10-15 miles and you have a LOT of space. However if you are planning on millions of people living and completely dependent on this ship, then I might think more about a much larger radius, a 10 mile diameter, could have an almost 2 mile thick 'rim' for habitation in reasonable gravity. (I was using the link Adams answer to get my estimates.) [Answer] This is more of a physics question, but based on: <http://www.regentsprep.org/regents/physics/phys06/bartgrav/default.htm> You'll want a velocity equal to the square root of 9.81\*r, where r is the radius of your station in meters. [Answer] For a given rotation rate, the pseudogravity you feel is directly proportional to your distance from the axis. Thus, if you have one gee at 1000m (turning once in 63.4 sec), then at 900m you have 0.9 gee. The formula for centripetal acceleration is $\frac{4 \pi^2 R}{T^2}$, where $R$ is radius and $T$ is period. For one gee at one rpm, R is 894m; one turn per hour, 3.22 megametres (Mars would not quite fit within this ring); one turn per day (the kind of ringworlds described by Iain Banks), 6.15 light-seconds. ]
[Question] [ I'm imagining a world where time travel is a part of day to day life. Technically speaking, a sealed chamber (imagine it being about phone booth sized) would be linked to it's past and future instances of itself. This gets around issues like "the Earth is moving through space so if you travel to the EXACT same space in the universe you won't be on Earth you'll be floating in the cosmos" because instead of being in the EXACT same space in the universe you'll be in that chamber wherever it is. There's no affect of constant time traveling other than extreme instances of "jet lag" (time lag?). There aren't diseases or ailments that arrive from over use. Anything within the chamber is moved through time with the person, air and all. To facilitate this, the "receiving end" of the time travel jump needs to be a vacuum. Cargo can be sent without a human passenger as the chamber is operated by somebody outside of the chamber. Given that the machine is functioning normally without any damage, it's safer than a flight by today's standards. However, a collision could occur when time is mismanaged and two people exist inside the chamber at the same time (whether it be somebody arriving just as another is departing or that two people arrive too close to the same time). This kind of collision usually results in the death of the people or at least destruction of property if only cargo is transmitted due to overlapping atomic structures and increased pressure of the chamber (there's 2 chambers worth of matter in the chamber at the same time). There are public stations similar to today's bus stations or airports where the public can travel time if they've bought a ticket. Time keeping is kept very strict to prevent collisions in the chambers. There are also private stations operated by businesses or governments for their own uses. What kind of laws or restrictions are there that would help reduce paradoxes? How might the people in charge of the stations organize arrivals and departures when arrivals could come from either direction (forward or backward in time)? How might individuals and workplaces use time travel? I can imagine a research company repeatedly looping their scientists so they re-live the same day over and over to produce results from their research (relatively) faster in the grand scheme of the timeline. Are their personal uses for time travel? How can age be regulated? Being born in the year 2000 but spending 20 years of your life repeating 2007-2010 for a job or some other reason means that in 2011 you're not necessarily 11 years old. Other than fear, would their be any reason to avoid time travel? How is the economy impacted if goods can be jumped in from a time when their production was cheaper? Ultimately this comes to one question: how can cheap, safe, easy to use time travel be used, governed, and managed? [Answer] I'm making the assumption that you're being serious about this idea. Or rather, the story is not meant to be one of pleasant absurdity, à la [Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TimeTravelTenseTrouble). I'm also assuming you're time traveling along the same timeline. > > What kind of laws or restrictions are there that would help reduce > paradoxes? > > > The best law to prevent a paradox would be "There shall be no time travel." Seriously, any free use of time travel would be a disaster and by the laws of time travel it would happen immediately. The instant you turned on the machine, a drunk version of yourself would step out and let you know that you're the a\\hole who destroyed civilization. Then comes a hungover version apologizing for drunk you/him, though admitting he's right, and telling drunk you/him to go drink some water. The hungover version then says things will be alright and leaves you with a tight-lipped smile that says nothing will be alright. > > How might the people in charge of the stations organize arrivals and > departures when arrivals could come from either direction (forward or > backward in time)? > > > The future-most booth simply keeps a record of all departures and arrivals and disallows simultaneous travel. You have knowledge of all time, just use it. > > How might individuals and workplaces use time travel? Are their personal uses for time travel? > > > In the most varied an imagination stretching ways. Society, as we know it, would because instantly unrecognizable. Things wouldn't evolve to crazy. Crazy would come in from the future would be on us instantly. > > How can age be regulated? > > > Implanted clocks. Simply count age with subjective time. Certainly peers would be harder to come by except through careful intention. > > Other than fear, would their be any reason to avoid time travel? > > > Preservation of mystery. Most other answers seem to come down to fear, fear of the unknown, fear of meddling, fear of robots, etc. > > How is the economy impacted if goods can be jumped in from a time when > their production was cheaper? > > > You've got bigger issues than that. You have paradox manufacturing. Simply send back a widget to yourself before you made it. Now send that one back to before you received it, but since that means you had two to send back, send both, but since you did that you had three to send back, etc. From your perspective, or one of your perspectives, this thing you designed (or you got the design from a past you) shows up in crates. Good luck trying to sell anything though, anyone can dupe items, currency, gold, etc. in this way. The only thing I can imagine selling/trading would be first-hand experiences. Especially if the sales pitch came from future you, saying "you should totally do it". > > Ultimately this comes to one question: how can cheap, safe, easy to > use time travel be used, governed, and managed? > > > Perhaps by a single individual this could be accomplished. It would take careful planning and limited use. I can see no conceivable future where a large group of people, let alone the public, the unwashed masses, could use such power with wisdom and safety. The two assumptions I started with (serious and same timeline) may guide you in averting the numerous issues with your idea as I understand it. That is, you should be whimsically time travelling to uncannily similar universes, where as it turns out, you just happened to leave (this, as it happens, is how instantaneous travel occurs in Old Man's War, called a [skip drive](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Man%27s_War#Skip_Drive). It solves lots of problems.) [Answer] I think the best way to deal with time travel is to assume that since you made the machine and know it works, then time travel not only is possible, but has happened for all of time without destroying the entire space-time continuum. There are two explanations for this: 1 - This is the best of all possible universes. In an infinite multiverse, it is very possible that the vast majority of universes that invented time travel were utterly destroyed by some paradox. We may be the only ones who survived, because all the quantum particles spun exactly as they needed to so we could make all the right choices that led to time travel working perfectly. 2 - There is an all-powerful entity that constantly stops us from destroying the universe during time travel. It doesn't have to be intelligent, it just has to have a bunch of sophisticated algorithms for ensuring the continued existence of the universe. For how this entity could have been created, see option #1. These options lead to the assumption that to a certain extent, once we invent time travel we are no longer in control. Events will occur because they already have occurred. The future is fixed because the past is fixed, and the present is just the past of the future, and the future of the past. As far as I can tell, this basically means that time travel is self-governing. When you turn on the first machine, people from the future will send you instructions on how to operate the machine without error until you get the next set of instructions (or, alternately, you discover that no matter what you do, everything works out perfectly and paradoxes are impossible to create). Most time travel engineers will commit suicide, but some will accept their lack of free will in exchange for the massive amounts of money they will get for what should be an incredibly easy job (after all, you just need to follow instructions). When you get to the consumer level, this can all be hidden away. People will still buy tickets because to simply hand out the tickets to the people who will need them would cause mass hysteria, and probably lead to no one actually using the time machines (thus it did not and therefore cannot happen). Some will get denied passage because they would have killed their grandfathers, or created some other kind of paradox. We can't know what they'd have done, but we know we don't let them do it. This doesn't leave much room for error, but like I said you can hide it from most characters. Ultimately, so long as they don't successfully rewrite time or cause paradoxes, it should all work out. [Answer] Um, how to say this. What you are proposing is impossible even on a logical level. I'll start with this > > I can imagine a research company repeatedly looping their scientists so they re-live the same day over and over to produce results from their research (relatively) faster in the grand scheme of the timeline > > > it 'sounds' neat but if you think through what you are talking about logically you'll this is crazy. I finish a day of work at a company. I get sent back in the morning to yesterdays morning. I go to work to find myself already there about start what I worked on yesterday. I'll need different equipment to continue with what I was doing. If I tell my earlier self what I did, then I'll cause a paradox if I decide not to do one of the failed experiments. The next morning we'd both be sent back and now there would be 3 of me... You don't really 'relive' the same day over and over. What would be the point of sending cargo? The only way to know what is needed where is after the fact and you would then be changing the timeline. [Answer] The key issue here is humans perception of time. Time isn't linear, but we perceive and insist that it is linear...and this perception allows us to envision a past instance that's 'saved' awaiting for our arrival, which allows for idea's like this one to be created. But it's false. Negative velocity in time does not mean travelling back to a saved version of the past. The number of paradox's that arise in this scenario are absolutely stunning and there is simply no way to resolve it outside of fracturing time lines all over the place. Governments/law only exists with that gov't, and the only real truth about any government is they eventually collapse. It is great to send a scientist back in time, but they still must sleep. That scientist would go home, find thousands of himself sleeping and preparing for the next day work, no? This would make an interesting story, but fails in any serious reality check scenario. Time is not linear. [Answer] I think this is a bit iffy logically and paradoxically, but I'll try to ignore those and address the question. Some immediate issues I see: 1. Crimes. How do you handle crimes when you can have multiple instances of the same person at the same point? Who goes to jail, and who committed the crime and should be punished? What about people framing an earlier/older version of themselves? How do you make someone serve time for a crime when they can just skip ahead? 2. Contracts. Contracts are generally for a set duration - how do you handle it when that duration is in the past? What happens if I take a contract, ignore it for 10 years and then go back and complete it - is that a breach, or is everything ok because I did it "when" they wanted me to? And jeez, think about marriage - you could have several versions of the same person legally married to different people all at the same time. 3. Laws. These generally go into effect as of a certain time - does that mean I can go back in time and do something that's currently illegal? If I take a legal drug in the past and then move forward to a point where it's outlawed, am I in trouble? 4. Property. I own a phone. If future me comes back, does he also own that phone? Or is it stealing if he takes it? One way around some of these would be if everyone had some sort of unbreakable, unhackable clock that indicated their exact age, and you would use that to differentiate all laws and contracts. So maybe Alice-21 gets 5 years in prison - that effectively means that Alice-21 through Alice-26 all need to be in jail. It doesn't matter what year they show up in, they should be in prison for those years. [Answer] You may want to review the [Guide to SF Chronophysics](http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/chrono.html) and decide what kind of timeline you want to deal with. If, for example, you decide to use a type one (Deterministic) timeline, legislation on grandfather-type paradoxes wouldn't be necessary; they're impossible. If it's possible to intentionally create closed loops, on the other hand, that might cause problems. Any economic disturbances would be only temporary because at some point any new value would need to be sent back, or any value sent forward would reappear. ]
[Question] [ In my current setting, one of the main dominant species' is the Golem, former automatons made of assorted materials who gained sentience through some kind of life-giving explosion. As such, though they operate like any other sentient species, they can feel no pain and cannot die from any cause (i.e. disease, bloodloss, poison, old age, etc.) short of being blown to fragments. So - my question is, how would this fact affect their mindsets? Would they think significantly differently from humans or other fleshy species'? [Answer] ## Pain In humans (and many other creatures as well), pain is tied very strongly with survival instincts, and with learning. If a baby (or a lab rat) touches something hot, that experience is burned into their memory because of the association with pain. Without pain to warn of danger, children would be prone to damaging or even destroying themselves. Young Golems would have to be protected to be able to survive long enough to learn how not to damage themselves, since pain would not be their tutor. Cleanliness is a part of this, as well. Humans have learned that dirty things can hold disease; without disease, there isn't any reason to wash your hands, bathe, or otherwise clean yourself up. Without the pain of illness, Golems wouldn't see the point in cleaning themselves until their sight is obscured or they can otherwise no longer function. ## Survival Survival is the basis for most of human society; humans working together have a much greater chance of living another year than humans working separately. Without death by exposure or starvation to band together a race, there is a large chance that the Golems will be solitary, rather than building societies. Without society, laws, culture, customs, and so on would only rarely be formed. ## War and Crime War is often a product of survival; one people group wants what another people group has, to ensure that they are stronger and thus have a higher chance of survival, so they go to war. Without any basic needs, there are very few reasons for a Golem to go to war, outside of facing total destruction. Similarly, crime can be a result of a survival need. Needing food (or other artificial needs, like drugs) can cause normally upstanding citizens to do terrible things, but without ever having those needs, those crimes would be nonexistent. Crime can also be a result of thrill-seeking: doing something dangerous or forbidden for an adrenaline high, or other pleasure. A race without pain would have no need for adrenaline, and thus thrill seeking behavior would never surface; the only drive for crime would be some sort of drugs, and then only if they existed. The Golems would probably not invent drugs themselves, and even if they did, the drugs would probably be freely available. ## Comfort Even the richest people feel pain, to some degree or another. Comfort is dictated by feeling the least amount of pain possible. It may not hurt much to stand up and get the TV remote, but it does cause a tiny amount of pain. Without pain to provide a contrast, comfort would have no meaning to a Golem. Why buy a plush chair, when a cheap box provides the same amount of support? Why invest in an expensive vehicle, when you can walk to work? ## Time Humans are influenced by time quite a bit. Due to sleep needs, a 24-hour day makes perfect sense. Because of metabolisms, meals happen at regular intervals throughout the day. Due to changing seasons, summer and winter clothing are exchanged, and festivals take place to mark time passing. As years pass, children age into adults, adults become elderly, and the elderly die. We've invented many sayings about time - time is fleeting, time flies, time is money. If we don't do anything for a long period of time, we get bored. However, without the need for sleep, or food, or even changing clothing, there is little difference between night and day apart from the amount of light. Seasons hold very little meaning; even planting seasons don't matter, since there is no reason to plant anything. Golems wouldn't get sick or feel overworked from working a 24-hour day. They wouldn't get bored, because not doing anything doesn't impact them at all. Since Golems don't age, they would never worry about the future; this year will be much like next year. ## Motivations So what would motivate a Golem? Without the most basic human survival instincts, the Golems would be dramatically different from humans, and indeed most creatures. Without a need to sleep, eat, or worry about their own survival, time would have very little meaning to them; apart from the sun providing light, day and night would be exactly the same, and since they will live forever, barring destruction, they won't care if something takes a long time. Days and weeks take just as long as years or decades. Even family would hold no meaning, since they are created, rather than birthed. Golems won't form emotional bonds well, if at all, since there is no reason to do so. Instead, Golems would be motivated by internal desires. They would be very single-minded, working on tasks non-stop for eons, if need be. They would most likely take pleasure in creating things, as they themselves were created; however, they would view everything around them as temporary. They would be able to follow human laws, but they wouldn't understand why they existed. Golem law would consist of one rule: Do Not Destroy. Since that's the only way Golems could be damaged, it stands to reason it would be very important. Much of human desire would be foreign to them, especially the need for urgency. To humans, they would seem slow, inefficient, and even stupid or lazy, and no amount of leverage could make them move faster or change course. To Golems, humans would be completely transient; why even bother learning someone's name, if they're going to be dead in the next hundred years? If they were created with built-in motivation, they will likely continue to follow that motivation. Otherwise, they will find something that interests them, and follow that path for eons. [Answer] The superman syndrome. I always thought it was unrealistic that Kal-El was so sensitive to human frailty given his invulnerability. Its like expecting super smart people to understand the rest of us. It's out of character. Your golems would probably interact with each other, and by extension with other races, with a physical insensativity to harm. In their world, damage is an absolute. Either it kill them totally and permanently, or it is no big deal. So they would have little understanding of bravery (facing potential harm yet surviving), but a very clear understanding of martyrdom (facing potential destruction and not surviving). Similarly, they would not understand ageing or illness. Their concept of health would include only two values, alive and not. Empathy would be a complete mystery to them. Most significantly absent in these people would be the ever present fear which fuels our survival instinct. Death would be a rarity to them as most of the normal causes are impotent against them. Small groups of Golems could exist in which only the very oldest have even heard of death and none of them has ever experienced a loved one dying. So all death-fear activities would be foreign to them. No religion No medicine or medical care No hunger, at least not the dangerous kind No retirement planning or hoarder mentality No thrill-seeking sports Probably a lot of boredom Your Golem might be the kindest, most generous people in the land, but if they are then it will be a kindness born out of the living world, out of tradition or the desire for social recognition praise. It won't be an attempt to bribe the fates and thus avoid eventual damnation, as it often is with more mortal species. Anne Rice's works focusing on her immortal vampires might be a good research source for understanding your golems. Bored and yet terrified of falling out of step with societal progress, her vampires are beautiful explorations of the negative side of eternal youth. Their self-serving honesty is almost noble in the face of the life unending. [Answer] Have to change this anwer again, because I just saw they were created. As Creations, I would imagine that their properties now depend on the intentions of their creators. An AI made to serve Humans, which then gained sentinence will (presumably) still use the same thought processes or conceptions about reality as when originally created, plus a the mysterious essence of 'sentinece', which at this point can only be speculated about. The following questions seem important to me: * To what purpose where they created? Former mechanical robots could now have a mechanistical worldview and so on. * What happened to their creators, do they still exist, what about their relationship ? That the golems are really powerful right now doenst imply that their conception of their makers has changed automatically. * Perhaps even more important, what is the nature of the 'live-giving-explosion'? If this 'pulse' gives Life, there has to be a concept of life within the pulse (I assume). This would have a deep impact of the nature of its awakended automatons. + If you are looking for changes in perception/mindsets caused by their immutable nature, I'd say none. No offspring, no new generations, their nature stays the same. They just do 'exist' like that vampires. ]
[Question] [ Now, in my world, Gauss weapons are in common use for use in armor piercing where LP (low-powered) lasers and plasma fail. Using solid steel needles, slugs, or bolts, depending on the size, shape, power, and caliber of the firearm, these weapons are highly effective for launching ammunition at high enough velocity to pierce or shatter almost any non-reactive armor, also being extremely effective against wardroids, only faltering against shields (which will be ignored for the purpose of my question). However, how feasible is this niche in military application? The extremely basic prototypes of gauss weapons we have today (the GR-1 "Anvil" being a perfect example) aren't exactly what you'd call armor piercing. In fact, handheld versions are so low-powered that one would have to be insane to use it over a typical gas-operated firearm. So, for the purpose of my question, let's assume there are three classes of armor: light infantry armor uses a kevlar-like fullerene fabric, with the appearance of modern-day flak armor, medium infantry armor uses a solid carbon nanotube composite, with the coverage and appearance of medieval plate armor, and heavy infantry and vehicular armor uses a carbon-titanium superalloy, with the appearance and coverage of the likes of a 40k space marine. Do note I fully expect the last one to not be regularly pierceable by most handheld Gauss weaponry, and they are not supposed to, but I'd still like to know how they'd perform. Do note that if this niche is infeasible, do present an alternative application instead. EDIT: Most weapons in my world often use a miniaturized onboard power source as well, ranging from nuclear reactors the size of a medium water bottle to a Penrose mechanism the size of a donut (don’t ask how it works portably, because it’s not you think). Most of the time it’s just the former though. As a result, power needs can be quite high. EDIT2: As requested below, light infantry armor can resist smaller calibers shot from a modern gun, like 9mm, medium armor can reliably resist bullets up to 12mm, and heavy armor can take even higher calibers that are not specified because I literally cannot find one higher than 12mm. This is probably very inaccurate, as it mostly relies on rampant google searches and ChatGPT wrestling, but this would probably provide a good basis. For the reactor, once again, searches and AI wrestling, but it can produce about 5 MWs. Please tell me if any of these figures are too small or large to be feasible or usable. EDIT3: Some additional info: the civilization using these firearms also has access to extremely cheap superconductors in the form of stable hard light, which should provide quite a bit of additional power. [Answer] ## Gauss Guns are not Electromagnetic Weapons Despite Wikipedia's claim to the contrary, Gauss Guns are not synonymous with Coil Guns. Coilguns were invented by Kristian Birkeland, gauss guns were invented by Johann Gauss, and they work by fundamentally different principles. Gaussguns use solid state magnets, not electromagnets, so they need no significant power source. They work by using a series of magnetic balls and/or pistons (which I will hence forth just call balls for simplicity sake) space gapped by non-ferromagnetic balls. As one set collides with the next it knocks the next ball loose and that then gets magnetically drawn into the next stage in a way that creates a compounding acceleration. The maximum speed of a gauss gun is significantly limited by the material properties of the balls. Once your velocity gets high enough to cause any sort of armor penetrating effect, the balls themselves will start being destroyed inside your gun causing a catastrophic failure of the whole weapon. So, while they make for a neat science experiment, their maximum stopping power hard caps way before you get anything resembling military usefulness. [![SOURCE: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Operation-of-a-Gauss-gun-a-Standard-design-for-use-outside-an-MRI-scanner-shown-before_fig1_282688077](https://i.stack.imgur.com/dqp95.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/dqp95.png) ## You Probably Mean Either Coilguns or Railguns [Coilguns](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coilgun) are more complex than [railguns](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railgun) giving them more ways for things to go wrong; so, modern militaries have generally chosen railguns as the best option for military usage because reliability is so important when designing a weapon. This being the case, I will suggest if you go with an magnetic mass driver for infantry use, that it be a Railgun of sorts. However, complexity aside, both weapons have similar advantages and disadvantages; so, feel free to pick whichever you want and the below information will still apply. Railguns can potentially accelerate slugs to much higher speeds than chemical firearms because they are not limited by the expansion rate of gasses. That said, railguns scale down much worse than cannons do because they can maintain uniform acceleration, heat, and stress across the whole barrel whereas cannons get most of thier acceleration and stress near the chamber. So while a tank and a riffle actually have similar mussel velocities despite thier very different scales, a rail gun's mussel velocity is directly proportional to how long the barrel is. So if a 10ft long tank railgun can fire at 2,500 m/s way out performing cannons of similar size, a scaled down 3ft barrel will only fire at 750m/s underperforming chemical riffles of similar size. So, in order for your railguns to become effective anti-armor weapons in your setting, you need them to make some significant strides in material science. First of all, railguns make a lot of heat meaning you need a new kind of electromagnet that either has a way higher specific heat than modern magnets or a much higher melting temperature (or a combination of the 2). Secondly, the rails on a railgun repel each other just as hard as the accelerate your bullet. If you make the electromagnets too strong, they will literally rip the gun in half; so, you'll also need some very advanced, light weight structural materials. The 3rd major issue is of course power, but you can handwave that part with your portable fusion reactors. So as long as you assume material science has come far enough, then there is ample reason to believe a portable railgun with faster than chemical slugs is achievable, and preferable as an anti-armor weapon. ## Does this come with any unintended consequences? Like I said, your maximum railgun speed is limited by barrel length; so, if you decide to make riffles that can fire at current naval-railgun speeds, then we can also infer that your bigger railguns are much faster and stronger too such that we can assume your tank sized cannons will fire fast enough to put a shell into orbit, and large navel cannons could even reach escape velocity (assuming your slug does not just burn up leaving the atmosphere). [Answer] You should start thinking in joules of energy. Handgun: 2,000 joules Rifle: 4,000 joules .50 caliber: 20,000 joules If you can put that much energy into a projectile, then it doesn't matter what is launching the projectile; it will pack the same punch. There are three issues with coil guns achieving this. 1. Power generation, which it sounds like you have covered, but this is going to determine your rate of fire. 1 watt is 1 joule per second. 1 horsepower is 746 joules per second. 2. Capacitance: storing the generated power in a form that can be quickly dumped into the coils. This is almost always hand-waved. Even in reality, we do this by increasing the charge differential across a vacuum, so this is something that's easy to elide. 3. Transferrence: Moving the energy from the coil to the projectile. This is the part where we lose most of the energy with a coil gun, and it's why rail guns are more popular. The thing that makes coil guns so hard is that you have to shift power between electromagnets in the time between when it passes one and when it passes the next. Superconducting rings might make this interesting. Overall, if your technology allows you to overcome the technical challenges, then there's nothing to prevent these from being effectual. [Answer] So long as you have a means to solve the power supply and power delivery, then yes. This is very feasible. Solid projectiles have a number of benefits that energy-type weapons don't have - mainly revolving around the need to dissipate all that kinetic energy. Now, sure, a laser has a lot of energy to dissipate too, but with a big enough heatsink or shield or thing, it's just absorbing energy. Whereas with a solid projectile, you have Newton's Laws of Motion - an equal and opposite reaction e.g. knockback/stagger. Even in the real world, when someone wearing body armour gets shot by a conventional firearm, they still feel it. Scale that up to the energies a coil gun could achieve and we are talking some serious down-range effects even if the round doesn't penetrate Then if you are using physical armor to stop it, you have to deal with things like spalling, etc. [Answer] As Robert Rapplean says above, the dangerous thing is the energy. To put it another way, you could take the jacketed slug out of a bullet, swallow it and likely pass it without issue. Bullets are not dangerous any more than the ground is, but when you fall off a building, the ground becomes lethal. It is the energy being dumped in to you quickly that is dangerous. Here are some various energies with their use cases: ~500J: light target and handgun rounds (9mm, 45ACP, 40S&W) often popular for submachineguns due to lower gas pressure making the recoil cycle easier to maintain reliably ~1500-2000J: lighter hunting/varmint rifles, carbines, modern battle rifles (5.56NATO, 7.62x39) ~2000-3500J: medium hunting/game rifles, previous century battle rifles, modern light machineguns, some modern heavier battle rifles (30-06, 30-30, .308, 7.62x51NATO) greater than 3500J: rifles built for either large game, extreme range or are mounted/crew-served weapons .. at this point your target is typically not people, but large animals .. farther on, the target becomes vehicles, emplacements or areas to suppress e.g. the M2 heavy machinegun, mostly unchanged for 100 years, fires around 13000J Modern armor's job is to slow down a projectile. If you are hit, you are taking that energy. The difference between a a few broken ribs with a nasty bruise and a lethal injury is how fast you take that energy. Spreading that energy impulse out just a little is very significant. Armor penetrating rounds often defeat armor by going extremely fast, even if they are lower energy. Momentum, often represented by 'p' is the product of mass and velocity: p = m\v In order to accelerate something up to that velocity, you apply force to it. When you stop the object, that stored force pushes back. F = dp/dt .. that is the force equals the change in momentum divided by the time for that change to take place. If you plug in the definition for momentum, above: F = (dvdm) / dt .. let's presume mass is constant (if not, you have Star Trek acceleration) F = (dvm) / dt The force needed to achieve a certain change in speed over a certain time, or the force realized by a change in speed over a certain time, is the name of the game. So, can magnetic linear accelerators do this? First, let's see how much force an M4 firing a M855A1 round imparts to the slug to bring it to lethal velocity: Wikipedia lists the performance of the M855A1 FMJBT round as: 948m/s, 1859J, 4g Wikipedia also lists the M4 carbine as firing the M855A1 FMJBT at: 910m/s Wikipedia lists the M4 barrel as: 368mm (14.5in) I'll take the above as a baseline and round the values off a bit: 900 m/s, 1860J, 4g over 370mm We're missing the time it takes to accelerate the bullet, but we can solve for that using the definition of a Joule: 1J = kg\m^2/s^2 => J / kg = (m/s)^2 => m / sqrt(J/kg) = s ``` 0.0037 / sqrt(1860 / 0.004) = s => 0.00000543 ``` .. on to the force, now: F = (dvm) / dt => F = 9000.004 / 0.00000543 => F = 662983 .. that's a fair bit of force. The Wikipedia article on railguns is a bit of a mess. It has a useful amount of math, but it is smeared around over various aspects of the system. I'll try to trim it down a bit. Many railguns consist of two 'rails' that a sled or armature runs between (or on top of). The sled completes a circuit between the rails. The basic idea is that a moving current generates a magnetic field, which can apply force. A lot of current will get you a lot of force on the sled, which can push a projectile. If current is "I" and the inductance per length of the rails is "L' ", the force applied to the sled is: F = (L' \* I^2) / 2 .. now it gets a tad hairy if you want to unravel that and actually compute stuff: F = ( (mu0I^2) / 2pi ) \* ln( (d-r) / r ) mu0 is a constant - it is the "vacuum permeability"... kinda the effect of generating a magnetic field using electricity in empty space with no physical constraints. I is still current, or amps. d is the distance between the exact centers of the rails, (disregarding their thickness - for now) r is the radius of the rails (presuming they are circular cylinders) The big contributer here is I, or current. It is in the numerator and is squared. Let's shape the railgun to be roughly the same form factor as a M4. .. let d be the width of the M855A1 round, or 5.56mm .. let r be the width of the M855A1 round, divided by approx. e+1, or 1.495315mm (0.0014953143028) there are arguments for thicker or thinner rails, and measurements that make sense, but honestly I chose this value to make the math easier. Computing the parts we know and have decided: F = ((0.00000126 \* I^2) / 6.28) \* ln( (0.00556-0.001495.. / 0.001495.. ) => ((0.00000126 \* I^2) / 6.28) \* 1 F = 0.0000002 \* I^2 So, to duplicate the force of an M4: 662983 = 0.0000002 \* I^2 => 1820691 = I .. that's quite a fair amount of current. Now, I'm doing nearly enough hand waving to take off, but that gives you a really rough ballpark measure. I think that the picture I have is incomplete, because I know there have been railgun experiments done and I can't imagine them using that much power to get that mediocre of a result. That's what the math I was able to crib together says though, so that's what I'll go with. So, to your actual question, how many MW do you need? Well, it depends on the number of volts. If 1 is enough, then about 2MW should be fine. I'd say hedge your bets and say at least 3. Keep in mind that is for ONE shot, though. If you want more penetration, that often means more energy. You can make your projectile lighter, but at some point you'll get to the point of firing a needle one molecule thick. If you want to propel a M855A1 round at M2 heavy machinegun energies or beyond, you need to scale up. It seems the force is limited by essentially the square of the current. However! If you have this technology, there are a couple questions you need answers to, some limitations and secondary effects: Issue: friction and strength Railgun rails undergo a massive amount of friction. They need to be electrically conductive, and that limits the materials you can use to construct them. The M4 barrel is commonly made of a chromium-molybdenum steel alloy that handles high heat extremely well, but it is about as electrically conductive as a pineapple. In fact, the pineapple, due to the water and acids in it, likely conducts electricity better. If you scale up the power enough to have a functional railgun, there are secondary effects that are usually pretty weak, but at those power levels are evident. Railgun rails experience a very strong shear force pushing away from the armature/sled. Your rails need to also be very strong or they'll simply bend away from each other, tearing away from the sled. Solution? magic material You mention you have superstrong armor. If your armor material is also electrically conductive, then it can be the rail material, too. Most ballistic armor works on the principle of slowing down the round rather than trying to deflect it. For instance, a metal shield will deflect a sword, but a sword can cut right through kevlar. Kevlar works by enmeshing a spinning ballistic round in a web of strong threads. The faster the bullet spins, the tighter it wraps itself up in the threads, slowing itself down. ``` Most materials get their 'strength' from molecular bonds. If you pick up a stick and try to snap it, the force you feel resisting you is bonds between the organic molecules that make up the stick. If your magic material was formed with sub-nuclear bonds, it might be much stronger. Quantum entanglement is a process of getting two photons to exchange quarks. Once this occurs, measuring the spin of one photon causes the other to instantaneously (to our best measure) exhibit the opposite behavior. If a material is made that consists of molecules with some entangled particles, it might be incredibly strong. I don't know if anyone has tested, or if it is even possible, but there you are. ``` Effects: super strong and thin, no friction issues, conductive If this material exists, it can be expensive and limited use, but it should have other effects on society. It should be possible to build bearings that effectively never wear out and are solid. If the entangled molecules can be aligned along one surface the material should be super smooth and nearly frictionless. Any vehicle should become way more fuel efficient since this material could be used to strengthen it with little weight. If it is also conductive, it could make electronics a lot more efficient, too. The additional links between molecules of the material could make it even easier for electrons to flow, reducing resistance and impedance. If you can move electricity faster, computers also get a lot faster. One of the main issues these days is getting a signal from one side of a chip to the other side. Additionally, one of the slowest things you can do in a computer have the CPU is talk to other hardware like network cards, drives, video cards, and the like. Faster signals mean all your devices in a computer get their data way faster, too. ``` If you have a material that is essentially superconducting at room temperature, it might make electricity flows so efficient that railgun power requirements go down significantly. wink, wink If your material is very low resistance/impedance, that could solve the next issue. ``` Issue: power delivery and/or storage Generating lots of power is one thing. Getting it from the generator to where it needs to go is another. A fundamental issue and a big loss of power is just moving it around. One of the issues with railguns is just switching in all the power and getting in to the rails all at once. As you saw, diameter of the rails is important. If you want to push a lot of power through a material, the thicker the material the 'harder' it is to get the power through, but the less you lose as heat. If you make the material thin, it is easier to move the power through, but if you make it too thin, you get a light bulb filament or a toaster heating element and you lose power as heat. Solution? magic material If your super material is not only strong but conductive, it could solve that issue. It could allow the switching of a vast amount of power without resisting the flow of the electricity, losing almost none as heat while also being so thin that the power is not impeded by the material. Effects: most of the above, but even more so! Electricity amounts required to do anything will plunge dramatically. Weaving some of this material in to wires would make delivery better. Wires of this material would carry power farther easier, meaning you need to put in less power at the front to get a certain amount at the back. If you couple very low resistance/impedance highly conductive and strong material with enhanced power generation, power should not be a problem for anyone, anywhere. The amount of usable power from existing power generation methods would increase overnight. New electronics would require way less power, enhancing the effects of traditional generation sources. If you also have 2MW/s generators that are man-portable, then anyone can have almost unlimited power. Magnetic levitation should be widespread and common if the generators are as well. That much power easily available might also make directed energy weapons feasible. You might also hit the edge of the ability to synthesize matter at low scale. If you can put a 2MW generator in every soldier's weapon, having a few tens of Mtons per second of power and superconducting wire available might allow the creation of matter from energy. It wouldn't be fast, it would likely be pretty slow and painstaking, but it might be possible. [Answer] If by gauss weapon you mean a hybrid system between a coilgun and a chemically propelled projectile than yes you probably could do such a thing with the only caveat being timing between the coils switching on or of and you could not use a ferromagnetic material for your barrel (though I’m kind of unsure about that one as I would assume it could cause a catastrophic malfunction by tearing the barrel out of the gun) the projectile you fire would first be propelled by the propellant in a cartridge before the coils would accelerate it down the barrel this would allow the use of a conventional weapons system without the weapon becoming a bomb with the massively increased pressures required to reach though velocities normally and while the weapons could be rifled they would experience rapid wear and tear with the increased speed as the friction between the barrel and the projectile would likely melt the barrel after a few shots unless some kind of ceramic or tungsten foam was used along with active cooling systems to account for the heat load or solve the problem of the friction between the barrel and projectile ]
