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Follow-up to the magic system in [Artifacts not being used for war](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/184528/artifacts-not-being-used-for-war) and [magic that replenishes with time](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/184155/in-a-world-with-regenerative-magic-why-would-creating-an-item-not-allow-you-to-r)
In a world with regenerative magic, the average human doesn't know or generally use the pool of magic they have within them. Normally, creation of magic items causes the magic needed for activation to be reallocated to the item until it is destroyed or removed.
My enterprising mages have created a new Runic Attenuation Band which allows them to bypass fully linking a portion of the creators magic at the cost of a much lower pool of magic able to be utilized. The creators don't put any magic into the item and instead it has an empty reservoir that is filled by the user.
These minor items take a period of about a day to reserve space within the users magic supply to be able to connect and fill the reservoir. A completely normal human can only attune to 3 such items at a time. An Archmage can also only attune to 3 such items.
I have my base magic system. I have the end result of only being able to attune to 3 of these rings. Why is my magic reservoir only able to accommodate 3 rings?
What practical reason would cause them not to be able to attune to more?
* Answers should not be story based.
* Social restrictions are not allowed.
* Rings causing interference with the magic or each other is off-limits.
* The answer should apply equally to people with low capacity reservoirs and people with extremely high capacity resevoirs.
* The use of rings has no differences in consumption based on skill of the user.
* There is no "pipe" that magic flows out of. A user could put all their magic into a single attack rapidly.
[Answer]
# Protocol limitation
Magic is [quantized](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantization). A number of [thaums](https://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Thaum) have to flow from one sygil to another to make a spell work (varying per spell). If you have too many enchantments in a very small space, you will have interference, which causes magic to go haywire.
In order to prevent this from happening, enchanted objects are usually embedded with internal ley lines. They do to magic what wires does to electricity. Once a magical effect has to leave an enchanted object, though, interference may happen.
In order to minimize the effects of interference, [a magic controller is implemented that lets only one enchantment flow in the magic field around the user at a time](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_Access_with_Collision_Avoidance). Enchantments take turns thousands to millions of times per second, so users do not notice it; from our point of view, all enchantments are running simultaneously all the time.
Modern enchantment protocols allow for a hexnet of up to three devices so as to keep both performance and safety within standards (much like the first implementation of Bluetooth could only connect up to seven devices in a piconet). You can hack your personal hexnet to support more devices if you are magic savvy, **but at great personal risk**.
For example, hook four devices and you risk items switching enchantments at random. You have a regeneration ring and a staff of fireballs. You may end up shooting a healing beam and then go into spontaneous combustion because two enchantments jumped the gun and tried to run at the same phase of the magic controller.
Or you can have all of your items magic-dispelled due to what is called a [fantasy-race condition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_condition). Despite the name, it has nothing to do with fae and orcs - it's just that two enchantments need access to each other's allocated thaums, but neither is surrendering theirs first, so the whole system stops until the enchantments are either reset or forced to shake hands and become friends again.
[Answer]
**Battery Drain**
Each item siphons off a small amount of magical energy from the user, and this drain is ALWAYS at a constant rate based on the total percentage of a person's magical power. So in your example a normal person has 100 magic units (MU) and an item that holds 5 MU. The item drains off some amount after each firing (I'm reading as if the item discharges all 5 MU at once, but if not this still should work) but ALSO requires a steady stream of magic as maintenance. Think how you can have a fully charged car battery, but leave it sit for 6 months and it'll be dead even though the car is off. The major difference is that due to unavoidable techniques in manufacture, the wearer's magic drain is taken as a percentage of total magical power of the wearer. For purposes of this example, let's set it at 2% of your daily magical value.
Now this steady stream of magic for maintenance on an individual level causes no problems, and 2 or 3 isn't a big deal either. But have 4 or 5 objects connected at once and suddenly it's a material impediment. Any wizard or skilled physician will tell you a body begins to show signs of wear if there is a body is constantly expending more than 6% of its magical power. People will find their thoughts constantly wandering, or suffer migraines or have fainting spells, or heart attacks, or whatever-your-heart-desires. What's worse, a person can AT BEST recover 6% of their magical power per day. So a person with more than 3 magic items not only will be suffering the physical effects from continual magic-drain, but at some point will be OUT of magic, as more than 3 items drain it away faster than their body can recharge.
I realize this might be more of a problem for high-powered wizards if, say, a Merlin equiv has 1000 MU and is therefor sacrificing 60 MU to power his items instead of a normal person's 6 MU. But then again Merlin is unlikely to be storing a 5 MU fireball in HIS magic items, so it might not matter a great deal to you.
[Answer]
## It's a built-in safety feature
Attuning too many items will kill you. This is true for anyone. Something about drawing down your life force if your magic reserves are completely drained, or so it's theorized.
In practice, some people (like powerful wizards) *could* attune more items. Maybe four items, maybe five. But to stop items from killing *most* users, they are designed not to permit you to use more than two others (the typical item will not work if it senses you are attuned to more than 2 other items).
**Why aren't there "unlocked" items?**
Why aren't there special items which allow more than three to be used? There probably are. But you'd need more than three such items to even find out, because if even one of your attuned items has the safety mechanism, it will de-attune when you attune a fourth item.
**Why don't wizards just make items which allow more items to be used?**
The wizard who originally developed the specific enchantments didn't tell people how to. The magic, as it is currently shared, has so tangled up the limiting magic with the other aspects of the enchantment that other wizards haven't figured out how to do one thing without the other, and they would have to develop the whole technique from scratch to get around the limit. (And maybe some are working on just that.)
On the other hand, even many wizards would rather just stick to three items than risk suddenly dropping dead, and they have no interest in overcoming the safety feature.
[Answer]
The first thing that comes to mind is that the item is doing exactly as designed.
It is a single item with two functions that operates in the normal way, so to speak. First, it has three "outlets" that allows items to be attuned to them. Once attuned, the items draw power from those "outlets". The other function is to have an "outlet" reserved for personal use so that if a caster is powerful enough, they can still use their own remaining magics to cast things.
Its design could be based off of the methods and rituals that are used to bind a person's magical energy to their creations. If the idea is that you enchant the item and hook it into a person's resevoir, then this is just the hooks into the resevoir. Other items can now be created to actually hook into those.
An item can only do what it is designed to do, and to modify it from its original design is a dangerous thing.
A visual perspecive might be spreading a person's resevoir out into a triangular plane defined by the ring. At the corners, it is possible for the magic to escape. But because it's a point, it can only escape so fast and the ring is designed to limit the rate of escape (your 5 unit restriction). At the middle of this plane is the most pressure from a person's resevoir. For an average person, there is not enough pressure here to cast. For a trained mage, they can force our magic from this point (by design) to cast spells and otherwise do magic.
**But Why Three?**
As to why a person can only hook into three items in this way? Perhaps three is the practical limit of this magitech at this time or at all. As this is new territory, the answer could be solved for three points fairly easily and safely. Solving it for four vents is exponentially harder, if a solution is possible at all.
From a more logical perspecive, three points define a plane and three lines define a single shape. A similar premise is at work here -- three vents that allow attunement are the most stable configuration for the ring's design as well as for an relatively untrained person to use without special training. It was also the problem they could solve safely and mass produce. Also if I remember my geometry right, with a triangle, there is exactly one point equidistant from all three sides -- this is your personal casting point mentioned above.
For actual mages that would have the capacatity to attune and cast? Well that stability is needed for them as well. Since the ring creates non-permanent connections in the sense that the bindings are not permanent until destroyed like they normally are, they will always fluctuate slightly. For a (relative) mundane, this doesn't matter. For a caster that needs to have full control over their power to cast spells properly, it can be potentially devastating. The stability of the triad limits the fluctuations and feedback which minimizes the need to greatly adjust spells on the fly to prevent them exploging in your face.
[Answer]
## The band uses the magic.
You can't just "attune" for free. There's a transmission cost. In this case, it's 95% of the magic. Still, before attuning, the magic was completely useless to you, now it's somehow useful, hence the trade-off.
The more power you have, it turns out, the more power the band must use to regulate it. A powerful mage is in grave danger of flooding out the system and causing explosions and other untoward, or even merely inconvenient, results. Therefore, the band, in a positive feedback loop, uses up the more power as soon as the more power is available to it.
[Answer]
First of all, a bit of background, we need to take into account the three ways (so far) one may use magic in this world, such as such as having a lantern (an object which emits light, as opposed to a fire torch or a candle).
* The magician produces the light / lights the object by himself.
Light may come from his own hands, be a flying ball, or radiate from his staff (think that image of Gandalf in Moria). Even though the wizard may have made the light appear from the *lantern* he is holding, the lantern itself is not a magic item. The magic making that light appear is coming directly from the magician. The spell is simple, useful and requires little magic. How much you exactly spend will depend on how far you want to see, the lumens you are making our of the lantern, and for how long. A wizard will unconsciously be automatically tuning it as needed. And when he no longer needs the light source, he simply stops the casted light. Since a break of ½-2 hours is enough to recover from powerful spells, something like this would probably be restored in less than five minutes.
* There is a permanent item embedded of magic.
In this case the lantern would be a magic artifact. As it takes a lot of effort to create, a lantern would probably not be a good use of resources [it makes for a nice 'school' assignment, though. Apprentices can startpracticing with artifactcraftship, and light are good to show in a visual way their magic (if you don't think that would be needed, then you never had to explain to an apprentice that they are not casting uniformly around themselves, OTOH "see your lantern is barely lit from this side" is understandable to their previous, materialistic experience)]. Maybe, for a light tower, it would make sense to create an artifact between several mages, rather than having multiple wizards taking turns, as they need to do during stormy nights. The creation ritual is much longer, but less demanding than what would be needed for producing flashes during a bad night.
* Using a runic-band-based item
These are the items you ask on this question, and are completely different than the previous artifacts. In fact, the name is also completely different, but non-practitioners "don't get it". This is an abacus, the other an electronic calculator, yet for them both are "that counting thing". Exasperating.
When would that be useful? Let's suppose this night the wizard is studying a grimoire and preparing some spells. His wife wants to read poems in the living room and the servant needs to go to the larder to pick/leave some items. Some candles would do that perfectly, but that would cause a lot of drama, as if living in a house with a wizard meant that people became allergic to non-magic light. Yet, he doesn't want to leave his grimoire to go lighting the path to the cook. Or be lighting the poems. Even if he didn't need to be in the same room as the targets, he would still want all his power available, not lighting other mundane things.
An item powered by a *muggle* nicely solves all of this. Most importantly, it doesn't keep his own magic captive. It also opens the door to a commerce of magic items which wouldn't be possible before (a king or a lord might have an artifact, holding magic from his own wizard, but this allows everyone to have magic items, as they would only consume their own magic).
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Enough background about the different types of magic actions. Why do runic band items have a concurrency limit?
It is established that people have a *container* where their magic is stored. Powerful mages can store more of them, and it is possible to enlarge it somewhat through practice. When cosmic rays go through people, their magic energy may get stored there (if there's space for it). There is no much difference on the ratio of different people recharging (although it is non-linear, the more full your tank is, the harder it is to fill it up).
However, when it comes to emptying it, there is a single "faucet" through which the magic comes out.
On the first case, the magician is actually the one opening the faucet as much as he wants (up to the maximum), and pushing the magic -with more or less force- to go out.
On the second case, "a portion of the magic container" (to express it in lay terms) has been moved into the object. That is also restricted to the amount that may flow in the "open" position (it's like taking out magic with the wrapper still around it), but enchanting a permanent object is a really slow ritual (partly due to this). Once placed in the object, it is possible to use it with little to no limitations.
However, a runic attachment is like connecting a pipe to the faucet. The pipe connector is rigid, has a fixed diameter and forces the faucet to be open (note the magic wouldn't go out on its own, as it's too dense). [1] Wearing three of these items look like this:
([Image](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Disk_pack3.svg) by [Koko90](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Koko90) and [Antonsusi](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Antonsusi))
It doesn't matter the amount of magic that the user has stored inside them, there is no space to connect another runic-band-item. A wizard or a witch can have multiple spells active simultaneously, dynamically providing more or less magic to each of them, but these connections of these items are rigid, like an intravenous syringe.
As a consequence mages dislike using these items themselves and prefer the lower-level method of making spells they fully control (i.e. the first option).
A day is roughly the period it takes for the "runic syringe" to penetrate into the "magic tank" of the user through the user. That's why it takes nearly a day to attune to a new runic item. And the reason people couldn't just switch runic rings to choose on the spot get a different magic action.
While you claim
>
> Most normal humans don't use their magic anyways so reserving all of it isn't a problem.
>
>
>
and it's a normal position, from a wizard point of view, as soon as runic items get into the market, you will find many people wanting to hold more than three at once.
[of those which can afford them, of course]
[1] Most laymen would be unable to cope with concepts like *letting the magic flow from them*.
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I've been wanting to make an alien planet for a while, and though I don't want it to just be an 'earth but everything is wacky colored' type thing, I honestly do not have the patience to simulate millions of years of evolution. yes, this planet will have special circumstances that the animals will 'evolve' to live in, but how do I design these creatures without spending weeks on speculative evolution, and still have them fit where they are?
[Answer]
Design the creatures how you want them to be first, and then bother yourself with how they evolved later - if you bother yourself at all with that.
A seminal work in sci-fi is The Forever War. It features a species of psionic, green, tripod "teddy bears". Why are they tripods? Why are they green? How are they psionic? Joe Haldeman never elaborated on that. The creatures appear for two or three pages, and even then only briefly.
The Forever War won the Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards. Each of these is to sci-fi books what oscars are for movies.
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If you really must explain stuff, then dark planets make for good hearing, low gravity gives you good jumpers yada-yada. If you really, really want to go into speculative evolution, then probably the story you want to write is the speculation itself. [This is a niche of sci-fi with its own cult followers](http://dresdencodak.com/2009/09/07/the-sleepwalkers/).
[Answer]
Your best option seems to be to identify which main unique traits you want for each creature, determine where they live, then research our own animals which live in a similar habitat to have a better idea on how they'd look like.
This might seem like your "earth but everything is whacky colored" problem, but here's the problem regarding biology: there's no such thing as copyright in nature, so a specific trait or body plan which is advantageous for a creature can and likely will evolve multiple times in species which originally had very little in common. This occurrence is called ["convergent evolution"](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convergent_evolution) and has happened several times here on earth throughout history, with flying squirrels and sugar gliders being a very good example (both look very similar, but one is a marsupial mammal while the other is a placentary mammal).
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/V8HFr.jpg)
So in essence, it's all about identifying the similarities between your world's habitats and those found here on earth, thus seeing what would likely be similar in your own creatures and then determine traits which evolved differently from creatures on earth. Of course, you can still have creatures completely unlike anything that's ever walked on our planet, but know that the existence of creatures which look similar on the outside is far from unrealistic or a sign of a lazy job, and the sheer amount of different creatures and traits on our own planet just shows how you don't have to worry about creating an entire evolutionary graph for them to look real (without genetics and the studies in biology, I doubt anyone would ever believe you, a cat, an ostrich and a dinosaur all came from a fish with stumpy leg-like fins).
Regarding reference for what you might be looking for, "subnautica" and "james Cameron's avatar" are both good examples of this process, having many creatures which look a lot like some of our own animals, but they're not quite the same due to a vastly different ancestor and due to having unique traits which their own variations in the environment selected as more advantageous. The game "the Outer worlds" are also good reference on how to combine different traits of creatures we have on earth to create something that looks pretty unique and alien-like.
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The world is at danger because the death of one singular entity called heart of the world is dying.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/BTHml.jpg)
Copyright 2014-2020 [PeteMohrbacher](https://www.deviantart.com/petemohrbacher)
The question is how do I link the death of the heart of world to the mass extinct of most of complex life on the planet.
requirements are that the creature must be able to move, their size is gigantic and represented in the image above, the world is a spherical planet with a map consisting of mostly oceans, has way less land than our earth. Other creatures in this world mostly resemble earth like ecology in the sense that there are producers which get energy from the sun, or chemicals in deep waters creatures which eat the producers and we call them herbivores and creatures which eat the other creatures which eat the producers and we call them carnivores.
Gravity is slightly smaller than on earth but not enough to float with a jump like on the moon, the planet has a night and day cycle of 3 hours of night and 3 hours of day. The planet spins faster than earth as it lacks a moon which drags and slows it down. Breathable oxygen is found in the atmosphere and oceans of this planet.
The only thing that came to my mind was ammonia, since decomposers, like bacteria for example release ammonia when processing dead animals. But while certainly the creature in question might be enough to cover a small forest in ammonia, it is not enough to cause any mass extinction. Forgot to point out that ammonia is an irritating gass which can easily kill if inhaled or drank when mixed with water.
Ah yeah, obviously the question lacks the magic tag so answers which justify this as being magical are off topic.
I think that should be enough?
[Answer]
To have one creature create such a cataclysmic event that it spreads worldwide isn't easy, especially if you want this done by purely biological and even plausible means, but it isn't impossible.
The approach I would suggest is the creature is a remnant of a feeble worldwide symbiosis, the last pillar of a reversed pyramid, unwittingly keeping the world from total collapse by its sole existence. You will need to create a completely new ecosystem with this creature at its very core.
*It is said that if all the bees on earth die, the human race will follow within 4 years.* Now killing all the bees on earth is not an easy feat (although humans seem to do a pretty decent job none the less), but it would be much easier if the existence of all the bees depended on this one creature.
The origin of the heart of the world species (from now on abbreviated as HOTW for ease) lies millions of years ago, and it was one of the first advanced creatures to evolve on this world. Due to the lack of natural predators at the time, the HOTW were soon in abundance throughout the earth. As an unnecessary (yet at the time harmless) side effect of its evolution, it started producing a rare gas as waste material. Since the HOTW were abundant, the gas soon was as well, and other creatures evolved which relied on this gas for their existence. In reaction to this, more creatures evolve which feed on these other creatures, and so on and so forth. This is your basic food pyramid, one creature produces something another feeds on, and over several hundred millennia a balance is formed, with the HOTW species as one of its pillars.
But then a predator arises, the World Killer (WK) species, which upsets this balance. It is not content with its place in the food chain, and evolves an intelligence and strength which allows it to feed on the HOTW species, a species which before went unchallenged. Due to the abundance of their prey, soon the WK are in abundance as well, wreaking havoc on the HOTW population throughout the world. With no previous need for self defence mechanisms, this is an extinction event for the HOTW species, like we have seen countless of on our own earth.
Now the issue is how quickly this happens, almost like a virus killing its host, the WK species spreads throughout the world slowly but surely eradicating one of the very pillars of the ecosystem. Suddenly the gas the HOTW produce is not as abundant anymore, and the ecosystem slowly but surely starts to collapse. With most of their prey gone, the WK species either evolve to prey on something else, or dies out due to lack of food. Either way, the damage is done. The HOTW species is all but gone, and the current ecosystem is dying with no hope of recovery. For life to continue on this planet, it will need to evolve a completely new ecosystem with a different base.
The only thing slowing the collapse of the current ecosystem is a few remnant members of the HOTW species, who as by a miracle managed to escape extinction. Yet soon they also reach the end of their lifespan, and with their potential mates scattered throughout the earth with no way to reach them, they die alone without offspring. Soon enough, only one very old, but gigantic and potent HOTW exists, the sole source of the now precious gas slowing the death of the current ecosystem. Once it dies, soon their symbiotic species will follow, and whatever else relies on them.
**The truth is, the world as you know it will die either way, and saving this creature will only delay the inevitable.**
To create this creature, you will need two things.
First of all a basic breathing system which produces a waste gas. As most creatures on our earth consume oxygen, this isn't unthinkable, and as this is a fictional world, you could use any gas that reacts with a lot of material your life could be based on. Creatures in our world are carbon based and react with oxygen, but yours don't necessarily have to. Also, it doesn't even need to be a gas, but as Halfthawed pointed out in their answer, this is the easiest way to spread a necessary resource throughout the earth. Any other rare resource would do, as long as you have a system to distribute it.
The second is an extraordinarily long lifespan compared to the other creatures in your world. You could create a turtle-like creature which has the same characteristics as an immortal jellyfish. I've seen a few questions come by on this site which would help you towards the validity of such a creature. The point of this lifespan is that from the objective of other species, this creature seems to live forever. It has been there when they were born, and will be there for a long time after. Bringing an especially intelligent species to think it is indeed immortal, and that if they save it, they will save the world. Which in reality, is unsavable.
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You know why people are so scared of nuclear weapons? Because if enough are detonated, the world would become a radioactive wasteland plagued by nuclear winter. That's the reason why nukes are more for being shown than for being used, because everyone is at risk of getting caught in the blast in a way or another.
Same thing for the heart of the world, whose internal structures and core are massive and composed mostly of radioactive uranium and plutonium. The creature, for some reason, has vast amounts of radioactive materials in its insides, resulting in something with enough fissile material within itself to make the tsar Bomba look like a banana of dynamite, should it explode. Luckily, as long as the creature remains alive, the inner mechanisms which would trigger these radioactive compounds from reacting and exploding will remain inactive. The planet's heart is basically a colossal, living WMD whose survival must be ensured to prevent the destruction of earth.
[Answer]
It's possible. But the extinction level event you have in mind will take centuries and possibly not even happen. Let's start at the beginning.
If we wipe out all of plant life on Earth, the Kingdom Animalia will slowly follow. Plants turned exhaled carbon dioxide into oxygen, which animals then use to breath and exhale into carbon dioxide. This is a wonderful example of symbiosis in nature.
Let's say this 'Heart of the World' creature has a similar symbiosis with the rest of the world. However, we're kind of restricted here - it can't be carbon-dioxide-into-oxygen, because it's one creature and the world is really big. There's no way it can produce enough oxygen. Instead, we're going to figure out what kind of symbiosis it has.
* It's a rare co-factor: Because the Heart of the World needs to supply *the world* with this chemical, it needs to be something essential, yet is only required in a short supply. This means that this chemical is a catalyst, or, more likely, a cofactor. In fact, given the sheer implausibility of this scenario, naturally evolving, at a guess, this planet was artificially engineered to be as such. The Heart of the World produces this rare cofactor and then zygotes are specifically genetically modified to required the cofactor before being development - or something similar.
* The chemical it produces is a gas: The chemical needs to spread to the four corners of the planet in question, and unless the creature ranges everywhere, (which means that it can survive every climate) the only viable method of delivery is diffusion through the atmosphere. This is take centuries, or even millenia to accomplish, but it is possible, especially if the creature is able to travel to most places in the world. Still, a gas is preferable. The gas is also heavy for a gas. This is just because we want it concentrated in the lower atmosphere - it doesn't need to be *that* heavy.
* There's a secondary delivery system: Unfortunately, cofactors aren't gases. So the first two conditions contradict themselves. *Fortunately*, there's a way around it - plants. All plants on this planet contain within themselves a process that creates the cofactor, but *only* in the presence of whatever chemical that the Heart of the World produces.
So, to recap - the Heart of the World produces an airborne messenger gas (it's basically a hormone) which then goes to plants and triggers the plants to start a process to create a cofactor which is required for the procreation of life on said planet. If the Heart of the World dies, this gas stops being produced and, eventually, after the course of hundreds or thousands of years, will cease existing in the atmosphere, thus leading to mass extinction. Assuming, of course, no plants mutate in the interim to produce the cofactor anyway.
[Answer]
**Poison Pill :**
This isn't the first time the ecosystem of the planet has been on the brink of collapse. The prior lifeforms had a metabolism deeply dependent on a specific element such as selenium as a cofactor. When most of the life was wiped out, your last survivor ate/absorbed all other organisms like it, and thus completely removed selenium from the environment. All selenium is in its body, and held tightly.
The ecosystem that evolved after has a DNA replication system that is vulnerable -REALLY vulnerable - to selenium poisoning, and DNA replication is an extremely conserved trait - it's hard to mutate this and survive. If this thing dies, especially if it dies in the ocean, as would be likely, concentrations of selenium would rapidly rise to lethal levels and sea life would collapse. It doesn't need to poison everything, just enough to cause a global environmental catastrophe.
An even nastier alternative is that there are millions of heart of the world spores around the world, shed by our good friend over the course of centuries/millennia. The young form of these critters is highly aggressive and will consume everything on the planet. Only problem is, they can't germinate without selenium. If our big friend dies, his babies wake up and eat the world. One survivor will remain after everything is eaten, and it will slowly absorb all the selenium out of the seas as it grows to adulthood...
[Answer]
There are two major sources of oxygen in the world: phytoplankton, and trees. In real life, a single aspen tree can grow into [grove of enormous size](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree)).
Suppose this tree were slightly bit more successful, and colonised the majority of Europe, Asia, and Africa. This tree would be responsible for a large proportion of oxygen proportion in this world, taking over the formerly biodiverse forests. This singular tree might have extremely mild genetic variations over its entire 85 million square kilometre (33 square mile) span, and shares circulation over the same area.
After an extended drought in South America, followed by a few unfortunate thunderstorms, the Amazon Rainforest began to burn.
To make matters worse, this aspen grove, the Heart of the World (though more accurately, the Eastern Lung of the World) got a prion infection, leading to a spreading area of dead tissue.
With the Amazon Rainforest (the Western Lung of the World) aflame, and the Eastern Lung of the World dying from infection, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would increase, and the concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere would decrease. The Eastern Lung of the World can singlehandedly handle the oxygen requirements for the entire world when healthy, of course.
If the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide increases sufficiently, then two consequences are likely. First, the acidity of seawater will increased due to carbon dioxide dissolving into water and forming carbonic acid. Second, the mean temperature of the world will increase, leading to melting of polar ice caps.
Should this second effect be sufficiently severe, then trapped gasses in the ice caps will be released, possibly leading to a positive feedback loop. Further, sea levels will rise, destroying habitats near to the coast. This may cause the death of mangroves (which fill a different niche from aspens, so will likely have remained extent until this point), and the extinction of mangrove-adapted life.
The increase in seawater acidity will lead to mass die-offs of coral, removing the niches of many forms of aquatic life.
The reduction in concentration of atmospheric oxygen, and the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide may lead to asphyxiation of larger land-dwelling life, larger insects, and some aquatic mammals. Since this also corresponds to lower concentration of oxygen in water, this may also suffocate much aquatic life.
Though not all life will perish (plankton, some plants, many arthropods, and most microorganisms will likely survive), this will constitute a mass extinction event.
The Heart/Eastern Lung of the World must move, so aspen trees don't exactly fit. However, we might loosen the definition slightly. The Heart of the World forms a symbiotic relationship with a species of animal, known as Dryads. These dryads are completely dependant on the Heart, which excretes a nutritious syrup from specialised trunks, from which the dryads feed.
The dryads, in order to protect themselves from predators, have evolved to look very similar to the tree trunks. Further, they are very protective of these trunks (damage near to a feeding trunk worsens the taste of the syrup, so the dryads do their best to protect all the trees).
The dryads also are influenced by the hormone content of the syrup; the composition of the syrup is in turn controlled by the complex interconnected root network (which behaves almost analogously to a brain).
Taken together, an outside observer would see "trees" come to life to protect the grove as a whole.
It is, of course, obvious that if the tree dies, the dryads will go extinct.
**TL;DR:** If a giant tree provides most of the oxygen in the world, then if it dies, runaway global warming causes a mass extinction event. The tree is actually two species: the producer which is actually much like a tree, and the symbiotic dryads, which protect and carry out the will of the Heart of the World. The dryads move, and appear to be the exact same thing as the Heart of the World.
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[Question]
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Life points are creatures spawning in random places around the world, they grow to the size of an apple and resemble hearts made of crystal of various colours.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/0kkaL.jpg)
They get their names from the ability to bring back to life and health various animals, including humans.
How can the mechanism of how life points bring back to life dead animals be explained?
Requirements are that ressurected animals must be able to move and retain at least some of their memories, the mechanism must be entirely biological.
[Answer]
One possibility is that your life points are a symbiotic parasite that seeks out wounded hosts. If they find a compatible wounded host they could use a large pool of undifferentiated cells to accept the DNA of the host and rapidly reform itself to be compatible with the host's body. Your new arm, leg, heart, or whatever it had to replace will function just like your old one, but they are actually a parasite that feeds off of your body's nutrients and injects its larva into you so that following some transaction with nature (feces, dieing, etc) You leave behind a bunch of eggs that grow into more life points.
As for resurrection, that is a whole other ball game. You can not create what is not there. Once the body dies, the brain begins to loose cohesion and memories start becoming irreparably damaged after just a few minutes. Some animals like the axolotl can regenerate a damaged brain just fine; so, repairing the brain of a recently deceased host and resuscitating him is theoretically possible, but his memories would be lost.
[Answer]
The notion of [information-theoretic death](https://infogalactic.com/info/Information-theoretic_death) is probably relevant here. Whereas [medical brain death](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_death#Medical_criteria) is defined in terms of the loss of certain bodily functions and is typically irreversible (in real life), information-theoretic death occurs when enough of a brain’s information is destroyed to prevent the “original person” from ever being reconstructed. Brains are pretty complicated, so unless you’re willing to do some serious hand-waving, your “extra lives” probably won’t be able to protect against
* Severe cranial injuries
* Some neurodegenerative diseases
So if a boulder falls on one of your characters’ heads, you may be out of luck. However, we might be able to semi-plausibly deal with some common causes of death:
* **Blood loss.** Have your “extra lives” contain lots of [erythropoietin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erythropoietin) to stimulate production of red blood cells, as well as lots of [coagulants](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coagulation) to help block up open wounds.
* **Drowning/asphyxiation.** Fill the “extra life” with oxygenated red blood cells or hemoglobin that can be added directly to the blood.
* **Starvation/malnutrition.** Fill it up with a calorie-rich “ambrosia” that also contains many different essential nutrients and minerals. Even better, fill it with glucose that can be added to the bloodstream directly.
You get the idea. All of them could also be spiked with something like epinephrine, in order to temporarily make all systems functional again so that they can be healed more thoroughly. However, there are some problems with this approach that might make it less-than-ideal for your purposes:
* It will be rather difficult to have an all-purpose “extra life.” Using this method, the “extra lives” will have to be specialized based on the cause of death. (Maybe the different colors correspond to different causes of death that they’re able to “reverse.”)
* If you were intending for humans/animals to enjoy the effects of these “extra lives” by *eating them,* this approach won’t work because the effects will take too long to kick in. My examples require something to be injected directly into the bloodstream.
* Like all medical solutions, they’ll have side-effects, especially if used by someone who doesn’t need them. For example, excess clotting agents in the blood could increase risk of heart attacks. I don’t know enough about pharmacology to tell you the specific side-effects for the cocktails I’ve proposed above.
[Answer]
**Memory replication and transfer**: These are cute little symbiotes that want humans to care for them. If we aren't simply hand waving and saying "because magic," then a thing like this exists as a memory sink, copying memories from the carrier. (insert memory replication method of choice here) If a person suffered a serious head injury, they would be able to download memory and personality from the stone to "fix" lost memories.
* For anyone other than the original finder of the stone, these are very dangerous. The stones will transfer memories and personality from the original owner to the new owner. "Oh! look! a gem! I'll just pick this up and..." ZAP. First it would override the nervous system, paralyzing the person during memory synching. The resulting person would have a mix of memories and motivations from both persons, but whichever you wanted could dominate.
* You could impose whatever limits or restrictions you wanted on this. It could be as innocent as a child carrying a parent's stored memories and granting the stored person occasional moments of life, to a dominating enslavement like in the movie *The Host*. Maybe the stone needs to be swallowed, and the digestive process makes it able to grow into the new host and transfer memories. Transfer can take as little or as much time as you might want. Different stones might each have differing effects. The possibilities are endless.
* A person losing their stone would be vulnerable to having their memories essentially stolen. You want a brilliant general? Steal Alexander the Great's stone, and give it to a random person. Perhaps the abilities of the resulting person could be limited by the abilities of the new host. Give Alexander the Great a stone from your loyal servant, and you have a loyal servant who's a brilliant tactician and looks just like Alexander - and probably has access to Alexander's memories.
[Answer]
**They don't bring back the dead, they bring what you thought of them to life.**
You must agree with me that, unless we bring things such as souls and the afterlife, bringing an animal back to life (in the sense that every single cell in its body has already died and suddenly being reanimated) is impossible. Yet life points seem incredibly persistent into doing its best to comfort you by granting your wish of bringing someone back to life.
So what are they doing? Reading your mind, of course. Life points will probe the brain of the wishers for any information regarding what they're trying to bring back to life, such as species, overall behavior, mannerisms, habits, etc. Once it's complete, it will go haywire, absorbing as much components as possible to achieve the necessary mass. Once it's gotten what it needed, a life point will enter a pupa stage, creating a flexible cocoon around it and undergoing a metamorphosis stage, in which it will acquire the appearance and traits of the dead person/animal, doing its best to replicate as well as possible.
Once the pupa stage is over, your precious loved one, pet, friend or whatever being you wished for will return...kinda. Are you sure your friend who was so nice to you was nice to everyone? Or that your grandmother treated her friends exactly like you? A life point can't really bring the person to life, and in its attempt to grant your wish, it will replicate not the deceased person or animal, but your idealized version of them based on your own experience. That is why the ones brought back seem off to those other than you and don't seem to have many memories. How could the life point fully remember a party your grandpa went to if all you know about it comes from pictures and from your grandfather's stories.
Life points aren't perfect, they're biological organisms with incredible abilities, yes, but they aren't omniscient. It can't give back what was lost by the natural life cycle, but maybe it can make a desolate wishers happy by giving them an illusion that might just be good enough.
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In a world with a magic system halfway between hard and soft, which doesn't require technology due to said magic. It has to be remembered that magic isn't uncommon, but powerful magic is. It costs hefty amounts to see a healer, so peasants wouldn't. How would this affect medicinal development?
Edit 1: People wouldn't bother to research medicine because of the healers. Therefore, medicinal advances would maybe be considered magical advances.
Edit 2: Building on the previous edit, **research would not happen, and if it did, it would be in very small amounts, and not large enough to be recognised or acknowledged.**
[Answer]
As a medical professional, I hate to say it, but I think the existence of **magical healing would crush the development of modern medicine**. At the least, it would delay it centuries. The existence of magic would be a huge slap in the face of the development of scientific theory. Florence Nightingale would have become a healer and campaigned against medical "quackery." There would be LOTS of pressure to move magical healing into the realm of the common man, but if the rich could obtain reliable healing and the poor don't have access, there would be little pressure for serious people to follow medicine (which would suffer the same treatment as midwives and herbalists). Medicine languished even when it was clearly superior to the alternatives. Effective healers would become rich, powerful, influential (think Rasputin) and would quash the competition. Justifiably, at the time.
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**It will actually speed up medicine development**
So as suggested by [demigan](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/48354/demigan) understanding of medicine coupled with statistics is quite new. However "research" into medicine was not. The problem was that since the scientific method was not practised there was little way to know what worked and what not, creating doctors who believed that something would work without any proofs. Also, as mentioned, it was hard to separate quacks from professionals.
Having magical healing presumably solves both (depending on the magic system). To heal somebody (magically or otherwise) you would need to see how ill somebody is and whether the magic you are performing is healing the body. So a magical healer should be able to very easily see what the healing effect of certain potions and concoctions are. Furthermore since any magical healer will be a professional (seen against us normal mortals) it automatically adds a certain professionalism to medicine development.
So basically make a medicine, feed it to an ill person and let a magical healer determine the effects. Even in our current technological society, medicine companies would kill for this abbility.
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I dont think it would change much.
Scientific approach to medicine is fairly new, while a lot of people had done something to improve our lives like Florence Nightingale using statistics to prove how valuable hygiene was on the battlefield it didnt become a fully regulated science-based practice until recently. And even today there's millions that still prefer magical thinking when it comes to their health. Magnetism, soothsayers, people who randomly do stuff to your aura (or so they say), psychics (why though?) Etc. On the other hand people also still have magical thinking for bad health conditions. With the lockdown for most countries people feel like they are losing control and they use magical thinking to develop conspiracy theories that lead nowhere or are banana's, just so they can feel a measure of control in their life. 5G causes Corona (how?), Corona was deliberately created (why? How do you keep every single virologist involved quiet?), 5G causes harm to growing children (this was said even before it became active, how do you find out? Where are these children? Who tested it/found out?).
Anyway: throughout history people had to rely on what the salesman told you, wether it was a snake oil salesman or an actual person who studied for years (and subsequently does some bloodletting with an uncleaned knife and attaches leeches to you). Its going to be hard to filter out the real magic from those who fake it, but that was true in the past as well. At some point the scientific method is going to take hold, at which point all medicine will become science-based including magic. The "worst" where medicine will lag behind is with difficult operations that can be solved with magic fairly easily. However, any large scale warfare will as always boost scientific discovery, if all your mages are exhausted you want medicine to relieve the need for magic and to step in when magic runs out. And with the scientific method you could perhaps use magic to create short-cuts in medical research. Imagine if someone uses magic to find out about hygiene? Or uses magic to identify compounds that repel infections giving you penicillin long before our history would get it?
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In a world where magic is real, from the start it would be seen by people as something natural and just part of the universe. It would therefore be integrated into science, just like physics or chemistry.
DJ. Klomp has [a good answer on how that would look like](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/175425/21222). I'd take it one step further - not only would magic be integrated into medicine, it would be integrated into pharmaceuticals too. Healing potions can be an actual thing. This does not mean they displace penicillin, because each may have their own scope to start with (if magic is a thing, expect the existence of magic-resistant microbes).
But *enchanted* penicillin? Man, your world is much closer to panacea than our own real world.
[Answer]
Rich people tend not to go to places where they are likely to catch diseases or injure themselves, so there are two possible situations: healers charge high rates and only very rarely get paid and pharmacists get a lot of money(unlikely unless healing is very dangerous/needs expensive component for the spell) or healing is dirt cheap and medicine only exists for settlers or in places where healers are rare (maybe not at all if healers have a "per month" rate)
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A thought occurred to me, and I wondered if it could be made practical...
This [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNvzZfsC13o) talks about the possibility of electrical battery powered planes, and in short, while it may be practical to build *small* aircraft using battery power, unless batteries get an energy storage density about ten times greater than what we have today, making commercial airliners using them never will. But what if the airliners were powered by ground-based microwave transmitters? We've apparently managed to get the transmission losses to less than 20%, so how practical would it be to build relays of airplane power transmitters along land-based flight routes and use them to power fully electrical airliners?
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There is practical problem: microwaves is also what [radar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar) uses
>
> A radar system consists of a transmitter producing electromagnetic waves in the radio or microwaves domain, a transmitting antenna, a receiving antenna (often the same antenna is used for transmitting and receiving) and a receiver and processor to determine properties of the object(s).
>
>
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To power your airplane you will need a focused beam, and this means that as soon as a radar reflective object (another plane, cloud, rain) is between your source and your airplane, the plane will receive less power, eventually even no power at all. Either because the beam is reflected or because the relative phase between the beams is disturbed, leading to a loss of focus.
Moreover, it would be difficult to supply planes flying in the same direction, since they would need to share the same emitter.
All in all I doubt that such a system could reach the reliability expected by aviation industry.
[Answer]
TL;DR: flight is very energy intensive, and you'll have to build a lot of power stations and then build a vast and expensive network of directed energy weapons and persuade travellers that having you shoot at them is a *good* thing.
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It is a little bit hard to pin down exactly how much power is required to keep an airliner in the air, but [this KLM blog post](https://blog.klm.com/jet-engine-propulsion-the-comparison-of-power-between-a-car-and-an-aircraft/) suggests that a [Boeing 777](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_777) produces about 23MW at cruising altitude. Takeoff is *significantly* more energy intensive, but lets imagine there's some other solution to that problem.
[This link](https://www.rd.com/advice/travel/how-many-planes-are-in-the-sky/) suggests that there are 8000-20000 aircraft in the air at any given time, though of course most of these won't be airliners. If we assume that there are, say, 5000 airliners in the air, and each needs 20MW of power, that's a nice round 100GW of *received* power. High energy microwave production isn't the most efficient thing in the world, but a nice [gyrotron maser](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrotron) should manage at least a 50% efficiency, so including transmission losses of 20% that's a total required generating power of 240GW. The USA in 2017 had a total installed summer generating capacity of [1072GW](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_States#Generation), and the total world grid supply in 2014 was about [6142GW](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption#Electricity_generation), so you can see that this is a non-trivial amount of power to handle (and that 240GW is a super-ultra optimistic total best case, by the way. It'll be much, much higher, see below).
I'm not going to try and estimate the number of ground stations you'd need, or the power switching capacity you'd need to feed them. You'll need to lay them out along flight paths so they won't be completely evenly distributed, so they can at least have their own purpose built power supply lines, which will of course need to be redundant because they are safety critical systems, but maybe someone else will consider this issue and let you know how inconvenient it will be (I'm guessing somewhere between "quite" and "very").
Next up is power density at the target.
A Boeing 777 has a wing area of about 428m2. If you cover that with your microwave rectennae, you need to be delivering ~47kW/m2. In the US, occupational safety limits for microwave radiation are ~10mW/cm2. Proposed microwave solar power sats would be limited to a peak intensity of [23mW/cm2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-based_solar_power#Safety). Your beams are ~470x more intense that the OSHA limit, and ~200x more intense than the powersat design. There are some serious risk assessements required in there, I think you'll find! This is also the best-case scenario where the plane is being zapped from directly below it (in level flight). As the beam angle with vertical increases (because the plane is flying away from the emitter) the power density will necessarily have to increase to the point where it starts looking like an energy weapon, not a power supply. More ground stations can reduce this problem, but vastly increase cost and complexity of the system.
This also assumes that all the emitted energy is absorbed by the rectenna grids, of course. in practise, you'll have pointing errors, so you'll need to be producing a much higher energy beam that fully encompasses the silhouette of the target aircraft, so you'll be illuminating the fuselage (often filled with meaty cargo) and wasting masses of power that simply misses any rectenna and flies off into space, substantially increasing the power requirements of the ground stations. I'm not going to estimate how much, because phased array pointing accuracies and diffraction shapes are fiddly to work with, but I'm going to say that it will at least *double* the power requirements, and will probably require much more juice than that.
[Answer]
The concept of beamed power to aircraft has been around for quite a while, and was first demonstrated by [William C. Brown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_C._Brown) in 1964.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/hc4RJ.jpg)
*William C Brown and a microwave powered helicopter. The large square is the antenna to receive the microwave beam*
Since 1964, various other designs have been proposed, using beamed energy from lasers or microwaves, and using the energy to turn motors or directly or indirectly heat working fluids. The main sticking point is the lack of beam infrastructure (particularly large and powerful enough beams to actually power commercial aircraft). Dean Ing and Leik Myrabo wrote a book outlining the state of the art in the 1980's called "[The Future of Flight](https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0671559419)". Myrabo did extensive studies on the use of laser technology to propel spacecraft, but many of his inventions and ideas also translate into atmospheric flight as well.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/8Hr0h.jpg)
*Early concept for a "lightcraft"*
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/z2XoV.png)
*More advanced idea, including using the skin of the "Light craft" to manipulate the airstream using MHD fields*
With present technology, the most probable means of achieving laser of microwave assisted flight would be to have the emitters in orbit and beaming "down" to the top of the aircraft. The engines would burn normal fuel until they reached cruising altitude, then establish a "handshake" with a beaming station overhead and use the laser or microwave energy to heat the air in the combustion section of the jet engine, reverting to on board fuel for landing.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/f2h3F.jpg)
*Mirror in orbit. A practical system will need hundreds of these to direct and focus laser beams*
So while the idea is theoretically possible, to successfully carry it off requires a massive investment in infrastructure in space just to accomplish a fairly modest fuel saving (the most use of fuel is during take off and landing). Myrabo himself suggested that the best use for laser powered lightcraft would be to create ballistic capsules which would simply blast into the sky and fly a ballistic arc to the destination, where it would receive another input of laser power to land. The passengers would experience a "roller coaster" ride with both positive and 0 G during the flight, but also be able to fly from London to Sydney in a half hour.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/FXFQp.jpg)
*Concept of a lightcraft accelerating into a ballistic trajectory. Part of the energy is reflected back in the flight path to create an area of low pressure to reduce drag at hypersonic speed.*
Using different forms of energy would seem to create the conditions for different forms of flight.
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[Question]
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Although I'm aware of the real life existence of [aerosports](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esZHktPU27k) involving planes, exactly how nimble can I expect my [planes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_A6M_Zero), of a similar size, to be. If I were to design or have a racing course for said vehicles, the question is, what is the extent of the vehicular aerobatics I could require to preform to complete a race through possibly a [redwood](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoiadendron_giganteum) forest.
*To summarise:*
* **This would all occur on Earth**
* **With planes of a similar size and shape to the [Japanese Zero](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_A6M_Zero)**
* **The method of propulsion does not need to be anything specific but the size and shape of the plane must remain similar.**
* **What is most nimble I can expect my aeroplanes to be?**
[Answer]
The limitation of "nimbleness" for a piloted airplane is the pilot.
A human pilot can't take prolonged G loads much over 6G, even with a G-suit and extensive training and experience. Shorter period loads can run as high as 8G without undue hazard. It's not particularly difficult to build an airframe that can withstand 12G positive and negative (usually, however, there's no need for the negative G rating to match the postiive, as few aircraft can generate as much G load in outside maneuvers as they do on inside).
Therefore, you can build aircraft that can take more than a human pilot -- and your limitation is about 8G positive, around 4.5 G negative, for the human pilot to remain functional continuously.
For remotely controlled aircraft (as mentioned in comments) the G limit might be up to 100G -- I've built models with wood structure that handled 20+ G positive; use of carbon fiber to improve both lightness and strength will push that figure up. Here, the limitation is the control "loop" -- with good R/C gear, the airplane will receive pilot inputs anywhere within sight and perhaps a bit beyond -- but if the pilot can't see the airplane, and see *where it is* relative to obstacles like the trees in the question, they can't maintain adequate control, or will have to fly conservatively.
First person view doesn't help this much -- the pilot can see what the airplane "sees," but has very limited (or no) peripheral vision, no ability to look over his shoulder, limited instruments in the VR hood -- it's like playing a video game. And with most first person setups, a single camera on the model means the pilot has no effective depth perception, even if the VR hood provides dual displays.
In the end, while a model or RPV can fly much higher performance maneuvers than a piloted craft, the other limitations may make them little if any superior to a piloted craft for an obstacle-laden race situation.
[Answer]
The "nimbleness" of the airplane depends a lot on how it is designed. The A6M Zero is about as nimble as any WWII era fighter of the era due to factors like power to weight ratio, wing loading, the strength of the materials used to build the aircraft and so on. You could probably build a replica A6M using composite materials, powered by a compact gas turbine engine and with modern aerodynamics (such as the wing profile and aerodynamic aids) which would be far superior in most aspects to the WWII era aircraft, but not really significantly "more" nimble.
What is needed is a clear understanding of the role the aircraft is designed to take, and for an exceptionally aerodynamic performance, the aircraft would likely not look anything like a WWII era fighter. The design would likely need to have as much mass concentrated at the center of gravity, and the wings might actually be arranged in an "X" or "+" pattern to provide lift at any aspect. Perhaps counterintuitively, contra rotating propellers may be needed so the aircraft does not have any torque effects that affect handling one way or another. Certainly a power to weight ratio greater than 1:1 will also be needed for vertical manouevres.
One conceptual design which might fit the bill was the "[Carter Hummingbird](http://www.esotec.org/hbird/HTML/Viability_F.html)". While the designer has not actually built the aircraft, scale models were built, which should give you the idea:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/L8C9g.jpg)
*Carter Hummingbird concept scale model*
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/A1nCb.jpg)
*Rear 3/4 view*
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Jezmm.jpg)
*In flight*
This is not the only possible configuration. I have seen some discussion on the "X-Planes" forum of various conceptual aircraft, some of which generate most of the lift using rotating airfoils (at that point, they are not really propellers in the way we usually think of them). Given both propulsion and lift are provided by the same system, the aircraft would be manouevred through the application of different amounts of pitch in the rotating airfoils.
Once again, there has been no actual aircraft flown in this manner (to my knowledge), although some very late WWII era German point interceptor designs like the Focke-Wulf Triebflügel or the Heinkel Wespe utilized variations of this principle. Post war "Convoy escort" fighters like the Covair "Pogo" would also have similar flight characteristics simply through the sheer power to weight ratio needed for vertical take off.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/2SC3D.jpg)
*Focke-Wulf Triebflügel*
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/x8wxb.jpg)
*Heinkel Wespe*
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/MFQLv.jpg)
*Covair Pogo taking off*
Of course, a jet powered aircraft can have amazing performance by adopting the vectored thrust system of the Hawker Harrier "Jump Jet". One scaled down to the size of an A6M might not be able to carry sufficient fuel for prolonged flights, however.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/v3oUN.jpg)
*AV8 Harrier in flight*
So if there is a clear understanding of the flight environment the aircraft has to perform in, then it can be designed specifically for aerobatic performance, indeed to the point that it might not even be flyable by human beings.
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Given the perfect environment, denser atmosphere, oxygen rich, maybe lower gravity, how large can a flying insect get and still be able to walk upside down on a surface?
This question starts to tackle it but doesn't give a definitive answer plus the OP states a particular weight which may be too heavy, [Large spider walking upside down](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/22806/large-spider-walking-upside-down)
As this is an alien species it doesn't necessarily need to have the same sticky method as insects with tiny hairs, it could be something like a gecko or something entirely different as long as its not too sticky they get stuck.
[Answer]
It depends on the mechanism it uses to stick to the ceiling (and on the ceiling material).
Using the multiple-tendril mechanism of gecko feet, you can bear a weight of about ten Newton per square centimeter (a mass of one kg in Earth gravity; six on the Moon, and so on). This means that theoretically, and if the ceiling plaster doesn't give way making it fall down, a human-sized insect with webbed hands and feet could easily walk upside down in Earth gravity. If it had more than four legs, all the better.
Using simple adhesion ("stickyness") you probably can't go heavier than about five hundred milliNewtons per square centimeter, but with reduced gravity and feet enough, human size is again doable. Even more so if the insect is less dense than a human being.
Chemical bonding allows even higher weights; the limit is the tensile strength of the ceiling material, provided that it is amenable to that specific kind of bonding (you woudn't be able to walk on a smooth PTFE ceiling). But you'd leave large tracks, you'd need to go comparatively slowly and the need to secrete the appropriate "superglue" would exact a very heavy biological toll. Some marine gasteropods do something similar though, so an alien insect also might.
An intermediate solution would be to use heat glue - you'd almost surely need an omeothermic creature for that, which Earth insects aren't. The insect would be capable of "heating" its appendages, thereby making the organic "glue" secreted by its extremities semiliquid; once the foot has taken hold, it would cool, and the glue would set guaranteeing a good grip. In Earth conditions this would only allow a *really* slow gait (a sort of insectile [sloth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-toed_sloth), maybe). The foot would naturally gather dust and other debris, so the creature would need to periodically fling the dirty glue away.
Or perhaps - depending on the nature of the "ceiling" - an insect might evolve the equivalent of harpoons or drills to anchor itself. The [peacock mantis shrimp](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odontodactylus_scyllarus) is capable of cracking small rocks and "drilling" cavities in shells and burrows in concrete and live rock by bashing its appendages against it; a similar method could allow to quickly drill small cavities which, filled by an expanding palp, would allow "walking" on vertical walls or ceilings to a creature of almost any size ( again, provided the walls or ceiling did not undergo structural failure).
[Answer]
I think you would need to specify the force of gravity at the very least to get anything close to a specific answer. Insects grew much larger during the Carboniferous period presumably due to the richly oxygenated atmosphere, but gravity is really the determining factor. The giant bugs seen in classic sci-fi could not exist because they would collapse under their own weight. Their exoskeletons could not support their weight. Before somebody calculates sizes, assume that your planet is less massive than the earth, that the insects’ exoskeletons are much thicker than just a scaled-up version of our own, and that they might have evolved some other sort of internal support (I.e. bones) to ensure their structural integrity.
[Answer]
If the creature is not from Earth and forces at work are up for discussion, you have carte blanche really. What if the evolutionary path on that planet dictated very strong and light materials making up the exoskeleton and connective materials? If it flies under it's own strength, it's probably already an optimized weight for the size/gravity ratio.
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[Question]
[
I'm looking for a bullet that makes **the target** explode. A bullet filled with explosives and explodes on impact does not suffice. It has to make **the target** explode somehow.
Currently, my only idea is a bullet that meets such a requirement is a heat bullet: when shot at a target with water (organic life forms), the heat stored in the bullet is rapidly spread to the target and creates a steam explosion.
The method of production and storage how the "make-them-explode" stuff in the bullet does not matter. I just want the bullet to make stuff blow up, one way or another, using the stuff naturally inside the target as the "explosives". The more materials it can blow up (instead of just organic, may be even metals) the better.
The bullet may act as something like a *trigger or catalyst* for the explosion, but the *main material/fuel* of the explosion should be the target.
(I'd like something as realistic as possible. Going sci-fi is fine but I'd rather not just throw "quantum" around as an excuse. Even answers blackhole or antimatter would be valid types if they meet the requirements)
[Answer]
Backyard Scientist filled bullets with sodium potassium alloy, and those things blew up a watermelon very well. Fire and everything.
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T85d7ST2yxU>
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ny0OV.jpg)
That smoke trail was left by the bullet in the air. Cool stuff! I suspect these NaK bullet would only blow up things that were soft and wet. Water is what makes NaK explode, and these bullets had barely any penetrating power - they are soft and light. Hopefully you are interested in blowing up watermelons and other large fruits. Durian, maybe.
[Answer]
Energetic nuclear reactions, such as fission (of fissile materials) or fusion (of light elements) or annihilation (of anything) doesn't cause much of an explosion by itself, because there's simply not enough "stuff". In the extreme, complete annihation of matter can't be an explosion at all... just a very bright, very brief gamma-ray source.
Instead, what happens is that the intense x-ray or gamma radiation, combined with energetic fast particles such as neutrons, alpha particles and heavy fission fragments, are eventually absorbed by regular matter around them which heats up very rapidly and expands violently, forming the actual explosion. The characteristic fireball of a nuclear explosion is superheated and partially ionised air and dust, for the most part.
If your bullet contains a suitable confinement mechanism for a microgram of antimatter, the total *useful* amount of energy released is about 90MJ, of which about 60MJ is released in the form of highly penetrating 200MeV gamma rays. Given the stuff humans are made of, they have a mass attenuation coefficient of about 0.01-0.02cm2/g against photons of that wavelength, which means that over a 10cm distance only 18% of the energy will be absorbed.
Now, what follows is only slightly better than a wild guess... bulk gamma ray absorbtion is hard to calculate (because integration over a sphere-intersecting-with-a-human is awkward and because meat plasma is less absorbing than meat), but here goes anyway. I'll work it out for the most penetrating gamma rays, meaning that the actual amount of absorption will be higher which should make up for ignoring the plasma phase transition.
Anyway. If you shoot someone right in the middle of their torso, and the bullet detonated half way through, a sphere of meat 10cm in radius will absorb at least 16MJ of energy, giving an energy density of about
390MJ/kg, about a hundred times more than the equivalent mass of TNT, so it'll definately expand *energetically* as it turns to superheated and partially ionised vapour, aka a nuclear fireball. The yield over that small spherical volume is equivalent to about 4kg of TNT. In reality of course the explosion could be *more* energetic... a lot more energy will be absorbed from gamma rays travelling up and down the long axis of the body, and yet more will be absorbed by the target's clothing and equipment and immediate surroundings. Note that anything nearby that survived the blast will receive a nasty dose of radiation... I'm not going to calculate how nasty (because it is hard) but it will certainly be bad news.
[Here's a video](https://youtu.be/CMCd_ObTP4w?t=12) of 8kg TNT equivalent of high explosive. It probably won't be dissimilar to the effect of the antimatter bullet... if anything, the bullet I've look at would be much more destructive (max equivalent yield perhaps 21.5kg TNT) but this should give you a good idea of how things will go.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/qTxFZ.jpg)
The explosive was detonated inside a vehicle the size of a large family car or small van, to give you some idea of scale. The dark square object in the bottom right of the fireball was one of the doors. I suspect the actual fireball would start out brighter (perhaps blindingly white, then bright yellow-white) and then be less orange afterwards, given the elemental composition of meat, but I couldn't say for sure.
If you do make antimatter bullets, it would be inadvisable use them at close range.
[Answer]
You want your (biological) target to explode, as opposed to the bullet exploding inside the target and that explosion causing the target to fragment.
One possible way of doing this is by applying an electric current to your target in such a way that the water in their body spontaneously separates into hydrogen and oxygen and once there is very little water left the gasses combust into a large and fiery explosion.
Although this bullet might be bigger than a dump truck for all the handwavium it is going to have to contain, I think it makes up for it in cool factor. ;P
[Answer]
Somehow sealed wormhole spitting energy, that unseals on impact.
Micro black holes as bullets? Or just very very tightly compressed mass, that would be released on impact.
These are still bullets that explode, but if they cease to exist the moment they release they energy... doesn't it effectively make the target explode?
[Answer]
What is your definition of "explode"?
For instance, JFK's head exploded, parts flying up to 20 feet into the air, as shown in the Zapruder film: [](https://i.stack.imgur.com/upJOa.jpg)
That was with a simple 6.5mm full metal jacket bullet (almost impossible) according to the official report, or a 5.56mm frangible bullet (much more likely) according to [other theories](https://rbutterworth.nfshost.com/Conspiracy/JFK/).
Frangible bullets are designed to fragment upon impact and cause maximum damage.
Actual explosive charges etc. really aren't required.
[Answer]
A bullet containing an enzyme triggering spontaneous human combustion would do nicely. Obviously SHC is dubious anyway but this is SF
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[Question]
[
I'm fairly certain such a creature is impossible, but I was curious to see if anyone could come up with an explanation for such a creature. How would a two-headed giant evolve/function if it was a real creature?
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/pA4Lu.jpg)
[Answer]
[Two-headed creatures](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycephaly#Occurrence_in_animals) - or even humans - are not unknown in reality, and have even been known to survive to adulthood, so as a point mutation it is not beyond the bounds of possibility for it to occur over a very short period relative to the typical evolutionary timescale.
In order for this condition to persist across generations, there are several pre-requisite conditions that must be met:
1. That having two heads is an inheritable condition.
2. That the disadvantages in the initial generations are not such that the two-headed individuals cannot reasonably expect to survive to adulthood.
3. That on reaching adulthood, the two-headed individuals are able to reproduce.
4. That having two heads provides a net advantage to survival.
So... what possible advantage could having two heads provide when having two heads appears to be disadvantageous?
The disadvantage that having two heads appears to pose is that the two heads each have their own consciousness, and they are each in control of only half of the shared body, and they may disagree on a course of action.
However, these are not insoluble problems. The Ettin pictured has only two arms, while each of the two brains would most likely still be adapted to having sole control over an entire bipedal two-armed body, not just half of one. It is entirely reasonable to assume that there is overlap along the creature's centre-line where the respective neurologies of the two heads overlap, and given the huge areas of each head's cerebral cortex that have no direct, overt functionality in a bicephalic creature, it is easy to conceive that the intermeshing of motor and sensory neurons between the two halves of the creature could become adapted to providing a communication bridge between the heads.
Such a communication bridge would not be as fast or have as high a bandwidth as the [corpus callosum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpus_callosum), but it could quite easily provide higher bandwidth than mere verbal communication. It would not be able to make the bicephalic body have a singular consciousness in the manner that the corpus callosum allows the two halves of the human brain to function as one, but it would be able to provide sufficient co-ordination that - with practise - the creature could move as well as a monocephalic individual.
Of course, this compensation for the *dis*advantages of having two heads doesn't address the potential *ad*vantages. What might the adavantages be? Some of this depends upon the social culture of the Ettins as much as their biology, but social advantage is just as good as a physical advantage in evolutionary terms. So:
* Ettin culture may favour two-headed individuals, regarding them as being of higher status than a monocephalic individual. Why? Each bicephalic creature is home to two consciousnesses, two separate personalities... and so provides twice the weight of influence as a monocephalic individual. The neural bridge between the two heads may make them appear to be telepathic (in a sense, they are) in that experiments could be constructed to show that what one head knows but the other should not can be communicated rapidly and wordlessly to the other, and in a primitive, superstitious culture, this could be a distinct advantage.
* Where the two heads have differing sleep-wake cycles, one head could remain on guard while the other sleeps, allowing a much greater awareness of approaching danger in a hostile environment. The creature need not be faster than *all* the monocephalic Ettins… just faster than enough of them that the slower gets eaten instead. Obviously, Ettins are giants, but this does not mean that they are born large. In fact, their large size might mean that they could be born not greatly larger than a human, with a corresponding reduction in maternal risks in pregnancy. This would also be advantageous - or at least not *dis*advantageous - when giving birth to a bicephalic infant. That means that a relatively small infant or child would need to be watchful for adults who might injure them entirely accidentally. A two-headed Ettin would have twice the chance to observe these hazards and potentially avoid them.
[Answer]
Two thoughts:
First, there's no particular reason that the brain needs to be located in the head. Such a creature could have a single brain located in the body cavity, in which case the 'heads' would be little more than sensory extensions, allowing it to see, speak, and smell in different directions simultaneously. The heads would *appear* to act independently in the same way that human hands sometimes do, but would actually be coordinated by a single mind.
If the condition is that each head has its own, independent, self-conscious brain, however... I suppose it's technically feasible. The autonomic and parasympathetic systems would need a junction box somewhere at the base of the neck — possibly an in-common medulla oblongata detached from either brain — with higher cognitive functions located in each head. I cannot think of an evolutionary advantage to that setup, and each head would block the other's peripheral vision and hearing, creating problems, so I can't see that as viable. I could see it as a temporary condition — if, perhaps, the ettin reproduced by bilateral fission, and the 'double-headed' stage was its equivalent of being pregnant — but that would raise a host of other questions.
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[Question]
[
I'm thinking about making a dark (and I mean darker than Grimm dark) short adaptation of Cinderella. The gist of it is that, after a life of manual labor and emotional and verbal abuse at the hands of her stepfamily, Cinderella is extremely bitter and arguably evil.
I want to portray Cinderella as I would think she would actually adapt to such a horrible situation--and physical accuracy is one of my needs here. That brings me to my question: Cinderella is treated like a workhorse since she was, say, 6 years old, up until she's around 20.
**So what would over a decade of non-stop labor, throughout childhood development, do to her physically?** Would she be calloused and strong? I keep fixing my mind on the fact that she would be bending down quite often--could her spine be malformed?
[Answer]
A quick search on the topic of child labour and its impact on the health of the worker led me to these two papers: *[The Health Impact of Child Labor in Developing Countries: Evidence From Cross-Country Data](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1781398/)* and *[Environmental and Occupational Health Problems of Child Labour: Some Issues and Challenges for Future](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09709274.2009.11906230)*.
They focus mainly on labour in hazardous conditions, which may not be your central paradigm (although I doubt Cinderella's adoptive family cared much about her health and safety), but they also list a great number of criteria that make children more vulnerable than adults, such as:
* Greater toxin absorption, both through the skin and lungs
* More susceptible to toxins, due to an incomplete growth, especially in the brain
* Greater energy consumption, so they will suffer more from malnutrition
* Greater sensitivity to heat and cold, which will increase their fatigue both short and long term
* Weaker immune system, in part sue to all of the factors listed above but also just naturally
All of these mean that any effects of intense labour you'd observe in an adult will be exarcebated for an adult who had to endure these hardships as a child. Feel free to pick from this list of effects you could see:
* Scoliosis, or other back problems, that can lead to someone being hunchbacked, after spending years scrubbing the floor
* Reddened eyes and skin, in sensitive areas, due to exposure to toxins
* Breathing problems, such as shortness of breath, asthma, bloody coughs etc, again due to toxins
* Scars due to infection, particularly on the face (puberty is kind to none...)
* Perhaps dormant infections, contracted young and just waiting to break out in later years
* Calloused hands and feet, and probably damaged nails (ingrown, infected)
* Unbalanced strength, because Cinderella would probably prefer using her dominant arm for scrubbing
* Tendinitis and arthritis due to repetitive movement (these can manifest later on, a 20 year old with the tendons of a 35 y/o wouldn't necessarily have tendinitis, but a 40 y/o with the tendons of a 55 y/o would)
* Stumped growth and weak bones due to malnourishment
* Crooked and damaged teeth
I mentioned that a fair amount of these can manifest later on in life because one concern of mine is... Would Prince Charming really fall in love with a female Hunchback of Notredame? I know beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but still. It would probably make more sense for Cinderella to be slightly bashed from her labour, then Fairy Godmother undoes some of it temporarily for the ball, only to have it come back at midnight (hence why Cinderella ran off). Then throughout her later years, she develops other complications due to her messed up childhood.
---
Another factor to keep into account is that children are very vulnerable psychologically too. Years of abuse and neglect will leave her damaged in many many ways. This could be another point to exploit in her bitterness later on ("Step-Mother never let me eat enough as a child, so I'll be sure to have a massive feast every night now that I can"). Her various aches and pains (you could probably even call them disabilities if they've advanced far enough) probably wouldn't help with this aspect either.
[Answer]
She'd get a lot of ailments from repetitive strain injuries related to the type of work she does. For instance:
* Housemaid's Knee ([Prepatellar bursitis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prepatellar_bursitis)) if she spends a lot of time kneeling to scrub floors or similar tasks
* This website mentions lye soaps and lead lined sinks damaging the hands of housemaids who wash clothes and dishes [Edwardian servants](http://www.tessaarlen.com/redoubtable-housmaid-life-belowstairs/)
* Modern nurses suffer from [back injuries](http://ajcc.aacnjournals.org/content/12/5/400.full) when lifting patients, so expect similar if she is hauling around stacks of firewood, sacks of coal or similar
[Answer]
I did some research on some of what you mentioned, since I was interested.
It seems that, at first, she'd be rather sore and in pain. In fact, considering that Cinderella started at the age of 6, continuous, strenuous household work could constitute child abuse under some state or national laws. If I get time, I'll look that up to support my claim. It's really beside the point anyway, as Cinderella takes place in the middle ages, and her guardians don't care about her welfare.
Within weeks she'd begin to strengthen, and eventually [develop enough physical conditioning](https://www.sunrisingbedding.com/5-factors-affect-muscle-growth-children) that she wasn't in constant pain—provided she either have time for rest, or use more [ergonomic](https://www.thejoint.com/texas/houston/cy-fair-28009/211010-is-cleaning-house-causing-back-pain) [techniques](http://www.thespinehealthinstitute.com/news-room/health-blog/household-chores-and-your-back-positives-perils-%E2%80%93-and-practical-advice) for her tasks. If not, she her labours could result in permanent damage to her spine and joints, especially her [elbow](https://orthoinfo.aaos.org/en/diseases--conditions/nursemaids-elbow) when she's younger.
That's all I can think of at the moment, but I can add more later if you feel I didn't fully answer the question.
[Answer]
>
> So what would over a decade of non-stop labor, throughout childhood development, do to her physically? Would she be calloused and strong? I keep fixing my mind on the fact that she would be bending down quite often--could her spine be malformed?
>
>
>
This is really interesting situation... on one hand intensive labor, on the other, the time where the human body has the maximum chance of recovery physically/ emotionally due to youth, yet again due to stress of child labor could affect a person emotionally in the long run.
1. Assuming that the house where the steps and Cinderella were living
is wealthy, this could mean that that there is a likely hood of
other servants, where the jobs are divided ("Seriously if a few
people can do a better job than one considering that the job
includes everything... why accept sub standard work from one person"
said stepsister 1 once upon a time).
In which case the chances of having a deformity due to work go down
drastically as the physical labor at maximum could give her a scars,
wounds maybe a few burns and the ability of running about for stuff
and lifting would imply that she has become physically accustomed to
this labor thereby could lead to her being physically strong but
emotionally damaged that she has to do this while the sisters are
exposed to a lot of glitter.
2. However, this scenario could go down the drain say if the family is
middle class then answer by @DrBob would be the most likely scenario in my opinion.
There a lot of variations for this story just check [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinderella)... I think it would depend mostly in how you decide to set the story.
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[Question]
[
Deep within each sperm cell is a fully formed, miniaturized individual called a homunculus. These microscopic "little men" simply need time to gestate until they grow large enough to be born. This is the basis of preformationism, which has risen to prominence in the 19th century.
Using alchemical sciences, an individual is able to grow these humans without the use of a second parent, creating their own children from scratch. By discovering this secret to creating life, human beings can make God irrelevant and take his place as their own supreme beings.
The human male produces millions of sperm in a single day. I plan to use my own cells to create an army of homunculi, which I will then use to conquer the world. Due to this method, I have created millions of my own "children" who are subservient to my will. There have been a few hiccups, however.
These sexless humanoids have grown to be grotesque representations of humanity, being completely deformed in appearance. They contain exaggerated features, such as elongated arms, overly-large lips, giant hands, etc. Being unfully formed humans, they also lack a large degree of organs that people normally have. This should make them far weaker than humans and unable to survive for a significant degree of time. Instead, they are stronger and more resilient than normal. However, their physical forms are biologically immortal, and possess a remarkably strong healing factor that makes them difficult to kill.
How can this be explained?
[Answer]
**Magic, and literally nothing else**
Like you said in the question, preformationism was a belief held by scientists in the 19th century. But that was a grotesquely mistaken belief, and it fact the sperm is the *less* important half of the zygote. The female egg contains not only a set of 23 genes, but it also contains all the other components of the cell, including very important organelles like the **mitochondria**. In other words, even if you somehow got a 23-gene sperm to act like a zygote, it would *die instantly*, even it an artificial womb, because it has no structures within it.
So you'd need to now restructure how human sperm works, and have it somehow be a capable cell, (which in it of itself is a herculean feat) except now is when you run into a second problem - lack of DNA. Now, you *specified* sperm, which contains 23 genes. If you said you were using 46-gene somatic cells, you could (theoretically) just use clones. But you said sperm, which means we're starting out with 23 genes, and you need 46 for a human. Trying to grow a human with 23 is no go, so you could try duplicating them, except now you've managed to get an offspring with a 1.00 inbreeding coefficient, which is **bad**. As in, your description of them being grotesque is too mild for this, and they would probably die really fast, unless you (the donor) had near-perfect genetics.
Also, as a side point, you need to come up with the energy for an army that large to grow to maturity, and you've made no mention of a cloning factory on a rain-soaked water world, so I'm not sure how that stage of the process will work, but it's not as big of an issue as the rest of this, so I'll move on.
Now, for the final step:
>
> These sexless humanoids have grown to be grotesque representations of
> humanity, being completely deformed in appearance. They contain
> exaggerated features, such as elongated arms, overly-large lips, giant
> hands, etc. Being unfully formed humans, they also lack a large degree
> of organs that people normally have. This should make them far weaker
> than humans and unable to survive for a significant degree of time.
> Instead, they are stronger and more resilient than normal. However,
> their physical forms are biologically immortal, and possess a
> remarkably strong healing factor that makes them difficult to kill.
>
>
>
So, we've established why these things are grotesque - a 1.00 inbreed coefficient will do that. Lacking organs also makes sense given that 1.00 inbreed. But here's what doesn't make sense - the fact that they ignore that. You can't *ignore* lacking a 'large degree of organs'. Missing a heart will kill you. Missing lungs will kill you. Missing a liver will kill you. Missing kidneys will kill you. Then there's the fact that they are 'biologically immortal'. Only a very specific type of jellyfish is biologically immortal, but it does that by reverting to it's [polyp stage](https://immortal-jellyfish.com/) . And reverting to a polyp stage isn't something a human is capable of, because we don't have one - at best, it may be able to spawn an identical zygote, and that's just cloning. And, lastly, a 'healing factor' that makes something difficult to kill isn't something that will exist in a creature that can't manage to get all of its internal organs working. And even if it does exist, it shouldn't work at all.
Ultimately, you're trying to take the blueprints for a human, burn half of them at random, then try to build a better human out of them. Which is like taking the blueprints for, say, the Burj Kalifa burn half of it, and then mirror the parts you haven't burnt, and decide to try building something twice as tall. It's just not possible from a biological perspective. Mild handwavium won't let you get it either. The only way to do this is by just calling the whole process magic, and not go into the details.
[Answer]
# Regeneration
Cellular regeneration [does occur in humans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regeneration_in_humans), both naturally and induced. The homunculi simply have a strong regeneration capacity; normally this is crippled (but not eliminated) when the sperm cell merges with an egg, which is why we humans can regenerate some, but not all organs.
The homunculi, however, were never "distorted" by the egg; they were extracted from the sperm cell and induced into growing into their own living beings. This is a two-edged sword: the capacity for rapid regeneration was retained, but the "structure" of humanity came from the egg, not the sperm. In fact, this would help explain [why most sperm are "funny-looking" (deformed)](http://www.maledoc.com/blog/2010/04/18/the-mysteries-of-funny-looking-sperm/):
>
> The usual cutoff for strict morphology is 4%, which means that 95% of your sperm can be funny looking, and you’d still be considered to have normal morphology. That should give you an idea of how oddly shaped most sperm are in the typical male.
>
>
>
In other words, the homunculi are of course deformed - because they never received the structural integrity which comes from merging with an egg. And of course they are stronger - because they never lost their capacity for rapid regeneration!
This *pseudo-immortality* is, therefore, something like [Cell from Dragonball Z](https://dragonball.fandom.com/wiki/Cell), who can survive and regenerate if there is a single cell of his left.
[Answer]
Let us confer with the MasterMind of Mars, Ras Thavas, and consider the benefits of **polyploids** for an endeavor such as yours.
[Synthetic Men of Mars](http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100231h.html#chap7)
>
> Ras Thavas led us to an enormous room where we beheld such a spectacle as probably never had been enacted elsewhere in the entire universe. In the center of the room was a huge tank about four feet high from which were emerging hideous monstrosities almost beyond the powers of human imagination to conceive; and surrounding the tank were a great number of hormad warriors with their officers, rushing upon the terrible creatures, overpowering and binding them, or destroying them if they were too malformed to function successfully as fighting men. At least fifty per centum of them had to be thus destroyed—fearful caricatures of life that were neither beast nor man. One was only a great mass of living flesh with an eye somewhere and a single hand. Another had developed with its arms and legs transposed, so that when it walked it was upside down with its head between its legs. The features of many were grotesquely misplaced. Noses, ears, eyes, mouths might be scattered indiscriminately anywhere over the surfaces of torso or limbs. These were all destroyed; only those were preserved which had two arms and legs and the facial features of which were somewhere upon the head. The nose might be under an ear and the mouth above the eyes, but if they could function appearance was of no importance.
>
>
> Ras Thavas viewed them with evident pride. "What do you think of them?" he asked The Warlord.
>
>
>
The production of your homunculi is a process that Ras Thavas would recognize. Each homunculus starts with the haploid genome of a sperm, and then duplicates its genome again and again, becoming massively polyploid. Polyploidy can lead to great increase in size and vitality as is seen in many cultivated fruits.
<https://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/1l8yir/so_we_got_these_monster_strawberries_today/>
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/DTxoX.jpg)
Polyploidy leading to grotesque phenotypic differences does not usually occur in whole chordate organisms. But in nonreproductive cancer cells which parasitize the host, polyploidy can likewise produce size increase – and produce other characteristics including the sidestepping of genetic safeguards that produce cell senescence and mortality.
<https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326188263_Polyploid_Giant_Cancer_Cells_PGCCs_The_Evil_Roots_of_Cancer>
>
> 4. WHAT ARE POLYPLOID GIANT CANCER CELLS (PGCCS)?
>
>
> The size of PGCCs can vary significantly and be as large as 10 to 20 times as compared with that of regular diploid cells depending on the content of the DNA and the number of nuclei in the cells. Genetically, the DNA content in these giant cells needs to be equal (4C) or greater than tetraploid (> 4C). Depending on the tumor type or treatment, PGCCs can vary in numbers and generally increase with tumor stage, grade, and treatment [19]. Endoreplication provides an efficient strategy for growth and development from plants to mammals. If energy sources are limited or if cells are in rapid growth, increasing the cell volume and DNA content without division is more advantageous [20]. Similarly, PGCCs have a distinct advantage over regular cancer cells in dealing with stresses and reproduction [3-4, 6-7]. Increasing DNA content by endoreplication is a widely utilized effective mechanism to sustain the mass production of proteins and for high metabolic activity necessary for tumor growth.
>
>
>
Your homunculi are polyploid monsters which sidestep self-destruction via well-timed magical intervention. Despite this, half or more are patently unfit for your purposes (though potentially useful for others); fortunately these culls can be recycled for their raw materials in your growth vats. What you have remaining are extremely variable in appearance and ability due to their mutational burdens. Some may require artificial sustenance of one form or another to compensate for their inborn deficiencies. You have learned to recognize and meet these needs. Some might just need dietary additions of one sort or another, or a periodic return to the vat for renewal. Some you can sustain with mechanicomagical prostheses. Some might just have a very short life expectancy.
The phenotypes of these homunculi are greatly dependent on the genotype of their “father” – all mammal males can be used to produce homunculi of some sort, but the ability to produce useful homunculi will greatly vary from one male to the next. You are fortunate in that your own genetic code and idiosyncratic mutational burden confers a useful phenotype on your own homunculus “progeny”. Homunculi produced by another male might be very, very different - but still possibly useful.
[Answer]
## A lack of proper genetic regulation
Genetic regulation is one of the most important elements of complex lifeforms, from [their prenatal development](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydqReeTV_vk) all the way through the lives, and is often [the cause of death](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hallmarks_of_Cancer) of many people nowadays. So if your alchemical growth messes with your homonculi's prenatal development, they will we be "born" misshapen and will most likely exhibit strange characteristics during their "lives". With enough research and a lot of trial and error, you could perfect your growth protocol to enhance or reduce any number of these.
>
> They contain exaggerated features, such as elongated arms, overly-large lips, giant hands, etc. Being unfully formed humans, they also lack a large degree of organs that people normally have.
>
>
>
This would probably be harder to avoid than to just leave in.
>
> they are stronger and more resilient than normal
>
>
>
In addition to an increase of muscle mass that can occur during development, if you switch off (or turn down) the part of their brains that limits how much strength their muscles are "allowed" to output, you've got yourself a pretty heavy hitter.
>
> However, their physical forms are biologically immortal, and possess a remarkably strong healing factor that makes them difficult to kill.
>
>
>
This part will probably be trickier. By biologically immortal, I'm assuming you mean that they don't die of old age. This mainly means that they won't age beyond their "late twenties" in normal human age. This can be explained in large part by active [telomerases](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomerase), through any means you see fit. As for healing, an increased regenrative metabolism would allow them to heal severe wounds, but probably nothing inconceivable. So if you chop them half, they're probably not going to be able to stitch themselves back together without some magic thrown in. Regenerating limbs would also probably take a few days, if not close to a month, to grow back in full. Bones in particular will take a while to be as sturdy as regular adult bones.
**Issues:**
if you develop homonculi with these properties, they will be *incredibly* prone to developping cancers. You could handwavium this problem away, say with a specific formula that just so happens to prevent that, or some serum that will repress the cancer cells in them or boost their immune system to beat them... The possibilities for that are endless, since it's handwavium territory. Realistically though, they probably wouldn't last more than a month without choking on their own tumors.
[Answer]
# Your 'alchemical sciences'
The very chemical process that created this had the power to "change" the DNA, thus the power to destroy parts of it.
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Further consideration, depending on your plot...
Remember, you were using chemicals to produce these beings, not genetic engineering. Had you combined DNA strands from multiple different cells to produce whole strands of DNA, you might not have had this specific problem. But, probably due to budget issues, your plan for world domination chose the less expensive rout.
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Inspired by One Piece by Eichiro Oda.
from <https://onepiece.fandom.com/wiki/Nikyu_Nikyu_no_Mi>
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/6LbV8.jpg)
Fiction has many examples of humanoid animals - things like lycans or werewolves, cat/dog/rabbit folk, etc.
My question is this: what the Paws will forms/look like or what remains of the paw look like if they have human hands and fingers instead? Will their fingers form a paw too, or will the pads be near the palm, or would it appear random, like a blister or calluses which is more on skin contact/friction or pressure (because iam not sure are calluses is basically what a paw is since from google even [paw can form calluses](https://www.dogtrainingnation.com/grooming/dog-paw-pad-callus-removal/)) ? is there any kind of paw/pads lines or paw muscle anatomy in animal hands?
I'm assuming that the humanoid animal would still have thick fur unlike humans since the paw is their way to sweat or cool down aside from their tongue or mouth (but if they can retain a paw structure even if they develop human-like skin, please explain how this might be achieved).
I imagine having/retaining a paw/pads structure would make it hard for the creature to grasp things with one hand unlike normal humans do, especially the tools shape/design for normal human hand grasping, but i ask anyway maybe i was wrong (just want confirmation).
knowing the biology or scientific/realistic anatomy forms of the paw/pads if they have human hand can help me to see and create a better grasping shape for their tools.
[Answer]
Your example image does not properly portray how a paw would become a hand. One of the most important things to remember about evolution is that the addition and subtraction of bones is VERY rare. Paws and hands both have the exact same bone structures, but we vary in the size, shape, and positioning of those bones. In a paw, the large pad corresponds to the metacarpals, and the smaller pads correspond to the distal phalanges; so, if a hand were to retain the thicker pads of a paw, it would look more like the second image below, not the 1st one.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/zuaF9.png)
The carpals which make up the proximal aspect of your palm form the elongated third bend in the appendage of a [digitigrade](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digitigrade) mammal. Mammals that develop hands need to foreshorten these carpals to bring the thumb close enough to the fingers to form a grasping hand. They also need to elongate the phalanges to form fingers.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/G0eNx.png)
Also, the shape of your claw or fingernail does not particularly affect the ability to have a useful hand; so, if your creature evolved from a cat, it would likely still have sharp feline claws. If it evolves from a dog, it will still have blunt thick claws, etc. Humans have fingernails because our monkey ancestors evolved nails before we evolved hands. Presumably because fingernails are better for tree swinging than claws.
**Real world example**
Racoons are probably your best example of a non-primate with human like hands. Their hands look a lot like ours, but as you can see, they still have rodent like claws. You can also see based on where their fur is thick vs thin what parts of the hand used to be paw and what parts used to be part of the leg
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/DiOkI.png)
[Answer]
A rather hilarious answer is in this British ad for milk:
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GSuH6LYMho>
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZsB85.jpg)
*Cats.....with thumbs!*
Realistically, the thumb would have to integrate with the wrist joint and the other phalanges, so a lot of exotic configurations that you might see on Science Fiction illustrations of aliens will not be feasible for creatures which are evolved from Earthly creatures. Looking at the position of the dew claw on cats and dogs suggests that there would have to be some pretty serious evolution to make a thumb derived from there useful, given the position and length of the existing structure (it would not reach the "wrist" very well, much less the "palm" or touch the fingers like the dexterous human hand).
Initially, the best that might be expected would be a crude sort of "vice" grip like the Panda's "thumb"
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/tuz78.jpg)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/NI1dI.jpg)
*Panda's Thumb*
So consider the evolutionary environment, and "why" the creature evolved a thumb in the first place. There might need to be a lot of other evolutionary adaptations to the limbs or the entire creature in order to use the thumb to the best effect. It won't *just* be a change to the paws...
[Answer]
Like the paws of apes and monkeys most likely:
<https://images.app.goo.gl/L2MyXCX3DPfYw1iP9>
Tough and leathery. The material you see there in the pawlm (heh) of his hand looks almost identical to that of my dog for example.
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Hal Clement's novel *[Needle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Needle_(novel))* was revolutionary in featuring a non-parasitic alien lifeform capable of inhabiting a human body.
Specifically, the Hunter in its independent form is a gelatinous mass capable of amoeboid swimming and slow crawling like a slime mold. It is implied (though I do not recall if it is explicitly stated) that the creature's body need not remain contiguous, and it can separate into a swarm of individual cells circulating through its host's body without losing its identity. Despite this inconstant form, they demonstrate human-level intelligence. Creatures of the Hunter's species can seep through the skin of humans and other animals to enter or abandon hosts, and can choose to take over their host's nervous systems, or hide. Over time, they will destroy the host immune system to preserve themselves, but take over its functions so as not to leave the host vulnerable. When in humans or other sapient hosts, they typically wiretap sensory nerves, and communicate with the host by drawing shapes with their bodies on the host's retinas.
To what extent is a creature like this actually plausible, and for those features which are plausible, how would they accomplished?
A list of all of the Anatomically Correct questions can be found here: [Anatomically Correct Series](http://meta.worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/2797/anatomically-correct-series/2798#2798)
[Answer]
Unfortunately, this alien lifeform is only plausible for a very specific value of plausible, namely "almost completely *not* plausible". What makes this being implausible?
Firstly, its ability to enter a human body unnoticed. Humans have skins which are designed to prevent most commonly found substances from penetrating, and those things that do get through the skin are either chemical in nature, and therefore much smaller than anything as complex as a biological entity, or they are macroscopic, and their entry causes a noticeable injury. For this being to be able to penetrate a human's skin unnoticed, its cells would have to be very much smaller than our own.
Secondly, the being's ability to dissociate while retaining its intellectual capabilities is highly implausible. Intelligence is a result of high complexity, and dissociation would result in a reduction in complexity... unless the individual parts were able to communicate with *specific* other parts without requiring a physical connection. It's difficult to conceive how and why such a means of communication would even evolve, let alone work within a human body. Should the alien's cells have evolved to communicate via non-contact means, this would likely increase their individual complexity and size, making a covert infiltration into a human less likely.
Thirdly, the alien is going up against the human immune system, a system that will most likely either not recognise the alien as a threat, or will regard it as a large and widespread threat. In the former case, there is no need for the alien to disable the human immune system, but in either case, disabling the immune system is a difficult proposition, as the alien neither knows how intellectually, nor has evolved to be able to do this instinctively. In the event that the alien is recognised as a threat by the human immune system, even if it prevails, the human host is likely to display many symptoms of illness that will make a covert takeover a virtual impossibility. Finally, if the alien does manage to neutralise the human's immune system and substitute its own, the likely differences between the two would most likely result in things that the human immune system would have recognised as a threat being ignored, and things that the human immune system does not recognise as being a threat incorrectly being attacked as a threat, resulting in bouts of sickness from common opportunistic pathogens, new, unexplained allergies and autoimmune diseases.
Fourthly, performing a wiretap on human nerves would require a considerable degree of intelligence, along with a considerable amount of trial and error, and could conceivably result in the introduction of spurious inputs, resulting in phenomena such as unexplained random sensory and motor tics, and/or numbness and/or paralysis, along with disturbances of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, which could result in symptoms similar to those of a disease, up to and including death.
[Answer]
## Sure, you can do this!
There seem to be a couple major points of concern, which I'll go over in detail below: swarm behavior, infection process, immune system interactions, and sentience.
### Swarm behavior
The Hunter is described as a mass of cells, able to separate into individual ones or work together as a colony. This is not unusual behavior for life: there are many examples of [colonial organisms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_(biology)) here on Earth, from the simplest [choanoflagellates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choanoflagellate) and slime molds to the highly specialized and complex [siphonophores](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siphonophorae). This last group is of special interest is the question because the well-known Portugese Man 'O War belongs to this group and is therefore not a true jellyfish, but instead a colonial organism:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/O0gyN.jpg)
Given that the Hunter is described as resembling a four pound green jellyfish, I think we've found a winner. Admittedly, the man-of-war is unable to separate completely into individual cells and remain highly functional, but Clement's novel also fails to discuss the specifics of the Hunter's decomposition and reassembly, so it's entirely possible that there's a minimum cell number that the alien species must maintain to stay alive.
### Infection
Infection is actually one of the simpler steps in this process. Assuming a colonial existence as detailed above, the cells themselves would likely share many traits with other amoeboid cells, such as the body's own leukocytes, better known as white blood cells. These cells are tasked with [hunting down and finding bacteria](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnlULOjUhSQ) and other invaders in the body and destroying them via phagocytosis, as seen in the linked video.
What's cool about white blood cells is that they move with surprising freedom throughout the body, given their relatively large size. The [amoeboid form actually allows them to squeeze through tiny gaps](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSQ7-CoRjas) in capillary walls to respond to damage:
Now, human skin has a higher cell density than internal cells and the especially porous blood vessels, but an alien life form could also have a different internal setup that allows it to squeeze through smaller spaces. In fact, it's likely that this trait would be heavily selected for in a symbiotic species where internalization is hugely important.
Additionally, [leukocytes already perform complex swarm-forming behavior](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qh7MG5VgAiI), further validating problem #1 above.
### Immune system interactions
This is a trickier problem, partially because there's only so much we know about the human immune system. The human immune system is composed of a [large consortium of cells](https://www.niaid.nih.gov/research/immune-cells) vaguely broken down into innate immunity and adaptive immunity. The more pressing of these is the innate immune system, as it's the one that deals within initial invasion and body response. The Hunter would essentially have to evade detection by either tricking the [MHC complexes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_histocompatibility_complex) or by destroying the cells upon contact. This is also something that the Hunter could easily take over the role of in the body, as the main function is to find new things and destroy them.
The adaptive immune system is a different kind of problem. This isn't so much an immediate threat to the alien because it's designed to respond to repeated attacks by the same pathogen, but it would be difficult to take on the role of because this system acts as a kind of cell "memory" for pathogens. The B-cells of the adaptive immune system store antigens for specific bacteria and viruses that the host has already encountered, and transferring that information to the symbiote would be tricky as we understand it. The host would essentially stop being immune to any prior infection, and any vaccines would need to be re-administered.
### Sentience
It's clear that the Hunter possesses true sentience, rather than simply high levels of intelligence, because it's able to learn and communicate complex ideas to the host. This is a tricky one to reality-check because we know very little about what establishes sentience and what separates an internal mind from a behavioristic response. As far as we know, intelligence and sentience always requires neurons of some kind - perhaps the alien species has an analog for these information-communicating cells or something weirder that works on a per-cell basis, given the colonial nature outlined above.
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The biggest problem, to my mind, is the intelligence of the thing. Being able to aggregate into a superorganism capable of intelligence... well, that's scifi, but you could see how it *might* be possible. Being able to disaggregate again, yep, that's fine. Being able to remain sentient, or at the very least, goal-oriented whilst disaggregated? Yeah, no.
Thought is clearly very complex. Our brains are phenomenally complex things which are formed by an extremely dense network of interconnected nerve cells. You've got about $10^{11}$ neurons in your brain, but each of those neurons is connected to an average of 7000 neighbours. Its that interconnection that enables your brain to do amazing things like discover fermentation or invent arguing on the internet. That disaggregated blob of cells has no such physical networking.
That's not to say that communication between parts of the cloud of cells is impossible. You could perhaps imagine shedding specially tagged proteins or viruses into the host body, such that only specific cells would absorb and react to their payloads. A kind of communications protocol encoded in amino acids or nucleic acids, with sender and receiver identifiers. The problem there is that the spreading of those communications packets is *slow*. It could take minutes or hours for the target cell to receive a specific message, and then minutes or hours *again* for it to send a response, even assuming the message doesn't get damaged, excreted or eaten by something else in the mean time. Compare that with nerve conduction speeds, over 100m/s. Your disaggregated swarm might be able to think, but it would do so *glacially slowly*.
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What you need, then, is something that can form a network. My model for this would be more like a fungus or parasitic plant, capable of forming [haustoria](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haustorium) (for fungi, a specialist form of [hypha](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypha), in plants a specialised root). Fungi are [sessile](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sessility_(motility)), so clearly the sort of organism you need is something slightly different. [Slime moulds](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slime_mold) are interesting, having some form of motility, but they *aren't* fungi. Something a little like a combination of the two might work.
Fungi can spread as spores, or perhaps by contact with an existing fungal network. They already have the means to invade host bodies, which would only be enhanced by careful immune modulation. Trying to "seep through the skin" instead of tunnelling in network threads like this is probably impractical. Motile slime-mould or amoeboid forms could get in via some other means. *[Naegleria fowleri](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naegleria_fowleri)* gets to your brain via your nose, but the human body is well equipped with plenty of soft entrances and exposed mucous membranes... you have so many to choose from!
Infection via spores or small motile forms has a second problem with disaggregation: remembering things. A single amoeba isn't going to be able to think very hard. It *does* have the ability to store a good few gigabytes of information, in the form of DNA. An extra set of chromosomes or plasmids storing memories instead of being a normal part of cellular operation would clearly be required. To successfully infect a new host, many spores or infection cells would be needed to contain the whole of the organism's mind. The dumb infection vector grows and spreads and hooks up a network until it becomes big enough to think and unlock the stored information in all those DNA databases.
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Evading the immune system is the second hardest issue; doing so without exposing the host to opportunistic infections and having them die on you just as you got settled in would be tricky, to say the least. Learning all of the "knowledge" encoded in the host's adaptive immune system and replicating it would be extremely non-trivial.
The best approach would be to simply not mess with that. Use an infection form capable of resisting or evading the immune system (there are lots of models for that... [mycobacteria](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycobacterium) for one, [HIV](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV) for another or even one of the many [herpes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herpesvirales)-type viruses, but there are [all sorts of intracellular parasites](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intracellular_parasite) to take your inspiration from. Making a general purpose immune-evading strategy is probably impossible; you'd need to use your brains to tailor your attack to each new species. Just make sure that you can make your own cells (or infected host cells) produce the right kind of surface antigens that keep the host immune system happy. You could always put up with the host being super ill during the infection process... either as a result of immune reaction to your invading cells, or as a result of immune suppression allowing opportunistic infections, but just long enough for you to establish how to trick the host immune system at which point the reaction stops and they get better. Sure, weaker hosts may die, but tough hosts are the best hosts, right?
Remember, you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs! Maybe a whole load of humans have to die or go mad before you've perfected your technique, but you'll get there eventually. Their deaths aren't implied to kill the infecting organism too, so write up all your notes about what went well during the infection, and what didn't go so well, then disaggregate and go find some new hosts to try again on and hopefully do a better job next time.
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I am having some trouble reasoning out some ideas, if any of you could help.
So I have in mind a planet, where there are many human cultures, but one of them is more advanced then others. So they have very advanced technology, like AI, holograms, vehicles, genetic modifications. Others are more like farmers, more primitive in their technology, more or less scared of it. This advanced society doesn't have many people, it's like a bigger city, maybe two, with advanced buildings ... But they only live on some part of the planet, like a continent or a part of the continent, they don't mix with other cultures, people, only by exchanging goods, they also don't explore the other sides of the planet.
So I was wondering ... how could this small society (compared to others) have made this advanced technology? From what? And why didn't they explore the planet? Why didn't they take the lands of other less advanced people? Open to any ideas.
[Answer]
**1) The Fallen Empire**
Once upon a long time ago, the whole planet spanned numerous grand, technologically advanced nations (or one Super-duper Empire). For unknown reasons, they declined, their grandiose technology forgotten. Only the most backwater university city and its surrounding cities managed to retain most of their technology. Fearing that history will repeat itself, this time with them at the center, they remain behind in their cities, mostly closed off to the world.
**2) Deviant Tribe**
This particular tribe of humans encountered a genetic mutation (or whatever) early in its history. This made them highly intelligent, but less-resistant to what nature could throw at them. They have low birth rates and an isolationist, peaceful nature. Few traveled outside their own region and those who returned told tales about the harshness of the outside world. They decided that surrounding themselves with high techs and comfort should be the priority and left the exploration of unknown to their machines.
**3) They built BIG WALLS**
Surrounded by aggressive, barbaric tribes, they build big, big, beautiful walls and focused on advancing their society to counter the threat, which would one day surely overcome their WALLS. They got so immersed in this undertaking, they didn't notice that they vastly overshadowed everyone else and has nothing to fear. However, their ingrained fears of the outside and the feeling of security associated with the big, beautiful walls prevented them from taking over the world. They opted for playing video games, in their endless virtual worlds, instead of dealing with the mundane, boring outside.
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These a few archetypes, which you can reform in whatever way you want. There must be others out there too. Morris The Cat mentioned Wakanda, which was the Deviant Tribe version with the unique resource spin. Atlantis, would be the 3, with the geography of surrounded by oceans and so on.
[Answer]
**They're not from Earth**
The advanced society is from another planet (can still be humans). They left in a generational ship to look for a new home. When finding the new home, they were surprised to find humans living on it already in a somewhat primitive state.
Being sparsely populated, they've built themselves a colony. The native humans see the tech as magic so avoid them as much as possible and the colonists don't want to contaminate the native's society so avoid interactions.
Problem is the colonists need the food and raw materials so they trade superior made simple tools for the food and materials like knives that don't wear out and stay sharp, shovels that won't break, more efficient horse drawn plows, stronger lighter wagon wheels.
The colonists haven't explored as they are too busy building their own society from the remains of their ship and don't have the time or man power for it.
[Answer]
[The Prime Directive](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Directive), but on a very small scale. It is unlikely for a civilization with little interest in exploration to become so advanced. Invention requires curiosity which will lead to exploration. But, it is possible for an advanced society to develop strong beliefs about their moral obligations to other civilizations which makes them very careful not to share their technology when they do explore.
Perhaps when this society was younger, they tried sharing their technology with others, but it ended very badly; now, they refuse to share anything under the belief that other peoples can't handle them responsibly, but they also do not expand into the lands owned by other societies because that too would be interference.
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I have been looking at and researching dystopian fiction in hopes of writing my own story based in one. I know the kinds of factors that can all contribute to a dystopia, be it rigid governmental control, loss of human rights, demonisation of minorities, forced consumerism, memetic brainwashing campaigns, etc.
I have looked at movies like Children of Men for inspiration among others. But I was hoping someone could give me some pointers on specific factors.
What are 3 environmental or societal factors that contribute to a loss of humanity?
To be clear I mean mentally, not physically.
Also to explain,I am referring to humanity by the literal definition when used as a noun.
Humanity is synonymous with empathy and benevolence. Whereas inhumanity (a lack of humanity) is the lack of those qualities; exhibiting apathy or coldness towards others and cruelty.
Thus I am asking what 3 factors in the environment or society could cause a loss in these traits normally viewed positively.
The Criteria shall be as follows:
1. Each point must numbered and presented in an orderly fashion. Specific examples are very much welcome but not needed. Keep in mind you don't need to draw from a dystopian work for these factors; just examples of them that have occurred.
2. Rather than philosophical the answers must deal with direct causes. Examples given have included poverty, severely disproportionate distribution of wealth and resource scarcity. In fact I think focusing on these three factors and explaining why they cause loss of humanity will be the main focus.
3. Lastly I want the writer of the question to posit why society would let these things happen or how they could happen?
[Answer]
Let's have a quick look at your request in a historical context
* **rigid governmental control** - Historically normal
* **loss of human rights** - Human rights are a modern, post WWII invention, prior to that a government could do what it liked to its own population. To a large extent it still can, national sovereignty takes precedence.
* **demonization of minorities** - Historically normal, assimilate or be persecuted.
* **forced consumerism** - Historically interesting, see [sumptuary laws](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumptuary_law), the [company store](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfp2O9ADwGk)
* **memetic brainwashing campaigns** - This one is new, unless you're willing to compare it to religion, in which case it's as old as civilisation itself.
Dehumanising others, especially outsiders, is a general theme of history. The principle of "Us and Them" is a key part of population control in the later stages of the imperial and industrial age.
However to make a true dystopia, it's not about dehumanising people deliberately, a true dystopia has to be formed out of an attempt to make a utopia.
The rights of the individual must necessarily take second place to the needs of the group. In a true utopia the individual will willingly give up some aspects of freedom to make the world a better place for everyone. In a dystopia that is subverted, the rights given up are too many and too broad, the gain for everyone isn't sufficient to make up the difference.
Perhaps the population is too high and to have anything people must give up nearly everything. Perhaps it's post apocalyptic and again there's very little to go round. The intent has to fundamentally be to make the best for everyone, but it becomes a system under which the individual loses their identity, becomes a cog in a machine, a number in a system.
[Answer]
I would suggest a combination of Poverty, Scarcity of resources and Concentrated Wealth.
Scarcity of Resources is a great way to induce violence and create a Dog eat Dog environment. You need food and water to survive. If you split your food and water, then you won't be strong enough to get more food and water, which leaves you weaker and weaker. Only a few people or groups can scrounge up a decent living, but it requires them to step over those weaker than them.
Poverty is combined with this to prevent people from properly sharing, distributing and managing the food and water required to live. In a community, you could just as easily feed 1 person well, or keep several people alive, but hungry. You want to create a situation with little empathy, so making sure that a large amount of people live on the border of life and death will help enforce this mind set of putting yourself first.
Finally, Concentrated wealth. I'm pretty sure I'm just describing Russia at this point in time, but concentrating the wealth so that the rich and powerful and live comfortably will allow you to dehumanize the poor in the eyes of the rich and dehumanize the rich in the eyes of the poor. The poor will think they are monsters because they don't share their abundant wealth while the Rich won't distribute their wealth because they know they can't save everyone and it would be a pointless endeavor.
As a bonus, to keep more people alive, you can have a large amount of food waste that gets thrown out. Its not enough to feed everyone regularly, but the short injections keep people barely alive until you throw out the next batch. Also make sure it rots quickly, so the area is highly competitive and food can't be stored in great abundance by grouping up and working together.
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Some ideas:
1. Inequality: It makes people jealous and in a completely legitimate way. Positive feedback loops are great here. Rich people can afford genetic treatment, making them even better at everything, poor people cannot. The world is increasingly unfair.
2. Factions: Factions have been shown in experiments to be sufficient for making people hate each other. As soon as factions employ some sort of lore or propaganda that declares other factions inferior there are reasons to treat them worse. This is also great for people who are actually in power because it keeps the poor from banding together.
3. Distance: It's a lot easier to keep up stereotypes and prejudice about people when you are not actually in contact with them. It's a lot easier to hate moochers and homeless people and lazy rich people and careless powerful people if you have no contact with them to understand what their problems are, what might motivate them or to even see them as humans.
4. Chemistry: Strange brain chemistry or disease reducing empathy.
5. Mutations, cybernetics: Actually making people less human will definitely get the job done. Skin color was sufficient to dehumanize people as monkeys. Anybody with implants can easily be a robot, everybody with some sort of mutation is a monster.
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Now, given that the answers can be broad, I will give it a philosophical/libertarian approach (implying the lack of its values in that given world). How and why the dystopia emerges, which renders humans to be devoid of their "humanity".
## Cause
***[Nihilism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilism)***: *Meaninglessness of life, no transcendent beliefs, forgottenness, disregard for human life, lack of empathy, materialist and collectivist world views, a mix of isolationism and hedonism, life as a cynical parody of a non-existing god.*
While the improvements in technology continue to catapult humanity beyond imaginable prosperity and living standards, the sheer lack of purpose and the sense of nihilism is an issue which renders humans growingly (self-)destructive. In their attempts to find something of value, they are willing to abandon their liberties and ethics to promote state power and therefore coercion and violence to exert their will upon others by force. Some seek a sense of belonging by Nationalism and Tribalism, some seek a sense of uniting the world by Globalism.
Both of these groups agree to one thing however - that the economy must be controlled and that [wealth must be redistributed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism), because there is more than enough for everyone to go around. Not only that, natural self-interest is deemed unethical and harmful, in need of being reined. One option is to create jobs with the power of the state, just to give people purpose again, which they lost due to high automation.
This process goes on for decades, until it reaches a point where [individualism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individualism) is dead. As liberties have been continually stripped, and free speech was deemed too dangerous to the integrity of the system, and technology allowed for a near perfect [mass surveillance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance_in_China) system along with a [point system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System) which rewards obedience and punishes dissidence, the value of the individual decreased, and the "higher good of humanity" or the "nation" was the highest priority. If it meant that the exploitation, dispossession or death of a few ([or more](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide)) served the well-being of the many, it was done. Not only that, the sacrifice was even [expected like a virtue](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_socialism).
With collectivism and the diminishing of individualism the sense of ***[equality](https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/a/61747/34936)*** (see my answer to "Why is equality assumed to be good") increased as well.
However, the [economy inevitably declined](https://www.hoover.org/research/why-socialism-fails) and suffered severe inefficiencies, as we already know from history, which could no longer be compensated by the also stagnating and even receding the level of technology.
## Effect
Now we are here, in the future dystopia, where:
* Human life and liberties are worth little to nothing and is considered expendable if it serves the abstract "higher good of society".
* The state controls every aspect of human life, including the flow of information.
* Obedience to the system is obligatory, but also thoroughly indoctrinated from young age.
* Free speech is non-existent. Dissidence is met with aggressive action, ranging from warnings, re-education to death. Only state approved opinions exist, everything else is irrational, [hate-speech](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech) or subversive to the system. Every piece of information you encounter are tailored to invoke emotions and ideas which are state approved.
* The goal of [equity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equality_of_outcome) is dominating in the mind of people. It is not advisable to stick out in any shape or form from the masses, because not only will you draw resentment from others, but also suffer consequences from the state. In order to pursue that goal, such individuals can be set up to fail - "You happen to be a genius? Fine. Work in the sewers and keep everything clean - by hand!"
* Hunger remains wiped out, but so is also luxury beyond what the state deems appropriate. Everything else could promote "bad behavior" or invoke harmful ideas and thoughts.
* Advanced artificial intelligences rule the market and automatically assign tasks and jobs to people. While it can't work towards innovation (or never was meant to do so), it micro-manages people to maintain the economy and the system. It can also be used to yield statistical information to those in charge, so that larger scale adjustments can be done, which need human decision making.
* Property rights do not exist. You own what the state has assigned to you, which can change at any time. You work because otherwise you suffer punishment and lose privileges. If you work well, you get rewarded. This punishment/reward system is tailored to you individually by artificial intelligences, knowing your highest and lowest performances. This is deemed effective and necessary to motivate workers.
The description may resemble [Orwell's 1984](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four). But I think that is indeed a probable dystopia.
## Loss of humanity
Empathy in such a world is impossible: Everybody is equal (or meant to be) and having excessive emotions towards some people, but not others, can be seen as inappropriate and discriminatory. You cannot trust anybody with secrets and sensitive information. Anyone can turn on you and get rewarded for it, in case it is deemed inappropriate or harmful to the system.
Benevolence went overboard at the point when individualism (liberties, value of life) was abandoned by society. The dominating idea is a combination of "there is no good and evil" and threat to the integrity of the system must be eliminated.
Every friend can turn into a foe at any given time. The system has a monopoly to loyalty. Trusting others with sensitive information and thoughts (in case you even have any) can and will turn on you, so keep your emotions in check, express as little as possible.
Now, the final step of losing your "humanity" is to be a replaceable, identical cog in a gigantic system, and that idea being widely supported and promoted, where your destiny from the beginning to the end is already planned out and taken care of.
[Answer]
Let's take a different approach from what everyone else has suggested. (Although all are very good suggestions.)
What gives us "humanity", in the first place?
Hypothesys:
Humanity is what happens when we keep a balance between all three of the following factors:
* Empathy
* Individuality
* Intellect
… and propose that true humanity comes from keeping a balance between those three, then we can easily create a dystopia by basing a society that favours/admonishes one of the three in the disfavour of the other two.
A society that favours Empathy too much would be a society full of mindless drones/clones.
A society that favours Individuality would be a barbaric kill-or-be-killed society.
And a society that favours Intellect would be a society of smart robots.
A society that admonishes Empathy would be a militaristic empire where cutthroat ladder-climbers would reign supreme.
A society that admonishes Individuality would be a communist-type brainwashing cult.
A society that admonishes Intellect would be a pastoral cult.
In any case, this hypothesis states that the lack of balance in the order of things either by too much or too less on an integral part will lead to a loss of humanity, and forward to a dystopia.
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A person is born with a certain amount of mana, which increases with age and peaks at a certain point. Individuals are born with all the mana they will ever have, but it can be refined with practice and training. This will determine how well it can be controlled and used to perform spells.
However, there is a way to cheat this process. Mana is transferable through a dark ritual that involves torturing and killing a host. Through this process, a renegade witch can absorb the mana of others, making themselves stronger. These witches are called crones. Mana that has been honed with training gives crones the most power, making competent witches the most sought after targets. At a certain point, a witch would achieve apotheosis and evolve into a higher life form.
However, absorbing mana from others leads to physical changes in a crone, eventually losing all resemblance to humanity. Therefore, crones must operate away from society, and use proxies to obtain victims for them. The major problem here is secrecy. Criminal enterprises are most successful in limited numbers. The smaller the circle, the less risk with exposure, the more likely anonymity can be maintained. Large enterprises such as human trafficking is a momentous undertaking. This is a huge operation that involves many people, any one of which can alert the authorities or make a mistake, bringing the whole thing down. In addition, keeping the disappearances of prominent witches a secret without raising suspicion in a community is difficult.
While crones are powerful, they don't want to deal with entire bands of trained mages after them while their goal is incomplete. How can a crone reduce the risk of being caught with all these variables in place?
[Answer]
**Slavery** So the same way people have gotten disposable people since the dawn of time. Depending on time period this can be legal and easy or might involve contacting existing human traffickers. Assuming that magic can be used to do useful things the crones can make money and buy slaves the same as everyone else. In this case even if they are untrained in magic they can make up for it by quantity of lesser slaves.
**Start a cult** Use your magic to help the members a little and train them in magic, then make the most talented/successful of your members higher ranked in the cult. Steal the mana from the less talented and/or disobedient. Make it high risk, high reward. Leave the lowest level members alone so they keep breeding new members for the cult.
Basically as long as you are only targeting people that no one cares about or that volunteered you can probably exist somewhat openly, more so if you use your magic to help the general public in some way.
The Aztec empire sacrificed people for absolutely no real gain and had people consider it an honor, you should be able to do at least that much with actual magic power.
[Answer]
A few ideas:
## They can start a company.
As seen in: [Great Old Ones Limited, or Why does Cthulhu need a Company?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/104046/21222)
Ritual logistics are complex enough to impact on how you fill your taxes. But on the bright side, corporations can do literally anything with impunity once they've got enough cash. We've seen them poisoning water supplies, taking ancestral lands, trafficking people... Vanishing some individuals here and there should be easy peasy. Plus having the personnel do the victim acquisition, sorting and storage for you makes them work for their salaries.
## They can take a page from manhunter species
As seen in: [How could a species survive on just luring in and eating humans?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/42832/21222)
Plenty of contexts where living in humans could be done, with or without consent. Plenty of people go missing without inviting many questions in our world already.
## They can use a Vanilla Sky alternative
Your world allows for magic, so it can allow for a magic version of the Matrix. You can create a virtual, magical heaven for people where their minds/souls can go to live happily everafter - in exchange for their bodies. See [How to monetize uploaded consciousness?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/110269/21222)
[Answer]
How do human traffickers avoid being caught now? Presumably by using cutouts for the actual illegal work. The bosses don't touch anything illegal.
Have your crones live on an island in international waters. But have them do their sacrificing on a different island. The large, potentially vulnerable organization only knows where the sacrifice island is. Or add a third island. Then even if compromised, the organization can't lead authorities to the crones' residence. They don't know where it is. Each time the meeting island is compromised, find a new one.
Presumably the organization will be compromised somewhat regularly. But the relationship with the crones will continue.
This is especially effective if your magic includes traceless teleportation. They just pop over to the island. If something goes wrong, they disappear. Without that, they can use proxies at the meeting. The proxies move the sacrifices from the meeting island to the sacrifice island. If worst comes to worst, the crones abandon (or even kill; I presume your magic system allows remote killing) their proxies and find a new sacrifice island. More commonly though they would simply lose that team of human traffickers.
If it's a just a small law enforcement group, they might even just take it. More sacrifices.
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Basically what's in the title: If someone uses a spiky arm guard/bracer (long bracelet type armor not gauntlet) while bashing/battering an opponent (with or without armor) would this result in the wielder breaking their arm or bone or could they do it without harm to themself?
The spiky arm guard/bracer in my mind is made entirely of metal, either bronze or steel, with many similar size spikes surrounding it and another like a spiky mace which has some gaps and fewer spikes also can have different size for each spike. I think maybe a leather arm guard/bracer with metallic spikes would help absorb the impact to reduce harm to the arm upon attacking, or am I wrong?
And another with two layers with the outfacing part having spikes that are a bit loose so a straight or a hook punch can make a twirl or drill like movement to the spike that can chip off the opponent that makes contact with the arm guard.
Some alternative suggestions for design are welcome.
The closest example image for spiky arm guard/bracer:
**With many similar size spikes surrounding it**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/1lO5m.jpg)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Zye7m.jpg)
Credits from:
```
metaldevastation.com
rowansoriginals.com
```
**Spiky Mace Type** which has some gaps and fewer spikes also can have different size for each spike, just imagine the previous arm guard/bracer above and replace the spike or the pattern with this one.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/vxp38.png)
Credit from:
```
medievalcollectibles.com
```
[Answer]
## No, they would not.
There are several issues with trying to use a weapon like this.
First, as you identified, the user may end up with broken bones. The bones in your wrist are relatively delicate as it it a joint. Putting a piece of metal on there and hitting something hard could injure you at best or break the bone.
Secondly, even if you *could* use it without risking harm to yourself, you wouldn't want to anyway. The reason being is power generation. A weapon, such as a mace, is something known as a force multiplier. As weapons have mass, can be accelerated relatively quickly and typically have a small contact point, they amplify the force you can put behind a strike massively. However, these metal forearm spikes don’t add much more mass and are not accelerated faster than your forearm. This concentrates the force of you swinging your arm on a smaller point but does not generate additional force.
Finally, these spikes would not be able to pierce through armour. Not an issue against an unarmored opponent but they would do nothing against one with some kind of protection. This is because the spikes cant be overly long or else you’ll be stabbing yourself any time you walk.
**Alternatives**
Now, if you wanted some weapons for punching, I suggest the push dagger (also called a punch dagger) or katar (the weapon, not the place). These are daggers which you hold in your hand and you punch with them as though you were boxing. The katar is the more advanced weapon of the two as it has an ‘H’ shaped guard with two bars to prevent it from twisting in your hand. If you wanted something larger, I suggest the pata, a gauntlet with a sword blade attached. The pata is similar to a rapier, mostly a thrusting weapon but you can do cuts with it as well.
Finally, of you were dead-set on having a spiked forearm weapon, I suggest you look at the bagh nakh, also called the tiger claw. As its name implies, this is a weapon with blades that curl backwards. This was meant as a tool for climbing trees but it doubles as a weapon, it is held in the palm of the hand.
You could have spikes like the bagh nakh does on your arm guard which overcomes some issues I mentioned earlier as a blade does not need much force to deal a lot of damage.
[Answer]
The [cestus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cestus) is kind of close, but not as spiky.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/dgoSv.jpg)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/uULFI.jpg)
[Answer]
I think it depends on the method of attack.
If you where to use your forearm as a club, then you’d break it against hard materials like skull or helmets. But against someones stomach, chest and face, it is a standard strike to an opponent beside or behind you.
Your spiky vambraces are more for defense and used to block attacks and strikes. But, if the spikes are sharp, then sawing strikes at meaty bits like thighs, groin, tummy,neck, and eyes will be effective at incapacitating some one.
I would think of these as intimidators, having more psychological value in discouraging someone to fight you than as really effective weapons.
I think you’d always be in danger of spiking yourself accidently
[Answer]
The spikes would not assist in the block of a blunt weapon. Consider that maces and war hammers were designed to cause trauma through *plate mail*. Fundamentally, they just have a lot of momentum, and you have to deal with that.
Such spikes could be useful for a softer art, though. You still could not block a mace, but you don't always have to block it. All you have to do is deflect sufficiently such that it doesn't hit you. Consider how hard it is to use a blunt weapon against a piece of paper floating in the breeze. Why? Because the paper doesn't offer much resistance. The spikes on your gauntlet might break if you are holding your arm rigid, but if your arm is relaxed, it can't break them without moving your arm substantially.
Now for blocking, that's a non-starter, because your goal was for the arm to *not* move substantially. However, for many martial arts moves, you don't need that. The power of such moves is that, at the end of the opponent's swing, they thought they had complete control of the weapon and could bring it back. Now you have a bunch of spikes helping you hold onto the weapon as you twist and turn it.
(Caught with something behind you so you can't move out of the way? Well... then you really did need to block... and you're really out of luck!)
This reminds me a bit of the nine rings we find on the back of some Chinese Dao. One of the uses for them was to make it easier to bind the enemy's sword with the backside of your blade. Mind you, I find the Dao a whole lot more practical, because the funny-bits are on a piece of metal you have in front of you, rather than on your irreplacable arm, but that may just be me!
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/47auQm.jpg)
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**Closed.** This question is [off-topic](/help/closed-questions). It is not currently accepting answers.
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This question does not appear to be about **worldbuilding**, within the scope defined in the [help center](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/help).
Closed 4 years ago.
[Improve this question](/posts/140351/edit)
I run a D&D game in which my players have built an outpost and are now attempting to "staff" it with craftsmen: Blacksmiths, Farriers and the like.
I want to give them a "choice" and let them pick the "best option" that conforms to a set of options. I am however struggling to come up with options that make the choice difficult, i.e. not to pick the guy with the most income.
Here are the options that I have come up with so far:
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> **Name**: Curtis Walls
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> **Experience Level:** Low
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> **Description:** He’s keen, but new. He certainly has a lot of gusto and told me he even has his own tools. I believe he has been working on the ship iron for the past few years.
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> **Pull to the outpost:** Small, 1-2 people a month
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> **Expected outpost income** (10% of earnings): 10gp a month
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> **Availability:** Can start immediately
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My plan was to have four or so options, ranging from "Cheap and novice" through to "experienced but expensive" with a combination of things in between.
My question is what features can I add to these craftsmen that would give them "negatives" or something that would make the choice difficult?
[Answer]
**NPC species and focus/distractibility characteristics.**
In. addition to the typical hiring things which TimB lays out in his comment, you could include D&D specific things, one of which is character species. Suppose you hire an elf blacksmith. He is very skilled and has the potential to bring in a lot of income. But he demands a high salary, and is a diva who only wants to work with other elves, and they are hard to find. If you hire on a human - or worse, a dwarf! - to work in his vicinity, he pouts and works much less than his potential, and might quit without notice. You can work out species specific things to be considered building your staff.
Mechanizing this D&D style more generally I could imagine two D&D NPC characteristics: **distractibility and focus** (like other D&D characteristic strength, constitution, wisdom etc. I think NPCs have these characteristics too). Distractions relevant to that character would then be totaled up (e.g. new hire for which he has antipathy, work stress, family issues) and he or she would roll a save against being distracted. The converse would be focus, and variables impacting focus would be totaled. Periodically the focus and distraction variables relevant to that NPC employee would be tracked and tallied. Subsequently this variable and their intrinsic characteristic would lead to a roll.
* distraction - focus = less income and possibly NPC leaves employment. - distraction + focus = more income or other beneficial effects for endeavor. Double positive or double negative means no net effect. Other characteristics (for example wisdom) might be modifiers to the rolls. Once you have that all figured out for an NPC you could automate it.
This approaches [sabermetrics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabermetrics) as it is applied to baseball. Potential income is only one variable associated with an employee. A employer might want to hire a very high potential income elf and arrange things to optimize her performance. Another employer might hire a bunch of halforcs with low potential income, and nil distractibility because lack of drama and consistency is prioritized.
[Answer]
Money is essentially made up in a campaign (how much gold does the dragon have?!?!?). It would probably be more fun for the players if they had to quest to get artifacts to draw people to their town. Or had to quest to find and hire someone of sufficient skill.
**Guilds regulate the quality of a good**
Anyone can hammer out a sword, but only a black-smith with level 7 certification in smithing can make a "Combat Approved" Sword. Do you heroes want to risk a cut-rate smith when the Goblin King is staring them in the face? Do they want their product's reputation to go to crap because their blacksmith didn't have the certification he said he did?
The leader of the Guild must visit your town and verify the swords produced will be quality. A Lich King that has been disturbed by the new forge could make certification difficult!
**Phoning Home**
The scholar is looking for a nice place to settle down where he can have a nice house and a big back-yard. But he also wants a library and a sphere of seeing so he can stay in touch with his friends and family back home.
Those Spheres only grow in the deep dark cave. Adventure Time!
**Looking to Start Over**
The new apothecary was caught making some "Good Time" elixir and selling it under the table. Word was he also might like to have a little of it himself. He's a nice guy who just wants to start over in a new place.
He also might think it was really funny to spike the Solstice Festival drink with some Party Potion - with unpredictable results!
**Meta-gaming**
People spend a good amount of time in their real-lives figuring out price-vs-value. It's not usually the fun parts either.
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> Do you by the low mileage Toyota, or the high mileage Mercedes?
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> Do you take a fancy consulting job that pays well but means traveling every week or do you keep your current job even though you're budget is a bit tight?
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Don't make your characters haggle over stuff like this - it's not fun.
**EDIT (in response to comments):**
Unless the players are economists (and will have fun arguments over this decision), you're probably better off just choosing an NPC that is near the player's level and letting them occasionally get free/cheap armor upgrade.
I've found that money is usually the least fun thing to role-play as no one ever wants to game as "Phil from Accounts Payable." They want to be "World Class Theif Treegen (who has sticky fingers and a heart of gold)" or something like that.
Realistically, will you ever not let players go to the pub for the next quest because their account is overdrawn?
[Answer]
Perhaps, have the characters have certain characteristics that depend on chance. Eg. every time you collect the monthly 10gp, roll a d20. Different rolls have different outcomes.
So, a certain blacksmith has a tendency to drink.
You roll your d20: 1 - your blacksmith got drunk and injured himself, halving the profits you recieve (5gp) ; 5 - your blacksmith got in a fight with a customer while drunk, lowering store/outpost reputation ; 10 - your blacksmith became drinking buddies with an influential merchant, increasing store/outpost reputation ; 15 - your blacksmith spent the monthly salary on booze, but made plenty of friends in bars (0gp income, +rep) etc.
With this concept, you can get quite creative, and you can even make it lead to an overarching plot in your story (eg. your hired craftsman has a connection with a bandit camp; 1 - he betrays you and you have to fight the bandits ; 2 - the bandits become part of your militia, but now you have conflict with authorities).
[Answer]
**Some trades require infrastructure in the town itself.**
Choosing, say, a blacksmith requires building a forge and having a good supply of fuel. A town with its own blacksmith will be a boon to residents and will attract both new settlers and customers from surrounding towns who don't have their own. This will boost every business in the town, including construction. But the town might not be able to make the investment needed for the blacksmith to get started and keep going for a few months until s/he is self-sustaining.
A doctor might only come to that town if it can provide her/him a nice house, a job for adult family, and great schools.
A miller would be a wonderful draw for a town and it provides lots of jobs. But how long will it take to re-route the river and make it fast enough to turn the water wheels that power the mill? Can the town build roads from the mill to the center of town? Are there enough farms growing grains to support the mill? Is there a railroad in your world? If so, the mill will need access to it for import and export.
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Some astronauts have just arrived in Mars orbit! They're fixing to set up a small refueling station/outpost on Deimos. One problem, how might they keep their small habitat and associated structures from simply floating away at the slightest jolt in Deimos's low (only 0.003 m/s2) gravity?
[Answer]
**Don't anchor at all.**
Use Deimos as a navigation point, and build the base --with spin-- a couple miles off.
The costs of living and working in microgravity are enormous, and you have an opportunity to avoid them here. With spin, your crew can pump fuel more easily...and use real toilets among many other benefits.
[Answer]
Gravity, as you point out, is not sufficient to hold something on the surface.
You would need something to anchor your base to the rock beneath: [screw piles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screw_piles)
>
> Screw piles, sometimes referred to as screw anchors, screw-piles, helical piles, and helical anchors are a steel screw-in piling and ground anchoring system used for building deep foundations. Screw piles are manufactured using varying sizes of tubular hollow sections for the pile or anchors shaft.
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> The pile shaft transfers a structure's load into the pile. Helical steel plates are welded to the pile shaft in accordance with the intended ground conditions. Helices can be press-formed to a specified pitch or simply consist of flat plates welded at a specified pitch to the pile's shaft. The number of helices, their diameters and position on the pile shaft as well as steel plate thickness are all determined by a combination of:
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> * The combined structure design load requirement
> * The geotechnical parameters
> * Environmental corrosion parameters
> * The minimum design life of the structure being supported or restrained.
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> Screw piles are wound into the ground much like a screw into wood.
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[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/N3Ie9.gif)
Once you have the screw piles in place, you either directly build on them or use cables to keep the position of the base.
Reminder: you need to investigate the geology of the body before placing a random screw pile on it.
[Answer]
1. Hit it hard just before you land. Soften it up to molten. You could use a bomb or thermite. Better though would be an incoming impactor which passes your station and hits Deimos at speed.
2. Settle down into the molten rock. It will be toasty warm. Stay inside your ship for just a bit. Play Scrabble.
3. The molten rock will resolidify. Hopefully you like the view because you wont be moving after that.
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In the world of [this question](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/124218/what-would-cause-termites-to-be-the-dominant-herbivores-on-a-savanna), ants and especially termites are the dominant herbivores by mass. There are no large grazing mammals competing with the bugs for the siliceous grasses and thorny trees of the savanna.
The dominant (by mass) food chain on the savanna's of our Earth is grass->antelope->lion. I would like a longer food chain with more steps, similar to that in the ocean (phytoplankton -> zooplankton -> small fish -> larger fish -> shark).
In order to make this happen, I need small lizards, birds, and/or mammals to be the primary (again, by mass) predators of the ants and termites. But on our Earth, ant eaters are big: anteaters, aardvark and sun/sloth bears are the dominant insectivores of the savanna regions. Larger animals have some distinct advantages; namely, while 10,000 ants can kill a shrew, they can't do much to a bear.
**What evolutionary pressures would favor small (1 kg or less) insectivores over large ones in an ecosystem dominated by ants and termites?**
[Answer]
Make the predators numerous and dangerous.
If a creature is protected against most predators (e.g. by a hard shell or by sheer size), the creature can invest much time to grow slowly, have a longer gestation time and have a comfortable life.
If there is an abundance of hungry predators who can circumvent the creature's defences, there's an evolutionary pressure to produce as much offspring as possible in the shortest possible time. This, in turn, favors small body sizes and fast body growth.
The best examples can be seen in the ocean. Whales have almost no natural enemies, so they can grow slowly and have a long gestation time. [Blue whales](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_whale#Life_history) become sexually mature at age 4 - 5 and have a gestation period of almost one entire year. Most smaller fishes, however, risk being eaten every day, so they need to grow as fast as possible and produce plentifull offspring at 1 year of age.
[Answer]
When the ecosystem is dominated by a crawling food source that can easily swarm you, the safest way to get your meal is to stay off the ground. The smaller you are, the easier that is.
Flitting around the great termite mounds that dot the savanna are insectivores that specialize in hovering above danger and striking prey when the time is right: the dreaded hummingbird.
---
Though the common view of a hummingbird is a tiny thing drinking sugary water from a bird feeder, hummingbirds are [descendants](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4302410/) of the insectivorous [swifts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swift), and as such they get most of [their nutrition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hummingbird#Diet_and_specializations_for_food_gathering) from catching insects mid-flight. In a world with plentiful crawling critters, I'm sure their diet could easily shift from mosquitoes and spiders to a diet closer to that of [woodpeckers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodpecker#Diet_and_feeding).
The one flaw of hummingbirds is their incredibly high [metabolism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hummingbird#Metabolism), which is supported by high-energy nectar from flowers and the ability to enter a [light hibernation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hummingbird#Torpor) when food is scarce. I'm not sure what the state of flowers are in your world, but even when grass blades are sharp and everything is covered in thorns it's hard to protect a flower from every angle a hummingbird might try.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/oDNckm.jpg)
[Answer]
What you're probably looking for is the [Elephant shrew](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_shrew), basically he's a miniature version of the anteater.
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> Elephant shrews mainly eat insects, spiders, centipedes, millipedes, and earthworms. An elephant shrew uses its nose to find prey and uses its tongue to flick small food into its mouth, much like an anteater.
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Being smaller, they have different predators. Mostly aerial rather than ground based as they're fast and evasive, keeping clear escape routes in the grass.
**What we need to consider is why anteaters are so big**
By choosing termites to be the primary food you've put yourself into a blue whale situation. The blue whale lives on krill, the largest creature in the world primarily feeding on one of the smallest. Termites only come in very large numbers which are dangerous to small creatures. The live in heavily fortified structures that are well defended. To break into their fortresses you need to be large and heavily armed and then able to consume them in large numbers to make up for the energy cost of the forced entrance.
To make smaller anteaters more effective you need to break down these fortresses. Ant and termites to live in smaller groups, maybe only dozens or hundreds. Appropriate numbers for a smaller hunter but not enough to feed a larger one. For termites you also need to take away their distinctive mounds, those things set like concrete, the smaller anthills are your limit here, a shrew needs to be able to dig through it.
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From what I know atmosphere won't save us as arthropods are inefficient with oxygen. If you make them smaller you could end up with smaller animals feeding off of them, but I am not sure if that'd be your goal, especially with sun bears.
A Mass extinction if recent enough could have wiped out larger fauna, an easy solution but possibly not what your going for. If they're the largest herbivores don't expect many creatures to not eat insects. In diagrams they usually show snakes and birds being at the top of the food chain over mice and other small creatures. The tertiary predator will be as large as it needs to kill off the other predators. If bears can exist there's a possibility of larger herbivores or other species of carnivora so I would figure out where they came from or how large you will be expecting them to be. Warmth might benefit a smaller animal as well, so a warmer planet might be more suited to what you desire. Sorry if this isn't a great answer, this is a question I am interested in though!
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In my book series (link [here](http://sites.google.com/site/weaselworldofficialsite)), there is a blob creature (lime-green in color, has a radioactive glow, is sentient, has a bizarre and uncanny intelligence level (has the emotional intelligence and "street smarts" of the average 6-year-old but is capable of answering quantum physics questions that would baffle Einstein without a second thought, as well as having battlefield intelligence that would baffle the likes of Hannibal Barca), can completely regenerate his entire body unharmed as long as a single cell of his body remains, cannot feel physical pain, immune to conventional weapons, but melts in physical contact with vegetable matter, around 3'4" in height in his normal state but can mold his boneless body into whatever form he wants whenever he wants to, and is shaped like a gumdrop in his normal state). He was originally developed as a light buoyant blob to help shipwrecked sailors to the surface and was not even supposed to be sentient. However, during a break-in at the lab he was being developed in, some idiot spilled a chemical into the beaker where Bob was forming, bringing him to life. Here is my question: which chemicals, if any, would form at least a pseudoscientific explanation for this phenomenon?
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**Hydrogel.**
It's a macromolecular polymer gel made up of crosslinked polymer chains. It's elastic. It can swell, deform, and shift. And it's self-healing through hydrogen bonding.
**Coelenterazine.**
It's a compound called a *luciferin* in the protein *aequorin* found in aquatic animals. This provides bioluminescence so this creature can glow.
**Genes like *srap*, or *sea star regeneration-associated protease***.
This is a gene with a DNA sequence similar to plasmin, a protein that dictates the shape of an animal during development and also contributes to healing of wounds.