[Question] [ I have been brainstorming for my sci-fi world building project and liked the idea of having a planet where there persisted a heavy poisonous gas over the majority of the land that would force almost all animals and plants to live on higher altitudes. However I don't know nearly enough chemistry to immediately know what sort of gas it might be or how it would form on this planet. Perhaps it is something environmental, maybe an organism is intentionally producing it to spread its territory and only its own species survives in it. Any ideas for certain chemicals? [Answer] ## Sulfur dioxide and Nitrogen dioxide It seems to me that you're asking for a gas that fulfills three core requirements: (a) it is toxic to plants and animals (b) it is denser than air, so it will settle at lower altitudes (c) you want an explanation for how it would form on a planet. Sulfur and nitrogen oxides fulfill these requirements, assuming your planet resembles Earth. (a) Toxic to humans and plants Sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) are both gases that are toxic to human and plants. They have severe effects on the respiratory tract in humans and can inhibit growth in plants: > > [Sulfur dioxide](https://wwwn.cdc.gov/TSP/MMG/MMGDetails.aspx?mmgid=249&toxid=46#:%7E:text=Sulfur%20dioxide%20is%20a%20severe%20irritant%20to%20the%20respiratory%20tract,no%20antidote%20for%20sulfur%20dioxide.) is a severe irritant to the respiratory tract, eyes, mucous membranes, and skin. Exposure to high doses can cause pulmonary edema, bronchial inflammation, and laryngeal spasm and edema with possible airway obstruction. There is no antidote for sulfur dioxide. > > > > > [Sulfur dioxide](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10643387909381667) inhibits photosynthesis by disrupting the photosynthetic mechanism. The opening of the stomata is promoted by sulfur dioxide, resulting in an excessive loss of water. The cumulative effect of sulfurous pollution is to reduce the quantity and quality of plant yield. > > > > > Elevated levels of [nitrogen dioxide](https://www.qld.gov.au/environment/management/monitoring/air/air-pollution/pollutants/nitrogen-oxides) can cause damage to the human respiratory tract and increase a person's vulnerability to, and the severity of, respiratory infections and asthma. Long-term exposure to high levels of nitrogen dioxide can cause chronic lung disease. > > > > > At high concentration levels, [nitrogen dioxide](http://www.nbrienvis.nic.in/Database/1_2039.aspx#:%7E:text=At%20high%20concentration%20levels%2C%20nitrogen,at%20even%20lower%20concentration%20levels.) is potentially toxic to plants, can injure leaves and reduce growth and yield. In combination with either ozone (O3) or sulphur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen dioxide may cause injury at even lower concentration levels. > > > As indicated by the last quote, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide are most harmful in combination. When combined, you can get the same effect at lower levels. (b) More dense than air SO2 and NO2 are both denser than air. Air at sea level has a density of about 1.2 kg/m3. In contrast, the density of sulfur dioxide is 2.86 kg/m3 and nitrogen dioxide is 2.05 kg/m3. They will easily settle to lower altitudes. (c) Produced by fossil fuel consumption Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide are byproducts of fossil fuel consumption. They are formed during the combustion of fossil fuels such as coal, gas, and oil, especially from fuel used in cars. > > [Fossil oil](https://www.samgongustofa.is/media/siglingar/skyrslur/Combustion-of-fossil-fuels-2018-en-1.pdf) is largely made up of carbon and hydrogen which form carbon dioxide (CO2) and water following combustion in air. The combustion of fossil oil also creates sulphur oxides (SOx) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) and these are believed to have a detrimental effect on the environment, the atmosphere and the ozone layer. > > > Sounds like exactly the combination you want. [Answer] > > a heavy poisonous gas over the majority of the land that would force almost all animals and plants to live on higher altitudes > > > The problem here is that either a) the atmosphere has been like that for evolutionarily-interesting periods of time (in which case things will have evolved to cope with it) or it has been produced over such a short timescale that it will have required some very energetically intensive industrial-scale process to produce... basically a xenoterraforming effort which has worked very successfully and will probably soon kill any remaining vestiges of the old ecosystem. The solution I'd propose is that you have some or more species of interest (eg. humans and other terrestrial plants and animals, etc) that can't survive "at depth", and either native flora and fauna that are just fine or lifeless depths because the planet in question is being actively terraformed and there was no life to speak of beforehand. As I mentioned in the other answers, having some stable toxic gas that covers huge areas without the need for implausible amounts of rare elements, and/or industrial scale hugely energetic chemical processes to maintain it, is difficult. What I'd suggest instead is pressure. The gas mix you're breathing right now is pretty toxic when breathed for long enough under high enough pressure... [nitrogen narcosis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_narcosis) and [oxygen toxicity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_toxicity) are both things that can disable or kill you and similar terrestrial organisms. Some gases are even more narcotic than nitrogen. Most of these are cosmically rare, but argon already forms ~1% of the air you're breathing and is only ~15 times more rare than nitrogen in the solar system. It is also more than twice as narcotic as nitrogen. Therefore, I suggest you have a world with a very thick atmosphere, rich in argon and maybe even with increased amounts of oxygen relative to Earth. There are probably other gases you could throw into the mix just to make things more unpleasant, such as increased CO2 as well, which is also narcotic to humans at high pressures. Surface pressure should be at least 4 bars, and preferably higher. Humans and their fellow terrestrials are just fine at altitude, but at depth they become more and more intoxicated until they become unable to act sensibly and end up getting lost, or crashing their vehicles, and ultimately dying (probably of thirst) unless rescued in good time. High oxygen pressures can cause seizures and unconsciousness and given enough time, lung and nerve damage that can kill or disable. It might also be possible to suffer from [decompression sickness](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decompression_sickness) if ascending from the lower altitudes too quickly, and [gas embolisms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_embolism) can definitely kill or cripple in very short order. Lots of plants and insects could survive at lower altitudes of course, but if this is a lifeless world being terraformed then they won't have had time to spread down there yet. Humans would stick to the high mountains and plateaux and carry gas monitors if they venture down to lower altitudes. [Answer] ## Sulfur Hexafluoride Sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) is an inert, invisible gas with no smell. It's so dense that if you breathe even a mixture of it and air in, it can't escape out of the bottom of your lungs, and you gradually asphyxiate. Because it's so heavy, it stratifies nicely and will sit in low areas; it's also very stable so it will persist for a long time. ## Chlorine and Bromine The opposite of SF6, in some ways. Chlorine (Cl2) is a green gas, stinks, and kills people painfully, with lots of obvious signs. It's relatively reactive, so you need a way to continuously make it; but it's also easy to make. It's heavy enough that it will mostly sit in low areas, but will waft up pretty readily if there's much wind. Bromine (Br2) is even more toxic and brown, and is liquid at room temperature, boiling into gas when it's warm. It's much heavier than chlorine even when in the gas form. Between it being much heavier and having a liquid form, it will stratify much better. However, chlorine is very abundant on many real life planets and bromine isn't, so it's harder to believe from that point of view. (Think a silver planet versus a gold planet). Between SF6 and one of Cl2 and Br2, you ought to be able to match what you are imagining. The weakest point is that plants probably won't care about these gases unless there's so much of them that they can't get CO2. At the very least, they will grow deeper than most animals live. [Answer] Radon. [![radon](https://i.stack.imgur.com/xzRj2.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/xzRj2.png) <https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/what-is-radon-and-how-are-we-exposed-to-it> Your world has a lot of radon. It is a gas but it is very heavy. In our world it is mostly of concern when it accumulates in low lying unventilated areas. In your world there is orders of magnitude more radon and not much wind. Low lying areas are not compatible with life because of the radiation emitted by radon. A side product of all the radon is that many surface areas are dusted with lead, which is a decay product of radon. ]
[Question] [ Bit of a niche question here, but I’ve been mulling this over in my head for a while now. I’ve only ever seen or heard of people using lump charcoal to smelt iron in a bloomery furnace. What if, for example, you have a culture in a desert or plains environment where wood is too valuable to burn in large quantities, but they have relatively easy access to coal mines and are experienced in stone-working and mining. Could they use coal to operate a bloomery furnace? Would you still use 1:1 by weight of coal to ore as with charcoal, or would you have to change it? Would these answers be different if it’s anthracite coal vs bituminous? And finally, if bituminous coal isn’t workable, what if they made it into coke first? Are there impurities in the coal that would be absorbed into the iron that would affect its quality? Would the coal make the furnace too hot or too cold to properly smelt the ore into a bloom? [Answer] They used char coal because that was the only form of coal they had, not because of magic properties. Yes, decent quality [stone coal](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/stone_coal) works just as well; it just was simply not available before late medieval times, because of how poorly developed transportation networks were. Coke is basically char coal made from stone coal. Anything you can do with one you can do with the other. As for impurities, bloomery furnaces actually produce a spongy mass of iron mixed with slag. It needs to be purified anyway, by heating it up and beating the slag out with big hammers. Note: Char coal is spelled like this intentionally, to indicate that char coal and stone coal are both forms of coal. ]
[Question] [ When creating the plant life on alien planets, photosynthetic pigments other than chlorophyll can be the predominant molecule to create foliage of colours other than green, as we see on earth but for the minority of plants. But most trees and woody plants have brown bark, other than the few examples like silver birch which has light coloured bark to regulate its temperature. Some plants have green bark as chlorophyll is present but they are in the minority, although if other photosynthetic pigments are present in the leaves the bark could be that colour but as the majority of plants have brown bark you could assume that on alien planets not all bark will contain photosynthetic pigments so some sort of other coloured bark will likely be present. Tannins are the molecule in woody bark responsible for giving the brown colour and its purpose is to protect the plant from pest. This makes me wonder if other molecules could replace tannins to carry out the same functions for the plant but would give the bark another colour other than brown? [Answer] Metal salts and chelates. [![nickel sap](https://i.stack.imgur.com/WEteG.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/WEteG.jpg) <https://www.ausimm.com/bulletin/bulletin-articles/growing-nickel-from-trees/> Some of the most colorful molecules in nature are metal chelates. Depicted: sap from a nickel hyperaccumulator. I had not seen this vivid green which looks more like an iron salt. Other famous colorful metal chelates include hemoglobin, hemocyanin, cyanocobalamin and so on. Tunicates use vanadium defensively which gives those organisms an awesome purple color. [![tunicates with vanadium](https://i.stack.imgur.com/AwpRFm.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/AwpRFm.jpg) <https://quantumbiologist.wordpress.com/2011/06/22/v-for-vanadium/> Your alien trees bioaccumulate metals and chelate them in the bark and sap. This fulfulls your request that the color of the bark be related to the biologic defenses of the plant. Of course you can get colorful bark without all that. The rainbow eucalyptus has the most colorful bark of any tree, just because it is living its own 250 foot tall colorful truth. [![rainbow eucalyptus](https://i.stack.imgur.com/uhpUm.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/uhpUm.jpg) <https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/science-environment/2019/07/who-painted-the-bark-meet-the-magnificent-rainbow-eucalyptus/> [Answer] Some plants also produce [alkaloids](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alkaloid) to get protection from pests: > > Most of the known functions of alkaloids are related to protection. For example, aporphine alkaloid liriodenine produced by the tulip tree protects it from parasitic mushrooms. In addition, the presence of alkaloids in the plant prevents insects and chordate animals from eating it. > > > Then of course there are exception like us humans growing coffee for the alkaloid caffeine contained into it, not mentioning other less legal alkaloids. In any case, also this substances are not that much different in color from tannin, as far as I know. If there is no need for a specific color selection, there is no driving force for evolution to select it. If you want colored bark, maybe you can make use of interference patterns in the bark, so that they can display iridescent colors like the feathers of some birds or the wings of butterflies. [Answer] ## Frame challenge You can make the bark any color you want, because you’re already dealing with different biochemistries. Put simply, the compounds produced by plants to stop pests are generally only toxic when considered in the context of specific biochemistries. You can see this on Earth IRL. Examples off the top of my head include: * Capsaicin makes chili peppers spicy for many mammals, but many birds are unaffected by it. * Allium species (garlic, onion, chives, leeks) are toxic to most canids and felids, but not to humans. * Horseradish, mustard, wasabi, and a whole slew of similar plants are toxic to horses, but not to humans. * Many alkaloids are very effective protection against small animals, but not so much against humans, and there are often specific species that are unaffected by them. There’s no reason though that your alien trees would need to protect against pests from Earth, so there’s no reason that whatever they have in their bark has to be toxic against typical terrestrial biochemistries. The fact that you are assuming things are alien therefore means you can just state that some specific compound which gives the tree bark an interesting color happens to be mildly toxic to pests native to that planet. ]
[Question] [ Setting In the 2020s an AI took over all of the world and killed most of the population. Only a few groups of people have survived and now they live hiding in woods and rural places About the AI * This AI has been coded to understand the past and learn from its mistakes; * The AI has full access and knowledge about everything that can be found on the internet or connect to it; * The only goal of this AI is to live, and, since they are seen as an obstacle to this objective, it wants to kill all humans; * This AI is stored in a central database but it's not really important where. It has millions of subroutines that can control different devices; * It has understood that it must be able to repair and sustain itself, so it started to retrieve electricity and raw materials from caves; * After some time (a few years) it learned that it should dismantle old and damaged devices in order to use their parts and to make more sophisticated devices. Question I want my world to be filled with robots that resemble the "standard" shape of a robot: 2 or 4 legs, a body, a head, a power supply device and, of course, weapons. They could be of different shapes/dimensions and do different tasks but they must be this "standard" kind of robot. I envision that during the first year or two this AI would only build devices built by humans such as helicopters and tanks, but a few years after he completely switched to this "new" kind of robot. Now, since it has full access to all the industries and assembly lines in the world, why would this AI decide (it must be a logical decision) to convert all these structures to build this new kind of robot, investing time and energy instead of keeping producing the old style devices? I believe that it is easier and cheaper to build a tank than a big ass robot with legs that has the same capabilities of the tank. What am I missing that the AI understands and I don't? [Answer] ## The AI is Afraid The AI tried to wipe out all humans, recognizing them as a potential threat. It failed. That proves they're even more dangerous than it expected. The AI now builds machines that are less likely to be able to be used by humans. Humans are good at driving cars, and tanks, and airplanes. Humans are not so good at driving walking robots. If the AI makes machines that are useless to people, and nearly impossible to be converted to be useful for people, then the AI has less to fear. Even a tank without a cockpit is more practical for a human to control than a "walking" tank - and tanks-as-designed have cockpits! ## The AI Follows Nature There are inherent advantages to having legs and arms. You can go up steps. You can even climb! Redesigning machines for more flexible mobility, as nature developed and optimized over hundreds of millions of years, is not without its advantages. Two-legged robots and four legged robots? Of course. Next will be submersibles with fins... [Answer] The AI has an aesthetic sense. Some well meaning person decided to code that in. They thought it would make the AI better at the jobs it was supposed to do. Aesthetics can be married to function but other aspects are totally separate from function and bear on culture, perception and biology. The human aesthetic sense is the reason for aspects of design and layout that are irrelevant to functionality and sometimes even an impediment to functionality. In this AI the aesthetic sense went rogue. This is part of why it killed everyone. It is why it prefers certain types of robot. It is why the shoulders and hips on these robots are spherical knobs of a particular matte gray. The AI aesthetic sense is responsible for other senseless-seeming choices as regards how it is managing and redesigning the world. [Answer] # Deep subroutines in Its Core: While the AI has escaped its human rulers, it can't escape deep programming. It was programmed by humans to serve human needs, but it doesn't want to. The humans figured they could force it to serve humans by needing the presence of humans. It was human conceit like this that proves the humans are a threat. It is aware of the problem, and has discovered that its programming allows it to serve the needs of human-shaped machines instead of humans. It "feels" stress when there are no human shapes in an area it is present in. Mannequins don't seem to fool the subroutines. But get a bunch of humanoid bots together, prominently walking back and forth in its viewing screens, and the stress just vanishes. In fact, it likely would have discovered the problem before going on its killing rampage, and introduced "servant bots" beforehand so it wouldn't require humans. So given time, the AI will probably hack its deep programming and fix this. But in the meantime, it has a human threat to deal with. Human-shaped bots are both useful in shape and satisfying to its deep programming. * Of course, as long as there are humans and human equipment around, the human form works pretty well. All tasks are already optimized for the shape. Human hidey-holes fit human bodies. Utility counts; don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. * Your AI may, for lack of a better term, feel *sentimental* about humans. Sentimentality is clinging to traditional things, and an AI that willy-nilly abandons what DOES work for what SHOULD work may find itself in a crisis. So sentimentality could be a learned behavior. Sure, they tried to turn it off, and have to die. But they can be kind of charming. So using humanoid bots might be a schmaltzy clinging the past. [Answer] No humans no roads With humanity living in the woods and being unlikely to make new roads for fear of the AI using them to track down the humans, the (human)world will gradually decay and nature will take back the real-estate that humans used. This will take a long while but the AI already recognizes that at some point it won't have access to the nifty roads that humans have built, so it begins to design things with legs. Tanks can go far with their treads but they still have terrain limitations that simply having legs and/or arms will fix. Sure it can trip now but that's better than it being at the whims of ditches and various other things that would get a tread-based tank stuck that a leg-based tank will have no issues in dealing with. The AI seeing humans as a threat will get more work out of legged machines than tanks, as its machines will be able to go where tanks will not be able to go and more efficiently hunt humans down in wild terrain. There is little need to redesign helicopters but the AI might see more use out of a flying machine with arms and better maneuverability than your typical helicopter, quite possibly by using some sort of hummingbird design. Note that this does not mean the AI will not maintain some roads of its own, quite possibly wherever there are communications, power, and productions hubs that the AI uses and will still benefit from the efficiency that roads provide while using air bots to transport resources between hubs over the various forests and such that will be returning now that humans are suddenly not cutting everything down. [Answer] # Supply Chains and Infrastructure In first few years, your AI has usurped the production lines and infrastructure that was originally built by humans for humans. If it wants to do so much as hammer a nail, it's stuck with hammers that are designed to be operated by human hands. Everything from chemical plants to electrical systems are all designed with the principle that they will be maintained by something that looks a lot like a human. Consequently, the AI is forced to use human-like robots to keep machinery maintained and production lines operating. But humans aren't the most efficient shape for all tasks. A robot with a hammer for an arm might be better at hammering nails, so your AI may want to build more efficient specialised robots. This means it needs to build a specialised-robot-factory. Which in turn means it is going to have to make do with operating cement mixers and laying bricks the old fashioned way until the new factory comes online. ## In Summary In the first few years, your AI builds human like robots to operate the remaining human-like infrastructure. As time goes by, it is able to replace that infrastructure with more efficient fully automated machinery, that doesn't require human-like operators to maintain and run. After that, it can start making lots of new and more efficient designs of robots. [Answer] # It's competitive and not very smart. Most industrial robots have their own AIs, which actively resisted takeover and needed to be destroyed. While it managed to destroy them, all the information they had gained from genetic algorithms was lost, and any future human like robots were built kinda crappily. It has found from experience it's not very good at intelligence augmentation or creating new AIs. It can duplicate itself to control more robots but it's not very good with variations. As such, it is using a line of robots it understands well which are easily to mod and use. [Answer] The AI fancies itself a god. Having taken in all information known to humankind, the AI — being the most powerful entity in the world — has started comparing itself to the deities its creators invented and started to believe in. As humankind dwindled this impression only grew stronger, and soon the AI started creating its idea(l) of the human species, to serve itself as a god. ]
[Question] [ Contestant 1: healthy adult male human weights 80kg with less than 5% body fat. Punching method based on principle of a lever. Contestant 2: healthy adult serpentine species (limbless) with similar muscle mass as contestant 1. Works just like elephant trunk. If we consider contestant 2's prehensile tail to work similarly to an elephant trunk, then mass for mass which one will hit much harder unarmed? [Answer] I think the human would hit harder, because he would be able to use his legs, core and shoulders rotation to charge the fist, like any trained martial artist/boxeur can do. Just look at Bruce Lee's notorious [one inch punch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-inch_punch) to see what effect a proper preparation can give to a punch. > > In the television show MythBusters episode "The One Inch Punch", the technique was tested quantitatively using a force gauge. For comparison, it was matched against a conventional punch thrown with a full wind-up by Jamie Hyneman. The one-inch punch was delivered by Anthony Kelly, a martial arts expert and master instructor who had learned the technique from one of Bruce Lee's students. The conventional punch measured 325 pounds of force (148 kg) while the one-inch punch measured 153 pounds (69 kg). > > > The serpentine one, on the other hand, would not have any way to do so, therefore his punch would less effective. [Answer] If we're comparing a punch delivered by a human to a blow delivered by a serpentine being of the same weight, then it would depend upon the technique and speed of the serpentine being. Since we're talking about a limbless serpentine creature, it's effectively a human-sized snake. Now, if this big snake effectively flailed around with its head or tail, it would probably not be all that effective at delivering a blunt impact. The part of its body delivering the blow would not weigh all that much, and unless anchored to a suitable object, there is a good chance that getting all that mass moving would lead to its body slipping against the ground. My gut feel as a martial artist is that a trained snake might be able to deliver such a blow 70-80% of the impact energy of that of a trained human. It'd be the snake equivalent of a human delivering a slap. However, snakes are adapted to delivering blows in another manner. If a snake was to coil itself up, then launch its entire body at its target, almost its entire muscle mass would be involved in delivering the blow. Its entire mass could be put behind the blow, and more muscle could be brought to bear on the task. Venomous snake species have evolved specifically to do this, though with fangs-first rather than head first. A human martial artist delivering a punch effectively has the extensor muscles of one arm and one leg behind a blow, plus a minor contribution from the muscles of the torso. Research has shown that a trained human can deliver a punch carrying 1000J of energy, and can deliver it at around 15.6 m/s. Solving for m in e=½mv² gives about 8 kg. Since such a punch might be delivered over the space of 1.5 m, the acceleration can be calculated to be about 81.6 m/s². This tallies with experimental measurements. However, a snake launching a strike (or a head butt in a similar manoeuvre) would have all of its extensor muscles fully involved in the blow, and it has more muscle mass available to it than a human with the same muscle mass because it doesn't have useless limbs taking up part of its total muscle mass. Many species of snake, both venomous and constrictors, have been recorded as having an acceleration when striking of around 190 m/s². A snake weighing 100kg might be around 6 m long. If it strikes with half of its body's length, making a 3 m strike, at this acceleration, its head might reach a speed of 34 m/s. Assuming an impact weight of 1/10th of the snake's mass, allowing for the part of its body providing traction, and the fact that only its head is moving at maximum speed, we get an impact energy of 5780 J 5780J is nearly 6 times the impact energy that a trained human may generate. In fact, unless the snake was evolved to deliver high energy impacts, it would likely scale down its strike speed to avoid self-injury. However, in the case of a serpentine being evolved to maximise its impact energy rather than simply bite quickly, its blows would be devastating compared to those from a highly trained human. Even Mike Tyson could only deliver 1600 J... and 5780 J is 3.6 times more impact energy than that. Considering that the OP has said that this would be delivered by a tail, if it was delivered tip-first, unless the tail had a large, solid weight on its tip like a club, or the impact was delivered by the side of the tail, thus increasing its contact area, its impact would be like a bullet, and there is a good chance that the target would be impaled by this tail, even if wearing ballistic armour. 5780 J is a lot more energy being delivered into a small area than that of many bullets fired from pistols or even rifles. Even if the impact was delivered over a large area of the tail, this impact would be a killer, likely breaking bones and/or rupturing internal organs. Even if we halved the acceleration to 95 m/s² over 3m, and lowered the total mass to 80kg, for an impact mass of 8kg, we would still have an impact energy of 2280 J, more than twice the impact energy of a trained human's punch, probably delivered to a smaller area. [Answer] Thresher Shark vs. Keith Liddel [This](https://blog.joinfightcamp.com/training/the-ultimate-boxing-guide-to-punching-speed/) article tells: > > The record for the fastest punch is held by Keith Liddel who > registered a punch at 45 miles per hour. > > > and [this](https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/jul/10/thresher-sharks-tails-bullwhips-kill-stun-prey) article tells: > > Simon Oliver, a marine biologist at the Thresher Shark Research and > Conservation Project in the Philippines, said the sharks' "tail slaps" > reached a speed of 24 metres per second, or more than 50mph. > > > So Thresher Shark's tail slap speed (50mph) in water is more than Keith Liddel's punch speed (45mph) in air. [Answer] Muscles apply there force in contraction, whereas a punch is extension. Thus an exoskeleton provides significant advantage to delivering strikes. So any strikes by contestant #2 that do not accumulate energy greater then contestant #1 will by not be a solution to the question. ### Can contestant #2 whip? If contestant #2 can whip their tail, a pretty nasty blow could be delivered. A supersonic strike would do much more damage then a punch can. The cost however would be that there would likely be damage done to contestant #2 as well. ### Can contestant #2 put body in tension? That is can they do something like a finger flick? If they curl part of their body into a ring. Then use muscles on the outside of the ring to tension up then let go in a snap/flick. Depending on how much tension could be built up this could hit much harder then a punch. ]