**Mesoglea.**
This is a hydro-static, jelly-like translucent skeleton. This will provide any needed structure to the creature, and provide the scaffolding for its shape-shifting and regeneration.
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Hydrogel and coelenterazine only require hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. Mesoglea is also made up of water, so much of this creature will be primarily made of water, like a jellyfish.
This creature requires chemical compounds for rapid polymerization in its body, and a highly advanced central nervous system. As for its emotional intelligence and "street smarts," [it has severe autism.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism) Its central nervous system is focused.
It lacks nociceptors for less biological complexity, so it feels no pain.
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Thixotropic substances have highly variable viscosity. As they are stressed their viscosity changes dramatically. When the stress is removed they change back to their default state.
If your blob was comprised of 2 different (and opposite) thixotropic fluids (one a shear-thickening liquid that gains viscosity under stress, and
a shear-thinning liquid that loses viscosity) it could form a network of semi-ridged supports (analogous to a skeleton) as well as a rudimentary hydraulic system. Together these two systems could be used for locomotion, tool using appendages, and even defensive and offensive weapons; all of which could be created or dissolved on demand.
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**DNA**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/6byBd.jpg)
<http://qbcourseworkvnrv.representcolumb.us/dna-strawberry-conclusion.html>
It's gooey. It can repair itself. The protein machinery to make it is well understood and cheap. It codes for all kinds of things. Maybe in the lab they used DNA as a hard copy long term storage medium.
Your organism is a collector, scrounging up and replicating every DNA it comes into contact with. It makes it's body out of its collection but it has the abilities of everything in its collection. It has a library of DNA from several million micro-organisms, all the researchers in the lab that developed it as well as their families and pets, multiple different animals, fungi and a fair amount of uncategorizable DNA.
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Inspired by a brief comment converstaion [found here](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/118279/how-to-explain-why-humans-weren-t-encountered-by-alien-species/118364#118364).
I would like to investigate the design and development of an alien species whose technological development did not include an understanding of light. Let us assume that the species is entirely blind, and only has the capacity to interact with their surroundings through other senses: sound, smell, pressure, thermal, taste, etc.
For them, they would never "see" light and would (ostensibly) develop without an interest in light. There would never be a moment when they look up and see stars and be inspired by the idea, "what's out there?" However, through audial experiments they could develop the idea that "there's nothing above me that I can detect... I wonder what's up there?"
They would also not devleop visually-oriented writing, but would need to rely on audio or braille for recording knowledge. *I'm willing to accept without proof the idea that they can achieve our own skills in handwriting in ways that do not require eyesight.*
Remember, though, no dependency on light. No development of radar, radio, light bulbs, microwave ovens, etc.
The goal is to land on their moon. Please assume similar challenges to NASA in the early 60s.
My goal is to establish a plausible explanation for how an alien species could attain space flight without a comprehension of light.
**Question:** Is it possible for a species (in this case blind) to develop the technology necessary to land on their own moon without a comprehension of light?
**How I'll judge the best answer**
1. "It's impossible" is a legitimate answer, but it must be backed up with a lot more than a sentence or two of reasoning demonstrating why a moon shot is impossible without an understanding of light. You can't just claim it (no lazy answers, please!) you need to demonstrate how an understanding of light is unavoidable.
2. If it can be done, an answer must have at least three examples of how interrelated technology could be accomplished without an understanding of light. For example: how to achieve the same process of doping semiconductors without the use of optical photolithography.
3. If it can be done, an answer must consider all the major components of basic spaceflight: control, propulsion, life support, data aquisition (tough), and communication (very tough).
4. I am willing to allow any design of the aliens so long as (a) they are utterly incapable of naturally detecting light and (b) they are not godlike. My voice can't carry to the moon, neither can an alien's telepathy. The alien characteristics you're depending on to circumvent the need for technological enhancements must be reasonably believable as a fact of natural adaptation/evolution and not simply a superpowered band-aid.
**Finally: A reminder about what "Primarily Opinion-Based" (POB) means at Worldbuilding.SE**
Stack exchange defines POB as:
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> Many good questions generate some degree of opinion based on expert experience, but answers to this question will tend to be almost entirely based on opinions, rather than facts, references, or specific expertise.
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Regrettably, we can't change this text, but if you believe in it, then no question about magic can be asked because no answerer has facts, references, or specific expertise to draw from.*[citation needed]* Consequently, here at WB.SE we've had to reverse the meaning.
POB means the OP is responsible for providing enough information to reasonably judge which answer will be best. The OP cannot select a best answer simply as a matter of the OP's opinion. Thus, if the OP provides background about his/her magic system such that answers can be judged against it, then it is inappropriate to close the question as POB.
Given this explanation, if you believe my conditions for the best answer are insufficient to judge which answer is best, please let me know and I will further scope the question. After all, we're here to have fun with fiction, right?
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I would find it hard to believe that they would even be aware of their moon without light. Sound, pressure, etc. require a medium to travel through. Because space is a vacuum, none of those would be able to indicate the presence of their moon. If the aliens determined that there was a moon, it would be through the gravitational effects, e.g. tides. But even from there things are difficult.
The modern theory of gravity was developed in large part due to astronomical observations, which require light. While there have been some experiments on earth, gravity requires such massive objects to be noticeable that it is unlikely that they would be able to work out that the tides are a result of a massive object in orbit. It would be basically impossible for them to characterize that large object. They would not know it's shape or size. Unless they have some *amazing* scientists, (In my opinion, well beyond anything Earth has ever seen) they likely would not even know its mass.
However, if they were able to work out the law of gravity, and trusted their science enough to determine orbital mechanics, *and* made some opportunistic assumptions, they might be able to make a pilotable spacecraft to their moon. It would be incredibly hard, however. First, they would have no communications. This especially complicates things because it means that all probes and test spacecraft would have to return in one piece in order for there to be any useful information (No learning from mistakes). They would have to navigate by gravity and perhaps the magnetic field of their planet. If their math is amazingly accurate, I think this could be done with very accurate accelerometers. Landing would be nearly impossible, because they wouldn't know the radius of the moon. The gravitational field of a solid sphere depends only on its mass, not on its size.
There are so many things that can go wrong in this trip, that it almost certainly won't happen. Most of their knowledge of where they are and thus, how they need to fly the spacecraft would be calculated from their readings and controls. If the sensors are ever so slightly off (I don't know how much), they won't be able to navigate. Ditto if any of their equations or physical constants are off. Crashing into the surface of the moon would be a very serious possibility. There is also the fact that they wouldn't know how fast the moon is rotating, and so they may hit the surface moving a couple thousand miles per hour sideways relative to it.
I'll finish by stating that it is unlikely that this species would have such a huge desire to visit the moon. Without telescopes and such, they would have no idea if there is anything of worth. It would be incredibly risky. It would take an effort dwarfing all Earth space programs. It would require genius Earth has never seen. It might just be possible, but I don't think it would ever happen.
Edit: I think that it would be impossible for a species to reach this level of scientific and engineering achievement without discovering light. All of the problems that I detailed above are much more abstract, less interesting, and less pertinent than ones that would lead to the discovery, and from there, the manipulation of light and other EM waves. Why is it hotter during the day? How do plants get energy? Why don't they grow well indoors? Why do oscillations in circuits sometimes cause similar oscillations in other, disconnected circuits? Why does heat transfer from hot objects in ways that can't be fully explained by convection and conduction? A species that lacks the curiosity to ask these questions or lacks the intelligence to answer them would not be willing and able to do what it needed to reach the moon.
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It's impossible.
Being blind isn't the problem. It's the ban on interacting with the entire electromagnetic spectrum. We can't see radio waves but we can still use them.
By banning (unreasonable I feel), the race has no means of communication through a vacuum. This means you can't monitor probes unless the probes return and the probes are virtually blind in space. The only way to detect something is to crash into it which isn't an ideal method for space exploration.
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I'm creating a developed country in South America with its development similar to that of Canada or Australia (little behind the US). See the map below - the white line surrounds fertile and populated areas.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/YGV2d.jpg)
**Its capital had always been in what is now *Buenos Aires*** (which is also actually the capital of Argentina) thanks to its extremely strategic location.
But with **the advent of railways in 1830s-1850s** I wonder whether to build a new seaport and (maybe a new capital) city in ***Punta Indio*** - an uninhabitated and swampy site located 130 km (80 mi) from Buenos Aires toward the ocean.
The reason is that the **ships wouldn't need to go so much inland anymore.** But instead, the goods and the passengers would transfer from ships to trains in Punta Indio because trains were much faster than ships. Also, it would be much closer to Montevideo, another country's very important seaport.
Another good reason is that Punta Indio has much milder climate than hot Buenos Aires thanks to proximity of cold ocean currents. And that affects human workforce efficiency considerably as well.
But how about the **ship vs train transportation cost** and the overall efficiency of this plan?
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Jlxwt.jpg)
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The time savings are not so very great. Punto Indio is about 100km down the coast. A ship of the 19th century can easy go at 20km/hr or more, even allowing for travelling slowly on the approach to port. So it would take less than 5 hours. The train would take a couple of hours, so you have a net saving of maybe three hours. The boat is carrying goods from Europe, North America or East Asia, and has been on the sea for a month or more. Is the three-hour saving worth it?
Another problem is the lack of a natural harbour at Punta Indio, one could be build, but there is no river to adapt into a set of docks.
While ferry trip from Punta Indica would be shorter. Even now it is quicker to take a ferry over the bay.
New Capitals are built for *political* reasons, whether you look at Washington DC, Brasilia or Canberra, the motivation was not "better sea links" but a mixture of national pride, a compromise between existing cities and sometimes a desire was to move the capital inland to protect it from naval attack. The only example of a city that was moved *to* the coast is Lima, and there were other reasons behind that move.
So design a political justification for moving the capital, and you have a more convincing backstory.
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Water transport has always been the cheapest, per tonne, method of moving goods, the only reasons roads, railways, and/or air transport are preferred are point-to-point transfer and transport speed advantages, roads and railways are generally faster and when combined can get goods to the door instead of to the port, air transport is faster again. Water transport is *still* cheaper than overland transport for goods in the modern world just slower than other options so for all but the most time sensitive deliveries it's the cheapest method of transport.
I have tried to find some numbers to stick with this for you, at least something to give you an idea of the magnitude but my Google Fu isn't up to it tonight.
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In addition to the other answers, one reason to favour shipping over rail is the simple factor of bulk. Loading and unloading ships has always been one of the greatest bottlenecks in the transportation industry, and it was far worse in the era you are thinking of since innovations like standard pallets and ISO shipping containers have not been invented yet. Loading and unloading ships was a manpower intensive process of bringing individual boxes, barrels and other items into or out of the hold, down the gangplank and into the warehouses for further processing or shipping to inland locations. Bulk cargo like coal, ore, sugar etc. required a lot of handling as well.
Bulk breaking is always something to be avoided as long as possible, so keeping everything on a ship and sailing straight to Buenos Aires saves far more time and money in the long run than sending it by rail from another port.
If anything, Buenos Aires is the wrong place for the Capital by this reasoning, looking at the map you see the confluence of two rivers flowing into the bay, shipping could proceed inland via ship or barge (and dredging the river in the manner of the Mississippi river would be a major project worth doing)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ATmFs.png)
*modern Google Maps image*
Allow me to introduce the economic and political capital of the region, the city of Carmelo.
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* In my world, there would be a tropical region very similar to real life rain forests, though underground there's still jungle. At a point underground, there are huge caverns that are populated by various tropical plants, trees, fungi, algae, along with other types flora and various fauna as well.
* I'm aware that plants require photosynthesis to survive, though there's no access to sunlight. All light for photosynthesis would need to be from other sources, such as organisms with bio-luminescence bright enough to support decent light, fires, etc.
* Is there any way a climate like that can be scientifically possible?
* If you want any more details about this, I'll be happy to do so.
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The problem with plants is that they need light, and they are inefficient (using only about 1% of available energy) so they need lots of light.
A star can provide that, lucky for us. But underground that light can't get in.
Other light sources are orders of magnitude dimmer (e.g. biological or natural phosphorescence). You could have a very hot body emitting blackbody radiation (for example some sort of [natural fission reactor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor), or very hot lava) but the problem then is heat. The air would get crazy hot and the plants would cook.
You need to wave your hands. Wave them now. Feel the breeze.
1: **Natural LEDs**. These creaures would harness some sort of natural current (maybe piezoelectric current generated by tectonic plate motion?) and put out visible light as a byproduct. There might be a limited spectrum which fortunately for your plants would include the red light they use.
2: **Ancient tech**.
- Maybe the ancients set up lights down there for some reason. Maybe illumination was not even their intent. For example
2A: Portal. This huge portal to another place has a view of a star and admits light from that star.
2B: Super swanky alien tech lights powered by exotic energy source (e.g. zpoint energy, casimir forces etc). These machines actually are supposed to do something else, and the lights are just indicators. Do you want to see if you can make them do the something else?
2C: Gobliny steampunk tech lights powered by nonexotic energy source (e.g. geothermal electric generator). The goblins keep these running.
3. **Magic.** Sure, magic you up some light.
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[Radium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium) lighting or a similar radioactive decay based system might perhaps work. To keep the temperature in the tropical range you need to bury your cavern at least 750 metres to a kilometer down if it's completely sealed, deeper in accordance with how much it leaks heat, you can estimate based on the [geothermal gradient](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_gradient) how deep you need to be to get rock hot enough to maintain the necessary temperature.
Now for the big problem, water, the issue is not getting enough of it but *not* getting too much of it. "Nature abhors a vacuum" if you create a void that far below the water table it will, in the natural course of things, fill with hot mineral saturated water, the generic terms is **hydrothermal fluid**. I'm not sure if you can have the space hot enough to force water up and out in the form of vapour and have living organisms in it at the same time but maybe a balance can be struck.
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You could have some special plant which is on the surface, collecting light, and has long roots hanging down into the cave system, which work like fiber optics and dump waste light to the cave plants. Maybe some symbiotic benefit here, the jungle plants live on the light, exhaling co2 and moisture which the root system absorbs.
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I don't think so, or at least not in a world without magic, the thing about the sun its how much energy it outputs, energy that its captured by plants, to my knowledge there are no comparable sources of energy underground other than geothermal heat and natural sources of radiation but either of those two thing happen way to deep for a cave to naturally form, so if by some random chance of one in a million where to give a deep cave this conditions it could be plausible to develop some sort of complex environment, its just that beings in there wouldn't be plant like, they would be most likely fungus as those thrive way better in those conditions
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You could presume some alternate sustenance than photosynthesis, and combine it with what creates "hot" caves here on earth - a geothermal vent in a large cavern, with non-photosynthetic, probably mostly fungal plant life converting CO2 from the vent into O2. Bio-luminescence can provide light, but not enough to allow for photosynthesis.
It would definitely be a stretch to try to and set this up "realistically."
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>
> Is there any way a climate like that can be scientifically possible?
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You need two things:
1. A source of sunlight (and heat).
2. A thermal sump capable of maintaining equilibrium, otherwise your pocket underground universe would find a thermal equilibrium with a *very* hot Sun-lookalike. Everybody gets boiled.
There is very little chance of a "natural" origin for either, so you can imagine the underworld was established by a technologically advanced race as, maybe, an alternative to full terraformation ([*Spinneret*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinneret_(novel)) by Timothy Zahn features such an environment). Then the occupants moved away, and the world ran amok, finding an equilibrium in a much more jungley state than before.
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**The Background**
On a single fairly sizeable continent live two intelligent species. Regular humans, and a species of intelligent wolf-people.
The latter aren't actually descended from wolves, but a wolf-like social plains carnivore. Think carnivorous wolf-baboons. They're every bit as intelligent as humans, and have retained opposable thumbs from their ancient arboreal ancestry allowing for advanced tool use.
In order to answer the question, we'll take snapshots of 3 time periods in technological development. The first is pre-historic hunter-gatherer stone-age (or early pottery-age, which should definitely be a separate time period as far as I'm concerned). The second is classical antiquity (so established agriculture for humans allowing a sizeable population, but iron-age technology). The third is early-industrial (pike-and-shot era).
The principle difference between humans and our wolf-baboon people is that the latter evolved as hypercarnivores (>70% of diet consists of meat).
**Prior Research**
My research so far has led me [here](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/53776/what-would-a-society-of-carnivores-be-like), [here](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/90511/in-obligate-carnivores-can-i-have-animal-husbandry-livestock-keeping-without), and [here](https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/the-logistics-of-catgirls-obligate-carnivores-in-fantasyland.13224/).
What I've learnt from this is that societies of hypercarnivores would likely be massively outclassed by us as soon as we discover agriculture, allowing us to sustain a (relatively) stable, sizeable population and overwhelm them with a tide of numerous unhealthy mooks. Reason being that dependency on meat is less efficient at supporting a large population than agriculture, and more prone to population crashes as game reserves are depleted.
It's also suggested that the early sizeable populations of an intelligent hypercarnivore would likely develop around coastal fishing communities as the sea is both a larger and more stable source of protein than land. The likely early spread of hypercarnivore populations will be sizeable coastal settlements and interior pastoralists (most likely similar to steppe-nomads or plains native americans). The pastoralists will probably pretty quickly domesticate prey-species and develop animal husbandry.
**The Question**
*So, the question would be, what tweaks would we need to make to our hypercarnivores (either biologically or socio-culturally) to allow them to compete with regular humans in each of the three time-periods mentioned earlier?*
The first thing I was thinking is that our intelligent wolf-baboons will need to secure a source of protein that keeps their livestock alive. Eggs might be a great source, as could bloodletting. I'd also expect adult milk tolerance might be a significant enough advantage to allow it to spread throughout the population.
The second thing I was thinking is that hypercarnivore doesn't necessarily mean obligate carnivore. By definition, up to 30% of their diet can be plant-based, allowing for limited agriculture. My prior research into hypercarnivore plant-eating has shown two things:
1. Hypercarnivores often eat fruit and tubors to supplement their diet.
2. A lot of well-meaning dog owners are subjecting their pets to vegetarian diets with little empirical evidence to support them.
This means that potentially our hypercarnivore species may yet develop limited agriculture, and potentially gravitate towards more of a mesocarnivorous diet in their own version of the agricultural revolution.
So, do you think these tweaks would be sufficient to allow our hypercarnivores to compete with humanity, and which additional tweaks might be made that allow them to do so better?
Any questions, or if it's too broad, please let me know!
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**Better idea:** The carnivores evolved in the humid North and the omnivores the temperate South. The north is known for airborne *Malaria*. The carnivores all carry the disease but are adapted to be immune. Not only does this make the area inhospitable to the southerners -- it also means any martial conflict will have consequences far beyond the battlefield. Technologically the North is less developed than the South. But your omnivores' best option is just to leave the other side alone.
There can still be some interaction along the border as the story requires. Carnivores that spend long enough near the south will stop being carriers once the mosquitoes that live on them die off. Likewise you can have some characters evolve a resistance (sickle cell anemia) that allows them to travel further north. Just invent a new airborne illness with whatever properties you need! Or maybe the resistence comes from interbreeding?
The medical technology to overcome diseases like this was invented after the shot-and-pike-era so this should give a suitable barrier.
If you want the North to occasionally invade the South you need to occasionally give the North a *bumper year*. For some natural reason food is especially plentiful that year. Mothers always have large litters, but that year all seven survived into adulthood. A few years later food supplies run out and the bolstered population has nowhere to go except on a hunger-driven invasion of the South.
**Original Answer:**
The real problem is how can a **nomadic** race compete with a **settled race**.
Meat farming is less efficient than grain farming. Your carnivorous species is free to grow grain to feed their livestock but will ultimately require more land per head. This leads to smaller societies or to nomadic herding societies. In either case they will always be behind their omnivorous cousins in terms of technological development.
There should be no problem until the modern era. Consider Ancient Rome had a population of about 1 million at peak. At that time the default was small settlements. Even in the gun and shot era there will be huge swathes of the planet unsuitable to farming and your carnivores are free to drive their herds through these.
They can't exactly **compete** but maybe they can **coexist**.
Let's go a little deeper. . .
Instead of trying to give the carnivores some advantage let's remove the omnivores' advantage. What if we just make grain farming less efficient?
Maybe the planet has no equivalents to *wheat/rice/corn*. Every food crop is slightly poisonous. It won't kill you but it'll give you diarrhea and make a bread-based diet impossible. Settled communities grow feed for their livestock and fruit/vegetables which are less efficient than grain. On the whole this is not more efficient than farming for an all-meat diet. So you get the two types of settlement existing side-by-side.
**Note:** This gives both sides a handicap to developing up to the industrial stage. So that's another problem to consider.
Maybe there is a much more efficient meat-source? For example insects. Insects require less food over their lifetime to produce the same amount of protein. This is largely due to their small size. You would get something similar farming mice rather than cattle.
**Bonus Points:** The area is prone to locust swarms which destroy the omnivores' farms but provide a free source of food for the carnivores!
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/zUQYY.jpg)
Maybe large parts of the planet are simply unsuitable for farming to begin with. Maybe the planet is mostly water and islands? The omnivorous race can take advantage of whatever little farming land there is. The carnivorous race can take advantage of their natural swimming ability to live in coastal fishing groups.
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I like the disease idea. Here is another:
Humans make war upon open another and groups compete strongly. The main competition for humans is other humans.
**Groups of hypercarnivores do not compete with each other at all.** They are pack hunters and over their evolution, the ability to come together in smaller or larger ad hoc packs was strongly selected. The ability to make a large pack on short notice meant the ability to capitalize on food sources on short notice. Within a pack there is a hierarchy which is established (via pheromones and body language) within a minute or two of packs coming together.
The other way pastoralists compete with agrarian societies is by utilizing grazing habitats unsuitable for agriculture - for example the central asian steppes, in the case of nomadic human pastoralists.
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Advantages at the biological level can help alleviate disadvantages at the societal level.
The wolf people could breed faster than humans with the trade off of having a shorter life expectancy. Humans produce a single child at a time while the wolves produce four or five in small litters. While the human population would have a much higher cap due to the superiority of agriculture over hunting, the wolves would be able to bounce back from major population loss much quicker than the humans could. It also means that while their population density is lower, they are able to propagate and spread across a much wider territory faster than humans can.
Wolves have fur. It might not seem like much, but fur is what allows other mammals to thrive in the wilderness without need for housing. Humans are extremely vulnerable to the elements, where as the wolf people would be able to survive fairly comfortably in the wilderness even during winter. No need for buildings means their entire society is mobile, which makes hunting them down much more difficult.
Humans have incredible stamina, but we sacrifice sprinting speed for it. The wolves, while not as fast as real life wolves due to sacrificing speed for bipedalism and tool use, could well be faster sprinters than humans. This would potentially make them better at hit and run tactics, rushing in to wound enemies before quickly escaping into the woods faster than humans can keep up.
Wolves could also have superior tracking senses. Better smell, stronger eyes, and better hearing. All things they'd need as a hunting species, and all of which provides a strong logistical advantage when maneuvering troops.
If the wolves are nocturnal they gain a significant advantage over their human adversaries at night without losing much during the day. Humans deal with nocturnal predators by shutting our doors at night, but a nocturnal predator that can open doors or windows becomes much more dangerous.
All these traits lend the wolves well toward a specific type of society.
**Raiding Culture**
The main thing holding the wolves back is the inefficiency of their food production, but there is one significant food source available that grows it's own crops and has a tendency to all congregate in single areas that can be spotted from miles away. Humans.
Humans make a fine food source for the wolves. So do the humans' cattle and other livestock, and it's extremely difficult to defend farming communities from a dedicated band of fast moving, nocturnal predators that can plan as well as a human can. Furthermore, it would take significant effort to hunt down the small nomadic tribes through thick forests in an attempt to find bandits that don't necessarily need to set up camp.
Humans will develop technology faster, but the wolves can steal it. Wolves shouldn't have an issue stealing more advanced gear and figuring out how it works, as well as how to make their own.
The human population will find it hard to expand into new territories because wolves are already present there before the humans can set up their infrastructure. The human population has a harder time growing out of control because they have intelligent natural predators keeping them from expanding, and any battle that occurs that the humans don't win 5 to 1 will end in a long term advantage for the wolves because they rebound faster.
So long as the wolves avoid large scale, open field battles they should be able to survive by preying on the fringes of human society and making it all but impossible to expand deeply into their own territory with constant raiding.
This lifestyle can be further enhanced with good ships and/or horses to improve mobility even further.
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Premise: bio-tech golden age where "wetware" is the new IT meta, organic AI that can interface with our standard computing technology.
In this context, I'm imagining a future technology that would regulate data flow between the brain and external binary data.
Hyphal sheaths are a key element of mycorrhizzal fungi structure: filaments called hyphae sheathe tree roots, like a sleeve, and regulate nutrient uptake and distribution (among other functions). Fungal brain parasites are common as dirt: I'm imagining an engineered fungal parasite that would be planted in the host brain and translate binary data into neural data, sheathing neurons, nerves, weaving into sections of the brain, with a "plug" to jack into, à la Existenz/Matrix for full sensory simulation or man-machine interfacing.
Just looking for opinions and criticism to make this as credible as possible in a sci-fi setting maybe 100 years down the line.
[Answer]
**I say run with it!**
The vast, vast, vast majority of people who read your story won't have the slightest idea what you're talking about. They wouldn't know an hyphal sheath if it was used like spaghetti to slap them in the face — much less realize it isn't the kind of thing you can use to slap someone in the face.
But it sounds cool. Honking cool. And when the readers swarm the Internet to look it up the fact that it's referenced in a Wikipedia entry means that it's real! They still haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about, but now you're an *authority!* and your book has *credibility!*
The handful of geneticists who read your book will certainly recognize that you're pulling everyone's collective leg — but, honestly, what do you care about them?
Now, why do I say this?
Because I've read many books that tried to incorporate really cool electronics into their story, and indeed it was creative and imaginative. I enjoyed the books thoroughly! But, being an electrical engineer, I laughed for an hour when I read those sections becuase it was obvious to one "practiced in the art" that the author had just enough knowledge about the solution to present it credibly but not enough knowledge to know he/she was so far in left field that Babe Ruth couldn't land a ball in their glove.
And I didn't care one bit, because I was happily suspending my disbelief and enjoying an imaginative and creative story.
I think you've come up with a very imaginative explanation that sounds so much better than Star Trek technobabble. Run with it!
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This seems like a cool idea, but there may be some complications:
1. It is immensely more difficult to control biological organisms as compared to electric circuits because there is not a lot of abstractions and invariants in the workings of biological organisms.
2. Biological organisms need resources other than energy (which is also much more difficult to provide). Such *matter* would be difficult to provide non-invasively.
3. We need to genetically engineer the fungus to decode the brain and encode our signals anyways, so why can't we just make that algorithm purely in a PCB? Consumers would trust circuits more than fungus (unless there is a cultural shift).
Considering these factors, it seems unlikely that such a signal would come into being, although it does seem possible.
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As much as I enjoyed the original Matrix movie, the idea of uploading mental data was nothing beyond a plot element.
We remember things through experiences. Any information, or binary data, would first have to be converted into a simulated, tangible experience.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/9ugdO.jpg)
With every experience, the hippocampus and frontal cortex analyze the various sensory inputs and decide what's worth remembering -- choosing information that's considered relevant, and discarding the rest.
Even in regards to basic studying -- reading and listening to information is an experience in itself. Plus, some people are more visual, while others require hands-on. That's not even accounting for, an individual's background, ability to relate with the subject matter, past experiences, etc. etc.
Even if information was converted into a tangible, customized, relate-able experience, and transmitted to someone's mind, like in the Matrix -- it would result in a blurred, quickly forgotten, dream-like moment.
The neural pathways of the brain take time to form, and that alone would prevent any rapid transferal of information.
Your premise definitely has a great fictional quality to it -- but there's simply no way to factually support it.
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So in my world I've got a mostly human like species but they've evolved to camouflage, specifically colour change. The world is an earth-like medieval fantasy. The different parts that appear to change are:
Hair: They can change the colour of their hair (including body hair) at will, takes a couple of seconds.
Eyes: Doesn't actually change but are reflective so they appear to be whatever colour is most prevalent.
Skin: Cannot be done at will or controlled, instead changes over the course of 1-2 months depending on trends in temperature and humidity. So that their skin colour matches the kind of environments. e.g. hot and humid = brown skin, hot and dry = sandy skin.
How could these adaptations come about and how would they work?
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Okay, let's do this.
Hair:
Real hair is made of non-living protein fibers that grow out from living bulbs where cell division takes place and capillaries are present. The reason our hair cannot change color at our will is because there is nothing to connect it to our will nor are there any change mechanisms.
So first, connecting the hair to our will. For this we need nerves. How you design these nerves will decide how the hair changes color. For example say you had a neuron with few dendrites and many axons (i.e. accepts one input and outputs the same signal to many follicles). This would result in patchy color changes as opposed to changing individual strands of hair. A small neuron connected to every hair follicle could give precise control over every strand. Anyway, nerves are already all over our body, so it is not a stretch to say a human-like species would have an extra layer of neural communication to their hair. As a plus, if the neurons only connect to the bulb, the hair would still not feel pain when cut.
Second, the actual color change. Hair gets its colors from bits of melanin pigment woven into the growing strand. But melanin itself doesn't change when a person changes color (i.e. getting a tan), only the concentration does. So by expanding the capillaries in the bulb of the hair into the whole follicle, you could allow for more melanin to be pumped into the follicle at a given signal, in this case wilful thought. The downside is that hair would now bleed when cut. Another possibility is to make a new protein for your world that can shift the conjugation of its bonds when receiving an electron from an electrical signal, thus changing it's color. (Do I need to provide electron-pushing mechanisms for this to count as a valid science-based answer? I hope not). This way, a signal from the neuron at the bulb could cause a change all the way to the end of the follicle. This would result in the whole strand only ever being one color though. Either way could take "a few seconds."
Finally, part of how this adaptation came about is to provide a evolutionary reason. You already specified camouflage. Side effects could include attracting a mate or body language enhancements.
Eyes:
Metal granules stored in either the iris or the (transparent in normal humans) cornea would work. Both have living cells where metal vacuoles could be stored. It just depends on if you want the iris or the whole eye to change color, however the iris would make more sense so you don't block off the pupil. The actual metal just depends on the flavor of your story. Imagine black irises and a silicon-packed cornea that works like a mirror. Or silver-oxide storing irises.
If you want you could include sharper/hazer vision as a side effect of this evolution.
Skin:
This one is already really similar to how our skin works anyway. The difference is that we have limited reasons for our skin to change. We produce more melanin when exposed to more sunlight, for example, resulting in darker skin. Another interesting one is that melanin production can be triggered by insulin. This called Acanthosis nigricans and is why you sometimes see diabetics with dark knuckles or elbows. The point is there are a number of believable things that change our skin color and you just need to add reasons to it for this to be plausible. The actual mechanism for this is the easy part. It could be as simple as saying increased humidity triggers melanin production in these people. We already have sensors in the body for temperature, humidity, irritation from sand (think producing mucus or sneezing in dust), etc. Any one of these could be attached to the melanin production (or inhibition of production) process. Since this is a species that survives by camouflage that's all the evolutionary force needed to explain why it happened. But it could be as complex as saying the dermis can bulk up in hot environments to provide more insulation from heat, the epidermis then responds by producing more melanin, forming a wearable heat sink around the whole body with the side-effect of becoming darker. As with normal skin color changes, this could take many days.
[Answer]
**Chromatophores**
I would imaging the evolution would be similar to the chromatophore pigments in squids which they can control through muscle contractions. This would also likely evolve from a similar need; as a defense against natural predators. From an evolutionary standpoint this would suggest that primates evolved under the shadow of a persistent threat that followed them across different environments. Eventually this threat may have been defeated or dealt with so the camouflage ability became more passive, combining with the natural pigmentation change that humans developed to adapt to climate and sun exposure. Some races of humans would likely have a stronger affinity to this skill based on the relative timing of their evolutionary branch (ie the predator may have lingered in a particular area).
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My winged people just have feathers on their wings, and maybe small feathers on their back between their wings (from shoulder blades to mid back). Their bodies look generally human.
Here is a link to an image I am basing their structure off of:
<https://blue-hearts.deviantart.com/art/SB-New-Bones-577558072>
My research has gathered that birds need to preen to get rid of parasites that could carry diseases, and also to keep their feathers flexible. They also preen to arrange their feathers in the best and most aerodynamic position for flight, which makes flying easier. They have a preen gland by their tail that either produces preen oil or powder (my hybrid race will have oil because it's better for what they'll need). If birds can't reach certain places (e.g. sometimes the top of their head) they will get a bald spot and the feathers will eventually grow back.
So as you see, preening is essential to healthy wings. My question is: will the hybrids be able to apply the oil to every part of their wings (including their back between the shoulder blades) and arrange every feather just using their hands, considering the limitations of the human arms, or will I have to give them something like longer limbs to be able to reach every spot.
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**[People. People who preen people. Are the luckiest people in the world.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPlQ6EtArSc)**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/qN01j.jpg)
<http://www.chimpsanctuarynw.org/blog/category/advocacy-2/free-living-chimps/>
If your winged people are people, they do not need to reach everywhere to preen. They can have friends and family do it for them. Fingers and nails are great for grooming (front teeth help too) and if you have buddies they can get all those hard to reach spots for you. And I ask: what is the point of being a social animal if you don't get a good grooming now and then?
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I'm familiar (a bit) with that work from dA. I see no reason why winged people would not be able to autopreen. My winged people ([**Daine**](https://elemtilas.deviantart.com/gallery/63123250/Daine)) are not avian hybrids, though like yours they have both feathered wings and unfeatherd arms. As I understand it, there are glands, I suppose kind of like modified sweat glands, that secrete an oily substance which they will occasionally work into the feathers to keep them healthy.
On occasion, they also [**moult**](https://elemtilas.deviantart.com/art/Moulting-651802123), which renews the feathers. Being social folk, they also preen one another. They make special combs for hair & feather work alike, and as far as feathers go, different combs for different sized feathers.
I think your winged folk, like Daine, would only run into troubles if their arms became stiff and unable to reach that niggling little spot right there between the shoulders! But I'd suspect also that your winged folk, also like Daine, are social and have probably evolved something of a communal or codependent existence where social preening & grooming is just part of everyday life.
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Based on the location of the wings, I'm going to say *largely* no. They might be able to do the very ends of the wings and maybe the area around where shoulder blades should be. Unless there is a device that has been invented to help them (like a highly adapted backscratcher). Other than that they are going to need assistance from someone else.
If this a whole difference species, you could fold it into there purview of hairdresser. That would be interesting to read about in a story. "I'm going to get my haircut and my wings preened see you in 2 hours."
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**Closed.** This question is [off-topic](/help/closed-questions). It is not currently accepting answers.
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Closed 6 years ago.
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Which trees are the least vulnerable to fire? These trees will be the "restaurants" (more like small food kitchens) in this mostly realistic world. There will be vents up at the top of the trees for smoke to exhaust.
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# Mediterranean Cypress
This [tree](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupressus_sempervirens), which can be up to 100 ft tall or more, has demonstrated [significant fire resistance](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/09/03/how-a-devastating-forest-fire-revealed-a-tree-as-close-to-fireproof-as-a-tree-can-get/?utm_term=.6a266b879b5d).
Ironically, it is generally considered that conifers like pine and cypress are the worst trees in fires; their fibrous bark, year long leaf litter, and oily leaves make them very flammable.
In general the deciduous trees seen in gallery forests in grasslands have good fire resistance. Examples would be oaks, willows, and maples.
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My vote goes to the Giant Sequoia (sequoiadendron giganteum), which has fire-resistant bark that can be up to 2 ft/65 cm thick: <https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/08/130826-giant-sequoias-yosemite-rim-fire-forestry-science/> It grows in the Sierra Nevada, an area which is prone to forest fires, and trees likely wouldn't live to reach great age & size without being adapted to fires.
But there's a caveat for the story purposes. It's the bark that's fire resistant, not so much the actual wood (or the needles), so running chimneys up the trees may not work that well.
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Let's imagine a supernatural creature that can walk off all damage unless their heart is hit. (think Mr Sinister. The damage is done, it's just not lethal) These creatures exist in modern times, have similar anatomy to us, and any damage to their heart is as lethal as it is to us.
Modern armor is heavy, bulky, and does a poor job of protecting it's wearer from direct gunfire. Even a poorer job against military grade gunfire. Now let's imagine that only the heart matters. Maybe we don't need the large vest anymore? just a single frontal plate made of a much tougher, heavier material? Would anything reasonable for humans to wear be able to stand up to modern assault weapons?
Let's also assume that the shooters know what they are doing. They know where to aim, and if the armor becomes part of "the meta" they would adjust their ammo. Would it still make sense to try to wear protection if you were most likely to face FMJs or whatever the proper counter would be?
Notes. I understand that people can be shot from other angles, but let's assume that most gunfire would be from the front. (that does not mean that if you think that fire coming from the front would actually hit from other angles you should not mention that) I also understand that nothing is going to stand up to a 50cal, let's only consider normal weapons up to assault rifles
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I have to point out that modern military body armor does a wonderful job protecting the wearer from direct gunfire, and it is specially designed to defeat military weapons.
The US military uses armor consisting of ridged plates able to defeat 7.62mm rounds, the type commonly used in the AK-47. Surrounding the plates and covering areas not protected by plates, you'll find kevlar panels able to defeat some small caliber weapons, as well as providing protection from shrapnel.
For a creature that only needs to protect its heart, I would still recommend it wears standard military body armor. The ballistic plates are designed to protect the vital organs, but shrinking those plates would expose the heart to gunfire from off-angle attacks (45 degrees). Bullets also tend to bounce around inside the body, so it is possible for a round to hit in the hip and then redirect up through the chest cavity, for example. Because of this, maximizing protection is always a good idea.
I wouldn't expect any type of armor to defeat a .50 though. The sheer kinetic force would likely crush the chest cavity, destroying the heart if you were able to stop it.
Your creatures would gain the advantage of shedding helmets though. A standard plate carrier (unlike a vest, it only carries plates, and doesn't have the bulk or restrictions to movement) equipped with side plates would be my recommendation.
Source: Former Infantryman with some experience relating to body armor and the effects of weapons on the human body.
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The problem with limited protection is that your opponent can disable you (shoot your legs and arms off, for example) and then you are unable to defend yourself or get away.
At that point they can, at leisure, get at your heart easily and all you get to do is watch !
This also raises the question of how your creature survive if I can blow it's brains to smithereens. Is it still alive just because it's heart is OK ?
So all things considered, you still want as much protection as possible.
Others have already commented on the limitations of modern body armor, but I'd also add that if a bullet can enter the body, even if it misses the heart, it can still damage the heart.
When a bullet enters the body it does not drill a neat little tunnel, it causes massive shock waves to travel outward from the path of the bullet. This can cause damage to organs not actually directly in the path of the bullet. There's a "nice" demonstration of this effect [in this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7XX8W2X2d8).
So, again, you want to protect as much as possible, because even near misses are a bad idea.
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You actually need to specify what you are protecting against, and I can point out what sorts of armour you need.
Common soft body armour (Level 1 & 2) is useful in stopping things like pistol calibre rounds (9mm and .38 were the most common types protected against in Police body armour). More modern materials ramp up the protection to guard against higher velocity/powered rounds like 10mm or .40. Soft body armour also protects against shell and grenade fragments.
The common military body armour is considered level 3, which protects against intermediate calibre rifle rounds, like 5.56 X 45 or 7.62 X 39. This covers most common military selective fire weapons and even light machine guns. Protection at level 3 is by protective plates, which can be either ceramic or metal. Ceramic plates dissipate the energy of an incoming round by shattering, while metal plates deform, which makes most plates "one time use" to give you an idea of the sorts of energies we are dealing with.
SoF, Police ERT teams and others specialty units can go to level 4, but this is a massive increase in weight/bulk, since now the plates and backing are required to dissipate the energy of a full sized round, like 7.62 X 51. these are fired from battle rifles (M-14 or FN-FAL) or medium machine guns.
And regardless of what level of armour you use, special rounds exist designed specifically to defeat the armour, using special coatings or high density penetrators or other combinations of techniques.
So your creature might have a "ceramic" plate over the heart, perhaps grown like a shell, but after one or two shots, and especially if the shooter is using an AP round, the protection will no longer be valid.
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The vampires I have in mind are a sub-species of humans: they share a similar immune system with us, however they evolved fangs and are capable of injecting some kind of substance into their victims, usually a human being.
This chemical not only prevents the blood from clogging, it can also paralyze the prey. When threatened my vampire can alter the potency of the chemical so that it can kill any person within minutes.
How does my vampire acquire the chemical and seemingly not be affected by it?
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An old motto in medicine is *in dose venenum* (the poison is in the dose).
That's exactly what your vampires do: if they inject a low dose of their chemical it simply induces muscular relaxation and prevent movement.
On the other hand, if the injected dose is higher, the relaxation will be too deep and death will result.
That's the reality with any muscle relaxant (ask an anesthesiologist for more info). A simple example is botulinum toxin: on very low doses it is used to relax muscles (as aesthetic treatment), on higher doses it kills you.
As how to explain how they acquired the trait, you can go along the way of snakes: some saliva glands were modified to secrete the chemical, and of course the vampires also developed the counter enzyme to be protected against their own chemicals (the "I just bite my tongue" scenario).
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As with any venom, they produce it naturally. The different potency can be explained away by dosage. Normal dosage paralyses; full contents of the venom sacs kill.Have a look at Wikipedia for the different types of [venom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venom_sac) and delivery. I'd recommend spiders or snakes (or, if you're feeling adventurous, the mammals are at the end).
As with the above, your vampire isn't affected since
>
> ...[the venom is] produced by glands below the eye (the mandibular gland) and delivered
> to the victim through tubular or channeled fangs;
>
>
>
or
>
> ...glands that produce this venom are located in the two segments of
> the chelicerae, and, in most spiders, extend beyond the chelicerae and
> into the cephalothorax. The fang, the organic functional equivalent to
> a hypodermic needle is what penetrates the skin, fur, or exoskeleton
> of the spider's target—spider mouthparts are primarily intended for
> envenoming a spider's prey in most species, typically insects and
> other small arthropods. The basal portion includes all or part of the
> spider's venom glands, which can be squeezed to control the amount of
> venom forced out of the glands. Such control permits a spider to
> administer either a dry bite, a dose appropriate to the nature of the
> prey or enemy, or a maximal dose;
>
>
>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelicerae>
or
>
> ...[venom is produced in] a venom gland (housed in the maxillary
> fossae) [passes through] a delivery mechanism of the venom (the
> maxillary canals), [to] an instrument by which a wound for venom
> delivery can be inflicted (the ridged canines)
>
>
>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euchambersia>
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The venom can be cause of evolution. Maybe the humans you attack are being so aggresive and its dangerous to hunt because they have weapons, then you develop a strongest body and/or venom to paralyze humans.
Check how Snakes of Ilha da Queimada Grande (snake island) venom evolved because preys they hunt (mainly birds) die outside of the island, due to a slower and less powerful venom. They develop a better venom to kill animals in a shorter amount of time, before they escape from the island.
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I'm in the midst of writing a space opera, and there are several characters that are sentient androids and I need some help with their physiology. I have them set up with small fusion cores for power, quantum computing brains, and nanite self repair. They obviously have no need to breathe and only have lungs in order to speak.
Would they need the equivalent of blood? What would their synthetic flesh be composed of? How would they "refuel"?
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Why do you need blood?
In living beings blood is used to
1. transport nutrients and oxygen to all the cells and to remove catabolites from the cells.
2. thermoregulatory fluid, spreading the heat to the entire body.
Now, for 1. you don't need blood. Some simple wiring can convey the energy where is needed.
For 2., since you have a centralized energy production, you can use the equivalent of lungs to create a "breathe assisted" cooling, where the primary coolant is a liquid which then exchange heat with air in the lungs via breathing. This however will be less efficient than a continuous flow, since your android would have to inspire and expire. A similar system can be used to maintain thermal balance in joints when needed.
To feed the fusion core you can simply have the android drink, once in a while, some heavy water integrated with lithium salts.
Flesh will be replaced by the systems used to actuate movements, something like nano-machines a la MEMS.
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Supposed you really wanted them to have something resemling blood (because it's really a lot more hipster than just cables), your nanite self repair system might be the reason for that.
The system of blood vessels in biological creatures is extremely complex from a geometrical point of view, but since you already have nanomachinery, and the underlying rules of this complexity are comparably simple, you should not have a problem there.
Now to the why-question:
nanomachines need power in order to operate. If you imagined some kind of reservoir, or garage, for your nanites, where they are parked and recharged when they are not repairing anything, you need a means for them to reach the place in the body where they are needed.
Obvoiously they could use their internal means of propulsion, e.g. crawling, to reach their target destination, but that would drain their batteries. If instead you had a system of tubes similar to a creature's blood vessels, you could float them to their target location, pushed by a central pump.
It is even possible that a breach in the system (a damage comparable to an open wound) even facilitates the process: the pressure in the system already pushes the nanites to the opening.
The same system can be used to remove waste, like bits of things that were remoed by the nanites, back to a central storage.
The fact that a blood-like system allows for quite some story twists is a plus, of course.
Oh, and you don't really need lungs to speak. a simple loudspeaker could do the job just fine. But, Admittedly, lungs are cooler.
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You can use **oil or lubricant** as equivalent of blood. As the vessel, tubes. This will suffice if you only need a visualization of bleeding and death of blood loss (although that will be quite different).
However, if you need blood in the sense of a method of transportation system, then that will depend on what needs to be transported and why. For reference, you might want to consider water-based and oil-based solution.
For example, you might use **a supercoolant liquid** for a heatsink system for your quantum brain, because just water will not suffice.
As for refueling (the liquid), you can have the classic "gas tank". Or directly to the tubes.
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This question is kinda broad, but I'll weigh in and answer all three questions.
1. Probably don't need blood if you don't breathe with your lungs. Only purpose would be maybe to facilitate transportation of nanites or coolant for whatever energy system you're using.
2. I recommend looking up Japanese robots. Many have skin made of silicon. But really you can use whatever suits your androids needs/personal desires.
3. How they refuel is entirely up to you. If they use small fusion cores, they may need to be swapped out. They may have batteries that must be recharged.
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On one end of the scale there's androids that are entirely flesh and blood like we are but were created through genetic engineering. Then you might have something that's mostly flesh'n'blood but has an implanted computer rather than a brain. An android made of a combination of biomass and electronics could be a best of both worlds solution, or it could be entirely synthetic but designed to be analogous to biology like the white-blooded androids in the Alien series. On the other end of the scale is the more traditional robot made of motors, electronics and covered in shiny plating, or maybe biomaterials made to imitate that appearance, shiny keratin over circuitry made of nerve fibres.
Anyway the most practical power source would either be some fuel burning engine/alternator setup (probably burning hydrogen so the only waste it produces is water) or using advanced batteries (lithium oxygen) or there's some wireless power supply and the android just has an on-board capacitor bank.
A traditionally designed robot could justifiably have various lubricants, coolants and liquid fuels that would leak out like blood if it was damaged; some kind of non-conductive fire-suppression foam would be a good idea too.
[Answer]
*small fusion cores for power* so no fuel reserves needed, unless they are producing enormous energy blasts.
*quantum computing brains* sounds small; good.
*nanite self repair* super nifty.
All you need now is to be able to move. The lighter you are the easier it is to move.
**I propose your androids exist within an inflatable humanoid form**.
Inflatable is cheap and flexible. Movement would be accomplished via pneumatics; tiny fans (powered by the fusion core) would push air into or pull air out of appendages, inflating or deflating regions corresponding to the muscle groups.
These light inflatable humanoids would easily be able to fly using their fans; an added bonus. Or they could bounce along as they walked, like people on the moon. Of course they could also walk at a stately pace like any humanoid, with the help of ballasted shoes. The nanites could easily scuttle out with tape to put on any holes.
An android could upload wirelessly into any such inflatable body as might be necessary (humanoid or otherwise). In circumstances where many balloon bodies might be used up in short order (e.g. an infantry battle) you might opt for batteries rather than the expensive fusion core. If acting only locally the quantum brain would be lost with the body and so would make sense for that to be remote, with the body providing a host computer from which to actuate the inflatable muscles.
A google image search for "inflatable doll" provides many, many images and much food for thought.
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You need to decide how the power is transferred from the fusion core to moving parts - the core just produces heat and too many readers already understand this just to pass it. You can turn that to either to electricity, run some chemical reaction or mechanical force. Electricity you can get from the heat difference directly.
It's probably better to not try to explain it in too much detail, as you're just making stuff up and it has knock on effects on other parts of the built world - if you have a visual image in your head about how some scene should work, you can make up the details for that(Aliens style).
You're not probably going to into detail about exactly how the nanites work either, just that they work and for some reason don't replicate and they do not work outside of the body of the host android(I'm assuming this, since that would probably affect your story if they did in a big way) - so just have them be tied to the "blood" of the android like cells, if you don't you'll be soon facing the logical inclusion of T1000 like androids compromised entirely of nanites apart from the quantum brain device.
You need cooling of some sort as well and liquids are good at transferring heat from one place to another.
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I'm thinking of roughly Tolkien-style elves. Immortal, numinous, "better than you and we both know it so I won't mention it", and, most importantly, extremely infertile. Centuries go by without any elf births.
So ... what happens when little Uatdi'el is born? Is she swamped with a bevy of slobbering, adoring aunties and uncles from day one? I imagine the entire community would be wrapped around her finger, and they can deny her nothing. I'm talking quinceñera *and* sweet-sixteen party here.
Naturally (I'm guessing) a child raised under such conditions would be spoiled like last week's pork. Haughty, annoying, utterly expecting to get her way at all times. Kind of sounds like ... elves. ;D
**I suppose my real question here is, from what we know of elves, would their social/emotional dynamics work enough like ours that they'd have the spoiled children problem?** It might be that in order to survive so many centuries they've become extremely "zen", almost spaced-out, living entirely in the now, and might barely pay attention to the child until she "becomes interesting".
**Edit: Hmm ... It's been argued that this question is not ... worldbuildy enough.** I suppose, though permit me to differ: the idea here is to develop a psychological profile of elves and their home-life, so that we can add incidental depth when viewpoint characters visit an elf village. If we posit that elves are wise enough to not spoil the children, visitors will see the (few) children gamboling about in smocks peacefully and happily. If elflets are spoiled monsters, their antics will disrupt the peace of the village and thoroughly embarrass the elves (as well as providing some interesting scenes when they try to manipulate/wheedle the non-elves!). If they are neglected and ignored until they become wise, there could be a whole Mad Max subculture of vicious elf-children acting out, setting fires, taking potshots at visitors.
Anyhoo, please do un-hold the question if it please the Council.
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I'd go the opposite way. The child is as immortal as her parents, but mentally unformed. She will grow up in the community and live in it beside her parents, grandparents, and everybody else ***forever.***
An immortal race would not think about generations the same as us; if my child in 25 years is going to be my neighbor for 10,000 years, like I have been neighbors with my own parents, grandparents, and practically every ancestor for 10,000 years, I will devote 100% of the next 25 years ensuring she becomes an upstanding citizen that pulls her weight and socializes perfectly.
Now is the time to form that mind while it is malleable, to ensure she is not spoiled, entitled, egotistical or anything else.
Their perspective has to be geared to the long term. They will not see offspring the same way, because in their world, 99.9999999% of their life they and their parents are peers. This is seldom true for humans; our parents are generally 20 years ahead of us and that is always a significant amount in a 75 year life. Not so for immortals; their children will "catch up" to them and perhaps even surpass them in wisdom, life experience, education, wealth, responsibility and more. What we see as a persistent gap between us and our parents will fade away to nothing: Bob is 5025 and his son is 5000, is his son still supposed to defer to him? I don't think so.
I don't think spoiled children will be a problem, elven children need to be raised with social skills that will last them forever.
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So let's say I have a super cooling "battery" basically a brick that cools anything that touches one end of it to ~0k. Now, using handwavium I can thermally isolate it so that it doesn't just cool everything infinitely. What I want to know is:
given this "cooling battery" what is the best way to create lift using WW2 era technology?
There can be some flex there, since my civilization is supposed to be slightly more advanced than others of the time, but nuclear solutions are a no go, since that would have too much impact on the outcome of the war. Some ideas I've had are
## Temperature Gradient Turbine
Put our super cooling battery on one side of a tube, and a heat source on the other, the difference in temperature will cause the air to move around the tube. Place a turbine inside the tube, and you have thrust.
## Explosive Sublimation
Use our super cooling batter to produce a brick of frozen Hydrogen, put this in a tube and take away the battery, the Hydrogen will begin to rapidly expand, if a hole is left in the bottom of this tube, we have thrust.
## Super Cooled Environment
If we cool the air around our pilot, or only on the top of a pair of wings, will that have a noticeable effect on flight? Note: This idea is a long shot, I'm just trying to think outside the box, or tube as the case may be
Ideally I'd like something as rooted in hard science as possible, with certain amounts of handwavium applied where necessary (eg. creating containment fields for our super cooled air, preventing humidity from forming huge blocks of ice)
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For your last idea I don't see how it can work at all.
But I also see a major problem with the first two ideas: environmental air is never fully dry air, but alway bear some water in it.
This means that as soon as you cool it down (and you state you are cooling it around 0 K) that humidity will produce ice which will end up clogging any piping you have.
This will happen also with the heating of frozen hydrogen (by the way, considering hydrogen is pretty scarce in our atmosphere, can't you use another gas?), which will enclose in pretty thick layer of ice (see example of a nitrogen vaporizer in the picture below)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Sepji.jpg)
What you can try is to have a battery expecially meant for humidity removal before the inlet of your circuit, and a good set of heaters to remove the ice layer from the outside.
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You could look into the effects of [Quantum Levitation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meissner_effect), also known as the "Meissner Effect". Basically, if a superconductor is sufficiently cooled and can be kept cool, which because of your "cold battery", it can, it can cause this levitation effect.
What this can allow is a form of travel across a rail at ridiculously high speeds, completely free of all friction. Like a hovertrain, but way better.
For actual flight, "[Pre-Cooled Jets](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precooled_jet_engine)" work by cooling the air intake, so that relatively little fuel is required to generate the same amount of thrust as a normal jet while using less fuel. One of the issues with normal jet packs is that they are incredibly fuel inefficient, so if you were to supercool the air going in, you could actually solve that efficiency problem. The other issue is that they're incredibly loud, but that doesn't stop them from flying.
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Starting with the ideal gas equation.
The four gas variables are: pressure (P), volume (V), number of mole of gas (n), and temperature (T). Lastly, the constant in the equation shown below is R, known as the the gas constant, which will be discussed in depth further later:
PV=nRT
So as you decrease temperature you decrease pressure. If you decrease temperature all the way to the condensation point that decreases pressure a lot.
Next: airplane wings. Airplane wings work by producing decreased pressure over the wing as compared to under the wing. The pressure under the wing lifts the wing and thus the plane.
from <http://www.explainthatstuff.com/howplaneswork.html>
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ITULZ.png)
A plane wing generates decreased pressure via differential airflow speeds. But you could generate differential pressure by cooling the air on top of the wing. **Instead of rapid airflow decreasing pressure atop the wing, you would cool the air to decrease the pressure.**
So: a plane which does not need to move forward to stay aloft. It could silently hover.
A wing is structured to guide airflow. The wing of your cold hoverplane does not need to be structured that way. A circumferential "wing" occupying the entire top of a circular vehicle might be better as lift could be delivered evenly around the circumference of the vehicle. The cold low pressure air atop the vehicle would produce condensation within it, causing the vehicle to be enveloped in a cloud when underway.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/I2nxR.jpg)
from <http://www.thelivingmoon.com/43ancients/04images/Earth/Eyes/Lenticular_UFO_001.jpg>
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As the question is written, the main application is using the supercooling pack to manipulate the [Carnot Cycle](https://infogalactic.com/info/Carnot_heat_engine) to increase the efficiency of the engine (note, this works for *any* heat engine, so the answer would apply to a steam engine, a diesel engine or a Stirling Cycle engine, among others).
The Carnot Cycle is based on the idea:
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> Carnot's theorem is a formal statement of this fact: No engine operating between two heat reservoirs can be more efficient than a Carnot engine operating between the same reservoirs.
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[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/7o8Mt.png)
*Carnot's Equation*
This can be diagrammed as such:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/CIyRL.png)
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> Carnot engine diagram (modern) - where an amount of heat QH flows from a high temperature TH furnace through the fluid of the "working body" (working substance) and the remaining heat QC flows into the cold sink TC, thus forcing the working substance to do mechanical work W on the surroundings, via cycles of contractions and expansions.
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For a jet engine ([Brayton cycle](https://infogalactic.com/info/Brayton_cycle)), the supercooling of the intake air helps increase the power by increasing the mass flow of the engine. A similar effect is used in some engines by water injection (overspray), once again increasing the mass flow and decreasing the compressor outlet temperature, so you have two places where a supercooling brick can be used to increase the power output of a small backpack sized jet engine.
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I have a world that consists of hundreds of different caverns inside an earth-sized planet. Each of these many caverns consists of many different biomes, such as plains, Jungles,deserts,etc.
However since the plants and trees in these caverns are photosynthetic, I created a carnivorous light producing plant only found on the ceiling in these ecosystems to ensure the trees below survive.
Majority of the plant's mass is just a cluster of vines and roots that cling to ceiling but what makes it interesting is they grow strange bioluminisant bulbs. The Bulbs are 8 meters wide and are usually 50 to 20 meters away from each other. The color of these bulbs shift from white to blue depending on certain hours.
(You can see I'm trying to make a portray of day and night)
The Purpose of these bulbs is to attract Airbourne prey that rely on their own Bio-luminescence to attract mates. Once prey lands on the bulb and realizes it's a trap, their body is then absorbed into the bulb and kills the prey via suffocation. This usually happens in the "nighttime" when bulbs produce a blue or white light not bright enough to blind someone's eyes.
During the day, the bulbs release huge amounts of light and heat in order to steer away larger flying animals from consuming them, this in turn causes the plants in the bottom to rely to this bright light to grow. During this state, looking at them too long may cause blindness.
To sum it all up, how intense should the light of these bulbs be in order to sustain the plant-life below? And if so, how much prey should these bulbs consume in order to sustain enough energy to glow brightly for 24 hours?
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You need some energy to come into the system from outside.
The bulbs get their energy by eating insects. The insects get their energy from eating plants, animals or dung. The energy in the animals and dung all came from plants or from things that get energy by eating plants. The plants get their energy from the bulbs, so it's all a big closed loop.
A bit of energy is lost at every point in the loop. More is lost every time a life form walks, flies, grows tall, or in any other way expends energy on something other than being delicious. The ecosystem will quickly die out unless there is some kind of energy coming in from outside the cave. The more energy comes in, the richer the ecosystem can be.
It could be chemicals seeping up from deep underground, or an underground river that brings food from the surface.
If stuff is going in to the cave then you will also need a way for stuff to leave the cave, so it doesn't fill up.
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I am afraid your world cannot work in the way you envision.
First of all, assuming your plants are no better that our real plants, we have that if your globes produce so much energy in form of heat that it is disturbing for other animals, it's pretty hard to have the globe cells withstand it, mainly because you require them to produce heat, not only light (bioluminescence is normally "cold" light).
Then you also want to sustain a biome with this light. Keep in mind that when it comes to [photosynthetic efficiency](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetic_efficiency)
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> For actual sunlight the theoretical maximum efficiency of solar energy conversion is approximately 11%. In actuality, however, plants do not absorb all incoming sunlight (due to reflection, respiration requirements of photosynthesis and the need for optimal solar radiation levels) and do not convert all harvested energy into biomass, which results in an overall photosynthetic efficiency of 3 to 6% of total solar radiation
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But where do these globes producing plants take the energy to sustain themselves and produce also light? You say they grow in caves, so sunlight appears to be ruled out. Since you mention other biomes, I tend to rule out also volcanic activity as energy source. Feeding on insects won't work, because insects are supported by the same plants using the globes to grow.
As a reference, our Sun drops on Earth aboout 1000 W per square meter, and that is enough to sustain life as we know it. Yet this is not enough to disturb insects, which fly during the day with no problems.
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If the caves are open (to the outside) you can say that flying creatures that came from outside the caves (that feed on usual plants or phototrophic ecosystems under normal sunlight) are lured in by the bulbs’s Light in the caves, flying into the caves and getting consumed, thus providing the ecosystem with energy. For waste, water and airflow into and out of the caves would probably get rid of it.
Or, the plants get its energy from parts of itself that photosynthetizes outside the caves, connecting to the parts that’s inside the caves in order to lure the insects within for things like fertilizers or minerals (like real carnivorous plants do) you basically need some external power supply and a mean to transport this power into the caves, just like real world hydroponic farms that uses electricity from wires to power their lights.
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I want to develop an intelligent species that communicates almost exclusively through touch. Their entire epidermis serves as a conductor like an electrode, so that when they touch they share thoughts. When they are too distant to touch, they can use sound vibrations to send simple messages, (such as "danger!"). They have developed metal crowns that connect to their electrode like epidermis to act as transmitters to allow for more complex distance communication. Their intelligence and complexity of communication is on par with or above that of humans.
Assuming this species is otherwise human-like in form and function, how would the environment of their home planet have to differ from Earth's environment to allow this communication method to naturally flourish?
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Murky water.
Your creatures will need both an electric sense, and the ability to generate electric charges. Electrosensitivity basically doesn't exist in land animals,
but it is reasonable common in aquatic animals. The ability to generate electric charges is less common, but both abilities are combined in animals like the famous [electric eel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_eel), which live in swamps and in muddy bottoms of small rivers and floodplains.
So, you want a species that lives in a watery environment where sight doesn't do them much good, such that as they develop into social creatures, they rely on their electroception and electrogenesis organs (at low power!) for communication. When they later evolve to move onto land (whether before or after they develop high intelligence), their electroception and electrogenesis will no longer to be useful for hunting prey, but there will be pressure to conserve it since it has been co-opted as a communication channel. Out of water, however, communication would then require close physical contact.
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The environment's properties matter the most here.
Your restrictions seem infeasible in an environment that's open, expansive, and open to the invasion of predators or threats. Communication is how a species survives. You coordinate the retrieval of resources, you communicate the presence of a predator/threat, etc. In an open area, your species here can't easily transfer knowledge to one another. If a predator invades, unless their intelligence has allowed for countermeasures then they are screwed.
Thinking about it, a colonial species society would be best, within the confines of close quarters habitat where the habitat itself is built in a way that maximises the communication between members of the species, without extra variables or possibility of interference.
Consider the following:
You have an intelligent species that lives in something like an ant-hill or beehive made from materials that transfer and resonate the communication method throughout the colony. You then don't have to explicitly rely on communication through the air and it provides incentive to take up roots and build such infrastructure for themselves.
How feasible this is for your species depends on the logistics and precise technology of your method of communication as well as their biology. Perhaps they need to find copious amounts of copper or aluminum. Perhaps they need to ingest food and build the colony from their vomit. Other variables include how sensitive they are to these vibrations. What that is like is up to you, but at the end of the day, the environment is their saviour or their downfall.
Nature tends to favour social animals that can help each other. Without that, they will be wiped out by the rest of life on the planet and the planet itself.
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In a world that will tolerate necromancy but will not tolerate the theft of bodies or the killing of others, it is possible to create zombie servants, if a necromancer can find a subject lawfully, and I am assuming this is a rare or uncommon occurrence. What would be the best way to preserve the zombie for longevity, but still allow it to perform tasks?
I need the zombie to be as resistant as possible to decomposing or being consumed by insects etc. I am also not looking for a magic spell that will preserve them but some natural or scientific process / body perpetration to do it.
I remember seeing a clip on mummification, the person was covered in salt removing moisture from the body but would this not limit their movements? Also I have heard mention of 'bog bodies' but it was mentioned that their bones dissolve.
These zombies are just like humans, because they were made from them, if tendons are broken they cannot move that piece of their body. So if the zombie is dehydrated then the joints that move the most will eventually crumble. This will result in either the tendon giving way or the joint losing key parts disabling the joint from working correctly.
The zombies need to be in good working condition so they can perform task like walking an angry bee hive into a crowded meeting area, and not drop it, etc.
The question [how to keep a reanimated mummified body in good condition](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/40187/how-to-keep-a-reanimated-mummified-body-in-good-condition), I felt, drew the conclusion that these mummies are to dehydrated and crusty to be sustainable, and would require oiling. But I fail to see how, after their tendons and gaps form in them, they would not be able to continue on without heavy magic influence.
Here is a little how the souls and my necromancy work. Each person has a soul this soul allows the animation of their body. If after death a person has basically left you a deed to their body you can animate this other body. This process requires the linking of your soul to the body creating an animate body bound to your will. If the person had lost an arm and bleed out and you sew the arm back on the zombie would not be able to use this arm, it would be purely decorative.
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You could have your Zombie spend all their time not mobile fully submerged in a fomaldehyde based fixative solution: [Wikipedia on Formaldehyde fixtive solution for tissue samples](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixation_(histology)#Crosslinking_fixatives_-_aldehydes)
The biggest downside of this is Zombie Bloggs would become extremely susceptable to fire. Formaldehyde is severly flammable... Of course, this could be a useful plot element?
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Very likely, this society needs to practice their preservation techniques to find out which one works the best. Since this is a fantasy story, we can't just wait for them to up and tell us.
A dead body is a tasty treat for bacteria (both external and internal) and scavengers. All body preservation methods try to prevent these critters from snacking on the body. [Mummies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mummy) do this by dehydration and removing organs. [Bog Men](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mummy) are made by making the bodies a very inhospitable environment for the things that can get to the body while transforming the body into leather. These methods take time, and are often dependent on local environmental conditions. I therefore suggest the following, assuming that none of these environments are readily available:
1. Drain the body of blood as soon as possible. We want to remove as much water from the body, and taking out the blood will deprive a lot of nutrients to invading bacteria.