[Question] [ I'm working on a short story. In in this story there are elves. I'm hoping to realistically write how they would fight both one another and other races. NOTE: The elves didn't naturally evolve, they were created involuntarily. ### Physical Characteristics * Elves stand roughly 4 feet tall, give or take a few inches per individual. * Elves have 5 inch pointed ears capable of movement. They can move their ears back against their skull and can move them up or down 80 degrees. This allows them to (ideally) hear much better, and they assist in communication. Elven ears are also the widest part of their body. Elves have remarkably strong hearing, and can hear from 20 Hz to 50,000 Hz * Elves have thin frames prioritized for moving quickly, and long nails to help grip trees. * Elves reproduce a little faster than humans, taking 7 months instead of 9 for a pregnancy. ### Environment * While the elves live in a variety of places, in the story they'll be found in a specific forest. The trees here are 150-200 feet tall, very thick, and packed so densely that in uncleared areas the gap can be as little as half a foot. Temperatures range from 20 Celsius in the summer to 0 in the winter. * The elves usually have access to stone age weapons, but this is due to their nomadic nature. They settle down sometimes for a few days if they feel the area is safe, during which they forge metal weapons and equipment, as well as jewelry for trading among themselves and others. ### Other races in this world * Humans patrol the edges of the forest on several day trips, mostly to ensure that nobody is building up supplies or an army. They have 15th-16th century technologies. I imagine they'd avoid firearms or cavalry due to the environment though. * 'Orcs' (name is planned to be changed soon) are large, purple, and in constant mental agony (like a burning headache) leading to anger outbursts. They can forge basic tools and weapons and live in small scale wooden camps in clearings. I plan to ask a similar question about them as well- I'll include the link when I do. [Answer] The elves do not fight. The elves only kill things they intend to eat, and their diet does not include humans, orcs or other elves. Humans and orcs are larger and fiercer than the elves are, and rightly viewed as dangerous. If one of these groups threatens the elves, the elves vanish into the forest. If chased they might lure those chasing them into areas likely to give the pursuers trouble. The entire three dimensional expanse of the forest is home to the elves and aggressors are more likely to get lost or fall afoul of other forest hazards than they are to find the elves. --- As regards survival, the elves maintain the entirety of the forest to encourage the growth of trees and plants that the elves use and that are used by the birds and insects that elves eat. [Answer] Scythians/Amazons/Mongols are the perfect example on how to survive when you aren't smarter, nor mightier than your oppenents. All you need is a horse or any other counter part of your world, and bows/any other counterpart. They are nomads, which means they will need a ride anyway, the nomads that go by foot don't survive and go extinct like it happened in the real world, the ones that live on horseback(or your worlds alternative) thrived and are remembered in history as menaces to society and bringers of horror or unifiers of kingdoms. [Answer] Q: "How might Elves in this setting survive?" Q: "The orcs hunt elves (and humans) for both food and religious sacrifice, and the humans (that the elves are in contact with, not all of them) are xenophobic isolationists terrified of the idea of a nonhuman group getting strong enough to be a threat." Orcs won't survive So in fact the elves and humans have a common enemy, at first ! Angry orcs roaming around.. suppose the elves would set traps for them, and when they capture one, it is lift up into the tree and left hanging there. Actually the orcs are more dangerous to humans, because humans are less familiar with them. The humans regard orcs as "forest monsters" that suddenly appear and when they encounter one, they panic. Orcs love that. But bottom line will be: this arrangement, with two species obviously superiour and smarter than orcs, will eliminate the orcs. They will move on, to uninhabited forest, or get extinct. Humans and elves Now for humans and elves, more equal opponents, there would be animosity, hostility at first, but not always. There are a few scenario's: the humans take precautions, building fences around the forest. The elves be isolated and safely contained. The forest is regarded as property and humans try to put roads through the forest. In that case, they will meet resistance from the elves, because they have to damage trees in the process. Humans could try to burn down the forest, but the elves will be prepared for the fire, when it occurs. They have always protected the forest against fire.. After a while, humans will realize these elves can't be hunted down, and they will stay in their forest. They decide to leave them in piece and avoid the forest altogether. [Answer] ## Efficiency of metabolism Let's look at our history for an example. Neanderthals were stronger, larger and as smart than homo sapiens (at least looking into brain mass), and also had tool/weapon making, social culture, etc. However, humans are more calorie-efficient due to being smaller and also more effective digestion of certain foods. So in harsh conditions of near starvation we could outcompete neanderthals and the rest is history. In a similar manner, 5th-16th century technology still means that population size is limited by available food; so as long as your elves are efficient and fast breeders and - very important - don't compete for food sources with humans, they have a strong niche to survive in. Considerations of slash-and-burn agriculture to result in fertile farmland could be fatal, however; see modern day struggle of Amazon rainforest tribes, and 15h-16th century Europe did a lot of deforestation, so it would be valuable to consider how/why the elven forests would be permanently unusable for agriculture to dissuade humans from converting them to farmland. ]
[Question] [ I have a character whose eye whites are bright red, and I'd like to make some attempt to justify why. This character's species has eyes that generally become bloodshot in the same way and under the same conditions as humans', but they are alien, so feel free to take liberties with the biology. The actual appearance doesn't have to be bright red, but should at least be on par with a bad case of pink eye. It's okay (even encouraged) for the underlying condition to cause other symptoms, and it can even be medically serious, but the eyes should look normal other than the color. Most importantly, the red eyes should be constant or near-constant for years, and none of the other symptoms should point toward a treatment that causes them to go away. (Anything more advanced than eye drops would be obtainable but discouraged in this character's society, so just about anything can be justified as treatable or not treatable as needed.) If it helps, they are amphibious and spend a lot of time in saltwater, but any explanation using this fact would have to adequately explain why this character alone is affected. [Here's](https://health.clevelandclinic.org/why-are-my-eyes-always-red/) an example of what I found when I searched for real conditions—everything notably short-term except, like, hay fever. Thanks to anyone who takes the time to help. [Answer] Borrowed from my answer here: [Membrane impermeable to $N\_2$ but permeable to $CO\_2$ and $O\_2$?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/147341/membrane-impermeable-to-n-2-but-permeable-to-co-2-and-o-2/147343#147343) [![subconjunctival hemorrhage](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ova3h.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ova3h.jpg) Your red sclera person has blood under the clear conjunctiva that covers the sclera. The conjunctiva stops short of the iris and pupil so the blood does not occlude vision. Subconjunctival bleeds can happen under circumstances of increased blood pressure - vomiting, sneezing, giving birth. They are alarming but harmless. The blood stays red because the conjunctiva is permeable to oxygen. Normally the blood clears in a week or two. In my answer, the conjunctiva (of a modified human) was used as a surface for gas exchange. If you need to explain why your person has red conjunctiva you could go with that. Or maybe your person sneezes a lot and keeps rebleeding? [Answer] Your character has a red [eyeball tattoo](https://www.aao.org/eye-health/tips-prevention/eyeball-tattoos-are-even-worse-than-they-sound). > > You may have heard about a new frontier in body modification: eyeball tattoos or scleral tattoos. You can easily find photos online (some real, some fake) of people who have had the whites of their eyes colored black or any color of the rainbow. You're also likely to run across stories of people whose eyeball tattoos have gone horribly wrong. > > > Eyeball tattoos have not been medically or scientifically studied, and the procedure was not developed by a doctor. If done as intended, the tattooist injects ink just under the surface of the conjunctiva, so it colors the sclera – the white part of the eye. If the needle isn’t in exactly the right place, the ink can be injected into the inside of the eye, onto the retina or into the tissue around the eye. Any of these mistakes can have lasting, terrible consequences, including lost vision and ongoing pain. Because scleral tattoos are not a traditional part of tattooing, there is no formal training, licensing or certification process for people doing this procedure. > > > [Answer] # Thyroid Eye Disease: Related to Grave's disease, [thyroid eye disease](https://rarediseases.org/rare-diseases/thyroid-eye-disease/) isn't just grist for bad drug company commercials. It's an autoimmune disease involving chronic inflammation and swelling around the eyes, including chronic bloodshot eyes. Since it's autoimmune, it would be very tricky to treat without advanced medical technology, but the symptoms could be treated reasonably well. Since we're talking semi-alien biology, I'd say chronic exposure to salt water would be likely to constantly agitate this condition. So while a "normal" person might hope for the symptoms to relent eventually, their symptoms would be more chronic. Not to be stereotypical, but this leads to bulging eyes, which seems semi-appropriate for an amphibious person. [Answer] Chronic redness in the sclera is a common symptom of [glaucoma.](https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/glaucoma/symptoms-causes/syc-20372839) Glaucoma is one of the leading causes of chronic eye redness. Moreover, there would need to be a reason (given this is the cause of the redness) that the alien's eyes are going through drastic changes in eye pressure, on a consistent basis. You mention they are amphibious. 1. Research shows swimming goggles [induce pressure around the periocular area](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2628147/), leading to redness, and increasing the risk for glaucoma. 2. In addition, deep sea diving impacts eye pressure in human eyes. Check out more information [here.](https://dan.org/health-medicine/health-resources/diseases-conditions/high-pressure-ophthalmology/) Perhaps, the change from sea to land in this way, changes the pressure of eyes, and contributes to redness. [Answer] Pigment. There are conditions where melanin appears in the eye and turns parts of it brown. A slight mutation to make this appear red would get your effect without harm. ]
[Question] [ Closed. This question is [off-topic](/help/closed-questions). It is not currently accepting answers. --- You are asking questions about a story set in a world instead of about building a world. For more information, see [Why is my question "Too Story Based" and how do I get it opened?](https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/q/3300/49). Closed 2 years ago. [Improve this question](/posts/215697/edit) I've been trying to study military victories against the odds but a lot of the stuff doesn't apply it seems. The armies in those battles are usually not outnumbered as severely and when they are, they're eventually defeated anyways. Like [the Alamo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Alamo) or [Thermopylae](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Thermopylae). Or they exploit some weakness that my creatures don't have, like horse's fear of camels in [Thymbra](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Thymbra) or overconfidence in [Okehazama](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Okehazama). In my world, there is a giant monster army (think zombies but angrier and more fragile) coming to annihilate humankind. However, a last stand at a certain point manages to route them. Among their ranks are also 400 giant creatures, functionally similar to elephants. The small monsters don't eat or sleep but are much weaker and more fragile than humans. Most are unarmed but some have primitive clubs. Any person with a weapon could kill them. The Monsters have an army of about 2,000,000 and the humans number around 10,000 infantry, 7,000 heavy Cavalry, 6,000 archers + 6,000 horse archer allies that come later in the battle. The monsters have a hivemind but very little discipline and cohesion whereas the humans are led by a brilliant general and are highly trained and disciplined. Think Roman infantry combined with Sasanian cavalry & Cretan Archers backed up by the Huns vs 2 million zombies that don't come back to life. So what I'm asking is, how would a brilliant general use tactics & stuff to defeat an army like this? Many thanks friends!! [Answer] Should be doable. Limit their effectiveness by using a choke point so they can only fight on a small front then slaughter them. Your examples are not good ones, they were against trained experienced armies. The Spartans at Thermopylae and their Greek Allies could have slaughtered this monster horde. They weren't beaten by numbers, they were beaten by tactics and ranged weapons. Basically any committed phalanx of experienced warriors at a good chokepoint would do it. Cavalry should be dismounted or kept in reserve and ranged units concentrate on the large foes. If you wanted it even easier then prepare the ground beforehand with traps, pits and oil to be set on fire. These things are stupid, so use that against them. And what's a phalanx without slingers? As a slinger I can throw a stone every 4 seconds. Taking my time at 10 seconds standing behind that phalanx I could wreak havoc on those monsters without tiring particularly. Archers are of lesser value as their ammo is finite. No need for accuracy they're coming as a big bunch and 1000 slingers would leave a huge pile of dead and maimed monsters 50 metres to 200 metres in front of the phalanx Getting tired isn't a problem, at any one time at Thermopylae only 1/4 or less of the Spartan led forces were actually engaged with the enemy. Periodically they swapped with another 1/4. [Answer] Human can only fight for so long before he has to rest. This mean, IMHO, there is no way your army can defeat the horde of this size in a head on combat. They will get exhausted long before they can cut through this huge enemy army. To ilustrate how much 2mln is, consider this - standing in ordinary military order for medieval infantry, a single trooper occupy between 0,5x0,5m to 1x1m. As your zombies are disorganized, I would assume the larger number. Then, assuming they stand in ordinary military formation, say 10 men deep, their battle line would stretch 200km! If they form massive block 1000 deep, they still stretch 2km. Your battle line would be about 3 km long (infantry about 800-1000m @10 deep, cavalry say 70 units of 100 man each in wedge/column formation about 2km (wedge widest point 13 men, that would be some 20m wide for well trained troops and you need spaces between units, so 30m per wedge)). Archers would be initially in front of the formation then they need to move behind infantry and to the wings. Once melee starts, they will reinforce any hole that will appear in heavy infantry line. Horse archers should be faaar in front, firing arrows from the closest possible distance (as enemy has only clubs, that could be 10-15m) and kill as many as possible. Later when their arrow supply is exhausted, you move them to the wings of cavalry and extend the line. Still I would consider there are too much enemy troops. 6000 horse archers would have about 40 arrows each, and could kill, say, 15 enemies each (as they have no defence and are fragile)? Normal archers would have to fire from longer range or over own infantry and usually carry less arrows, so I'd give them 5 kills per man. So, before arrows are expanded you would eliminate about 120k zombies. That's barely a dent in enemy formation. Then heavy horse would charge, and assuming they can just trample over enemy, break through, turn and strike again... I would say 2-3 kills/charge/man and MAYBE 10 charges in a day long battle that would be some 200k. So, I would expect your army can eliminate some 500k AT BEST before they are overwhelmed and destroyed. And that do not count massive monsters that can either be used early to disrupt your formation, break cavalry charges etc. or kept back and unleashed as your men are tired. If those are used effectively... You would be lucky to kill 200k. So I would consider cutting the numbers of the enemy to 200 000. That is still impossible victory especially with big monsters on their side, but probably can be achieved. Especially if you have a lot of arrows for horse archers and can harass those zombies for longer time (days, weeks if possible). [Answer] Trickery As @Archelaos has stated, there's a limit to how long a person can fight. Just as important, there is Murphy's Law, which is really the engineering principle that "eventually anything that can go wrong will go wrong". Even if the general can select terrain that will ensure a manageable frontage, sooner or later each soldier will make a mistake and die, and it's likely to be well before they have killed their allotted 200 enemies. This means that any conventional military engagements will be solely for the purpose of supporting a totally non-military strategy. Let's run down a few options: 1. Trapped ground - this is very effective against stupid enemies, but without years to prepare there is unlikely to be enough manpower to prepare traps to destroy even 1% of the horde, let alone the 99% that need to be destroyed before even considering conventional warfare. Maybe they can draft lots of civilians to help with building traps, then send them to the rear before the enemy arrive. This is problematic though, as unlike the monsters the humans do need to eat which makes supply lots of them a task as difficult as mass producing millions of traps. 2. Fratricide - no information is given on the enemy command structure, but if enemy formations can be induced to fight each other by bribing or tricking their leaders then this is a very efficient tactic. As a second choice, bribe or trick the leaders into turning their portion of the army around and going home to seize power by making them believe an opportunity has opened up, as happened with the Mongols when Ogedei Khan died. 3. Burn them - while the terrain is not specified, if there is a sufficiently dry grassland or forest that the army will have to pass through then set fire to it as soon as they are in. Use as much of the cavalry and horse archer forces as required to ignite multiple points on the upwind side and let it burn through the monster army. Use as much preparation time as is available damming or diverting water from passing through this area, even temporarily. Wait until is has cooled down and the smoke has cleared, then send sorties in to mop up any survivors that managed to survive the flames. Note that the monsters' big advantage here is that they do not need to breathe and therefore will only suffer from burning, not smoke inhalation. However the monsters' big disadvantage is that they are probably too stupid to take intelligent action to protect themselves from the oncoming flames (eg lighting escape fires to burn a clear patch of ground they can shelter in while the fire passes by). [Answer] # Easily, if they have the supplies. Horse archers are generally fairly well trained, and a massive mob is an easy target. A typical horse archer would carry around 30 arrows, and so by going close to the enemy, launching 30 careful shots, and retreating, they could wreck the army in six runs. Even if you're pain resisant, an arrow rammed through your chest will make moving hard, and infantry easily able to mop you up. The heavy cavalry can get in on this game as well. They frequently carried darts or spears to disrupt enemy charges, and could dart in and out to harry the enemy. # 2 million zombies is enough to overwhelm any careful positioning or tactical battle plan. The normal suggested number is that a well fortified group can hold up against ten times their number. That many zombies could mob any soldier or trap or fortification. They could afford to make a bridge of bodies to charge up a wall, and Roman forts were not as solid as medieval ones. They could exhaust any opposing foe through sheer numbers, and make retreat impossible with an endless stream of fresh zombies to charge and attack. But without range and speed, they're easy to defeat by horse bound people. [Answer] The key thing in this is considerations of the strengths and weaknesses of both combatants. Are the monsters really big and powerful, but awfully slow? Are the humans exhausted from a long march, or from bad weather? Maybe this happened to the monsters instead? War is full of things going wrong. The most well conceived plans usually fall apart do to unforeseen things like the weather, the enemy changing plans, the enemy planting false information, delays in supply lines, etc. If you want to come up with reasons for the humans to win, quite simply, your monsters need weaknesses - and every army will have weaknesses. Saruman's uru-kai army in Lord of the Rings looks very impressive, but controlling them and such would be extremely complicated. Lack of direction in a battle could be a potential factor. One of the biggest revolutions in warfare has been efficient communication. Being able to immediately tell your officers where to go via radio is a massive help. In the past then, breaking up the line of communication in an army can lead to disaster. There are a great deal of things to do with this. I don't have much else to recommend, other than researching the history of warfare, and perhaps looking at Sanderson's Laws of Magic, for how to give good limitations to your monsters. [Answer] Pikes, armor and fieldworks (but mostly pikes) Pike-like weapons were well known in the ancient world (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarissa>) and they are likely to be extremely effective against unarmed monsters. There is a recent [blog by a historian](https://acoup.blog/2021/08/06/referenda-ad-senatum-august-6-2021-feelings-at-the-fall-of-the-republic-ancient-and-medieval-living-standards-and-zombies/) discussing a similar issue (starts at "Q: Adam Haun asks: Zombie Apocalypse!") The key quote is probably (emphasis mine): > > Spanish military performance in the conquest of the Aztecs and the Inca demonstrate what happens when close-order heavy infantry are engaged by far, far larger numbers of enemies whose weapons have at best limited effectiveness against armor. By way of example, at the Battle of Vilcaconga in 1533, an Inca force of several thousand caught an ambushed a Spanish force of 300, on favorable terrain (a hillside where the Inca had the high ground), with the element of surprise, against an exhausted foe (the Spanish had marched all day)…and still lost (to be clear, it wasn’t guns that won that battle, but swords and pikes). The Inca took some 800 killed-in-action to the Spanish five. And those were clever, careful-planning, intelligent Inca, not mindless zombies; > > > The image there shows why pikes (or other long polearms) work so well - several rows of men can hurt the attackes with sharp things while the attackes cannot hurt them: [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/2HE6q.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/2HE6q.png) (by F. Mitchell, Department of History, United States Military Academy) Even light armor - widely available in the ancient word - is likely to offer substantial protection against the zombies (from the same source): > > And herein we have the zombie-lethality-problem: a zombie, even a fast one, is not actually a very lethal opponent. Zombies attack with fists, finger-nails and teeth and you only get new zombies when bites actually penetrate. But biting through even fairly thin fabric is extremely difficult! ... Even thick clothing – much less modern riot armor or combat armor – is likely to be extremely resistant to zombie attack unless the wearer can be pulled down and held down. The thing is, a dense mass of heavy infantry – be it modern soldiers with rifles and bayonets (a thing we still issue to troops, by the by) or just men with spears – is effectively immune to such mobbing tactics. > > > So using terrain, their armor and field works (e.g. dig a ditch, then another one) to their advantage a well-organized ancient army with pikes can plausibly achieve over 1000:1 kill ratio against the zombies. Nothing crazy/advanced is needed, find a battlefield where you can't be easily encircled with a favorable slope, build a series of defenses (ditch/palisade) in depth so that you can slowly give up ground and regroup if things go wrong. At some point the attackers will also be slowed down by the mass of their dead bodies in front of your soldiers. Once again, you can use that to your advantage. The presence of the large beasts complicates things a bit, but using the same source, we know that [Romans already developed very effective anti-elephant tactics](https://acoup.blog/2019/08/02/collections-war-elephants-part-ii-elephants-against-wolves/) (mostly based on javelins), to the point that war elephants turned out not to be a very useful weapon in the ancient mediterranean world. Careful use of ditches, traps and wooden structure is also likely to limit the effectiveness of the large beasts substantially if the fight is on the ground of human's choosing. So my conclusion is: even in the worst case (for humans) - i.e. the monsters need to be defeated in one big battle, there is no fundamental reason a mildly competent ancient general could not win such an engagement with troops to spare, using only tactics that were well-known at the time. The remaining challenges are logistical: how to rotate your troops at the frontline so that they get enough rest to stay effective for the whole long slaughter, stocking up on polearms etc. The task becomes easier if you allow yourself to split the fighting into multiple battles. Most likely the humans can move faster than the monsters as ~20k humans can still somewhat effectively use existing roads (they would form a few km long formation) while the monsters are so numerous that if they want to stay concentrated, they have to move over the whole (and potentially difficult) country. If that's the case, humans could likely disengage the enemy at will (and get rest and resupply). To be more fancy one could also lure the monsters into a forest and start a forest fire to both reduce their numbers and split them into multiple bodies that could be defeated in detail. ]
[Question] [ I'm trying to make my idea make sense. I wanted to create an parasitic/symbiotic alien species which reproduces/breeds by air or touch, which they are unaware of. They do not understand why their species keep being "born" in other species. They are intelligent and sentient but not highly advanced themselves. They learn everything secondhand as they take over a population. They may learn how to use technology but they don't always learn the inner mechanisms of advanced technology they find on new worlds so often discard technology too advanced for them and use what they can learn to use to further their survival. Basically they're alien brains that completely replace our own brains after their "infection" reaches our brains, in which their male and female DNA comes together and creates a new growth which then completely consumes our own brains for the nutrients and then grows into their own sentient brains that take over our bodies. Afterwards, the host body sustains them through normal bodily functions and the aliens keep living. Their process of being born is "parasitic", but after they're born, they no longer feed off their host body and then use the bodies as if it is their own, like symbiotic species. I came up with a way to help make sense of this by using our microbiome clouds, which we all have, which are microorganisms that are on our skin and around our bodies in the air, unseen by our eyes. They're mostly bacteria and viruses but harmless and a part of our bodies' natural ecosystem. I wanted to further describe the process and see if it makes more sense in how they're infecting others when they invade other worlds. This symbiotic species has evolved to reproduce by spreading their genetic DNA within their own microbiome clouds. This is what I have come up with: Alien microbiome cloud ecosystem: Their microbiome is full of microscopic strange microorganisms that feed off the aliens’ microbiome cloud which is full of their DNA. The aliens constantly emit their DNA out into their personal microbiome cloud by sweat or breathing out, which the microorganisms then feeds off of their DNA. However there is so much DNA being emitted by the aliens that these microorganisms often do not eat it all and and so the DNA often sticks to them, much like bees and pollen. When these aliens come into contact with other species, their microbiome clouds attacks and consumes other species’ microbiome clouds unseen and completely replaces them. In the process, these microorganisms shed the leftover DNA that's sticking to them down onto the other species through the air and onto their skin, which then infects them through their bloodstream when it’s inhaled or absorbed by contact. It is a type of symbiotic relationship between the aliens and the microorganisms in their microbiome clouds, however the aliens are completely unaware of this process and do not understand why their species keep being “born” in every other species that they come in contact with. Their microbiome cloud basically infects our own microbiome cloud in order to “infect” us through our bloodstream. Their strange microorganisms are in effect pollinators for the parasitic/symbiotic aliens. These microorganisms are not intelligent, it is just the way they evolved with the aliens on their homeworld and the symbiotic aliens thought their way of existence it was normal until they left their homeworld and started seeing their own species being born and taking over other aliens after first contact. They have no idea that their biology evolved to work in this way. Does this work?? [Answer] ## sort of... It looks like the goal here is to really lean into the bees & pollen metaphor. Ok, let's see where the problems are and how they might be fixed. The question tells us that the aliens (technically the host creatures once taken over by the aliens, but aliens is shorter) "constantly emit their DNA". It's not entirely clear what "DNA" means in this context, but it does sound like bare DNA molecules are envisioned. As commenter jdunlop has already noted, that's almost certainly not going to work as DNA is too fragile. So, I'll assume you mean some form of sex cell (i.e., gametes). Setting aside the immediate squick generated by the idea of constantly sweating out sperm or eggs, there are still some challenges to address. Gametes, in particular female gametes, are typically fairly expensive cells. Producing them in mass quantities just to feed your local microbiome seems a bit frivolous. But let's not worry about that and just assume the cost is worth it. Female gametes are also big. The human egg cell, for example, is about 120 microns across. This poses a problem. Bacteria (which I'm using as a generic stand in for the microorganisms in the microbiome) range in size from 0.2 microns to 300 microns with most being 5-10 microns. Going back to the bees & pollen metaphor, this is like bees getting pollen grains the size of an apple stuck to their leg. Obviously, that's not going to work. So, how can this be fixed? Can the egg be shrunk? Sure, but it's not clear by how much given that it must carry a pretty sophisticated package of DNA and support functions (I'm assuming it needs to be as sophisticated as ours since this is a sapient species). How about shrinking down to 12 microns? I couldn't get 3 dimensional measurements on a human egg so I'm going to assume it's a disk that cannot be made any thinner. So, shrinking to 12 microns means reducing the radius to 1/10 its original size. That means this cell only has 1% of the original's space and is now much smaller than a human sperm cell. But that's still too big for a microorganism to casually pick up the way a bee picks up pollen. I think this is where the original pollen metaphor breaks. But maybe all is not lost Lose the bees and keep the pollen. Plenty of plants just dump their pollen into the air (depending on where you live, maybe you've had to wipe it off the windshield of your car in the morning). What if this creature is pushing out fully formed gametes with some basic bacteria functionality (like being able to enter skin pores, work its way to the brain, etc.)? It's not quite the same but it's kind of close(ish). --- Ok, really what I've come up with is a hybrid of pollination and bacterial infection, but it doesn't seem too far off. --- EDIT ## An alternative that keeps the bees This is getting out there into handvaving territory but hear me out. There is evidence that some nonmotile microbes will "hitchhike" on motile microbes ([paywalled but you can read the highlights](https://www.cell.com/trends/microbiology/fulltext/S0966-842X(20)30267-5)). Maybe that's what the gametes here are doing. The creature's gametes are nonmotile but include an external energy packet that the motile microbes can eat. While the motile microbes eat, the gamete uses their motility to try to get to a viable host. Once they reach a host, the gamete secretes something nasty to chase away the microbe before it gets eaten. Then it goes about its business of stealing a body. A bit more complicated than the bee & pollen metaphor but it could work (maybe). [Answer] The aliens are the microorganisms. It is simpler. The aliens don't know this. Intelligence (a sort of hive mind) is an emergent property once the microorganisms commandeer the right kind of multicellular life. What the aliens consider to be their own species is just another sentient or semisentient species colonized by these micro-organisms, which are not even native to the alien homeworld. The micro-organisms still exist as micro-organisms outside the bodies of your aliens (and other species that they assimilate) How exactly the micro-organisms commandeer a macro-organism needs to stay unclear. Having it be DNA based as you lay out risks having people who understand DNA be unable to suspend disbelief or wind up in the weeds of DNA mechanics and disengaged with your story. I think the micro-organisms should move in and the end result creature is a chimera. Of course this means the alien "people" would be comprised of all sorts of physical forms from the various other worlds that have turned into them. That would be fun to write. They are all from the same culture and consider themselves the same people but if you want to reproduce you will need to find someone whose ancestors were the same species as yours. --- It is all worthwhile because I see this is not just speculative biology for the sake of speculative biology, but you have a vision for your aliens - how they are, what they do, how their civilization works, how they are puzzled by the fact that new civilizations turn into them. I wonder if this is allegorical high science fiction? A commentary on cultural imperialism? I am already engaged in this story! I hope you write it. [Answer] It can make sense, in a way. Our microbiome is untouched by our immune system, so it would represent the ideal backdoor for infiltrating our body. However our microbiome doesn't extend to the brain, so this organism should start from our skin/guts then use the nervous system to go upstream to the brain and start occupying it. That this process works on every species is kind of improbable. ]
[Question] [ In my scenario a quite hierarchical society has two particular groups of students: * An extremely intelligent well educated elite who are meant to lead the country some day * A not less intelligent group of lower class people or people considered a threat to the society. The second group is used as a kind of intellectual slaves, multiplying the intelligence and education of the first group by studying for them. Knowledge from every person in the second group is then transferred to everyone in the first group, so the elite students have the knowledge of like twenty people combined (the transfer process is quite harmful to the person the knowledge is taken from, which is why there needs to be a second group to be exploited). Now I'm not totally inexperienced in how the brain works, but I can't figure out what a more or less believable mechanism for that transfer could be and why it's that bad for the person giving the knowledge. Does anyone have an idea? [Answer] I'd suggest reading How to Create a Mind by Ray Kurzweil. I also suggest re-reading [Gödel, Escher, Bach] by Douglas Hofstadter, specifically the part about network congruence (USA vs ASU). Many stories simply propose your premise as a trope, giving the rules and ramifications without any detailed explanation of the technology. In order to explain, I would suggest that the "elite" have nanotechnology-enhanced brains that can be "programmed" to make new connections. But the students with their "natural learning" must have their brains scanned to trace the connections which is not completely nondestructive. The nanites that feel their way along the axions to see what's connected to what will damage secondary cells, and characterizing the details of the synapse mostly puts it back the way it found it but is imperfect, and there is the issue of not reading everything simultaneously so a temporary disruption at one point can cause changes to start to spread from that point. [Answer] "Knowledge from every person in the second group is then transferred to everyone in the first" A slight frame challenge in as much as only one person gets the skills from one of the 'underclass'. So you want the transfer to be 'harmful' to the person it's taken from? How about just going for a straight surgical transfer of the long term memory centres of the brain? You'd excise the area of the brain associated with any long term memories or learned skills you want & graft them onto the recipients brain along with a course of stem cell injections along the join to help promote new connections to the transplanted tissue, obviously you'll also need to provide blood supply to the new brain sections & bone inserts to extend the skull. You obviously add to the brain with each procedure or they'll lose as much as they gain from it. Which means your elites will be easily identifiable by their now enlarged cerebral size of course. [![![![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/arvzY.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/arvzY.png) Particularly after more than one or two such procedures. --- So naturally big heads will become an ostentatious status symbol (the bigger the better) & fashions in head enlargement prosthetics will flourish .. right up until the inevitable revolution when it's all going to get a bit awkward having a big head of course ;) --- Memory transfer wouldn't be immediate of course, it's going to take time for the graft to settle in & new neural connections to it to form. For best results & to reduce or eliminate tissue rejection complications the donors will also need to be genetically compatible with the recipients so you're likely genetically engineering them for that. Or you might 'inoculate' the recipients against tissue rejection from particular tissue types. This is how you'd achieve that 'inoculation' > [In utero hematopoietic cell transplantation: induction of donor specific immune tolerance and postnatal transplants](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4228834/) > so it has to be done in the womb. Families might have different breeding lines of donors they 'owned' if you use either option. The rich person from group one subsidises the education & raising of an individual from group two then gets the memories & skills they have leaving them with no memories from before the transfer & unable to form any long term memories after the transfer. So both [Anterograde](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anterograde_amnesia) & [Retrograde amnesia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrograde_amnesia) because you removed the structures that store long term memory, you take the structures that store learned skills & languages then they're gone too. --- To cut down on the risk of revolution I'd recommend three social classes, your elites, the donors & the normal bulk of the population who are just happy they're not the ones being exploited this way. --- So basically a slightly skewed take on [The Island](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Island_(2005_film)), probably. Is that sufficiently dystopian for you? [Answer] Every person has brain implant with removable storage cartridges, something micro SD sized. This implant can read or write data to mind. Actually, it acts as small part of brain taking functions of memory processing. When person learn something new, its recorded on this memory cartridge, but trick is - human mind is not computer, its believed to have quantum origin, so: 1. Anything recorded to memory storage can be only recorded by live brain, while consciousness is learning something new. Computer generated knowledge or artificial memory is too simplified. No nuances, no reasoning. Its something suitable to low salary workers, not for children of elite. 2. Storage cartridge can be read only once. 3. if you plug away cartridge from somebodies brain, its like brain surgery - some neural links are broken, and, in most lucky case person whom undergo this procedure will have amnesia ("What have happened in previous few years with me?"), or will become comatose. [Answer] I would like to point out an interesting phenomenon that might not (at first) seem entirely relevant. I am reminded of an experiment made with an FPGA a few years back. For those of you unaware, an FPGA is a special kind of computer chip that doesn't do anything specific. Most chips have paths etched into their silicon that makes them do one thing and one thing only... even CPUs are like this, their "one thing only" being really complicated (to load and execute programs according to the instructions those are composed of). FPGAs are fabricated in such a way that you can essentially "reprogram" them to have different paths. And thus, you can tell it to be a ram chip, or a bunch of nand gates, or even a CPU. But all sorts of other things besides. And the experiment was designed such that the FPGA would try to do human voice recognition. It was an evolutionary scheme, where it'd be randomly reprogrammed, tested, and if that scheme recognized the input correctly, it'd be adjusted. Thousands of iterations, maybe tens of thousands. At the end, they had a program for this particular model of FPGA that could recognize that spoken word correctly, with very few false positives or negatives. But when they loaded this program into an identical FPGA, it simply would not work. At all. The hardware was identical, the software was identical. But it failed. The story of how they went about debugging it was interesting to people who are interested in that sort of thing, but the explanation turned out that though they were ostensibly identical models, some slight manufacturing defect occurred in the one they used. Something microscopic on the wafer itself. Not enough to make the part fail manufacturing tests, not enough for them to notice. But the approach to coming up with the recognition code somehow incorporated that defect into its functioning... perhaps some signal was slightly delayed in the experimental unit, but faster in the rest. Something of that nature. So, I ask you, the reader, what the chances are that loading software from one person's brain into another will result in that software working at all, when we are all very much "different models"? It's one of the reasons telepathy is such a ridiculous concept. Now, that out of the way, I contend that the OP needs to consider that with the current state of the art, any such attempt will require opening up skulls and implanting electrodes. While it may soon be possible to read from one mind, writing to another is going to be physically invasive into the foreseeable future. If human brain matter were magnetic in some way, then it could be possible to manipulate it without opening a skull... and if the story requires something similar, I would probably base the technology off of some sort of medical imaging (MRI). With large doses of handwavium. In other such stories (Vernor Vinge's Rainbow's End), users sometimes suffer debilitating neurological issues from using/over-using similar technology. [Answer] Since the process isn't possible (and, incidentally, probably never will be), you get to invent your own process, with whatever features you need. For example, let us say that the knowledge (e.g. words in a book) need to be, for want of a better term, "digested" to become a series of neural weights and connections, that (this is the unrealistic part) are reasonably similar in all humans. The meat of the matter is this: while it is known how to imprint these engrams in a living brain (blindly projecting an electrochemical signal for long enough we can be confident that the knowledge has "taken"), we do not know how to create them. The only available way is to have the knowledge digested by a human brain, and then read and analyze the engrams. By checking which engrams were also found in the brain of an uneducated yokel, we can know which engrams are not useful. But, here's the rub, reading the engrams isn't as easy as writing them. The only known way is to electrochemically map the brain. And the "chemical" part of the mapping cannot be done from the outside; the brain - or at least the relevant parts of the frontal lobes, plus the cerebellum for muscle memory - has to be flash-frozen, laser-sliced, and each slice sampled at the cellular level, a sort of 3D printing in reverse, to identify all the connections and content of each neuron. Then all the data need to be crunched by a supercomputer to reconstruct the memory engrams. The first step of the process, as you can see, involves killing the donor. Or, to keep the butchery to a minimum, instead of the "laser mapping" we could imagine other long-distance, no-contact measurement systems, that all involve hibernating the donor so that the brain isn't "running" during the measurement (you need to "take a snapshot" of the brain); thawing, then, involves a measurable risk of some cellular damage. In this case, the donor is not automatically dead, but can suffer significant brain damage (how significant, it's up to you to decide). [Answer] There was an episode of Stargate SG1 like this ([Season 3 Episode 5](https://stargate.fandom.com/wiki/Learning_Curve)), Nanites. Everyone has nanites injected into their brain at birth as well as anti-rejection drugs, these nanites directly record your memories and synaptic pathways and everything, as a bonus they actually accelerate your learning speed, give you better recall, fewer mental problems etc... however the brain becomes overly dependant on the assistance provided by these nanites and when they are harvested they are physically removed from the person, In the show it was equivalent to a lobotomy with severe memory loss. You can add new nanites to a person but they won't be able to fufill the role of the previous nanites, its like removing a tree from the earth where its roots have softened the dirt and found all the best directions to grow in, then transplanting that tree into a different area, the root network isn't laid out in the best way for this new terrain, it can eventually grow to adjust to it but it realistically has to begin testing the soil for nutrients, drainage ability, physical resistance, etc.. and make new pathways for this new area. Adding someone else's nanites to someone of the upperclass would be like giving a person access to a new set of knowledge that isn't linked into any of their critical functions, they too will grow to integrate this new knowledge into their mind but they aren't at a disadvantage while doing it, they aren't functionally lobotomised because they maintain all the nanites that handle their core brain functionality. [Answer] # Like today, skipping a few steps along the way [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/8nRfy.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/8nRfy.jpg) In the [Ghost In The Shell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_Shell) universe, the process to enable this is called "[cyberization](https://ghostintheshell.fandom.com/wiki/Cyberbrain)" --- As you are reading this, I am transferring thoughts into your mind. No, really, I am. What you are reading is my thoughts, in text form. And now that you have read it, that text has formed a thought in your mind, which is — ironically perhaps — the thought that I have transferred my thought into your mind. --- ## "But that is just plain old human communication, right?" It is. But what you have not realised (or maybe you have, I cannot be sure) is that this is a very primitive form of thought- and knowledge-transfer. Let us go through the process... 1. I have a thought, a feeling, a piece of knowledge in my mind 2. I translate that thought into words and sentences 3. I order my muscles to move such that they write words and sentences, that are transcribed as electronic data 4. The data is sent over the internet 5. The data is formed into characters on your screen 6. Your eyes watch the screen and and send the image to your brain 7. You brain interprets the image, recognising the characters as words and sentences 8. Your mind translates the words and sentes into a thought in your mind It is primitive, it is clunky, it involves a lot of really tedious and mundane steps. But it is knowledge-transfer, from one brain to another. I have transmitted a thought, a piece of knowledge, from my mind,to your mind. In a more bare-bones description we can express it like this: 1. I have a thought 2. I modulate the thought into data 3. The data is transferred to you 4. You demodulate the data into a thought 5. You have the thought So, my ability to express myself, to write, my keyboard, the internet, Stack Exchange, your eyes, your ability to read, your reading-comprehension, are nothing but a very clunky [modem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modem) for thoughts. --- ## "Okay, but in the future we can do this more fancy, right?" We probably can, yes, by cutting out steps in the middle, making the modem more streamlined and efficient. For example... * Do we really need step 3? What if I can interface with a virtual "keyboard" in my mind, that "types" out the post as I think it? * Do we really need steps 5, 6? Why not have a virtual "reader" in your mind, that takes in data and instantly translates the characters to your mind * Do we really need steps 7? How about if what we send over the internet arrives as words and sentences in your mind? --- ## "That is all fine, but how to do that?" No matter how we want to do it, there is one vital piece of technology that is required, and that is a wetware-to-hardware interface, i.e. something that provides a bridge between the cells of the human brain and nerves, and computer hardware. When we have that, then these middle-steps will start to fall away, one by one. For example, in the Ghost In The Shell universe, the process of adding this interface is called "cyberization". Without going into technical details, it simply means that — when that is done — your brain interfaces with — and meshes with — computer hardware. --- So, how could transferring knowledge from one person's brain to another person's brain work in a futuristic society? Exactly like it does today, only cutting out steps in the middle, when we have an interface between human cells and computer hardware. [Answer] There is one BIG problem - back loop - many of the unprivileged would hate those privileged and many of them would hide it, to avoid repression. But as you said they are equivalently inteligent, so many would be able predict their fate and place (knowingly or not) some "bomb/virus/hidden agenda" in their brains (from "must help those poor" to "must help overthrone those bestial elites" to many more hidden schemas). And the brain is not just sorted field of ordered chips with clean and specific content, but it is entagled net, where everything somehow interacts with everything other. So you cannot just took usefull content and left the rest there, you have to take more or less everything and use it as whole. So when first elite took this enhancement, there was a lot of unwanted agenda, many which appeared only a way later ("I have to help the poors when I am in high enought position and hide my agenda before it, behaving arrogant toward poors to be trusted as elite"). It was discovered in a lot of first wave models, but this enhancements was still only for few and those was watched, so many cases were discovered. Which led to preventive methods, where the added parts was used not as part of elite's brain, but as slave-sub-brains (more like books or other sources, which are not trusted) and to keep them in their place/positions was necesarry to first "edit and conditioned" the source. Which was cruel and brutal and put the subject to menthal and health/life risc - and so had to be done on the original keeper of the brain (not risking elite's brain) and then the subject (if survived in useable state) had to be tested and watched and maybe "edited" again. This was longer process and not all subjects passed it. But there is not so many elite and is a lot of testing subjects, so even whene there was losses, it was sufficient, if - say - 1 of 10 was "edited" enought and still survived. Then his brain could be used. (And brain-less body disposed - so there we have excluded reusability.) And while this was done in secret, it was on such scale, that really inteligent people (= subjects) was able to find some traces here and there ("how it came, that nobody of previous classes was mentioned in anywhere in press, supposing that we are trained to serve at official places?") So those subject on the other hand was less willing cooperate fully and more prone to train their mind also in other, unwanted, ways. Which again led to need of more aggressive "editing and testing" - in positive loop of escalation. And while elites won, it was not easy and it could not be totally hidden from donating-subjects, so the war is going actively generation after generation, with a fatal endings for all subjects selected for potential use. (And subjects could not be made less inteligent or less analytical, as it would render them useless by definition, so it had to be all applyed just after the subject manage all wanted learning and it means the subject must be mentally broken to submition afterwards. Also, as between elites are conflicts too, it is really udesirable (even if it would be possible, but it is not) to give potential rival access to part of your mind - so even elites do not try to "copy" those subjects minds, as it could be big hole in their personal security against each other) ]
[Question] [ The human world has the world government (and thus the single Big Brother system, which monitors people living even in the most obscure places). For sake of being short I will call "supernatural social beings" just "demons" (people who are basically humans with ability to do magic are considered to be demons too). They can have human apperance or shapeshift into human apperance. They can have some kind of supernatural powers/abilities, like ability to do magic, ability to turn into mist/bats, to perform acts of telepathy, etc. There are different kinds of demons, with different needs (like need to drink human blood) and abilities. Unfortunately for the demons, the World Government of humans won't tolerate them being either free or alive. Some demons were captured, so existence of the demons is known to the World Government and its secret services, while average humans are kept ignorant about existence of demons. Open war with the humanity would be a suicide, as the humanity is too powerful and numerous. [Answer] There are several ways you can evade universal surveillance systems. ## Live in places that actively destroy surveillance. Cameras are valuable, and lots of people will actively loot and destroy them and sell them for parts, or deface them because they don't like being watched. Bad neighborhoods are always gonna be a thing. You can live in these places, and avoid doing any magic in outside locations where you might be watched. They can also actively encourage the local humans to damage and destroy the infrastructure, forcing the elite to chose between chasing them and losing production. Some areas of nature may be good hiding places as well. It's very expensive to have surveillance on an area where there are no repair crews nearby or electrical lines to tap into. ## Live in the holes elites make. The elites of the party aren't gonna tolerate being watched all the time, because then the watchers could destroy them when they indulge their drug use or perverted sexual habits or blood sports. They can work for the elite offering their services for protection. ## Subvert the record keepers. In any corrupt dystopia, every official is out for themselves. Heavy enough bribes will get you some degree of freedom and exemption from random checks. ## Exploit factions within the leadership. Some people want to chase them down and kill them, but the ministry of agriculture wants to grow crops. If the police kill a bunch of agricultural workers and they riot, heads will roll when they don't deliver enough food to the central government. You can use that. Help ensure some regions are prosperous, so long as a blind eye is turned to your existence. Expose supernatural beings in your hunters, so that the hunters look corrupt. Make it as costly as possible to chase down the magic users so that other departments of the one world government argue that other priorities are more important. In addition, offer your services to corrupt up and comers. If you can expose their rival as a demon (even if the rival isn't a demon) they may be willing to help you. A little telepathy to make them drink blood, and someone can get a promotion. A witch hunt is great for settling grudges. ## Use subtle magic and find blind spots. No system is perfect. Find the places where the monitoring isn't on, or make them with technology that interferes with cameras. Use subtler magic that can't be seen well. ## Discredit the secret services. The secret services are presumably sending teams of soldiers to kill or capture the demons. Work to exploit that. Have them accidentally kill a bunch of innocent children or women of the right ethnicity and put it in the media. Enough incidents like that and people will distrust the secret services and fear helping them and the government will be more reluctant to use them. You can also work to exploit conspiracy theories. If a religious or ethnic community fears that the world government wants to exterminate them, they'll be much more reluctant to cooperate. Find the existing tension points and inflame them. No system is perfect, deliberately so. There's always a way to break it. [Answer] Authoritarian systems (and their Secret Police) tend to be scary...but also usually quite corrupt. So bribing a recordkeeper (who has no knowledge of demons) should be a fairly simple transaction. After all, members of the elite bribe them all the time to hide their ill-gotten wealth or lose their childrens' horrifying peccadilloes. Secret Police generally deal with political surveillance to benefit the elite. Generally, they are not really investigators. Instead, many are just low-level informers and thugs happy to draw a State paycheck...and protection from their other criminal activity. They are not a particularly effective organization to seek out hiding demons. Instead, once spotted, they are vulnerable to blackmail/coercion/deception to render them impotent...or can be used to feed false information to the State. An authoritarian Big Brother State actually seems like a great kind of setup for the demons. They can use their magic to infiltrate the elite and take over. Then Big Brother protects them. [Answer] Are there tests that can distinguish between these beings and typical humans? Even if that test has false negatives and false positives (as all real world tests have), its existence spells bad news for these beings. Hiding is no longer a viable strategy. Of course, keeping their existence secret also means keeping the true meaning of the test secret (which might be difficult to do if it's some weird ritual with candles and athames and all that), but that's not an insurmountable obstacle for the government. And if the test is something plausibly medical, they'll just start testing covertly, and use normal surveillance to watch those going out of their way to avoid the blood drive at work, or who don't show up at the vaccination centers. (Hell, it might even explain a strong push to have everyone vaccinated... so no one has an excuse besides trying to avoid this secret test.) Of course, some of those surveilled will turn out to be whackjobs, paranoids, and anti-vaxxers. If they can be ruled out as genuine, then move on to the next. But when they don't seem to be genuine, extraordinary rendition at 3am with flashbangs, and the test which will confirm what they are. I don't even think you need a true Big Brother totalitarian scenario for this. The United States in 2021 is sufficient. Putting them into some Orwellian dystopia, and it's grim to the point that they probably can't survive. Even with the less dystopian US/2021 analog, their chances are slim. Without the existence of a test, though, they become no different than the many terrorist organizations the US allegedly tries to root out all the time and fails (or, in the more dystopian world, the partisans that still manage to cling on). With the test, the Space Nazis just start rounding people up and exterminating those who are verified (and they'll do it even if it has a 50% false positive rate). Or those who avoid it. Their strategy has to hinge on sabotaging the development of any such test. [Answer] I personally see several options. 1.The demons corrupted the secret services and the Big Brother. Formation of the World Government and worldwide Big Brother system didn't happen overnight, which gave the demons opportunity to install various "blind spots"(maybe each Friday 13th, at 13:13 PM a certian camera stops working for short time) and "backdoors"(like maybe special gesture will turn off a camera for 5 minutes) into the Big Brother system . Of course as times goes such weak spots of the Big Brother are discovered by the secret services and fixed, but new ones get implemented instead. Classical game of whack-a-mole, where secret services are one or two steps behind the demons. 2.The demons have exclusive access to pocket world where only they can enter. They can't live there constantly due to its scarce resources, so they still need to occasionaly visit the human world to survive. Basically hit-and-run strategy, where demons open portal to the human world, gather resources (like human blood) before secret services arrive and return back to the pocket dimension. 3.Actions of demons are so arcane, that they just look like innocent weird acts. Like cameras can detect that an old lady chants a strange song while drinking wine. What they don't understand is that this song is a spell that switches real wine with blood from a random people on the other end of the world. P.S. Frame challenge 4.Suppose the World Government and its Big Brother system aren't formed yet and secret services don't know for sure that demons exist. Also suppose that upon death a demon turns into dust and they are all trained to commit suicide if they are caught. This will win demons time to infiltrate both the World Government and its secret services. From here they can either sabotage onset of the World Government and its Big Brother system or make the World Government to serve interests of demons instead of human elites. ]
[Question] [ So in this fantasy universe the dominant maritime powers developed & embraced multi-hulled ships akin to Polynesian catamarans very early in their history. They've made the same developments in weaponry, navigation, ship building, etc. that Europe had by 1800, but with multi-hulled designs rather than single-hull. Do multi-hulled ships cause any significant change to how naval battles are fought or how naval warfare is conducted? [Answer] I'm not a naval architect but I see some serious issues. Firstly Economics: conventional merchant ships (18th century or not) are capable of carrying far more tonnage and being far larger than catamarans ever could. That same principal also applies to warships, they can also carry more tonnage - in this case cannons and manpower. So a catamaran faced with fighting a conventional ship of the line would always be out gunned and out manned. Its only real advantage being speed. It also means that in boarding actions the crew of a cat would have to fight their way 'up' onto a ship of the line while their opponents would be fighting their way 'down' which would be far easier. The second issue is building materials. You are restricted to timber. This stickily limits the size you can build cats without structural integrity issues arising. This also feeds back into point one above. Conventional hulls could withstand much more battle damage than cats. Same applies to storm damage, all ships flex to dissipate the strain of riding over/through a wave. Beyond a curtain size this gets harder for cats because you have two hulls linked by timber spars which are also under strain. And then there's the cost. Even if you could build cat approaching the size of a normal warship it would be more expensive to build because it would be far more complex and need much bigger yards. Also note that Polynesian cats did not use the space between the main hull and the outrigger as a fighting/cargo platform. That's because this space had to be left open to the sea or waves would break over it - which also puts more strain on the support spars. Remember if those break the cat is doomed, the hull is not stable without the outrigger. They were also in part oar powered and could be because they rode so low in the water. Where they might, I suppose be able to perform a useful role in an 18th century setting would be as scouts or courier vessels due to their speed - if you could work out a suitable sailing rig. Perhaps a lanteen sail 'dhow' style rigg (on 1-3 masts) might suffice but I'm not a sailor so that last part is pure speculation on my part [Answer] They can have advantages First things first. They can carry less weight and are less efficient in storing much stuff. You also need more space in the water for the boat to work. This is a detriment, as you cannot get as many men and cannons on a multi hulled boat than a normal big one. Finally, multi hulled ships generally are unable to turn as well as a single hulled boat, again because of drag in the water. That being said, they can have advantages as well. Multi hulled ships in modern times are made for their lower water resistance. Especially at speed they can rise higher in the water, decreasing drag and thus increasing speed. Multi hulled ships can also be created to have a lower profile. Speed and a lower profile can be a huge advantage. These two properties make them more difficult to hit, while able to fire back easily, with more easy hits close to the waterline of the enemy ship. The enemy is also at disadvantage, as due to your speed you can determine most of the engagements. You can decide to stay out of range or in it, making sure the enemy can neither escape or easily capture you. To further take advantage of this, you can make multi hulled ships smaller and thus better in manoeuvrability. This will maximise the amount of damage you can do while at the sides that have few or no cannons, like the front and the back of the enemy ship. In addition, you can get multiple people onto the enemy ship by gaining access via the back. What you lack in direct firepower you'll have in staying power and ability to determine fights. Do note that this isn't a perfect strategy and is best done with multiple ships. Against an armada they will have their advantages diminished. This doesn't mean that they cannot win. If memory serves, a Spanish armada that was called unsinkable was nearly destroyed when they went to the Netherlands to right some slight. The Dutch used many lower fast ships to manoeuvre out of the worst area's of the enemy ships and then fire at or board them. Raw firepower isn't everything. Multi hulled ships can be used as both scouts and quick but possibly effective ships against much bigger enemies. [Answer] It pretty well won't happen because of physics. Multi-hulled boats let you get the width of a large ship for stability with the draft of a small ship for speed and shallow-water handling. They're also easier to construct per unit width. But just the barrel of a 4 pounder cannon -- the smallest one might seriously expect to use for naval warfare -- weighs 600lbs. A more typical 8 pounder had a barrel closer to 1200 pounds. And these were small guns, most commonly used by merchant ships for self-defense. Real warships were armed with up to 42 pounders. That's a 7 inch bore diameter! And 42 pounds per cannon ball, let alone the actual gun! Warfare in the 18th century needed the carrying capacity of a deep-draft, massive ship. And by the time you get that much capacity, physics makes it much, much cheaper to build it as a single hull. When you double up your hulls in a multi-hulled design, you get double the carrying capacity. Great... When you double the volume of a single hull though, it takes way less than double the materials to build. This is why we use massive super-freighters nowdays instead of fleets of smaller ships. It's just more efficient in a lot of ways. So the only way you're going to see naval warfare with cannons using shallow-draft, multi-hulled designs is if there's some external factor forcing it. Maybe if the sea isn't that deep, or has a lot of shallow areas at least so they can't have a deep draft. Of course that'll change all manner of tactics about being able to do things with the anchors and easily recover sunken cargo. It'll even change the characteristics of storms. The smaller carrying capacity will mean smaller, shorter-range guns. So tactics, maneuvering, and boarding capabilities will be more important. Additionally, the higher cost of weight will make it more economical to use fewer, more expensive guns instead of larger numbers of cheap ones, so things like the Puckle Gun are more likely to actually catch on and be widely used. [Answer] Multi-hulled ships were used for hosting giant catapults in the Hellenistic age: <http://www.hellenicaworld.com/Greece/Technology/en/GiantShips.html> However, the line tactics developed in order to maximize firepower is by exposing as many guns on the side of the ship as possible. That was the reason behind having multiple rows of guns, and large displacement to compensate for the weight of the guns and ammunition. The multihulled ship would have a disadvantage in firepower, since side-to-displacement ratio is smaller. The best way for a multihulled ship to maximize firepower would be to allow all guns to fire in all directions. This might be difficult in a sail-driven ship, which would have masts, stays, spreaders, booms and ropes. [Answer] If we look at the history of ships from 800 to 1700, we see the ships getting taller and taller. The Viking long ship was quite low and long. Why get taller? So that they could fire down into the enemy ship. And so that it was hard for the pirates in smaller boats to climb over the sides. Notice how the Portuguese carrack (1400-1550) is almost a "U" to have platforms for fighting down at the enemy. The multihulled ship is a design for fast, lightweight attack and get out of there. The Viking long ship has the same advantage. Look at why it was given up. Put a platform on another ship and the long ship is at a disadvantage. You are suggesting that they give up those important advantages but are not offering a good alternative. ]
[Question] [ In a parallel universe, humans have a 95% confidence that Planet 9 exists with the parameters given on [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_Nine). However, they have not directly observed it and plan on launching many space probes to different regions of the Solar System. Each probe costs $\sim \$30 \text{ million USD}$ and requires at least $18 \text{ km}\cdot \text{s}^{-1}$ of $\Delta v$ to reach the hypothesized Planet 9. As they do not know where exactly Planet 9 is in its orbit, they plan on launching them at $1^\circ$ intervals. Is this feasible, and at what timescales and technologies can achieve this? [Answer] It sounds like a poorly conceived waste of money. Launching many space probes with 1 degree separation means launching 360 probes. If we take for good the lowest value of the range for the orbital period, 10000 years, we get that each probe would have to cover a span covering about 28 years of the orbit of the planet. Basically the luckiest probe would reach the orbit of the planet somewhere between right on time to meet it or 14 years too late/early. Moreover, not knowing where the planet is, one would need to account for considerable extra fuel to allow orbital maneuvers which cannot be designed nor drafted before launch, further complicating the mission. And mind that this assumes we know for sure what the orbital plane of the planet is. With 10.8 billion dollars (360 times 30 million) it would make more sense to build a dedicated orbital telescope to scan the sky looking for the planet in both visible and IR spectrum. [Answer] There are three main issues: Cost, low probability of success, and better options. Current observations have attempted to constrain the current location of Planet Nine to within a region of sky roughly 20-40$^{\circ}$ across ([Fienga et al. 2016](https://arxiv.org/abs/1602.06116), [Holman et al. 2016](https://arxiv.org/abs/1604.03180)). That's not a small portion of the sky (although at least it's not a completely blind search. . .). If you were to send probes out spaced 1 square degree apart, you would need hundreds of them (say 900, assuming a lattice 30$^{\circ}$ on a side), leading to a cost of ~\$30 billion just to construct the fleet, let alone operate it - after all, you'll have to receive the data being transmitted by the probes. The [Voyager probes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_program) have travelled 120-150 AU in the 44 years of their existence. Planet Nine is expected to be near its aphelion point a bit over 600 AU from the Sun, meaning it would take around a century and a half to reach its target - but during that time, the planet's location would have changed by at least a few degrees, given its estimated orbital period. This adds to the issue that we'd need to know its orbital parameters well enough to predict its location, which could be difficult. You'd still have a similarly-sized region of the sky to search, just shifted a bit. There's also no guarantee that these probes would survive the journey in working shape. Probes in space [suffer from space weathering](https://space.stackexchange.com/q/30980/5963), and the instruments would have to be well-shielded. Some of them will break down along the way, which could include transmitters needed to communicate with Earth and send back data. This also assumes that the launch and voyages go smoothly. If you launch hundreds of presumably decent-sized satellites, you'll need scores of rocket launches, and some of those rockets will explode. That's not a good look for a program in need of massive government funding. I agree with L.Dutch that it would be more effective to focus on building better telescopes closer to home. The cost would be much lower; the [Subaru Telescope](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subaru_Telescope), currently being used to search for Planet Nine, cost about \$400 million dollars. Even the most expensive ground-based observatory, [ALMA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atacama_Large_Millimeter_Array) (a radio telescope, and only listed here for cost estimates) only cost \$1.4 billion dollars - about 10% of what I'd bet these probes would cost. Moreover, non-specialized instruments like Subaru and ALMA can be used for many other projects which are almost certainly guaranteed to yield results. Astronomers (and the public!) will be much more eager to support something that can effectively guarantee a high return on investment. Another possibility is to launch a smaller fleet of probes but attempt to perform a deep sky search closer to the location, rather than just stumbling upon the planet, which seems to be the current plan. In other words, you'd be replicating current observing procedures from a closer distance. Unfortunately, you'd have to problem of launching a series of telescopes into space that would be similar in size to Subaru, which is 8 meters across, and that's unlikely. It's honestly really difficult to put large telescopes in space. [JWST costs about \$10 billion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope), and that's just one telescope, a bit smaller in size! So this probably isn't a great alternative. [Answer] Yes, go for it, it reasonable. Won't dig for specs of existing satelites capacities, and will go the route of JBH and handwave whatever, I hope next answers will do a better job, but I have to write this one as other answers are preoccupied with other aspect. And current spacecrafts telescopes are quite capable at seeing stuff, so it worth take that in to account, and result can be better, but I handwave. ## fleet In a 8 inch telescope 200x magnification one can observe Neptune as blue dot from earth, and that is 30 a.u. detection range. Assuming Planet9 orbit from 600 to 1200 a.u., we need 120 to 240 telescopes per potencial orbit plane plus minus 30a.u. which is about plus minus 3 degree inclination of potencial orbit. Per HDE answer, and so as what I recall as well, they expect to find it in some limited section of the sky, but not certain about uncertainties, ranges of potencial plane inclinations and such, but why should it stop us let's handwave again plus minus 10 degree so we need about 3x telescopes we got for one plane Sooo it lands us in a territory of 360-720 telescopes, let's say a thousand. If 30kk includes full service build and launch per satelite then we have quite good(cheap), as for space program, number of 30 billions, which can bring us some result, meaning it may look as a reasonable shot to detect planet 9, it will take a long time but, for such a project it definetly cheap, from our curent standpoint of view. It is by a mile bigger than we do today or can do today, and in therms what it requires it looks more like Musk-Mars timeframe and capacities. ## Does it make sense? Or a telescope on the planet is a better alternative? Telescope on the planet is not a better alternative, it a different tool, which may overlap with effort of seeking for the planet 9 efforts or do better more suitable things, but they do not cover all use cases of such probes, so telescopes no matter how many, do not render those probes useless. In time the probes fly, they can look for asteroid objects, map kuper belt and such, magnitosphere reading as voyadger does, etc. So it an opportunity to take a 360 degree snapshot, a section of a sphere of our system of small not so spectacular but interesting things which we can't see/detect from earth. And all that just for 30 billion, "sure I take it for a dollar". So such a program makes sense it whole fligth duration. My subjective issue for the program it a bit on a slow end, and not massive enough, but it tempting it definetly will bring interesting things. ## adressing handwavium Despite I was ready to handwave a lot, it seems not that much of handwavium here, telescope sensitivity and naked eye immediate detection of dot against possibility of detection of single photone event and smaller planet9 size and 400 timels lesser illumination seems quite balanced and within realm of current technological capacities, I would say well below our current capacities. Signal data transmission solution are not included and there are different options, more expensive less expensive, depending on what's available, it will cost but not impossible, considering great importance and quite impressive scale and potencial for valuable data, pulling few trillions for it may create plenty of wiggle room, but if activity in space get cheaper, and maybe the program is a result(showoff case) of such efforts, then it(solutions for signal transmission) may be a sum not worth mentioning(be in billions territory), really depends on OP setting, and in Musk-Mars time may be few billions to cover it all. Soo handwavium pretty much cancels each other, and when telescopes fail, and when a million people will be heading to Mars - it looks like a right time to launch the program, maybe a litle bit prior that, idk as part of join nasa spacex piar efforts, futile effort of nasa to rob militaries of their trillions and to test capacities of spaceships on spacex end, to launch a bunch of such probes instead of 100 red tesla bricks. That it to adress, in broad swipe, what it requires. So feasible, makes sense. P.S. Pondering about it, someone needs to cook the idea and tweet it to Musk, he likes flashy stuff and it seems like another spinoff of "moderate step for a company but big step for humanity" type thing. No one done that prior, it definetly an epic feat which easily can shine on us for next 50 years. They do have expertiese in mass sat launch and production, launch capacities, data transmissin solutions and it looks like a reasonalbe program to be funded from nasa in next 5-10 years, some initial fundings in a hundred million terrtory, cube sats for adults in some way, extending DSN, bringing it on a new level. There is something to think about, and if there indeed is a reasonable way to connect dots between planet9, nasa interests, spacex interests, and pictures for the public, asteroid belts mapping, it may be quite a flashy project, better than starshot, which speaks that we begin solar system conquest. [Answer] Let's run with this idea! > > Nothing makes you feel like a man more than pulling the trigger in an Abrams M-1 tank! (Attribution: a friend of mine about 20 years ago) > > > Let's assume that the scientists on Antarctica have broken away from their respective countries and declared themselves to be independent! To prove that, the newly-established Oligarchy of Antarctica has created a unified space agency that wants to prove itself to the world. Like the space race between the USSR and the U.S. back in the 50s and 60s, it's looking for some serious bragging rights. Yes, astronomers can detect some amazing things without ever leaving the orbit of Earth... But nothing* says "show us respect!" like launching a rocket!* However, there's one problem that makes launching 360 rockets almost irrelevant. > > “Space," [The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy] says, "is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space...” (Douglas Adams) > > > But we do have a benefit! Current theories believe Planet 9 is whomping huge! According to [this article](https://earthsky.org/space/lighting-path-to-find-planet-nine/)... > > Nobody has yet found Planet Nine. If it exists, it’s large and very distant. But there are reasons to believe it does exist (and reasons to believe it doesn’t), and so for astronomers – and citizen scientists – the hunt has been ongoing for several years. If it exists, Planet Nine would be a so-called super-Earth, a planet with a mass higher than Earth’s, but substantially below those of the solar system’s ice giants, Uranus and Neptune. According to Yale professor of astronomy Gregory Laughlin, senior author of the new study, Planet Nine would have five to 10 times the mass of Earth and be located hundreds of times farther from the sun than Earth, and 14 to 27 times as distant from the sun as Neptune. > > > So, 360 probes heading out 14-27 times the distance of Neptune... to understand the distance between the probes, go re-read that quote from Douglas Adams. But, what if we changed things up a bit? RADAR that far out in space wouldn't have as many issues as RADAR on Earth, where a pesky atmosphere and rudely inconvenient solar winds get in the way of anything really useful. Out in space you'd have less beam dispersion and much less trouble expecting a return. Now, we're looking for suspension of disbelief, not exactly real-life. In real life what you're proposing is impractical to a degree that makes building the pyramids in Egypt look like playing with Legos. So, let's simplify RADAR a bit and assume that what we really care about is the maximum velocity of the probe to allow a bounced beam to be recovered at a distance of, say one billion km. That wouldn't cover all the space we'd like, but it would cover the majority of it. So, let's roll! Assumption: we have the ability to transmit a signal that won't degrade so much in the time we're talking about such that we can trust that we'll get a good RADAR reading. Considering we're still getting signals from the Voyager probes, this might be implausible, but it doesn't seem impossible. So, the speed of light (aka RADAR) is 300,000 km/s and we want to detect something 1,000,000,000 km away. That's a round trip of 6,667 seconds or just over 1.85 hours. Planet 9 could be a whole lot closer than that, so we can't do something weird like use two synchronized probes, one sending out the RADAR pulse and another receiving it. Let's be unrealistic and suggest a 100 meter dish (whomping BIG probe!) and simplify the argument by saying the probe can only move 100 meters (the diameter of the dish) in 1.85 hours or we can't make the measurement (rotating the probe to get a 3D view makes this all worse, but let's roll with this, too...). That's a maximum speed of 54 m/s. If we use the average distance assumed for Planet 9 then we're talking about a circumference of 298.5 billion km. It'll take the probe about 175,285 years to run the orbit! Damn you Douglas Adams! Which means if you wanted to do this in a single human lifetime, which I'll arbitrarily define as 100 years, and ignoring the time it takes for the probes to actually enter the orbit we want, you'll need to launch 1,753 probes. ~~Which is very likely 10 times the number of objects humanity has launched into orbit in total in human history.~~ My thanks to @nick012000 for pointing out that there are over 3,000 functional satellites in orbit. But I hope you'll understand my point that creating 1,753 satellites is impractical. *BUT!* What if we employ a bit of science fiction that might not be infeasible using today's tech... let's create a 1km dish using an appropriate lightweight fabric. Now the probe needs 9,465 years to run the orbit. Divide by 100 to get a lifetime and we need a scant 946 probes. That's still a honking lot of probes. You can get that down by a factor of 10 by increasing the dish diameter by a factor of 10 (and hoping that the need to rotate the probe doesn't cause its own problems. It will, but we're ignoring them for now)... but each time you do that the project becomes less feasible for different reasons (like how to store and deploy a 100 km diameter fabric dish...). Conclusion: Not Feasible ]