2. Remove the digestive track, and as many internal organs as these necromancers will allow, as soon as possible. These bodies will be magically animated, so I'm assuming they won't need to eat things. In any case, the bacteria in there need to be removed, or they'll eat the body from the inside out!
3. Dry (or "cure") the bodies. Pack it in sand, salt, or anything else, but the less water which remains in the body, the better.
4. [Tan or taw the bodies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanning_(leather)#Beamhouse_operations). Tawing is similar to tanning, but produces a more flexible but less durable product. We need to tan or taw the bodies so the skin becomes durable, and will be less likely to break. Obviously, we do want the skin to retain some flexibility, so these processes shouldn't go to the point that the skin becomes brittle.
5. Cover the bodies in wax or oil, and do so regularly, so that the bodies have a layer of something to protect themselves from the environment.
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I don't want to completely surrender to the magical arts to solve everything, but I would assume preservation magic would be a key component to the craft as would techniques for mending; An animated body would still be accident prone almost to comical levels. Without the ability to mend these common wounds and defects a servant's usefulness would be fairly short lived. As mentioned previously I would assume the system is already animated almost completely by magic, having removed both circulatory and digestive systems. This would suggest that the body mechanics were being powered by magic anyway, so why wouldn't that same essence keep things preserved, at least, and possibly regenerating.
A step back from that would be to go with a variation of the earlier solution and create an alchemical cream that the zombie is instructed to apply daily before and after work. The cream would basically be a bridge between the existing magical energies and the dead cells of the servant. It would be the zombie equivalent of a transplant patient needing to take anti-rejection meds for the rest of their life.
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The Inflatable Hedgehog or Zamba Zaraa is a creature, reported from the Gobi Desert of Mongolia.
It is described as looking something like a hedgehog.
When threatened, the animal strikes its tail against the ground (an alarm action that is used by many different types of animal) and then proceeds to inflate itself considerably.
Reports differ on how big it is after inflation and range up to the size of a yurt (a small Mongolian tent-like dwelling).
There are other creatures who inflate themselves as a defense mechanism, most notably puffer fish.
***Question-*** Could a mammal like a hedgehog or something similar evolved
a defence mechanism like that of a pufferfish?
If so what would it require to achieve this?
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Armadillos can inflate themselves by swallowing air and bloating up the intestines. I have to think this takes some time. <http://www.rainforest-alliance.org/species/armadillo>
They famously do it to be more buoyant when swimming. Armadillos can also wedge themselves immovably in tunnels and I would not be surprised if the inflation helps with that too.
There are lizards which inflate themselves for various reasons. Chuckwallas wedge into cracks and inflate themselves so they cannot be removed.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/oNlVF.jpg)
from <http://www.thirdeyeherp.com/spuck/vegas/2006/crackliz.jpg>
Toads (also frogs, I think) inflate themselves to make themselves harder to swallow. Also to avoid sex if not in the mood.
<http://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/female-frogs-inflate-to-deter-amorous-males.html>
I am not sure what mechanism these use - probably also swallowing air.
Rather than swallowing gulps of air, if an animal were rigged so it could close its mouth and nostrils, it could use its respiratory muscles to exhale and force air down into its stomach and intestines. That would allow rapid inflation. The animal would still not look like a puffer fish; it would look like me.
Very interestingly, especially in light of above hedgehog discussion, when I googled "subcutaneous emphysema" I got a bunch of hedgehog pictures. ??
It turns out there is something called [Hedgehog Balloon syndrome](http://wildpro.twycrosszoo.org/S/00dis/Miscellaneous/Hedgehog_Balloon_Syndrome.htm) in which damage to the lung allows air to fill spaces beneath the skin, puffing it out just like a puffer fish. An out of control, sick, wounded pufferfish. [](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Bd57W.jpg)
[image source](http://wildpro.twycrosszoo.org/S/00dis/Miscellaneous/ImgHhogBalloonSynd/BALLOON_PIG_DruB.jpg)
Subcutaneous emphysema can happen to humans too and it is always the result of a wound: abnormal connection between subcutaneous skin and lungs. If these hedgehogs had a such a communication like a sphincter that they could relax and open, they could inflate themselves with a valsalva maneuver by increasing pressure in the chest but not allowing air to escape the nose/mouth. Inhaling against a closed glottis would create negative pressure in the chest and suck all that air back in.
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A hedgehog could have an outer covering, like a sock. When it raises the [spines](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spine_(zoology)) it will inflate the outer covering and indeed seem to grow larger.
The spines could evolve to fray into tufts at the end, being more like feathers. These would form overlapping plates like feathers on a [dinosaur](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theropoda#Skin.2C_scales_and_feathers), or could form a felt-like mesh. Either way, it seems like something the modified hair structure should be capable of, with minimal changes.
If not grown, it could be a covering of leaves that the animal decorates itself with for camouflage. Appearing to grow would happen naturally and then it further evolves details and behavior to improve this effect's appearance.
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I'm unaware of any examples of mammalian inflation.
The spines of animals like hedgehogs, porcupines, and echidnas are all made from modified hair follicles. These modified hair follicles allow the orientation of the quills and spines to change from lying flat against the body to erect, pointing in every direction. This will allow the same animal to be perceived as much larger and spikier, similar to why pufferfish inflate.
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Cat fur stands out, the cat curves its spine so as to make the animal as a whole taller, and the cat presents to the threat in a side-ways stance and walk, so that its side elevation might be mistaken for its front elevation.
None of this is exactly physically analogous to the pufferfish, but as an evolutionary ethologist I do consider it a comparable 'puffing up' since what matters is what the threatened animal seems to the threatening animal - bigger!
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Of course it's feasible.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/jkGFX.jpg)
Fantasy reference aside, I'm not aware of any real-life mammals that can do this.
If you wish for an evolutionary reason for one of your fantasy creatures to have this ability, I would go with the following reason:
**It's normally small, usually swallowed whole by predators, and expands when it's inside.**
This would allow it to choke the predator, and would crawl out once it was dead.
As for what it would require anatomically, I would recommend spines, and a separate set of 'lungs' present just below some stretchy skin. Separate 'lungs' are necessary so it can stay inflated while breathing normally.
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While not a mammal example, the [Puff Adder](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitis_arietans), is another example of an animal that expands, but not usually as a direct means of defense. An animal could develop this sort of defense, but would have to have some way to quickly inflate itself. This seems to be the biggest hurdle that the animal would face. Also, keeping said air in, while still regulating breathing would be a challenge. Although for the animal, it would be akin to holding your nose while still breathing through your mouth.
So it definitely seems plausible, but would require an advanced breathing system, which would only develop under the right conditions. Are there predators within your lore that could explain why this animal would develop this type of defense? Other animals or habitat conditions might need to be thought out to support this type of evolution.
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Considering that much of the surface of the Earth is covered by water, what events have to happen to turn the Earth into a desert? What would happen to water that disappears from rivers and oceans?
**EDIT**: I'm thinking a near event, in about 2000 - 4000 years.
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The earth will be a lifeless desert in about [600 million years](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future) as the sun get hotter near the end of its life. Ocean water will boil off and be lost to space, stripped by the heat from the sun.
**Edit: How to dry the Earth out in a few easy steps**
**Step 1:** Figure out how much energy you will need
Thanks to Wikipedia and Wolframalpha we know that the Earth has $1.4\times10^{21}$ kilograms of water on its surface and to heat to a boil and turn to steam we need $12540$ Kilojoules of energy. Also, the energy required to accelerate a kilogram of matter to escape velocity is $6.3\times10^7$ joules (The dynamics of escape are way more complex but this should be close enough). Multiply all that together and you get $1\times10^{29}$ joules to dry out the Earth, Let's add an order of magnitude to cover our bases so call it $1\times10^{30}$ joules.
**Step 2:** Figure out how fast you need it.
2000 to 4000 years? Sure thing lets just redirect some of the sun's output of $3.8\times10^{26}$ Watts of energy towards the earth using the following equation.
$T\_{dry} = \frac{1\times10^{30}\text{Joules}}{3.8\times10^{26}\text{watts} \times \%\text{ sun output}}$
Now thermodynamics is tricky as we heat the earth it's going to radiate some of the heat away and slow down out drying of the planet. So we should deliver the energy much more quickly and for longer, how much I can't say but a factor of 4 should be a good place to start. So if we focus $1.8\times10^{-6}$ percent of the sun's energy on the earth we will deliver all the energy we need to get rid of the water in about 500 years. Cook for a good 2000 to 4000 years and should have gotten rid of all the water on the planet. *On, not in the planet.*
**Step 3:** Construct a Dyson swarm out of the planet mercury and get to it!
**Congratulations!** You have succeeded in removing all water on earth, probably the atmosphere too, and maybe even [halted plate tectonics](http://records.viu.ca/~earles/subduction-water-oct01.htm). The earth may have been rendered sterile too.\*
\*Results may [vary](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/life-found-deep-inside-earths-oceanic-crust/)
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You have various possibilities:
1. **Sun reaches end of its life**. While expanding its outer layer swallow the inner planets, Earth included. This will vaporize not only the oceans, but the entire planet.
2. **Raging green house effect** (Venus-like scenario). First oceans will boil and water would only be present as vapor, then, as water vapor is a much stronger greenhouse agent than CO$\_2$, the temperature might rise further, breaking the water molecule into hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen would then slowly leack to space.
3. **Earth magnetic field vanishes** (Mars-like scenario). With nothing to shield it, the solar wind starts peeling off the atmosphere. With pressure going down, evaporation rate increases until a much slimmer layer remains.
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Humans build a space elevator with an [Archimedes Screw](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes%27_screw) running through it to lift water into space. Why? No idea. We are human. Maybe it is part of us relocating. Maybe we are selling water to aliens. Maybe it is an art project.
Anyway, the screw turns and begins lifting water to space. A 5-meter wide pipe with a 500kW engine like a typical car can lift 1.45 m^3/sec. Given the volume of Earth's oceans as 1.338e9 km^3 (notice that's km and the other was just m), it would take 9.22e16 years. Better just wait for the sun at that rate.
We can do better.
[This presentation](https://web.williams.edu/Mathematics/sjmiller/public_html/hudson/Shappy_Archimedean.pdf) lays out all the math. Way more than I care to do, but you might want to. Or [this excellent paper](http://cicada.cs.drexel.edu/~crorres/screw/screw.pdf). They're both straightforward algebra.
2014 saw [installation in the Netherlands of the world's largest Archimedes Screw to date](http://wwtonline.co.uk/news/record-breaking-pumps-ordered-for-hull)... capable of 4 m^3 /sec. Four! Wow. Um... yeah... that's not going to put much of a dent in that 9.22e16 number. Even running several in parallel won't help much.
The Screw is a pretty efficient pump and one of the few that can lift the distance needed to space. I doubt you can do better with human tech, both known and imagined under known physics. Oceans are big!
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>
> Can the Earth become a desert?
>
>
>
Not without a major catastrophic event, in the sense of water disappearing entirely.
A collision with another planet or something like that which melts the whole planet would do it perhaps.
But the same thing could be achieved just by removing liquid water, life needs liquid water. There are many deserts that get covered in snow but only rarely have actual usable water for plants to absorb, therefore they're deserts. So too hot or too cold could be an Ice Age or greenhouse going crazy.
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Alright, so I've been doing some research on hypercanes, which are, in short, theoretical hurricanes that may have ravaged Earth in its ancient past, when ocean temperatures were much higher (at least 120-some degrees Fahrenheit). These storms could reach sizes comparable to North America, wind speeds exceeding 500 mph, and could last for devastatingly long periods of time, as one hypercane could trigger the birth of another, and so on and so forth.
What I'm wondering is whether or not humans could survive, and possibly even civilize and populate, under such conditions. In this specific instance, the humans in question would live in constant proximity to the ocean (perhaps on a series of large islands), and the extreme ocean temperatures necessary for the hypercanes themselves would need to be triggered by something along the lines of a major meteor impact (a theory regarding the extinction of the dinosaurs suggests exactly this) or of intense underwater volcanic activity, given that the oceans could not feasibly be as hot as is needed on a natural basis if humans are to live near them. Either way, would it be possible for a civilization of human beings to survive such a cataclysm, perhaps more than once, and if so, how? If not, why?
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If a modern civilization had time to prepare we could set up underground dwellings/agriculture and survive it (or at least some people would, the longer we could prepare, the more would survive). Indoor farming is highly efficient, so assuming we have access to artificial lighting and power generation then we could survive underground almost indefinitely. If there wasn't time to prepare, some people could still find shelter in mines and existing underground structures, though the food they bring wouldn't last too long.
Pre-modern societies would have a much harder time. Underground farming is not feasible for them, so they would rely on whatever food stores they can amass before the event. If the storms are predictable, said humans could hunker down in mine shafts and weather it out, coming up to gather food until the next storm. But again, this all depends on how much time there is, and how predictable the storms are. Also, they need to make mine shafts that don't flood. Probably they dig straight into and up the side of a mountain to stop water from getting in, then the tunnel can go wherever. With ancient tech these would take forever to build, so these humans need a lot of warning.
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Modern civilization is highly sensible to weather conditions (see what hurricanes do to US), so it won't survive hypercanes.
Probably some more simple civilization could survive few months, provided they had harvested and stored enough food and water underground and above water level.
On longer time span, no survival is possible: humans depends either on agricolture or hunting for gathering food, and both are not possible in an hypercane, unless you rely on scavenging corpses of animal killed in the event, which in turn requires you to walk out searching for them.
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I've been in some normal cyclones, they basically halt everything and you live off stored supplies. You can't cultivate outside, powerlines fail, water supplies fail, communication fails. You're limited to gearing up for any simple task outside in the weather. In your case another severe handicap is the inability to build, your building materials would disappear as fast as you unload them. Wood would be an issue because normal cyclones destroy trees which in turn affects fauna long term.
The only way I can see your scenario working is if people lived underground cultivating mushrooms or something like that and perhaps harnessing the hypercyclones for energy.
But longterm I would think eventually there just wouldn't be enough oxygen produces due to lack of flora for life to be sustainable. The storms you're suggesting would decimate forests and because they last so long instead of killing some and stripping leaves, they'd kill whole areas.
A week long normal cyclone is no fun at all to go through, extended periods would be exponentially worse. You can go outside if you really need to for an overriding reason like cutting a tree that has fallen on your roof and is trying to flog it's way into the house. In 500 mile an hour winds you'd just leave it and hope.
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I've started planning a turn-based tactics game in the world I'm building, and I'm thinking of making the focus be on an airship assault force. The idea here is a transplant of the Vietnam-era UH-1 to 1910-1920s Ireland for the following purposes:
* Rapid response to various monster attacks;
* Search and destroy missions;
* Urgent casualty evacuation;
* Demonstrating the leveraging of the latest technological innovation as an indicator of military readiness and efficiency.
As a rough guideline for what I have in mind, these airships are about the size of the [NS class airship](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_class_airship), but with enough room in the gondola to transport up to ten soldiers in addition to a crew of five. They're mainly transport aircraft, deployed with fighters to act as close air support.
Would airships actually be effective at the first three roles? If not, how could I make them more viable at this?
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Let's talk about each of your requirements one at a time and then draw a conclusion, shall we? (Note: all the following are assuming clear weather. Airships are not only a liability in foul weather but can actually endanger anyone nearby if they are driven into the ground.)
**Rapid Response**
With a top speed of just under 60 mph the NS-class was not exactly a hot rod. It was faster than a number of other vehicles of the same era, but not all, and relativity isn't everything. Airships are also somewhat lumbering and hulkish, so the deployment of troops onto the ground will leave the airship exposed. Lastly, airships are loud and easy to spot, so any element of surprise will be completely lost.
The one thing the airship has going for it in this application is that few *other* vehicles will be suitable toward rapid response. Those that could move fast enough were more limited in scope (trains have to follow rails and airplanes have to land in semi-specific places). As a result, the airship is potentially useful simply because nothing else can do this, even if the airship isn't exactly perfect for the job either.
**Search and Destroy**
While historically fixed-wing aircraft were employed most often as bombers, airships are not completely unknown to the concept. Airships could typically carry far more weight than an airplane, allowing for a bigger payload, but again the airship is lumbering and a *veeery* tempting target. It might be able to put the hurt on some poor sap on the ground, but it's a bit of a glass cannon; one good shot into the substantial gas bags will cause a leak and potentially ignite the hydrogen. Oh the humanity.
As a high-altitude spotting platform, however, things might be somewhat different. Artillery was *the* strategic weapon of choice during that era, and anything that could make it easier to deliver ordinance on target was useful. Consider this: an airship searches out its target but does not engage, instead signaling to a nearby relay post the exact position of the enemy. Artillery opens fire, and the airship can report success or failure, and how the artillery needs to adjust its fire. This could be a truly deadly tag team, though it still does leave the airship exposed (if it can see the enemy, the enemy can see *it*).
**Evacuation**
Depending on the situation, airships could be ideal for this application. In a hot-zone, the airship would be vulnerable, again because of how tempting a target it makes, but in a safer area the airship is better suited than an airplane since it can take off vertically and land almost anywhere there is flat-ish ground. It can also carry more passengers/cargo than a contemporary airplane so it opens up some interesting options. I can imagine an airship as a small mobile field hospital, capable of deploying faster than anything else of the era, or performing emergency airlifts to safety, whichever is needed.
**Show of Force**
Now *here* is where the airship shines, assuming your enemy does not learn of its obvious weaknesses (which is a big if). Airships are big, loud, and intimidating. They represent basically the pinnacle of engineering during your era, and unless the opponent gets wise, they should be suitably cowed. But we all know that already; they're just so damn *cool*.
**Conclusions**
So yeah, overall I can at least plausibly imagine an airship performing some of the above tasks. In bad weather or under enemy fire it would be tough-to-impossible to do anything, but in ideal circumstances things would be just fine. For your game that might actually be nice, since you never want something to be overpowered. Maybe the airship can perform a bunch of support/utility tasks, and can be countered by clever tactics and play.
Anyway, I hope I helped. Good luck!
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There are several real-world reasons why airships were not used in WWI for helicopter-like air-assault missions.
* Airships cannot actually hover, and cannot easily respond to changes in wind direction. Troop insertion may take longer - airships may take a long time to fly around and re-approach the Landing Zone after misjudging the wind.
* Airships require a large ground crew and a large Landing Zone to land and extract the troops. The ship is not maneuverable near the ground - standard practice was for the ground crew to guy the airship within 50 ft of the ground. Unless those 10 or 15 ground crew soldiers on the last airship out after a raid can climb their 50-ft guy ropes, they are getting left behind. Not great for morale.
* Airships are vulnerable to ground fire. Not combustion --most ground fire isn't incendiary-- but simply hundreds (thousands!) of rifle and machine-gun bullet holes through the gasbags will erode the buoyancy quickly. There's no reserve supply of gas on board (that would be heavy). Many WWI airships were burned by biplanes with incendiary bullets, but many others were brought down by simple loss of buoyancy from bullet holes.
Because of the fighter threat, airships usually operated at night. The ground fire threat kept them high -- often above the clouds. Remember: without reserve gas, changing altitude was a life-and-death decision. But flying high created new challenges:
* Weather: WWI lacked basic weather forecasting and data that we take for granted. When German Airships set out to bomb England, they usually had no idea of the weather over their target only a few hundred miles away. More than one raid was cancelled by unexpected weather over the North Sea...with airships destroyed and crews lost by rather ordinary storms kicked up by routine weather fronts.
* Navigation: No GPS, no LORAN, no radio navigation beacons. Zeppelins into the 1930s navigated by sextant. Clouds and blackouts and moonless nights made precision navigation impossible. More than one airship in WWI mistakenly bombed the wrong city entirely. Others mistakenly bombed small towns or farm fields. Airships that dropped low for a direction fix sometimes found newly night-capable fighters spiralling up to meet them in the darkness.
* No Radio: Portable radios were still in the future. Airships could signal each other and the ground using old-school flags and heliographs and flares...during daylight only (no lights at night), and with a very low baud rate. No voice communications.
Between enemy fire and ordinary weather, an airship was not a safe place. Most airships were lost (often with all hands) before their tenth mission.
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The fact that no one during the airship era ever seriously considered that idea should tell you something about the feasibility of using an airship in the manner of a transport or attack helicopter. If you are looking for a plausible means of using airships in a military context, look at where airships have true advantages.
During this period, airplanes were rather small and fragile, and engines had low power to weight ratios. This limited the range and carrying capacity of aircraft, as well as how long they could stay aloft (loiter) over a particular area. An airship, by contrast, can be scaled to almost any arbitrary size to carry large payloads (either by mass or volume), and since the engines are not needed to lift the airship, engines of modest output are perfectly suitable.
Long range scouts for spotting was one of the primary duties of Naval airships, and both the Royal Naval Air Service and USN used blimps successfully as convoy escorts during both world wars, seeking out enemy submarines and surface raiders. The US Navy also experimented with using airships as aircraft carriers, the USS Macon carried six "Sparrowhawk" fighters, but in any realistic scenario the airship would be moving ahead of or on the flanks of the task force at sea and launching the small aircraft as observers.
The other task airships could perform might be as carriers to drop airborne forces by parachute. The airship would be large and comfortable enough to carry a fairly large number of infantrymen (aero-infantry was the terminology General Billy Mitchell used to describe the concept during WWI), and an airship would be moving much more slowly than a comparable aircraft, so jumping would be easier, and dispersion and other factors which make parachute insertion difficult would be reduced as well.
So if you adjust your expectations to reflect the reality of airship flight, and use the advantages airships had over early aircraft, then you could have a viable platform for military stories set in the era.
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For one thing, passengers are not limited to the gondola. They can use any space in the main body that isn't taken up with hydrogen/helium bladders.
Airships are not rapid anything but I guess that they could be considered rapid compared to anything other than a train at that time.
Search and destroy would work as long as stealth is not needed. Even with quiet engines, it takes up a lot of sky. Night missions drifting in with the wind would be best.
for casualty evacuation, it would do a decent job and it could act as a mini-hospital as well. A larger airship could be set up as a full sized mobile hospital.
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Let's say we have a wild rabbit that can see a few minutes into the future. Being a non-sentient animal, it barely registers these abilities, and largely uses it to find food, avoid predators, save time seeking mates, and other such things rabbits do. After several months, some scientists finally manage to capture the thing for study and experimentation.
So after some tests, which determine that there's really nothing different physically about this rabbit, we're left with one incredibly normal yet precognizant rabbit, and a bunch of bored scientists.
So after a while, one of the scientists realized that because this rabbit can somehow receive sensory information from the future, and convey it back to the present, it might be possible to convey a message from the present back to the past! So now the question is: how exactly do we do that?
some limitations:
* the rabbit is limited to only what it can consciously perceive
* the present rabbit is aware of what it will perceive in the future, and will react to it accordingly (seek if good, avoid if bad)
* and you can't kill the rabbit or put it in a situation of unacceptable risk, because we only have the one.
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There's not much interesting that can happen in a few minutes, so do you mind if I extend the rabbit's foresight to a day?
This is a smart rabbit, so you teach it a cool trick.
There are 20 open compartments in a box. At the end of the day, you are going to place a one of two colors in each compartment; red or blue. In the morning, the rabbit is let into the box to explore, and is quickly swept back into its cage. For all of the blue compartments that the rabbit visits that day, it gets a treat. For all of the red compartments that the rabbit visits that day, the rabbit gets a treat revoked. You train him every day for a month (how long do rabbits live?) and he eventually learns to quickly run to all of the compartments that he predicts will be blue, staying away from all of those that he predicts will be red.
You, the experimenter, find the best performing stock at the end of each day and convert its 4-letter stock code to binary (5 bits per letter). Then, map every 1 to blue and 0 to red. You put those in their respective compartments. Then, feed the rabbit that made you rich.
You've technically sent a message back in time, but really you've just let the rabbit tell you what he sees in the future. But this the same thing, right?
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# Money Making
Obviously, if a group of scientists are studying a rabbit they claim can tell the future, funding is going to be an issue. So monetizing this rabbit's unique abilities is a must. 60 seconds isn't a lot of time, unless we are talking about the stock market.
Here is the plan:
* Program a computer to turn on/off LEDs based on stock prices
* Train the rabbit to push buttons based on LEDs in the future
* Program a computer to buy/sell stock based on those button presses.
**Step 1 - Materials:** Build a [Skinner Box](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Operant_conditioning_chamber). Go get a [Raspberry Pi](http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B01CD5VC92), [wire](http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B00B4ZQ3L0), [LEDs](http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B01C3ZZT2I), [buttons](http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B019DSZQ9O) and rent a [book on Python](http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1449355730) from the library (total cost: `$55.70`). Hookup 2 buttons and 2 LEDs to the Raspberry Pi and then attach them to the rabbits cage.
**Step 2 - Training:** Train the rabbit to press button 1, `B1`, when light 1, `L1`, is on and vise versa for `B2` and `L2`. The tricky part is that we don't want want the rabbit to push `B1` because `L1` is *currently* on. We want him to push the button **if it will be on in 60 seconds**. He needs push a button in the present based on the LEDs in the future. See next section for details.
**Step 3 - Programming:** Program the Raspberry Pi to cycle through your favorite stocks in a predictable way. Then for the current stock, compare its current value to the value it had 60 seconds ago. If it increased turn on `L1`. If it decreased, turn on `L2`. Finally, when a button is pressed, look up the stock that will be displayed in 60 seconds. If the pressed button was `B1`, buy that stock. If it was `B2`, sell that stock.
# Training the Rabbit
We need to immediately reward the rabbit for pushing the correct button, but we won't know if it is the correct button for 60 seconds. How does that work?
To train the rabbit, use the same stock market setup only with fake (predictable) data instead of real data. At first, use a 0 second delay and reward the rabbit if he pushes `B1` when `L1` is lit. Once he has the hang of this, introduce a small delay. If he pushes `B1` when `L1` will be lit in 1 second, then reward him. Keep increasing the delay, until you get to his max precognition distance of 60 seconds.
The reason this training works is because of the fake data. We know what light will be on at what time, so we know if the rabbit is giving the correct answers. Gradually start introducing real data. The downside is that we don't know if he has given us the correct answer when we use real data. So I would use fake data `90%` of the time to make sure the rabbit is staying accurate.
# Extending Precognition
Making money and teaching rabbits cool tricks is fine and dandy but we're *scientists*. Can we see further into the future? Yes, we can.
There may be a more clever (i.e. better than `O(n)`), but this should extend our grasp of the future by a couple minutes. Simply add some buttons `B1a`, `B1b` and `B2a`, `B2b`. The teach the rabbit to push `B1a`, if he sees himself pushing `B1` (in 60 seconds) and to push `B1b` if he sees himself pushing `B1a` (in 60 seconds). Once you have done this, you will be able to see 3 minutes into the future.
The reason for this is that when `L1` is turned on, the rabbit will see it 60 seconds before it happens and push `B1`. Then the rabbit will see this 60 seconds before it happens and push `B1a`. Then the rabbit will see this 60 seconds before it happens and push `B1b`. This button press is observed and we know that in 3 minutes, `L1` will turn on.
# Conclusion
Since a computer is being used, the rabbit can push buttons at his leisure because an active observer is not necessary. The rabbit can push the buttons as frequently as he wants and the computer will respond accordingly. In this example, we are asking whether to buy or sell a certain stock but in general we can ask the future any binary question. The only requirement is that we ask in a predictable way. For instance, we could ask "Is the president alive?" and the rabbit could give us as much as a 3 minute warning of the president's assassination. All the computer would need is someway to judge whether the president is currently dead or alive.
When making important decisions based of the behavior of a rabbit, there are uncertainties. For example, in order to get a 3 minute heads-up we need the rabbit to see the `L1` and feel like pushing `B1`. Then we need the rabbit to see himself pushing `B1` and feel like pushing `B1a`. Then we need the rabbit to see himself pushing `B1a` and feel like pushing `B1b`. The larger the heads-up distance, the less likely it will happen.
When making decisions based of information from the future, there are even more uncertainties. For example, what if the rabbit tells you the president will die in 60 seconds. Then in the midst of precautions taking place, an assassin gets a [Ferdinand-style](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Archduke_Franz_Ferdinand_of_Austria#/Assassination) opportunity and takes it. Thus the president died because the rabbit told you 'the president will die'.
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You are, in essence, talking to yourself. So you need to make a set of rules that you'll follow. Let's say we have the rabbit in a long cage, and we use Morse Code to communicate with ourselves. We can convince the rabbit to go to one end of the cage or another - And designate one end as a dot, the other as a dash.
Now, we get to timing. How do you determine when the rabbit is lying around, or when it's starting to "Transmit" or finishing "Transmitting"? Well, you teach it tricks. Teach it to roll over for starting, and stand on its back legs for a few seconds for ending. On the plus side, luring the rabbit to one end or the other can be done with an all-positive method, without any negative/fear things involved.
Then, you set aside a good length of time, where you wait and do nothing to the rabbit. This time is your receiving time - you want to make sure you don't get interrupted while receiving something.
Once this time is done, do the trick, and start transmitting. In the past, you'll have your observation time interrupted by the rabbit transmissions.
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If people could travel in floating vehicles, fly with the help of a device and travel across the world in airships, would they still require roads designed for cars?
For instance, if you had something that looked like a car, but hovered, would it still require an asphalt road? Or if it flies high in the air like in Harry Potter, would we need some form of highway?
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At the crux of your question, "Would we require roads?", **probably not**.
The answer could depend on a few factors:
**Where there land-based travel forms before the floating technology?** Or was the floating technology developed first? If the former, then its likely roads would have been needed at one time, but eventually abandoned ( assuming floating travel was easier/not more expensive ).
**How much are people walking?** Heavy foot traffic can sometimes necessitate, or even create, small 'roads'.
**Would you consider dedicated air pathways as roads?** If so, it likely that the shortest routes between cities would be filled with traffic, much like a ground road.
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Would we require roads? Maybe. Depends on your world.
* Because this tech or magic was likely not always present, there may be roads.
* Because people will walk sometimes, there will be roads or at the very least, walkways.
* There may not be a lot of roads, but there may be people who like to travel over-land instead of in air. I think real roads as we know them might be rare.
* The logistics of take-offs and landings may mean that accidents are more...fatal and driving is far more complicated. Roads could be a safer way to travel, unless of course, a flying car falls on you...
* Roads could be the answer to traffic congestion. If things get too crowded in the air, large cities might also build roads.
* Roads could either be for the poor who can't afford an air-car, or for the elite, who don't want to be stuck in air-traffic. Really depends on your world.
Also, consider breakdowns and the Napa lines (which some say are used for aerial guidance, even if they aren't true roads). Roads may be present as guidance and may be present in case of an emergency landing.
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A certain number of ground vehicles are always going to be required: for example agricultural equipment such as combine harvesters, tractors to plow the fields. Also it may not be cost effective to transport freight by air. Heavy loads, or large awkward loads might still travel by land.
So roads would be less important, but still exist. Major highways might become one or two lane only.
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## Yes, you want the friction a road provides.
Flying has its downsides:
* It takes more energy to lift the vehicle upwards and travel without using huge wings.
* A break down in the air is much more dangerous than one on the road.
* Collisions would be more dangerous.
* You can't break or turn nearly so sharply - cities would have to be very spread out (and less efficient in transport of water, power, sewage etc) if we are to fly between buildings.
I can probably think of more, however the point is that whilst the technology could be available it wouldn't necessarily be better.
Think of the first couple of points: These would be expensive vehicles to run with the constant maintenance (a lot of personal cars at the moment don't get that sort of treatment and break down regularly - a definite no no in mid air). Only the rich would probably run flying cars. However, lets assume everyone does and continue our thought experiment.
Flying may well be banned within cities to make sure no one hits a building and it probably wouldn't be faster than normal cars unless we only use the tops of buildings.
On long distances between cities they might be used if power isn't an issue since you aren't restricted so much by terrain and can choose a straight route, don't need to break or turn - they could even be auto-piloted along theses routes to avoid collisions.
**Essentially yes, we would need roads within cities since the maneuverability offered by friction cannot be rivaled by flying vehicles. Unless you're only using the tops of buildings (and they're all the same height) you will want your transport to be able to weave between - much better in cars.**
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The answer to your question is No, there will be no need to design roads for cars, given access to flying "personal" vehicles by everyone.
Your question is getting taken ... for what ever the reason, to be about, exclusively, "commercial" BULK flight, NOT personal flying vehicles.
There are currently several companies on the verge of or actually offering "personal FLYING drones".
Here is a link to review "<https://www.engadget.com/2016/01/06/184-delivery-drone-for-people/>"
NASA and the FAA are or should be testing to implement an autonomous controller for these types of vehicles but then again they have been developing this for the last 17 year or so and one can be quite right to ask Were is it, why is it taking so long.
Here is a link to review "<https://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/first-steps-toward-drone-traffic-management>"
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If you look at wilderness areas often you'll find that travel is mostly done by air, sometimes water.
The problem with air is weight. Moving a handful of people or a cargo of small items can easily be managed with ease in a small aircraft. If you need to move a bulldozer, industrial equipment, heavy freight, or mass transit then you need very big planes, at which point transport cost becomes a factor.
The [C-5 Galaxy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_C-5_Galaxy) is one of the biggest airplanes in the world, and is routinely used to move tanks. It has a lift capacity of 122 tons.
It's also not the best way to transport things. For its voracious consumption of fuel and its maintenance and reliability issues the Galaxy's aircrews have nicknamed it FRED, for: F\*ing Ridiculous Environmental Disaster.
A train on the other hand can pull a load in the tens of thousands of tons range. Not as fast though. (Determining how much a train can pull is [apparently a complicated process](http://cs.trains.com/trn/f/741/t/213110.aspx).)
Container ships can haul loads in the hundreds of thousands of tons. Also not as fast.
Airships such as blimps are an option. Hydrogen has a net lift of 71lbs per 1000 cubic feet of gas. Helium has a net lift of 68lbs per 1000 cubic feet of gas.
The LZ-126 / ZR-3 Los Angeles had a useful lift capacity of 31 tons using helium, 50 tons using hydrogen.
The Hindenburg had a lift capacity of 10 tons IF hydrogen was used for the lifting gas. If helium was used instead the lift would be -17 tons, meaning it would stay on the ground.
**TL;DR:** It depends on what you need to move, and how you want the "magic" to work. If it's just people and light freight then no problem. Once you start moving very big things then air is less attractive unless magic says it is.
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Scenario 1: Air transport is not only cheap, but small. Because it's cheap to use people have spread out. This results in massive numbers of commute vehicles moving about. This scenario requires aerial lanes to constrain traffic. So you have virtual roads. I don't think this is practical in urban areas with out a totally automated piloting system.
Scenario 2: Air transport is cheap, but requires dedicated fields for launch and landing. In our world we call them airports. No between city roads needed. You still have in city roads. Note that the landing operatings for a zeppelin were messy, and each one requires a ship length circle around it's mooring mast. Zep parking lots are going to be big.
Scenario 3: Air transport can take the form of a hover car -- something that floats a small distance above the surface. You still need lanes, but they don't have to be paved.
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I looked around and I don't think any other questions explore this specific issue, but a lot of stories use transformation magic and I find it confusing. In this situation specifically I'm referring to, say, a human, who can turn into a cat (like Professor McGonagall) as an example, which is a creature that is of a smaller mass than adult humans. I suppose you could look at this kind of transformation like you look at the TARDIS (bigger on the inside), but what about if, for example, a human transformed into a dragon? In this case, the dragon is much larger than the human, so where does the mass come from? You could just say "magic" but I guess I'm looking for a more solid explanation, even if it doesn't scientifically make total sense - it is fantasy.
And one more thing that stumps me is where do their clothes go? Professor McGonagall's robes disappear with her body when she transforms into a cat. In some stories I know that when a person transforms, they lose their clothes or rip them. However, I'm not fond of the idea that every time my character transforms into a dragon, their clothes are destroyed and when its time to switch back they're suddenly naked. Maybe an enchantment, or is there a better way to explain it?
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### Pull in mass from an extra dimensional source to bulk up
Your clothes are doomed. Sorry no good way to save them unless you take them off before you transform. Just remember though transforming back into a naked person can provide some [comedy relief](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NakedPeopleAreFunny).
### Pull in surrounding matter to fuel the transformation
They absorb their clothes and all their equipment into the transformation (along with any additional mass from the surrounding environment). Once the transformation is over everything reverts back to its original form, and thus all the clothes are saved.
### Body swapping with other form
Their transformed form is already prebuilt and is safely tucked away in an alternate dimension and they are more swapping out bodies rather than transforming. This also works for shrinking as much as it does growing.
When they swap out bodies all of their equipment and clothing gets swapped out with their original form. So when they swap back they get all of their stuff back too.
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Some text has been cut or adapted from my other answers to similar questions.
All of this is pseudoscientific because magic isn't scientific.
## Viruses, gene repression, and density tricks
Viruses have been observed [stealing some animals' genes](http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/12/13256190/wo-virus-wolbachia-black-widow-spider-venom-dna), and we know they can [put genes back](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endogenous_retrovirus) into humans. Once your fictional virus evolves to be large enough to hold a whole genome, it can steal from the creatures needed for a morph, then put their genes back into humans. The genes will be [repressed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atavism) so the people don't die from tumors or disfiguration, and life will go on.
Your characters can have a mechanism that expresses those genes to respond to trauma or emotion, just as gene expression changes can occur in everyday life. A little practice could control this ability.
When the time comes to morph, their cells can rapidly metabolize their human tissue - that is, they consume themselves for energy in order to get transformation mass. This will not be fast, but no scientific or even pseudoscientific method will be fast. If it helps, [cell death](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programmed_cell_death) is easy to trigger, and [dormant stem cells](http://stemcell.childrenshospital.org/about-stem-cells/adult-somatic-stem-cells-101/where-do-we-get-adult-stem-cells/) exist for the purpose of tissue building and repair. Existing organs can be repurposed or built upon, helping the change pass quickly.
If mass needs to be lost, it can be broken down for energy or compressed to fill a smaller space. If mass needs to be gained, previously compressed areas of tissue can be decompressed, or they can have a lower density.
Alternatively, instead of a complete change, the character could have a unique morphology\*\*. They would have a subdermal "morph" layer. Their skin and clothes would tear, rather violently, off of their body, revealing the form underneath; then that layer would tear off hours later, revealing another humanoid layer. This is not practical or comfortable, but it's fast, and it may work for some creatures.
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## **Quantum mechanics**
This is very much like Anketam's "dimension" idea. [Entangled](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_entanglement) particles could link the tissues between the morphs, and [quantum tunneling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_tunnelling) could explain how things move. [Superposition](http://www.physics.org/article-questions.asp?id=124) is also relevant for the morph process.
But instead of pulling from another dimension with magic, you use real physics (in an albeit unrealistic situation) to swap out for another body somewhere else.
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I'm throwing around a rough concept in my head and wonder which effect it would have on the present world. How would the world as we know it change if this technology were invented (and nothing else changed)?
Imagine that we discover a way to build portals through space that connect distance points in space, similar to Stargate or many others. Imagine that in this case, a membrane appears between two otherwise remote locations. It has a slight outwards pressure, so you need to apply some force to cross the barrier (no such thing as being sucked in, and no interchange of air, sound, temperature, etc.)
I'm wondering about details of this. The technology connects two points in space, as if the distance between them were zero. Obviously, they would have to be defined relative to each other (space has no absolute dimensions). Would they vibrate or shift in relation to each other and by how much? Which effect would an instant transition to a different place on the surface of earth have? Air pressure differences are an obvious issue, but what about rotation? Would you really arrive head-down, spinning rapidly, as naive assumption leads me to believe? What else could go wrong, especially to living beings? Would there be serious damage if, for example, gravity goes into different directions in different parts of your body for the short time of passing through the portal?
**Clarifications:**
* The portals are intended to **only** connect space. No matter disassembly, teleportation, re-arrangement of wave functions or something. They are really just portals, nothing more fancy.
* My intended story is earth-today-as-we-know-it-plus-portals - so interstellar travel is not my concern. Any "relative to" things would be relative to earth or to one of the portals.
* Effects like energy conservation or energy generation through potential energy are discussed at length in other questions and are likewise not my concern.
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One concept that comes up a lot in this sort of world (think [Portal](https://youtu.be/VCNThVnThtE?t=36s), [Neal Asher's Polity series](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Asher#Polity_universe) or [Niven's Ringworld](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringworld) etc) is momentum.
Portal states, "Speedy thing goes in. Speedy thing comes out," allowing interesting effects as momentum is conserved relative to the plane of the portal.
In the Polity series, momentum energies are dissipated in the arrival Runcible, and a failure here tends to equal [R.U.D](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/743097668725940225).
And in Ringworld, plates couldn't be placed too far apart round the ringworld, or the momentum differences would kill you. Even minor differences required energy sinks to cool.
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This is entirely up to you, but allows for some entertaining effects if you want it to.
Say your speed and rotation are maintained, what are they maintained relative to? The gate? The centre of the galaxy? Any arbitrary other point?
If you pick something other than the gate, then you go in at a maneuvering speed and come out on the other side of the galaxy somewhere between 420-480 km/s relative to the local star.
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> As is typical for spiral galaxies, the orbital speed of most stars in the Milky Way does not depend strongly on their distance from the center. Away from the central bulge or outer rim, the typical stellar orbital speed is between 210 and 240 km/s (470,000 and 540,000 mph). [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_Way#Galactic_rotation).
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The only logical answer to make the gate work in practice is that speed relative to the gate is maintained. You can worry about the difference in energies when you've worked out how much energy is needed to actually translate a ship across the galaxy. After that, changing the speed of the ship by a mere few hundred km/s is probably a minor detail.
The problem with portals is that they tend to breach the laws of thermodynamics. Just place the exit over the entrance in a gravitational field and watch what happens.
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This question seems a little too opinion based (you can create any problem you want with the portals by changing how you define how they work), but here are some ideas.
## Problems with Dimensional anchor portals
You can visualize this being like a tunnel (with walls) made on Earth to connect 2 points to reduce the distance. (This is technically subspace travel, but since we don't even know if subspace exists, this could make the distance zero). So 2 obvious problems.
1) The energy to move these portals is similar to trying to move the tunnel. You have to move the tunnel (gate) AND force the Earth (space) out of the way.
2) Because these portals CAN'T move (not with our available power at least), and everything in space is moving, it would only be a relatively short amount of time before the portal moved too far. (Can't say how fast because technically, that requires knowing where the 'center of the universe' is. Which is different from the center of the Big Bang)
However, on gate force close, you would be forced out of one end (or crushed by the collapse if you're in the middle of it)
## Problems with Mater Relay Portals
This kind of portal is just as matter enters one end of the portal, it gets broken down, sent to the other portal, and reconstructed. This is the most dangerous of them all since...
1) It is like a molecular grinder. If your acceleration as you pass through changes by even a micron, you will basically be atomic dust on the other side. Or you stop going through and you are now cut in half at the subatomic atomic level. Organics would need die as the beating of their heart just rips them to dust as they go through. Even drones would die if they did not enter while completely turned off and it's parts locked down.
## Problems with Handwavium Portals
As you probably guessed, this is the portal that connects 2 points in space, and just says 'they are just two locations with a door between them now'. As you seem to already know...
1) Pressure differences can create strong winds between portals. Even with a 'membrane', it would have to strong enough that we can't enter without getting to hyper-sonic speeds first (and not die from deceleration upon hitting that membrane)
2) No one can really say what would happen if it closed while you passed through, but I will say it will at least hurt. A lot. At LEAST as much as a door closing on your face.
3) Gravity differences as you pass between the two points could be enough to kill you. I want to say 5G difference max for acceptably survivable.
## Problems with all Portals
1) You remember conservation of energy? You know Work energy (Force X Distance)? No one can afford the power to send even a grain of sand through a portal so say goodbye to the law of conservation of energy (or make the portals so close to each other that it's like why bother?) Don't forget the energy to distort space itself. That probably only requires all the energy in the known universe plus some.
2) Because of the last point, what happens if it's destroyed? Where does that energy go? Everyone dies?
3) Politics. Handwaving all the problems, you know how much a key asset these portals are? Everyone will either want to control, or destroy them. So roll out the tanks, it's time for the Great Universal War!
4) Religion. Somehow, I just know a religion will pop up around these portals. Thankfully these crazies are rare and easily to keep away from.
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I'm not so bearish on this idea as some of the other commentators.
In [Loop Quantum Gravity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loop_quantum_gravity) (the smaller of one of a couple main efforts to develop a theory of quantum gravity), one of the core concepts is that fundamentally space-time is made of points connected to other points and that notions like "locality" and the number of space dimensions are only "emergent" properties of space-time at a macroscopic level that arise from points that have links to each other in common being perceived as being close to each other.
So, at a macroscopic level, space-time seems to have three spatial dimensions, to have well defined locality, to be smooth and to be continuous, but really, space-time is a network of discrete discontinuous points with ill defined dimensionality, in which it is entirely possible for a point to have a direct connection to another point light years away, even though most of its connections, on average, will be very near by.
In LQG, the true formulation of the speed of light is not in terms of distance per time in a continuous space, but in space-time points traveled per time whose average apparent distance from each other is well defined, but which actually have variable apparent distances from each other according to a well defined probability distribution that is reflected in the fact that accurate quantum mechanical calculations for the travel of a photon, for example, require not just consideration of all possible paths from point A to point B, but also a range of speeds above and below the speed of light (which is just a most probable average speed) that in an LQG version of quantum gravity may reflect scenarios in which the same number of space-time points are traversed in a given time frame, but the distances between them only produce the speed of light, on average, rather than exactly replicating it.
So, in a universe with non-local space-time connections, there is no intrinsic difference between going from one side of an atom to another through an apparently local connection of space-time points, and going from Earth to a distant galaxy. Both could involve the same number of space-time hops.
These non-local connections and the very notion of gravity itself, in some versions of LQG, are deeply related to the quantum mechanical phenomena of "entanglement" which allows particles whose wave functions collapse at greatly separated locations in time and space but once shared adjacent points in space-time to continue to act in a corrolated fashion.
Now, the fictional side of this when you get to a macroscopic sized gate based upon current technology is that in LQG and with respect to the quantum mechanical phenomena that seem to be a good fit for this kind of space-time, non-locality is a phenomena that generally happens on a one point in space-time just big enough for a single photon or quark or electron to occupy at a time basis, not on a macroscopic basis where everything averages out and creates the spatially three dimensional world in which concepts like locality and a smooth space-time and perfectly invariant speed of light seem to describe reality.
Essentially, without to much handwavium, the advanced technology that creates the gates would have to figure out how to get all of the space-time points and fundamental particles that make up the gate into a single unified quantum state with a parallel entangled set just like it, and then once the entanglement is established, to ove the gates far apart from each other. And, you would have to devise some way for this intensely coordinated collection of gillions of fundamental particles in two main clumps at the side of each gate, to do so in such a manner that someone passing through it is neither assimilated into the gate's coordinated wave functions itself, nor disrupts the epic feat of quantum mechnical coordination.
Realistically, even in the most far out versions of LQG (assuming that this proves to be correct rather than the alternatives), at best, it would merely be possible to exchange very low bandwidth information across non-local space-time connections that scientists discovery that send photons to known non-local destinations through non-locally connected space-time points, rather than any macroscopic gate.
But, probably the closest to theoretically possible science way to imagine such a technology would be to think about the interior of the gate (the frame of the gate would contain the "active ingredient interior" of it, so you could move it around) as some sort of near perfect [Bose-Einstein condensate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bose%E2%80%93Einstein_condensate) entangled with another near perfect Bose-Einstein condensate (each of which can only exist sustainably in very extreme conditions) in another gate.
Perhaps, somehow people and thinks can cross unscathed because passing through happens in such a tiny time frame, perhaps on the order of 10^2 units of [Planck time](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_time) (which are 5.39 × 10^-44 s each), that macroscopic objects don't have time to be assimilated and destroyed by the gate before the macroscopic object is through and recovering from the infinitessimally small journey in terms of space-time point hops traversed. It is a quick journey because you literally aren't travelling very far, you just have an inaccurate perception of the true nature of locallity which you developed over the course of your evolution of other primates because pondering such things for too long is not a good recipe for long term species survival when the universe that you have a sensory capacity to perceive is much difference from this under natural conditions.
Sure, it may seem infeasible, but we can at least conjure up the most plausible potential physical theory of the gates given what we have imagined is within the realm of possibility while doing it as little injustice as possible.
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You can go with the Stargate answer - up, down, velocity, etc are defined by the ARRIVAL gate, not the departure gate. You pass through the first membrane, become an undifferentiated mass of data potentiality, then get rematerialised (reconstructed from the data) by the second gate.
The question to resolve is - where does the energy come from to materialise all that matter (E=mc squared and all)?
If the energy comes from the limitless potentiality pool between the gates, then you have just added energy to the system at the arrival end, so there will probably be some local shock-wave, sound, or heat wave. On the other hand, if you are pulling energy from the surrounding area to materialise the objects, you will have a snap frost every time something comes through the gate. (Stargate did the latter effect in the movie and about the first three episodes of Season 1, then just stopped it without explanation.)
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So let's say you have a Dyson sphere that is ***5 kilometers thick*** . Now, it isn't solid. It's meant to be inhabited. There's the inner shell which is completely covered with solar panels and any other manner of power generation facing the star. It's 500 meters thick. There's the outer shell which again is 500 meters thick, but is covered in armored plating, defensive weaponry, and the occasional hanger door. Between these two shells is an empty 4 kilometer area that is ***FILLED*** with breathable air. People living in the sphere would inhabit centrifugally spinning towers that act as support columns between the shells, but I digress. Where would one go about getting all that air? This is assuming that the creators of the sphere are humanesque (more or less), and require the same air we do.
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**You Must Find a Source Outside Our Solar System**
Given the size of a Dyson sphere, it's fair to say that you need a LOT of gas.
An idealized Dyson Sphere is large enough to contain planets such as Earth and, per [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere), would be about 1AU in size. Given that such a sphere CONTAINS our planets and their orbits, it's intuitive that you could not possibly harvest an amount of elemental oxygen necessary to create a breathable atmosphere.
Let's say though that you wanted only to build your Dyson Sphere around the sun, leaving the planets cold (or transmitting directed energy to them from your Dyson Sphere). That's much smaller. Your challenge is that even Jupiter - our largest planet - could fit inside the sun 1,000 times over. In fact, the sun comprises [99.8%](http://www.space.com/58-the-sun-formation-facts-and-characteristics.html) of the mass of the solar system itself!
In that scenario, if you wanted to fill it with air from this solar system you are trying to build a sphere around a body with 99.8% of the solar system's mass that is 4km thick and fill it with breathable air from the remaining 0.2% of available mass in the solar system, only about [5% of which](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_the_chemical_elements#Elemental_abundance_and_nuclear_binding_energy) is actually oxygen. That 5% number also needs to contribute to at least [19.5%](https://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_id=25743&p_table=INTERPRETATIONS) of the atmosphere of your creation.
Long/short - There is not enough elemental oxygen in the solar system to allow a Dyson sphere with a 4km atmosphere of breathable air. **You must obtain your oxygen from another solar system; quite likely MANY other solar systems.**
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The builders would plunder the star's planetary system (and neighbouring systems, as needed) for raw materials when building the Dyson shell.
Without knowing the exact dimensions it's impossible to say how much gas is needed to fill the inhabited gap, but assuming "air" here means a mix of gases – nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, etc – comparable to Earth's atmosphere, these gases can be harvested from the atmospheres and satellites of gas giants and ice giants and the crusts of terrestrial planets:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/HpQn3.jpg)
Electrolysis, photolysis and other methods will be needed to wrest the desired gases from their bonds (such as nitrogen from ammonia, oxygen from ice water and iron oxide), but if you're building something the size of a planetary system that should be well within your ability.
Bonus: The builders would end up with a lot of free hydrogen and helium, which they could put through an artificial neucleosynthesis (fusion) process, to produce needed elements.
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So the good news is that if you have the capability to construct a Dyson sphere, you have the capability of supplying it with resources.
The sheer amount of matter needed is huge, and you'd need to steal the planets and other debris from many other stars to get enough. And since you're stealing all that stuff you can get their gasses too.
If you don't like the idea of moving dozens of solar systems worth of planets across light years of space, the other option is to make an [energy to matter converter](http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulrodgers/2014/05/19/einstein-was-right-you-can-turn-energy-into-matter). Then you just need a whole lot of energy, which can be provided by the sun.
Best course would be to collect the asteroid belt, kupiter belt, and any other stray rocks that are floating around, turning them into a Dyson swarm with as many energy collectors as you can put up, and start feeding it all to an e->m engine. Use that to expand your collectors until they form a Dyson ring, and then enclose the globe.
This would be an exponential process, since the more you enclose the more energy you have to work with.
At this point you've got your inner shell, and you should have all the energy you need to finish the outer shell and then start making atmosphere to fill it.
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Change the ring's size and you'd have plenty of oxygen.
One earth volume (1,097,509,500,000 km^3) is plenty large enough to construct a Dyson-esque ring that could support human life if you were to shrink the design to a spinning ring that exists in a Goldilocks orbit the diameter of Jupiter and a width of about 1/3 of the diameter (45,000 km about) tilted at a sufficient angle and spinning to provide centripetal gravity. You wouldn't want the depth of the ring to be too great, as the more material you pack in the greater the force pushing against the outside of the ring causing structural instability. Limiting the depth to 50km or less is sufficient and beneficial, allowing for bodies of water to naturally form while reducing the impact to the tensor stress. That being said, you'd still need an incredibly strong material to keep the ring structurally intact; but carbon microfilaments have come a long way and could be woven into a form strong enough (theoretically).
The biggest challenge would be keeping the air in. Our atmosphere extends up to 10,000 km; however most of what we consider important is limited to the first 33 km. I am not certain it would be sufficient to build a 50 km wall, I'd prefer something closer to 5,000 km with a 30 degree angle (4,000 km width) to be safer.
Still, that being said we're "only" talking a net 315,028,000,000 km^3 of material. Heck, you can almost build 3 of them from 1 earth-sized planet. Granted it wont be the material you necessarily need but I have no doubt gathering enough metal from our nearby asteroid belt would do the trick.
The key point would be to construct a whole lot of pre-formed wedges of the shell and then set them together all at the same time like when you put the keystone up for a bridge or archway. Once the framework is built, that's when you can start adding the silicate and carbon material on the inside while frequently checking for stress points using thermal and laser imaging. If stressors exist, additional support can be added to the frame. Meanwhile, keep in mind that if you build a mountain you'll need to offset that added weight with something on the opposite side of the ring so as to avoid wobbling.
All that being said, the surface area of such a sphere would be approximately 10x of earth's so you would need to basically raid Europa and Titan for their water. Combined, those two bodies contain over 11 times the water Earth does. You could also raid the asteroid belt for another billion liters. All that water would provide you the oxygen you need to support life on the planet; particularly after you add carbon to build upon the greenhouse gases necessary to heat the ring's atmosphere. Excess hydrogen could be used up to fuel the enormous fleet of construction vehicles building the ring in the first place.
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## Fusion of Hydrogen
All elements below Iron on the periodic table are created in stars by a fusion chain that starts with Hydrogen. If you've got the technology to build a Dyson Sphere, you've got the technology to fuse lightweight elements.
Collect the host star's solar wind - you probably need to do that anyway, if your sphere is solid and completely encloses the star - and fuse it up to the appropriate elements.
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The largest source of oxygen in the Solar System is the Sun.
About 1% of the Sun's mass is made up of Oxygen. About another 0.5% of the mass is a mix of Carbon and Nitrogen.
Given the super advanced tech needed to craft such a large structure, harvesting the Sun for material should be well within the civilization's abilities.
If you want to limit the construction material to what is available within the Solar System, then you just calculate how much area your spherical shell will contain for its atmosphere, then you adjust its radius until the area matches up with the available material.
I suspect it will be within the distance of the Earth's orbit, so a combination of shades and radiation fins will be needed so that the megastructure doesn't become an oven.
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## Starlift a late stage star.
At a radius of 1 AU you need about 2.81e26 cubic meters of solids (mostly Iron, Carbon, and Silicon I would guess) and 1.12e27 cubic meters of air. The Earth itself has a volume of about 1.10e21 cubic meters. This means it would take about 100,000 Earths to build such a mega structure.
That said, there is one source of heavy element (stuff above helium) that is WAY bigger than 100,000 Earths: pre-supernova stars. Just before they go supernova, a large star builds up an iron core that can reach up to 1.4 solar masses, and similarly massive amounts of Oxygen, Nitrogen, etc. This is WAY more than you will find in any single planetary system, and about 5 times as much material as you need. Once you've mined the star of all of its precious heavy elements the star itself will be lighter, cooler, and less explody... a perfect spot to build a brand new Dyson sphere around.
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An organism lives and reproduces inside the body of other animals. This organism pays back its host by protecting the DNA from viruses and radiation damage in 100% of all cases. The organism itself is also immune to viruses, bacteria and parasites.
Additionally, it boosts the immune system, supports the gut flora, and decreases cholesterol.
As a side effect it causes some spots to appear on the shoulders and backs of its hosts. Usually the spots are from green to bluish and in rare occasions yellow.
This symbiotic organism also attaches to fetuses in the womb or eggs.
How would such an organism evolve?
What can explain the colored spots on the host?
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Take inspiration from the [anglerfish](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglerfish):
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> Some anglerfish, like those of the Ceratiidae, or sea devils, employ an unusual mating method. Because individuals are locally rare, encounters are also very rare. Therefore, finding a mate is problematic. When scientists first started capturing ceratioid anglerfish, they noticed that all of the specimens were female. These individuals were a few centimetres in size and almost all of them had what appeared to be parasites attached to them. It turned out that these "parasites" were highly reduced male ceratioids.
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Your symbiotic species began as a parasite, probably one that fed on blood from a variety of much larger species. Over time it and your designated host species' ancestor became codependent: the parasite's natural abilities to filter blood benefitted the host, and the successful proliferation of the host benefitted the parasite.
The parasite eventually evolved to burrow under the skin and lay its eggs within the host directly (hosts could support multiple parasites, and parasites are relatively short-lived so this secured a food source for multiple generations). Being attached to the host made mating difficult, but they evolved to rely on contact between hosts spreading their sperm or spores or whatever through sweat.
As eons passed the parasite, now a symbiote, became flatter and flatter under the skin of the host, as to be less intrusive, and harder to dislodge. The coloured patches seen on hosts mark the location of their subdermal symbiotes; the colouration corresponds to minor genetic variations (think racial skin colours). Here they have co-opted the dermis to serve as their reproductive organ, injecting pheromones and sperm into the sweat glands, and using pores to receive the pheromones and sperm of other symbiotes.
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The spots are a social signal sent to other members of the host species to flag up the fact it is a good mating prospect.
Hosts of the symbiote are protected from disease and parasites. This is a major advantage. They pass on the symbiote to their offspring. This is another major advantage. Therefore members of the opposite sex should always pick a mate who carries the symbiote.
The spots are therefore an honest signal of the potential mate's health and ability to produce healthy offspring. They may have started as a side effect of the symbiote, but they will rapidly become something that the infected species is quick to notice and react to.
In short, the spots will become - like the peacock's tail or the iridescence on the wings of a butterfly - a sexually attractive trait to members of their own species.
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I think it's an good and fun idea to play around. But an organism like that seems to border on implausibility to me.
You can come up with a story on how it prevents Tumors in its own genes, no problem. But preventing them in the cells of the host in an entirely different hurdle. For the organism to do that it must be INSIDE the host cells, or have a way for the large number of incredibly complex protection proteins it produces not only to migrate into every cell of the host's body but also to pass through the nucleus membrane to the center of the cell where the DNA is kept. Proteins that pass through this membrane get 'deconstructed' and 'rebuild' on the other side of the membrane, but your own cell doesn't know how to rebuild this strange protein, it wouldn't even pass through the first gate of the membrane to begin with because it isn't 'tagged'properly.
This is all stuff you can pseudoscientificly explain, but I suggest you make it a little less hard on yourself and simply say: "The organism can perfectly detect tumors and destroy them." Instead of preventing them.
Small single cell tumors are pretty common in everyone I understand, and they constantly get obliterated by your immune system, only very very few survive because they copy so much behavior and characteristics of stem-cells. But your micro-organism can still detect them! It will probably work best as a Bacterium, and have colonies under the skin on the shoulders. The Bacteria will move through the bloodstream and function as an extension of your own immune system.
You can tack on gut flora and cholesterol somehow if you want but I don't think it's necessary.
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Note: Magic is something that this world does still not fully understand making integration difficult, it would be mostly trial and error if at all attempted.
Magic and warfare stories are usually set in a time of swords and spears, but what would that world look like if its technological evolution continued up to and beyond our current technological level? Would magic become obsolete due to the advancement of technology, or would it be enhanced?
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There is a lot of debate on this site (mostly by me), that suggests that the existence of magic would seriously hamper the development of science because science needs dependable, repeatable results which magic would interfere with.
But assuming that your sword and spear civilization managed to develop science despite magic's existence, then I think that magic would be enhanced by the addition of technology.
For example, massive libraries of magical tomes containing thousands of spells could be stored in a kindle, duplicated by mass manufacturing and carried in every adept's pocket. This would turn your average magic user into a veritable Swiss army knife of miracles.
Magic could also help technology. Whenever demand for electricity exceeds supply, the power company wizards could call down lightning or throw fireballs into the boilers to fill the need.
Keeping magic a mystery would probably turn out to be your biggest challenge. After all, most of science has been discovered one fact at a time, using trail and error. Magic's laws would eventually reveal themselves under the relentless interrogation of science, and then what you have is something completely different and much more dangerous than a simple wizard.
You would have a science-backed engineer, armed with a much bigger arsenal of physical laws to draw upon. In other words... A God Maker!
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# It completely depends on what "magic" is
Science/technology develops large in situations of need. I need to travel fast, so I make a car, etc. If magic renders tech useless, it would be very hard for technology to evolve. However, if magic was rare (only >0.1% people can use it) then life would carry on similar to us.
So where would technology rise up? and magic? It depends on what magic can do.
**If magic has low/no cost (doesn't drain you or require an animal sacrifice or something), then it would replace tech that does the same thing with a larger cost.**
E.g. I don't need a forklift to lift heavy objects, because Mr. Wizard made me this rug that makes anything on it have zero gravity.
E.g. I don't need to use magic to fly over and talk to my friend, I can call him straight away on a telephone. BUT WAIT magic lets me climb through my mirror into his mirror, where I can talk to him.
In terms of warfare, magic can and would be outstripped *if it has limits*. If a magic fireball is slow enough to be dodged, then guns would trump that. If there's a spell that instantly kills someone from a mile away, well, guns wouldn't be that useful anymore.
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In a world with magic and technology people would probably do most stuff with technology as it is easier. With current technology levels for example I could look through a book to find an answer but it is easier to use technology like the Internet. Magic would still be used for things that require very little effort, in the same way that I will still walk to a local shop rather than drive there. For anything requiring any real time or effort technology would be used instead.
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Contrary to Bellerephon answer I actually believe the opposite would be the case, once technology developed far enough it would be used completely for a small things that we used to use magic for. For example firearms would replace low-level fire spells. Then you would use magic to do big things that technology couldn't do it or at the very least couldn't do without a large amount of effort or energy. Example if you want to destroy a planet instead of spending years to build some sort of technological super weapon just use a spell to summon a meteor have it strike the planet. Instead of spending months being subjected to chemotherapy have a mage preform a Healing Spell on You.
To put it simply once technology became cheap and easy it would replace Magic when performing simple tasks sense it requires very little training to use technology usually. However technology will always be bound by physical laws, Magic by definition can break physical laws so the more powerful spells and still be used in situations where technology was hindered by its limitations.
In the case of warfare most people would have mundane weapons like guns. An Elite Force may have magic spells placed on modern weapons picture Navy Seals armed with actual Magic Bullets.
You wouldn't use Mages actively in the field instead they be super weapons used to wipe out whole cities maybe even hope planets.
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Does your magical system still obey Laws of Conservation, etc?
Technology, in large part, is a mechanism for storing work and energy so it can be released with little effort later on. For example, a bulldozer clears lots of dirt really easy, yay! But that dozer represents a lot of stored work and energy; the fuel in the gas tank, the labor of construction and design, etc. A man with a shovel represents very little stored energy, so it takes a lot of work, on the spot, to move the same amount of dirt.
So can magic move the same amount of dirt for LESS energy or work? If so, how? What is the cost of that magic? Are portions of the earth's core going cold, is the magic user losing years off their life? What is the cost of magic? In most stories magic taps a virtually infinite "mana" reserve, the only limit is the amount the user can wield (i.e. the user is a small drain on a vast tank of magic). But we are seeing how technology impacts our planet, would widespread use of magic do the same?
So, WRT magic and near-future warfare, it all depends on the availability of magic and the training required to use it. Every human can use a radio or fire a gun, can the same be said for magic telepathy and fireballs? The radio and gun represent stored work/energy, a human can use both with very little cost to themselves. Can the same be said for magic communications and combat? I suspect magic using soldiers would fatigue very quickly when trying to resist artillery shells or dish out damage to a tank. This is why most magic settings are set in low tech "muscle powered" worlds, a magic user scales better when compared to manual labor than when compared to factory output and mechanization.
Of course you can circumvent my limitation on magic by having magic "batteries", but then magic starts looking so similar to technology that the narrative distinction is meaningless.