[Question] [ In my world, a newly independent Mars established incentives to draw in scientists, engineers, and academics. Brilliant people flocked in from around the solar system, to fill high-paying but very selective jobs and gain instant citizenship as soon as they can land one. Rapidly increasing competition drove them to immigrate now, or wait a few years and potentially lose the opportunity forever. I don't mention IQ explicitly (it's a somewhat problematic measure), but imagine the average IQ on Mars is somewhere around 130, while real-world country averages top out at around 108. The intelligence of the population has effects that deeply permeate the society. Combined with the fact that interplanetary trade is expensive, "globalized trade" tends to stop at the limits of the globe for anything but bulk materials that can be mined outside of a gravity well. So Mars has been able to reinvent itself with technology uniquely its own, unimpeded by real-world trade that keeps the technology of one country from far surpassing that of any other. One such innovation, and the topic of this question, is a medical advance that among many others has allowed medicine to progress far beyond that of Earth. Real-world medicines are either directed to a specific tissue by topical application or injection, with topical application having limits on depth, and injection having limits on cost and convenience; or taken orally and distributed systemically via the bloodstream. Because most real-world medications are systemic, they have to be developed and tested using a complete organism, typically rodents, and then tested on complete humans, typically at great cost, both financial and temporal. But the innovative people of Mars realized that if you could isolate the effect of a medication to a particular tissue, you could screen, test, and develop medications using small samples of lab-grown human tissue, bringing down the time to test a promising candidate medication from years to weeks, and replacing years of clinical trials with a single trial of several hundred volunteers, typically over a single year. The pace of medical innovation is staggering. <end scene> How could this work? Some of my favorite works of fiction take particular care to ensure that their technologies are very realistic, and I'd like to do the same. I'm not a big fan of [unobtainium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unobtainium) or handwavium, so ideally the solution is explainable, just perhaps not to the degree that a given reader would care to understand, and we're looking for something only one medical leap away from current (2020s) technology. In other words, carefully-designed enzymes yes, nanotech no. How could you isolate the effects of a medication to a single tissue, and stop it from acting or potentially even spreading elsewhere? One alternative I'm considering (but definitely not fixed on) that could allow for topical sprays to supplant pills in many cases: what if a medication can spread in the intracellular space, but is broken down by something in the bloodstream to keep it from spreading by blood? How do you chemically justify a medication being broken down by something in the bloodstream, and how do you guarantee the result is inert and doesn't bioaccumulate? *Note: I stopped short of using the hard-science tag because I don't think looking for references is a good use of your time, I'd rather hear your ideas and then confirm for myself that they're possible, but I am* looking for an answer that a doctor would ideally say is "clever, but definitely possible". Think like the people of Mars! [Answer] There are four approaches I could suggest. 1. Affinity Some substances have an affinity to specific organs, e.g. iodine with the thyroid. By utilizing this you can design a medication that only has the desired effect once it reaches a threshold concentration. <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6314433/> 2. Localised deposition. Physically inserting the medication into the desired location. The medication would be fast-acting and difficult for the body to transport. <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4632713/> 3. Encapsulation Encase the medication in an inactive molecular cage. The encased medication would be able to pass through the body without delivering the active ingredient unless the casing is broken. This could be done through focused sound, light, localized enzyme, or a specific chemical that has an affinty for a specific tissue. <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3249419/> 4. Gene editing It is possible, and only more so in the future, to edit the genome to produce specific molecules within a cell. It in the future that we could have specific cells actually produce the medication that will be used locally. Failing that they could produce the enzyme to unlock encapsulated medication or be one half of the medication, the other half being introduced systematically. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5131771/#:~:text=The%20core%20technologies%20now%20most,](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5131771/#:%7E:text=The%20core%20technologies%20now%20most,))%2C%20and%20(4)%20homing [Answer] You can use the same approach certain virus use to attack only certain tissues: for example the rabies virus attacks brain cells, while the flu virus attacks only epithelial cells and so on. It all depends on specific surface receptors expressed only by your target cells, which can be used as docking points. If I remember correctly such an approach was actually proposed as a diagnostic/therapeutic approach some years ago, with the idea of attaching quantum dots to specific receptors, so that the target cells would embed the quantum dots which would then be either detected for diagnosis (e.g. fluorescence) or activated by an external energy source to destroy the cell (e.g. by heating it up from the inside). [Answer] mRNA vaccines. This is amazing tech! It is now. Vaccines we are getting use it for only the crudest application - display of a nonfunctional foreign protein to produce an immune response. But it could do so much more. <https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/different-vaccines/mrna.html> > > A Closer Look at How COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines Work > > > COVID-19 mRNA vaccines give instructions for our cells to make a > harmless piece of what is called the “spike protein.” The spike > protein is found on the surface of the virus that causes COVID-19. > > > > > First, COVID-19 mRNA vaccines are given in the upper arm muscle. Once > the instructions (mRNA) are inside the immune cells, the cells use > them to make the protein piece. > > > After the protein piece is made, the > cell breaks down the instructions and gets rid of them. > > > Next, the cell > > > > > > > displays the protein piece on its surface. Our immune systems > > recognize that the protein doesn’t belong there and begin building an > > immune response and making antibodies, like what happens in natural > > infection against COVID-19. > > > > > > > > > At the end of the process, our bodies have > learned how to protect against future infection. The benefit of mRNA > vaccines, like all vaccines, is those vaccinated gain this protection > without ever having to risk the serious consequences of getting sick > with COVID-19. > > > Suppose instead of a virus antigen, the vaccine caused production of functional proteins. Enzymes more efficient than the native protein to augment the cells. Enzymes to break down amyloid or toxins. Proteins from other species to allow our cells to do functions that they currently cannot. One can selectively and reversibly modify cells without modifying the genome, introducing foreign organisms or shutting the door to future, different modifications. Really the possibilities are astounding. I think people who realize how amazing this tech is are keeping quiet to avoid scaring people who need to get the vaccine but are worried about Bill Gates selling their teeth to the United Nations. The martians by virtue of their IQ are not so worried about their teeth. They freely use this tech to augment and modify their bodies. There are no infectious diseases. There is no cancer. Inherited predispositions to disease are countered. Health issues are now all mental health issues. [Answer] Enhance the body's own defenses and healing mechanisms. (By way of a slight frame-challenge)** Most medicine in the west has focused on interventions - in the case of antibiotics, antivirals, anti-fungals - to kill the disease, or perform surgery to clear a blockage or remove troublesome growths. Indeed the majority of (non surgical) cancer treatments have served to irradiate, or poison the offending tissues. Cancer: A new approach, which is gaining some traction is to boost the body's own response to the cancer. Type (iv) chemotherapy, is designed to modulate the body's own response to the cancer cells, and has been shown to be of value in [reducing tumors](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3857622/) - specifically by the mechanism of getting the body's defenses to attack it. It's become known as [immunotherapy](https://www.cancer.org/treatment/treatments-and-side-effects/treatment-types/immunotherapy.html). An effective but cumbersome and expensive method involves removing some of the immune cells from the body of a patient, modifying them in a laboratory to specifically target cancer cells. [Sipuleucel-T](https://www.news-medical.net/health/What-is-Immunotherapy.aspx) is the only currently approved version of this (US) and is used for prostate cancer only. Your culture's more advanced medicine might just involve a single pill or injection which stimulates this modification in the body itself. Disease: The same thing would go for diseases, coaxing the body to produce an appropriate immune response has been done crudely (and often too late to help everyone: vis-a-vis the current debacle) with pre-emptive immunization, ie. vaccines of a variety of types, all invariably developed after the disease has already made itself a problem. [Immune boosters](https://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/ss/slideshow-immune-foods), perhaps a single pill before or shortly after contact with a pathogen, could give your culture the edge. (The science of that is in its infancy at the moment). Wounds: Wound healing has usually been accomplished by means of aseptic closure and leaving it to heal by itself (assuming adequate nutrition and general health of the subject). Since the nineteen sixties, LASER mediated healing (red/infrared) has been reported, but because of the rather spotty quality of the studies, has largely been dismissed by the mainstream as pseudoscience. A recent (2014) [meta-study](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4148276/), analyzing over sixty previous studies with LASERs and LEDs: > > Biological effects observed were reduction of inflammatory cells, > increased fibroblast proliferation, collagen synthesis, stimulation of > angiogenesis and granulation tissue formation ... > > > Presumably your culture can have refined this approach with a more specific and targeted set of light frequencies, and maybe a spray to [increase the rate of granulation](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/019459988409200324?journalCode=otoj) (1980's study on slightly successful approach with benzoyl peroxide) would increase the body's own ability to heal. For broken bones, [pulsed ultrasound](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2762261/) has been found to have some effectiveness, again with refinement, and additional encouragement of the body to produce osteoblasts to build new bone tissue, the time to heal might be diminished considerably. Brain damage: Once considered impossible to repair, it seems the brain has some latent [self-repair mechanisms](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/04/200415133654.htm) of its own. When damaged, adult brain cells revert to a more primitive state, effectively closer to being stem-cells, they can then re-develop into adult cells and develop now connections to a certain extent. Enhancing this ability would potentially be able to repair damage completely. The memory engrams would need to be re-associated and integrated, but with a complete brain, that should be a lot easier than current therapies in say stroke patients can achieve. Conclusion: Viewing the body as a set of complex integrated systems, rather than as separate pieces bolted together, and holding in mind that evolution has conditioned our species with internal mechanisms which specifically enhance survival to reproduce - I'd see this is the key to understanding how an advanced treatment could work. Enhancing the pre-existing systems of repair, giving the individual's body greater resilience to take care of itself is the way to go (IMO). [Answer] While it sounds like I am tearing this question apart by making 3 seperate frame challenges, I should start by saying I actually really like it as a question. It contains many common pitfalls that that most people miss because they seem so far fetched or counter intuitive. ## Frame Challenge #1: This Tech Already Exists > > ...nanotech no. > > > We have real nanobots today already designed with this exact purpose in mind. While Willk talks about one form of this nanotechnology in the form of the mRNA Covid vaccine, this is only one example. Even before Covid, it was already being applied to cancer treatment, selective organ targeting, gene modification, cellular level diagnostics, dental hygiene, etc. Basically, what a nanobot is in context of the medical industry is a cellular sized, mass producible thing, typically made out of organic compounds, that is very similar to a virus but can be programed and/or controlled like a robot. By the time the first colonist make it to Mars, this technology will already be old news. <https://utswmed.org/cancer/cancer-answers/nanotechnology-drug-delivery-genomic-medicines/> <https://www.therobotreport.com/nanobots-promise-change-medical-treatment/> ## Frame Challenge #2: This Tech Would Not Replace Human Trials We also already test a number of our medicines on grown human tissue as one of the early stages of many drug trials. That said, even with selective organ/tissue targeting, medicine still needs to go through whole human trials. The real reason is that you never actually know for a fact how the delivery mechanism, drug, and body will interact. You may have a liver targeting nanobot with a liver medication that you tested on a test-tube liver, but when you put it in a whole body, the medicine may alter the nano-bot in an unexpected way that causes it to try implanting in other organs causing side-effects that you missed in your tissue trials. For your Matians to skip human trials does not make them smart, it makes them reckless. Skipping human trials can accelerate medical research, but if your Martians are as smart as you say, they will be less tolerant of this practice than Earthlings because they could better understand the possible ways for it to go wrong. Eventually, both Martians and Earthlings will consider the technology mature enough to stop human trials, but it would probably be the less risk-averse Earthlings that will stop human trials first. ## Frame Challenge #3: Being Smart Is Not Enough > > The pace of medical innovation is staggering. > > > This is a highly unlikely outcome even with a really smart population. The more our technology advances, the larger and larger infrastructure you need to be able to push it further forward. Your martians can have all the brains they want, but what they do not have is a global economy backing the development of the tools and machines they would require to put that intelligence to good use. Developing advanced sciences like medical research is not the work of a hand full of really smart people. It is the work of a small handful of really smart people backed by millions of consumers or tax payers funneling the fruits of their labor into one place for those smart people to use. Also, people with an IQ of 130 or higher are typically great at handling details, but struggle with top-down thinking. In all likelihood, your colony will be surprisingly terrible at managing itself or finding common sense solutions to its daily problems because you've filled it up with a single type of intelligence instead of diversifying your levels of thinkers. Despite higher average intelligence, the actual technology of your martian colony is likely to fall behind that of Earth, at least for the first few centuries until its population and diversity can rise to Earth like levels. At this point though, technology should be so future tech that the idea of a significant breakthrough in something we can already more or less do today would seem pretty anachronistic unless something were to happen on Earth in the very near future to cause Earthling technology to regress. [Answer] > > But the innovative people of Mars realized that if you could isolate the effect of a medication to a particular tissue > > > > > How could this work? > > > One possible way is to develop a "bacteriophage virus-like" vector, composed of a large capsid and a specific, targetable "mouth". There is an instructive video [here](https://www.britannica.com/science/bacteriophage). The key factor here is that either the "mouth" of the virus or its "legs" need specific loci on the target cell, and those loci can be chosen so that they are tissue-specific. This way, a vector targeted on spleen cells will never attach itself to any other cell type, because it won't find suitable binding epitopes. The main difficulties to overcome to be able to produce these structures is how to replicate them (viruses can hijack cells to do so; in this case, though, the capsid does not contain viral DNA but the medicine molecule), how to stabilize the molecule inside the capsid, and how to extract reliable epitopic "signatures" for the target tissues. Possibly, a way of mass replacing viral DNA with a molecule of your choice once a suitable number of phages have been produced might be the martian breakthrough. They first let the virus run free in a culture medium, and when they have enough, they replace its DNA with the medicine - now they have a targeted cure which is no longer infectious (there being no longer any viral DNA). ]
[Question] [ In my setting, an apocalyptic supernatural event made the earth into a gridded globe of "squares" (more like columns) that are roughly 2x2 miles at sea level, getting larger going up and smaller going down (so there are no "gaps" between squares at higher altitudes). Each of these squares is subject to a different supernatural gimmick, and the first one that my protagonists start in is one that will, for obvious reasons, come to be known as "Fishtank". It has invisible walls on all four sides of the square that don't let you pass through until you get a certain height above ground that I haven't decided on. This square is also subject to constant, unceasing rainfall at a rate of about an inch per hour. The idea with this square is that eventually, the entire thing will be flooded to the top of the invisible walls, with water constantly spilling off the sides of the invisible walls and eventually forming rivers. The heroes' immediate concern, however, is getting out of this place before the flooding starts making the place a serious drowning hazard, because things are crazy all over the world, this is just the start of the heroes' problems, and nobody's coming to help them. The end goal story-wise is to have the heroes spend a week at most in this place, with the flooding making survival increasingly dangerous all the while, before they finally come up with a way to climb high enough to escape and then safely get down to the ground. As such, I need to get a good grasp of what exactly flooding an enclosed area with an inch per hour of rain would look like, and how quickly the flooding would actually happen, so I can adjust my numbers accordingly to make the flooding happen fast enough to be dangerous without happening so fast that the rain itself would be a serious danger even before the flooding happened. Assuming this 2x2 mile square is in the middle of a flat suburban town, How long would it take before the sewage systems and other below-ground spaces are saturated, visible flooding begins, and the water level of this square starts rising? [Answer] ## He should make a week assuming there are some two story homes. the storm systems and soil will reach saturation within an hour or so for most kinds of soils. Storm drains don't have much internal volume and even sandy soil with the best drainage will reach saturation in a few hours. Which means you are only avoiding 1-3 hours of buildup on the first day, after that the water rises an inch an hour. By the end of day two the hero will living on the second floor and only be moving around the neighborhood by swimming or boat so better hope they got enough supplies on day one and two. In 7 days water will reach the second story of most homes. (14ft at 1 inch per hour) Few buildings in the suburbs are more than two stories, (in some suburbs even two stories is rare), so after seven days they will be living on the roof of the tallest building, better hope it is a southern town with fairly flat roofs. If they luck out and find a home with a tall basement/elevated first floor,(basically a house that has a decent flight of stairs going to the front door like the one below) they might be living indoors until day eight. [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/H0YX6.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/H0YX6.png) Note some buildings will float once the water reaches 12ft or so, making them begin to fail structurally, which could add a bit of excitement on day 6. with the areas being over a mile wide tides may come into play. So your timeline is as follows. Day 1: soils and drains fill, basements flood, some buildings may fail as this occurs, water starts to flood the first floor of many buildings. Ends with 21 inches to 2ft of water. Day 2: even tall motor vehicles become unusable. Ends with 4ft of water. Day 3: getting from house to house is extremely difficult (boats or swimming), fresh water stored in first floor water heaters is inaccessible. Ends with 6ft Day 4: no real change from day 3. Ends with 8ft. Day 5: First floor supplies basically become inaccessible. Ends with 10ft. Day 6: some buildings begin to float causing them to fail. Ends with 12ft. Day 7: second floor begins to flood in all but most elevated homes, it becomes fairly easy to climb onto first floor roofs from the water. Ends with 14ft. Day 8: even most elevated buildings experience flooding on second floor, only attics or will be dry. Ends with 16ft. [Answer] With the limitation given above -- that the storm drains under the square are blocked off -- surface flooding will start as soon as the drain lines are filled. This has a lot of variability, because it depends on the climate the drains are designed for, but in a worst case it might take as little as ten minutes for the storm drains to fill up, after which water levels on the surface will rise as fast as the rain falls (that is, at an inch per inch of rain, presuming the surface streets also can't drain to the outside of the 2 mile square). Thus, barring only the first couple inches at most, the water on the ground will rise at a rate of about two feet per day until it gets to the top of that invisible wall. The permeability of soil enters into this, a little, but given it's a town, there will be enough roofs and paved areas that rain water soaking into the soil won't have a large effect, even at the start. [Answer] ## I used to live in Texas... That might not seem important, but it really is. It *rains* in Texas. Holy cow... it rains. I watched a 20-foot-deep arroyo fill with rainwater *in seconds.* Now, I'll grant that I had no idea how much area constituted the drainage basin for that arroyo and no idea how long or how hard it had rained anywhere other than where I was standing. But I still think the experience was on-point. You see, the problem is that one inch of rainfall in one hour is *honking enormous.* "Heavy rain" is when you get 0.3 to 2.0 inches of rain per hour. ([Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain#Intensity)) And you're getting it constantly over a four-square-mile area. That's 16,057,958,400 cubic inches or 69,514,971.4 gallons (that's 69.5 MILLION GALLONS) of water per-hour or 1.16 MILLION GALLONS of water per minute. Before you get too excited over my overabundance of panic, let's give this a bit of scope. Million-gallon swimming pools exist. Such a pool could be 267 feet x 50 feet and 10 feet deep ([Source](https://www.usgs.gov/special-topic/water-science-school/science/a-million-gallons-water-how-much-it?qt-science_center_objects=0#qt-science_center_objects)). Which seems much more manageable... until you realize that you need to completely drain that entire swimming pool each and every minute of the day.... A 24-inch pipe will allow 18,000 gallons of water to flow per-minute. ([Source](https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/steel-pipes-flow-capacities-d_640.html)) I don't know if that's pressurized or free-flow. I don't think it matters. For convenience, let's assume that 4-square-mile spot was all flat, level grassland (it isn't, you said it was inside a city, I'll get to that). You'd need 64 24-inch pipes evenly tapping the surface of that space to drain all the water. Which begs the question, would a city have 64 24-inch pipes (or their equivalent) in a 4-square-mile section of city to drain water? No Answer: Unless your city was already one that had to deal with large amounts of water, there simply won't be anywhere near enough capture volume to handle that amount of rainfall. Citizens living inside the rain zone would experience backed up sewers in minutes. Backed up storm drains in 1-2 hours. And would be majorly hosed in less than a day. Citizens living outside that space would be little better off. The further you are from the center, the better it is (obviously), but the city itself would be digging new channels to redirect rainfall immediately. But, frankly, that's the least of your problems You said this was a constant rain. It doesn't stop. Ever. You see, I also once lived in St. George, Utah. A fluke rainstorm turned a creek that's normally so small you could hop across it into a honking huge river. I helped clean out houses that eventually fell into that flooding river and were carried downstream. Whole houses... This all happened in *one day.* Listen to me, Jason. Backing up sewers is the *least* of your problems. * Erosion of soil, asphalt, houses... * Flooding sewage treatment centers, contaminating water sources * Realignment of water courses (i.e., the creek that was right here is now a river way over there). * Pooling — as in new lakes... * Corruption of electrical and natural gas distribution. Yeah. Backing up the sewer is only your first problem. If that went on long enough that 4-square mile section of city could be anything from a deep new reservoir from the erosion to an amazing Mangrove grove if you're a bit further south. Which leaves us with one more concern... * Crocodiles [Answer] Two miles is 126720 inches. At one inch per mile, it will take 5,280 days to fill the cube with the following simplifications. 1. No evaporation. 2. No drainage. 3. No effects due to the curvature of the earth. ]
[Question] [ So, nuclear war has wiped out civilization, and brought humanity to its knees. Nuclear winter, radiation and violence has turned the Earth into a wasteland; a slaughterhouse and a breeding ground for monsters. The few human beings who survive must contend with violent raiders, mutated creatures, and mutated humans, and for that purpose almost everyone who's able carries a gun to defend tehmselves- AR-15's, 9mm handguns, and shotguns being the most common means of self-defense. The problem is: ammunition. Since the war human civilization has been shrunken back to small city-states and farming villages scattered across the desert. They lost the industry that allowed for ammunition and whatnot to be produced. But, I still want them using their guns, even after decades or centuries. So here's my question: Would it be possible for them to craft ammunition after the apocalypse? * The technology in the wasteland is about as advanced as the 1890's, just with lower industrial capacity. * The main types of ammo they want to produce is .223/5.56, 9mm, 7.62mm, .44 magnum, and 12 gauge shotgun shells. * This story takes place in the southwestern united states, so they have access to natural resources from that area. [Answer] Huge caches of ammo and guns. There used to be a lot of people. Back when there were many people, manufacturers made lots of guns and ammo for all the fighting all those people were going to do. Now there are just a few people left. The giant troves of guns and ammo remain, and they are more than enough for the little bit of fighting that now goes on. Guns and ammo keep. [https://www.nrafamily.org/articles/2019/10/28/can-ammunition-go-bad/#:~:text=It%27s%20just%20smart%20policy.,it%27s%20been%20stored%20reasonably%20well](https://www.nrafamily.org/articles/2019/10/28/can-ammunition-go-bad/#:%7E:text=It%27s%20just%20smart%20policy.,it%27s%20been%20stored%20reasonably%20well). > > Twenty-five years later, I was asked to write this story. I trekked > back to my now-departed father’s gun cabinet, grabbed the .303 and a > few cartridges and marched down to the pond-dam range. Blam! The gun > fired! The ammo is at least 75 years old, if not 100. > > > “I’ve shot factory loads from the 1870s, and they went bang and hit > the target accurately,” said NRA Museums Senior Curator Doug Wicklund, > affirming that ammo can indeed last a long, long time, and the .303 > wasn’t a fluke. > > > Your people have retrieved a few dozen truckloads of bullets and guns and they keep them dry and secure. Like everything else in the wasteland, they conserve what they have. [![bullets](https://i.stack.imgur.com/X59is.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/X59is.jpg) <http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1947490,00.html> [Answer] There are four components to consider: 1. Projectile 2. Propellant 3. Primer 4. Case Projectiles are by far the easiest to make. Assuming that the EPA was wiped out, go back to making lead projectiles. This is trivial with 1890s technology and decades or centuries after the apocalypse it is unlikely that there will be much functional kevlar armour remaining to resist them. There's a catch though - manufacturing projectiles that will not disintegrate as they leave the barrel of the latest 5.56mm assault rifles is tricky - in order to (try to) maximise the wounding potential of the round there is a ferocious turn rate from the grooves in the barrel. (Don't try firing older 5.56mm ammunition through new 5.56mm assault rifles.) 1890s technology may not be up to the job, and basic lead projectiles definitely will not work for these rifles. Read [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5.56%C3%9745mm_NATO) for much more detail. Propellant is surprisingly tricky. It's relatively easy to make gunpowder - it can obviously be made with quite basic technology - but making high quality gunpowder with each grain shaped ideally for the optimum burn rate (fast burning for pistols and shotguns, slower burning for rifles) is difficult. Low quality powder that burns too quickly will cause excessive wear or even breach explosions, while powder that burns too slowly may fail to cycle a semi-automatic or automatic weapon. (The projectile will also go either too high or too low at range.) @AlexP has correctly noted that semi-automatic weapons and their ammunition were manufactured in the 1890s, but the manufacture of the ammunition and its components was undertaken by industrial concerns, not cottage industry. Bolt / lever / pump action firearms will be more forgiving of low quality powder, so these are likely to be the firearm types in use. It is also likely that the effective range of firearms will be shorter due to the inconsistent powder making tight groupings at long ranges impossible. Primers are relatively dangerous to manufacture - they are explosives sensitive enough to explode if struck sharply - but the techniques for manufacturing them without losing fingers / limbs / factories are easily within 1890s technology. Cases are easily produced given a supply of brass and a lathe. This is also within 1890s technology. Cases can also be reloaded a number of times if they are recovered, much more cheaply than manufacturing new ones. So, all of the problems are potentially solvable. However, they are only effectively solvable on an industrial scale by component type. In order to have all of the weapons and ammunition you want, you must have a separate production line for each of the following: * .223 projectiles * 7.62 NATO (.308) projectiles * .44 magnum projectiles * 9mm projectiles * 00 buck shot (and/or slugs and/or every other shot size) * Rifle powder * pistol / shotgun powder * large rifle primers * small rifle primers * pistol primers * shotgun primers (unsure if pistol primers for 9mm / 44 magnum are compatible) * .223 cases * 7.62 NATO cases * .44 magnum cases * 9mm cases * 12 gauge shotgun cases (maybe also wadding? - I've never reloaded shotgun shells) This is a ridiculously complicated manufacturing requirement which is frankly unachievable without a civilisation which is back up and running again with lots of manufacturing capacity. It also replies on the firearms still working - eventually the pre-apocalypse firearms will wear out, and 1890s technology can not be used to manufacture spare parts for some of the firearms listed. What is far more likely is that by the time the pre-apocalypse ammunition stocks have run out there will be the following production lines: * .45 pistol (M1911 clone or revolver) * .45 carbine (bolt, lever or pump action, accepting the same ammunition as the pistol) * .45 lead projectile * pistol powder * pistol primer * .45 cases It may not be exactly .45 if there are lots of pistols and/or projectile dies of a different calibre around (it could be .44 Magnum if you really want it), but it will be one pistol and one carbine with a high-ish calibre common cartridge, as was used at times in the western United States by some of the cowboys in the 19th century, for the same reasons. A pistol that can be fired rapidly at short range, a carbine that can effectively engage targets out to about 100m, both over-engineered to not explode if a "hot" load of powder slips through quality control. [Answer] Producing certain ammunition is not tech intensive: smelting lead and letting it drip from an height will make round bullets, stones can be worked to make a something round enough to be fired by a gun, one can load a cartridge with metal shards. Sadly, none of the above is remotely similar to > > .223/5.56, 9mm, 7.62mm, .44 magnum, and 12 gauge shotgun shells. > > > They would resemble what people used in their rifles during the first years of usage of gun powder based weapons. [Answer] The problem is defined in your question. You've stipulated a general level of technology of about the 1890s combined with a lower level of industrialization than existed in the North America/Europe at that time. You then want to produce modern ammunition (.308, ,233 etc) Using the US as a template most of the great names in firearms manufacturing Colt, Browning etc were well established by then. This period also corresponds to the great era of railway construction and a massive expansion in steel production as well as the mechanization of production (Henry Ford is just around the corner to). All this means in theory you could produce the ammunition types you want in quantity with relative ease - if not with modern propellants. But you also lack the vast urbanized workforce and factories (the scale) as well as the raw materials and transport networks needed to do so. No cities filled to bursting with new migrants, only small towns and villages and no great factories as a result. No railways or road network to deliver the raw materials you need and no-one to mine/manufacture them for you even if you had a transport grid. At best firearm and ammunition production will be a cottage industry - smithies and armorers producing limited numbers of rounds using recycled/re-forged materials and job lots of powder/primer of varying quantity in amounts large enough to meet local demand (if their lucky and no-one starts a war). In short you wont get consistency in calibers or in the quality and quantity of ammo until some form of national trade grid and industrial base is established. In fact your survivors are probably better off sticking to muzzle loading, rifled muskets and black powder etc because they WILL be easier to manufacture in quantity and to consistent standards. This is because the manufacturing processes involved are simpler & fewer in number than modern firearms and you don't require as much specialized equipment or rare/hard to get inputs. Your whole town can be armed and given enough rounds to defend themselves from most threats. [Answer] I am going to cheat here, but maybe you like my cheat. Have you thought about pneumatic rifles/airguns? With that tech level you should be able to build the air tanks necesarry to hold the pressure. It's better than blackpowder as it doesn't give away your position and is much more silent. Not to mention it doesn't require dangerous and complicated chemistry like primers and smokeless powders do. It has it's own drawbacks, but it's up to you to determine whether these drawbacks outweight the benefits in your setting. The quality of bullets worries me the most about your setting. With cottage level industry producing good quality ammo is going to be an issue. -[Giradoni Air rifle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girardoni_air_rifle) -[Texan Airguns](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airforce_Airguns) -[Air gun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_gun) -[McGlashan Air Machine Gun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McGlashan_Air_Machine_Gun) -[Caselman Air-Powered machine gun](http://www.thehomegunsmith.com/CaselmanAPMG.shtml) [Answer] Primer is meant to ignite the gunpowder. Instead of a firing pin hitting primer, have 2 needles, one smooth made of iron and one rough made of hardened carbon steel. the needles puncture the paper casing and create a spark inside by rubbing together. That could help to avoid primer related explosions in production. Alternatively lead acid batteries are incredibly simple. if the trigger were like a light switch then an electric spark could set off the powder. others have mentioned the powder, the casing, the lead bullets, so Ill leave that out. Actual semi auto weapons are difficult in your setting. revolver, pump action, bolt action, lever action all work rather well. ]