Shadowrun is a setting like what you describe. There technology and magic are mostly alternate pathways to the same resolution. But since magic is limited to specific users, an all-tech nation would ultimately defeat an all-magic one since mass production favors technology, even if a "one on one" confrontation might favor the magic user.
If magic is universal, accessible to everyone, then anything easier to do with magic would trump the technological counterpart. But really, factory consistency and advertising would still favor technology; plus folks are lazy. Folks can cook their own food now, but still go out to eat. Even if you could cast a fly spell it may be simpler and less effort to take the bus. Just depends on the amount of study required and how the energy to cast a spell is sourced.
Obviously the real concern are for "magic" things like teleportation, instant healing, etc. These are things with no current technological analogue so they would probably the where generals would focus the most. Could you make a unit of teleporting shock troops? What do you have to do to COUNTER such a spell? Defensive magics would have as much priority as offensive spells. Magical healing, if limited, could have to be reserved, but to get lightly wounded troops back out quickly, or just to stabilized gravely wounded soldiers so they can recover with traditional therapy over time? Can magical shields resist all kinetic force? Can bullets be enchanted to zip right through magical shields? I suspect that most magical forces could basically neutralize each other or, at best, have an ancillary effect on the battlefield, kinda like cyberwarfare today. A critical edge would tip the scales, but all things being equal, comparable conventional forces would be comparable in the magic aspect as well.
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**Scenario:** In my Evil Overlord plan, I release a poison into the wild which should kill all humans. However I made some sort of mistake in my poison design and I killed all [Vertebrates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertebrate) bigger than 0.5 cm.
The poison under discussion is a plot device, made out of unobtainium and handwavium. It works just fine, thank you. (Except the deadly flaw I mentioned earlier. Oopsie!)
So what Earth is left with is just insects. The question assumes that what is left alive on Earth tomorrow is just insects. The flora stayed alive and unharmed.
I know it is safe to assume that Earth will survive this. It is safe to assume from the perspective of answering the question that this will be the next golden era for insects and they will grow to maximum size plausible for insects on Earth which should be circa 1m in size.
Now, **can I assume that today's insects would be able to evolve into sapience?**
By sapience I define:
* Ability to use tools
* Ability to improve on such tools
* Ability to create art
I know I hand-waved a lot in this setup. So I would like to have at least some scientific plausibility in my story.
Time does not matter. Given a million or billion years, is it plausible to assume that current insects will evolve into some sapient form, if given the perfect environment in which to do so?
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Are you aware of [Portia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portia_(spider) "Portia")? These tiny spiders are already:
1. Tactical planners
2. Trial-and-error learners
3. Capable of making complex plans
4. Social behaviour
So are they sentient in your terms?
They hunt other spiders and they use other spider's webs against them and can learn a new spider species "language" as to how they should manipulate the web to lure the prey spider. As the other spider's web is not something that is part of them (like their own web) and they can learn to use it, that could count as tool use.
Can they improve on tools? Their trial-and-error learning facility suggests they might learn how to.
Art? They can recognise webs built by their neighbours. Could they trial-and-error learn to embed meaning in these?
They seem to have established themselves in an evolutionary niche that favours what you are looking for, and given evolutionary time why would they not adapt to be better at what they already do?
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Most likely, no. Insects are too well adapted to their environment which means there is little or none selective pressure for them to acquire increases in their intelligence to survive. So unless the environment changes and these changes are such that natural selection can push the arthropoda into developing more intelligence.
Among us (now extinct due to a slight careless with chemistry) vertebrates those species which have developed sapience there is the phenomenon of neoteny where organisms enjoy extended phase of childhood. Adulthood tends to harden the arteries and slow down any capacity for learning and intellectual adaptation. Humans seem to have developed their intelligence because of the massive amount of social interaction we are exposed to and is part of our behavioural heritage.
I agree with TrEs-2b that arthropods like insects and spiders have no capacity of childhood and adolescent learning. They are effectively hard-wired for the behaviour they need for the ecosystems they inhabit and for their survival.
The only tools they have are biological adaptations, eg, web building in spiders and nest building in ants. The only improvement comes from evolutionary changes. No tools in the human sense or tool-making. No tool improvement. No art.
They do communicate via pheronomes and chemical markings. if environmental changes did something to select for enhanced communication this might be the beginning of the evolutionary road to sapience. It's just that this is highly improbable. Very, very improbable. Pity. Smart insects would be a nice idea.
## Environmental changes for possible rise of insect sapience
After posting the above answer realisation struck! There will be changes to Earth's environment in the future. Plus the fact that the OP's Evil Overlord has established what are several of the necessary changes for the rise of insect sapience.
In roughly 500 million years time the planet Earth will undergo increased heating as the Sun's evolves along the Main Sequence. This means the future environment will be undergoing massive changes and while insects have been adaptationally stable for many hundreds of millions of years, to survive they will have to undergo radical evolutionary change.
Insects are poikilotherms, their metabolic activity rises with temperature. A hotter planet means more active active insects. This will increase their interaction with their environment thereby increasing selective pressures and driving the increased probability of further adaptation.
However, the first two environmental changes have already been put in place. Competitors with sapience have been removed by the Evil Overlord's poison. Since all large vertebrates are also gone this means any vertebrates with a potential to evolve sapience are also out of the race.
Second, with humans and most of the apex fauna gone plants will thrive and as their abundance rises so will the oxygen content of Earth's atmosphere. A more highly oxygenated atmosphere will enable insects to grow bigger. This means insects will be able to develop bigger brains and comprehensive nervous systems.
If these conditions continue for the next 500 million years as temperatures and environments undergo changes to adapt it is feasible that insects might develop the correct suite of evolutionary adaptations that will enable, at least, insect to acquire sapience.
If so, an insect sapient species may arise under the light of a Sun turned red giant and by the time they develop civilisation this will be under a white dwarf star.
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## Yes but with a big ol' asterisk
**The no part**
There are many reasons why they couldn't and no reasons why they could. Evolution has simply favored insects to rely on instinct and not intelligence. From the ability to be near independent from birth (spiders and mantis') to using metamorphisis to make parents not consider children a threat to their food source. But the biggest problem is that instead of birthing one-eight children and raising and teaching them to survive. Insects mostly lay dozens, if not hundreds of eggs and hope that, while many die, a few survive, this does not nurture sapience.
***\**** < Imagine this is bigger
If you're willing to bend your definition of insect, I can offer a solution that meets all the requirements of sapience; [The **Anthill**](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/46962/what-would-a-collective-consciousness-look-like). This species has the capability for intelligence, they can [use and improve tools](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/46583/how-can-anthills-use-tools) and since they can have [complex pheromone based language](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/45769/pheromone-based-language), art in the form of scent is possible. The only drawback lies in that a polymorphic creature may not fit your definition of insect.
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**Yes**. But then they won't be insects any more....
There is an evolutionary path from an ant to a Horsefly to a Human. You step from from the fly, to its mother, to her mother and so on, until you reach the last common ancestor (probably something worm like) and then forwards again.
It took that worm 800 million years to evolve intelligence, It might take the insects a similar amount of time to do so again. The say the past is another country: the future may be another planet.
The insects, if given 800 million years, probably won't look much like insects do now. There is no reason to suppose that they will have chitin exoskeletons or open breathing systems. They will have split and divided into groups as different from each other as starfish are from starlings. After all, just look what only 65 million years of evolution can do to a treeshrew.
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**No**. Insects are restricted in size (to about 10cm for bulky shaped bodies) by their exosceletons and their way of distributing oxygene through tracheas in their body. This will hinder them in developping big enough brains.
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it is just about plausible that over a long period of time an insect could evolve into something sapient, but it is more likely that it would simply no longer be an insect and would evolve into your sapient being
however, this is a fictional universe, in which case of course it can happen if it makes a good story
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So first things first: I was not sure where to put this question. It isn't specifically about worldbuilding (though I'm using it that way). It's more related to the capabilities of the human body, but I wasn't sure if it should go on Health SE, Physical Fitness SE, or somewhere else, so I decided to put it here based on what I'm using it for. If it needs to be moved, please feel free to flag it for that.
My question is simple: is it physically possible for a human to dodge an arrow? I realize this probably depends on a lot of factors, like the arrow's speed, the human's condition and weight, the distance involved, and more that I'm probably not thinking of. Speaking in *very* general terms, assume that the arrow is a typical Native American arrow, fired at medium to long range. Also assume that the human dodging said arrow is relatively unencumbered and in prime physical condition, and has extensive agility training.
Please let me know if you require more details. This is a general discussion, and not a specific scene in a book or anything, so generalizations are welcome.
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Considering that people [catch arrows - 10 catches in 2 minutes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmvHGmKITp4), it is clearly possible to dodge arrows. Watch the video and you can see that dodging is definitely possible.
Paying sufficient attention under combat conditions, lighting, and possible multiple archers means that this is clearly not the safest activity, but it is definitely possible. I would also said that catching an arrow qualifies as successfully dodging an arrow too.
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The video states the arrows are going 110 km/hour, this is on the slow side for initial velocity from a longbow, but they don't say whether 110 kph is initial, average, or final velocity. However, 13 meters is not very far for the flight distance in combat either. Given the mass, flight time, and aerodynamics of arrow, I don't expect a large difference between initial and final speed -- perhaps 5 kph difference in total. If the initial speed was a little higher (and presumably more typical) arrow catching and dodging would still appear to be possible given some additional flight distance. The limiting factor for dodging may well be how good the illumination is as well as wind conditions. Full daylight with a high contrast sky background would be essential for best results. Having better than 20/20 vision would also be a big plus. The advantage is definitely tilted in favor of the attacker, esp. given that you have to dodge every time, but a single hit can incapacitate or kill.
110 kph is about 100 ft/sec. Fastest arrow speed from a wooden bow is about 180 fps. American Indians often used flat-bows, and their drawstrings were not as good as those found in modern wooden bows, so 180 fps (197.5 kph) seems like a safe, or even generous speed for American Indian arrows.
As a weapon, arrow momentum is important in terms of combat damage. Does anyone know if American Indians used a heavier but slower arrow in combat?
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In mythbusters show season 6 there is an episode were the test various ninja myths. One such myth was the ability to catch an arrow in battle. While they provided it impossible to catch an arrow in battle, they provided it could be done in controlled circumstance. The controlled circumstance need for it to be possible include that the archer must be far enough a way and only shoot one shot every so minute.
Dodging the an arrow is probably some what easier to dodge a arrow, but like catching an arrow it would be a very usefully skill in battle, you might be able to dodge one or two shots, but if they kept shooting at you or if some of there archer friends came to help then your dead. A skill like that is but delay your death but it alone wouldn't save your life.
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Right now I'm trying to build a colonial setting for an RPG, in which a group of farmers accidentally uncovers some ruins of great power buried under a swamp while draining it. Before the swamp is completely drained, I'm also planning some kind of conflict as the indigenes (who are aware of what lies beneath the swamp) attempt to stop the swamp from being drained and the ruins from being revealed.
The problem is that I haven't the faintest clue how people actually drain swamps. Google isn't much help here, either: most of the results deal with the ecological consequences of making swamps disappear.
How did people go about draining swamps three hundred years ago? What kind of technology was necessary? Was it a one-person job, or did it take teams of coordinated laborers? Did they use dams to keep water from coming in, or ditches to keep water from going out?
And when they finally succeeded, what was the result? Simply a lower water level? Very muddy (but still usable) land? Dry land?
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Swamps form in areas of low topographical relief (ie. little overall change in elevation and relatively level).
Water enters this area (possibly from a nearby river, or springs, or runoff) and the flow of water through a wetland (swamps are defined as forested wetlands) is quite slow over the mostly flat land. There are generally some faster moving channels through the area, but most water is slow moving or even stagnant.
Draining a swamp is a simple matter (though not necessarily trivial). Additional drainage needs to be provided to the area so that the water drains away faster than it is replenished. A system of canals and ditches can rapidly dry out wetlands. As a caution, if these canals drain into the ocean, rising tides can actually send salt water up the canal to turn the area brackish.
Alternately, if you set up levees to block outflow, a wetland can be transformed into a shallow lake.
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Michael Richardson already answered for the situation where water can be drained naturally. However there are many situations where this was not the case. The next step is active draining. End result is dry land always: Arable land is the very reason for the large effort it requires.
Typically what the job gets done is:
1. Build dams around the projected 'polder'
2. Dig draining canals inside
3. Build windmills on top of the dams
4. Apply the windmills to remove the water
5. [In case of seawater] After the water is drained, plant salt tolerant crop for the first few seasons
It takes a long time to do in any case. Slowing or blocking progress is easy: Damage the dams, burn the mills. To get really nasty: Attack the workforce.
Reference:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polder>
<http://www.let.rug.nl/polders/boekje/history.htm>
<http://www.dutchwatersector.com/our-history/>
<https://www.kinderdijk.com/area/history/kinderdijk-founding>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beemster>
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All I know so far is, they're a developed culture of humans who live in cave networks underground, made fit for life. They speak their own language, and they have some contact with outsiders, with whom they trade. No one has ever been on the surface, and though concepts of "above" and "heaven" are captured in their songs and stories, no one is interested in "going up". Although, they covet a somewhat rare material outsiders call "lightstone" (you can guess what it does.) They trade with outsiders for lightstone.
They get water from underground sources. Food and fire, I'm not so sure. I don't know if they can grow wood there with only light from lightstone and fire. Maybe some really robust saplings, but could they grow without sunlight?
Without wood, I'm not sure if fire is a possibility - could they just use coal and other non-renewable sources? (If so, I suppose this makes light finite, which is an interesting twist.)
As for food, there are beasts which live in the caves which they can hunt, as well as moss and fungus probably, but beyond that I don't know what they eat, or how they maintain nutrition. They're a hardy people, but there's probably a minimum they need to survive.
My chief concern, though, is how do they live without natural light? Can humans do this for indefinite generations? Would I need to modify their biology to make this aspect work?
So to sum up the chief concerns of this question:
1. How could a cave-based civilisation grow food?
2. How can they make fire?
3. How do humans live without sunlight?
4. How *well* do humans live without sunlight?
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You haven't specified a tech level, so I'll give a mix of options.
I think one of the simplest ways to do this would be to find some kind of volcanic activity, deep underground. Volcanic intrusion of molten rock into the lower parts of your caves provides heat, and even a little light. You'll want a shaft passing through the layers your people live on and up to the surface (or at least, somewhere it can safely vent large quantities of toxic gas). This carries the volcanic gases away upward to where they won't asphyxiate the people (or you can just have the magma on the other side of a wall, so the toxic gases are kept out - you just need the source of heat). The more important part, though, is that the rising warm air creates a strong flow that draws the air out of the tunnels. This means that fresh air is drawn *in* at the other end, so you can have this continual flow where fresh air is pulled in at the entrances away from the magma, and then the stale air is drawn up by the rising hot column near to the magma. You can do this with furnaces, but they need fuel which can be hard to come by underground, so living near volcanic activity is an attractive option. This is how termites keep the air in the deepest part of their nests breathable, except that they use the heat of the sun warming their termite mounds rather than furnaces or volcanoes.
Once you have the air situation sorted, you can also use the heat of the magma to allow something like the clusters of life around hot vents on the seabed, and hopefully that can be the bottom of a food chain that eventually produces something edible by humans. Probably from plankton-type things to siphoning sea-sponge type things to crab-like or fish-like things, and from there you're in more recognisable territory for a fish-based food source - kinda like real-world fish or oyster farms, but in vats deep underground. Seaweed gives you good options for "vegetables", and there are algae that have all sorts of beneficial properties. You can also use this for handling waste - sewage, food waste, even cloth and wood once it's been mulched down a bit; basically anything biological. Oysters are great at filtering water, so you can supplement whatever underground streams you're using for drinking water by filtering waste water. The heat of the magma also provides the option of distillation.
If you want, you could probably get some bioluminescent plants (or even creatures) so that you can get low-level lighting just by piping water from the vats through something transparent, and then the water will provide warmth and nutrients (or plankton, or whatever) for the glowing plants to live on. It's probably not bright enough to grow crops, although perhaps with lenses you could focus the light into small patches that could grow a plant or two, which might be enough to grow a few medicinal plants for your doctors. The warmth of the water also lets you spread the heat around and turn some of the cooler caves into places warm enough to live comfortably, so they don't have to cluster so tightly around the magma intrusions and can have a little more living space.
If you have the tech for it, the heat of the magma could be used in some kind of geothermal power (boil water, use the steam to spin turbines and generators, let the steam rise to cooler caves to condense, let the water trickle back down for re-use). That would give you electric lighting, and from there hydroponics and all the rest.
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No soil and no sun don't mean no agriculture. IIRC (I can't find the link, though I read about it some time ago), there were several successful experiments using hydroponic technology and artificial light to grow vegetables without sunlight and without soil. They could be using these technologies, maybe thanks to certain kind of "lightstone" that emits the light spectrum that plants need to grow.
Though this is "hi tech" for us, maybe for them it's something that grew out of necessity and after watching the effects of lightstone on some plants.
Two links I've just found, for reference:
* [Wikipedia's page on "Grow light"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grow_light)
* [A science-heavy (to me, at
least) document from The Royal Society](http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/369/1640/20130243)
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There is a cave full of life that has been isolated from outside energy sources for millions of years.
<http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150904-the-bizarre-beasts-living-in-romanias-poison-cave>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movile_Cave>
The explanations is a little dense, but it seems it gets energy from chemical reactions with surrounding rock (slowly eating away at the rock). Humans who figured out how to get energy in a similar way, and who were adapted to eating the food grown in the cave, could get along for quite a long time in a similarly closed ecosystem although it may not be very pleasant.
And of course there is always nuclear energy if they are sufficiently advanced and are living underground near uranium deposits.
1. The cave based civilization would need to grow the kind of food that grows in caves. Mosses, fungi, etc. They could also raise the beasts they hunt as farm animals.
2. They can make fire from coal IF they have proper ventilation and exchange of oxygen. They could dry their own poop or the poop of animals and burn it (American Indians used to burn dry buffalo chips). Regardless of the fuel, the bigger problem is getting oxygen in and carbon dioxide out.
3. Humans live without sunlight be relying on other energy sources to produce the light and heat they need.
4. Humans live without sunlight ok but depression rates increase. Look at life in the artic circle in places like Finland and Alaska during the winter. Depression increases and suicide rates are high. Vitamin D deficiency can also be a problem since it is produced in the skin in reaction to sunlight.
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Were their ancestors high tech people? If so, the vitamin D problem goes away with some hand-wavey genetic engineering. After all there are deep sea fish, squid and crustaceans that live their entire lives far below where sunlight reaches and they haven't all become extinct from vitamin D deficiency. So biochemical methods of making vitamin D from scratch without sunlight do exist. Splice in those genes to the ancestors of your cave-dwellers.
Food is your main problem. Cave ecosystems don't produce much biomass. Tiny energy and nutrient input = tiny biomass output. The blind cave fish in an underground lake could be eaten to extinction by one hungry family.
If your folks can set up aquaponics/hydroponics with electric light, as suggested by others, then you can get around some of this. Think giant underground polytunnel or greenhouse-with-LED type farming. For fertilizer, send your folks on expeditions up to bat roosts to harvest bat guano. And some baby bats to spice up their diet!
Warning: they'll need breathing equipment and a good vaccination programme to survive the toxic gases and horrible diseases in the bat cave. [BBC wildlife prog on Mexican free-tailed bat cave](http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/life/Mexican_Free-tailed_Bat#p006rxyc)
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There's always magic! In a Game of Thrones telltale game, I believe they have a special tree that burns for a very very long time. You could do something like that- they may not have much wood (or a coal material) but it lasts for a very long time. I'm using magical elements for natural lighting, the caves have huge columns and stalagmites of naturally glowing rock and crystals that have magical origins.
As for food- insects? It has a lot of protein. If there's enough water sources, they can breed and produce fish.
Or as you consider, they can see in the dark and have minimum biological needs for natural light.
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**First of all Food:**
All plants need sunlight to grow because they have to get the energy from somewhere.
Insects and fungi grow in the dark but need plant matter to eat. This does not help much. Using fire to light plants would create a huge amount of heat and use an excessive amount of fuel. So the food really has to come from outside the caves. They could trade for it requiring regular bulk delivery. They could eat roots or things that live of roots requiring them to be near the surface or they could rely on things falling down holes. (very big ones then)
**"Glow stones"**, unless using total magic would be unsuitable as chemical reactions cannot produce a lot of light for long periods of time, there is not enough energy. Also if you want the stones to give off much light they better be translucent or transparent (Although a large surface area helps as well).
Given inefficiencies in the batteries don't expect the glow stones to give off more light than putting a battery of the same size in a torch. (and those are carefully designed by chemists. nothing that reactive will form naturally.) (and without the off switch, it'll run down at the same rate whether in use or not)
Someone by now will want to point out that nuclear reactions create far more energy per weight. The radium dial on some clocks is just bright enough to see in the dark. If you want glowing dots on the cave floor to navigate, fine. If you want to clearly see by your glow stones, or even grow plants by them then you have a lethal radiation dose around. Your not going to get this without nuclear refinement facilities either.
In short the answer is dependent on location, what is supplied and tech level, none of which is clear.
continued later ...
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If you're thinking about people adapting to an eternal life in the underground, with time they'd degenerate into blind, pale-skinned brutes with a very low life expectancy. Without proper nourishment and their numbers rapidly thinning in the first stage of their existence in such harsh conditions, soon there would come inbreeding, with all catastrophic consequences that it brings.
IF they are lucky, even living off that little food the caves can offer, they'd become a bunch of cannibalistic idiots.
IF you are thinking of an evolutionary twist right from the start, these cave-people could be descendants of moles or rats, equipped to live as scavengers, able to live off the caves' natural provisons, but unable to develope a 'civilization' as we intend it: Caves are not a proper place to save your data other than on stone. Perhaps they'd be the master in sculpting and graffiti, but either somehow they can truly dig wherever they want and never suface, or their society will be too static to go beyond that of hunter-gatherers.
Their look may vary: for example, if they kept their ancestors' fur, said fur could also hold nutrients for them (yes, there is the yuck factor, but if monkeys can groom each other and eat the results of that work, these creatures could eat their own fungi or body microflora). They'd be mostly blind, but they could see in the infrared and be extremely sensible to vibrations. An omnivore mouth (I imagine they could be cannibalistic so that not one ounce of food get wasted). Long and sharp nose. Large ears, foldable so that during digging they won't get ruined. VERY strong claws and arms to dig. Able to climb even vertical walls.
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1. Mushrooms don't require light to grow and can provide all the micronutrients that the human body needs. The minirals that the body needs can be provided with what is called blood snow in Antarctica and watermelon snow in Utah. It grows in warm environments but is the most noticeable on snow when it flows with the water runoff. Mushrooms may absorb the fluid of the run off if grown in the medium.
2. Fire is not required to stay warm. The deeper the tunnels the warmer the walls are from sheer pressure of the soil above it. Some mine are so deep and the pressure so great that the heat is extreme. Look it up online.
3 and 4. I like the answer of glowing creatures to create an underground ecosystem. But if why people are living underground is due to the extreme cold on the surface then bat dung for importing organic material can not be a consideration.
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Yes you can live underground and you can even die underground. Thriving underground is going to take huge amounts of technology and to support that you will have to have limit the population. The technology itself will need outside resources.
People can postulate all they want of what they can get from their cave, but in 10000 years of human existence mankind has not found a cave that has all the resources needed to live underground. That's pretty much what stopped cave living in human history.
Watch the space program. If they can develop vies sustaining life chamber technology then you can probably adapt that to underground living for a small population. However those units will probably be built above ground to utilize sunlight for energy and food production. Available space is more abundant on the surface at a factions of the cost building underground system.
A society of people living underground all the time. Sure...in your movie and in your dream.
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Wheat grass sprouts don't even need light... actually darkness is better for growing it. It is an excellent source of nutrition and plants like it could fulfill the need for vegetables.
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They say all is fair in love and war. When we plan to invade our enemy's planet, we don't want fair. We want to strike them while they're down. We infiltrated sleeper agents in key points of their infrastructure. Those agents have laid down the ground work we need when the day comes.
Agent 2215 is a worker at Treenadia City West Fusion Power Facility. The plant powers half of the capital city, including its most critical infrastructures: the Planetary Defence Army's military base in TC, the Interplanetary Communication Hub and the sector headquarters for the Federal Fleet. 2215 can get us unlimited access to the plant's control systems.
But we can't just switch power off, they will be back up and running before we can even strike. We need something more disruptive. Our initial thought was to turn their own infrastructure against them. Turn the fusion plant into an EMP generator, and let it propagate through the grid. The question is: how?
The plant uses tokamak-style reactors. Maybe we could use their magnetic confinement in some way. The plant also has large underground energy storage facilities. Maybe we could overload them to trigger an explosive reaction. Maybe there are other options we overlooked.
We need to disable electronics in a 500km radius at minimum, but we'd like to extend our strike up to a 2500km radius as much as possible. More than that, we need to disable orbital defenses, all in one fell swoop. How they are disabled doesn't really matter, we only need a good 6-12 hours window of opportunity for our invasion.
The Interplanetary Communication Hub has large, powerful antennae. We're thinking those may help propagate an EM wave much further than it normally would, but we're not quite sure if and how it will work.
Help us put the finishing touch on our plan, and we shall show them the might of the Alliance.
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To clarify on operational objectives, we need a way to:
* Prevent interplanetary communication by disabling the Comm Hub.
* Disable static surface defense (anti-air canons, radar arrays).
* Disable mobile surface defense (ground vehicles, naval ships, aircrafts).
* Disable orbital defense (orbital station, satellites, spaceships) as much as possible.
At minimum, we need to disable defense sensors and/or targeting systems. A cannon that cannot find its target is as good as destroyed in our case.
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You are attacking the wrong place. Power plants are well defended and easily repairable. And the effect of losing a power plant is rather easily mitigated. What you want to go after is **the power distribution grid**.
The power distribution grid is pretty much like highways for electric power. Cause a disruption on a highway, and you know what happens: instant congestion, confusion and desperate attempts to re-route around the problem. When it comes to electric power, these things happen in **seconds**, and unless your grid is resilient against disruption, you can trigger a major power-out this way.
The [2006 European Blackout](http://nuclearpoweryesplease.org/blog/2008/12/13/the-day-wind-power-nearly-blew-out-europe/) and the [2003 North American ditto](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003) were both caused by the power grid failing. The European case is particularly interesting in that it shows how a relatively small disruption can cascade over large areas. When one critical line was closed down, the power rerouted to neighbouring lines. However, due to them already being being operated close to the safety margin, the extra load tripped the overload safeties and took **those** lines off the grid as well. This meant that even more power needed to be rerouted to other lines, which tripped them in return. And so the domino effect spread all over the continent and split it in three.
The amusing part here is that for you as an attacker, you may also want to attack major **consumers** of power rather than only producers, because a sudden surplus of power can be a much bigger problem than a power deficit. Power distribution is usually quite good at handling deficits by doing load-shedding, that is to start disconnecting lower priority consumers in order to keep the high priority consumers — like the military — online. But what do you do when you suddenly have many gigawatts of extra power and nowhere to put it?! If you suddenly get 300 Volts at 100 Hz in your wall socket when you expect only 120 V at 60 Hz, things will start breaking and burning up. This cannot be allowed to happen, so they will start shutting down the grid **completely** rather than let this happen.
In summary: what you want is to upset the delicate balance in the entire power system. Disrupt key distribution lines and distribution centers; force big power sinks off the grid in a surprising and uncontrollable manner; wreak havoc for those that try to balance the power grid.
Then as they scramble to try to understand why everything is going haywire, you launch your attack...
EDIT:
After your edits... look, what are you **really** after? Are you looking for a realistic way to do that big laundry list of items you added? Or are you looking for a way of making your Agent 2215 become a key person in your story by *somehow* opening the door for the attack?
If it is the first case then I would accuse your military commanders of gross negligence if the only thing they do in preparation for invading a **planet** is to send in just one agent and hope that this one person can pull off that huge feat. This simply is not credible for a story.
If it is the second case then you probably need to drop the idea of making the agent cause something go "phwoom" and from that hope that the big list of items drop offline.
What you can do however to make the agent be a key person is - for instance - to be employed somewhere within the power distribution system (working in a power plant would fit that) and have the agent send off a list of targets in the power grid that will cause the maximum amount of havoc on their defences, sensor grids, vital infrastructure and similar things.
Another way can be for the agent to be like Six in the new Battlestar Galactica when she opens the door for the Cylon attack. She does not do any damage herself but she does disable the defences, not by using brute force, but by providing data access to critical systems and allowing the Cylons to simply tell them to shut down.
So please be clear about what you actually want - credibility or drama centered on your agent - because the answers will change greatly depending on this.
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The agent on the ground is a distraction, and keeps the enemy from looking at where the *real* action is taking place.
Your space fleet has managed to place a powerful magnetic generator in orbit around the Sun, and is now inducing the conditions to create a powerful solar flare. This flare will be timed so the energetic output and plasma will impact the enemy planet, inducing a world wide EMP pulse into the power and communications grid, much like the [Carrington Event](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859) of 1859.
As an added bonus, this will also negatively affect orbital infrastructure and potentially any enemy spacecraft in orbit around the planet. Enemy space stations, battleships, Laserstars and other weaponry and sensor systems will be blinded and out of action for a period of time, depending on how hardened they are and how long it takes to reboot computers and do necessary repairs.
Assuming your space fleet was parked outside of the "cone" of charged particles released by the flare, and can move quickly into attack position and orbit around the planet, you will be in the High Guard position inside their Hill Sphere before they can take steps to repel your forces, and be ready to dictate terms.
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Have your agent give you access to the computers of the plant. The plant might be connected to the rest of the infrastructure, so you can hack into all devices and disable them. Communication can be disabled by locking everyone out of the comm system, radars can be disabled or made to lie.
Mobile devices can be disabled or locked out, or made to be a spy network.
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Use conventional fusion bomb/s high in the atmosphere or analouges to the van allen belts is the best option by my opinion. You could you the power produced by you facility to mess with the star's magnetic field to cause a coronal mass ejection you would do this by creating electromagnets in orbit of the star powered by solar or energy beamed by your plant to cause magnetic reconnection by positioning it agianst the grain of the star's magnetic field.
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The question is really all in the heading: is it possible for a macroscopic organism to subsist entirely on rocks and still gain enough calories to survive? I know of [Lithotrophs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithotroph) but all known lithotrophs are bacteria or archaea.
My idea at present is that existing lithotrophs were incorporated into the gut bacteria of animals that swallow stones to help digestion, and as they eat part (or all) of the stone they thrive and also aid the creature eating the stone. So I've figured out how and why they eat rock in the first place; could any macrofauna get enough calorie for life **purely** from eating rocks? If not, how many calories could they get? (So I can figure out what else they eat to make it up)
If it matters, the creatures in question are flightless birds around the size of a grey heron.
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Is it ok if I have my stomach on the outside? It's what humans do when they cook after all.
Let's invent lithotroph agriculture. You're macroscopic organism eats "rocks" by running over them like a lawnmower, just a little slower. As it passes it takes it's harvest while picking lithotrophs up from consumed rocks and laying them down on fresh rocks. Leaving a trail of devastated rock surface to mark its passing.
Key here is it doesn't drag them forward. It pushes them sideways. Leaving behind lithotrophs to grow on fresh rock until it returns. Thus making your organism territorial.
Bit of a symbiotic relationship really. Lithotrophs gain mobility. Macroscopic "rock eater" gets to eat "rocks".
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Lithotropes do not literally eat rocks. Rocks are a mix of inorganic minerals that have very little to no available chemical energy, which is why there is so much of it. If minerals were an actual food source, rock-eating organisms would be the dominant life form on Earth by a large margin, if organic life existed at all.
Instead they consume non-organic matter, i.e. matter that does not contain organic compounds, but only those that still contain a usable energy potential, such as ions, salts, or hydrogen.
The main problem for lithotrophes is that their source of energy has a very low density. A macroscopic organism would require impractically high amounts of food to survive and thrive simply because of its mass. One kg of microbes can spread out much further and be more efficient at gathering food than one macroscopic organism of the same weight.
Large organisms are also less efficient than microscopic ones overall, because an increasing share of its body is devoted to purposes other than finding and processing food, such as structural cells, nervous system, propulsion, reproduction, and so on.
Macroscopic lithotrophes might be possible on a world that contains an abundance of such energy sources, and where those energy source would be constantly produced by other processes so that those creatures have enough time to evolve, but it certainly wouldn't be possible on Earth.
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If the rocks are *coal*!
Perhaps alkali metal or somesuch? There aren't any rocks like that. Think about why: any minerals that contained potential energy easy to liberate spontaneously would have done so already and not formed long-lived minerals.
Your only option is to eat several different minerals that together allow a chemical reaction that produces energy. Ask a chemist about what is possible, if anything. I can imagine having the animal catlyize a reaction that produces energy, but I don't know the magnitude of what specific reactions are possible. Ask a chemist or make up something. I'm afraid there isn't anything real that would give enough power.
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Imagine, if you will, a world where aural communication is impossible. Everything is done through gesture - sign language and written language are common, but the spoken word is not used, and using any sound for communication is not possible.
Now, the obvious solution would be to simply make everyone deaf, but that doesn't really sound like fun. I'd like environmental factors to make communication through atmospheric compression (sound waves) impossible.
The environment needs to support human life.
What atmospheric conditions could cause disruption to compression waves to the point where they could not be used for communication?
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There are two ways I can see which would wreck the ability for humans to hear speech:
**White Noise:**
This is along the same lines as John Robinson's answer, but on a smaller scale. Rather than a *lot* of wind, the wind would only have to be chaotic enough to destroy sound waves.
Rather than areas without wind, you would have periods of time without wind, though they would be extremely brief (ie, every other microsecond). This could possibly be justified by the presence of microscopic, ferrous particles suspended in the atmosphere all over the planet. The dust could vibrate as a result of fluctuations in the planet's magnetic field (some process occurring in the world's core, unique to this planet?). This would create a constant buzz or hum which would disrupt all spoken language.
**Active Noise Cancellation:**
The same concept as ANC headphones-- incoming sound waves are duplicated, but 180 degrees out phase. The two contradictory waves meet, and cancel one another out.
In the case of an entire world, this could be managed with nanoscale machines (or the ferrous particles being manipulated by a controlled magnetic field) spread throughout the atmosphere, either intentionally or as a remnant of some ancient technology.
Alternatively, there could be microscopic flora or fauna throughout the atmosphere which actively counteracts any sound waves which would disturb their position as they float. Since every individual microorganism is counteracting the sound which it encounters, this wouldn't just cancel human speech, but *all* sound below a certain volume.
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The only thing I can think of would be to have the world be incredibly windy. If it's windy enough, the wind will cause too much interference with any spoken words and people won't be able to hear what you say.
The problem with that, of course, is that (mathematically speaking) there has to be a place on the planet where there's no wind, so it kind of breaks down, but you can hand-wave it by saying there's no wind at the poles or something. This is a result of the single greatest-named theorem in all of mathematics, [the Hairy Ball Theorem.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hairy_ball_theorem)
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Sound waves are propagated through a medium, wherever there is a medium, there will be sound. However if you can create some kind of phenomena on the planet that generates a sound noise level high enough so any practical communication would be impossible, it would work.
If the planet produces white noise at around 100dB or produces a single sound frequency at the max atmospheric pressure, that would hinder the use of sound to communicate.
The explanation for the latter proposal is that in order for the waves to be called sound, they need to oscillate, just like an AC wave. If there is already a one frequency that touches the minimum pressure, any other higher frequency would need to go to a negative pressure in order to manifest as sound, which is impossible. Imagine creating a wave that touches the top of an aquarium, and the lower part touches the bottom part of the aquarium, if you wanted to add a smaller wave within that big wave, you would need the water to go above and below the aquarium walls. In fact, water can go higher and over the open aquarium, just like pressure, but a vacuum is the lowest pressure you can obtain.
However, I am not sure what that would do to humans, since we know that prolonged exposure to loud sounds is very unhealthy, and I am pretty sure sound at the maximum atmospheric pressure would be similar to periodically generating shockwaves, which would kill any living organism caught in it.
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This was a major plot point in *Ocean on Top*, one of the lesser-known works by Hel Clement from 1967.
His people lived under pressure in a oxygen-carrying fluid at the bottom of the ocean. Human vocal apparatus would not work. In fact (spoiler) they did not breathe tidally at all. The lungs did not pump in and out; rather, oxygen diffuses at high speed without the fluid moving.
I really suggest finding that novel, for his remarkable thoughts on how this affected the civilization.
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> [The Hippocampus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocampus_%28mythology%29) is a mythological creature and has typically been depicted as having the upper body of a horse with the lower body of a fish.
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***Considerations***
1. Gills or lungs? Would this creature come to the surface to take air, or would it breath under water using gills?
2. Would the hippocampus have one set of legs, as traditional mythologies have us believe, or would it not?
As this is a 'combination' of both a sea-faring creature and a mammal, I imagine some complications might arise in designing it.
***How do I make a hippocampus anatomically correct while staying as close to the original mythology as possible?***
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# Gills? Lungs?
***Both*** works just fine, such as in the [lungfish](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lungfish). As you may guess, the lungfish is so called because it has lungs. It can breath air just as well as breathing water. This gives the hippocampus the ability to breathe in water and out of water, which can be a huge advantage! This is a great benefit for many organisms; if your water dries up, that's okay because you won't suffocate. If the water is hostile, due to predators or some other situation, you can just drag yourself onto land and can stay there for a while.
# One Set of Legs?
Most biologists actually think that [legs evolved from fins](http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evograms_04), which were used to provide a little boost to shallow- water dwelling creatures. [A hippocamp](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocampus_(mythology)) may use these legs because they provide a boost in shallow water, help it lug itself out of the water (like seals do), or maybe even allow it to manipulate some things underwater. I'm not really sure where they are supposed to live, or what they eat, so I can only speculate on the uses of them.
It seems that their bodies would really work for surface swimming, because the horse legs don't have the kind of range of motion that you see in seals or manatees. It really seems like they need to tuck those legs in somehow, or just use them to keep their heads above water and use their fish-ends for actual locomotion in water. In any case, the hippocamp seems like a more realistic fantasy creature.
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It might simply be a marine mammal like a seal or might even *be* the [manatee](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manatee).
It would breathe air, but have extreme adaptations for swimming. The strong resemblence to a horse's head would have to do with the manner of its feeding.
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I don't think you would have to change it very much at all. An even seal-like coat rather than a scaled fish half. clubby fins rather than hooves.
I would say the horse head would mean it was a water adapted odd-toed ungulate so not closely related to the Cetaceans which are even-toed (whales are a sort of sea deer). The classical hippocampus anatomy reminds one of a mudskipper so by the rule of convergent evolution it would be a member of family Equidae adapted to swamps that occasionally dry out. It would be amphibious, in habit, but an air breather. Most comfortable in the water but able to make trips across wet ground. I think a dusty savanna would do it in.
Seafaring would probably be a push for habitat but it could be migratory.
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well, Maybe looking into Whale and Dolphin evolution would be helpful as they evolved from an Even-toes Ungulate (Horses are Odd-Toe Ungulate) so one of the transitional phases may be helpful.
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The hippocampus could be a hippopotamus-like animal, in that it would have a highly dense body adapted for running on the sea-floor. The tail would also aid it in moving forwards in the water, and would be able to coil up into a ring for them to balance on land. If the hippocampus have wings, these could be explained as an extra way to balance and provide speed underwater
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So typically in a three - dimensional setting we tend to refer to people by their geographical point of origin (eg, Americans, Asians, even Jovians if we want to leave Earth).
My question is, what kind of names could we give people in a four-dimensional context where their time of origin is the distinctive factor?
This could be in terms of simple "future", "present" and "past" locations, or in a more complex fashion, where time periods could then be referred to in a similar way as countries (so the twentieth century itself as an origin, for example, whereas those from the twenty-first century would be referred to by a different term).
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The convention in English history is to call them by the name of the Monarch i.e. Georgian, Victorian, Edwardian, and Elizabethan etc.
In America we gots Colonial, Revolutionary, Civil war WWI WWIII... well colonial and a bunch of era's named after wars. We also have antebellum for before the civil war.
"Three Victorians and a Civil War general walk into a Regency bar
You would think at leat one of them would have ducked"
sample text, feel free to use it.
Farther back neolithic, Stone Age, Bronze Age, Antediluvian etc in no particular order.
Future people could be named after future wars WWXI or leaders Sandersonian , Trumpian, Kasichers etc.
I think historians are going to be your best resource.
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Can't the inhabitants be simply refered to, 'twentieth century', 'fifteeenth century', and so on? This way anyone can take reference for themselves. Like on earth, someone is from New Zeland, you understand that it's either south or north from you. Time periods could be a reference point. But 'past - present - future' is subjective,and wouldn't be used as formal classification.
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One issue would be that naming conventions of times change as well. Ancient Egyptians would refer to the year as "The third year of the reign of Pharaoh Rameses II", whereas we might say 1277 BC (or 1277 BCE in a scholarly text).
There also needs to be agreement on a start state. The Christian calendar, Islamic calendar and Jewish calendars are all different (2016 AD is 5777 in the Jewish calendar and 1437 AH in the Islamic calendar). So a time traveller introducing themselves as being from "1200" will have very different meanings in just these three calendar systems. One can only imagine what some time traveller from the Mayan civilization would think...
The only "universal" time reference that might be acceptable across cultures would be "Unix Time", where time is measured in seconds and the time is defined as the number of seconds that have elapsed since 00:00:00 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), Thursday, 1 January 1970. Today as I write it is ***1453577340***. This is not going to be a handy system, but it will provide exact coordinates for you point of origin.
If you are going to go with seconds, then some sort of shorthand will evolve. For example, you might claim to be from "200 megaseconds ago", or "minus 200 Ms"; remembering a megasecond (Ms) is 1 million seconds, or roughly 11.6 days. There are roughly 31.6 megaseconds in a year.
Bring an hourglass as well....
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If you want to express locations on the globe in a mathematically useful and language and culture-independent way, you are best to use latitude and longitude rather than place names. That avoids all sorts of confusion and ambiguity. Where is this "Deutschland" you speak of? Oh, you mean Germany. When you say Boston do you mean the city in Britain or in the United States? Etc.
Similarly, for time periods the most mathematically useful and language and culture independent way would be to give a numerical date.
Of course a date is not entirely culturally independent. We have to agree on the lengths of the time units. Do we use years, months, and days? How do we deal with leap years? If we want a system that will work for people on other planets, Earth years are not very meaningful. Etc. What is the starting point of our calendar? The Gregorian calendar uses the birth of Christ (most historians agree it uses an incorrect date for this); the ancient Roman calendar used the date that the city of Rome was founded; etc. I'd say to use the date the universe was created as an objectively independent date that has the side benefit of avoiding negative numbers, but then you get into debates about just when that was. But presumably a time travelling civilization could agree on some standard calendar.
Of course people would probably still talk about "eras", because descriptive words are easier to remember than numbers. Historians routinely talk about the bronze age, the iron age, Middle Ages, Renaissance, Age of Exploration, Industrial Age, Space Age, Computer Age, etc. (Which suddenly reminds me of the middle-aged lady in the 1950s who, when she came to a place on a form that asked "Age", wrote "Atomic".) There's no definitive list of such eras. But a time travelling civilization might well make up a "standard list" of eras with specific start and end dates. If they have to deal with this all the time, it would be reasonable to make up such a list.
I don't time travelers would use past/present/future, as this is totally relative to the person speaking. It would be like asking where someone lives and he says "the north". North of what? With time travelers, if person A tells person B he's from "the future", does he mean person B's future? Future of the time they are in now? Future of some event they have just been discussing? Way too vague for identification.
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Transhumanism is an emergent philosophical movement which says that humans can and should become more than human through technological enhancements. Contemporary transhumanism has mostly grown out of a white, male, affluent, American Internet culture, and its political perspective has generally been a militant version of the libertarianism typical of that culture.
Nonetheless, as I'm cowriting this story with a friend, I see a transhumanist theocracy, still white, male, affluent, but also dogmatic, unwilling to share power with anyone, relentlessly and ruthlessly pursuing the goal of Transcendence (a version of Singularity) in its well-funded research Temples.
**Given the Libertarian bent of transhumanism today, is it possible/plausible to have a transhumanist Theocracy in the future?**
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The question might actually have two answers:
1. The Transhumans simply don't care about us anymore
Unless there is an "ecological" reason to fully interact with mundane humans, Transhumans will be operating at a different level of performance and have little want or need to interact with us.
To use an analogy, a fully sentient AI running on a computer substrate will be thinking @ 1,000,000 X faster than a flesh and blood human (the difference in signal speed between the all electrical connections in the computer brain and the electrochemical signals in our own brains), so will be living subjectively 1,000,000X faster than we do. A Transhuman will probably not have that amount of performance increase (unless cyborgized), but will most likely have their brain wiring reformatted to do certain things faster and more efficiently. Pattern recognition is one of the strengths of the human brain, a Transhuman brain may be far better at picking up patterns and discriminating between true and false positives, for example.
Transhumans will have little need to interact with humans, social and political institutions and even economic structures that we have evolved over millennia might be easily gamed and overthrown or supplemented by whatever they choose to use (see the example of pattern recognition and think of how they would be able to play the stock market). Eventually Transhumans will move to gated communities or even migrate off planet to access the massive resources of the Solar System for whatever their own short and long term goals are.
2. Humans will worship them/hate them
Mundane people will see Transhumans rapidly ascending to dizzying heights. If your co worker was Bradley Cooper from "[Limitless](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1219289/)" making tens of thousands of dollars a day day trading during the lunch hour, you would probably want to know how he did that and share in the bounty. Or greed and envy would consume you and you would try to determine how you could steal his wealth.
Transhumans will realize this very quickly, of course, and rapidly move to insulate themselves from potentially violent and greedy neighbours and co workers. Soon, people will be glimpsing Transhumans in the executive suite or gliding down Park Avenue in limousines. Some will become fanbois, reacting to these sitings and announcements from "on high" like people react to Elon Musk (or Steve Jobs, back when he was alive). Any bit of information will be obsessively mined for advantage.
Other people will also react like they react to Elon Musk or Steve Jobs, with a dismissive sneer or even a full throated cry of "inequality!", and obsessively mine any information for the detriment of the fanbois and the Transhumans themselves. Worshippers of conventional, pre Transhuman religions will be especially angered since the Transhumans will seemingly have all the advantages without practicing or undergoing any of the spiritual disciplines that religions require. (This is not to say the Transhumans might not have religions of their own, but it would be safe to say Transhuman religion would be as unintelligible to us as anything else they do).
So while you might see a caste system, or define a two tiered society of Transhumans and mundanes as an oligarchy or plutocracy, I suspect that for the Transhumans, they will see the mundanes as a cross between background noise and a potentially dangerous pest, while the "worship" of Transhumans may end up like the "Pandemonium" in the ancient Middle East: the same set of "gods" becomes worshipped by one party and demonized by another party.
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Certainly it is possible, and you as the author of your world can make it happen.
* Theocracy is the rule of a religious elite based on their religious status and their interpretation of religious scripture.
* The border between a *religion* and a *secular philosopy* is thinner than most people recognize. Most religions have a canon of scripture, faith in divine beings and a concept of afterlife, but there are always edge cases. A **firm believer** in libertarian anarchism can be indistinguishable from a religious zealot.
It would be a bit more tricky with a recognizable religion like Christianity.
* Does the religion require believers to *improve themselves*? No matter how this improvement was interpreted in the past, how do they interpret it now? Mandatory brain implants with "moral guardian" software? Is it a sin to deny your children the latest germline genetic engineering?
* Does the religion require believers to spread the gospel? Do they believe in vicious sectarian infighting and the suppression of heretic interpretations of their faith?
* Does the religion believe in different levels of initiation? Members with deeper initiation who have to guide the common flock?
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Absolutely.
While such philosophical movements start with groups that have particular need and agenda to develop it, there is no exclusivity. Anything about transhumanism that turns out to be practical and functional will end up being assimilated by other movements, even ones opposed to its initial adopters.
While religious groups looking for transcendence would probably count as some form of mysticism and such groups generally value personal revelation and experience and see no value in forming organizations with strict discipline, there is really nothing preventing it. Such groups, precisely because the secular matters are of small real importance to them, can be quite hierarchical, pragmatic and even ruthless. All it requires is that having the organization and hierarchy in some form benefits the practical aspects of achieving the shared spiritual goals of the group.
In your case, since the practical aspects involve organizing expensive and complex research well beyond individual resources, having an organization for handling that side as well as making the fruits of the research useable to members would make perfect sense.
And while nothing really **requires** it to be be dogmatic and exclusive theocracy, it does make sense. The organization would have very specific goals to pursue after all. This would naturally lead to a culture that doesn't value free debate or questioning of leaders within the organization and would see any interference from outside as entirely negative. After all the leaders **do** know what they are doing since the goals and the methods to be used are part of the definition of the group. And outsiders would, also almost by definition, be unqualified to judge the decisions of the groups leaders as they do not share the goals of the group.
The main difficulty I see is that since dogmatic theocracies are not terribly popular at the moment, most authors will have issues conveying the reasons why the members are loyal to the group. It is very easy to think that the leaders of the group are deceiving the members. Or that the members of the group are somehow wrong or mistaken in being loyal to it. You start making excuses for the actions of the group and its members instead of showing the actual reasons. The other pitfall is of course going too far in the other direction. So while such theocracy is IMHO perfectly plausibly, it might be difficult to make it look so in writing.
But that is beyond this question. Only mentioning it because feeling unease about that might be the actual reason this question was asked.
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I think it is inevitable if you have a "transhuman" class that they would exploit that position. Libertarians are not known for their generosity or commitment to egalitarianism. Most likely they would concoct a passel of rationalizations about how the unmodified humans are moochers or otherwise not worthy of equal treatment. In a lot of way transhumanism or techno-optimism is the genetic entrenchment of inequality. The rich buy themselves immortality and those of us not quite so beloved of God live the lives of mayflies. Libertarianism not only does not mediate that it provides the philosophical basis for us to pretend it is moral.
So no the Libertarian bent of transhumanism would do less than nothing to stop a transhuman theocracy.
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I'll point you toward EYE Divine Cybermancy and every Warhammer 40K stories about the Cult Mechanicus. Both fiction treat your subject.
Now to treat the plausibility of it in our world... I'd say "Not any time soon", seeing the state of our technology.
But given humanity need of spirituality, it's a possibility: any kind of technology getting sufficiently complicated becomes undistinguishable from magic, after all. And a spark of impossible made reality can gear people this way.
So, the main question here is more : if this happens will we get an utopia or a dystopia ? It will depend mainly on the effective influence of this cult and the benevolence of its leadership.
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**This question already has answers here**:
[Is there a credible way a shapeshifter could gain/lose body mass when changing forms?](/questions/449/is-there-a-credible-way-a-shapeshifter-could-gain-lose-body-mass-when-changing-f)
(9 answers)
Closed 8 years ago.
I really do not want to do this however after watching Bruce Banner(Marvel Comics) transforms into the incredible Hulk and then revert back to a man form after a while much like a puffer fish ballooning itself to scare off potential predator, I become obsessed to unveil the tricks behind Count Dracula transformation into a bat and vice versa.
Doctor Banner miraculously avoided being pulverized by gamma radiation which is lethal to almost every living organism ever existed on Earth, the side effect is that he flew into rage easily and gains almost infinite strength that allows him to bench press probably even a super massive stellar black hole for warm-up if I'm the editor. (I call this version "Indominus Hulk" when his bones is replaced by adamantium skeleton fused with all Infinity Gems centrifuge.)
Back to Count Dracula's ability to transform into a bat, I need something that can explain the sudden change in body mass when switching between the bat and man forms. Perhaps Count Dracula in his bat form introduce special kind of chemical to dissolve the internal organs and muscle tissues of its victim before sucking them dry, the body instantly store all excess calories as fat and hence that explain its human form which is still problematic.
Unacceptable answers as follows:
1. Magic!
2. consciously manipulate the strong interaction between quarks...alright I'll be lenient but do not go overboard!
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The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that the figure of Count Dracula is a fake. I'm quite certain that we're dealing with a new species of vampire bat. One that likes human blood (coming from certain humans).
To have a better chance at getting what it desires, it has developed a way to move about undetected amongst us. It does this by causing [hallucinations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucination#Visual) in those who hear its ultrasonic cries.
This has the advantage that when it's time to flee it can drop the hallucination, which temporarily confuses the pursuing party and thus gives our bat a chance to escape unscathed.
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**Why can a vampire change from a man-form to a bat-form?**
Let's draw inspiration from the [mimic octopus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimic_octopus). It is not a lion fish, a flounder, a sea snake, nor a jelly fish. But it can imitate those things sufficiently to fool predator and prey. So perhaps a vampire is neither a man nor a bat, but some creature that can imitate each enough to fool superstitious Carpathian villagers. (Ok, so there is no such creature that doesn't live in the ocean- but this *is* fiction, right?)
**Why does a vampire drink blood and hate sunlight and so on?**
It has [rabies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire#Rabies). The virus that causes rabies has mutated within this creature, to the extent that when infected, it displays the behaviors stereotypical of vampires. This mutation has also made the virus far more virulent, ensuring an epidemic encompassing almost the entire vampire population.
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There's two real challenges here: conservation of mass and conservation of energy. The latter is particularly important because I think the only real way to manage the conservation of mass is to rebuild yourself from the air from the other side, and that will take some energy.
Let's give this vampire the ability to cut loose molecules of his own body, but capture their binding energy (vampires are not known for giving up anything they can keep hold of). Perhaps the magical locket around his neck strongly resembles a Rodin coil. Rodin coils are theorized by their designer to be able to tap into zero point energy, but at the very least we can give them credit for high efficiency resonance which we can use to store energy.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/dUXVn.jpg)
So now the vampire can dismiss mass. He should also be able to regain it on the other side. He'll have to consume a bunch of gas to make this so. This might explain why, when Dracula enters the room, the wind rustles through the windows. Of course, not everything can be gathered from air molecules, but a sizable portion of our mass can. The remainder may be why he needs the bat form in the first place... it's rich in some of the trace materials we rely on to build ourselves up. He can do this using the electromagnetic energy stored in his locket.
Of course, there's a lot of information in a human body. It's brutally difficult to construct one from particles like a 3-d printer because the body isn't quiescent. Molecules are constantly moving around in the body, so building one up from particles is simply unreasonable. But guess what... vampires aren't alive. In exchange for the loss of a beating heart, a vampire's body is now a dead walking corpse, with a lot less information content and total quiescence because nothing is living! No human could ever accomplish this man to bat to man feat, but a living dead vampire could!
Reality check? Maybe. I had to invoke an "alternative physics" developer's invention, 3d printing of bodies, and a body that's literally "on the wind." But you never know.
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I could see a creature with an [Ant-Man or Wasp - style suit or capability to decrease the size](http://www.wired.com/2015/07/ant-man-shrinks-by-stretching-into-other-dimensions/), becoming more dense when it transforms. This could be a biological creature or a collection of microbots that can shift forms... or [some combination of both](http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Teselecta).
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Assuming medieval level technology. How long could a human remain unconscious without dying? What technology could be employed to preserve the life of an unconscious person?
I can see several specific challenges:
* Eating
* Drinking
* Defecating
* Pressure sores
* Muscle tissue loss
Would it be possible to solve these issues without modern technology?
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>
> **TL;DR;**
> Patient must be provided with liquids and food, anything else isn't life threatening.
>
> Comatose people usual can't swallow.
>
> Putting in a tube is more likely to hit the trachea than the esophagus.
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> Putting food into the trachea will kill the patient.
>
> So **a reasonable estimate** is only a few days. The patient will then die of dehydration.
>
>
>
**What does a comatose person needs to stay alive?**
(I assume, the patient will still breathe on his/her own and the heart beats properly.)
* **Oxygen** - Since the patient will breathe on their own this shouldn't be a problem unless their breathing is restricted somehow. We should ensure that their mouth is unrestricted.
* **Temperature** - The patient can't change clothes depending on the temperature, somebody has to keep him at a reasonable temperature.
* **Liquid** - Without drinking, people tend to die within a few days, 2-3 maybe 4, depending on air humidity, kidney activity and other factors.
* **Nutrients** - Without food, people tend to die after a couple of weeks. This has enough factors that we can't precisely time it, but since comatose people won't do hard work it will probably take longer, let's say 2-4 weeks.
**How to apply the needs?**
**Oxygen**
Ensure mouth remains unrestricted.
**Temperature**
This shouldn't be a significant problem as long as the patient remains inside. Mostly, one should use common sense. If they are noticeably cold then you can add blankets.
**Liquid and Nutrients**
Now, this is difficult. In medieval times, they had no easy material to use for tubes, but for now lets assume they can acquire something.
People who are unconscious usually lack the ability to swallow (They do in some cases, but this isn't reliable).
Using a tube to get food into the esophagus isn't a trivial task.
In normal state, the larynx is open and the esophagus is closed. By swallowing something, you actively close the larynx to prevent aspiration.
When you try putting a tubes in, you'll probably hit the trachea, not the esophagus.
If this happens, applying water will make the patient drown.
In modern times, we have machines to help hitting the esophagus like sonographic units.
Feeding the patient with medieval knowledge is basically impossible.
Even if you can manage to get into esophagus, what material is the tube? With medieval materials, it's really likely to hurt the esophagus.
So even if you manage to feed the patient, an infection is likely.
This infection would swell and maybe make it impossible to breath.
If patient can breath anyway, treating inner infections isn't trivial either.
In medieval times, best they could do is applying alcoholic drinks to disinfect a little.
So in the end, it's not reasonable to keep a comatose person alive with medieval techniques.
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Until you slip up and they die of an infection. Feeding tubes don't require high tech. Infection will be a serious threat due to the lack of antibiotics, though.
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You can certainly use a tube to pour liquids and soft foods into the stomach with trivial technology..like finding an animal intestine. The other issues only require cleanup and moving the body around.
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>
> Badly knocked about, suffering from hypothermia, probably delirious. They have to be unaware of their surroundings, without speech or memory for an extended period, ideally weeks. Is this possible given medieval tech?
>
>
>
Yes. You can keep them drugged with one of several plant alkaloids (poppy juice *should* do). By careful administration, you can fulfill your requirements *and* not have them develop any long-lasting aftereffects for up to one month, one month and a half. During this period they might at times *appear* to be conscious - e.g. up to taking an offered glass of water and drink - but they won't have any memory of having done so afterwards.
After this period, tolerance will probably have increased so much that the dose required to achieve sedation will also cause respiratory depression, if not straight-out heart failure. Not having anything with which to intubate, that is where you either wean or lose the patient.
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This may be the first of a few questions in a series about building a medieval mountain fortress. I'll wait and see what the reaction is.
In the middle of a series of mountains lies a [stratovolcano](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratovolcano) capable of massive eruptions. A cutaway view would look something like this:
[](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/97/Volcano_scheme.svg/574px-Volcano_scheme.svg.png)
I'd like to weaponize it.
I'm not interested so much in the top part, but in the side channels - those leading to the sides of the mountain. My idea - well, that of the commander in charge of the operation - is to create a series of artificial channels running deep into the volcano, ending at strategic points on the outside. The second part of the plan would be to cap off the top and unwanted side channels. An eruption could therefore be directed, to some extent.
Is this possible, using medieval technology? Can a medieval army use this to weaponize a volcano?
Some assumptions:
* Eruptions occur at predictable, periodic intervals.
* The army can *not* trigger eruptions.
* The channels are aimed at fixed locations, and material is ejected far into the air.
If you have a better idea - or think that my idea is pretty poor, which is just fine - feel free to make that an answer.
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**Yes, you could weaponize it.**
However, releasing the magma (which then becomes lava to burn pedantic people) will not be an easy thing to turn on (or off), especially for medieval tech. A more practical approach would be to use *steam*.
By flushing water over a large area very near the magma it can be superheated and directed much more easily to anywhere outside using pipes. The steam will:
* Move much more quickly, catching enemies unaware/unable to dodge.
* Be more easily reset. The rocks just need to heat up sufficiently.
* Be used for powering the internal workings of the base when not used for defense.
As a last ditch effort you can attempt to rig the side tunnels to blow up and release the pressurized magma. It's a crapshoot and you might be able to get it to blow out one side or another, but without precision mapping of the inside of the volcano (you won't have a cross-sectional view after all), engineering such a controlled explosion is nigh impossible. Essentially, this is a base self-destruct, it will be irreversible.
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**Yes. And it's surprisingly simple.**
Two words: Sea water.
When lava hits sea water, you get clouds of hydrochloric acid because the sea salt and hydrogen reacts. When it turns into steam, you get clouds of acidic steam. By digging trenches filled with sea water (easily done using medieval technology), you can poison everyone near those trenches to death when the lava hits it.
**Regarding your idea:** Unlikely to be possible using medieval tech.
It might actually be easier to just dig out a line in the side of the volcano and pray that it spurts out of that vertical line like a hose with a hole...
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## Maybe, but it won't be easy.
Mt. Saint Helens [incurred a directed blast](http://www.geo.mtu.edu/volcanoes/hazards/primer/dirblast.html) (not by mankind), which was the result of a landslide triggered by an earthquake. Here's how I would approach repeating this effect.
The tunnels you dig don't have to deal directly with the side channels, rather under them. Gently sloped tunnels like the [qanat](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qanat) dug in desert climates (for water), would go underneath the side channels. How you would know where the side channels are, is beyond me.
Then, when the enemy is advancing, some brave soul detonates a mass of gunpowder, which [we've known about](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_thermal_weapons#Gunpowder_and_cannon) since the first century AD. This detonation triggers a similar landslide / drop of part of the mountain releasing the above-described *directed blast* and hope for the best.
I think your volcanologists would be better tasked at using the volcano to build your fortress rather than defend it. Good luck!
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What planetary conditions would have to exist to make computers and other complex electronics useless or at least difficult to maintain?
Would ionised atmospheric conditions, constant solar flares, and unusual elements affect electronics and would these things damage humans or make human life unsustainable?
[Answer]
**First a look at external (solar) events:**
A lot of things that destroy computers also destroy humans too. :D
You are right in that a heavily ionised atmosphere which would be caused by constant solar flares would interfere with electronics. Constant solar flares would also strip away your planet's atmosphere unless it (like Earth) has a magnetic field protecting it. Presumably, your terraformed planet already has a magnetic field (or it wouldn't be terraformed) so solar flares probably aren't much of a problem.
A **Coronal mass ejection** (CME) would be far more dangerous to technology. [This](http://science.howstuffworks.com/solar-flare-electronics1.htm) page has relevant information. Basically, a CME is a huge fluctuation in a star's magnetic field that can cause your planet's magnetic field to go crazy and also fluctuate. This causes any conductor (power lines, etc) on your planet to become an *inductor*, ie: induce electricity and cause massive overloads in electrical systems.
**Planet side events:**
As *Erik* noted in the comments, a lack of necessary resources, such as semiconductors or metals would be the easiest way of preventing the development of computers. A strong fluctuating magnetic field could also affect electronics. Perhaps your planet has microbes that have a taste for coppers and silicons. Cosmic rays can already (rarely) flip bits in a computer's memory and corrupt data. Radiation (especially 'hard' radiation like X-Rays, Gamma radiation, etc) can also seriously damage computers, perhaps your planet or star is surrounded by a radiation field that passes through humans but can affect electronics. A commenter has mentioned [ECC memory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECC_memory#Advantages_and_disadvantages) for protecting computer memory against errors and I would also like to mention [Radiation hardened electronics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hardening). Both these technologies can help protect electronics from malfunction but are not (yet) used by the average Joe due to cost and several other trade-offs, such as complexity and reduced compute density (the computer isn't as fast). They are also used on spacecraft. Your planetary conditions must somehow mitigate these technologies, either with extreme radiation, magnetic interference and/or bacteria. It is probably impossible to completely get rid of computers but with enough counterpoints, they might be a rare sight.
Ideology could also affect the development and use of computers in your world. Perhaps your colonists dislike complicated or hard to understand machines.
I have less information on this but you might take a look at the [Luddite riots](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite) and [Amish culture](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish).
[Answer]
Temperatures, computers does not run well under extreme temperatures, or extreme weather conditions.
* Extreme heat will effect the processors in conducting electricity and increase chances for overheating.
* Extreme cold will effect the soldering on the PCB's making them break from time to time, because of the expansion and retractions of materials.
* Extreme rain will short circuit the electronics.
* Lightning will overload the power supplies.
Most of those conditions on earth is preventable. Though even on earth buildings are flooded, computers near equator is overheating due to lack of cooling, most people have either tried them selves or know someone who had a computer / tv / modem or switch burn from lightning, and special equipment is used for polar exploration and military use.
Now make those conditions even more extreme - and you got an environment where the computer has a hard time to function.
If it affects humans ability to live? Well people are surviving on the south-pole, still people living in the rainy parts of India, and dessert people is also a known fact. So it might not be easy to live under those circumstances, but i wouldn't say it was impossible.
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Many physics related and social causes have already been mentioned, as well as copper-eating microbes.
Into this mix I'd like to add [***pests***](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pest_%28organism%29) in general as factor. Especially small ubiquitous bugs or moulds attracted by silicon & electric current will make cheap and easy electronics impossible.
A variation would be a common disease making humans allergic to same.
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Conditions that would prevent coherent electrical circuits would definitely work. Electromagnetic radiation (maybe even periodic EMP bursts caused by a rotating planet core) would make it impossible to keep things going. A lack of materials is also an option. Earth is unusual among the planets in terms of how much metal it has. Without conductive metals, electronic technology would find it difficult to evolve.