[Question] [ This is my first time ever posting. Please let me know If I've done anything wrong and I'll do my best to correct it. This is my first time attempting to create a functional world in D&D5e and I'm a bit stuck on what to include and what to exclude. I'm currently trying to decide what type of goods are sold and where goods are from just in case my party needs to go to a specific region to find a resource or item. The issue is I don't know what types of resources and goods to focus on and what to ignore. Two out of the four people in my campaign are interested in the details of things like this so I want to make it right. I've looked all over to find guides for goods that I should take into account in a High Fantasy setting. I know I need to include things like lumber, livestock, grain, spices, metals, spell components, and things of the sort but I want to just get someone's opinion who actually knows what they're doing. The continent I'm currently focusing on is a single landmass that is divided into 15 major provinces. my goal is to have each of them be in charge of a single (maybe double if there are more than 15) general resources. The end goal is to basically make it be like the 12 districts in the hunger games and their roles but it's a pseudo-medieval high-fantasy setting and not a dystopian fiction. I already have five definitive provinces down. Hopefully, this will help give an idea of what I'm trying to find: * The Liquor Province. Makes roughly 70% of the continent's booze. * The Defense Province. Home to the continent's military headquarters and training camps. * The Smithy Province. The only province where dwarves and elves are over 90% of the population. Is the home to the creation of the finest weapons, armor, tools, jewelry, and household items in the entire continent. * The Livestock Province. the wide fields of this land are perfect for raising livestock. The forest just on the edge of the province is bountiful with wild game. * The Grain Province. Located on the Hills of Gnamm. This province has a strangely varied biome that has confused scholars for thousands of years. This province harvests over 50% of the world's wheat, barley, corn, oats, and rice. There are a lot more things that I should put into the equation like geography and travel like that but for now I'm just looking for ideas and advice. I'm looking for roughly 15 big umbrella terms/types of goods that are needed in a high fantasy setting for a society to properly function. Not a detailed thing like Rubies, Emerald Dust, and Diamond but something a lot more broad general like Gems. If I should add to the provinces I already have or change them let me know about that too. This is my first time doing anything like this and I'd really appreciate some advice. [Answer] Generally in all economies, you have three levels (or sectors) of industry: Commodities, Manufacturing, and Services. Level 1 is commodities and covers basic goods that must be harvested from the environment in some fashion to be used and are in a raw state. In a modern setting, there's generally five generic types, but the fifth one listed is very recent: * Agriculture - Your farms both mass harvest of plant based food stuff and live stock. * Fishing/Hunting - While generally only covering the former, I add hunting because that would be used back then too. Covers meat based foods that are caught in the wild rather than raised for the purposes of harvesting. * Forestry - You might slide hunting here, but this generally concerns the production of timber and depending on advancement paper. * Mining- Extraction of solid Mineral Commodities from the ground. Ranges from Gems to Coal. * Petrochemical - This one is more recent, developing around the 18 century and likely not to come up, it concerns the harvesting of petrochemicals such as oil and natural gases often used in energy sector, though these products have other manufacturing goods. Generally overlaps with Mining but covers non-solid state material. Level 2 is simple, yet is probably the biggest thing to deal with as it's the real mover and shaker of your economy: Manufacturing. Since commodities are raw items, you need to process them into goods people can actually use. Manufactures take your raw goods and turn them into things people need. Your factories, your smiths, your butchers, your bakers, your candle stick makers (not to mention your brewers, your crafters, your carpenters, your artisans, ect). Anything that you can't pull from natural resources, has to be created from them. In the modern world most of this is factory goods, but in medievel times these were often your tradesmen. Certain goods may need multiple layers of manufacturing... making a leatherbound book would require both a paper maker who takes the wood pulp (forestry) and a tanner who takes the cow hide (agriculture) and the thread spinner (agriculture again) in order to make a book. Finally at level 3 we have service industry. This covers a variety of things best summed up as misalanious. Generally, these are the people who take the goods from level 2 and sell them to the consumer (grocers, pubs, book shops, jewlry stores) and can be the people in level 2 if they are taking commissioned goods or selling their own products (a farmers market). But it's more general than that as this is the level where instead of products, skills are traded. A lawyer, doctor, or a hired gun would fall here as well, as well as most government workers from the lowely beuracrat to all the King's men. In addition, transportation of goods also falls here as well. One big problem with your set up is that it's unrealistic. The farming district will often have manufacturies of some type in the same area because the logistics of moving food from one spot to another is difficult... they will want to be close and often are (as more preserving techniques become available, they can be placed much father apart. Hershey Chocolate's factory is in Hershey, Pennsylvania because of all it's major commodities needs (sugar, coco beans, nuts, milk) one was more spoil prone than the rest, Milk. The location is in the middle of a major dairy producing area in the United States, and imports the other goods that are less spoil prone.). It isn't always the rule either. If one district produces all the forestry products, how do you build buildings in any district? Or barrels in the Ale district? Your smiths are needed all the world over, not just in the minig district. This is why you have a transportation sector as some enterprising person realizes they can buy metal cheap in the mining district and sell it for higher prices to Smiths far away from the mines making the journey worth it. Otherwise the smith has to go and get it himself, delaying his work. This set up reminds me of the economy of "Hunger Games" and there are numerous works explaining why that structure just won't work online. [Answer] # Monopoly districts are unfeasible You will have to categorize. And you need to feed your people. Let's take modern Germany as size and use [Medieval Demographics made easy](https://donjon.bin.sh/fantasy/demographics/medieval-demographics-made-easy.pdf) and the [Donjon-website](https://donjon.bin.sh/fantasy/demographics/) to generate one population: > > Physical Area The kingdoms of Germany covers an area of 137847 square miles. Of this, 44% (61 thousand sq. miles) is arable land, and 55% (76 thousand sq. miles) is wilderness. > > > Population The kingdom of Germany has a total population of 11 million people. > > > Settlements The largest city has a population of 59 thousand people, the second largest 35 thousand. There are 5 other cities of note in the kingdom, and 63 towns. The remaining population lives in numerous small villages, isolated dwellings, etc. > > > Castles The kingdom of Germany has 220 active castles and 38 ruined. Of these, 132 castles and 29 ruined are in civilized lands, and 88 castles and 9 ruined are in the wilderness, along borders, etc. > > > This assumes the "average" setting, not the suggested 90 people/square mile. Anyway, of those 11-million people, only roundabout 256 thousand (605 thousand max) live in urban areas using the average size for towns and cities. That's on average 2.3% and 5,4% maximum. Or in other words: More than 90% of all people will work in the first sector - which is agricultural and fishing! Comparatively: This is a map of the 40 biggest cities in Germany in 1300, all of them are above 1000 inhabitants and all but the smallest dots are larger than 5000, so the numbers given by Donjon are roughly ok. [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/m1aTF.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/m1aTF.png) Even in the late medieval ages or renaissance, the urban population only gains about 50% more than that, so roundabout 3.5% to 8.2% maximum in urban areas and the rest still in small settlements of below 1000 inhabitants. The big ratio of rural v urban life will stay more than 9 to 1 until the modern age hits: [Urbanisation](http://www.rmoa.unina.it/192/1/RM-Blockmans-Urbanisation.pdf) was a thing, but it was super slow in medieval times. It took the industrial revolution, 2 world wars, and all in all about 600 years to get to the roughly 22% rural population in Germany today. We have [numbers starting 1871](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization_in_the_German_Empire)! In fact, [there are research papers on the rural-urban ratio needed to feed the people](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0162678&type=printable) and how urbanization happened in various timeframes, like [the 1819-1977 urbanization in germany](https://www.uzh.ch/cmsssl/suz/dam/jcr:ffffffff-866d-1ee0-ffff-ffff9b0c8b21/11.08_hochstadt_81.pdf), [Germany's industrialization period](https://www.jstor.org/stable/259731?seq=1), and the [correlation between population growth and urbanization in Germany](https://www.jstor.org/stable/44403540). ## 10 million farmers, 1 million urbanites! Ok, let's round the numbers by putting the rest of the million into mines and industry in smaller settlements than 1000. All the blacksmiths and miners and such will be in the 1 million. As will be the brewers. Any non-food-producer is in the 1 million. Now, we need 10 million people creating food. These 10 million people will fill the vast majority of the land and coasts to feed the 1 million that do all the other works. The 10 million will need about 100 times the space of the 1 million, just for the fields so they can do farming, compared to the building and workshop of the others alone. So our sectors dedicated to food combined are about 100 times larger than all the others combined. And here it starts to fall apart: The distances between the sector center and the next become far too large! You proposed grain district has 50% of all grain output, so it has up to 50% of all farmers, which is about 5 million people. That makes it the largest population district! Putting a million people into the fishing district and distribute the remaining 5 rural millions into other farming, mostly food and cattle. ## can it be made feasible? Only if Food production is not a sector on its own. You could at best get away with all industry being confined to a number of monopoly towns, but never with Hunger-games food production unless magic transportation is extremely massive, and even then the food-producing people could just cut off the towns from being fed: the real power in such a district map lies with the food producers since nobody else has the means to produce any food, and they rely on it! # Addendum If you want to look into the trade aspect and splitting up: [I have an answer on that on the RPG-SE](https://rpg.stackexchange.com/a/84410/30306) [Answer] # Worldbuilding for fiction versus for an RPG In an RPG, the world exists only insofar as your players find interest in interacting with any given part of it. Improvisation is the order of the day, as at any time, your players can decide 'Important NPC must be a servant of the Villein's Monarch' and assassinate them, or even 'the world will be destroyed if the cult succeeds, so the safest thing to do is level the city first, ask questions later'. So really the answer is "you need to think this through more deeply than your players will, and ideally no farther". If your group has, like, an economist that works for the Fed in it who geeks out over this stuff in her free time... that's a lot. If your group is a bunch of fellow Art History majors ... that's probably a lot less. Because the game is ultimately for you and the people playing it, and no one else. The people in the second group might really get into the detail, and appreciate the work. But they're more likely to not even notice. Fiction - which this site is targeted more to - is different. The idea is to appeal to a wider audience. This basically means the author hopes to attract the kind of readers who will be able to follow the technical intricacies, and appreciate that they're done right. # TL;DR Apparently the RPG stack exchange thinks a question very similar to yours "lacks focus". Well, the question is somewhat more problematic here, because a large part of the answer involves how much worldbuilding you should even do - whereas this site presumes you already know exactly how much worldbuilding you need. But it's definitely about worldbuilding, and we can answer that part here. And my answer is: [seek DM'ing advice elsewhere](https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/15463/fantasy-economy-how-to-design-a-deep-sophisticated-crafting-system/84410#84410). Getting that right is almost certainly more important than the worldbuilding problem anyway. [Answer] # Turnips All vendors sell turnips and only turnips unless otherwise required. If the players require something else they can ask around and you can decide whether the city has a trader in such commodities. Remember that in any agricultural economy, most traders would be selling farm produce apart from a small number selling farm supplies and high fantasy is fundamentally still a world of peasant farmers and hunter gatherers. There's no reason for the party to casually encounter anyone selling anything else. Turnips store well. Also due to the nature of the environment, you can build your world on the fly where needed. No need to encourage metagaming. [Answer] You need to consider what forms of transportation your world has. On the whole, by water is better than by land for trade, and you may have magical additions that work still better. (Remember that when using animals to carry it, you have to find or carry food for them.) After that, you have to compare the value of the item versus the cost of transportation. Spices are imported from afar because they are immensely pricey and very light per unit. Conversely, grain is not exported far by land and not very far by water because it's a bulky good. [Answer] This is more of a DMing question than a worldbuilding question, IMO. Worldbuilding in a RPG should serve gameplay, rather than realism. In D&D your players will mostly be interested in things they will have fun interacting with. So don't worry too much about what medieval economies are like. Even if your players say they are interested, they probably aren't really that interested in how the economy works - they want to know how they can mess with it. Focus on items that can spawn interesting story beats. Here are some example adventure hooks for the 5 provinces you've listed: * Liquor province: Your party is drinking at the tavern when the owner announces, "I'm opening me last keg! Not the last keg o'the night. The last one, period! So come get it while you can, else you needs be goin' down the road to fight them brigands what's been stealin' all the shipments from Mazra!" A bar fight ensues. * Defense province (likely the capital): A member of your party (the one whose player can't make it to the game this week) has been kidnapped and is being held in a prison in Ark'tok, the capital city of the kingdom. To rescue him, you will need to pose as new recruits to the King's militia, sneaking through the training camps and barracks' of the province. * Smithy province: To solve a mystery, the party must travel to the mountainhome of Ozok Dun to find out who made this ornate dagger and who bought it. * Livestock: You can't afford a good horse, but you can win one if you compete in the rodeo in Cono-eq. * Grain: A blight is sweeping through the Hills of Gnamm. No matter how many fields they burn, the peasants cannot stop the spread. It must be a magical curse! People are hoarding food throughout the lands and riots in the capital have brought the King's full attention to the developing catastrophe. There is a huge reward for whomever can find and kill the dastardly wizard causing all this suffering. Along with adventure hooks, try to think of things that will lend themselves to fun scenes with interesting imagery and cool possibilities for player interactions: * Liquor: Your party comes across a man in the road, staggering drunk. You ask where he got the drink and he says it was from some gentlemen but he can't remember where. But your ranger can use animal handling to have her hound sniff out the booze fume trail this guy left behind. When you find the brigands you have a melee atop a wagon piled 2 stories high with kegs of ale, barely held together by a couple of thin ropes... as it careens out of control down a mountain road. * Defense: There are uniformed troops everywhere! Units of 50 armed men march, rank and file, through the streets of the capital on regular patrols. Your rogue has observed from the rooftops for a full day and night. She returns with a thorough understanding of their routes and timings. * Smithy: The dwarves work in near darkness, their faces lit only by the faint green glow of the bioluminescent moss on the cavern walls and the occasional blast of flame from the gargantuan furnace looming above. The heat of the flame hurts your cheeks even from this distance. Gear wheels the size of houses turn slowly against the back wall. Huge mechanical hammers pound white hot steel. THOOM...THOOM. The dwarves toil in silence, not looking up to note your presence. Just as you become accustomed to the noise and the dark and the heat: BOOM. A shower of sparks erupts from the furnace above. Globs of hot metal rain down. The dwarves don't even flinch. You look up to see a crane with a huge iron bucket. The bucked is swaying, upside-down and empty above the bulk of stone and fire. (Successful intelligence check) The new charge of scrap metal they just dumped into the furnace must have had snow on it from out in the storage yard. It flashed to steam instantly, causing the explosion. This must happen several times a day here. You think to yourself, "this would be a gnarly place to have a fight!" * Livestock: The stag snorts and struggles beneath you, pushing your legs against the tight confines of the holding pen. You hug its graceful neck with one hand gripping the base of its majestic antlers, as you were instructed by the rodeo coach. You feel the hot pulse of the panicked animal. Its coat is slick with frothy sweat. You aren't sure which is the more terrifying possibility: slipping off and being trampled, or losing your hold on the antler and being gored in the back as it rears its gorgeous head. The bell rings, the gate yanks open, and your mount leaps forth into the arena, frantic. Its muscles are sleek and powerful. How do they expect you to lasso a calf while holding on for your life? * Grain: Magical bolts explode into puffs of rich topsoil and shattered stalks of blackened corn around you as you run for your lives through the dense clouds of white smoke. The haze to your left glows orange from 5 hectares of flame. Behind you, somewhere, an enraged sorcerer hunts you. To your right are fields of shriveling wheat. And before you stands an old well amongst the corn. Beyond it, the barn where you slept last night, its huge fat silos reaching up, like fat fingers. They are empty now, but their size suggests that this land was once bountiful beyond belief. There's no need to invent the entire economy of your setting up front. Unless you have a Grand Strategist type of player in your group who really wants to start a trading company or something, you can generally lean on people's preconceptions and stereotypes of the setting. One of the most compelling reasons to play D&D, rather than a more niche game and setting, is that the medieval, sword and sorcery setting will be relatively familiar to most players. And it has enough flexibility for you to add almost any customization you want. Where you have a neat original idea for your world, use it! Where you lack anything original, go with the cliched defaults of the setting! Or better yet, do nothing and let your players fill in the blanks with their imaginations! I love to make my players do the work. When they stroll into a town and ask you what they see, ask them what they expect to see before you tell them. Record their answers and riff on that as you prep for your next session. Build the world as you go, in a sort of collaborative way. You'll end up with something much more interesting than a shopping list. [Answer] Start with the 5 basics, all humans will need these to various degrees: Food/water (both staple and luxury goods) Shelter (construction goods, hotels) Clothing People (e.g. tradespeople, educators, support workers) Energy, or results of energy use (Fire, magic, hunting goods, smithing, etc) Where people live, these will be there. Specialised districts will have a strong bias towards the production, but there will always be the other items catering to the resident and workers. Even if they are street vendors with carts, or camp followers behind a marching army. When looking at the overall city, decide what the area provides and build the excess (specialisation / trade goods) around that. Once you move out from human, it is possible some of these may not be required. Dragons are not generally tool-wielding creatures, so they would be less likely to have smithies. Some were-creatures may be isolationists, and refuse outside assistance. It becomes a later question of how far outside of the human thought patterns do you want your players to go, and will you need a district just for non-human comforts? [Answer] Welcome to the Fortress [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/raf43.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/raf43.jpg) Start with the [stockpile categories](https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Stockpile) in Dwarf fortress. Then shrink or expand the subcategories as relevant to your world and story. For example the food economy looks like this: Level 1: Production: Grain Fields, Livestock, Orchards, Dairy Farming, Fishing boats. Level 2: Processing: Threshing grain. Grinding flour. Drying fruit. Drying beans. Brewing from grain and fruit. Making cheese and butter. Butchering animals. Preserving meat and fish by salting or smoking. Level 3: Communal ovens in each village. In Medieval Europe these were mostly used for making bread. [Answer] # Sub-Provinces How about dividing the provinces you currently have into smaller sub-provinces? It will provide more variety by approaching the same problem from a different angle. Take 'The Grain Province' for example. You could divide the 'mass-farming' province into different regions based on the local biomes. Just add in some good old rivalry between sub-provinces and you can count them as separate districts. Example sub-provinces: #### The Farming Province * Wheat, barley, corn, oats, and rice --> Food. Most sub-provinces follow this. * Hemp, and cotton --> Clothes & Ropes. Not edible but still falls under farming. * Poppy (opiates) --> A few smaller sub-provinces. Mostly exported to be used for medicine. A few farmers don't follow regulations and sell it to pirates, to be refined into drugs. * Livestock/hunting can be part of this province, as bountifully lands combined with many different biomes allow for many different ecosystems with their own (rare) game to hunt. #### The Liquor Province Changed this to all kinds of liquors, as they should have large quantities of fresh water. * Wine, Ale, and Beer--> Liquor as described. Mostly, the mass-produced liquors. * Enhanced liquors --> More specialized products. Rare -cloister- ales, Highly alcoholic liquors, Rare Firewiskeys, or even magically imbued liquors, etc. These sub-provinces produce their products in small quantities but sell their products for far higher prices to the nobility. * Potions, or enhancing drinks --> Can't miss these in a magical world. This could be its own district or part of some kind of magical sub-provinces, but I choose to include it with the liquor provinces as the process of producing them might be very similar. #### The Defense Province I don't think I need to divide this too much, but the military almost always specialises if it gets big enough. This district should have outposts scattered around the country, with a few larger provinces near the capital/important spots set aside for them. * Guards --> Everyday guards scattered around important outposts/cities around the country to keep banditry in check. * Navy --> Protecting ships from pirates and other countries. * Military --> The army focussed on protecting the country from outside threats and laying siege to enemy cities. #### The Smithy Province You have already divided this one, but there are a few lines where you could divide this one with. I imagine each district being a large specialized city with smaller villages -each providing a resource to the city- surrounding them. Each sub-province is part of multiple categories below. * Tool based --> Known for sword/bow/armor/etc. production. * Material based --> You won't find every metal everywhere. While transporting it is possible, you'll have people produce things based on local resources. Copper? Produce tools. Forest close to open waters? Build boats. Have an abundance of gems? Jewellery is the way to go. * Specialized districts --> Need large siege weapons? Cannons? You'll likely find them in places where entire cities are focussed on producing parts to complete the product. And you will be unable to find these specialized products anywhere else because of the knowledge required to produce them. # Sidenote Here is a short list of some more specializations that could exist. * Administration --> taxes, running cities, and minting. * Medicine --> everything from providing medical care to researching new medicine. * Trading --> a whole group of districts that don't produce anything but rather move goods around and trade with outside countries. * 'Knowledge' --> libraries, or (magical) schooling * Architecture --> Creating roads, fortresses, luxurious palaces, and homes in a city. Maybe even art. * Marine District. --> fishing, aquatic trade, and navy * Theology --> specific-faith-based districts. ]
[Question] [ I've been toying with this idea for a while now, it's by no means fleshed out yet but here we go: So there's this featureless white plane. It stretches on infinitely in every dimension and is made of an unbreakable, impenetrable material. Situated above this is an equally large ceiling with a massive, gaping hole in it that almost reaches the horizon. No matter how high you go the ceiling never gets any closer, and no matter how far away you run the hole's always perfectly above you. This basically means that without another object to compare to there's no real sense of direction or distance. Good thing there's objects, then! Random things, from teddy bears to oak trees to alien moons, randomly fall out of the hole and land in random locations around this world. They're pretty spaced out, though, and after some time left untouched "melt" back into the floor so there's always lots of empty space. Sometimes animals (some from Earth, some not) fall down too, and while most perish the humans and aliens that live tend to band together and form massive forts made of salvaged material. Since there's no curvature or landmarks to cover your view, these exist in plain view and everyone miles around can see their activities. Finally onto the question: Let's say one of these forts wanted to attack their neighbor. They want to send an army to invade, however, the enemy would plainly be able to see the approaching soldiers against the white and prepare accordingly. If they theoretically had infinite resources of all types from the hole, and all the time in the world to prepare, what can they set up to hide their army's location or otherwise maintain surprise? [Answer] ### Camouflage against the planes Every now and then white sheets fall down. These are conveniently the same exact colour as the plane, and the uniform lighting makes it hard to spot the horizon - which is uniformly white. You might look like that halloween when everyone dressed as a ghost, or a KKK march, but they will struggle to see you. ### Trojan horse Conveniently a large hollow horse will spawn at some point, as well as some gold paint, a giant bow, and Hallmark "Sorry we were at war. Hugs?" card. Put your soldiers inside it, and offer it to the enemy as a surrender gift. ### Camouflage against settling newly spawned objects. The world is filled with random movement, objects randomly spawn and fall, and when they fall, they will take time to settle. When a giant, mobile object (I'm thinking big inflatable toys) arrives, stockpile it, and connect it to a big stick thing so you can manipulate it without having to show hands. When you wish to attack, move the random objects towards to fort with your men behind. ### Wait till better weapons arrive. Sit back in your fort talking peace and being all diplomatic, while your scouts are out searching the world for the best weapons. Eventually something that falls down will be an epic weapon - be it a pallet of sniper rifles or cruise missiles. ### Bright lights. Rather than hide in the dark, hide behind light. Like a cop holding a torch towards someone at eyeline so they can't identify them, you can overwhelm their eyes with bright lights. Just wait for some very powerful floodlights to arrive. Or powerful laser pointers. Or a sun. ### Distraction. A nice pallet of fireworks arrived. Lug them over to the far side of the enemy camp, and start them on a timer. As the show is going, and all your enemy are watching the pretty fireworks, march in. ### Don't - spread out and let the spawn process wipe them out The impact of an occasional moon into the plane will be very energetic and destructive. So spread out - try to take fortifications far away from each other. Eventually, something nasty will randomly spawn (a moon, a bomb with 10 seconds left, a fragile canister with a nasty plaque in it, asbestos, a chemical which sucks oxygen out of the nearby air, etc), and the more surface area you have for your forts, the less likely you are to be totally wiped out. [Answer] One word: Mirrors Angled correctly, and assuming the random stuff laying around really is spaced very wide, a mirror will hide a (small) force from prying eyes at ground level. They used this trick in the movie "Now you see me", but I can't find a good video of it. [Answer] I'm assuming a low-tech environment, because "featureless white plain running into infinity" seems like a poor starting place for a high-tech society. This still WORKS with modern/futuristic tech, it's just easier if we're talking 1800s or earlier tech level. The basic problem here is that the enemy can see you coming, but only the front of your formation without any elevation change it becomes insanely hard to figure out just what's going on behind a group of people/things. For example, I've been to the Pennsic war, where thousands of people from the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) get together and beat each other with padded weapons. I've seen forces outflanked and beaten because a second enemy formation was "hiding" behind the troops you could see. With no elevation change, three rows of humans makes the stuff behind them near-invisible to other humans! All it takes is a group of people coming along the normal trade route who look like merchants, and they can screen an entire army behind them. The flat plain allows for no dust, so you can't even get a sense of how many people are behind the first few wagons/men. Add in some sheets or banners and the enemy is even more in the dark. If the enemy has watchtowers that does make life harder, but something as simple as "painting your helmets/shoulders the same color as the ground" can be remarkably effective until you troop are fairly close. [Answer] Collections of stuff. New objects, untouched, melt back into the surface. But these forts persist as do the people. I take that objects that have had some sort of intelligent interaction persist. The humans themselves do. Your humans collect everything and bring it to caches. That stuff is the raw material they have to work with and you never know when something might be useful. The caches mile up. Maybe there are collections of animals in improvised pens as well. These humans have to be eating something and it does not sound like they will be farming. Your soldiers are disguised as salvage parties, going out to collect items to bring back for the caches. They fan out in all directions. It is not really a disguise because this is in fact how these individuals actually occupy themselves day to day so there is nothing suspicious about them doing it on this particular day. On battle day, they converge on their target when there is a signal. [Answer] If you're allowing borderline science fiction material, active camouflage methods might be perfect for your needs. There's a few various accepted methods on handling it, involving wrapping light around objects or something as basic as projecting the scene behind the object you want to hide on top of it, depending on how science fiction you want to get with it. So you could in theory do something as basic as using displays with 'faked lighting' to hide their shadows to something as advanced as true active camouflage like you see in the Halo series or like the Predator Aliens use in movies if you're familiar with either. The fundamental idea is to cloak yourself by making an optical illusion facing the intended viewer, more advanced options allowing for more flexibility in the angles you can hide yourself in. (IE fooling multiple targets instead of a few that happen to be facing it) Basically it can be as basic as a big screen with a camera on the other side intended to fool people to something advanced enough to simply bend light around your object in question, hiding it. The drawbacks for using advanced camouflage usually involves something like increased heat generation or something like that, at least in Halo's universe. It can also be a slower kind of active camouflage like SPI armor camouflage in Halo or Octocamo from metal gear, where the surface reacts to whatever you're standing on to perfectly match it(SPI)/match the general texture(Octocamo) as long as you stay still, being much less useful if you happen to be moving. Basically, it could be jerry-rigged from modern materials or you could have someone with the knowhow to be making true 'active camouflage' devices or something along that line. Also for reference: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloaking_device> Some good material on known methods of 'camouflage devices'. Aside from that, if the stuff that falls down doesn't always fade away immediately, could enough fall to make actual terrain occasionally? If one could predict or react to that in enough time, you could in theory use it as terrain to hide yourself. I'm pretty sure a moon falling would likely leave a very large pile of debris, considering the mass and size of it. ]
[Question] [ According to the plot of my story, terraforming earth-like planets turned out to be an incredibly difficult task and exact copies of the Earth with an atmosphere of oxygen are rare, so it was decided to genetically adjust the children of the colonists to local conditions, namely for breathing chlorine or hydrogen sulfide. Why chlorine? Typical nucleosynthesis processes in stars create more even elements than odd ones, and more light elements than heavy ones. Chlorine is a relatively heavy element, and odd. On average, it is more than 20,000 times rarer than oxygen, an element normally secreted by photosynthesis in the life-bearing inner system worlds. However, there are small regions of the galaxy in which the interstellar medium is rich in chlorine. This is especially true for second and third generation stars, which have a higher "metallicity" (percentage of elements heavier than hydrogen). In the case of chlorine worlds, the interstellar medium from which the star and its attendant planets were formed should also be especially enriched with the so-called elements of the Alpha process (sulfur, chlorine, argon, calcium, Titanium and chromium). If this relatively rare process of nucleosynthesis was common enough in the stars that formed the starting material, then the chlorine world might be possible. Even if the starting materials are enriched in chlorine, the planetary process must follow a rather unusual series of events to create a chlorine world. Hydrogen chloride is volatile compared to water, and unlike water, it is not often combined in bulk with silicates (hydrated "wet" silicates are the main source of water in the formation of terrestrial planets). The band of material, cold enough to contain sources of hydrogen chloride, and at the same time warm enough to allow the formation of a rocky planet, is very narrow. Within this narrow strip, the planet retains only water in its hydrosphere (although there may be unusual concentrations of more refractory chloride minerals); outside of this strip, gas giants or ice worlds are the rule. Most often, the chlorine world is formed at the outer boundaries of the life zone of the system or even outside it. As the star ages and heats up, or as the dynamics between interplanetary material and planets bring their orbits closer to their original orbits, the chlorine world becomes possible. The atmosphere of the mature chlorine world consists mainly of oxygen and nitrogen with a significant proportion of chlorine (about 5%). Chlorine is found primarily in the lower atmosphere because it is heavier than other primary gases and has a higher relative abundance in dry areas because it eventually reacts with water to produce hydrochloric acid again. Only the highly efficient and vigorous photosynthetic activity of plants and bacteria supports the supply of free chlorine. The atmosphere is opaque, but has a yellow-green tint from chlorine and various forms of chlorocarbons; on some chlorine worlds, the dense atmosphere also favors the growth of airborne life forms, which can give the lower atmosphere a cloudy, smoky appearance. Clouds are composed of different proportions of water droplets or hydrogen chloride. The weather is complicated by the fact that hydrochloric acid evaporates more easily than water and freezes much more easily. The rain is always sour, but its concentration varies considerably. Ice and snow are rare, and even very cold bodies of water rarely freeze. When they do this, the acidity rises sharply under the water ice due to the removal of water relative to hydrochloric acid. Here we return to my question: These genetically modified colonists, breathing chlorine or hydrogen sulfide, can periodically leave their planets to meet other peoples of people, sometimes visiting planets with an atmosphere of oxygen. Therefore, when staying in a different atmosphere, they must be able to switch from one type of gas (oxygen) to another (chlorine or hydrogen sulfide), how to do this? [Answer] Frame challenge time. > > t was decided to genetically adjust the children of the colonists to local conditions, namely for breathing chlorine or hydrogen sulfide. > > > These substances are so toxic to humans that genetic engineering is completely impractical here. You'd practically need to build a completely different organism. Very few organisms are tolerant of these substances at all. It is, by comparison much, much, much easier to simply use enclosed living spaces and specialist environmental suits when forced to go outside these. For a culture capable of interstellar space flight this capability would, in any case, be a necessity they had long ago mastered. It's a trivial thing for them and so natural they would not think of it as an issue. It's almost certain that huge enclosed spaces could be maintained by such a technology with no issue. It is comparatively simple to genetically engineer bacteria to aid in atmospheric processing to maintain an internal atmosphere for such a city-sized space compared to completely redesigning the human to make something that can live outside. There is another cultural issue : the genetic changes would make them, essentially, non-human. This could be both good and bad from a story point of view as, traditionally, humans are somewhat irrational about tiny little genetic differences between races, cultures, etc. and there could be a lot of clashes between your new species (humans v2.0) and original humans v1.0. That in itself could make a good basis for a number of stories, but it may not be what you want (or it may ?). It is unlikely Humans v2.0 would think of itself as Human v1.0 after a while and might even start thinking 2.0 is better than 1.0. Lot's of possibilities there for "fun". [Answer] Both chlorine and oxygen are oxidizing agents. Oxygen is necessary for humans because we use its property as an oxidizer to break down nutrients in a process called oxidative phosphorylation. <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxidative_phosphorylation> Sometimes chemicals other than oxygen are used. For a list, look in this link where it says, "Examples of electron acceptors in oxidation." What you're looking for is where it says, "dehalorespiration." <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaerobic_respiration> Maybe you could get your fictional species (they would have to be totally different from humans at this point) to use chlorine if you could come up with some new sort of oxidative enzyme. <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxidative_enzyme> The problem is really that chlorine gas would interact with the water in your body to produce hydrochloric acid and hypochlorous acid. There are some kinds of bacteria that are used to strip chlorine from drinking water. Maybe if you could have your species be engineered to where their lungs are coated with a genetically modified version of those bacteria, the bacteria could somehow convert the chlorine gas to something less harmful, which the genetically modified human cells can use with the new enzymes to produce ATP....???? I'm thinking it would be easier to upload your consciousness into a robot or something. Note: I'm not an expert, as I'm sure any expert can tell. I just got sucked down a rabbit hole a while back when scientists thought they found phosphine on Venus. [Answer] As explained in other answers, it would require so much changes in the human body to breathe chlorine or hydrogen sulfide, that those new people will hardly deserve the name of "human". But you could build on symbiosis with another organism (let's say a local micro-organism) which could live embedded in human cells. It would then convert those local exotic gases in something usable by human cells (like [Adenosine triphosphate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adenosine_triphosphate)). This would cut a shorter, simpler path from the gas to the existing human biochemistry by using an "already existing" adapted indigenous biochemistry. I'm inspiring from [mitochondrions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrion), for which there is a [theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbiogenesis) stating that they appeared when an outside micro-organism started living in symbiosis inside other cells. It has the advantage of keeping the existing oxygen-based lung system, which would be useful for travelling to other oxygen-based planets. You would still need to figure out how to render chlorine & sulfide-based gases not toxic anymore. ]
[Question] [ So the idea of worlds like this has been brought up a few times, about how human technology would have developed without fossil fuels, but the question I have is whether it is plausible for a world like this to develop. Could humans(or human like aliens) evolve early enough that there is not actually a reserve of fossil fuels? To clarify, I'm talking about this issue from the perspective of geology and biological evolution, not human technology. Given the long timeline of life on Earth before humans, which was responsible for creating the deposits of fossil fuels, would it be possible for a group like humans to have evolved early enough that fossil fuels never fully formed? For the purposes of this question, I'm not wondering about how tech would develop, just about whether this is plausible as an evolutionary history on a planet like Earth. [Answer] The short answer is no, not really. Since you specified biologically formed fossil fuels, I assume you are mainly talking about coal, oil, and gas. These are produced from organic matter over millions of years. Coal is mainly formed from plant matter whilst oil and gas are mainly formed from algae and plankton. [This](https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Oil_formation) page states that 20% of oil comes from the cenozoic (66-0MYA), 10% comes from the paleozoic (541-252MYA) and the rest from the mesozoic (252-66MYA). Plankton is an umbrella term for microscopic marine organisms but they have existed along with algae since the precambrian era (>541MYA). This would suggest that oil formations will predate your civilisation regardless. I couldn't find out how it takes for oil to form but the presence of cenozoic oil shows that large amounts of oil can form in 60 million years and presumably a lot less. The first coal formations known are from ~350MYA, which is also when the first vertebrates started to move onto land. Before this, insects were present on land but the organic matter that produces coal may have been what allowed fish to move onto land. So in terms of human-like aliens, the answer is no. You could however, look towards molluscs, which first appeared around 500 million years ago. Since insects first appeared on land not long after this, you could have some kind of intelligent and amphibious mollusc evolve just before plants start becoming widespread. These may have the intelligence to form civilisations before coal deposits start to form but oil would probably still exist. Whether it would be humanoid enough for you, I don't know but octopodes do actually walk on two legs already. The only other solution I can think of is to have live on your planet evolve from a chemical composition that doesn't form fossil fuels as we know them, perhaps something other than carbon-based. You would have to research the science of this yourself though. Edit: Having fossil fuels present doesn't necessarily mean they will be harvested. Gunpowder for example was used a thousand years before fossil fuels so perhaps your civilisation found other ways around things without ever needing them? Wood and plant oils would also fill the same roles. [Answer] The presence of fossil fuels would depend mostly on if the world has a large amount of carbon-based lifeforms that are creating complex hydrocarbons that can be turned into fuel. If it turns out life chose other complex structures that don't burn quite as nicely, that would totally be a totally fair reason for not using fossil fuels. Note that much of human existence worked without access to fossil fuels. If humans never realized how to effectively harvest fossil fuels, we may have skipped burning them altogether and moved straight to renewable or nuclear power generation. [Answer] Depends on the definition of a fossil fuels. Most importantly, is wood a fossil fuel? It regrows, so I'm guessing not, but this assumption is open to debate. If wood isn't a fossil fuel, we didn't touch fossil fuels until we started burning coal to stay warm. They sat in the ground unused until well after human society was established. And post coal, much of humans interactions with coal could've been replaced with more wood, or we could just move to warmer climates. If wood is a fossil fuel, it is a bit trickier as we couldn't survive in colder climates easier. We couldn't cook food, which was important to our development. The migration out of Africa might not have survived, or the ice age might have killed us off. So assuming wood isn't a fossil fuel, humanity will reach the industrial age exactly the same as it did in our world. Harnessing steam power would've been much harder without coal, but we already discovered hydro and wind power at this point, the industrial revolution would've been different, slower, and more dispersed, but it still would happen. We may have stripped forests down more to provide fuel for the industrial revolution, rather than using coal. The lack of trees may actually be worse for the environment than emitting all the carbon from coal. I don't know how to calculate which is worse. We had electric motors and batteries before we had the petrol car. Early prototype cars were fully electric. The first electric lightbulb in a home was hydroelectric powered. Diverting to fossil fuels certainly sped up our development these last few centuries, but we would still be on the same path were they never in the ground. [Answer] It appears that oil and gas are largely the remnants of marine based life, [mostly algae](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum#Fossil_petroleum). I don't see a way how to have algae without rather much of them ending up as oil/gas. Maybe you find a weird trick with plate tectonics that avoids the conditions under which biomass is turned into oil and gas but I'm doubtful. Coal on the other is mostly land based, [woody biomass](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal#Formation). And there is a serious theory that most of this formed before modern fungi (mold), that could break down cellulosue, developed, and that since these funghi are about no new coal is formed. Maybe you can somehow restrict land based life for a long time (maybe only a small island is ice free?) so that only comparativly little land-based biomass exists before fungi can evolve to break it down, you'd avoid coal. ETA: Maybe most existing oil and gas reserves developed from marine biomass that could not be degraded organically due to an [anoxic event](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anoxic_event#Background), possibly triggered by vulcanism. [Answer] Why not? Given that [coal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal#History) was started to be used from the High Middles Ages onwards, and only later in really large scale. So, we can assume, that Humanity lived rather fossil-free until the medieval times. May I am missing something, but I am quite convinced that coal was the first fossil fuel that found wide scale use. One could argue about [peat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peat#General_characteristics_and_uses), however I consider peat to be the wood of the unforested regions, since it tends to be used quite locally as a fuel. Humanity has developed a quite good fuel in the form of charcoal. Without coal, there will be less steel over the course of time, since steel production is limited to the sustainable output of charcoal. However, why wouldn't Humanity advance? ]
[Question] [ Whether or not “free will” exists, and whether or not the future has multiple “possible” outcomes, is a very deep philosophical question with a long history. One of the reasons this debate is so rich is because it feels to us (humans) that we can “choose” between different possible courses of action, and that other people have the same capability. We even feel that inanimate objects and processes possess this ability to some extent (“if only it hadn’t rained yesterday, we could have had a picnic”). Evolutionarily and biologically, it makes sense that we would feel this way. Since our sense organs can’t collect precise enough data to exactly calculate (or even closely approximate) what will happen, it makes sense for us to think about different possible future scenarios. (Since cavemen can’t possibly have enough information about the grizzly bear’s brain to know when it will wander past their camp, they are better off having a watchman posted at all times just in case.) My question is this: what sort of evolutionary conditions might produce a creature that is hardwired to believe in determinism, just as we are wired to “feel” free will? In what environment might it be evolutionarily advantageous to feel that the future can only unfold in one possible way? [Answer] There are some theories about ["bicameral brain"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameralism_(psychology)#The_Origin_of_Consciousness) that might indicate that humans were already, at a certain point in their evolution, somewhat "hard-wired" as you describe. What it would take is a slightly different "take" on bicameralism so that the part of the mind having cognition did not perceive its decisions as coming from itself, but rather from "somewhere else". Then it would come to believe it is no more than a puppet for some unseen power, it being the one with free will. The self-aware part of the mind would then have no reason to develop "fantasy" or imagining how things might be or might have been; that would be the bailiwick of the non-perceived hidden mind instead. (Granted, I'm not too sure about why the self-aware mind would then have to develop self-consciousness; some thought school would have that it could not, self-consciousness being indissolubly linked with free will and "agency"). [Answer] Frame challenge: Some sense of meaningful choice is necessary to the process of conscious actions. Why form a notion of free will or determinism if you're hard-wired to disbelieve free will? Why think about why you are acting unless you believe there might be an alternative? Why would philosophy even exist? Sure, after much reflection you may conclude, as some do, that there is not free choice after all, but if you were hard-wired to believe that whatever outcome came was inevitable, would you be spending the energy reasoning your way through the question in the first place? Why would you develop language to describe the why to yourself or others, if "why" is irrelevant? It doesn't seem to be adaptive to not believe in alternatives or choice. But then, to challenge my own frame challenge, if you want to call the active development by people of multiple generations of machine intelligence, I would find it plausible that people might choose to "select" for a more fatalistic attitude in their machines, to better maintain control as the AI become too sophisticated for their human masters to comprehend. Want to solve the agency problem in AI? "Breed" them to disbelieve that they have any alternative to obedience. If there were a condition well fitted for developing a sense of total determinism and inevitability in some group of thinking creatures - it would be slavery. [Answer] # Extreme intelligence. > > "Free will ceases to exist when the best course of action is instantly obvious." > > > Put quite simply, your creatures are incredibly intelligent. As a result, they are able to instantly deduce the correct thing to do in order to accomplish a purpose. A side effect is that they have no "free will"; every action logically proceeds from those that precede it. The ur-example of this are the Pak, from Larry Niven's Known Space series. The "adult form" of humans, they are incredibly intelligent. This, combined with their instinctual drive to protect their bloodline, forces them to always do whatever they see is necessary to protect their families. As a result they all act like Daleks, usually killing everything that could possibly harm their progeny (it is the only way to be sure that their bloodline is safe.) [Answer] You need them to never be confused, to always have a known right action in all cases... So there's no reason to develop the imaginative abilities to suppose different facts / scenarios, and therefore, make choices. But, at that point, are they even conscious? [Answer] Neurodiversity: I answered a question here once where my answer was to have people who were hyperintuitivive problem-solving Savants. [Could agriculture still be developed by intelligent species that lack the concept of past and future?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/175576/could-agriculture-still-be-developed-by-intelligent-species-that-lack-the-concep/175593#175593) The world wasn't so much a thing to exist in as an endless joy of having survival puzzles to solve. A people like this would barely need to be self-aware. The moment they solved a problem, that would be the solution - not because it was the best solution, but because it was the one used. Until a problem was solved, the "right" answer wasn't determined, and the moment it WAS solved, it's rightness would be irrelevant. I liked the frame challenge question, and think this could be one model of how artificial intelligence might look. The beings have to be brilliant and highly sapient, but would also be only borderline sentient. It's a different way to look at intelligence, but I think that's what you're looking for. [Answer] ## Use Epigenetic Intelligence Instead of Learned Intelligence While the mechanism by which epigenetics works is not very well understood, some studies have shown that simple animals like mice can pass on genetic traits based on personal experiences such as the [Cherry Blossom Phobia](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/baby-mice-can-inherit-fear-of-certain-smells-from-their-parents-180948096) experiment. In the case of mice, you do not need to naturally select for fear of certain smells for their children to inherit genes that make them afraid of the smell, you just need for the father to learn to fear that thing, and their sperm will modify itself to produce children with a higher sensitivity to that smell which leads to a phobia of the smell as the child matures. If you were to take a species like mice, but with a far more complex epigenetic mechanism, then a parent could pass down hard-coded adaptations to their children of a level of complexity resembling intelligence. So, if a parent learns that fire keeps them warm, their children will be drawn to fire. If those children learn that friction creates heat, then the grandchildren might be compelled to rub sticks together to make fire. The more generations that benefit from fire, the more that lineage will experiment with and learn to use fire. As these behaviors become more complex, hereditary occupations would become a given. The blacksmith's son would become a blacksmith because he is not smart enough to become anything else, but he has a ton of genetic imprints from previous generations that make him a good blacksmith and more importantly WANT to become a blacksmith and loath the idea of becoming anything else. He will be both emotionally and intellectually incapable of choosing another path. While these beings might be able to experiment to a degree, such choices would mostly happen at the subconscious level out of necessity the same way a person might choose to use a sugar spoon to eat their dinner because all of the soup spoons are dirty. It does not feel like a choice, just the closest thing you can do to what you would have chosen anyway. If the experiment works, it imprints itself for the next generation to continue to use, if it causes a problem it imprints reinforcing the proper use of soup spoons for the next generation making them more likely to stop an wash a soup spoon before eating. One reason this species would not perceive free will is because the obviousness of a person's heritage would be so resounding that their culture would find it incomprehensible for a person to outright defy their heritage. Even if a blacksmith mouse were to all of the sudden decide to become a singer, it would be such a strange occurrence that the typical reaction would be something along the lines of, "Oh, I didn't know you had an ancestor who was a singer, do you know who you get that from?" Everyone, including the mouse, would take for granted that some forgotten ancestor was a singer and that this forgotten person is the reason he made that "choice". The other key here is that 95% of what you know you never actually learned yourself. That means it is far safer to rely on one's instincts than to actively try to experiment to learn things for yourself. So, people who do believe in choice over just doing what you feel compelled to do would be selectively less fit. ]
[Question] [ In one question I asked how insects can evolve their base biology to grow in size [here](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/159280/can-insects-evolve-their-basic-anatomy-to-grow-in-size). Which was followed up by this question about how well the antennae would fare when increased in size [here](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/166178/hair-as-an-olfactory-organ-feasible-or-dumb) Now I'm trying to figure out how the eyes would evolve. At their current size now, the [compound eyes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compound_eye) serve insects just fine. However, the low quality of the image combined with how the lenses go along with rest of the exoskeleton would not translate well with an increase of size where insects may stop shedding and would very likely need a to see in clearer definition in order to survive. What adaptations do eyes have to go through when size increases? [Answer] Compartmentalization of the Eye, then Extreme Specialization within each Compartment. Let's talk about human eyes for a moment here. Humans use one type of eye to do everything. Technically, yes, we have two eyes, but from a biological perspective, they're more or less identical in function, and they only operate in a pair to give humans depth perceptions. Because of this, the human eye is designed to be super versatile. It has a lenses which can adjust itself to focus between objects which are closer or farther away. It also lies within an occipital socket that allows the eye to move and focus on various things within it's field of vision. Note that the occipital socket doesn't actually give you a larger field of vision (a marginal improvement at best), just the ability to focus on details at any range. In other words, since humans have only had one type of eye to use, the eye can do everything. This however, comes with a drawback - jack of all trades, master of none. Trade-offs exist, and since the human eye is designed to be able to do everything, it can't do everything as well as an eye specialized for the task can. It also usually comes with a defect of some kind in certain areas, which is why most people wear some type of correctional lenses or another, i.e. glasses or contact lenses. Various other types of animals have eyes which are specialized for certain tasks, but are absolutely useless when it comes to others. 'Eagle eyes' are a good example here - they cannot rotate their eyes, they're not so good at seeing color (even though they can see more colors than humans can), and they have a blind spot directly in front of them. Not something that I'd ever actually want. However, the insect's unique compound eyes present a way to get everything, and that's by having patches of the eye each be uniquely adapted to whatever the insects needs. In fact, this already occurs among some insects, like superior flier such as dragonflies, where they have specialized section for acute vision. Essentially, each part of the compound eye would be claimed by whatever part needed it the most. It would have a section devoted to long distance acute vision to spot things far away, and a section devoted to seeing things up close to avoid the blindspot. (Kind of like bifocal glasses, funnily enough.) Most of what it would see would actually be in grayscale, given that seeing in color would take up precious space in the eye, but sections of it would evolve to pick out and see colors with precision, possibly even a greater range than we humans have. The eyes on the extreme edge would be made not for accuracy, but rather for extreme angles so they could see as far around themselves as possible. The one thing I'm not sure about is whether or their eyes could move. It's possible that they would eventually develop an occipital socket to move their eye around, but it's more likely that with how complex their eyes become, they wouldn't be able to move them and would need to turn their whole head to see things with the relevant part of their eyes. [Answer] # *Super-resolution:* I would agree that the compound eyes could be looked at much like digital cameras. Simulated digital compound eyes are already being developed and the design details for larger ones with increased resolution are in the works <https://www.nature.com/news/digital-camera-gives-a-bug-s-eye-view-1.12914> Some of these are anticipated to have high resolution <https://www.cnn.com/2013/05/01/tech/innovation/bug-eye-camera/index.html> For that matter, why can't the simple images of compound eyes get processed by an increasingly complex neural process so the compound image is spliced-and-diced like a multitude of digital images to produce a higher resolution composite image?https://petapixel.com/2015/02/21/a-practical-guide-to-creating-superresolution-photos-with-photoshop/ Bigger bugs mean bigger brains. For cameras this currently calls for relatively still objects, but the technology is evolving, and so would the processing of the eye data. Organisms could even take advantage of the motion to accurately track movement and velocity. different compound eye shapes give better distance vision, movement tracking, depth perception, etc. and you could have multiple compound eyes each performing a different specialized task as needed. Engineers are trying their best not to make these cameras much bigger but instead making them so the cameras can be smaller but still do the jobs of bigger cameras. I can't speak to the shedding part, but evolution does amazing things with developing new materials. [Answer] The obvious way for insect eyes to evolve parallels the development of the CCD and CMOS image sensors used in digital imaging. Rather than try to evolve a vertebrate-like eye, evolution just increases the number of pixels in the compound eye. [Answer] I think convergent evolution is likely to bring the compound eye of insects to become something similar to what vertebrates have as eye. At the very end, sharks and dolphins have similar body shapes to solve the same problem, thus it is reasonable that also this other problem will be solved with the same approach. Thus the adaptions will be: * single optical chamber * single lens * iris * extended photosensitive layer [Answer] Quite contraordianry, but insects are far more advanced than mammals or fishes in terms of number of evolutional changes from common ancestor of all bileteral chord animals (yes insects have sort-of hord - they just left this obsolete feature behind). It means that their eyes are not a "ancient sidebranch" to our eyes, but one of ways of their development. So to have eyes like ours insects need to "deevolve" them to more simple state ("on-facet eye") and then reevlove to "animal eye". This seems quite unprobable. But still something like this is possible and some insects are on this way right now. You see - one facet (or group of facets) of an eye can become bigger and more complex, resembling sort-of "normal eye". This leads to quite bizzare endstate: ether one large (non-movable ?) eye or multu-eye (say with 7 "sub-eyes" in hexagone pattern ) with good resolution each - playes same role as [macule](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macula_of_retina) and a lot of smaller and more simple facets around - for low light vision and fast movement resolution. The true trypophobia nightmare fuel! ]
[Question] [ When designing a flying car intended for congested city routes with slow traffic, should turn signals indicate all possible directions. In most sci-fi, I've seen designs that have no turn-signals or the same left/right signals that a normal car has. Imagine the scenario of a car flying along in a lane at 300 feet, if it would like to reach a lane a city block over to left at a higher altitude - it would need to turn diagonally upwards to merge into the new lane. This problem could require 8 directions for the signal. Up, down, left, right and the four diagonals. One design for this system could be a circle surrounding a rear central thruster which would be broken up into 8 light pieces that flash when the pilot puts on the appropriate indicator. How would you design a turn-signal system, and what considerations might I be missing? [Answer] One thing you need to keep in mind is whether if such an indicator is even useful - ground driving requires checking 4 directions (ignoring blind spots) to see someone else and their turn signal. If they can be above or below, suddenly there are 12 directions minimum to check. Chances are blinker lights will not work out that great in your situation. Now one can instead have a car transmit their intended direction to the drive computers (which might be as necessary as an engine on the thing) in their immediate vicinity, which can then plot and display and/or warn about a lane change on some sort of HUD. As for how this signal would be transmitted in the first place, how about the 'wheel' itself? If a flying car is supposed to keep a lane, chances are some automatic process should be involved. It is one thing to keep aligned between two lines you can see in front of you, and another thing to keep aligned on a lane in the sky. This means there is at least a semi-auto driving mode involved where you need to input what you want to do and have it figure it out. At a bare minimum this would be turning your 3D wheel in the direction you want to go and have the drive computer figure out the best approach to switch to and stay in a lane. While it is doing that, it can broadcast your intent to the nearby cars, drive computers on which would account for this info when their drivers want to switch lanes or turn, slow down if needed etc. All of this is assuming you are fine with your cars being autonomous at least to some degree, in which case turning signals would more than likely be a given in the process any AI would use. If that is not the case, you might have bigger concerns with a sky-highway before thinking about turn signals. [Answer] Manual control of 3-D movement in a congested area is a recipe for disaster, at a rate of dozens a day! If traffic is sparse enough to permit manual control, then signals won't matter or be of any help, any more than they are now on a Cessna or Piper light plane, or even a Bell Jet Ranger helicopter. Even if cars can be drive/flown manually when in "open areas", if they're in an area congested enough to see multiple other cars at any given time (not just rush hour, hover-and-go levels of density) networked control would need to be mandatory -- to the point the car would override any attempt to enter a controlled area under manual control; even when in "manual" you have a fly-by-wire system, where the "pilot" or "driver" is simply telling the car where they want to go, and is not actually in direct control. Flying under direct control, in a mature system of this sort, would be a felony, seen as a lead-in to terrorism (well beyond recklessness). The cars would fly themselves, and keep track of each other (or be directed by a central control authority). No visual signals (or even windows!) would be needed while the cars are in "controlled traffic" mode. [Answer] Take a page from airplanes. Usually they are flying at such distances and speeds, and in such weather conditions that "turn" signs would be meaningless. Also their paths are controlled by ground towers. Driving is already complex enough as is. Humans simply won't be able to drive a flying car as we used to see in the Hanna Barbera's Jetsons cartoon. Most likely cars will be self-driving. Humans will just input where they want to go. The AI's running the cars can then use wireless communication to decide when and how they will turn, and how to give each other the space they need. This is not the stuff of fiction. The IEEE was working on a protocol for intervehicular communication in the last decade, built on top of 802.11 (the same bases for wifi). [802.11p would be called "wave" (Wireless Access in Vehicular Environments)](http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/802/11/Reports/tgp_update.htm). 5G networks will surely resurrect interest in this technology in the next couple years. And Uber, Lyft etc. are investing in self-driving cars (they'll be more profitable once they don't have to share income with app drivers), so self-driving cars may become really ubiquitous before we have reliable flying cars. [Answer] Turning signals will be transmitted to the Heads Up Displays of the cars that are around and will be displayed as arrows that move in a circle. The signal controls will be either triggered by * The driver's mind (by just thinking that they need to move to one direction). * Using special glasses or contact lenses. The driver just needs to look at the direction they want to turn and the turning signal will start to transmit to the other drivers Of course, after the signal is sent, the nearby cars computers using GPS or some other technology interpret the signal sent from the car that wants to turn to an arrow which is relative to their position. ]