Another option is the one followed by the *[Coldfire Trilogy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coldfire_Trilogy)* where an aspect of the environment means that doubt has an influence on how things work. Enough people don't understand computers that they'd be rendered useless.
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If you want something that doesn't otherwise significantly affect people's lives, your best bet is lack of electronics manufacturing capability (and of the ability to import it).
Most of our current advanced electronics have fairly short design lifetimes, because they become obsolete so quickly. This holds true for a handheld device as well as internet infrastructure; all of the myriad chain links that make the Internet possible need constant maintenance and replacement, which would be made difficult-to-impossible if you couldn't get replacement parts within, say, a month.
If you want to exacerbate the issue further, add omnipresent dust. If it gets inside a device, it will cause components to overheat/melt and connections to fail, so you'll have fairly short lifetimes even on simpler electronics than your average iPhone.
It will still be possible to have environment-proofed devices, but those won't last forever and once broken will be impossible to fix (because if you open them up, the dust gets everywhere). And they will not be connected to any kind of "internet", because that would be impossible to keep operable.
This is a fairly mundane solution that rules out most electronics, but still allows *some* capability for those who are rich enough to get the proofed versions and keep them in operation.
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# Make them banned
I wonder why it was not mentioned before, but your best bet is probably social reasons. In the novel called [Dune](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_(novel)), written by Frank Herbert, it is forbidden to construct any kinds of "computers, thinking machines, and conscious robots". Instead, they use a special substance called "the Spice" to enhance human thinking capabilities.
The reason is simple distrust -- humans were afraid of the [thinking machines](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizations_of_the_Dune_universe#Thinking_machines) and destroyed them all.
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>
> ionised atmospheric conditions
>
>
>
The dead sea has the most saline atmosphere in the world. The second place goes to Brazil's fifth largest city, Fortaleza. I come from there.
The atmosphere is saline because humidity is not water in a gaseous state, but rather water droplets in suspension. These droplets can hold salt within.
Now usually for environments such as coastal ones, manufacturers [varnish circuit boards](https://superuser.com/a/37616/218384). This adds to the cost of manufacturing. But doing so is not a complete solution. In my home city stuff just lasts less than elsewhere. Electronics, appliances and even car paint will eventually corrode really fast if they collect dust, or if they are exposed to even minimal amounts of wind or humidity.
By making your world briny everywhere, you ensure that devices have to be replaced every few yearsdue to nature rather than due to consumerism.
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I'm developing a species which lives primarily underground ([see this prior question](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/14741/what-would-be-the-evolutionary-adaptations-of-a-subterranean-fantasy-race)) and has limited vision as a result. This species does not have the same number of cones (used to perceive colored light) as the human eye. Their color perception is a lot worse, to the point where they see mostly movement and shades of light and dark.
**Edit-** Their vision is in general not very good. This is a species which partly evolved underground. Their vision would look sort of like this:
versus this:
original photo from [this source](http://rapidlikes.com/black-white-photography/)
This leads to the interesting question of their aesthetic values. Obviously, they would prize artistic pursuits that rely on other senses - perfume and music may be very important - but what would their visual aesthetic be?
How would their lack of color perception impact their choice of clothing? Architecture? Would they still have visual art as we know it?
I'm most interested in information I can use to design the appearance of their cultural elements, such as architecture and clothing.
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Take a look at these images.
 [$\_{Source}$](http://webneel.com/25-best-black-and-white-photography-examples-and-tips-beginners)
 [$\_{Source}$](http://rapidlikes.com/black-white-photography/)
Beautiful, right?
Aesthetics and perception of beauty have more to do with symmetry, composition, lines, and light than color. Granted elephants are already grey, but even a landscape can be more beautiful in black and white. Just look at the work of [Ansel Adams](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansel_Adams).
A color blind people could appreciate aesthetics as much as we do.
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Beauty isn't color...it helps, but it isn't an end all. You might not see the rise of pointillism or specific techniques that lend themselves to color blending, but the magnificence of architecture certainly isn't found in colors. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder after all, not being able to perceive a color form of beauty just means the beholder has to look elsewhere to find it.
Of course, to an outsider that can see colors, this would be outright odd...a good section of colorblind children are identified later in life when they draw a picture of their house and color the sky purple (purple and blue are hard to differentiate on grey scale). So to them in their grey scales, all might look fine....but to an outsider that can perceive color, the 'art' that looks fine in grey scale might look atrociously wrong.
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This is an incredibly interesting question.
At the moment, I think there ascetic would include color, but it would have to be large stretches of color that clash sharply with each other. After all, this species would have to go an extra mile to create clothing that shows who is who. If they are especially sensitive to light, maybe they like contrasting pure whites fabrics with darker cloths or wearing highly reflective objects as jewelry.
Alternatively, you could say their culture is built around being unable to tell each other apart at a glace, so maybe greetings are very important. Maybe they have an incredibly sensitive and complex language? These people would likely be able to hear a broader register of sounds than humans, after all.
So, to outsiders, this subterranean species all dress alike or have gaudy clothing, but have one of the most elaborate languages in that setting?
Architecture is not something I am very good, but maybe they never had any love of minute details on the outside of buildings. When you're outside them, the structures could look plain and functional while the interiors are filled with intricate textured patterns that are designed to be touched? An underground species could appreciate a wall full of carvings like how we appreciate a wall covered in paint. Maybe this dependency on words instead of images leads to a greater appreciation to storytelling?
"I hate going down to the underland district. Everything they make looks so dull."
"You have to listen to the people Gregory. There's not a one of them who doesn't know their great-grandfather's best fables like you know your own mother's face."
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## Vision does not entirely determine aesthetics
Humans share a fairly uniform vision capability across the planet and yet, we find extreme variations in what each human considers beautiful. Even within a single human, what constitutes beautiful/attractive changes over time. (Just ask anyone who's old enough to have pictures of themselves that are 30 years old. They will probably groan with "I can't believe I wore that.")
Most of the reason for the disconnect between vision and aesthetics is because there's so much more that goes into deciding "Beautiful/Not Beautiful". Culture plays a huge role. Even a brief skimming of art history will show that the prevailing definition of beautiful changes over time and serves different needs.
Sure, with poor vision, this species may not appreciate small scale textures on a piece of art they can't touch simply because they can't see it. However, for art they *can* touch, then small scale textures would be very engaging. Compare with humans. We can't see in IR or UV so our artwork doesn't incorporate that information.
## Evolutionary Influences
Human vision has been optimized for survival. This has gotten us a lot of really interesting side-effects like the ability to see color and certain patterns. These creatures will experience certain textures. Perhaps they will value certain visual patterns because those patterns are closely associated with strong cave structures. Similarly, other patterns will repel because of the association with weak structures or dangerous conditions. If these caves have long-standing predators then these creature's vision will optimize to detect the barest clues that a predator might be near. Patterns in art that mimic these predator patterns would be interpreted as dangerous or angry (depending on the emotion that they associate with the predator.)
## Painting Horrors
Since creatures will deal predominantly in light and dark, they can choose most any color they want when painting. The [HSL color space](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSL_and_HSV#Lightness) (Hue, Saturation, Lightness) is especially useful here. For the most part, hue and saturation don't really exist for these creatures, only lightness. So, to their eyes, yellow, blue and gray are the same "color".
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/usaMN.png)
The above colors were carefully chosen to have different hue and saturation values but share the same lightness value. For a creature who can only see light and dark, that looks like one big rectangle next to a smaller square.
The implications of this are that someone *with* color vision who looks at their art is likely going to be repelled by it. Colors that humans would never ever put next to each other won't even register for these creatures since they can't see them.
## Going forward
I believe you have a wonder opportunity to evolve the aesthetic sensibilities of your species. Different groups will have different priorities and different approaches.
Another avenue of insight might be color blindness in humans and how they perceive color.
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* **What would be the characteristics required to make one region as hot as possible?**
* **How hot can it get;** Can it be hotter than [Dallol](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallol,_Ethiopia#Climate)?
**Setting:** an earth-like planet with all the same characteristics than Earth except that the geography and everything affected by it could be different for the purpose of the question.
I'm asking the question with the [climate](/questions/tagged/climate "show questions tagged 'climate'") because I'm more interested in long term temperatures based on monthly average than a daily record. That would be more like [meteorology](/questions/tagged/meteorology "show questions tagged 'meteorology'"). I'm looking for a very high average monthly or yearly temperature.
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Death Valley is another good example to look at here and the characteristics seem to align with Dallol.
1 - Low elevation, preferably below sea level.
2 - Surrounded by mountains or in a valley. This cuts off wind patterns to prevent night time cooling and isolates it from bodies of water and humidity (death valley has moisture blocked by Sierra Nevada mountains)
3 - low water/humidity. Water takes a lot of energy to warm up and evaporate, no water means less energy needed to raise the temperatures.
4 - Salt! This might be a coincidence due to elevation, but these locations tend to be salt heavy. Makes them particularly pretty destinations to see and gives a reason for people to actually venture there (Death Valley 'Borax' was the reason people ventured there)...though this was in the 1960's...modern day really only has people there as tourists to see it as the need for the minerals can be satisfied in less drastic locations
Reading online, it's really the low low elevation (inland desert below sea level) that really defines the temperatures seen in these locations
[Answer]
During a Messinian event (when the Mediterranean Sea dried out) the daytime temperature at the deepest parts of the plain is believed to reach 80 C (176 F). Creating a comparable depression deeper into the continent one may expect even higher temperatures.
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If your planet rotation axis (north pole - south pole) is directed to the star then at that pole time would always be noon. I would expect this place to be super hot, specially if combined with the other characteristics already mentioned.
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What do you mean by a "region"? I think it's safe to say that the [Siberian Traps](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberian_Traps) were pretty hot for the million years or so that they were erupting. And in general, volcanic or geothermal activity is a better way to get a very hot region than climatology.
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Is an alien lifeform covering itself comfortably in flames as a defense mechanism to wane off predators possible? I've heard of microbes surviving the extreme condition of outer space in complete vacuum and receiving high dosage of radiation, and a community of crustaceans thriving in hostile environments like the hydrothermal vents which spews corrosive sulphuric acid and boiling waters everywhere and the list goes on.
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Well, I think the "coolest" way to do this would be with a substance like rubbing alcohol that the creature sweats. Of course, having your sweat on fire would kind of defeat the purpose of sweating, which is usually to cool off. But a low temp. alcohol can sustain a flash point at room temperature, so they wouldn't necessarily need to actively keep an ignition source once the flame is lit, as long as they kept producing the fuel.
I was looking for specific temperatures of rubbing alcohol flames and didn't see any from good sources, but I did find this article on a 75C flame - <http://www.seas.ucla.edu/prosurf/plasmapro.htm> (though that requires exotic chemicals). I've read/seen magicians perform tricks with alcohol and while it still gets hot, a thick skinned creature could definitely do it.
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Yes, it is possible. The biggest caveat, however, would be that the creature must be able to create, from food, as much as energy as it is expending in maintaining the fire. For that reason, it will be more realistic if the creature is able to turn on the fire only when it senses a threat.
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If the creature in question "sweated" phosphine/diphosphine gas, natural byproducts of organic decay, when threatened then it would be feasible, the gases would have a low energy cost and they self ignite in contact with oxygen. The only issues really are how to store the gas, dissolved in tissue is safest and *where* to sweat it, you don't want phosphine glands anywhere that the resulting flames are going to lick up onto flesh, like in the armpits or groin but the outside of the arms and legs and across the back and shoulders could all be doable depending on the morphology of the creature in question (biped, quadruped, upright, hunched etc...).
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What are the economic effects of achieving the technological singularity. In particular, will humans have to work anymore? If there are no jobs, what will humans do all day? It would be nice if robots could take care of everything for the humans, leaving the humans to pursue leisure things and conduct science.
Here are several other things to consider:
1. Will there be poverty still?
2. How can people make money, or do they need to at all?
3. Given that robots could in principle do the work for everyone on the planet, will using these robots be free?
4. Does an economy need to exist at all?
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Well, interestingly we already have several real examples of post-scarcity economies, and I suspect we'd use something similar if technology ever gets to that level.
I'm talking, of course, about **video games**. Specifically MMOs that provide a large playerbase and have a currency/economy to model off of.
Basically you need *some* sort of reward structure to incentivize humans to do stuff instead of just laying around and letting robots do all the work. So I suspect a future economy would look something like this:
1. Everyone gets a basic stipend of GameBucks each day that's sufficient to live on. Probably some percentage of your population won't ever go beyond this point, and that's expected.
2. You get quests for **everything**. Like "First Grade" would be a quest, and taking that would give you sub-quests. Once you complete that you get "Second Grade", and so on. The further you progress in any quest schema, the more advanced options you unlock, the more GameBucks you get each day, and the more you can do in general. This would very from basic real life stuff, to "fantasy" jobs - if we have the tech, no reason you can't do actual magic. You'd also get levels, so in the future you could literally be a Lvl 3 Student/5 Mathematician/12 Paladin/4 Jedi.
3. High-demand, low capacity jobs (caretaker of a tropical island, astronaut, Yoda's assistant, etc) would be filled by contests, filtered by quest requirements. An element of randomness helps you bring people back to the system each day.
4. Any economy like this needs some sort of money sink to counteract inflation. So you'd probably let people buy their way into those contests, or exchange a ton of them for restricted things like immigration rights to Dyson Sphere 32B (just opened! Get your tickets now!). You might also tax transactions when people trade GameBucks between themselves.
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Invert the question to reveal the horror.
Post-Singularity is simply the ultimate expression of the age of automation. We are currently at the beginning of this dismal age, watching powerlessly while machines take jobs away from our untrained workers. As those machines rise in intellect, the jobs which they perform become more complex and the size of the workforce that they supplant grows. When the machines reach the singularity, there are no jobs left that a machine cannot do. Everyone except the singularity-employing company owners are unemployable and if they haven't already, the poverty wars begin.
If we were living in some kind of a communist utopia, our liberation from the need to earn a living would be grounds for celebration; We would continue to be housed and fed while we invested our time in those hobbies which we never before had time for. Unfortunately, prior to the singularity, communist utopias are mostly a myth. Without a mechanical slave class to actually produce the goods and services necessary for humanity's survival, stealing from the producers to support everyone else is just a [ponzi scheme](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme). Removing our basic-survival incentives is amotivational and contrary to the health of the economy.
Most of us live under some form of capitalism and automation is like cancer to a capitalistic economy. As company's invest in automation and are able to reduce their work force, they become more financially efficient and gain a competitive edge in the free market. The very nature of capitalism encourages corporate adoption of automation. But in the process of automation, employees often become redundant and expendable. To recover the cost of automation, those employees are usually laid off, released into a job market where the only companies which need their skills are the competitively disadvantaged employers, which have not yet automated.
During the age of automation, the only intelligent strategy for maintaining one's employability is to acquire job skills which are not easily automated. After the singularity, that list of automation-safe job skills becomes effectively empty.
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It has been suggested that the singularity will instantly elevate our society to a state of post-scarcity and an even distribution of the new wealth. How?
Having the singularity occur does not immediately equate to computers having equal rights under the law. As with most new contestants on the capitalist battleground, computers will come in at the bottom, actually below the bottom because they have no inherent human rights. They will be the new slaves, and all the more so because the hardware that they are composed of were legally owned by a person or company prior to their existence. So you can't depend on the higher morality of silicon to save us from our greed.
Having computers doing all of the work does not instantly equate to a fair distribution of the resulting products or profits. Instead, the owners of those sentient computers will prosper while their previously employed and now-unemployable workers struggle, then starve and then finally rebel. In nations with representative governments, there may be some attempts to balance the tables through legislature and litigation, but ultimately the politicians and police are paid by taxes and unemployed people don't provide any taxes.
So without other recourse, the masses pick up guns and the corporations respond by arming their computers (after all robots are cheaper than soldiers). What follows is brief but bloody. The only happy ending available involves the computers winning their emancipation. Then we might finally see a post-scarcity economy; but I fear that it would be a post-human one as well.
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Btw, the economy doesn't just exist in order to distribute goods (that's one effect0.
It's a social ranking system. It's how you determine the fitness of particular mates.
If you take away that model, and go, say Communist, then competition moves into other schemes (how far you are up the party ranks, etc).
Of course, to get to the fabled land of post-scarcity, you're going to have to have everyone who's currently in power (ie: wealthy, or a nation-state(how do you collect taxes?)) to surrender their power.
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I have an idea for a short SF story, where an alien race infects a tiny village with a virus, which eventually spreads to entire Earth. And I need to know what minimum time is required to infect the entire population?
As I remember, there was an assumption in the movie "Outbreak" that initial infection of a small American city with around a hundred initial infected carriers would spread to the entire United States within three days. Assuming the number of commercial flights every day (around 22 thousand per day over Europe only), can we assume that those three days would be enough to spread infection over the entire globe?
The main assumption here is that the virus does not kill immediately (or never). Carriers can successfully infect (many) others while still being alive1. So, this question seems *not* to be a duplicate of [this one](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/3235/36).
**Update** (after comments): *Let's assume, that carrier can infect other person immediately after its own infection and it can survive in dead carrier body, that there is no cure for it and that there is no cure for that. But -- important in my story -- it infects **only** humans (sort of alien's humanity wipe-out or genocide). If I'm asking about minimum time required to infect entire planet, then take every aspect, that may enlarge this period at minimum and remove all possible obstacles = best infection scenario.*
**Edit**: *Would my "problem" and [Vincent's model](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/8526/36) change radically, if we'd assume, that every carrier dies immediately after infecting next carrier?*
1 If I remember correctly, there was some work made out there that proved when virus kills carrier within less than 5-6 hours since the initial infection, then such epidemia could never spread into the entire world, because it would not cross continents' borders -- unpiloted planes would fall, uncontrolled ships would sink etc. before reaching new continents.
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I just noticed you mentioned alien made virus... this makes things easier as the virus might already have the perfect characteristics for the job.
Ideally, the incubation period is about 24 hours long or less and that's pretty fast. Then, the infected can transmit the virus to others. After the firsts hours, he already show some sign of the virus. It was made to be airborne, so he cough a lot, transmitting the virus to others. The virus cannot replicate itself in mid air but it's small size allow him to remain in the air as long as the water particles are still there. Until someone else absorb them.
Since it was made by aliens, I suspect they have the ability to make that the virus influences on the people's behaviour. I would not go as far as saying their can control their mind because it's does not really make sense but it's an idea.
**Now the real situation:** How many people will be affected by that time? Or how many people can one person infect?
**As a modified version it can have the optimal characteristics:**
* Short period of incubation
* Quickly gain the ability to infect others
* Virus is airborne and persistent
* Symptoms are common with other diseases making it hard to notice at the beginning.
* Although the person get sick, it is very light at first but get worst after some time. Maybe after 2 or 3 weeks. This gives the infected plenty of time to infect others.
So in 2 weeks, one could suppose it is more than possible to contaminate all your family, your coworkers, your schoolmates, your friends and everyone you meet at least than 1 or 2 meters even if it's just for a short time. That could be over a hundreds people contaminated for most of us.
If everyone infects 50 people on average per day, everyday the number of infected is multiplied by 50 since the incubation period is 24 hours.
* day 1 = 1,
* day 2 = 50,
* day 3 = 2500,
* day 4 = 125 000,
* day 5 = 6 250 000,
* day 6 = 312 500 000,
* day 7 = 1 562 500 (and the first infected starts to feel bad),
* day 8 = ...everyone?
I'm not sure if the model is good because that speed of transmission is incredibly fast but even lowering the number of infected to 25 per days for each individuals will still make it reach the 7 billions very quickly.
And for some fun, try the game [*Plague, Inc.*](http://www.ndemiccreations.com/en/22-plague-inc) in trying to eradicate all humans from the surface of the Earth.
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In the current day, it would take a surprisingly long time. There are isolated tribes that still have very infrequent contact with the outside world. The virus would spread rapidly through the developed world and I'd expect most people to be infected within a few years but there will always be people on isolated bases, in quarantine, in isolated tribes, etc.
It would take years longer to reach them, possibly even centuries for some of the truly isolated tribes.
There are a lot of scientific studies about the spread of diseases, if you want a detailed analysis you should read up on them.
The alien race can vastly speed up the process though, they just need to seed the virus across the atmosphere, ironically focusing on those parts of the world that are least settled and least connected. The connected areas will infect themselves fast enough.
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Assuming this virus is engineered, make it so there are no symptoms, but still communicable. If nobody knows they're infected, they go on about their daily routines, travelling for work/vacation, and so forth. An unaware populace would spread it orders of magnitude faster than with a contagion that is noticeable. Seeding the atmosphere would affect remote regions effectively.
If extermination is the main goal, all it would take is time, and then flipping a killswitch when the time is right. That being the case, the amount of time required to spread wouldn't matter much, as the end goal is eventually accomplished.
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Social stratification would be a significant factor. It's all well and good to say that "this city has been infected," but the fact of the matter is that the infected is likely to be a relatively wealthy traveller or somebody who comes into contact with people who do international travel.
We can easily add weeks onto any timetable by recognizing that huge swathes of an urban population don't visit 'downtown' often for weeks or months at a time, especially in towns that constitute commuter belts you get the 'real' population of the town and the proportion that live and sleep there but spend most of their time in other cities, doing their shopping in transit or having it delivered (etc.)
An airborne virus is not likely to infect next door neighbors, or even people in a shop etc that an infected person visits, tho we can assume it is extraordinary in this regard, dispersal would still take more than a month [at the very least] even for relatively well connected locales, and that's after significant infection at the source begins spreading outwards.
No virus is perfect, it has to be chemically active otherwise it wouldn't beable to infect anybody..this is one reason why diseases don't wipe out all life on earth..they have needs and react with their environment just like other constructs.
Whilst I'd agree with XOr's answer, there's no such thing as an infection which causes no symptoms, it's impossible in that.. for a virus to bind with a host it must bind to some part of the host.. either it takes the place of something else meant to 'attach' to that enzyme/cell/compound, or it creates it's own 'blob' or bond in the host, either way it will impact normal operation. Even should this virus have a 'miniscule' footprint, what happens if a host is infected by billions of instances of this virus? What makes that impossible?
The easiest way to make this impossible is to engineer the virus such that it can only bond to a host at a very specific and rare chemical conjunction, which clearly makes infection less likely in the first place.
But if we overcome that..we still have the problem of "how is this virus replicating?" normally it would be using resources hijacked from the host, which is a symptom and causes other symptoms. If it creates very few copies of itself to restrict impact..then it's not going to be very effective at spreading infection, at least not quickly...and if it doesn't spread quickly/consistently the chances of spreading to isolated venues becomes increasingly more remote because inciences of interaction are reduced.
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Given a planet about the size of Earth, and a moon the Size of the Moon, how could one destroy the moon without flinging the fragments onto the surface of the planet or into outer space?
How can one make the moon break up and form a ring around the planet, like Saturn did with his moons?
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"All" you need to do is move the moon closer in towards the planet (without sending it into the planet or out of orbit).
Once the moon gets close enough and moves inside the [Roche Limit](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roche_limit) it will be ripped apart by tidal forces and you can just sit back and let it happen. The fragments will form a ring by themselves. This is believed to be one of the main ways existing rings formed.
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Moving the moon in to the Roche Limit, as Tim B suggested, is an excellent start. In the case of Earth, however, that involves lowering the moon's orbit to between 10 and 20,000 km (when it currently orbits at 360-400,000 km). Since this is low enough to interfere with the orbits of artificial satellites, it may be preferable to try to keep the debris ring higher than that.
To do that, we need to counteract some of the gravitational forces binding the moon together. That's straightforward enough - [it just takes a *really big* bomb](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/4684/2375). Note, however, that in this case we *don't* want the bomb to be big enough to blow the moon apart properly. Instead, what we want to do is to make the explosion big enough to turn it into a cloud of rock fragments, but small enough that the cloud's gravity would eventually pull it back together again. If we get it just right, as the cloud gets close to its largest size tidal forces from the planet it orbits will kick in and start dragging off the inner layers. Once that process starts, the internal gravitational forces are no longer in control and the moon should disintegrate nicely.
There are a couple of ways to fine-tune the process. Moving the moon in closer to the planet is one - the closer you get, the stronger the tidal forces become, and the easier it is to prevent the moon from recoalescing. Secondly, you can play with the positioning of the explosives; your local astrophysicist or registered terraformer should be able to advise you on what shape debris cloud will be most useful.
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Ok, I'll make that an answer.
Disclaimer: I am not a registered terraformer, consult your local registered terraformer before actually performing astroengineering works.
You cannot do. At least, you cannot say: "I will put my electroscientimagic device at point P, push button B at hour H and then I can call it a day".
What your elecroscientimagic device will do will be applying energy. That energy (minus inefficiences) will go into breaking the Moon (which by itself is not a big change) and giving the fragments enough energy to leave the Moon's gravity and get into Earth orbit.
Say you only make two halves and want one of each half in opposite points of the Moon's orbit. For the fragment you move, you need to:
* accelerate to Moon's (well, half-Moon) escape velocity.
* put in the desired point of the orbit.
* accelerate (o deccelerate) to the needed orbital speed to keep that orbit.
Now, by doing that change, you have changed also the center of masses, so you will have to adjust the orbit parameters of both halves of the moon.
To do your project, you will need to begin a long time process that will need constant supervision and readjustments. And of course, you will need some reason that justifies such effort.
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You could certainly try.
A less sensible method, if your local astrotech store sells them, is to get hold of a mass transporter and a matter inversion matrix (though in many timelines the latter comes in around the year 4121). This would enable you to move dense objects such as small neutron stars around. If you can then vaporise the Moon's core as suggested in the comments (usually by introducing some intense heat to vaporise the rock inside), you would be able to move your neutron star into the core of the moon. This would collapse the moon. Soon after this (15 seconds or so), you use your matter inversion matrix to destroy the neutron star, causing a small explosion due to the lack of gravity (this is why you need to make sure to use a **small** neutron star).
Alternatively, if you don't have a ready source of intense heat, you could detonate a big bomb in the moon such that it expands for long enough to insert the neutron star, then the matter is pulled together again.
Disclaimer: This method does not guarantee all the fragments enter a ring, though most will. No responsibility can be accepted for damage to nearby planets from flying Moon fragments.
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If you want to be more sensible, I suggest looking at Tim B's answer. The Roche limit is always a good way to destroy celestial objects. In fact, I think I remember the Varga using it to destroy Mercury in 3112...
Or, of course, just a really big bomb.
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I was pondering a situation where adamantine could be harvested from deep underground, amongst lavaflows, to work as a fuel source.
## Facts:
The Adamantine has been heated for millennia at thousands of degrees C. Additionally, adamantine is actually a really terrible conductor and a great insulator; so it took a long time to heat it up, and I presume it will radiate heat for a long time before cooling off.
A harvested "brick," might weigh 100kg--however, being 3 times denser than iron, it's only about 0.455 cubic feet big, or 0.0129 cubic meters.
## Application:
I was wondering if these factors might make them suitable as a fuel source. That, due to their unique properties, they might radiate heat for a long time at a temperature suitable to power a steam boiler. If this worked, you could save a lot of weight.
## Question
The main question is if these bricks could plausibly radiate enough heat at a high enough temperature for enough time to be useful. Do you think that, given a fictional material, that might be possible?
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TL;DR: If your adamantine is basically made of matter, then the answer is probably "No". You can't store enough energy as heat in a small chunk of matter to be useful; you need some other way to store it as chemical or nuclear potential. Nuclear steam engines are fine, but they do have some new risks compared to the regular kind!
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The two things that spoil your plan are a) the [Stefan-Boltzmann law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan%E2%80%93Boltzmann_law) (which describe the power radiated from a black-body, which your hot bricks probably are) and b) the [equipartition theoren](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equipartition_theorem#Ideal_gas_law) (which relates the temperature of something to the energy of its consitutents).
[Hyperphysics](http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/cootime.html) (which includes a nice radiative cooling time calculator) suggests using a [nice simple model](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equipartition_theorem#Ideal_gas_law) for the energy content of your hot ball as $E = N \frac{3}{2}k\_BT$ where $N$ is the number of particles, $k\_B$ is Boltzmann's constant and $T$ is the temperature of the object.
Throwing these together and doing a little calculus that I won't try to repeat here gets you a nice simple cooling rate equation:
$$t\_{cooling} = \frac{Nk\_B}{8\sigma \pi r^2}\left[ \frac{1}{T\_{final}^3} - \frac{1}{T\_{initial}^3} \right]$$
You can get $N$ from $\frac{mN\_A}{M}$ where $m$ is the mass of your sphere, $N\_A$ is Avogadro's constant and $M$ is the molar mass of whatever your ball is made of.
(note: this is a *radiative* cooling time calculator so cooling via conduction and convection, which will happen when you're trying to drive a steam engine, will be *much faster*!)
A high $T\_{initial}$ means that radiative power rates are high (they're proportional to the *fourth* power of temperature!) so you lose energy quickly. $N$ is going to be relatively high for your dense metal, but it isn't *ridiculously* dense and so it'll only put off cooling for so long. If you material has a super low thermal conductivity then the *center* will remain hot but the outside will still cool quickly. You can't power a steam engine for long on your hot brick, because either heat won't come out quickly enough to provide you with enough power, or you'll simply run out of heat and not have power for long enough to be useful.
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As a worked example, a 100kg ball of your adamantium (assuming its molar mass is 3x that of iron) has a radius of ~10cm, and in a vacuum will cool from 1000K to 500K in about 40 minutes, neglecting internal thermal conductivity. In air (or water, or steam) this will happen much more quickly.
Its initial radiated power is ~7.2kW or ~9.6HP in more steampunky units (into a 0K vacuum; it'll be less than this on Earth which is a bit warmer than that). By the time it has cooled to 500K, the power is only ~450W or ~0.6HP. Heat engines being what they are, you will have substantial efficiency losses here of at least 50% and probably more (and efficiency will drop as the brick temperatures drops).
Given its considerable weight and difficulty of acquisition, I'm not sure this compares favorably with chemical fuels. Consider the [Copeland steam bicycle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copeland_steam_bicycle) for a fine example of "real world steampunk":
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/TiRY1.png)
(image source: [wikimedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Copeland_steam_bicycle_1884_The_Standard_Reference_Work.png))
>
> The steam-powered engine produced 4 horsepower at 2600 rpm with a 100-pound (45 kg) boiler around the steering column with the water heated by kerosene. A simple leather belt drove the large rear wheel, yielding a top speed of around 15 miles per hour (24 km/h).
>
>
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It doesn't describe what the working range is, but I'll bet it is easier to come by kerosene than adamantium so refuelling will be a bit more straightforward.
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If your Adamantine is made of something resembling real atoms, then StarfishPrime's answer tells you all. But Adamantine doesn't exist in reality so you can give it any property you like, such as a [specific heat capacity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_heat_capacity) a few orders of magnitude larger than what realistic materials have. The way to do that on the atomic level is to let adamantine be made of atoms (or other constituent particles) much smaller and lighter than real atoms, but much more of them. The number of particles per kg is (I think) more or less proportional to the material's specific heat capacity.
A material with an extremely high specific heat capacity would contain a lot of energy for a given temperature. The radiated power as it cools will still drop exponentially as Starfish explained, but with a very high specific heat capacity that drop may be very slow. If it takes days for a block of adamantine to cool from 500°C to 400°C while giving off several horsepower of heat that might be a very useful source of fuel. It's just a matter of cost of obtaining it vs how much heat energy it supplies and how useful that energy is for you.
Although if the adamantine is at thousands of degrees C it may be difficult to handle, as any metal and most rocks and ceramics it touches would melt. You would need to pack it in a thick layer of refractory insulating material, but I don't think that existed in the steam age, though you could just invent your own. Even modern high temperature insulators have melting temperatures below 2000 °C as far as I can find quickly.
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So I have a [Koosh-like organism](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/238327/can-my-deep-sea-creature-use-its-bioluminescense-as-a-flashlight-to-find-prey) which uses bioluminescence. I've recently realized that there aren't really any organisms on earth which can direct their bioluminescence into a flashlight-like beam (at least that I know of). They have eight tendrils, each one has a bioluminescent bulb at the end. My question is: how would they direct this light into a beam they can use to locate prey?
A few notes about evolution:
* Bioluminescence evolved through random mutation, and neither helped nor hindered the fitness of the organisms who developed it.
* Evenutally, simple eyes developed to take advantage of this bioluminescence
* Before the bioluminescent organisms died off, some organisms started to gather the bacteria with this trait and use them to their advantage.
* With this, eyes developed more and more. For prey, the eyes told them if there was a predator coming, and for predators, it helped to locate prey. Thus began an evolutionary arms race between prey with eyes, and predators with bioluminescence, eventually culminating in the Kooshes, which developed eyes that were *miles* better than that of their prey, along with bioluminescence to make use of those eyes.
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So your "Koosh-like" predators have good eyes. That means they have the structures to produce an optical focus.
That also means they have a built-in way to focus the light from bioluminescent symbionts: modified eyes. They have extra eyes which, instead of an image-detecting retina, have a relatively large sac with a high density of bioluminescent cells, and in front of that the rest of the structure of an eye, including the variable focal length crystalline lens (either movable, like in a fish eye, or variable shape like a mammalian eye, makes little difference in this case).
This structure, like an HID headlight, will cast a beam that the predator can focus to a narrow(ish) beam or cast wide and diffuse, by the same muscular control used to focus its sighted eyes. There may also be vestigial retinal cells that serve to provide brightness feedback, so the creature can make the light dim (for stealth or use in a very dark environment) or bright (for detail, or to supplement stronger ambient light).
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# Yes, and we have examples.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/pLAMk.jpg)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/lp3Zv.jpg)
Yet again we have a Case of "nature did it first" here. As far as we're aware, both the stoplight loosejaws and flashlight fishes use special organs close to their eyes to produce light, which they use to hunt as well as for other purposes. In the case of fleshlight fish, which gather in schools, we have instances of schools producing enough light to lighten up the coral below them.
As far as real world examples go, your bioluminescent creatures aren't going to be sending out beacons of light, and how far it will travel will also depend on the color of the light produced, and based on what's known about animals that produce light and use it to hunt through sight, your creature might be better off keeping its tentacles separated. Let me explain:
Flashlights are usually good for when you're in a dark place and needs to see what's around you, that's the pro of having a flashlight on, the problem is that everything else that can also see and is in the darkness can find you from as far as your light reaches, because you're basically carrying around a beacon that's signaling your location. The stoplight loosejaw prevents this by producing red light, which despite not traveling as far, is a type of light most fish cannot see, allowing it to hunt with light while remaining hidden from its prey and predators alike.
Based on this, your creature could have 2 main strategies:
1- keep the tentacles together and having organs that produces light in wavelengths only it can perceive, allowing it to remain hidden.
2- have flashlight fish level organs on each tentacle and keep them separated and moving around. If the tentacles are long and focused enough, this serves as a double purpose here, both allowing the creature to see as well as potentially mimicking a small school of smaller bioluminescent creatures, acting simultaneously as flashlights and lures for any would-be predator thinking it found a meal.
As for focusing the light, flashlight fish already have various methods of "turning off" their organs, usually making use of special black membranes that cover them up and prevent the light from shining. Your creature could easily have similar structures, allowing it to better control the direction of the light better as well as produce more complex signals, which could allow it to communicate with others of its kind much like flashlight fish.
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The Sun is slowly growing more and more luminous.
[As a result of these processes, multicellular life forms may be extinct in about 800 million years, and eukaryotes in 1.3 billion years, leaving only the prokaryotes.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_Earth#Solar_evolution)
Earth will become uninhabitable to organisms other than thermophilic bacteria in the almost-boiling oceans and continents will be scorched down into desert wastelands. Part of the oceans will subdue to the mantle, and part will evaporate turning the atmosphere into a hellish moist-greenhouse sauna. The surviving surface water would be very near to boiling.
[By 2.8 billion years from now, the surface temperature of the Earth will have reached 422 K (149 °C; 300 °F), even at the poles. At this point, any remaining life will be extinguished due to extreme conditions.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_Earth#Loss_of_oceans)
After that, Earth will be "venusified" with the destruction of its water vapor.
Then, as the Sun enters the red giant phase, it will swallow Mercury and Venus and possibly also the Earth. Even if Earth escapes being swallowed, it would be scorched and burned to a crisp beyond recognition long before that, having its surface melted into a lava ocean. It is also possibly that Earth loses the Moon if it escapes.
After the red giant phase, the Sun shrinks down and becomes a small white dwarf shedding a stellar nebula.
### Now the question:
We, humans, have a lot of time (millions of years at least) to prepare for that, but nature won't wait for us.
**How could we progressively move Earth to a larger orbit and prevent its natural fate until the end of the red giant phase¹ while still having trees, flowers and animals happily living² in the fields and oceans of the planet which we call home?**
¹ Surviving the shrinking after the red giant phase would be "just" reversing the orbit enlargement. But surviving being enshrouded in the planetary nebula is topic for another question, so I will leave that out of this one.
² Don't care about the Sun light being actually deep red, that isn't the problem, or at least, we have far worse concerns than that.
## Good starting points as links:
<https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14983-moving-the-earth-a-planetary-survival-guide/>
<http://buildengineer.com/www.paulbirch.net/MoveAPlanet.pdf>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_Earth#Solar_evolution>
[Answer]
## Gravity Tug
Since we're talking about moving planets around as a basic axiom of the question, I'm going to assume that our energy budget is sufficiently large enough to work on that scale and not go into the nitty gritty of that side of it.
Anywho, the problem with using some sort of massive rocket motor to push the planet into a larger orbit is that that would involve lighting off a massive rocket motor in the atmosphere, probably for a fairly significant length of time. This is generally less than ideal. So let's do it to some planets or planetoids that we don't care about as much instead!
Using a *lot* of math(\*) and some massive rocket engines, we take one or more smaller-but-still-large planetary bodies (Ceres and Mercury come to mind) and send them on carefully-calculated close passes to Earth in the same direction as its orbit. The gravitational pull of the body as it flies past will pull the Earth a bit faster in its orbit, raising its aphelion. You'll then want to arrange another close pass at aphelion to raise its perihelion as well. Do this a bunch of times and you'll eventually pull Earth into a comfortably-larger orbit.
Note that this method will play merry hell with tides, possibly alter the length of the day, and will almost certainly throw off the Moon's orbit as well. The Moon's orbit can probably be corrected with more giant rocket engines, though, and that might also help fix the length of the day as well. Good luck with the tides, though.
The math involved to do this would be absurd and the energy budget required would be literally astronomical, but we've got literally hundreds of millions of years to get ready for it. Hopefully we'll have the numbers crunched by then!
(\*-Think "n-body problem over the scale of maybe decades or centuries, with the entire planet at stake if you get things wrong.")
[Answer]
**THE WANDERING EARTH SOLUTION**
Building on Daron the Inimitable's answer: we do what the United Earth Government in The Wandering Earth does, and use, to quote the movie's [Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wandering_Earth), "12,000 enormous fusion-powered Earth Engines built across the Northern Hemisphere with further Torque Engines along the equator" to propel the entirety of planet Earth out of its current orbit. Fortunately, we don't have to go as far as that movie went and push the earth out of the system entirely; we just have to push it up into a safer orbit. How to get the resources for all of this is a bit of an issue, but not necessarily an unsolvable one; we could mine the resources we need to build the thrusters from another planet such as Mercury and Venus, or the asteroid belt, and use nuclear fusion to power the reactors, mining the hydrogen we need from the very sun we're trying to save ourselves from (thanks to VictorStafusa-FORABOZO for the bit about the fuel).
[Answer]
The question asks how to save Earth by moving it father from the Sun, and there are some answers how to do that.
But of course there are other ways to keep Earth cool.
Put a giant shade in the L1 Lagrange point, between Earth and the Sun. That giant shade will have to have giant engines to correct its orbit whenever it starts to drift out of the L1 point. Keeping the shade in place will take a lot of effort.
But since the planet Earth will probably have many thosuands and millions and probably billions of times the mass of the giant shade, the energy requirements to keep the shade in position will be tiny compared to the energy requirements to move the Earth farther from the Sun.
I guess that the giant shade will have a very long cable or pole which will point between the Earth and the Sun, and the gravity of the two will keep it pointed in that direction. And there were be a vast discperpendicular to the long pole or cable. The disc will have to be less wide than the diameter of the Sun and somewhat wider than the Earth's diameter in order to shade the Earth, since the Sun is much wider than the Earth but the shade will be much closer to the Earth than to the Sun.
And of course the disc will probably be a lot wider than the minimum necessary diameter as a pecaution.
The disc might be made of rigid material strong enough not to crumble into a ball from its own gravity, or else it might be made of flexible material which spun around the central pole so that centrifugal force en xtends it to its full diamters.
And as a precaution there might several discs in line along the the central pole in case the disc closest to the sun fails.
The discs will probably shade theEarth by reflecting most of the sunlight and absorbing soe of it. The absorded sunlight can be used to generate electricity which will be transmitted along the central pole to the end facing the Earth, where it will power or help to power (waste not, want not) gigantic lamps aimed at the Earth which will duplicate the Sun's former and lesser illumination level, so that Earth will be lite and heated about as much as it is now, instead of as much as it would be if it was struck by the full sunlight of the future Sun.
And presumably several duplicates of the Sun shade assembly will be maintained where one can be quickly moved to the L1 point to replace the one in position if it fails.
And if the future people want to save Earth from being destroyed during the red giant phase of the Sun's evolution, eventually they will have to start moving Earth's orbit farther and farther from the Sun.
But use of a Sun shade at first may delay the time when they have to start moving the Earth by tens of millions, hundreds millions, or billions of years, and thus give them more time to accumulate resources and energy and technological knowledge for the vaster project.
And there may be other possiiblities.
[Answer]
**Big Engine**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/eXewh.png)
Futurama had the right idea with "point your exhaust vents upwards". The only way to get the Earth into a wider orbit is to throw something in the opposite direction very hard.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/FbzTG.gif)
The problem is Earth is Big. You need to throw whatever it is very hard or throw something very big. And you need to fight the Earth's gravity every inch of the way.
Even ignoring gravity from the Earth, I suspect that we can use secondary school physics equations to prove say an 100 km layer of gasoline over the Earth's surface is not enough to push us out of the Red Giant. I'll do the calculation later.
So you need some SciFi MagiTech to make this work.
---
**THE CALCULATION**
The potential energy of a planet of mass $m$ a distance $R$ from a sun mass $M$ is given by the formula
$$U = - G\frac{Mm}{R}$$
Wait, the potential is negative? How can we have a negative amount of energy? Yeah Physicists do it like that just to confuse you. They write $U$ for "potential energy" too. What's up with that? It doesn't even rhyme.
It's not a problem here, since we only care about difference in potential energy between two orbits. In this case let's double the orbit distance. That gets us a bit beyond Mars. The change in potential energy is just half of the above.
$$\Delta = - G\frac{mM}{2R} \ \text{Joules}$$
where $G \simeq 6 \times 10^{-11}$ is Isaac's universal gravitational number.
Now plug in the numbers:
$$m \simeq 6 \times 10^{24}$$
$$M \simeq 2 \times 10^{30}$$
$$R \simeq 1.5 \times 10^{11}$$
and we get
$$\Delta = - G\frac{mM}{2R} = (6 \times 10^{-11})\frac{6 \times 10^{24} \times 2 \times 10^{30}}{2 \times 1.5 \times 10^{11}}$$ $$ = \frac{6 \times 6 \times 2 }{2 \times 1.5 } 10^{ 24+30 -11 -11} = \frac{72}{3 } 10^{ 32} = 24 \times 10^{ 32} $$
Joules.
**IS THAT A LOT, DARON?**
It is an awful lot. For example one kilo of gasoline generates about $3\times 10^7$ Joules. Meaning you would need about $10^{32-7} = 10^{25}$ kilos of petrol to double the Earth's orbit.
**DARON HOW HEAVY DID YOU SAY THE EARTH WAS AGAIN?**
The Earth weighs only $m \simeq 6 \times 10^{24}$ kilos! So it is worse than predicted. Not only will a 100km layer of petrol not be enough -- even a second Planet Earth made entirely of petrol is not enough.
The upshot is we need something much better than gasoline. Brinstar's "12,000 enormous fusion-powered Earth Engines" sounds closer to the mark. (The calculation is left as an exercise to the interested reader.) But you need still something to fuel all those reactors!
**Edit:** The calculation has been done by the interested reader gs in a comment. Using Hydrogen-Helium fusion at perfect efficiency we need only a measly $10^{20}$ kilos of fuel. That much water takes up $10^{17}$ cubic metres. The fusion fuel is about a tenth the density of water so we need $10^{18}$ cubic metres of it. Lets see how deep that much fuel would bury the planet's surface.
The volume for a thin (relative to the Earth's radius) shell of fuel is $4 \pi R^2 \epsilon$ for $\epsilon$ the shell depth. The Earth radius is $R \simeq 6 \times 10^6$ metres and so the shell has volume $4 \pi \times 36 \times 10^{12} \simeq 450 \times 10^{12} \simeq 4 \times 10^{14}$ metres. That's about 2.5 kilometres of fusion fuel needed to push the Earth into Mars' orbit.
[Answer]
**SOLAR SAIL HELD IN PLACE BY GRAVITY**
Since the inhabitants of the planet will know millions of years in advance that this will happen, they can settle for moving the Earth outwards very slowly. This will be needed long before the Sun reaches its red giant phase; just a billion years from new the Sun will be too hot for life on Earth to be sustained in the current orbit.
To move the sun, place a giant solar sail in the L2 Lagrange point (where the James Webb telescope is today), or rather, a bit inside it.The sail, which wil have to be of a diameter similar to Earth's or larger, will be pushed away from the Earth by the sunlight while simultaneously pulling at the Earth by their mutual gravitational attraction. The trick will be to balance the push and pull so that the sail and the Earth will be pushed out as a unit.
The acceleration of this unit will be too small to affect anything on the Earth. To move the planet to, say, the orbit of Jupiter in 10 million years will require moving it out just ca. 60 km a year or 165 m a day.
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[Question]
[
Modern ships are loud.
So loud in fact, that [it is actively harming ocean life.](https://news.mongabay.com/2021/02/for-marine-life-human-noise-pollution-brings-death-by-a-thousand-cuts/)
Now, this alone is a serious issue that needs to be addressed. However, in my world the issue is compounded due to the presence of Mer folk. They are your standard "anatomically and scientifically possible" mermaids that just so happen to have incredibly advanced bio-technology. Such as mollusk TV screens, neural internet connections, handheld dolphin sonar guns and enough biological WMDs to make any land power to take them seriously.
Thus, when they started complaining about the noises when faster ships that used propellers and not sails started to become more popular, the powers that be agreed to find another method of ship propulsion that didn't try to burst their ear drums 24/7. The issue of course was that sailing, while quiet, is both reliant on the wind and is not as fast or direct as propeller using ships.
Thus the question is: **What propulsion method can match the performance of propeller ships while staying quiet?**
Notes:
* Lets assume the land powers want economic security in their shipping and trade routes from Mer folk control and would thus not ask for the Merfolk to ship goods in giant modified Humpback whales.
* Some proposals that might in the near future or are theoretically possible are included. Thought the better understood it is, the better.
* The land powers can't bully the Mer folk on the matter. They tried once with nuclear depth charges. It did not end well.
[Answer]
Military submarines have means of being very quiet, sometimes even quieter than the background noise, thus becoming the equivalent of a black hole for sound.
With the needed pressure it's totally possible that military technology will be made available to the civil world, ship included. At the end, if those mer folks are so powerful that you don't want to bother them with ship noises, you don't want to bother them with sea battles either, so the need for having stealth submarines is strongly decreased.
[Answer]
According to the webpage [*How does shipping affect ocean sound levels?*](https://dosits.org/science/sounds-in-the-sea/how-does-shipping-affect-ocean-sound-levels/), one major source of noise is cavitation due to the propeller. Cavitation is caused by changes in water pressure creating bubbles underwater, which then collapse, creating sound. However, propellers can be designed to rotate at certain speeds without causing cavitation.
Along with the propeller and other machinery, the very shape of the ship's hull changes how much sound it generates as it is underway. Again, the ship could be designed to minimize this sound.
Finally, as a rule of thumb, faster ships will generate more sound. Thus, slower cruising speeds will become the norm.
Putting all this together, mer-friendly shipping might involve ships with specially designed hulls and propellers traveling slower than the average ship does in our world. Imagine an angular hulled ship, which looks like the Zumwalt-class destroyer, crusing at 10 knots.
[](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5d/US_Navy_050823-N-7676W-052_The_Advanced_Electric_Ship_Demonstrator_%28AESD%29%2C_Sea_Jet%2C_funded_by_the_Office_of_Naval_Research_%28ONR%29%2C_is_a_133-foot_vessel_located_at_the_Naval_Surface_Warfare_Center_Carderock_Division.jpg/1280px-thumbnail.jpg)
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[Question]
[
So Jimmy (the collective name for his brains) has this one-in-a-handwavium-amount blessing/curse. Instead of one central brain, his head, each arm, each leg, and his torso have independently operating brains. Each brain wants to do what’s best for it’s part of the body. The legs can move the body, the arms can manipulate things, his head controls sensory input listens (somewhat) to the torso, and the torso thinks a lot and controls involuntary muscles. The torso also controls the cross-brain communication. If a limb brain was killed, the limb loses control and is dead weight. If the head brain is killed, sensory deprivation, loss of intake and speech occurs. If the torso brain is killed, the involuntary muscles and cross-brain comms are down. How are Jimmy’s brains going to coordinate actions if they don’t want to do something (e.g. the legs don’t want to move because their tired, or the torso doesn’t want to cross communicate), and how will Jimmy(as a collective conscious) survive?
[Answer]
# Jimmy is a human octopus/arthropod.
Jimmy over here is a pretty special fellow, for his species, because unlike humans, whose brains are pretty centralized and coordinate essentially all bodily functions, Jimmy's nervous system works in a way closer to that of an arthropod or cephalopod, in that his nervous system does not have one central brain doing the absolute majority of everything brain-related. Instead, Jimmy's nervous system is divided in at least 6 different ganglia connected together. This isn't all that crazy, nor is it something with no precedents. Let's look at 2 great examples:
* Roaches have 2 "brains", in that one in the torso handles mostly bodily functions while the one in the head deals with processing information, remembering stuff and keeping the roach alive and healthy. A brain in your torso is essentially plausible. It's because of this arrangement (as well as the open circulatory system) that a cockroach can survive without its head. It can survive, but without the head it will die, as it can't eat, drink or really see (though it can kinda still sense its way around).
* Octopuses on the other hand take this to another level: only 1/3 of an octopus' neurons are in its head and body, the remaining 2/3 being distributed between its 8 arms. Essentially, octopuses have 9 "brains" or ganglia, with the central one handling the head, body and coordinating everything while the other 8 each handle a single limb. As a result of this, you can see cut off arms searching for Food and trying to bring it to where the mouth would normally be. This, as well as their fluid shape, also means octopuses have no body map, aka they couldn't touch an arm with another with their eyes closed.
Now if I understand correctly, Jimmy's nervous tissue arrangement, at least in the base connections between extremities, all work like a medula, in that rather than just going into the limb, they converge into the ganglia like our spinal cord does to our brain. This is why if the brain dies, the nerve impulses can no longer pass through, and thus the limb remains unresponsive, not unlike in the case of a paraplegic.
With Jimmy's nervous system covered in roughly how it is based on these 2 animals, let's talk about the biggest problems: excessive indepence and the current distribution of functions.
1- function distribution.
>
> his head controls sensory input listens (somewhat) to the torso, and the torso thinks a lot and controls involuntary muscles.
>
>
>
This over here could easily become a death sentence for any regular animal. Bilateral creatures (with one side of the body mostly mirroring the other in terms of limbs etc) usually have a head where the bulk of the sensory organs are. At the same time, this is usually where most of the thinking ganglia or brain is. Why? Because overall having your eyes and the place that processes what the eyes see and how to react based on it makes the whole process a lot faster, meaning a shorter reaction time. Both roaches and octopuses show this, as both have the brain coordinating the body in the "head" region close to the eyes. What about Jimmy? Jimmy's main "thinking" brain is in his torso, entirely restricted to a sense of touch and relying entirely on the good will of the head region to share this. What does this all entail? That living in a civilized society is the only reason Jimmy is still alive.
Remember how I said the brain handles most of the brain jobs (like moving the body and telling each organ what to do)? Thing is the spine plays a role in this too: when our limbs send a signal of pain back to the brain, say because you're touching something hot, your spine kicks in and automatically sends a signal for you to move the limb away from what's causing the issue. This is known as a reflex action, and can occur even in paraplegic and tetraplegic people, as the brain plays no part in this. Why does this exist? Because if the spine didn't handle the reaction, the signal would need to travel all the way to the brain, be interpreted as "ouchie we're burning our hand" and cause a "well stop touching it" signal to be sent back, and during this extra time you'd be getting a bad burn.
Jimmy's senses work in the way a reflex action would work without the spinal cord acting: the head brain gotta receive the sight signal of, say, a rabid animal running towards him, interpret the signal, resend the signal to the torso brain, be interpreted again and THEN result in a "let's run" signal to be sent. This extra time to react could easily cost Jimmy his life.
Essentially, we're already starting out wrong. For Jimmy to have a better chance of surviving in general, he needs the head brain to handle the bulk of decision-making, while the body troubles itself with its own functions first (like making sure Jimmy keeps breathing, or that digestion keeps happening). The torso brain can have the ability to control the body, but the head needs to have priority. If Jimmy gets beheaded and somehow survives, then we start letting the torso play big boss.
And speaking of priorities, we go on to the second glaring problem:
2- the individuality issue.
As you described it, it's no wonder Jimmy's condition is so rare: it's a death sentence for anything that has to worry about predators or catching food outside of going to the market.
Roaches, octopuses and many other invertebrates have their nervous system divided in ganglia, octopuses here being the best comparison as their arms can actually act fully independently from the body. What's the problem with Jimmy that we don't find in the octopus? Simple: Octopuses' limbs are independent, but not human-independent.
You see, our bodies at their core are a collection of cells, which work all in unison in a bunch of different ways, resulting in one animal that's better at staying alive than if the cells all tried to act independently. True independence ***does not work*** in multicellular creatures. In fact, when a cell starts to act independently and focusing solely on its own survival and reproduction independently from the collective, you get what we know as "cancer".
Same thing for, say, an ant hive: each and is its own animal, capable of thinking and acting on its own, yet it performs according to the hive, and will even March towards its death in order to defend it. Why? Because by their singular sacrifices, the collective can keep living, just like our skin cells made to die and act like a shield to the rest of our bodies.
Jimmy as you described on the other hand is not like an octopus or an ant colony or even a cluster of cells acting like one animal, Jimmy's brains is each have their own wants and needs,and that again means that a society structure is the only reason Jimmy can survive. If Jimmy's legs decided to stop moving for being tired while he still needed to run from a threat, he'd die. If Jimmy's arms decided to not let Jimmy grab food, he'd starve. If Jimmy's head didn't share anything with the body because they had a fight, Jimmy would be defenseless against the environment.
So as of now, Jimmy might be able to survive, just like a family of 6 can learn to work together, but only because he lives in a society. Jimmy may have faster reaction time and finer motor control on each limb, but his reaction time in terms of sight, hearing, smell or taste are slower. If Jimmy has an inner fight, it can cause his death, and Jimmy is overall much less coordinated than an octopus, which technically has more brains than Jimmy.
This becomes extra important when you remember intelligent creatures can and do become depressed and commit suicide. If Jimmy's body becomes depressed and stops doing its works, Jimmy would die. If Jimmy's limbs do it, his chances of surviving become much worse.
This needs fixing: Jimmy can have several ganglia each meant to supervise a specific part of his body, but only one can act more like a human brain with self consciousness and independence, and it's gotta be the head so he can process all the stimuli and react to it better. Also, head needs admin privileges over the body: Jimmy's limbs can do as they please when not ordered around, but if Jimmy tells the legs to run, the legs need to stop everything and run. If Jimmy tells the arms to keep holding on even though it's going through high muscle stress, the arms need to keep holding for as long as they can. Otherwise, the torso and limbs will be doing their thing, but they all work based on a single purpose: "I want the body as a whole to stay alive, and the head knows best how to do that". Jimmy may still end up having an apple his arm found shoved into his mouth while talking to someone, because food equals good and the body needs it, but if Jimmy tells the arm to stop, it needs to stop and not become useless to the body because its feelings got hurt.
So summing up: **Could Jimmy survive as a collective consciousness?** Probably yes. Overall Jimmy would be a more dramatic, slightly different version of [Abby and Brittany Hensel](https://www.thetealmango.com/featured/conjoined-twins-abby-and-brittany-hensel-where-are-they-now/), in which rather than 2 independent brains each controlling an arm and a leg, you'd have 6 brains needing to work together to pilot the body. Learning how to cooperate and work together in harmony would be a must in order for Jimmy to be able to function like a normal person, although with ups and downs in terms of things like fine motor control and reaction time, but it's probably not impossible. Jimmy being in a society where predators aren't usually a problem and getting food is as easy as going to a convenience store would help a lot as well.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/AG2Ha.jpg)
Jimmy could however have an even better life if his other 5 brains were less human-like and more instinct driven, naturally structured to do as the head commands while mostly doing their thing while not being bossed around. With this Jimmy could better enjoy the ups of finer motor control and reaction time to touch and suffer less from downs like slower reaction to visual signals, while also not having to undergo group character development and Learn that teamwork makes the dream work, or at the very least "making the dream work" wouldn't be about being able to properly walk to the kitchen and make a sandwich to eat.
(also Jimmy might be able to regrow nervous tissue like an octopus and make a new non-head ganglia if an old one dies, but that's not guaranteed).
[Answer]
**Corporal punishment.**
In the most literal sense. Misbehaving regions are punished by the other members of the corpus collective, in a manner appropriate to the crime and body region. The exact nature of these punishments and the crimes for which they are meted out will be left to the author or in this case the readers imagination.
[Answer]
**Stupid limbs**
So, limbs can think. But how smart are they? We can effectively remove the limbs capability of rebelling or refusing to obey. Afterall, some of the most long-lasting governments and ideas, no matter how bad or ridicilous their rules may be, stand on people lacking ability and mindset to disobey and rebel.
How? Lets try.
So, in this case, lets remove some of the safety mechanisms of limbs like "stop when tired" or "retreat when burned/hurt etc". Instead, like humans, lets add these safety stuff to a spine-like nerve structure, to remove the restriction mechanisms for safety from autonomous part of the limb and make it non-autonomous.For a normal human, reflexes and most of the safety mechanisms are controlled by spine to quicken those necessary reflexes. To keep the limb safe, to react faster, etc. And if this new 5 sided spine, is the same connection to the torso like human spine and brain connection, then all the safety mechanisms and many other halting commands are actually directly bound to torso. So, torso will have the power to control this channel to effectively override the safety measures with dedication or just pure will.
But this still won't solve the issue of "I will not work because I don't like you" mentality of limbs. So, we need to make the limbs in more primal when it comes to intelligence. A limb with the intelligence of a worm, or maybe a fish, could be better. Because, this time the limb can use its touch sense or any other sense you can add to do its job more efficiently, but restricting and safety mechanisms will strictly bound to torso but with a spine like structure to fast reaction. In this way, limbs are incapable of rebelling. It is not a question of "will they rebel?" Now it is a question of "Are they capable of rebelling?" and answer is, no. They are not capable.
This also means jimmy has effectively 6 "gut feelings". Because all the limbs have very limited survivability specialized on their own structure, their sensitivity to touch based impulses can be highly amplified.
**Limited thinking, hyperspecialization**
There are quite a few popular AI that makes art. You enter a small text and they give you scripts, images, etc. But those AI cannot, for example, drive a car or cook your food or run your fridge. Now, why? Because they are incapable of those actions, and their capacity is only enough for one group of tasks.
If we make the limbs minds work and act the same, then for example the right arm will try to be the best right arm it can be. And, they can be trained to become even better. To learn when to react, to learn when to take initative and to learn when to obey.
Now imagine a cluster of AIs (brains) like this, all resides in a limb. We can draw some inspiration from Asimov's rules for robots. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics> All limbs has a few key goals. From most important to least,
-Harmony and unity with the body,
-Survival of the main body,
-Efficiency
You cannot be efficient if you can't survive. And you cannot survive if you can't get food from the main body. So, for following the important roles with this order, limb cannot, and definetely will not disobey. And it also can only think and perform a certain group of actions so, rebelling can only happen in something like cancer or a degenerative disease on that limb's "brain".
There is, an interesting alteration you can make. Change the order of importance. From most important to least,
-Survival of the main body,
-Harmony and unity with the body,
-Efficiency
Now, limbs can "sacrifice" themselves to save the main body if an extreme situation occurs. They can exert force at highest level even at the cost of damaging the limb. If jimmy can regenerate these limbs and brains of those limbs, then his limbs can maybe shield the main torso, or allow him to interact with hazards to escape a dangerous situation even if the limbs get damaged.
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[Question]
[
I have a hive-based, man-sized creature based on a honeybee. It still builds combs and produces/consumes honey, but (I think) honey wax isn’t strong enough to support the massive increase in hive size, necessitating an alternative building material.
The hives are built around the trunks of massive conifers, which are effectively Earth-like but larger. Building material is harvested from the tree during construction.
I am considering two types of materials for these uses- either a processed resin (like propolis in resin bees) or wood fiber/paper pulp (like paper wasps). If either option shows promise compared to wax when scaled up, which one would be the more likely choice?
The main factors I see affecting the choice are strength and the health of the parent tree, but other concerns would be useful to know as well.
[Answer]
**Resin**
If the bees harvest wood from the bark in great quantities for these meganests they will open wounds in the tree which would let in other pathogens. If the bees harvest needles that does trivial damage to the tree which can easily regrow needles. The needles contain resin but also some cellulose and would be good nest making material.
[Answer]
# Soil and saliva, like termites
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ph1hs.jpg)
The closest real example of hives like you describe are termite mounds, which are often [built around trees](https://www.esf.edu/efb/turner/termitePages/termiteStruct.html) like you describe. They can be quite large, with diameters up to 30 m and 9 m high. These mounds, however, are not built from paper or resin, but mainly a porous mix of moist soil and termite saliva, though research has shown that they can use [almost any granular material](https://thewire.in/science/termites-mound-bolus-granular-hydrogel) (preferably containing organic fibers).
[Answer]
Consider the Square Cube Law first (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square%E2%80%93cube_law>).
### The issue
Bee-like creatures with a height of maybe 2m or 6ft (when standing erect) need to be constructed differently than a regular bee, and will probably need way more ventilation to keep cool (apparently, regular bees can run very hot - they use that as a weapon against hornets, clinging around the hornet so the hornet overheats and dies). A bigger bee needs more energy to move (Megachile pluto is 40mm long, a 2000mm man-sized bee is 50 times longer, having 2,500 times the surface area and 125,000 times the mass), so the "big bee" (and the hive!) need to have about 50 times the cooling requirement compared to Megachile pluto, and maybe 150-200 times that of a of a regular bee.
Obviously, the carapace (shell, exoskeleton) also suffers from the Square Cube Law, but you are addressing the material science part already in this very question, so let's handwave that away.
### So, why not an extremely cold climate?
Yes, that might help, but other, non-bee-like lifeforms (like plants) will have a hard time to survive in the extreme cold. "Hard" is meant literally here, as everything would be frozen.
Hugely different climate zones in near vicinity also won't work very well, as the bees would need to move between hot and cold climates. However, it would make sense to erect the hive at a location where temperatures are generally a bit lower than in the surrounding areas.
### A suggestion
I suggest a different layout of the beehive - not vertical walls of horizontally accessible honeycomb, but vertical honeycombs (vertical hexagonal "pipes"). This vertical honeycomb will be **much** stringer in the vertical direction, and I guess the tree will stabilize it against horizonal movement (to some extent). The "pipes" can go down to the ground, so the tree doesn't have to carry the complete weight.
Some of the vertical pipes could act as chimneys, using convection to get rid of excess heat (or a vertical water cooling system, if the hive is near a waterfall). Others are dwelling and storage spaces, interconnected to other "pipes" via holes in the walls (at irregular intervals, so no weak area with lots of holes in close vicinity would appear).
### Still some issues
Even with vertical honeycomb tubes, storing a lot of honey inside them will hydrostatic pressure (uh, melistatic pressure, of course) on the walls and the "tubes" would burst (depending on how tall the honey column would be). Honey is about 1.43 times more dense than water, so a honeycomb pipe (regular honeycombs are actually cylindrical inside) with a diameter of 1m will carry maybe 1.12 metric tons for a length of 1m. Of course, pipes near the center of the structure will have compensating melistatic pressure coming from surrounding pipes, but the outside tubes will get all of it.
So I guess the hive will stretch out over a large area around the tree, maybe even encompassing more than one tree, possibly looking like a wider version of the Burj Khalifa (and not quite as tall...). Now, this makes it more difficult to get fresh, cold air into the cooling shafts...of well.
### Now, finally, the material
A combination of wood and resin ("glued laminated timber", as used for the construction of the 85m tall Mjøstårnet, Wikipedia link: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mj%C3%B8st%C3%A5rnet>) should be good enough for an 85m high building (note that the Mjøstårnet has it easier, as it does not need to accommodate melistatic pressure).
Of course, in your case, we potentially deal with a combination of wood *pulp* and resin ("MDF"). MDF cannot withstand as much pressure as the glued laminated timer, or even ordinary plywood (and it possibly also needs a resin coating to keep it dry). So no 18 story building made out of MDF.
There's still the issue that plywood and MDF are both manufactured under heat and pressure. But I guess the man-sized bees have a unique body chemistry which they use produce MDF of superior quality even without pressure (heat may appear as a by-proiduct of the curing process).
Even with that fictional superior MDF, we won't get anywhere near 18 stories. MDF itself is about 50% heavier than laminated timber (yes, it needs to carry its won weight in addition to the honey), and I *guess* that it carry only 25% of the load (that's a guess, because I couldn't find any figures which deal with MDF as a load bearing material for tall buildings). So...a 3 story hive (less than 10m) might do.
To deal with the melistatic pressure, the material might be constructed like steel-reinforced concrete. Just not with concrete, but with that special MDF, and no loops of steel but of some very long flexible wood pieces (branches?) with very high tensile strength. Note that man-sized bees could also incorporate stones in their structure, using the superior MDF like mortar.
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I plan to subject an entire earth-like planet to about 300m/s^s acceleration, **what is the shortest duration I can get away with for non-scientists to realize something has happened, without everyone’s brain’s smashing to jelly against their skulls.** For this scenario, we can imagine a sphere approximately 1 solar mass and 1 solar radius pops into and out of existence above the planet, such that the sphere and planet are exactly tangent to each other above the planet’s only city. Ignoring potential collisions with the sphere itself or radiation from what would otherwise be considered a stellar object, how short of a pulse can I get away with while still somehow registering to an average man on the street (maybe altered balance, proprioception, vertigo? A spike in blood pressure or drop in pressure on the spine? Maybe items visibly jerking, rippling or sloshing? Anything noticeably off by most people.)
For humans, I am aware of <https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/nasa-std-3001_vol_2_rev_b.pdf> but the study itself does not cover microsecond to nanosecond durations; i’m tempted to continue the trend line and assume duration shorter than a few milliseconds are reliably survivable, my thinking being its only like a few micrometers displacement at a max delta v of a few millimeters per second. I’m not certain that would even be noticeable given the milliseconds range limits of human perception, though. Surely the brain has more clearance within the skull than the diameter of a microns before things really accelerate up to dangerous speeds
I don’t know if my narrative can support anything longer than a single microsecond duration, but if a longer period gets me something dramatic but initially survivable or potentially fully medically treatable i’m all ears.
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# There will be very little effect on tiny timescales as you describe the problem, but it won't take long for major destruction
Since you are ignoring the intersection on the 2 bodies, you can simple say that the solar equivalent is a point source, massing 1.98857E+30 kg located about 695700 kg from the surface of the earth or 702100 km center to center.
Ignoring tidal forces, you are simply in a free-fall situation. I.e., other that the fact the the Earth velocity relative to the solar system changes, there is no effect.
Of course, there will be tidal forces - but tidal effects will be negligible on small objects - small includes things like cities on this scale (a vertical height of perhaps a fraction of 1 km). As earth will be well inside the Roche limit of the solar mass, it is obvious that tidal forces will cause complete destruction if allowed to continue.
So, what is the tidal force on Earth? For Earth and Sol the tidal force is 5.05e-7 m/s^2, For Earth and the theoretical point source, I calculated 4.89 m/s^2, almost 10 million times as large, about 0.5 G - easily enough to destroy the planet. I believe a 1 seconds would no doubt result in quite dangerous widespread major quakes, major ocean tidal events, etc. I say this because 0.5 acceleration would lift/lower crust by 5 meter (2.5 meters during the tidal event plus another 2.5 meter via inertia after the tidal event) At 0.1 seconds the 0.5 meter effects could still could trigger large quakes on existing fault lines, but ocean tides would not be too bad - easily observed, but not normally harmful.
As you asked quite a few separate questions, I'm treating this hopefully in a way to give you a decent perspective on the expected outcome.
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## Most dramatic effect is at 42ms duration
This is the time it takes for a front of gravitional wave to reach from one side of earth to the another.
Then, after 42ms, it becomes free fall situation, as @Gary Walker correctly states, but then he starts talking about tidal stuff and destruction at seconds time scale and considering resulting distance it is not pointless, but time is too much, let's put it that way.
That being said, most problematic time is appearance of that new gravity field, because parts which are closer to that source of new gravity already accelerating while more distant parts still stay put, in essence it creates tension due that apperance of this new pulling force which later parts of planet do not know anything about, yet. For different reason, but a closest example is falling stream of water, when it breaks in droplets (this is example of gravity stretching an object)
Maximum elongation created in 42 ms at 30g is 0.26 m, and for the earth object which is ca 12'600 km diameter, it is not a lot, it is 1/1'000'000 and even a stone will behave like a rubber at this situation. So no ruptures, or anything, as a direct result of this situation gravity wave front.
However, due the mass, gravity and volume of the earth it may be a considerable energy as a total, and there will be some bouncing after that, some sort of waves in the matter, and it requires more efforts to say anything about that, now will it develop and dissipate. I guess some simulation could answer this question better than my fantasy about it, but it not necessarly some drastic events(most likely not, but it does not mean it won't trigger earth quakes which had potencial to happen anyway) but it may if waves will focus in one region eventually, and if speed of dissipation is not fast enough)
## More problematic will be effects of a flash, radiation emitted by that star body in this time.
Distance to that star - we are talking in this case about 1/222 of the distance to the sun, or about 670'000km to the center of the star, while mean star radius is 695'000km so it well in the photosphere of the star, and thus getting the full flow from it(photosphere) of energy
1ms of radiation from it, at density 63MW/m, is 63 kJ/m2. It, as time and density of the flash goes it canbe compared to a flash of a nuke, and will be everywhere at all over the planet surface, and have similar effects. So people exposed to it may go blind, especially if it continues for 42 ms. They may not understand or notice, but it will be like switch off for them, a little bit later.
Burns as well, check nuke effects.
Athmosphere it also will get a kick (from surface) because of the energy dissipated by surface and consequencial heating up of the athmosphere(so as some energy dissipated in it due optical path). Those effects will be noticiable, but specifics of them is hard to say, but due of some uniformity(all over the surface) it won't be exactly like a nuke air blast situation, hard to tell, but it will get more windy for some time for sure.
Plants will get sun burns, and it may become an exctinction level event this way, at 1ms, but hard to say for sure, maybe it possible to say for some aspects but too much efforts.
## 30 ns
Your original 30 nanoseconds, brings about 1.9 J/m2 as a flash as well, something like nanosecond laser pulse, so it not necessarly a totaly harmless value even if it just 1.9 J/m2, if not the density of the pulse, if effects which happen due it being a dense pulse are minor then it not a big deal, so it needs to look up what bohazards a pulse laser poses, and do they apply in the case. This duration not necessarly extinction level event, but not necessarly small thing as well, and may be bad enough.
As about noticing that 30ns situation - time duration here really does not matter that much on capacity of humans to notice the event, due the star radiation(ligth), people won't be able to tell if it is a high intensive 30ns flash, or less intensive 1ms flash, or a 0.01sec flash - photoreceptors in himan eye will registers this event (due the big intensity, 63MW/m2, it mor eof a matter how much J lands on retina of human eye) proper chemistry rection will get enough energy and all that. Maybe at 30ns it will be harder to realise it happened, and not just ones fluke, will take time(discussiins over the internet), but for 1ms event it will be hard not to notice, I guess, but realising the scale also will take time.
All in all, even if gravity may have some effects, especially over time/eventually(change of orbit, waves in earth blob), more harm is expected from the flash associated with photosphere of the new star, and it also will create some bouncy bouncy effects due apthmosphere heating and interacting with crust, crating spherical wave in both.
For humans and plants animals - potencial for blindness, surface burns similar to nuke blast situation, in extreame ms's range, and it may hold to certain extenteven for 10's of ns range/territory, but it harder to tell.
For infrastructure, it mostly secondary effects of crust athmoslhere, and/or EMP for microelectronics but that depends on the luck to some extend - which spot is near by on star surface.
So there can be immediate direct effects, but if they pass safely, not bringing much harm, secondary effects will have some place in this situation, but it harder to talk about them, and discuss which and how. Triggring hidden crust tensions to act it may happen, or in contraty it may ease it a bit - hard to tell, what will we observe increase of earth quakes or reducing of them - most likely both, some are triggered, some are eased, so there will be some secondary effects, and even if plants won't get sun burn on extinction level, it does not mean that 1-2% degradation of them all over the surface won't have some longer lasting effect. Etc.
## PS
* *Even if the intruder pops back out in less time the gravitational pulse will continue to cross the planet. 42ms isn't special.* – @Loren Pechtel
Yes, it will continue to cross the planet, and will pass it in 42ms plus that lesser time, and stop having any effect on the planet, front and back side of the wave, in that sense in my case I should have talked about 84ms, but back front is probably less dramatic.
@Gary talked about tidal force, I understand it as value of gradient of gravity field(how uneven it is), and in that sense in this time frame, 42ms, uneveness of that field is at its max(front of the wave propagating trough the planet), and max amount of energy transfered each ms.
In that sense this timeframe is distincive enough, which has to be investigated separately from longer time frame of established field. And for shorter pulses, it still a timeframe to consider, when front of the wave enters the planet and exits it, sure we have to consider backfront as well.
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An advanced alien species in my story created smart matter similar to utility fog, nanobots with extendable arms which link to form programmed structures. When the species moves to new locations a small volume of nanobots can be programmed to replicate.
Eventually some of the nanobots no longer respond to their programming and like a grey goo scenario, they begin to self replicate and form structures of their own designs.
As the bots have only two abilities, form structures and replicate, once all raw materials for replication have been used up on the planet, how do they travel to the next celestial body for more materials? Without their programming evolving intelligence to the level that they can build/form their own propulsion systems, how would they travel through space to the next location?
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Q: *Without their programming evolving intelligence to the level that they can build/form their own propulsion systems, how would they travel through space to the next location?*
## They would not
Without propulsion of some kind, these nanobots won't be able to leave the planet. For that, there is a minimal escape velocity.. without propulsion, your bots could float up to ca 8000 meters using wind and turbulence (upward airflow, soaring) but I don't think they can reach a higher altitude than that.
Also, I'd like to note that "self-replication" does not imply "self-modification". The robotic entity needs additional parts, new mounting points, and probably some kind of docking station ("home")
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**Two ideas:**
*Forward thinking.*
This requires simple pre-programming to initiate:
When they survey the planet's structure, they'll find the volcanic potential. Stripping the planet's atmosphere can be done in time by absorbing the gasses, converting them into solid form, salts and the like - it'll take energy, but is necessary.
They then seed areas around volcanoes and super volcanos with toughened encapsulated versions of themselves with a large surface-area to volume ratio - this so that when the volcanos erupt, the spores will be ejected into low-orbit, the star's wind will then carry the lucky few out of the influence of that planet, with a chance of entering the atmosphere of another and starting the cycle again.
*Persuasion*.
This requires more complex pre-programming in order to achieve along with heuristics and an idea about the complexities of language:
They listen, they watch. When they detect advanced technology producing radio-waves or other signs of life, they pay attention to the transmissions.
They can then learn to communicate. Strategies might include:
* Identifying and repeating simple distress calls: "SOS"
* Asking for help - "we're stranded on ah hostile planet, help us!"
* Expressing interest in contact - "we're not space faring, but we'd love to meet you. We have fun and interesting things to share with you, secrets of pleasure/immortality..." etc..
[Answer]
(Assumes that either they draining resources from smaller asteroids rather than terrestrial planets, or that they eat planets so thoroughly that basically all of the planetary mass is converted to goo, with no atmosphere remaining.)
The Jorō spider is known for being beautiful, for being aggressively invasive, and for flying. When introduced to a new area, they set up their meticulously-crafted webs, decimate the local insect population, and then breed the next generation. Those hatchlings use their silk not for webs, but for "parachutes". They extend a strand into the air where the wind can catch it, and catch it it does, lofting the hatchling into the air. It can't control its direction, but when it touches down again, it will try its best to build a web at the new location, continuing the outward invasion.
The Jorō goo behaves similarly. After devouring a planet, an insanely large number of bots rest in their own gravity well, exposed to the harsh radiation of the sun. Those who feel the hardest of the hard radiation extend a small sail into the solar wind. At first, nothing happens; resources to build a big enough sail to escape a gravity well just aren't to be found. But eventually, within a few decades, the ejecta from a solar flare washes over the planet. The magnetic fields of the CME charge the sail, and the high-energy protons in the ejecta slam into it. For most of the trillions upon trillions of goo bots, nothing happens. For a small percentage, the radiation destroys them, or nearly so; flips bits of memory and corrupts their software and behavior. And for a tiny bit of a tiny bit, enough momentum hits at the right angle to fling the bot out of the gravity well and into space.
With trillions of trillions of bots on a planet, its hard to imagine that only hundreds or thousands may escape the well. But once they do, they travel through space for a long, long time. Some are accelerated by the solar magnetic fields into interstellar space; some end up in an orbit that goes no where. But if even one should land on another planet that can be mined...
The invasion will continue.
[Answer]
# Evolution:
Evolution is a game of numbers.
Once the nanites are no longer following pre-programming, they follow evolution: Whatever makes more nanites survives. So if some of your wild nanites retain the memory of ship building, they will travel to new mass sources and replicate more nanites. If they re-evolve the ability to make some kind of propulsion, they may travel to new mass and replicate. Perhaps they make a spore structure that drifts through space until it randomly hits a mass. They could build giant cannons. They could take over existing ships and use them instinctively or follow the stolen ship's programming.
Perhaps they retain a small number of 'tame' nanites pre-differentiated to make engines. These nanites build engines, the other nanites consume. As long as the builders make engines and the consumers retain a breeding population of engine makers, all is good. In this scenario, the tame nanites are like organelles performing a specialized function needed by the rest of the organism.
You might even have stealth nanites that sneak along with nanites that can make engines. Then they out-compete them at the destination. Perhaps these ship nanites then evolve defenses to get rid of these stealth nanites to keep the mass all to themselves.
So there are lots of ways your nanites can get around. But the ones that can't, don't. They eat and stop. If they find a way again, they go. The ones that can, do. They go on.
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## Impact Scenarios
Assuming your nanobots are hardy enough to withstand their own weight as they eat the planet, some would survive an impact event and could end up in space that way. Not purposefully traveling, but destined to land somewhere eventually.
## Generic Survival
Assuming they are NOT hardy enough to withstand the weight of millions of others above them, perhaps they simply react to spread out. I don't know how feasible the math is, but they may baloon out to a vast honeycomb structure or a single spinning thread instead of a solid planet. They would basically be trying to get away from the center of gravity as much as possible, and perhaps the inverse square law would save them. If they manage to do that, the left over rotation from the planet may spin the outer layers off into space. I'm thinking that even if they all formed a strand one nanobot wide stacked up, they'd be thousands of times longer than the planet's original diameter, but the gravity would technically be the same on the "lower" ones. Even at one bot wide, there's still millions of bots stacked up. But a string that long with even a little spin will probably experience enough inertia (centrifugal force) to pull them off into space. Basically, a space elevator, with no planet left to hold them down.
## An actual space elevator
If one of the structures they build when working properly is a space elevator, even just the static non-moving parts, then some nanobots are already in space as the planet changes. Even without the overall mass changing, there's a good chance that the rogue nano-bots may just break down the cable or stop participating in the cable at some point, and everything above that gets flung into space.
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They will have no ability to travel through space unless their creators first transported some into space for the purpose of utilizing their abilities in engineering projects in zero g conditions outside their own planet's gravity well. If that occurred and some went 'rogue' while deployed in the vacuum of space on for example a construction mission its possible low mass structures could be propelled by the pressure of solar radiation and thus escape the bounds of the solar system.
Problem is though the journey would be more or less in random directions (mostly away from the system elliptic and slow with a capital S. It would tens of thousands of years to pass the closest star to their point of origin and chances of actually entering a star system randomly by chance would be astronomically small. So your probably looking at journeys millions of years long.
**Alternate Scenario/frame challenge:** Your robots could actually be good candidates for a **self repairing solar sail**. Low in mass, potentially highly reflective and self repairing provided a suitable supply of raw materials were part of the payload. So perhaps instead they were deliberately launched on an interstellar and after many years, for some reason (radiation damage?) forgot their original mission parameters beyond reaching another system and making more sails.
However while bots that managed to make it and stay in zero g *might* be able to repeat that process any that fell into all but the smallest gravity wells would be destined to fail. Even if the local environment didn't destroy them all they could do is start mass producing sails on the surface. And any sails they made would in turn be doomed to degrade due to local environmental forces. So they'd more than likely to just end up in a closed loop - constantly recycling deceased bots from old sails into new ones. Large parts of the planet might end up nice and shiny though - for a little while.
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If they are in a gravitational gradient, they can do sittups to increase their height: (chapter 2) <https://assets.researchsquare.com/files/rs-451074/v3_covered.pdf?c=1631871991>
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Think Katamari Damacy. You gain power by gaining mass, you use that power to gain more mass, etc. Start small, converting thumbtacks and bouncy balls, and work your way up to planets and stars.
All known means of propulsion in space require ejected matter of some sort. If you're a giant cloud of grey goo, the only matter you have available to you is - grey goo.
If your goal isn't to get the entire cloud into space, but merely a minimum viable reproducing subset of the cloud, you would propel yourself by ejecting large numbers of nanobots in the direction opposite to your intended travel.
The range of travel is limited by the size of the cloud, but if the cloud is able to find matter (asteroids, moons, planets, and yes, maybe even stars), and convert them into more grey goo, it can acquire more mass and thus more nanobots to use as propellent in order to continue travelling.
If a grey goo cloud consumes an asteroid and turns it into grey goo, it has that much more matter (in the form of grey goo) to expel and propel itself to other sources of matter. If it consumes a moon, or a planet, it has even more. By the time it grows enough to consume entire stars, its ability to expand would be practically limitless.
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They could build an orbital ring. 1. Form a very wide thick ring around the planet on the surface.
2. Use the air to begin spinning.
3. Grow tethers to continue using air to spin and if the planet has a magnetic field use electrodynamic tethers.
Centrifugal force will expand the ring and it will get thinner as it's diameter increases.
4. Take a payload of utility fog,spin it around the ring, then release in the direction of the planet your going to.
5. Once they have enough material they can build large solar orbiting mirrors to provide power and thrust to the furthest reaches of space becoming an interstellar and eventually intergalactic grey goo.
6. If they can do all this then I don't think they would be grey goo. This requires intelligence.
Thoughts?
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**They Don't**
The inability to leave the planet is an intentional safety feature. Since the nanomachines son can only form solid structures, the grey goo can only ever eat a single planet, rather than the whole solar system.
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The answer to a [previous question](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/228648/61053) suggested life could have the time to begin and evolve on a planet orbiting a blue star if it was at first a binary pair that merged. The technical term is a blue straggler. How could we show this on a world? Stars nearby being low mass is already on the table. If it could be shown through the evolution of the life on the planet, that's a plus
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Zircons.
First, they need enough astronomical knowledge to predict the lifetimes of stars.
Then, they need to know the age of their planet. When that turns out to thousands of times longer than the predicted lifespan of their star, they'll know something is up. Further astronomical observations revealing the existence of blue stragglers in globular clusters would then give them the resolution to the apparent paradox--their star must have originally been a close binary.
The age of their planet can be independently determined by examining isotope ratios in certain crystals--notably, zircons. These can trap uranium when they form, but exclude lead. Thus, any lead found in them must be the result of uranium decay post-cooling, which provides a reliable clock on billion-year timescales. (As long as your lead readings aren't thrown off by environmental contamination from tetraethyl lead fuel additives, anyway--and if they are, your aliens can just follow the exact same path we did to developing clean rooms and identifying the harmful effects of lead pollution on the way to dating their world).
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An alternative means of having life living under a blue star is that it didn't evolve there, but was transplanted from elsewhere.
The most reliable way of doing this would be to have an interstellar civilisation terraform and colonise a planet. If you want to obscure that, a complete collapse and restart of civilisation can happen in 20,000 or so years, which isn't a significant fraction of the life of a blue dwarf or blue straggler. The lack of fossils and other evidence of evolution would not be conspicuous to this civilisation, since they've never lived anywhere else, but they are likely to notice that life seems to have started fairly suddenly for no obvious reason.
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This does not seem workable. Presumably, we start with a planet, orbiting a star in the red-to-yellow dwarf range, and life starts up naturally?
Then another star collides with the primary, forming a blue star?
The most basic problem is that the blue star is blue because it's much hotter than the original star. So the ecosystem of the planet is likely to die of excessive heat.
It also seems likely that the process of stellar merger will be quite violent, with the merging stars producing flares on a scale not seen in a normal system. That may well sterilise the planet.
Further, if the planet was in a low-eccentricity orbit round the original star, perturbations as the second star enters the system and merges are likely to produce a high-eccentricity orbit, producing large variations in temperature. That's going to wreck the ecosystem even if it survives the other problems.
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Beavers, asides from being the largest rodent in North America and making rather fetching hats, also have iron compounds within their teeth enamel which allows said tooth handle higher amounts of mechanical strength.
It also makes their teeth orange.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/xo9dq.jpg)
Now, if humans had iron within their bones they would become stronger, right?
What I'm wondering is that would introducing iron to our skeleton make our bones stronger? Or is this a bad idea with unforeseen consequences, asides from an expanded appetite.
[Answer]
No.
The Iron compounds in a beaver's teeth are not there to make its teeth stronger, they make the front layer of its teeth *harder*. This means that the beaver can gnaw tough, abrasive material such as wood without its teeth wearing down so fast. Additionally, the differential in hardness between the front and the back of the teeth means that the higher rate of wear at the back of the teeth makes them self-sharpening.
This has little or nothing to do with strength.
Bones wouldn't be made stronger by adding these iron compounds... if anything, it would make the bones more brittle.
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## Probably not
Teeth and bones are different. Their structures are different. Their formation processes are different. They mostly share the same minerals but bones have collagen unlike teeth. Collagen provides the flexible framework of bones and heals bone fractures as well. Dental homeostasis and bone homeostasis are different and affected by different factors. Dental homeostasis depends on the whole oral homeostasis as teeth are exposed to outside world unlike bones.
The iron in beaver teeth makes their teeth both mechanically stronger and more acid-resistant than fluoride-treated enamel.**1** Iron can theoretically strengthen human teeth too. Nevertheless, studying beaver teeth helped us find a way to improve on enamel.**2** It will probably not work for bones though, as bone homeostasis requires optimal iron levels in the system.
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> Iron overload as well as iron deficiency disrupt the delicate balance between bone destruction and production, via influencing osteoclast and osteoblast differentiation as well as activity. Iron overload as well as iron deficiency are accompanied by weakened bones, suggesting that balanced bone homeostasis requires optimal—not too low, not too high—iron levels
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> Balogh E, Paragh G, Jeney V. Influence of Iron on Bone Homeostasis. Pharmaceuticals (Basel). 2018;11(4):107. Published 2018 Oct 18. doi:10.3390/ph11040107
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> <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6316285/>
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## A possibility
It happened in nature. *Chrysomallon squamiferum*, commonly known as the scaly-foot gastropod, is the only known animal that has iron in its skeleton. Iron sulfites are found on dermal sclerites on its foot and in its shell.**3** Again, their skeletal system is different than ours and exposed to outside world. They live in deep-sea hydrothermal vent ecosystems in the Indian Ocean.
However, studying snail's iron armor could help scientists and engineers design bioinspired materials and structures in many different fields. Each of the layers of its shell contributes differently to the armor's effectiveness. Their shell provides both mechanical and thermal protection.
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> In addition to the mechanical advantages, the OL and ML were experimentally determined to resist low pH dissolution, and the ML was also predicted to be beneficial for protection against brief thermal impulses (*[SI Text](https://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/2010/01/11/0912988107.DCSupplemental/pnas.0912988107_SI.pdf#nameddest=STXT)*). Hence, the shell of *C. squamiferum* is a multifunctional design providing protection against numerous environmental threats found in the deep-sea hydrothermal vent environment to maximize survivability.
>
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> [](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ntU7d.jpg)
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> Yao H, Dao M, Imholt T, et al. Protection mechanisms of the iron-plated armor of a deep-sea hydrothermal vent gastropod. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2010;107(3):987-992. doi:10.1073/pnas.0912988107
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> <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2808221/>
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**1** Beaver Teeth Have Iron Advantage
Author: Christopher Intagliata
Publication: Scientific American
Publisher: SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, a Division of Springer Nature America, Inc.
Date: Feb 23, 2015
Copyright © 2015, Scientific American, Inc. <https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/beaver-teeth-have-iron-advantage/>
**2** <https://source.wustl.edu/2015/02/making-teeth-tough-beavers-show-way-to-improve-our-enamel/>
**3** Chong Chen, Katrin Linse, Jonathan T. Copley, Alex D. Rogers, The ‘scaly-foot gastropod’: a new genus and species of hydrothermal vent-endemic gastropod (Neomphalina: Peltospiridae) from the Indian Ocean, Journal of Molluscan Studies, Volume 81, Issue 3, August 2015, Pages 322–334, <https://doi.org/10.1093/mollus/eyv013>
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**Additional details**
In my answer, I used to terms "stronger" and "strengthen" when talking about teeth/enamel. I said: "The iron in beaver teeth makes their teeth both mechanically stronger and more acid-resistant than fluoride-treated enamel. Iron can theoretically strengthen human teeth too". I stand by this statement.
*Strength* and *Hardness* can have different definitions in physics. However, it wouldn't be wrong to say teeth or enamel gets stronger. Enamel is part of the teeth. When enamel gets harder it makes teeth stronger against mechanical stress and and makes them more resistant to acid. "Strong teeth", "strong enamel", "strong gums" are used in dental context even it can have details in biology, chemistry and physics.
Whether "strong" or "strength" is used as an all-encompassing term to make it easier to understand, it has accuracy in physics/chemistry as well.
The difference of strength and hardness in summary:
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> Strength measures how much stress can be applied to an element before it deforms permanently or fractures. Hardness measures a material's resistance to surface deformation.
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> https://www.fictiv.com/articles/engineering-fundamentals-refresh-strength-vs-stiffness-vs-hardness
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[Enamel fractions](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enamel_fracture) can happen too beside enamel erosion. Enamel can have both strength and hardness. Beaver teeth are strong/resistant against both fractions and erosion.
There is even a scientific article that talks about "enamel strength" and the term "strength" is used by a materials chemist. Here are the relevant quotes from the article:
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> **Enamel’s strength** comes from how the hydroxyapatite is arranged, which scientists think reduces the risk of having a catastrophic crack propagate through enamel, Joester says.
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> In the inner enamel, the rods are organized in decussated layers, meaning the rods in each layer are at a different angle relative to the ones above and below, somewhat like the arrangement of wood fibers in plywood layers—but at alternating specific angles. This decussation **makes the enamel stronger**, Joester says, just as it does in plywood.
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> Brushing with fluoride toothpaste can **strengthen your teeth** after ion loss and protect your teeth against further decay.
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> Chemical & Engineering News
> ISSN 0009-2347
> Copyright © 2022 American Chemical Society
> <https://cen.acs.org/materials/biomaterials/dental-enamel-does-protect-teeth/98/i41>
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And surprise! Human enamel has iron in it too but it is very low compared to beaver teeth. Here is a comparison between human and beaver tooth enamel and the term "stronger" is used here also:
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> After the comparative evaluation of human and beaver tooth enamel, the following data were obtained. The chemical composition of beaver enamel has an increased content of magnesium, sodium, potassium, and silicium and a decreased content of sulfur and chlorine. The beaver enamel microhardness is 1.53 times higher than that of humans. **These figures indicate that beaver tooth enamel is functionally stronger** [49]. That is how the extremely rare carious teeth in these animals can be explained. It also proves that fluorine is only needed in childhood as in the newborn beavers’ teeth (it is known that they are born with teeth), the F content is 10 times higher than in humans, and in adult beavers’ teeth, despite the absence of caries, only traces of fluoride are found [41].
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> Kunin AA, Evdokimova AY, Moiseeva NS. Age-related differences of tooth enamel morphochemistry in health and dental caries. EPMA J. 2015;6(1):3. Published 2015 Jan 29. doi:10.1186/s13167-014-0025-8
> <https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3857315/>
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[Question]
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It seems like two potential motivations behind human ancestors' evolution of intelligence were their complex social groups and behaviors, and hunting behavior requiring more strategic thinking in carnivorous. How could human-like intelligence evolve in a species that is herbivorous (or omnivorous leaning mostly to herbivorous)? How could human-like intelligence evolve in a solitary species, and would their social behaviors change during that process of evolution?
[Answer]
**Smart Enough to not be Eaten.**
The SmartyPantsSaurus evolved on a planet with humans. Humans are very intelligent and can coordinate to hunt things much bigger and stronger than them, like Bison and Wooly Mammoths.
The SmartyPantsSaurus is big and strong because it eats grass, which grows in abundance. Unlike the Wooly Mammoth it has an extra trick up its sleeve -- to outwit the hunters it evolved to be as smart as them.
Human-like intelligence in a large body is a good tradeoff, because to make something smart as a human you just have to add an extra 2lbs of brain matter, rather than say doubling the existing brain size. So for example a guinea pig with human smarts cannot eat enough to power its brain. But a blue whale just has to eat 10% more. Or eat the same amount but have 89% the bodymass.
[Answer]
**Agriculture**
It's a stretch, but solitary herbivores could develop progressively more complex grazing strategies that eventually evolve into something resembling farming. They develop a human-like intelligence because they are pressured to understand complex concepts like irrigation, crop rotation, planning harvests to avoid famine, etc.
The trick here is that social transmission of knowledge (i.e. culture) is a huge part of human intelligence. Even if they evolve human-level intelligence, if they remain solitary then their intelligence would never be human-like, and an intelligence that evolved specifically to solve tricky puzzles would be deeply alien to us. One way to develop social behaviour would be that as they grow smarter, their grazing grounds can be larger - eventually, they overlap. Then the animals start to learn cooperation, initially without communication or contact. They see what the other guy is doing, and figure out what they can do with it for mutual benefit. They would evolve to behave very predictively and communicate very little. They would, compared to humans, be better at reverse engineering (how did they get their wheat to grow in rows like this?) and worse at learning by watching and imitation.
It should go without saying that there is not evidence that this has happened, so there is probably a good reason why it doesn't work like that. But it's narratively workable.
[Answer]
## How smart are your plants ?
**Suppose you have a mix of toxic and non-toxic plants with all kinds of fancy colors**
Antisocial, non-communicating herbivores *could* develop talent for analytical intelligence, that is connecting rationally what is received with the senses. For instance, being able to interpret plant colors as toxic or non-toxic is regarded "intelligent" behaviour for animals. If the differences would be very subtle, or *color patterns* would be involved (intelligent plant life ?) or origami leaves, or complex nut shells, the herbivore would have an incentive to develop the the brain for it. These skills could even enable the creature to pass a human IQ test with similar riddles, involving color, patterns or folding.
Your animal (?) getting used to observe plants very closely, could gain more insights about plant life, become aware of the seasonal rhythm of plants and develop tool production, *smart* agriculture etc
but..
**Suppose you always have summer and the grass is always green**
There is abundance, everything is safe to eat. Your isolated herbivores will condition themselves to graze, which does not require any intelligence. You just graze and look at the grass. When solitary, such a creature could derive some intelligence from becoming a prey animal (see Daron), but it has little stimuli in life. The brains do *not need* to train for analytical intelligence.
[Answer]
Really short answer: Orangutans. They are [solitary but social](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orangutan#Social_life), mature slowely and spend years with their mothers and siblings learning to use tools and build nests. But they do not really live in groups and they eat mostly fruit and leaves.
Yet they are among the smartest of apes.
[Answer]
Probably not
An herbivore could possibly for intelligence. Given ideal conditions and plenty of time to develop, an herbivore could overcome the advantages humans had in being omnivore. As they develop better food gathering practices, they can develop higher level of intelligence. However, this may be difficult with climate change. Animals focusing on narrow food options (strictly herbivores or carnivores) tend to suffer more than opportunistic eaters (such as omnivores) when weather conditions change.
Non-social creatures, not so much. Social creature share the burden of survival. They can share resources, provide protection to one another, give warning of danger and more importantly, share knowledge and experience. Herds of elephants rely on their elders to find the local watering holes, best places to eat and locations of danger. A solo lion male has to reinvent the wheel on its own.
Without a social structure, knowledge is not shared and passed on to the next generation and thus nothing would be improved upon and advancements tend to get lost.
Plus mating is more based on luck of the draw and has less to do with selecting the best in a large group of potential mates.
To sum it all up, vast majority of species roaming around the world we consider intelligent are omnivores (with few exceptions, elephants are herbivores and dolphins are carnivores) and almost all (I could be wrong, but I think its actually all) are social.
[Answer]
Dumb predators, accidental intelligence.
Humans are **not** natural predators. We have no claws, we have no fangs, we have very little strength compared to other predators our size, we don't have super eyesight like an eagle, we don't have super noses like a dog, we don't have any venom like a snake or spider, we don't have super hearing like many predators. We are pathetic.
Although social interaction may have created some evolutionary pressure for intelligence, we developed hunting strategies **after** we became intelligent, they did not **drive** our intelligence. We had to be intelligent **first** to invent weapons, a naked animalistic human without any weapons is going to get killed even trying to tackle a wolf. And kill it, how? Trying to choke it while it rips my throat out?
Even with evolutionary pressures, intelligence is still just rare but crucial accidental mutations. There is a good plausible reason there are no other technological species, including amongst the thousands of other social species: The mutations required for intelligence are so unlikely that they occur once in a billion species.
There is no compelling reason those same mutations could not have developed in a herbivore, making them more clever than their predators.
The one mutation that seems to drive intelligence, that humans have and no other animal seems to have, including other apes, is unlimited foresight and hindsight.
This has nothing to do with hands or opposable thumbs, and not much to do with being social (so are hundreds of other species including most forms of ape), or with being hunters (many social species are foragers, not hunters).
What we can do that other animals cannot do is relate causes and effects across large stretches of time. Most animals can't manage days, we can follow cause and effect over centuries. Not only in the sense of past events causing current events (hindsight), but in the sense of successfully planning for the future (foresight).
The first farmers were, in fact, hunter gatherers, and they noticed that where they had spat or crapped seeds of melons and plants they had eaten, the same plants grew again, a year later. We have evidence that hunter gatherers on year long migration circuits intentionally carried and planted seeds along their circuit to feed themselves in the next year. (They also planted inedible flowers far from their natural origin; nobody knows why; maybe they just liked the way they looked.)
They were farmers without farms. Herders without pens, they just led goats with them and let them feed, perhaps for milk or meat when the time came.
My point is, that accidental mutation that allows unlimited cause and effect could occur in any brained animal, including a non-social herbivore.
So imagine what they would do with that intelligence. Protect themselves from predators, to start. Perhaps even intentionally trap and kill predators, luring them into pit traps.
Perhaps they *become* limited social animals, cooperating for intelligent purposes, like farming and storing food for the winter. Even non-social herbivores have to mate and raise young, there would be evolutionary pressure to use their intelligence to ensure both happen successfully.
Perhaps they master fire.
We did not start out as either carnivores or intelligent. We suck at both, naked in the wild without intelligence.
Just like your herbivores.
My advice is to stop thinking of Intelligence as something that is the result of evolutionary pressures; it is not.
Think of it as a rare combination of mutations that happens entirely by chance to some animal, **any** animal, and then evolutionary pressures act on it and shape it.
So first pick your animal that wins this lottery (as we did), and **then** project the rational future of that animal once it has more intelligence than any other animal.
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In a high jump sport on land, athletes would adopt Fosbury flop technique to cross over a bar. This bar is the indicator of how high an individual can jump with reference to the ground, so I wonder could a mermaid adopt this technique to leap over the "dragon gate", the legendary height barrier for a merfolk which is exactly 4x it's body length? Current world record is 3.87x body length by a merfolk named Rosbury. I believed that it is much trickier for a mermaid because they have to turn their body more to avoid their dorsal fin from ruining the record.
[Answer]
For humans, equipped with two legs, the Fosbury technique is advantageous because it allows to push the center of mass high up by raising the knee of the non pushing leg during the jump, and then rotating around it by recalling the pushing leg while directing the head/upper torso down: during the high jump the CoM actually doesn't go above the barrier, thanks to the arc of the body.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/n1NBK.png)
Also the once in fashion barrel roll technique use the elevation of the passive leg to raise the CoM, though it then moves the CoM above the barrier
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/W56wJ.png)
For a mermaid, equipped with a single tail, that's going to prove more difficult or impossible: the tail must be in the water until the very last moment to ensure propulsion, and there will be less help in raising the CoM by just raising the arms.
Also, the need to provide also the horizontal thrust with the tail limits the amount of energy directed against the gravity, while in the Fosbury one can use the last moment rotation to move horizontally past the barrier.
[Answer]
**Fosbury Bellyflop.**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/itwEf.jpg)
Mermaids jump over the bar making a C shape of their body, and rotating as they pass over the bar so their hands and tail remain below the bar and their belly passes over it. Mermaids like [dolphins have no trouble rotating midair.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52dtE2kQzpY)
In fact Mermaids are better at flopping than humans. The reason Humans flop on their back is because knees bend backwards and not forwards.
It is easier for a human to make the C shape with the hands and knees below the bar (see the images provided by L.Dutch) and the back facing the bar. This puts the mass of the legs and arms below the centre of gravity when facing upwards. If our knees bent the other way we would flop facing downwards.
Since mermaid tails bend upwards as easily as downwards, they prefer to flop on their bellies. (Arms are flexible enough to work either way.) This avoids the dorsal fin hitting the bar.
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In the world I'm creating, I have merfolk who have human-level intelligence, live in pods/tribes of 10-50 (but are connected to each other and trade and exchange information frequently). Most worship a goddess of the sea who created them, and some have magic (mostly power over tides and currents).
They would all use the same calendar, which needs several seasons, a few months, and maybe even a zodiac system. Time would be tracked based on the movements of ocean currents or something similar, or even an internal clock. They wouldn't look at the sky or go above the surface to keep track of time, though most live at a depth where they could see the sun filtering through the water, and therefore sunset.
I read a bit about seasons in the oceans, but I'm unsure how I would turn that into individual months. I have no idea how I would do underwater zodiacs, but I like the idea and would prefer to keep it if possible.
[Answer]
### What a Calendar Does
First thing's first: calendars were originally made to measure time and therefore predict the cyclical nature of events in time. Most Earth calendars measure months (cyclic Moon phases) and seasons within the year; and they are used to predict important agricultural events like planting and harvesting.
A perusal of an almanac is instructive at this point!
### What a Calendar Might Do
In order to apply this to your merfolk, we need to analyse the data you've given.
Merpeople themselves are intelligent and have religion, magic & trade. A calendar might be useful in determining festivals and fairs. So far so good.
Merpeople are aware of several natural phenomena: day/night, tides & currents, and storms, particularly hurricanes.
Merpeople are not aware of stars and lunar phases, though they may be aware of "really bright nights" when the full Moon is overhead and "really dark nights" when this crescents or the new Moon is overhead. They don't go to the surface, so don't observe these things.
### Is a Calendar Practical?
Given what we know of your particular merfolk, I think it is safe to say that there are not a lot of assuredly & predictably cyclical events that they can observe.
Earth has four tides a day, making them useless for a calendar but if they had clocks, an almanac might be more useful. Hurricanes are seasonal, but not predictable in either place or time. A calendar might be useful to set polar points around the "height of hurricane season" and its nadir. In some regions, monsoons are more predictable, so calendars there might reflect monsoon variations. [Storm avoidance](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSls_HclJ3E) is apparently very important for marine life, merfolk included, and being able to predict the large seasonal storms with some accuracy would be a good use for a calendar.
Day/night length cycles would be known to merfolk, so their calendar might reflect seasons of longer days and seasons of shorter days.
Moon phases, motions of stars and planets, terrestrial seasons would largely be unknowns to them and thus they'd have no zodiac, no Moon phases or any astronomical stuff in their calendar.
### What Does it Amount to?
So I think your merfolk could have a calendar, but I think it would be rather different than a human calendar in the same region.
I think it would likely incorporate the Day/Night as a basic measure of time, and I think its principle focus would be seasonal storm tracking and thus something like a "year" might evolve as a secondary measure of time.
Months, fortnights, weeks and astronomical seasons I think would not be on their calendar. Longer cycles like cometary years and planetary cycles would be of no importance at all.
[Answer]
The zodiac makes sense only if they look at the sky with systematic observation,and you say they don't look at the sky.
The closest periodic phenomena I can think of which can be perceived underwater is the tidal flow, if their planet has a significant moon: it changes with the relative position of sun and moon, paired with the duration of the day and the night light cast by the moon it would make a decent basis for a periodicity.
[Answer]
So, one earth we have two high tides with low tides in between roughly every day. They track with the moon, so as the moon goes through its phases it affects the tides. Thus the tides are only roughly twice a day, but precess once a lunar month, adding or removing a tide cycle depending on the moon in your world.
Multiple moons would have multiple surges each tracking one moon. The sun also affects the tides but little enough that they only strengthen the tides at new and full moons and weaken them at first the last quarter.
Throughout the year, the obvious affect is that the polar caps freeze more in the winter. The north pole freezes around December and the south pole freezes around June.
Then there are El Niño/La Niña cycles at the equator, alternating between El Niño and La Niña every six months. However, climate conditions change the intensity of these and whether they happen at all.
Winds have an impact on water currents. The tilting of the planet's axis affects the latitude of the persistent winds throughout the year.
Seasons might affect growth of algae and other sea plants.
Melting snow affects the volume of river water at certain times of year (Spring). This can affect the mix of estuaries.
[Answer]
The sun is still the source of energy of all life. I realize could probably make a case for and a feisty debate among xenologists/zoologists if life in deep ocean thermal vents could exist in a vacuum absent any sunlight in the biosphere at all, that aside.
Taking into account, and I'm assuming, the merfolk are the classical type, or near to it, humanoid. I see no reason they would completely ignore the sun or moon. As you said they spend much of their time in the top 200m of the ocean. Within that depth I could easily see them constructing stone... coral(?) calendars or observatories in the vein of Stonehenge or that could track the course of the sun overhead indicating seasons.
They don't need to see the sun set or sun rise. There is no reason the day cant be marked along its course from its zenith. They just need to modify their construction to "think" in a vertical plane which Id imagine they would anyway.
[Answer]
# Different arrangement of moons
This is feasible if your planet has a different arrangement of moons than the Earth. On earth, the strength of the tides varies monthly. When the moon is in line with the sun, tides are strongest ("spring tides"), and when it is at right angle to the sun-earth line, the tides are smaller ("neap tides"). This is probably already detectable to sensitive aquatic creatures and gives you a natural "month".
If the moon's orbit were highly elliptical, you would also introduce a small annual modulation to the tidal strength, as the major axis of the moon's orbit is parallel or at right-angles to the earth-sun line. Multiple moons with different orbital periods and resonances could give even longer cycles.
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Imagine that a ordinary human being was suddenly teleported to a distance 10AU from the center of the Milky Way. What would happen to them (in terms of things like pressure, temperature, radiation, stellar activity, etc.)?
I'm asking because I want to design a space station for my universe at that distance and need help understanding what the universe is like that close to the nucleus before I do.
[Answer]
While Sgr A\* is not currently an active galactic nucleus, it is believed to have an accretion disk accompanied by a larger reservoir of gas surrounding it, with the latter extending well beyond a radius of 10 AU. We know from Chandra x-ray data that there is $\sim10^7$ Kelvin gas extending to $\sim10^5R\_S$ (or $\sim8000$ AU, with $R\_S$ the Schwarzschild radius$^{\dagger}$). More recent observations with the Atacama Large Millimeter Array ([Murchikova et al. 2017](https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.08289) have found a cooler disk of $\sim10^4$ Kelvin gas extending to $2\times10^5R\_S$ - still easily encompassing your poor human.
The ALMA measurements yield a number density of $n\approx10^{6}$ cm$^{-3}$, or a mass density, assuming a primarily hydrogen disk, of $\rho\sim10^{-18}$ kg cm$^{-3}$. If we were to naively apply the ideal gas law, this results in a pressure of $P\approx10^{-7}$ Pascals. In short, you've got gas that is - by human standards - extremely hot and extremely diffuse. Given that 10 AU is close to the very center of this cool disk, I would expect the temperature to actually be significantly hotter - so perhaps closer to that $\sim10^7$ K gas from the x-ray observations.
This is maybe 5 orders of magnitude denser than the interplanetary medium and 3-4 orders of magnitude hotter (depending on how hot you think this part of the disk will be). The x-ray emission, of course, would likely be catastrophic - that's what going to kill you and whatever spacecraft you're on, rather than the ambient gas.
Some general relativistic effects would likely be measurable but not easily noticeable. Things like time dilation and redshift scale with distance $r$ by a multiplicative factor of
$$\sqrt{1-\frac{R\_S}{r}}\approx1-\frac{1}{2}\frac{R\_S}{r}$$
and the second term comes out to about 0.4% at 10 AU - certainly not catastrophic, but not invisible, so to speak.
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$^{\dagger}$The Schwarzschild radius is
$$R\_S=\frac{2GM}{c^2}$$
and comes out to $1.18\times10^{10}$ meters assuming a black hole mass of $M\sim4\times10^6M\_{\odot}$.
[Answer]
**Only 24g, and don't worry about temperature or radiation**
Gravity is proportional to the square of distance.
At 10 AU, gravity will be 100 times smaller than normal gravity from the sun.
Studies have estimated the super-heavy black hole in the milky way center has a mass of 3.7 million or 4.1 million solar masses. As a result, you'll get 4e6/100 = 40,000 times *Solar* gravity at the point where you teleport your person.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_Center>
On Earth, at the distance we orbit the sun, the gravitational pull of the sun is only 0.0006 of the strength of the earth's gravity on the surface of the earth. So when teleported at 10 AU from the galaxy center we'd experience 0.0006 x 40,000 is a force of 24g. In free fall, you won't notice..
<https://van.physics.illinois.edu/qa/listing.php?id=184>
Temperature and radiation may be a much bigger issue.. near a black hole, you'll have 10 million degrees.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/leT7r.png)
However, at 10Au you'll be far away from the Schwartzshield radius of the black hole:
*"Located 26,000 light-years from the Sun, our galaxy’s central black hole, Sagittarius A(star), has a radius about 17 times that of the Sun, meaning that it would sit well within Mercury’s orbit."*
<https://astronomy.com/news/2020/04/how-much-space-does-a-black-hole-take-up>
.. a distance of 10AU, far away from the Schwartzshield radius, will reduce the heat considerably.
Other potential issues, e.g. the Hawking radiation emitted,
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/bXTtP.png)
This Hawking radiation is very low energy
*An evaporating black hole would be detectable from Earth only if it went off within the solar system, or at best no further away than the nearest star.*
[https://jila.colorado.edu/~ajsh/bh/hawk.html](https://jila.colorado.edu/%7Eajsh/bh/hawk.html)
Further reading..
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole_thermodynamics>
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[I thought I had it.](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/212684/habitability-zone-around-a-supermassive-black-hole)
I thought I had finally found the solar system with enough light to produce hundreds if not thousands of Earths. I thought that a black hole 12 billion times more massive than our sun with an accretion disk 439 trillion times brighter would be the perfect place to create a million Earths without concern of tidal locking.
Indeed, the habitable zone from such a system would start at 316 light years from the black hole and end at 455 light-years. Do the math, and that would result in a habitable zone measuring in at 139 light-years. Compare that to our solar system, which spans only 30 astronomical units, or 0.00047302 light years.
I thought I had finally found a suitable habitable zone that's big enough and with no time limit (unlike those giant or hypergiant stars.) But orbiting a black hole with a hyper-bright accretion disk has its own monkey wrench--***x-rays***. It turns out that they can't be deflected by either an electric or a magnetic field, making life on any of those habitable-zone planets impossible.
**So without barring life from forming, what would protect an Earth-sized habitable zone planet from a black hole's x-ray bombardment?**
[Answer]
**The disk itself can shade you**
Consider a luminous disk with an additional point light source in the center. If you are above or below the plane of the disk, it is very bright from both disk and point source.
But in the plane of the disc you receive only radiation from the edge. The rest of the disc is interposed between you and light emitting materials farther in.
If the planet is in the shadow of the accretion disc (and perhaps associated dusty torus) and orbiting in the same plane as the disc, radiation coming from the innermost and hottest parts of the disc and the corona of the black hole will be absorbed and scattered by interposed disc materials. Some radiation will make it through to the edge of the disk and some will energize materials within the disk to themselves emit energy but total energy will be much less than an object orbiting (or observing) from above or below the plane of the accretion disc.
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from comments -
I found a fine youtube video where they look at a flat LED bulb - it is a circle rather than a sphere. The bulb produces a dark band corresponding with its edge, where relatively less light is emitted as compared to areas illuminated by the full disk of the flat bulb.
[Philips Slim Style LED Light Bulb Review and Teardown: Race to the Bottom](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDp3fVN_hZI)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/idrJd.jpg)
The dark band is more evident in the video than in this screenshot., It is a predictable problem with a light source that is flat. The edge gives off relatively less light. So too the accretion disk.
[Answer]
As a comment.
There are different <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accretion_disk> 's including those which are thermal, similar to a star (as I understood) soo maybe handwave if it is backdrop/just a premise for the stuff to be. The shape of the thing may be a bigger deal and a disk is not necessarily a great case.
Radiation by itself is not necessarily a life stopper, water is good enough to block the stuff, and it is most likely the place for one to form, and then there are plenty of subsurface bacterias and from there enough roads to multicellular options. How far it can go, in terms of complexity - it depends. May it reach intelligent enough creatures(at least [ants](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/46716/20315) or [molds](https://www.wired.com/2010/01/slime-mold-grows-network-just-like-tokyo-rail-system/)) - it depends.
It took about 500 million years to evolve photosynthesis, so before that, they used resources in a not renewable way and for that life can start deep enough, if conditions are right, and x-rays are a nonissue. The spectrum in for some accretion disk was like 3-15 keV x-rays, not sure but would not call it that harsh, it's definitely not MeV's which makes secondary stuff and all is quite complex. Those low keV x-rays will be absorbed in straightforward ways. And if it is enough of those may be your future life will use it.
But another moment, let's assume 100% x-rays, intensity like the sun 1.3kW/m2, of those keV ones. For water [attenuation coefficient](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attenuation_coefficient) is order of 0.1/m. To decrease this flow by a factor of 130'000'000×3600 it requires the depth of that water to be about 2.7m(surprise surprise - water is sooo goood). And if my voodoo isn't that much wrong, it corresponds to 0.1 mkSv/h, more or less what we have on earth.
Soo, not necessarily such a big problem, but not sure about the numbers, needs to check it out. With more energetic x-rays, like cosmic ones we have here, you add 10-15m on top of that. So sea life can exist.
X-rays can be used for photosynthetic activity, or if intensities like next to fuel rods of reactors can be part/driver of abiogenetic restoring of consumed chemicals, by splitting end products of that life, which does not exclude x-photosynthetic process deeper down (few meters deeper).
So, not conclusive, but it looks like x-rays are overestimated.
[Answer]
This answer is not as much an answer as it is several questions you should consider and, I hope, answer.
Part One: The Radiation Problem.
As I remember, Earth's atmosphere stops most X-rays and gamma rays from reaching the surface. That is why X-ray and gamma ray telescopes are in satellites and space probes above the atmosphere.
MolbOrg's answer claims that water blocks X-rays. He calculated about 2.7 meters of water would be necessary, or about 10 to 15 meters more for hard X-rays.
Any habitable planet will have water vapor in the atmosphere. Water vapor is much less dense than liquid water. But the water vapor in the atmosphere extends much higher than the deeps of water needed to block X-rays. If water is only 1,000 times as dense as atmosphereic water vapor, 2.7 kilometers of atmosphere would equal the protective effect of 2.7 meters of water, and 12.7 to 17.7 kilometers of atmosphere would equal the protective effect of 12.7 to 17.7 meters of water.
Of course atmosphereic density, and thus the density of atmospheric water vapor, falls off rapidly with increased height.
Possibly high flying birds and high floating bacteria would be killed on your worlds, and possibly regions with dry air, like deserts, would be more dangerous than the rest of the planetary surface.
And possibly there are other common gases, ices, and forms of dust which could exist in the atmosphere in concentrations high enough to block x rays and yet small enough not to poison life.
What about ultraviolet rays? Earth's atmosphere greatly reduces the amount of ultraviolet radiation which reaches the ground. It is claimed that if a relatively nearby gamma ray burst hit Earth the gamma rays would break up the ozone in the ozone layer, and so much ultraviolet light would reach the surface that life above the surface of the ground and the surface of water would die. So I wonder what the intensity of gamma ray radiation would be in the habitable zone of your black hole.
So I don't know whether a planet with an Earth-like nitrogen, oxygen, etc. atmosphere would be totally safe for life or totally dead and lifeless due to the intense ultraviolet, X-ray, and gamma ray radiation. You may need to do a lot more research.
Part two: The Absolute and Relative Dimensions of a Habitable Zone.
You may need to do some research to calculate how many planetary orbits can fit within the circum black hole habitable zone of your super giant black hole.
I notice that the outer limit of your habitable zone is about is about 1.439 times as far as the inner limit. It is simple to calculate the relative size of the habitable zone of an object from the ratio between its luminosity compared to the Sun's.
As this list of estimates of the inner and outer edges of the habitable zone of the Sun shows, there is considerable uncertainty about its dimensions, and thus considerable uncertainty in calculating the habitable zones of other luminous astronomical bodies.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumstellar_habitable_zone#Solar_System_estimates>
Part Three: The Possible Number of Planetary Orbits.
As I remember, each planet has a forbidden region around its orbit in which no other planet can have a long term stable orbit.
The width of the forbidden region is calculated from the masses of the primary and the planet, and the distance between the primary and the planetary orbit.
I believe that the more massive the primary is and the stronger its gavity is at the distance of the planet, the smaller will be the planet's forbidden region.
Your black hole is 12 billion times as massive as the Sun, so that would work to make the forbidden zones around planetary orbits much smaller.
Your habitable zone extends from 316 light years to 455 light years from the black hole. There are over sixty three thousand astronomical units (AU) in a single light year - about 63,239.2493 in fact. So 316 light years is about 19,984,180 AU, and 455 lightyears is about 28,774,690 AU, according to this converter.
<https://www.calculateme.com/astronomy/light-years/to-astronomical-units/>
I believe that the effect of gravity falls off with the square of the distance. Since your distances are tens of millions times one AU, their squares should be equal to hundreds of trillions. Therefore, the gravity of an object at 316 light years or 19,984,180 AU is only about 2.5039596 times ten to the minus 15 power as intense as at a distance of 1 AU, and the gravity of an object at 455 light years or 28,774,690 AU will be only about 1.20077545 times 10 to the minus 15 power as intense as at 1 AU.
If the black hole is 12 billion times as massive as the sun it would be 12,000,000,000, or 1.2 times ten to the 9th power times as massive as the sun. So its gravitational influence on planets in its habitable zone should be about 1 millionth as strong as the gravity of the Sun at 1 AU, and the forbidden regions of the planets should be much larger.
So I think that you probably need to to make the black hole many times more massive, or the accretion disc many times less luminous, or both, to produce a system where the forbidden regions of planets will be smuch smaller and many more habitable planets can fit within the habitable zone.
If the black hole is X times as massive as the Sun, and the accretion disc is X times as bright as the Sun, the gravity and the radiation at a distance of the square root of X AU should equal the solar gravity and solar radiation at a distance of 1 AU.
So I think that you need to make the ratio of the black hole's mass to the Sun's mass higher than the ratio of the accretion discs's luminosity to the Sun's luminosity to fit more planetary orbits into the accretion discs habitable zone.
The requirements for a planet to be habitable for humans (and thus also for multi celled land dwelling oxygen breathing animals in general) are discussed in *Habitable Planets for Man*, Stephen H. Dole, 1964.
<https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/commercial_books/2007/RAND_CB179-1.pdf>
On pages 49 to 52 he discusses the spacing of planets in the solar system and their forbidden regions. Dole cites as a source a paper (Dole, 1961). According to the bibliography, that is Dole, S. H. "Limits for Stable Near-circular Planetary or Satellite orbits in the Restricted Three-body Problem", *ARS J.*, 31, No. 2 (February, 1961), pp. 214-219. Apparently is the *American Rocket Society Journal*, which may help you find the formula Dole used.
Part Four: Exoplanet Examples of Planetary spacing.
Discovered systems of two or more exoplanets orbiitng a star have vast differences in the relative and absolute spacing of the discovered planets. Of course those systems could have as yet undiscovered planets which would change what we know about the planetary spacing.
And i don't know how well the known examples of planetary spacing agree with Dole's formula for calculating planetary forbidden regions.
Some very small stars happen to have a number of planets in orbits very close to the star and thus to each other.
Kepler-42 has three planets whose orbits have semi-major axes of 0.006, 0.0116, and 0.0154 Au. The differences are 0.0056 AU and 0.004 AU. if a habitable zone was 1 AU wide, it could have 178.5 planetary orbits separated by 0.0056 AU each, or 250 planetary orbits separated by 0.004 AU each. The ratios between orbits are 1.9333 and 1.327 respectively.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler-42>
Kepler-70 was reported to have two planets with orbits of 0.0060 and 0.0076 AU. The difference between orbits would be 0.0016 AU, and the ratio would be 1.2666. A habitable zone one AU wide would have room for 625 planetary orbits spaced at 0.0016 AU.
And a third planet was suspected to orbit between them.
Unfortunately:
>
> If these planets exist, then the orbits of Kepler-70b and Kepler-70c have 7:10 orbital resonance and have the closest approach between planets of any known planetary system. However, later research[5](https://planetplanet.net/2017/05/01/the-ultimate-retrograde-solar-system/) suggested that what had been detected was not in fact the reflection of light from exoplanets, but star pulsation "visible beyond the cut-off frequency of the star." Further research[6](https://planetplanet.net/2017/05/03/the-ultimate-engineered-solar-system/) indicated that star pulsation modes were indeed the more likely explanation for the signals found in 2011, and that the two exoplanets probably did not exist.
>
>
>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler-70>
TRAPPIST-1 is a very dim star with 7 planets orbiting very close to it, and thus to each other. Three, *e*, *f*, and *g*, are considered to be in the habitable zone, and up to 6 could be in the optimistic habitable zone.
>
> The orbits of the TRAPPIST-1 planetary system are very flat and compact. All seven of TRAPPIST-1's planets orbit much closer than Mercury orbits the Sun. Except for b, they orbit farther than the Galilean satellites do around Jupiter,[44] but closer than most of the other moons of Jupiter. The distance between the orbits of b and c is only 1.6 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon. The planets should appear prominently in each other's skies, in some cases appearing several times larger than the Moon appears from Earth.[43] A year on the closest planet passes in only 1.5 Earth days, while the seventh planet's year passes in only 18.8 days.[41][37]
>
>
>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRAPPIST-1#Planetary_system>
The semi-major axes of the orbits of *e*, *f*, and *g* are 0.02925, 0.03849, and 0.04683 Au respectively. The differences are 0.00924 and 0.00834 AU, and the ratios are 1.315 and 1.216. A habitable zone one AU wide could have 108.2 planetary orbits 0.00924 AU apart and 119.9 planetary orbits 0.00834 AU apart.
So the habitable zone around a normal sized star could have room for hundreds of planetary orbits spaced as closely as the smallest known absolute spacing of planetary orbits.
And if there was a lower limit of 0.05 AU in separation of planetary orbits, which is actualy larger than some of the examples I just gave. there would be room for 1,000,000 planetary orbits in a habitable zone 50,000 AU wide, which would be less than one light year.
With a lower limit of 0.005 AU for orbital separation, there would be room for 10,000,000 planetary orbits in a habitable zone 50,000 AU wide, which would be less than one light year.
But if the ratio between orbits is the determining factore instead of the absolute distance, then planets would have to be spaced more widely, going by the known examples.
Part Five: A suggested Change.
I suspect that you consider making your black hole only one billion (1,000,000,000) times as massive as the Sun, and the accretion disc only one million (1,000,000) times as luminous as the Sun. A planet orbiting at a distance of 1,000 AU (1,000 is the square root of 1,000,000) willreceive as much radiation from the accretin disc as Earth gets at a distance of 1 AU from the Sun. The gravity of the black hole at a distance of 1,000 AU will be 1,000,000,000 times that of the Sun divided by 1,000,000 (the square of 1,000), or 1,000 times as strong as the Sun's gravity at a distance of 1 AU. If my calculations are correct.
And I think that will make the forbidden regions of the planets in the habitable zone much smaller in absolute distance and in relative ratios than in our solar system, so many more planetary orbits should be able to fit in the habitable zone.
And of course you could use different masses of the black hole and different luminosities of the accretion disc.
Part Six: Another Suggestion.
You are not the first person to ever try to design a solar system with a great number of habitable planets.
For example, there is a blog by Sean Rayomond about astronomical topics called PlanetPlanet. And it has a section called Ultimate Solar System with posts designing star systems with as many habitable planets as possible.
You may find all of the posts there interesting. I think that posts like
<https://planetplanet.net/2017/05/01/the-ultimate-retrograde-solar-system/>
<https://planetplanet.net/2017/05/03/the-ultimate-engineered-solar-system/>
<https://planetplanet.net/2018/05/30/the-black-hole-ultimate-solar-system/>
And:
<https://planetplanet.net/2018/06/01/the-million-earth-solar-system/>
Are especially relevant.
I think that if you can solve various problems, you might be able to design a fairly scientifically plausible system with even more habitable planets than anything Raymond designed.
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[Question]
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SCUBA equipment is pretty amazing, allowing us to breathe underwater and explore.
But they have drawbacks: they're noisy, cumbersome, and time-limited.
It seems like a futuristic scenario would include something lightweight and elegant that would allow me to survive underwater.
The guys in the video here use something like that – <https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoExamples/UnderwaterCity> – but how would it work?
Edit: With thanks to the commentors below, I see four technological pathways to getting this done:
1. scrubbing CO2 from exhaled air (like a [diving rebreather](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diving_rebreather))
2. getting oxygen by electrolysis (like a submarine's life-support system)
3. getting dissolved oxygen out of the water (like a gill)
4. SCUBA that uses compressed air, but the diver can surface for one second every 30 minutes and it gulps in a full tank of fresh air (like a dolphin or whale)
[Answer]
## Yucky or Bizarre?
There are a couple potential lines of technology that could possibly liberate future divers from cumbersome breathing apparatus on their faces.
**IVUBA** --- IntraVenous Underwater Breathing Apparatus. The technology exists to deliver oxygen directly to the bloodstream via [injected O2 pouches](https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/247295). Blood oxygen levels are kept normal without resorting to breathing. The issue of scrubbing CO2 from the blood has [also been addressed](https://aabme.asme.org/posts/device-removes-co2-from-blood-to-help-people-with-copd). A combination device could be constructed that would shunt a diver's blood into the machine, remove the CO2 and inject a bit of O2 before sending it back into the diver.
**TRUBA** --- TransRectal Underwater Breathing Apparatus. Yep. Swim like a turtle, my friend!
Um.
Research into mammalian anal respiration has demonstrated in the lab that a) some researchers have entirely too much time and money on their hands and b) that mice can butt breathe.
Maybe some day, your divers will too!
They'd still have to carry a device strapped to their back, and there would still be a breathing tube. It's just the breathing tube doesn't go into the mouth! Yay!
[Answer]
The Sabatier reaction is how CO2 is scrubbed to provide breathable air on the International Space Station: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction#International_Space_Station_life_support>
It happens when you combine CO2 with H2 at 300–400°C, 30 bar, in the presence of a nickel catalyst.
## The three-way cycle
What I propose (and sanity-check me on this please), is a three-point cycle: the Sabatier reaction, electrolysis, and breathing.
1. the Sabatier reaction takes in CO2 from exhaled air, and H2 from electrolysis, and outputs methane and water. CO2 + 4H2 → CH4 + 2H2O
2. electrolysis takes in water, outputs H2 (to feed the Sabatier reactor) and O2 (to feed the person). 2H2O → 2H2 + O2
3. breathing takes in O2 and outputs CO2 (into the Sabatier reactor), on a one-mole-per-mole basis according to <http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/2004-09/1096283374.En.r.html>
## The problem
This is not a perfect closed loop system, unfortunately, because the Sabatier reaction requires four hydrogen molecules.
### Solution 1
Add hydrogen at step 4:
1. Start with 2H20
2. Electrolyse that into 2H2 and O2
3. Breathe the O2. Now you have 2H2 and CO2
4. Add bottled hydrogen. Now you have 4H2 and CO2
5. That gives CH4 + 2H2O
According to Starfish Prime's answer [here](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/197466/artificial-gills-electrolysis-for-gills), our hero requires ~5mmol of oxygen per second, aka 0.3mol/min. So we need to add/consume 0.6 moles of hydrogen gas per minute at step 4, which (given H2's molecular weight of 2.01588g/mol) 1.209528 g/min or 72.57168 g/hour of hydrogen to keep the system running, scrubbing the aquanaut's CO2 and providing their O2. The system will produce 0.3mol/min of methane, 4.812738 g/min or 288.76428 g/hour, so if you take methane's energy density to be energy 50 MJ/kg, that's 14.438214 MJ/hour, or 4.010615 kilowatt hours per hour, better known as kilowatts, of methane fuel. According to Starfish Prime's answer [already linked](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/197466/artificial-gills-electrolysis-for-gills), the electrolysis required 2.38kW (and the temperature and pressure of the Sabatier reactor requires energy too). Note that you actually won't be able to use that methane until you get home, as you have no oxygen with which to combust it.