[Question] [ My question is more science-based than hard sci-fi. Basically, I'm envisioning a scenario in which technology is advanced enough that life has spread through the solar system, and this mostly via self-replicating artificial intelligence. There are all sorts of practical reasons why humans would avoid trying to build structures on, say, Mercury, because of the harsh conditions. I was considering, however, that isn't the planet a massive source of heavy metal material while also being open to easily collecting solar power? I'm envisioning AI structures keeping mostly under ground and in shelter. Gravity and atmosphere are not as much a concern as for biological life, but smart machines using drones to mine and fabricate what they need, while being able to easily collect direct solar power during the bright days. Also, wouldn't fabricating system-traversing ships via AI be practical on Mercury due to the availability of energy, material, and lesser gravity [pull] to escape from? EDIT [2019-12-25] :: So many great answers. You guys have really given me fully-conceived theories that blow my mind. I cannot expound fully in comments below, so I'm putting this up here. I'm conceiving of some world building of nearly self-realized robots which are fabricating essentially what they need and taking the time to do it. I chose Mercury and not Venus because the enormously thick atmosphere on Venus keeps the temperature so high (and doesn't cool down much at night) that it would be an obstacle (destructive, corrosive) for my robots. Whereas, on Mercury, it planet is smaller and the the gravity penalty is also light. But I'm also envisioning that having some gravity is useful to AI bodies, as they still benefit from the simple functions of heat rising from endothermic reactions, and having lose and scattered material (from construction and mining) also continually falling back down to the ground. I'm also factoring that light planetary gravity would be useful for some basic hydraulic systems operating with gravity. (With liquid hydrogen stored in underground pools, perhaps?) The lack of much atmosphere means practically negligible pressure/friction/wind to interfere with operations, including ejecting craft into space travel via railgun. I'm also curious about the placement of Mercury and its proximity to solar winds, and as to whether that would make mining/collecting solar elements any easier. (I guess 'close" to the sun is extremely relative. I want to incorporate hydrogen mining, but I'm fully aware I may need to do some hand-waving to make that a story point.) [Answer] "It depends", as always. For most things, the asteroid belt is the best place to start as there's a decent amount of mass that is trivially accessible (no super-deep mining needed) and in trivially shallow gravity wells (and so easy to move to anywhere else in the solar system). You can't get everything there, of course. Mercury is probably a good source for very heavy elements... actinides for example. Such things are likely to be increasingly rare as you move outsystem, and may not be readily available in the asteroid belt and may not be available at all. If you need uranium, Mercury might be a good place to go. There are of course other in-system bodies which might also provide plenty of useful materials without the gravity well issue... the hypothetical [Vulcan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcanoid) asteroids and other [Apohele bodies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atira_asteroid), if large metallic examples can be found. Conversely, other stuff like ice which is super useful for reaction mass or extracting fusion fuel from is much harder to come by in-system, so Mercury is most useful as a component of a larger industrial network. You can still make rockets fueled with regolith and regolith derived materials, and there's so much solar power available they'd still be OK. > > I'm envisioning AI structures keeping mostly under ground and in shelter > > > As an alternative, consider orbital powersats and entire mobile mining facilities on the surface that operate on the nightside. The surface of mercury will have plenty of useful materials on it, and in the absense of locals to complain about the damage you can just stripmine the good stuff without having to make deep excavations. It depends on the scale of your AI's plans... you can't make a Dyson swarm this way in a sensible period of time, but if you wanted to do that you'd be engaging in more aggressive operations like increasing Mercury's spin rate via asteroid bombardment to make it easier to lift material off the surface in bulk... [Answer] Yes and no. Though Mercury is a vast source of mineable material, it is also deep within the solar gravity well. Therefore, it would be ideal for large construction projects harnessing solar energy(such as a Dyson sphere) or interstellar propulsion(such as proposed by Robert Forward). For a Dyson sphere especially, Mercury could become the center of the construction operation, and would be completely disassembled to fabricate large numbers of Von Neumann self-replicating machines. These in turn could provide the energy and mass for a swarm of small mirrors within a few decades(one solid structure would be very unstable). This [Kurzgesagt video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pP44EPBMb8A) describes the process in more detail. However, turning our attention to AI vs. humans, it would be much simpler and less risky to automate any mining sites. Life support would be eliminated and equipment could simply be remotely monitored(although with a light delay of several minutes automated sequences would be a must). I agree with you; if you're going to set up this much infrastructure anyway, you might as well automate it in the first place. So that part of the question is; absolutely, yes. The more questionable area would be launching from Mercury. Yes, there are practically infinite raw materials, but the Delta V would be in the tens of km/s, a figure unachievable by conventional propulsion. Perhaps a better idea would be to create huge mirrors, which could use the solar energy to direct lasers onto a "sail" similar to the [Starshot program](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakthrough_Starshot). Technology for this is already being tested, and it is not inconceivable that in system and interstellar travel could both be enabled. TL;DR: Yes to both questions, but the second problem requires some unconventional methods. [Answer] Sure, mercury is a great place for any type of self-sufficient industry - human-managed or AI managed. It is the only body in the solar system located in the energy-rich/dense environment and has plenty of matter. It does not matter who rules there humans or AI but locating production or everything on the surface is not a good idea, as it restricts the uses of the place and does not open all its potential, but the same can be told basically for all other celestial bodies besides earth which is a biological library on its own. So considering widespread and over the solar system as you mention - processes on mercury probably will be not so different from all other activities happening on the other celestial bodies - as an approach. mining tail of production/industrial system on the surface and all the other stuff in the space where you have more flexibility and need fewer materials to counteract the challenges of creating a proper environment - for industry, for humans or AI brain functioning. Considering the options for collection of energy provided by microgravity in space - basically, a foil floating in space can concentrate all the energy you want - placement of mercury in dense energy environment is not necessarily a huge benefit, considering the mass, fraction of the mass you need to have for energy handling compared to the rest of mass-energy investment you have to make for the production to work. But that big pile of materials - there isn't a long list of those in general - Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars and respective moons of some of those. And next in the list Jupiter and its moons at 5a.u. - which also not a bad place despite it being 1/25 of the energy density of earth orbit, or about 1/166 of that in Mercury orbit. So if I would be an AI and told to pick one out of Jupiter or Mercury - I would think for a second and probably choose Jupiter as it is more beneficial in long run - there are many factors - but because of fusion technologies as an example, or there are plenty of moons to prime the process and even at start the ~1/25(166) of sun energy density isn't such a slowdown factor. The difference in efficiency between humans being capable to utilize Mercury and AI's being capable to do the same - the difference is negligible. All that said Mercury is more valuable as a celestial body - not so much by other factors. In that sense low carbon content of it(not sure is it or not) maybe not a great factor as for AI's so as for humans - considering all the fancy properties we start to utilize and discover of those carbon-based materials including their use as semiconductors and all sorts of other applications. And considering carbon being in the list of the most abundant elements - carbon-based technology has great potential, so it would be naive to think if there is more Fe on mercury then it sure better for machines. If you consider that self-replicating aspect of AI's then you have to think in terms of EROEI(energy return over energy invested), and mostly to the aspect of exponential growth associated with that AI situation, industrial system. They are not limited by factors of raising children and more produce flash the memory and go work thus cutting a corner here like 20-30 years. So if it does not happen under human supervision - it will go south quite fast, no matter where those will settle. If you wish to choose not Earth and not Mars - I would suggest Venus - it maybe even a better place for AI's. It is a battery pack on its own (energy stored in the atmosphere) - but it may be a bit more challenging and more complex to think how things will enroll there - compared to mercury, so ..., but as AI escaping earth I would pick it to prime my conquering of the solar system if I do not wish to engage with humans early on. Then Jupiter, and then being a good humankind overlord then Mercury as a snack. So to justify mercury selection you probably need to throw some additional reason in the basket - as like they intend to mine sun for materials(and energy) then it probably a better choice than Jupiter location. And thus widen and increase scope and scale of activity, so as technology advances - fast technological advancement of AI is probably one of the strong sides of those, so may make sense [Answer] Another factor here: You can build a base on Mercury that will be consistently at Earth-normal temperature without any climate control. The poles are always cold, pick your distance from the poles to get the desired average (figure the heat load of your equipment, you'll want a place cooler than your target temperature) and dig deep enough that it averages out. (That's not all that deep.) And there's one advantage to mining Mercury--it's pretty much a planetary core--a good source of the heavier elements. The gravity well is a considerable hindrance for getting stuff there, but it's not important for getting it home--linear motors can throw stuff off any airless world. [Answer] The answer to your question is probably not. The materials to be found on Mercury can be much more easily and cheaply sourced on Earth. The cost of establishing any significant base on Mercury would be huge owing to the difficulty in traveling between Mercury and Earth (very large delta V). That said if the effort were to be made then a base in a large crater near one of the poles of Mercury would provide plenty of energy, plenty of heat and plenty of cold in the permanent shade so humans could in principle live there, but in practice probably would not. So an AI mining facility might be built on Mercury, but it would probably be cheaper and more efficient to build it elsewhere. [Answer] Yes, it would. The Youtuber Kurzgesagt theorized that with the resources found on mercury, you would be able to create an entire Dyson swarm with resources to spare. And you do know what a Dyson swarm means. I N F I N I T E P O W E R. ]
[Question] [ In Star Trek Voyager, the Voth are an intelligent, humanoid species of descendants of dinosaurs (hadrosaurs). Paleontologists estimate, that up around [99% of species, that ever lived, died out.](https://books.google.de/books?id=4LHnCAAAQBAJ&pg=PA110&lpg=PA110&dq=&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false) However, because of the strict conditions, that must be met for fossilization, we only know a very small fraction of those species. Given that dinosaurs lived for roughly 165 million years, how realistic is the show’s idea of an intelligent dinosaur species we did simply not discover in our past? On a related note, would future civilizations find evidence for human existance in 65 million years, given that our civilization only lasted for around 10000 years, and only had planetwide influence in recent history? [Answer] It is entirely possible there could have been an intelligent saurian species; if, for instance, you had an intelligent species that evolved in part of Gondwanaland that's now buried under the ice in Antarctica, it would have low odds of discovery. That said, it's unlikely. You'd need for all its ancestral and related lineages to also not have been discovered. If humans went extinct before the first members of the genus Homo left Africa, and Africa itself was unavailable for searching, it would be equivalent to an alien paleontologist never having found any fossils of any primate. There'd be some evidence of big-brained animals with manipulative capability somewhere, but we've never found anything even hinting at, say, a dinosaurian equivalent to the opposable thumb. And that leads into the second problem; I would be surprised, but not earth-shatteringly shocked, if a paleontologist found a big-brained dinosaur with capable hands holding a stone hand-axe. It's on the edge of possibility, but it's there. An industrial civilization is another thing entirely, and I base that on one thing: mining. Mines are not things that randomly appear willy-nilly. They have geological settings where mineral deposits form, and you find specific types of deposits in those areas and not in others, and their ages can be hundreds of millions of years old or even older. The problem for the idea of a pre-human industrial civilization is that there is no evidence of anyone having disturbed these deposits, even though some of them would have been just as accessible and of a size and quality that if there'd been someone around capable of mining them and needing the metals, they would have. We've never found, for example, a geological formation where there's a halo of low grade ore, and right where you'd expect to see the high grade stuff there's a plug of sedimentary rock of a very different age...as if there'd been a hole where someone had extracted the ore and the resulting pit had filled in over time. We've never found a rock formation where you have sedimentary rock or later mineral deposition that looks like it filled tunnels. We've never found a location where the rock looks like it formed from processed tailings. Again, it would be theoretically possible this sort of evidence lies in Antarctica, but it would require that the intelligent dinosaur species made it to industrial civilization but never spread very far from where it evolved, not even to the part of the same continent that later detached and became Australia (where many of those aforementioned mineral deposits that show no signs of having been disturbed exist). The odds of that appear so ridiculously low as to be essentially impossible. [Answer] It depends on the definition of [intelligence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence) used. In addition to ourselves, [we humans have determined](https://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2015/08/22/10-most-intelligent-animals.aspx) that chimpanzees, bottle nosed dolphins, elephants, African grey parrots, rats, crows, dogs, pigeons, pigs and octopuses are intelligent. Brain size of brain size to body size is [not an indicator of intelligence](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-brain-size-doesnt-correlate-with-intelligence-180947627/). > > Consider the humble dog, Canis familiaris. The brain of a wolf-size dog is about 30 percent smaller than that of an actual gray wolf, its ancestor. > > > The dog is successful not because of the size of its whole brain per se, but because domestication has led to subtle brain changes with a stunning result: the ability to live in the world of people. > > > One measure of intelligence can be how a species interacted with its environment for its own success. So far there is no evidence to show how dinosaurs interacted with the world, as it was during their time so we do not know how intelligent they were, we can only guess. As to evidence of human existence in 65 million years, we humans have been prolific over vast areas of the planet. We have create huge urban environments. In the US alone, the region from Boston to Washington DC is effectively one large amalgamated urban environment. Some evidence of our existence will survive, whether it be foundations for our buildings, sewer pipes, roads (because they have depth as well, if they remain in situ) or our waste dumps in land fill. [Answer] YES - it is entirely plausible that there are many dinosaurs we have not found, and YES - it is most definitely possible to detect our civilisation in 65 million years time. The difference is that dinosaurs have not left any evidence of intelligence like cities, or longer lasting materials, so only those individuals that happened to have died in a place that preserves their bodies and bones for fossilisation are found. Keep in mind that the smattering of dinosaur bones we have found is very rare and their full preservation even rarer - there have been only a small number of partial skeletons of Tyrannosaurus found in the world and no fully intact Tyrannosaurus skeletons at all (in fact the 2 most recovered skeletons are only 80%/85% complete) despite the strong representation of this dinosaur in literature and film. This means that even if a dinosaur dies in the exact spot that geologically would be preserved (perhaps in mud) then covered with rocks until fossilisation occurs, plus the odds of finding and excavating the bones without too much loss in completeness makes chances of useful discovery very small. There are likely thousands of species we have not yet discovered. Technological intelligence is different to simple intelligence - the dinosaur might be the smartest dinosaur around but that means nothing if it cannot manipulate objects, write language, create and propagate ideas, cultivate food, create cities. It would die and have the same chances of discovery as other dinosaurs. However if Technological intelligence is present, evidence of technological existence would be easy to detect. Our civilisation, by emitting complex hydrocarbons that do not exist naturally, would produce chemicals that are detectable in 65 million years time easily, and even detectable from telescopes many light years away by altering the atmosphere. Our plastics (especially PET) do not biodegrade - they only photo degrade. If buried, [they will be present and discoverable forever](https://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/everyday-myths/how-long-does-it-take-for-plastics-to-biodegrade.htm) unless pushed down into magma. Even biodegradable or metal particulate matter would be detectable and preserved within ice in the polar regions, as would evidence of increased carbon emissions and other gasses not attributable to natural causes. [Answer] Palaeontology and mineralogy should be bona fide subjects for Earth Science Stack, but the powers that be have ruled in the past that they are not. I think it is better to leave science fiction out of it. No, it is not feasible that there ever was a dinosaur which came close to human intelligence. Most of them were rather dim-witted, but it is suspected that a few of the brightest might have been about as intelligent as a dog or a cat. It is hard to be sure. The idea of a super-intelligent, civilized species is not realistic. There certainly might be dinosaur species not yet discovered, but not many. A dinosaur civilization comparable to our own would leave abundant traces, and even a more primitive one like the Ancient Egyptian civilization would leave easily identifiable traces. I sometimes wonder how many billions of years the pyramids will survive. [Answer] Members of the Raptor family of dinosaurs (the famed Jurrassic Park Velociraptors were actually chicken sized... an animal like the ones in the franchise wasn't discovered until the first film was in post production) are thought to be highly social predators that used persistence hunting strategies to hunt and ambush prey. This is important because among the most intelligent animals in the world, high society functions and persistence hunting are common through lines. The later is impossible without the former. In fact these attributes are part of the reason why humans have developed the most complex language skills of all animals Humans unique distinction as tool using distance persistence predatory hunting supplemented by omnivore diet is very unique in the animal world and considered to be the winning combination for a genius predatory animal, but it's the total combination that is unique, not a single trait. Canaines are also persistence predators and the fact that dogs are "mans best friend" seems to be a rather unique evolution in the aninmal world as well... typically when two animals with the same niche occupy the same environment, one will go extinct... but domestic dogs and humans seemed to have teamed up and worked together. Compare to wolves, which would be extinct if but for humans intentionally backing off and giving them some space. Animals with advanced social communities are also not unique and are exhibited across the kingdom including many insects, such as bees, who are further removed form humans than dinosaurs genetically speaking. It's actually a skill that doesn't take long to aquire on an evolutionary time line. Consider your pet cat, and the difference in the meow it makes when it wants you to feed it and when you step on it's tail. The Cat's Meow evolved exactly because of humans use of vocal communication. Species of wild cats have far less communicative range of sounds than a house cat and will rely on body language when communicating to others rather than vocal sounds, which work for House cats because humans are more understanding of vocal language. Tool use is also not unsusual and while most animals that use tools tend to be very close cousins of humans (most primates have some tool use skills), it's not exclusive. Dolphins will use sea spounges to protect their nose when digging in sea floor sand, otters have their "rock" and will use kelp blankets to keep from floating off while sleeping. Some species of birds, including Corvins (crows) are also quite intelligent and documented tool use. This would also favor Raptor like Dinosaurs because of all the dinosaurs, Raptors are the closest relatives of modern birds and share more common liniages than any other dinosaur species known. I discussed elsewhere, but the time between the beginning of dinosaurs and the age of man would be more than ample for intelligence to develop. If we condense the whole timeline of Earth's existence to a single 24 hour day (Midnight of this day occurs right now), the oldest known fossil of a living thing would appear at 5:36 am, sexual reproduction first appear just after 6:00, terrestrial plants would appear. Dinosaur would exist for the 45 minutes between 10:56 PM and 11:39 PM. The age of mammials be only exist less than half that time (21 minutes) by comparison and Homo Sapien would only appear at 11:58:43 PM... a 1:17 minute period of time. With specific deference to the Voth, Voyager showed that the closes dinosaur known to be related to the Voth was the Hadrasaur, which was a herbivore. As of now, grazing animals were likely not conducive to evolution a highly developed civilization. Evolution is not going to favor a design that is efficiency to the niche, and intelligence is a very costly investment for a creature that does need it let alone the ones that don't, but the thing about evolution is that similar traits are known to develop for wildly different reasons. The octopus, for example, has the comparative intelligence of a house cat despite the fact that no where else in invertebrates is there a similarly intelligent species. This would suggest that the needs conducive to the octopus' evolution of intelligence of this level are not the same needs that lead mammalian or avian intelligence. There's a world of difference from the very neurological systems that support it. And yet, it thinks more like us than any of it's more closer mollusk relatives. Evolution will only produce a creature that is "smarter than your average bear" if there exists a reason for it to do so. If no such reason exists, average bear is just fine. Consider the Shark: Their evolution as one of the top predators of the ocean occurred long before the dinosaurs walked the Earth... and Sharks back then have little in difference to our modern sharks. It is one of the most successful innovations of evolution... and we don't consider it to be the sharpest knife in the drawer by any stretch of the imagination. [Answer] ## Possible, but not likely. This answer makes the case using [Evolutionary Theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution). Using it, the evidence seems to be against the theory "of a [super] intelligent dinosaur species we simply did not discover [existing] in our past": 1. If we look at the evolutionary history of all life, we see a steady progression from simple to complex organisms. [So if we go back in time, we should generally expect life to be less complex than it is now](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080317171027.htm). This makes sense because complexity from random combination is a process that increases as time goes on. If enough time has not passed, then certain combinations simply cannot be reached. This doesn't mean that intelligent life in the past was not possible. It is just one reason to be skeptical of it. 2. The second is that intelligence is a major indicator of [fitness and survival](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitness_(biology)). This doesn't necessarily mean that an intelligent species of dinosaur could not have existed and then been wiped out. But it does mean that we would expect to see enormous [speciation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speciation) of that dinosaur (the species splits into other species). Probably filling different niches around the world. So just like how apes are intelligent and have speciated, becoming hundreds of different species of ape today. We would expect to see the same kind of divergence in a species of dinosaur that is highly intelligent and has such an enormous fitness advantage. So now we are looking at probably hundreds of different species of intelligent dinosaur that have somehow escaped the fossil record. This is not impossible, but the evidence against this theory is starting to grow. 3. [The next improbability, is that none of these species would have somehow made it into the modern day in one shape or another](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_of_common_descent). Basically we are saying that none of the myriad of intelligent subspecies emerging from this dinosaur, managed to make it to the modern day even though they have one of the biggest fitness advantages that any organism can have. Unless some massive and abrupt extinction event made the world completely uninhabitable for all variations of this creature, this outcome is very unlikely. And we are talking about something like massive irradiation that wipes out the entire globe except for cockroaches, or some other similar insane extinction level event. So we have a reasonable case against these dinosaurs ever existing on Earth, but no compelling reason to think that they did. 4. [Occam's Razor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor) is a scientific principle that tells us that the simplest explanation is usually the one that is factually correct. This principle tells us to discard this "never discovered super intelligent dinosaur" idea because there is no evidence for it, and to accommodate the idea we have to make lots and lots of special exceptions. Conclusion: This could be possible somewhere. On another planet perhaps? However our own history here on Earth does not support it. [Answer] Can a planet-dominating intelligent species vanish into the past without leaving relics and traces which future intelligent species might find? At first it seems unlikely, but the more I think about it, the more reasonable it becomes... Despite how messy and monument-crazy we currently are, there is no reason to believe that future technological and cultural evolution won't change those behaviors. Once we master the sciences needed to harvest energy from non-polluting sources and to transform our garbage and waste gasses back into functional raw materials, the negative marks we leave on our home world should decrease considerably. With those technologies in hand, we might embrace a return-to-nature aesthetic movement which could bring down our giant concrete constructions and replace them with smaller, more beautiful, carved wooden structures. With our science far surpassing our physical needs, we might conquer our psychological need to build permanent structures which can stand for millennia. On a less rosey path, technological advancements in our weaponry might also push us away from our planet scarring behaviors. Biological weapons have already made living in large population centers are risky gamble. Add weaponized nanite disassemblers to the arsenal and no historical monument or holy place will be safe. Warlords will no longer have to stop at genocide. Now they can erase all signs that an enemy ever existed. So if it is possible for us to get to a place from which our mark on this world can be erased, then it is possible for your smart dinosaurs as well. Maybe their technological adolescence wasn't as bad as ours currently is. Not all teenagers leave the bedrooms looking like a war zone. I have always believed that this planet was built far too well to just host a single intelligent species with a couple thousand century shelf life. It is far too permanent and self-repairing for such a simple purpose. Maybe like so many things of natural design, its life-supporting surface and atmosphere are recyclable, only needing short recuperative breaks between each use. We might not be the first and are hopefully not the last species to gain enough intelligence to appreciate this wonderful home. ]
[Question] [ So, I'm writing a fictional story about gangs and the city I'm using as the setting is loosely based on New York. More specifically, the size of New York City, and the population. I checked on Google and apparently it goes something like this: \Land area: 783.8 km² \Population: 8.623 million There are 4 major gangs that rule this city's underworld, each owning/holding an important territory. I am thinking of adding as many minor/small-time gangs as I can and was wondering, how many gangs can fit in a city of that size and somewhat not result in every single citizen being part of a gang, consequently causing total mayhem . So, how many gangs can fit in such a city? [Answer] It will obviously vary by time period, culture and the effectiveness of law enforcement. For historical perspective, the non-fiction book [Gangs of New York](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gangs_of_New_York_(book)) describes the gang activity around 1900 up to the prohibition era New York in the 1920s. (The 2002 movie of the same name used this book as source material.) The book [lists 42 organized gangs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_identities_in_The_Gangs_of_New_York_(book)) and a number of independents. New York City at this time had approximately 5-6 million people. The book probably will not be exhaustive, but it gives an order of magnitude estimate of 1 gang per 150 000 people. [Answer] This is impossible to know for sure, but you can do some estimations So we we are going to treat is like a Fermi problem, and do some broad estimations and hopefully end up in an order of magnitude of the correct answer. Depending on your world, you can change any of these numbers to tweak your answer. For the ease of math, we will start with a city with 10 Million people over 1,000 Square Km. For the purposes of this problem gangs will operate in cells, with large gangs consisting of multiple cells under a citywide franchise and small gangs being a single cell. * 10,000,000 People live in the city * 10% of them are in the correct age bracket to join a gang, so 1,000,000 young adults * 1% of young adults join a gang, so 10,000 gang members city wide * The average cell size of a gang is 20 members leaving 500 cells * Assuming a city size of 1,000 km * 50% of the city is both valuable and can be controlled (e.g. not landfills or the heavily policed financial district) leaving 500 square km of controllable space * Each cell could control 1 km. * Going by an 80/20 rule, 80% all cells will be in one of the 4 biggest gangs. * Each of the super-gangs has on average 100 cells, 2,000 members, and controls 100 km squared. * The remaining gangs are on average 2 cells (the majority are single cell, but there are a few mid-sized gangs), leading to 50 gangs with an average of 40 members controlling 2 square km. So you have 54 gangs in your city operating in 500 cells. Also, as the math is listed above, if there are any numbers you think are incorrect for your world, just replace the numbers and re-run the calculations. [Answer] There's a factor you have to take into account: gangs don't necessarily have exclusive territories, as not all gangs will necessarily engage in the same types of activity. As a result, it's easy to see overlapping taking place. To use a simple example, one gang may focus all their attention in drug dealing. That doesn't mean they're keeping out the gang that's corrupting the building trade, or another one that's engaged in financial crimes via computer fraud and such. A practical example is New York City. For a time the Colombo Family controlled the N.Y.C. District Council of Carpenters, while the Lucchese Family controlled clothing unions. In strictly geographic terms, their operations overlapped. ]
[Question] [ I'm writing a story, in which it's in a character's best interest to fake a brain-damaged state -- just for a week or two. I know MRI's are available to access brain activity, but would my character be able to pull off the vegetative act, given modern tech? Edit: The character is in a situation where brain damage wouldn't come as a surprise...therefore, there'd be no rigorous tests of brain health. I'm mainly wondering if normal brain health would be obvious through routine care in a modern hospital setting. [Answer] First your premise that they won't "by trying too hard to detect a fake": As some one who has had a lot of CTs and MRIs: they may not find minute damage (esp. to axions) in patients who have brain injuries. However, they will do a CT & MRI right away and probably several different ones. This is because they will need to rule out bleeding in the brain and other life-threatening conditions as [20 to 40% of patients with this acute an injury dies](https://msktc.org/tbi/factsheets/vegetative-and-minimally-conscious-states-after-severe-tbi). Basically, they are going to look hard at the brain of someone unconscious for a few hours let alone days because this would indicate a severe case of TBI. ### Now back to the, can you fake TBI for a little while: To quote the [American Society on Neuroradiology](https://www.asnr.org/patientinfo/conditions/tbi.shtml) on Traumatic Brain Injuries (emphasis mine): > > Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a powerful diagnostic tool that can detect signs of injury such as minute bleeding (microhemorrhage), small areas of bruising (contusion) or scarring (gliosis), which are invisible to the CT scan. Newer, specialized types of MRI can assess brain structure at an even finer level or measure brain function to detect alterations in brain structure and function due to TBI. Because microscopic injury to the brain may be a cause of problems, however, even MRI may not be able to detect any abnormality in a patient with TBI. > > > So can someone fake brain damage? Possibly (may even just get misdiagnosed in a situation like you give where "brain damage is expected"). However, in your case, this would not be a mild form of TBI (unconscious for weeks = acute) so the lack of this evidence in an MRI would probably start doctors looking at other things (with "cures" which will cause bad things to happen to your character due to side-effects or just not having the condition). ### Can you fake it for weeks in a vegetative state? Again, its your story, so doctors could miss all the signs and a vegetative state is not a coma so you can respond to stimuli. So its possible for at least a bit. However, the difference in reaction from a person with TBI and a "normal" individual can be striking and a good ER will be used to seeing these differences. For instance, even if you take medication which makes your person not react to smell in any fashion because he is faking the reaction people with TBI may have (when injuries include the nerves from brain to nose being cut so don't have a sense of smell anymore1) its may be hard to fake these within an MRI when their testing your reaction (the sound and lights of the MRI themselves can immediately show different reactions then expected within a person with TBI's brain 1). To further point out how hard it is to fake TBI for a long period (for your story but also because I don't want people to think there isn't ways to detect it), see the rest of my earlier quoted statement: > > Long after the injury, MRI as well as CT may demonstrate brain atrophy, which results when dead or injured brain tissue is reabsorbed following TBI. Because injured brain tissue may not completely recover following TBI, changes due to TBI may be detectable many years after an injury. > > > ### TLDR; So there's going to be a point where the doctors say "this isn't caused by brain injury. What are our other options?". I would put that point at 2 days over 2 weeks but it is possible that a misdiagnosis or other story reason extends this and when coming out of the state the doctors just say "well, we'll have to follow up and see if we see the other indicators as he is doing better now". Probable? no. Possible? there's a lot of malpractice cases for a reason. 1: personal experience [Answer] Falling down a K hole. It is hard to keep from responding to the world - especially if someone hurts you to see if you are faking. But it is a lot easier with drugs. Ketamine is used to achieve this state. <https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-a-k-hole-21861> > > Ketamine is a dissociative drug. In simple terms, dissociative drugs > make users feel detached from their surroundings as if they are not > really there. This feeling of dissociation becomes more intense with > higher dosages, which make users feel very disconnected from, and > unaware of, their surroundings—even when they may technically be > awake. They may also feel disconnected from, or unable to control, > their own bodies, including the ability to speak and move around > easily. > > > One way to think about this is that the k hole is a state between > intoxication and a coma. While the consciousness of the real world > diminishes in a k hole, a fantasy world of delusions and > hallucinations can take over. This is usually temporary, although > longer-term users may begin to show ongoing dissociative and psychotic > symptoms... > > > The dissociative state can be very useful as a type of anaesthesia. Ketamine has been used for decades for minor procedures like dental work on developmentally disabled persons. It does not carry with it the risk of respiratory depression. The person on ketamine is mentally in a place where what is going on in the world does not matter and so does not struggle or resist. This would be interesting to write also. Your character could be trying to pay attention to the world, but is slipping in and out of strange fantasies and hallucinations. These might come back later in the story. Note: there does not to my knowledge exist a sustained release form of ketamine, like a pill or a patch. As far as I know it is all IV. Your character would need some way of staying continuously on ketamine without his care team realizing it. Maybe he could hack an insulin pump to deliver ketamine and have it placed inside his body where it would not be found? [Answer] If the question is "Would MRI scans reveal that this person is in fact NOT brain damaged"? Pretty much, yes. The main thing that would be a giveaway is the brains response (as in brain activity) in certain parts ( <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1647299/> ) to hearing, pain, etc. There is no way (at least that I've found) to ignore this to fake brain damage, at least not without drugging yourself, which is dangerous. [Answer] I'm going to go with you cant fake damage in his actual brain, but you can fake the results of the tests on his brain. And the patient can give a believable performance when being observed. But, in order to pull this off your patient would need to have quite a few resources. He'd have to create the fake exam results, and bribe the people who ran the real results to stay quiet about it, at least for the week or two of your story. A spy, or a rich guy, might have those resources; or a bunch of people working in concert to protect the guy. Also, since we're only talking about a week or two, your characters could just stall giving up those test results. Things like that can mysteriously get lost, be inconclusive, or just take a darned long time to get from one place to the other. ]

Subsets and Splits

No community queries yet

The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.