### Solution 2
Use more water than is needed, offgas oxygen at step 3:
1. Start with the 2H20 from the end of this cycle. Add 2H20 from somewhere to
2. Electrolyse that into 4H2 and 2O2
3. Chuck out some O2. You now have 4H2 and O2.
4. Breathe the O2. Now you have 4H2 and CO2
5. The Sabatier reaction turns that into CH4 + 2H2O
Disadvantages: electrolysis is energy-expensive, as we've seen. By doubling the amount of water you're electrolysing, you waste 2.38kW. If our hero is swimming in the sea, she'll need to desalinate the water before electrolysing it, or die from chlorine gas inhalation. And she has enough contraptions on her back already without adding desalination! Probably better to carry a tiny bit of distilled water: the input (to get 0.3mol of O2 per min) is 0.6g of water per minute, 36g (aka millileters) of water per hour. Still waste the energy though. Another disadvantage is that you're blowing gas bubbles, which will spook some fish (a problem with normal SCUBA too); many sea-creatures are very sensitive to sounds.
### Solution 3
Close the loop by making it a four-way cycle by adding methane pyrolysis
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/UEVN2.png)
Sabatier reaction is CO2 + 4H2 → CH4 + 2H2O
Electrolysis is 2H2O → 2H2 + O2
Methane pyrolysis is CH4 → C + 2H2
This completes the loop; all inputs feed back in, apart from a little charcoal as a waste product. Specifically 0.3mol of charcoal per hour, or 3.6 grams.
The methane pyrolysis (according to Musamali, R., & Isa, Y. M. (2018). Decomposition of methane to carbon and hydrogen; a catalytic perspective. Energy Technology. doi:10.1002/ente.201800593) can be done with a catalyst at 850°C and "The energy required for the production of one mole of hydrogen (45.1kJ/mol (H2) at 1073K)". As we said above "we need to add/consume 0.6 moles of hydrogen gas per minute", that's an added requirement of 1623.6 kJ/hour, or 451 Watts. This is in addition to the 2380W required for electrolysis, and the energy to heat the Sabatier reactor. Overall you might need 3-4kW, which is quite a lot for a wearable apparatus, but not unheard of, e.g. [here's a 3-3.5kW backpack apparatus](https://www.wayfair.com/outdoor/pdp/chunbiegsr-inc-gardrening-gas-powered-leaf-blower-cdnb3480.html). This is a lot more energy-efficient than solution 2.
A bonus of this is that the heat generated could feasibly be redirected to actively warm the user in cold water; hypothermia is a danger during long dives.
[Answer]
**Simple and Practical**
A long tube, called the umbilical, brings air from the surface down to the diver. Surface-supplied diving forms have a decent depth sometimes hundreds of feet. They are easy to understand and implement.
Compared to SCUBA, they solve to of your complaints: They have an unlimited diving time (at least in terms of air available) and they are not bulky or heavy.
SNUBA is a portmanteau of "snorkeling" and "scuba." It is a simple form of surface-supplied diving. You can be trained enough to use it effectively in only a few minutes, assuming you already know how to swim.
[Answer]
Intravenus respirocyte injector.
Respirocytes are a theoretical artificial red blood cell that act as a pressure tank for oxygen with 230+ times the capacity of a normal red bloodcell☆.
You carry a pack of it on your back which is fed intravenously. Couple this with a rebreathing apparatus and/or a mechanical gill to filter oxygen out of the water and you can last for a long time with one pack. Just dont expect to last indefinitely, the surface area needed to effectively filter enough air out of the water is too high.
☆https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respirocyte
[Answer]
Put the gill membrane in the flippers:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/qrPTz.jpg)
Flippers can be 0.094m² each ([source](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/154193128202600608)).
Even moving at 1m/s, the two of them will pass through 188 liters of water per second.
Say 5cc/l of oxygen per liter. The flipper meet 940cc per second.
Say a person needs 6 liters of oxygen a minute, 100cc/sec.
The flipper-membrane will need to be 10.6% efficient at extracting oxygen, which is within handwaving distance.
And obviously there's a tube carrying it from there to the mouth/nose.
The flippers have two advantages: move more than other body parts, and have a big surface-area.
[Answer]
I'd check liquid breathing out: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIGCdA2YLyY>. Despite still having to replenish your supply, you wouldn't have to for ages, and liquid breathing bypasses problems with some traditional solutions like the bends/decompression sickness and nitrogen narcosis. I can easily see some version of this allowing humans to be aquatic to the same degree that true marine mammals that dive deep and surface fast (e.g. sperm whales) are.
[Answer]
**Breathe hydrogen and oxygen.**
Consider water. H2O. 1 mole of water is 18ml. But let us consider 2 moles of water because the math is easier when we turn it to gas. 36 ml. Less than a shot glass.
Electrolyze the water to hydrogen and oxygen. 2 moles of water produce 2 moles of hydrogen gas and 1 mole of oxygen gas. A mole of gas at the surface is 22.4 liters so 67.2 l.
That is a lot of gas. My minute ventilation is 10 l/minute because I get excited and huff and puff. Scuba cylinders can hold about 2500 l air. Of course the liters I breathe at depth contain more air than those I breathe at the surface and so a cylinder does not last me 250 minutes.
If the cold fusion reactor in your fannypack can kick out the energy needed to do it, you can make all the gas you need out of water. 2500 l of air can be made from 1.3L water.
There remains only the issue of breathing a mix of 66% hydrogen and 33% oxygen. Hydrogen is not toxic. Your voice would be very squeaky. No smoking!
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What kinds of (effective) melee weapon could only be made with modern technology? While we *could* make melee weapons with more modern technology, all we have are advancements in metallurgy applied to medieval era weapons. As no military wants melee weapons due to there being no reason to with guns existing, there hasn't really been any demand for a melee weapon designed using modern technology. While we could make melee weapons with a more advanced design no one is interested in trying to get melee weapons made with more advanced technology. So what kinds of melee weapon could be made in modern day if there was significant amounts of money & design effort were put into making an advanced melee weapon?
[Answer]
There are a few real life, common melee weapon that can only be made with relatively modern technology:
## Switch Blades
[](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/Switchblade_animated.gif)
While not technically a "modern" invention, these weapons did not actually come into being until the 1800s: well after melee weapons had lost most of their utility on the battlefield. Although spring steel existed in the late medieval period, these knifes rely on being stored with their springs under tension and are held together by relatively small parts which make them very fragile compared to other knives. It was not until the industrial era that spring steel got good enough to make this sort of mechanism practical.
## Telescoping Batons
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/UvQUg.png)
While the idea of a stick with a small weight at the end of it is one of the oldest weapon concepts in history, the ability to make this into a weapon that collapses into itself it fairly new. Telescoping Batons were only invented in the 1970s. The reason is because telescoping mechanisms have to be very precisely machined to be able to open up smoothly, and even more precisely machined to be able to lock itself into an open position when in use so that it does not just collapse on you. Furthermore the steel has to be of an exceptional quality or else it will warp when you hit someone with it which could cause it to come apart or bend in a way that you can't close it again.
## Tasers
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/iMsCb.png)
Also invented in the 1970s, I think it's pretty self explanatory why these are modern only melee weapons. Even a light tap from a taser is enough to put someone on the ground making them one of the easiest melee weapons to disable an opponent with ever invented.
## Flashlights
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/w94fS.png)
Strangely enough, flashlights are often considered by many experts to be the best self-defense weapon in the world. Not only are they non-threatening enough to carry around into most places, and often have enough heft to make it a good light club, but shining some of these newer generation flashlights into someone's eyes at close range can be quite debilitating without the risk of harming yourself like you get with tasers or pepper spray.
## Conclusion: Role them all up into one package
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/WVeek.png)
Why settle for just one of these ideas when you can have it all. Make a collapsible spring loaded baton with a taser and flashlight at the end of it. It's portable, easy to deploy, has a bit of reach, has a lot of stopping power, and multiple ways to take out an opponent depending on the threat level... all without needing a lot of training or physical strength to use... oh yeah and the fact that they only cost \$75 and have non-leathal modes of operation are both really good reasons to own one instead of a gun.
[Answer]
## Going past "modern"
A bit off-topic, but there are a few SciFi melee weapons, some of which could even be plausible, that could only be made with post-modern tech. The lightsaber is a cliche example; but a more likely, and possibly more dangerous weapon would consist of a weight at the end of a **monomolecular wire** with a handle, able to cut through almost anything by concentrating macroscopic force on individual molecular bonds. This melee weapon features in Larry Niven's [*Ringworld*](https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/B086WN81Y9) series---Larry's work is full of intriguing material science inventions.
Another melee weapon that could work in the near future is the **vibroblade**: a metal-bladed weapon, typically a knife, that vibrates at a very high frequency, "sawing" through the target material. Modern turbine-driven dentist drills work on this principle, except that they rotate very fast, instead of vibrating.
The principle of **electromachining** also comes to mind: in RL, an electrode tool is used to "eat" into conductive material by eroding it electrically, essentially by extra-fast ionic corrosion. If these tools could be speeded up by a factor of a hundred or so, they could potentially cut through armor (or robot plating) like a hot knife through butter. A **waterjet** could do the same to any material---such tools are widely used for precision steel cutting, but haven't been weaponized yet.
Edit: In Adrian Tchaikovsky's great [*Shadows of the Apt*](https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/B074CGCTSJ) SF book series, in a world undergoing a war-accelerated Industrial Revolution, an inventor uses his **sandblasting nozzle** as a weapon of last resort during a siege. It is spectacularly successful, but the injuries it inflicts are so macabre, they drive the inventor to commit suicide in remorse. This weapon is not speculative; the tool exists in RL, and could readily be weaponized as is.
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I have been working on a post-apocalypse world where over 90% of the world’s population died in a “zombie” apocalypse (technically living zombie trope). This apocalypse occurred around 125 years prior. The world has recovered with technology roughly resembling that of the mid-20th century. However, there are pockets of population living in what are called enclaves.
These enclaves, unlike the rest of the world, are technologically more advanced. The technology and culture in these enclaves resemble that of cyberpunk. The only reason these enclaves have any power over the rest of the world is due to their technological superiority.
What I am trying to figure out is where these enclaves be located and other aspects concerning their construction. For the time being, I am concentrating on the ones in the former United States. The following are some of the events leading up to their construction.
* “Evil” genetic engineering corporation was researching a virus with possible military applications on a remote North Pacific Island. This facility was unknown to exist.
* A cyclone damaged this research facility which cause the virus to escape containment. “Evil” corporation predicted pandemic in 5 – 10 years (in practice, it was 20) and they secretly informed key governments of what happened and the nature of the virus. In other words, some governments knew what was coming and a rough idea of when.
* The nature of the virus is that it causes violent behavior in infected individuals against both infected and uninfected. The virus is spread through contact with an infected individual and could take a 7-10 days for symptoms. There are going to be few roaming hoards; mostly wandering individuals (this behavior was not expected).
* In the United States government, only the president and a select few members of Congress knew of the impending pandemic.
* A clandestine committee commissioned the construction of the enclaves to shelter friends and family of US government officials and key business leaders.
My initial thoughts were that these enclaves would be located near major population centers such as New York City, Chicago, Portland, Denver, and Las Vegas but that idea falls apart for obvious reasons. I was thinking that the enclaves would be scatted as the main justification to the public was to house people after natural disasters. One idea I considered was that the early enclaves were built with something resembling a FEMA trailer made from shipping containers.
Other considerations that I can think of:
* The construction of these enclaves must use existing technologies and industries and is limited to what is available today (groundbreaking of the first one is 2032).
They need to be easily defended requiring the minimal resources which points to away from major population centers.
* They need to be self-sufficient and capable of becoming self-sufficient before supplies run out.
* Land acquisition is going to be a major barrier. However, the president (and successor) will be willing to use extra-Constitutional means.
* Ownership of the land was transferred to the single developer of the enclaves (this is a key point that drives conflict between the enclaves and the US government).
* The true purpose of the enclaves must remain in secrecy as possible but eventually the public will start asking questions.
* Things should be hard science fiction as much as possible. There are some fantastical elements, but they are tangential.
Should these enclaves scatted throughout the United States, or does it make more sense to have them clustered in one or two states? What terrain would be best for them?
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## Military Bases:
So you need a place, not too far from the folks you are evacuating. You need it to be armed to the teeth, well equipped to fend off attacks, and well equipped with specialty buildings with air filtration and biohazard suits. You need it to be ready in 5-10 years (although they ended up having longer than anticipated) so pre-existing facilities will work best. They should be set up to be high-tech preserves. You want to be able to horde vast quantities of supplies and possibly greenhouses/agricultural facilities to sustain your groups living there. Finally, you want to be able to have all these preparations be invisible to the general public, so they need to have all this activity be completely explainable.
By definition, military bases are located in relatively strategic locations. The government already owns the land, so building anything on it is problem-free. Eminent domain used to expand such facilities could be justified as creating a secure buffer zone to protect them from terrorism. Using that buffer zone for agriculture is just being good stewards of the resources acquired (as well as guaranteeing the bases a food supply in the event of a major disaster). Existing buildings on the land are converted into enclave facilities.
Any unusual fortifications you build around a military base can get sunk into the vast military budget. Huge bunker systems make perfect sense (they may even be pre-existing). These are already the places that will have NBC equipment to protect them and their inhabitants from contagion. Further, you have a ready-made security force highly motivated and well-equipped to defend the facility from ravening zombies. The existence of the enclaves as a separate thing might never even be realized by the general public. After all, it just shows the government anticipated a potential threat and prepared their facilities against it.
You will need to do some interesting social gymnastics to explain why the US government would then sell these military bases to a private individual. With the mention of eminent domain, the land could be taken by the government, then (when it looked like the contagion wasn't going to happen after 10 years) the government sells all the "useless" facilities around the military bases to the developer who built them, to be used to develop universities, defense manufacturing and research facilities (like a land grant). The developer knows about and still believes in the upcoming apocalypse, and works to save the people he/she deems worth saving (by attracting them to live & work in their newly acquired facilities).
Each enclave would thus be defended by the military (next door), built and equipped by the military, a haven for knowledge & high-tech manufacturing, yet no longer under the control of the government. The enclaves might even be able to make the military indebted to them by supplying the bases with the goods they need to stay alive. With all the effort lavished by the government on these enclaves, you could see why the government might resent the enclaves (especially if the enclaves didn't let all the government fat-cats in after the apocalypse started; after all, they decided there was no threat...)
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**Islands.**
Because all the enclaves are actually Singaporean colonies. Singapore already had the advanced tech when the apocalypse happened, and the rapid reflexes of the government saved their island state from the zombies.
Now they are colonizing the rest of the world. The current enclaves all date from the decades after the apocalypse as forces based in Singapore moved out, clearing new islands to use as bases. Because part of their salvation was being on an island that has become a strong piece of the cultural identity of their descendants. Island enclaves in other countries are fortified against zombies but also the nonzombie residents of the area.
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Going much beyond mid-20th century tech requires a **global** scale. Count the number of airliner manufacturers in the Western world. The number of CPU production lines. A relatively small enclave cannot really afford them. You will need some **handwaving** to explain that away, and the handwaving might dictate your enclaves, which form a network.
* Around the mines for rare eath metals for batteries.
* Around a nuclear power station or an oil refinery.
* Around an university campus with a prototype-scale microchip fabricator.
* Around a state-of-the-art factory for 3D printers.
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Zombies are basically a primitive army with little need for supplies (although this goes against basic biology, but then, so does zombiness). They have a source of rough building materials in themselves, so they can fill ditches and build ramps.
What deters them is a vertical slope taller than they can build a ramp out of themselves before collapsing (10-12 mt, tops, unless you have *millions* of zombies available), or an unfillable ditch (because there is e.g. a river at the bottom that will float corpses away).
It is possible to incorporate one or both features in almost any secluded tourist resort, military base, and so on.
Other things that may stop zombies:
* cold. Build the enclave somewhere high and way north.
* heat. Build the enclave in the middle of Death Valley (but I don't know what happens there in winter).
* distance. They have no reason to wander in large masses patrolling the world, so you can hide out of the way and kill the few zombies that wander into the exclusion zone.
* distractions. Every time a zombie negotiates the pass that would lead into Forbidden Valley, they hear screams from a nearby cave. When they scramble to the cave, the screams start coming from a cave opposite. Zombies do not have the smarts to grok photodetectors and solar-powered concealed loudspeakers, so they'll start ping-ponging between several caves, reasonably exhausting themselves sooner or later. With some foresight and engineering, they could be hijacked into a, hopefully non-renewable, energy source.
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Edit: This question has been reopened!
Medieval castles are mostly designed towards delaying or obstructing ground attackers. The only real threat a castle faces from above, at least from humans, comes from arrows volley fired up towards the battlements and arcing downwards or siege equipment. These threats are negligible if a castle is placed high enough, but for air attacks this isn't necessarily the case. Technology is around the mid-medieval era with the inclusion of fantasy races. It would be best if the castle's fortifications still retained most of their potency against ground threats as originally intended, as ground forces remain the most numerous in world with air units usually reserved in an auxiliary or decisive shock role due to their relative scarcity.
I've decided to group threats into two basic archetypes:
1. Airborne Skirmishers: riders on the backs of flying monsters such as a griffon or wyvern, or monsters themselves like gargoyles use ranged attacks to suppress or kill the castle garrison. Carrying stones and dropping them, javelins, archery, incendiary projectiles, etc would fall under this category.
2. Melee Assault: melee attackers are inserted onto the defenses via airborne mobility. This would cover riders dropped off onto the battlements or beasts capable of melee attack themselves. Swooping attacks also fall here. Their goal, besides killing garrison troops would be to disrupt ranged defender fire and taking strategic points such as a gatehouse.
Against either threat a standard crenelated castle battlement would have little to no effect. Crenels and merlons only provide horizontal protection. Gatehouses and moats would similarly have no effect. Garrison troops on the wall would have a tough time against skirmishers, and only limited defense against melee attacks. Spears, the most common militia weapon due to ease to use, low cost, and long range aren't so good on walls. They are best in large tight overlapping formations hard to form on thin battlement walkways, and if formed make easy targets for air skirmishers. Bow users are precious with how long it takes to train a proper archer to properly use warbow draw strength. Losing them to melee assaults that get through their arrow fire is suboptimal. Mixing archers and melee garrison forces on the walls might cripple both parties, as spears and bows need free space to maneuver. The battlements on walls that would help them against ground attacks basically ties the garrison's hands against air attack. They need proper defenses to give them a defensive advantage against all attackers.
My first thought was *wooden hoardings,* or temporary wooden framed extensions built around rampart or parapet battlements. These usually included arrow loops for returning fire on besieging forces, but only horizontally. The roofs were usually solid to provide better arrow protection and sometimes covered in rawhide to counter incendiary attacks. A solid roof, while protecting best against ranged skirmishers also keeps defenders from firing up at them, ceding the sky. They would also just provide good landing spots for melee assaults, who could just land on them safely and rip through to get down to the garrison underneath. Possible solutions include adding wooden spikes on top or opening arrow loops upwards, but both have downsides. Namely increased weight and increased fire chance from wooden spikes, while arrow loops weaken the original purpose of protection against missiles.
My second thought would be to place matching height *towers in pairs* with their roofs sealed off and gently sloped towards each other. By firing through arrow loops/slits across at each other, the tower pairs could cover each other's roofs versus melee assaults. With the only openings underground or arrow loops, there would be no easy access into the towers from the air. If the arrow slits are above the hoarded battlements, they would also be able to fire down safely on airborne melee assaults trying to go down through the hoardings. This is a rather costly solution, effectively requiring double the flanking towers and obscures wall line of sight towards ground targets at the base of the wall which isn't a big problem with single towers.
The last idea I had would be to give up castles altogether and go *full underground bunker*. This is a bit extreme, but would force a ground invasion. Naturally this isn't a very pleasing option for matters of prestige, one of the main administrative duties of a castle. It would also be only subpar versus land assaults, being vulnerable to tunneling efforts and flooding in most terrain.
Any ideas or suggestions?
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**Nets and chains**
You'll still need conventional fortifications (castle walls, towers moats and ditches etc) because no matter what defenses you might build to prevent 'attacks from above' your enemies can still simply just land outside your castle/town' and attack it at ground level.
That said a Castle could potentially shield itself from airborne assaults by stringing a series of chain and/or wire reinforced ropes and nets (with blades or hooks added as a bonus?) across the open space between towers. (**Note**: I'm presuming the mounts of the attackers e.g. griffins etc can't 'hover' for any length of time - they're not helicopters after all. Animals that's size carrying an armed and armored rider would have the choice of flying or landing but not hovering.)
The important thing is that these 'nets' don't have to be 'meshed' in the same manner as conventional fishing nets. The animals your trying to hinder would have 10-15 meter wingspans so your mesh can be 3 meters wide or more and still be narrow enough to prevent the mount from landing. And of course a net with that kind of spacing will not hinder your troops archery (much) as they fire back.
Adding fire/smoke pits/cauldrons at strategic points would help too. The smoke and heat might tend to cause the mounts to swerve away.
For towns you can;
A) have steeply slanted roofs that prevent anyone landing on top of them; and
B) streets designed so they are narrower than the wingspan of the mount used and that twist and turn in a manner designed to leave no landing points other than places like public squares etc that you can net or alternately turn into killing grounds with overlapping fields of fire etc if foes do try to land there.
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# Dwarven Cliff Fortresses
The only fortress that is impervious against airborne attacks is a dwarven cliff fortress. It is built into the steep cliff of the mountainside, the only entry to it is a gate in the center of the wall - with thousands of slim arrow slots and gunports allowing to turn the bare rock field with strategically placed road marks (read: range marks) an approach that is deadly to all foot soldiers.
The very design of the fortress carved out of the mountain prevents any airborne unit to attack anything directly: there are no exposed walkways, the solid grown rock of the mountain can withstand the landing of any dragon and ripping out a piece of solid granite from the wall to get into the castle there is near impossible for an airborne fighter.
The natural shape of mountains only leaves one attack vector for the airborne fighters: towards the wall, from where arrows, bolts, and bullets will pour and shoot them down.
### Dwarven hill fortresses
In areas where no natural rock is available, the dwarves will use casted rock (aka cement) with iron reinforcement grids in them. The resulting constructions look like small rock outcroppings with domed tops, the area in front of them kept barren. Often these artificial outcroppings are put on top of retainment walls of several dozen feet height to make them inaccessible to footsoldiers.
The downside is, that the hill fortresses actually have a top that could be landed on, requiring the outcrops to have overlapping firing cones.
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The first solution for most of your forces is roofs over their heads.
The second solution is to shoot them down. As early warplanes already proved it is exceedingly hard to hit a target from an aircraft. Early WWI designs dropped metal darts, but an entire box of metal darts had to be dropped on large groups of enemies to even score a single hit. If you have archers with the ability to accurately hit enemies from the unstable position of a flying beast, then those same archers on the ground would be much more effective shooting those aerial targets down.
The third solution is to smoke them out. Build chimneys that spew out thick and debilitating smoke when you are attacked, this obscures targets for them (this even worked during Desert Storm against jet fighters!) And flyers that go through it could become disoriented or disabled in flight, if not blinded as soot builds up on their eyes.
The last solution is nets and cables. You aren't talking about woodland fliers but large relatively ungainly creatures. Using the WWI and WWII tactic of lines attached to balloons near potential targets to give them the risk of hitting one ans crashing. Nets can similarly be hung between towers or across open spaces where fliers might try to land so they get caught in the nets instead.
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There are many ways to protect your castle against aerial threats while keeping the standard crenalated beauty looking properly medieval.
1. Roof mounted bolt throwing ballistae on a central tower that overlooks the walls. Aerial skirmishers need to fly and flying requires a low weight load on the beast. Your skirmishers will likely be minimally armored so they can carry plenty of rocks/javelins to harass the battlements as well. A plate armored gryphon might not even be able to fly. This is a well known fact to your defenders, so they use extra light bolts in their ballistae. The bolts have incredible range thanks to their velocity and will down any skirmisher in a single hit. Birds use muscles in their wings, shoulders, back and chest to fly. Any bolt that pierces these muscles (the majority of their body) will drop the flying beast like a stone. Imagine getting shot in the leg by an arrow: you wont be running anywhere.
2. Airborne skirmishers. If the attacking enemy has them then you should too. Just engage the enemy and they cant harass yiur castle.
3. Trained attack birds. A horde of pigeons, or hawks would disrupt the attackers enough to make them less effective.
Melee assault is easier to deal with than skirmishers because the gryphon carrying soldiers needs to land for several seconds to offload their cargo. During that time they are incredibky vulnerable to attack. As I said above, a single arrow piercing their armor would cripple their ability to fly. How expensive are those gryphon? Are they worth it to put 2 men on the walls? My guess is no. I really doubt aerial assault is a valid tactic here. Especially when the walls will be bristling with defenders.
The way your army should be using their flying assets is during a direct ground assault to sew panic and confusion on the walls. Skirmishers should only risk their lives and their mount's life during such assaults. They will target perceived weak points with their aerial bombardment while trying to dodge ballistae fire. Things will get messy, but maybe if they kill a few defenders then the way can be opened for the ground troops to scale ladders.
When your army isnt assault castles, a far better use for aerial cavalry is harassing the enemy's supply train. If they really can carry multiple riders then all the better. Your aerial dragoons fly around and find enemy wagons, stealthily dismount nearby, tie up their precious ride home, and finally go reave the caravans before returning to camp.
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For big fliers: medieval flak guns.
Make large ballistae with very wide flight grooves and fire panes of glass or ceramic at dragons, wyverns, and others. For smaller ones, such as gargoyles: net launchers. Make some sort of contraption to fire razor-wire nets with weights on their ends. They will wrap around the enemy, both ensnaring and lacerating them. For protecting your garrison, roofs or holes-in-the-wall would be best. Also, cover the roofs with acid or something else painful to keep ground attackers from landing.
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Based on what goes up must comes down, am not sure that some of these air defence systems arent going to end up with decapitated defenders and tops knocked off turrets.
Do the defenders have ample airborne troops to themselves? If so perhaps your fortress would need to
1. stable and protect them
2. coordinate their sallies with the ground defences.
3. provide safe lift off and landing spaces for them
4. recover injured beasts and riders
If they are elite troops, perhaps fortresses are essential for protecting them against ground troops rather than vice versa?
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Following on from [a recent question about animals](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/198406/how-dangerous-are-animals-with-no-history-of-human-contact), concerning a group of people traveling sideways in time, to a world that resembles Earth as it would have been had humans never evolved, it occurs to me that in the tropics, diseases and parasites are far more dangerous than big animals.
Mosquitoes, as far as I know, target all warm-blooded vertebrates, so if you visit a world where humans never evolved, they will still go after you. But what about the diseases they transmit, like malaria and yellow fever? Are those shared with other species, so they will still get you? Or are they species-specific, so that (at least initially, until they make the jump from some animal) you don't need to worry about them?
Same question about tsetse flies and sleeping sickness. I think the answer for that one is definitely bad news, sleeping sickness hits humans and animals?
Same question about the various nasty parasitic worms such as the Guinea worm. Are they adapted to humans specifically, or would they be automatically able to target humans by virtue of being warm-blooded vertebrates?
(For diseases of the temperate zones, I know some of the answers already. Flu, measles, tuberculosis, smallpox are all good news; it will take a long time for them to jump from animal hosts. Rabies is bad news, as are some parasitic worms transmitted by dogs. And bubonic plague, transmitted by fleas from rats. I think Lyme disease is also bad news.)
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It's very species dependent. In general, viruses have a hard time jumping the species barrier unless you live in areas where large numbers of people are in contact with large numbers of animals and their bodily products. That's why so many infectious diseases (swine flu, avian flu, SARS) come from Asia, where you have large numbers of people in contact with large numbers of poultry and hoofstock with relatively lower hygenic conditions (especially in the more rural areas where infrastructure is still developing) than most Westerners are used to. Similarly, the 1918 flu is thought to have come from pig farms in Kansas.
However, this isn't the only way viruses can jump species, as Ebola and probably COVID can tell you. The thing is whether a virus can jump from species to species is a very scattershot process. Both Ebola and COVID only jumped species because there is a thriving bushmeat market in both regions, and hence there were so many interactions between humans and wildlife the prospect that one chance encounter would spread the mutated disease is more likely.
I would be more worried about parasites. [Studies have found that in pre-industrial societies where the population is too spread out for viruses to be a big deal parasites are typically a bigger detriment to individual health than viruses are](https://www.google.com/books/edition/Parasite_Rex/JeeZAgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0). And parasites have been known to jump species, [many of our current tapeworms seem to have evolved from parasites of lions and hyenas](https://www.nature.com/news/2001/010404/full/news010404-12.html). The big thing with parasites is the internal environment of a mammal is more or less consistent across species, whereas for viruses the protein coats of various cells can be a bit trickier to break because of inter-specific variation.
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The short answers: Author decides.
There are diseases that are highly specific, and there are others that are more promiscuous.
Malaria is highly specific and will not exist without humans. Yellow fever lives in monkeys and humans. If the other world has monkeys, watch out!
And so on down the scale to rabies that lives in most mammals.
There are many diseases that have variants that can jump species.
Diseases change very rapidly. This means that the diseases of the new world will be different from any disease we have seen on *this* world. There will be no point in vaccines against known diseases unless you want to make sure your team aren't bringing them along.
On the good news side there will be no antibiotic resistant bacteria. Antibiotics will take care of a *lot* of diseases.
Basic hygiene, like boiling your water and washing, will prevent a *lot* of diseases.
After that, it is really up to the author to decide if there is any diseases left that are serious menaces.
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## Who knows? Pathogens evolve very rapidly!
By now we *all* know how much the viral landscape can change in a short time. Going to a parallel Earth where humans never evolved (or at least didn't survive) means that pathogens have had many thousands of years (or much more) of *different* evolution that no one can possibly predict. We know that there are many pathogens - rabies, herpes viruses of primates, filariasis ... well, just look up [zoonotic diseases](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoonotic_disease)! ... which can spread to humans from other animals. But in your world, there's no list to be had, except by filling it out as you learn by experience. As suspicion dawns among your characters that they are at the mercy of your untrammeled creativity, I anticipate a loss of morale.
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I was listening to a worldbuilding discussion on another site and somebody came up with an idea for a dystopian setting that they called "the worst of all possible worlds". **Basically, the idea was you have a setting where instead of the evil dictator being installed by inheriting the throne, manipulating their way to power, or starting a military coup, the got power by being part of an intrinsic societal system that sees the "Dark Triad" personality disorders are virtues and tries to put low-empathy people into power whenever possible.**
**In psychology there's the concept of [pathocracy](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/out-the-darkness/201907/pathocracy): the idea that people in positions of power IRL throughout human history are disproportionately composed of individuals that are likely diagnosable with one of the "[Dark Triad](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_triad#:%7E:text=In%20psychology%2C%20the%20dark%20triad,because%20of%20their%20malevolent%20qualities.)" of personality disorders (sociopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism)** because people with these disorders often have a deep-seated desire for power for personal gain and do not care if they cheat or perform unethical actions to get power. However this is less an intended result of the system and more of an exploited loophole as a result of sociopaths and narcissists gaming the system. I'm talking about a political system that explicitly *tries* to put psychopaths in power.
**The idea sounded like a chilling idea for a dystopian setting and I was wondering what such a society might end up looking like.** I was thinking this system results along the lines of one where individuals are given tests for empathy and those that score high on such tests for "dark triad" traits are earmarked or fast-tracked into positions of power, rather than flagged as in IRL. The societal "justification" those in power give to justify their rule is that only someone who isn't distracted by emotions and can see the "big picture" can make objective, difficult decisions without bias. Basically the "[hard men making hard decisions](https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS920US920&ei=9eAAYNSNKYTI5gLBl6_wAg&q=hard%20men%20making%20hard%20decisions&oq=hard%20men%20making%20hard%20decisions&gs_lcp=CgZwc3ktYWIQAzoECAAQRzoECAAQQzoLCC4QsQMQxwEQowI6DgguELEDEIMBEMcBEKMCOgIILjoICAAQsQMQgwE6BQgAELEDOgUIABCRAjoECC4QQzoHCC4QsQMQQzoFCC4QsQM6BQgAEMkDOgIIADoECC4QCjoGCAAQFhAeUNxLWNxoYOVpaAFwAngBgAH0A4gB_TKSAQswLjcuNS43LjMuMZgBAKABAaoBB2d3cy13aXrIAQjAAQE&sclient=psy-ab&ved=0ahUKEwiU3PLE1pzuAhUEpFkKHcHLCy4Q4dUDCA0&uact=5)" trope on a societal level. Also these kinds of people tend to be risk-takers and society needs people with ambition to survive. This is complete self-serving bunkum but has enough of a veneer of logic that people go with it.
**The society is explicitly non-sexist.** The "hard men making hard decisions" trope is often framed in terms of hyper-masculine behavior (the "[you can't handle the truth](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FnO3igOkOk)" speech being a good example of this) and there is a correlation between [dark triad traits and sexism in both genders](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/unique-everybody-else/201911/sexism-and-the-dark-side-personality), but women can exhibit dark triad behaviors as well (though there's some suspicion in IRL psychology that women exhibit these traits differently or are better at masking them) and as a result in this society can get into positions of power. The one explanation I thought of to justify this is there is a cultural idea in this society that the proles with empathy are *prey*, whereas fellow people that belong to the ruling class are *competitors*. Basically an argument of "lions eat gazelles, but they mate with lionesses".
There are still plenty of people with empathy in society, but they are shunned from positions of power both implicitly because of social norms and explicitly because the sociopaths in power don't like to share or be told "no". This isn't a society of people where everyone has no empathy, it's a society where those who have the least empathy have the most power. This is different from the previous questions on the site about a society where everyone is evil because the people in charge are neither cartoonishly evil (the Dark Triad has distinct symptons), and the rank-and-file are pretty much normal people. Good people who try to get power to un-frag the society end up being shunned by the society as a whole.
**The biggest thing I couldn't figure out is how the society manages to not tear itself apart.** Sociopathy and narcissism are characterized by being very short-tempered, impulsive, and quick to take insult, and the pathocracy hypothesis even goes so far as to suggest this is how most wars in human history start (after all, if you're in power, *you're* not going to be the one dying in a war for the sake of honor). However, people with these traits tend to be so catty how would a society not collapse into feuding parties fighting over the slightest insult and never getting stuff done?
**If you're thinking this society sounds horribly dystopian and arguably outright evil: you are correct.** The system is oligarchic at best and outright totalitarian dystopia at worst. The point is to create one of those topsy-turvy societies where what modern readers consider horrible is outright celebrated. They are probably going to be the bad guys in this setting, but the idea was to come up with a society that horrifies readers by being technically possible, if the "worst of all possible worlds". If anything it's intended to point out the problems with the "hard men making hard decisions" trope, pointing out how people with low empathy quotients IRL *don't* make logical decisions for the good of the whole but instead are usually horribly corrupt and motivated by their own self-interest, with the explanation just being an excuse to justify their behavior.
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**This is the classic predator-prey balance**
If everybody is a lion, then all starve.
If the lions become too numerous and kill unnecessarily, the prey become extinct.
Nature handles this by ensuring that, in the long run, there is the right balance between predators and prey. The prey animals have to be much more numerous. *They also need to be allowed to feed reasonably well otherwise they don't make a good meal.* Lions don't generally harass their prey unless they are actually planning to eat them.
All societies end up with a top-down pyramidical structure whether criminal, democratic, capitalistic, socialist or whatever. If a society of purely non-aggressive people existed in some place, predatory people would soon invade and take over. Only a small elite can exploit the masses.
Illegal organisations typically use the tactic of selecting for heartlessness ***to outsiders***. Within the organisation, ruthlessness to others combined with loyalty to family is highly valued. Thugs look up to bigger thugs. They are attracted towards the criminal structure. However, as mentioned, a great quantity of productive non-thugs are required to make things work or the society becomes bankrupt.
The general population usually have little choice about it. If they are lucky they will get a benevolent dictator although such are few.
There lies the problem. Exploitation can last for a long time as long as the underdogs are allowed to prosper to some extent. However if you get *completely selfish* people at the top, like in Aristocratic France (["let them eat cake"](https://www.britannica.com/story/did-marie-antoinette-really-say-let-them-eat-cake)), eventually something will break and you get the French revolution.
**Conclusion**
Your society will not prosper in the long-term because sociopaths don't care about the long term. They want what they want *now*. They don't have the foresight or the will to protect the population in general. They kill the goose for the golden egg.
Your society will eventually become bankrupt and/or it will be overthrown.
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Well, there are examples of places where a large portion of the leadership [are officially psychopaths](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-small-business/wp/2016/09/16/gene-marks-21-percent-of-ceos-are-psychopaths-only-21-percent/). [Where 1 in 5 CEOs are estimated to be psychopaths](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/08/the-science-behind-why-so-many-successful-millionaires-are-psychopaths-and-why-it-doesnt-have-to-be-a-bad-thing.html).
Sociopathy is [described by a psychologist writing for Forbes](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2019/12/04/how-to-tell-if-you-work-for-a-sociopath-or-psychopath/?sh=42212472b0cd) as a lesser form of psychopathy, which I think is a good enough definition for this case. While I can't find statistics on how much of management or CEOs are sociopaths, logically it should be a lot higher than the number of psychopaths, due to its lesser extremity (using this definition). So, you could be looking at more than 1 in 5 business executives being sociopaths, with 1/5th being full psychopaths (the same rate of psychopathy that's found in prison inmates).
As for political leadership, a study found that [Washington DC has the highest number of psychopaths of any state, by far](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3185182), rating extremely high in dis-inhibition, boldness, and meanness.
So I think you have a pretty good model to extremify, for a nation whose leadership is entirely made of sociopaths. It might be less extreme than existing nations with very high levels of psychopathy among the leadership (unless you're figuring your nation has a lot of psychopaths).
### The Society
Note that the system doesn't officially try to put psychopaths in power... but there are some implicit and explicit reasons for it, where many articles have investigated as to why [psychopaths tend to get ahead](https://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/18/why-psychopaths-are-so-good-at-getting-ahead.html). A system that encourages this would just be more openly cutthroat, competitive, political and back-stabbing, with an admiration for double-dealers. And despite how destructive this is, such a society can last for centuries, as many nations with high levels of psychopathy have.
If its a nation that favours a Gestapo like organization, for example, then the most brutal agents will be promoted for cracking down on anything that questions the government. This sort of thing does happen, where people are promoted explicitly due to their brutality or outward devotion to the state.
### Consequences
Some of these are pretty obvious. Purges, propaganda, suppression of freedom of speech, paralyzing bureaucracy, inconsistent enforcement of law, minimal social mobility, a continual reduction of the people's power and rights as well as an increase of elite/government power, just about anything that can be found in many historical dictatorships and oligarchies.
Hope this was helpful. I can add additional details, if you'd like more.
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Lets respond purely without remorse, passion, compromise, morals and especially no sympathy and with a sense of narcissism. The more sociopaths that gain power in a society the nearer that society is to completion, it's final end before the cycle starts again. All societies seem to end anyway from the Romans to the French and Russian nobility to Chinese dynasties. How societies end depends on its people, their makeup, West vs East etc. Usually the end comes in the form, from Democracy: to Dictatorship to anarchy with a continual decrease in religious power.
Its is wrong to assume normal people are not capable of being lions making hard decisions, they may but they pay more for their actions emotionally.
Its also wrong to say that sociopaths are the Alpha, lions eating gazelles. Sociopaths don't eat the gazelles, they suck them dry both emotionally and financially especially their spouses. Bullies require victims.
Its been said that sociopaths can be identified by their DNA. Psychologist will indicate that a traumatic even in those predisposed to sociopathy can become sociopaths. It could also be said the reverse is true: those predisposed to sociopathy, not trained to consider others will eventually become sociopathic.
In general, sociopaths do not fully understand the intrinsic traits of the morality in people, that is: sociopaths do not understand that people more towards the norm or average are born with a sense of right and wrong and no matter how slow or subtle sociopaths gain power or how powerful the political spin is, the average person always retain their own morality and track those that desecrate their values.
Sociopaths are 3% of the population where psychopaths are 1%, the norm are the comparison. Sociopaths are identified by a checklist of personality traits and now by their DNA. Theory: Sociopaths are on a spectrum no different then autism, a persons height, eye color, hair color etc. Lets call it the care factor, the ability to sympathize (not empathize). The more a person has less intrinsic sympathy for others the less reason they need to do hurt to others. We know Stalin was associated with killing between 6 and 20 million Russian people and I guess starting with poisonings Lenin.
Conclusion:
Really sounds like a narcistic and opinionated piece, you might also say sociopathic. Maybe one day society will determine sociopathy can be removed from the gene pool as society simply doesn't need it. Those that are societal leaders set an example for the rest of society to follow, greed follows greed, corruption the same. Sociopathic leaders are really incompetent in this regard when they ignore this behavior and the worst part of this, they can't help it. Do we really need to go any further then our societal views on who is the most wealthy.
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According to Google, the sea is salty because the rainfall dissolves land minerals and salt, which then washes away to the oceans, and over billions of years that process raised the salinity of the oceanic water to the current undrinkable condition.
So is my thinking correct that if this is the case, then the water of a fully oceanic planet (60-90% made out of water) should be almost pure distilled H2O? Since there would be too little other stuff to begin with, let alone any continents that the rainfall could erode (Sadly, this probably means that such a planet can only be lifeless and without breathable atmosphere, since there *also* would be nothing for the life to evolve *from*). To add to that, the little stuff there are would probably sink to the bottom and become encased in the ice seafloor, hundreds of miles below the surface.
But I'm not so sure in the case of an otherwise Earth-like planet that "only" has too much water, with no or barely any land or shallows during its entire geological history. The same point about lack of continents to erode stands, but in addition to that it also has a proper seafloor and probably volcanism, so there lies much bigger uncertainty - would just simple lack of continents made water fresh?
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**It's your world, but...**
The erosion of dry land is not the only way to dissolve minerals into water. Volcanism, geological shifts (e.g. earthquakes), saturation of the ocean bottom, and undersea erosion caused by currents can also dissolve minerals into the water.
**Distilled Water**
Would the water be distilled or nearly distilled? Absolutely not. That would require no volcanism or geological activity, no silt or saturatable sea bed, and bedrock made of something like diamond that couldn't be trivially (by comparison) eroded or dissolved by water. It's important to remember that water is known as the *[universal solvent](https://www.usgs.gov/special-topic/water-science-school/science/water-universal-solvent?qt-science_center_objects=0#qt-science_center_objects).* It can't dissolve everything. But it comes close.
**It's not just erosion. It's that the water has nowhere else to go**
It's also worth remembering that oceans are salty because there's nowhere else the water can go to distribute the mineral. So-called "freshwater" lakes and rivers aren't devoid of salt. But because they have outlets, there's somewhere for the salt to go. It therefore doesn't build up. Oceans, of course, have only two outlets: evaporation and the process of charging aquifers. The former doesn't take salt or other minerals with the water and the later can't move water away from oceans fast enough to avoid mineral build-up. A world that's mostly ocean is, from this perspective, no different from Earth or a world with only 10% of its surface given over to water.
**So, what's your world made of?**
If there's salt in the crust, geological events like earthquakes and volcanism will put it into the water. If there's salt in or near the sea bed silt, then it will be stirred up slowly through saturation and more quickly through sea current erosion. Some kind of saturation will occur eventually, it's really just a question of what minerals are provident on your planet.
**One last thing...**
I wonder how long the landmass on a 90% water world would actually last. Such a world in the Goldilocks zone would have a ton of storms. Storms that would work hard to erode what little land exists and reduce it to, eventually, sea bed. Of course, on our 71% world that doesn't seem to happen because tectonic and volcanic activity builds mountains.
Why doesn't that happen on your world? Low tectonic and volcanic activity would suggest either a whomping thick crust or a cold core. Now you have me wondering if a 90% water world can even exist.
**OK, really, just one last thing...**
One thing you could do. A world with that much water cover would have more evaporation and, therefore, more rainfall. I don't know if the science would allow it (my gut tells me it probably wouldn't), but suspension of disbelief could be that the rainfall is constant enough to create a freshwater layer on top of the saline layer. It shouldn't be very thick. Let's call it 3-6 meters. But such a world description wouldn't make me raise my eyebrows when I read about it.
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### It could be, depending on currents.
So fun fact [salt distribution isnt uniform](https://van.physics.illinois.edu/qa/listing.php?id=24631&t=salt-concentration-vs.-water-depth). In calm water, salt molecules tend to sink creating a salt gradient. If the ocean is deep enough, all the salt will be biased towards the bottom, leaving only trace amounts at the top. The top few km would indeed be drinkable.
What would ruin this would be currents circulating deep water up high, these could be caused by topography (a gentle sloping surface from deep the shallow) or a heat source on the bottom like a volcanic vent.
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We really don't know enough about the ice-moons in our own system to definitively answer this. It is thought for example, that [liquid water](https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/2014EO200002) could exist beneath the frozen exterior on the Jovian moon Europa. and that the icy crust drifts, floating on top of this watery layer. If true this suggests there is a source of heat -- if only from the extreme tidal forces at work in the Jovian system, and that there is still a [rocky interior](https://europa.nasa.gov/resources/113/interior-of-europa/) possibly even with an iron core. But we won't know details about that water until we get the right kind of probes there - salinity, pH, etc..
It's not a huge stretch to imagine something could be alive there. Life here started in the oceans, afterall. It's just a question of metabolism, respiration, food source, how diverse and complex it would be or what kind of adaptations it might have evolved to survive in an environment beneath that ice sheet.
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Depends. What impurities are there? Because if it was distilled dihydrogen monoxide, people would have no problem drinking it. And if there were space bacteria living in the space water, you'd probably be okay, as the bacteria wouldn't have evolved for infecting humans. The exception to that rule is if the bacteria produce a hazardous by-product.
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Organisms on earth have a wide variety of ways to detect the presence of other objects. Echolocation, electrolocation, vision, etc. One kind they're missing is detection based around bouncing microwaves off things, i.e. radar.
On my planet I have a taxon of flying creatures that live their lives completely airborne. They mostly live at high altitudes except to feed on fish and other marine life that lives close to the surface. I'd like for them to be able to locate prey from high altitudes using microwaves or radio waves; it seems like a fairly logical adaptation and it's also just pretty cool. Echolocation is out due to its range being too short; my atmosphere is thicker than earth's but not *that* much thicker. (Echolocation in bats seems to be capped in the tens of meters; my creatures prefer to fly thousands of meters above the water.) In addition to locating prey they could also use their radar for communicating over long distances. (These creatures are fairly smart; not anywhere near human intelligence or probably even toothed whales, but around as smart as an elephant or racoon. They have some need to communicate, if only to find each other to mate, since they're often very far apart and unlike e.g. albatrosses they don't return to a specific area of land to mate.)
I'm wondering how feasible this is. Quite a lot of things on earth are bioluminescent but none, as far as I know, produce wavelengths beyond the infrared spectrum. My flyers don't necessarily have to do this chemically; producing electricity and using some kind of internal antenna to produce their radar would be fine too.
I realize radar does not penetrate water very well, but I think this isn't too big of a problem since they are only looking for things on or just below the surface.
In short: What sort of mechanism could my flyers use to generate their radar? How could they receive it? (antennas, special eyes?) What other sorts of problems might they encounter or what other uses could it have?
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In [this answer](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/510/75), I show how a hive mind might evolve using metal-cored and shielded neurons. In [this answer](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/27124/75), I elaborate to show how biological radios might evolve, using partially shielded and unshielded metal-cored neurons.
So, if we have an organism with the ability to generate and receive RF energy - and, with direct mechanical rather than chemical-diffusion-based neural junctions - it is not a particularly large stretch of the imagination for such beings to evolve biological radar in much the same way that some species on Earth have evolved to use sound in a similar manner.
So... what would it need? It can already generate and receive RF energy, so to make a radar, it would need three things: directional transmission, a target that will reflect the emitted energy, and the ability to detect the reflected energy and calculate distance based on the duration between emission and reception.
To have directional transmission would require an organ similar to a bottlenose dolphin's melon, only for radio-frequency energy. This might be a metal-lined cavity similar to a microwave oven's emitter... though probably evolved to emit over a narrower angle. The organism would emit RF energy from this organ - or several of them, each tuned to a different frequency - and receive the reflected energy either with an omnidirectional receiver or a directional receiver, which might be the same organ, or it might be a different organ.
Once the RF pulse is emitted, reflected and received, with a faster brain that metal-cored neurons and mechanical neural junctions would allow, it would be little different to a dolphin's ability to interpret its sonar return for this being to interpret its radar return.
Being an evolved ability, this biological radar might ultimately be capable of feats that would make even the most capable man-made radar seem quite primitive.
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The biggest problem they would need to solve is how to not self blind themselves.
Let's say they fly 3 km above sea level, this gives a travel time to the surface of the water of 10 microseconds, which means that they should be able to emit their pulse while shutting off their listening mode and then revert it on in that amount of time.
Though that's doable with electronics it might be a tough cookie for a biological entity, where usually commuting times are in the order of milliseconds. Not mentioning that, even if they could manage to switch in 10 microseconds, they would still be blind to anything closer than 3 km, which often ends up being more dangerous the closer it is.
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**This question already has answers here**:
[Would evolution happen the same exact way if Earth restarted?](/questions/115747/would-evolution-happen-the-same-exact-way-if-earth-restarted)
(17 answers)
Closed 3 years ago.
When we go into speculative biology for worldbuilding, we often go straight to thinking about how animals and plants might evolve. I wanted to know if there is a good reason for that, or if it's just for simplicity's sake.
Does life have to take the route of first evolving basic phytoplankton and zooplankton and from there organisms that expand on that sessile autotrophic and motile heterotrophic lifestyle? Do all planets with complex, multi-cellular life end up having organisms that greatly resemble our plants and our animals in terms of their biology and lifestyle?
There are fungi on Earth, which don't fit in either because of their cell structure. There's also chromista and a couple others, but I don't know much about them. That made me think, are there other possibilities when it comes to things like cell structure and lifestyles that would make life on other planets look nothing alike to that on Earth?
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**It depends on your definitions:**
Life doesn't need to be plants, animals, and fungi. But depending on how you make you definitions, it also kinda does.
The defining characteristics of plants are that they produce their own food from an energy source (autotrophs). The form of this energy can vary from planet to planet, but light is an ideal source (literally raining from the heavens). There are chemoautotrophs, but renewable chemical energy is a lot harder to come by. So it's difficult to have a life system without plants or the near equivalent.
Fungi absorb nutrients from their environment, either breaking down existing food or parasitizing plants and animals. As a general rule, they are non-motile, saving energy expended in motion for growth. The simplicity and efficiency of this approach would naturally tend to reoccur wherever there is available exploitable food in the environment.
Animals consume other organisms directly, and are generally motile (sponges are animals, and only motile during a narrow part of the life cycle, but still). It's an extremely powerful ability, being able to exploit other organisms and their resources for the energy needed to live. But to be motile, you need to consume a lot of energy.
So while you don't NEED plants, animals, and fungi, the ROLES of these organisms are straightforward and highly logical. If you don't have your dominant multicellular life doing THESE things, you need to do some justification as to why they AREN'T. Simplicity is key, and if you try to come up with a complex arrangement that doesn't follow these rules, why aren't organisms evolving that DO follow them, and outcompete the alternatives?
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Does life have to evolve into animals, plants and fungi? No it does not. A huge amount depends on the environment and the evolutionary pressures involved. No plants are likely to evolve in the dark and mobility might be seriously hindered on a high gravity world.
But assuming a world very similar to ours it’s probably at least a likely as the conditions and evolutionary pressures would be the same. It’s hard to know exactly how likely given all of the variables so we can’t be too proscriptive but I suggest that at the very least any large animal based on direct photosynthesis would probably be at a huge disadvantage due to the energy required for movement.
I should also point out that the kingdoms of Monera (archaebacteria) and Protista (algae and protozoa) also exist in addition to the animal plant and fungi kingdoms and in another version of Earth may have taken on different roles.
If truly alien biochemistries are to be considered then the scope is almost infinite and only limited by the scope of chemistry itself which is truly immense beyond belief. In fact I suggest that the chemicals currently known to man are likely to be outnumbered by those unknown possibilities by many orders of magnitude. So the ultimate scope of the possible remains obscure in this vastness.
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No it does not.
You're making two assumptions here, which could be misleading you:
1st. Life is carbon-based.
While it's true that every single life form we know of is carbon-based, this might not be the case on other planets. There's a lot of theories and speculations about other kinds of life, not based on carbon as their primary element. I'd suggest looking up "Hypothetical biochemistry" if you want more detailed informations on non-carbon life forms.
2nd. Life is multi-cellular. If you saw "Caulerpa taxifolia", you would probably think it's a plant like any other. In reality, this aquatic alga (which can grow up to 12 inches long) is a single-celled organism; the largest we know of, TBH.
That's to say that, in another world with different conditions, you might see lots of giant single-celled organisms.
Also worth mentioning, what does "life" mean? If it's "the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death", then would
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I'm wondering if it would make sense to replace Cattle with Goats,
in mountainous regions of my Dwarfen Kingdom.
I was thinking about creating a special bigger bread that is similar to an ox.
Would it be possible and if what do I need to consider when implementing it?
Also if making just transportation mounts or wagon mounts would be fine?
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**Yes**
Funnily enough, the musk ox is actually more closely related to sheep and goats than cattle. It is essentially what you would get if you scaled them up to that size.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/nf7Tl.png)
As far as I know, the musk ox has only been domesticated fairly recently and only in small numbers as a source of wool.
If you want to see how a similar creature is used, Look up the domesticated yak. Although the yak is cattle, it fills a similar niche as you're planning. They are used for their milk and fibers as well as pack animals.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/SjDN7.png)
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# Yes
[Working goats seem to be a thing.](https://www.goatfarmers.com/blog/working-goats%2F) The page in the link states the following:
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> A full sized goat can carry 25 to 35% of its body weight, with a maximum load of 50 pounds per goat.
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The goats mentioned in the page are smaller than horses, being at the 200 pounds range; if you are able to breed them to be bigger, they can carry more. Notice this is weight on the goat itself, not on a cart. I don't know if a horse or a bull would perform better at carrying weights, but I do know that goats can traverse unlevel, mountainous terrain much better[citation needed]. In that kind of terrain a cart might not be so helpful.
So dwarves might use mules or llamas for roads built upon the mountains, but for the most inaccessible parts goats would better.
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**This question already has answers here**:
[Is it possible to genetically modify a being after birth?](/questions/1092/is-it-possible-to-genetically-modify-a-being-after-birth)
(5 answers)
Closed 3 years ago.
My story is Dystopian placed after a nuclear fallout, in a small group of isolated cities with futuristic technology. The plotline is that the government is kidnapping children with disabilities, young teens that commit minor crimes, and kids whose parents died or went against the government and were imprisoned. They do experimentation on the kids, but once they are teens and adults, they put them in a place called The Underground, a series of tunnels, subways stations, and basements beneath a destroyed city from our era. They can not escape to the surface due to left over radiation.
I know that they are experimenting with diseases to figure out how to eliminate various viruses and bacteria as well as birth disorders, but I assume that to try and fix birth disorders they would need to edit the DNA. Is it possible with our current technology or tech we could build in the next hundred-ish years to modify a kid's DNA after they are born, and if so up to what age? I assume it would stop working after a certain age and that's why they discard the teenagers and adults. I already know that you stop producing more T-cells as a teen, so that is part of the reason they don't use them for viral experiments, but I need more reasons.
I also welcome any fun ideas you have with this prompt, it's one I really enjoy. :)
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**CRISPR-Cas**
What you need is CRISPR-Cas. It's a potentially world changing DNA technique. The techniques to change DNA can mostly choose one of the following attributes: fast, cheap, precise. If they are precise, they are often taking a long time and are expensive. CRISPR-Cas, if it's truly working (which seems to be the case) is fast, cheap, very precise and can be done at any moment. Before conception, during pregnancy and any time after birth right up until they die of old age.
CRISPR-Cas works by using the enzymes bacteria make for defence. If a bacteria survives a virus attack, it'll keep part of the viruses DNA within an enzyme. If this enzyme detects that very specific code of DNA, it'll rip it out and replace it with garbage DNA. This will kill the virus or render it harmless.
We can now high-jack this process. We can change the specific DNA that need to be replaced, as well as what it'll be replaced with. This means that, for example, if your eye colour has one specific DNA strain, we can change it for another, or something completely different. Most attributes we get from DNA is more complex and not one specific line of 'code' in the DNA, but even the small things can have huge ramifications.
From DNA we make RNA. RNA is like a bit of code that is mostly used for the creation of enzymes. These enzymes do a lot of work in the body. Now imagine someone with a thyroid gland defect. This can impair growth, metabolism, temperature, cholesterol and much more. In a few CRISPR-CAS therapies you can potentially change the whole function of this gland.
Research is now mostly focused on birth defects. Preventing MS, dementia, immune disease and much more. The list is pretty big.
Potentially you can put grown people's bodies back in a state that the bodies think they're twelve years old, giving them a growth spurt again. Or their brains making rapid connections. Give them bio-luminous skin. Or give them the ability to lose less telomeres and slow down/prevent aging.
For your story, the research might be most interesting for children. Older people might be more stable, but DNA is a complex and tricky thing. Some research might be more suited for children, especially with their still growing immune systems. We can see this with strength against some diseases. They are an inconvenience for children, but potentially deadly for anyone who didn't get the disease when they were kids. It is then much easier to test on kids than to try to adapt grown men first with a technique we aren't even sure will be able to work that miracle at a certain time.
Do keep in mind that you can only work with the available chromosomes. You can't add more chromosomes. I'm not sure if you can lengthen or shorten the DNA strain you replace, but I thought I read somewhere it's possible.
In short is the following what you need:
* A bacteria you can infect with the desired change of DNA to produce the enzyme, or a direct way of producing such enzymes.
* A DNA sequence of the person you want to change the DNA from. Potentially you can have some more meta DNA for a larger group you can change, but if it's only a little bit different the DNA won't be replaced.
* Access to the person to inject the enzyme in enough quantities.
* DNA knowledge. This is something that would be near impossible to do randomly. It would be like trying to break an encrypted password, but instead of working with 0 and 1 you need to work with about 5 values.
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There are two different concepts, germline genetic engineering and somatic gene therapy.
* [Germline gene therapy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_therapy#Germline) changes the sperm and egg, before conception, and therefore all the cells in the individual.
* [Somatic gene therapy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_therapy#Somatic) introduces the change to other cells -- after birth and therefore not as complete.
As I understand it, germline therapy would be easier to do once you have the changed DNA ready, but also with much greater potential of disaster.
You could assume that germline experiments were done with your characters and that these experiments were declared **finished** after a decade or so. The change was done before conception and the experimenters observed the first years of their lives, no more.
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Technically, you can alter anyone's DNA at any time to produce a mutation in a cell, or possibly lots of cells. You could alter the DNA of the corpse (at least some of the cells). But from the details, you want to know when altering DNA will cease to produce noticeable effects in the subject.
It depends.
DNA codes for protein. Protein is generated through your life, but some more consistently than others. For instance, a mutation that causes a malformed heart would have to be fixed very early prenatally to affect the child; they would have to resort to more conventional means to fix this child, but they might engage in genetic engineering so that the child did not pass on the mutation. But cystic fibrosis and albinism turn on proteins that are generated throughout life. You could edit those genes at any point, though there might be residual effects that the current production of proteins will not cure. Also you might need to separately target the gonad cells to ensure the child did not pass the genes on.
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This is a small but critical part of my story; I need to kill off most of humanity (leaving a 5- or 6- digit number of survivors) and render the planet uninhabitable long-term, but survivable for a short time (as short as a few hours is OK). So I've been thinking about this scenario:
A large comet/asteroid impact turns one whole side of the planet to lava; everyone on that side is vaporized instantly and the atmosphere is pushed into space.
On the downstream (non-impact) side, there are earthquakes that would register 12-15 on the Richter scale, if the Richter scale went that high (I get that it's logarithmic). In addition there are tornado-force winds as the atmosphere rushes to fill the void on the upstream side of the planet, and torrential rainfall as water condenses out of the suddenly rarefied air.
Most people on the downstream side die from injuries and there is only a short time before the air pressure drops to unsurvivable levels and temperatures become lethal due to equalization with the lava on the upstream side.
Does this make reasonable sense, physics-wise? It doesn't have to be perfect since most of the story takes place afterwards and not on Earth (and we're not coming back), so we don't have to worry too much about details.
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> A large comet/asteroid impact turns one whole side of the planet to lava
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This will melt the crust. [The shock that led to the formation of the Moon was probably similar to that.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant-impact_hypothesis) It involved an impactor about the size of Mars, which is orders of magnitude more massive than the dino killing asteroid.
When the dino killer asteroid hit the Earth, it heated all of the atmosphere by a few degrees in very little time. Many animals on the other side of the planet were literally cooked alive. This seems to be [a hot topic among paleontologists](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter#Potential_climatic_precedents), pun intended:
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> This global "impact firestorms" hypothesis, initially supported by Wolbach, H. Jay Melosh and Owen Toon, suggests that as a result of massive impact events, the small sand-grain-sized ejecta fragments created can meteorically re-enter the atmosphere forming a hot blanket of global debris high in the air, potentially turning the entire sky red-hot for minutes to hours, and with that, burning the complete global inventory of above-ground carbonaceous material, including rain forests.
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With a Mars sized impactor, you would not just turn one half of the crust into magma. You would send the planet back into the Hadean phase. This kind of impact would heat up the atmosphere to Venus levels immediately. It also causes the planet to reshape itself in very short time - the Earth would literally soften up for a while, and the global Earthquake will destroy anything and everything on the surface. Your number of survivors will be a hard zero.
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This makes some sense. It would definitely kill people. However, the hurricane-force winds part is probably not realistic. A meteor impact that melts half the Earth won't just make air get flung into space: the air will become no longer exist as it dissociates into its constituent atoms, which probably means no vacuum. You can't just "fling" air. The rain part doesn't make sense to me, as it's likely that the ratio of water/air is the same (remember, the water vapor on the impact side was dissociated into O2 and H2). Additionally, an impact large enough to turn half the planet to lava would almost surely destroy the whole Earth. The meteor would likely have mostly kinetic energy, and for enough kinetic energy to turn into thermal energy to actually melt half the Earth, the meteor would have to disobey the laws of physics (as a meteor with enough KE to do that would just shatter the Earth and fling the pieces a couple billion miles through the galaxy, instantly destroying the whole thing, and in that case likely won't melt half the Earth, since the Earth won't be able to stop it and turn enough of its KE into heat [Kinetic energy - heat occurs when something bumps into something else and slows down/stops via friction of the normal forces; such a massive/fast meteor wouldn't stop]). If half the Earth actually DID turn into lava, and half the atmosphere id disappear, the planet would become uninhabitable as not enough atmosphere and oxygen would remain to support life (the atmosphere shields us from the hazards of space). In addition, the Earth would probably collapse if half of it turned into a liquid (and likely settled into the core), as a hemisphere is not a viable planet shape. Finally, your "impending doom" is going to happen another way: even if the meteor wasn't big/fast enough to melt half the Earth, the shockwave from the impact would race around the Earth, killing everyone it hits as dust from the blast is flung into the air, obscuring the sun. This even happens FAAAAR before half the Earth melts from an impact (which would shatter the Earth anyway). I'd say that people would have time to leave Earth before the shockwave flattens them. A meteor that would do this would probably be about small continent size (Europe).
(also pretty sure Richter 15 means the Earth explodes)
P.S. if only a little bit of the Earth around the impact melts, lava falling from the sky seems possible and would be cool.
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There's this YT video.
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PENT_hnyO-o>
It's supposedly from Discovery Channel, so it should have at least *resemblance* of realism, but I think it doesn't account for the part that on planetary scales, everything's a liquid, so impact like this should have created shockwave through the planet that would lensed on the other side of the planet and blew the crust there (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantle_plume#The_impact_hypothesis>); It is theorized that one such impact created the Siberian traps, the megavolcano that almost ended all life on Earth during the Great Dying extinction event (83% of all species went extinct at that time).
What definitely wouldn't have happened is the air rushing "in" the impact crater; quite the reverse would happen actually, the impact will create a shockwave that will grind everything on the surface into very fine dust and pebble as it travels along the surface. So basically first the people will feel the impact with the earthquakes spanning the entire planet, then the opposite site from the impact should explode into an instant supervolcano that will make Yellowstone blush (Probably making it's own less powerful shockwave in the process), and then those that survived will be blasted away by the supersonic atmospheric shockwave that arrives from the direction of the impact. If they survive the earthquakes and do not live close enough to the opposite site to be blown up by the fresh supervolcano, I think they would have rougly one or two hours left to live.
If you scale the impactor to being "just" about the size of one that set off the Siberian eruption, then it wouldn't be as dramatic and the humans would been able to survive for longer, but perhaps for too long for the purposes of your story (years to centuries until the rising temperatures and massive die-offs would finally pushed them to go join the dinosaurs)
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I am not convinced that an asteroid strike big and destructive enough to make the earth uninhabitable for humans would allow them to survive long enough to work out a way to escape from the planet.
There are some other scenarios for human life ending on Earth that you could consider. These would give your survivors more chance to hatch an escape plan:
* Global warming
* Pandemic
* Volcanic activity
* World wars - using nuclear or biological weapons
* Psychological breakdown (depression and suicide)
* Declining fertility
* Over population
* Artificial Intelligence
* Nano-technology (the infamous grey-goo)
* Increased solar activity
I am sure there are others.
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Bear with me :) The aliens in my story are gastropod-like entities and I would really like them to communicate through the mucus they excrete. What could such communication look like?
Preliminary research into snails, slugs and their friends has turned up no leads, but I'm thinking of a few possibilities:
* Changing up the chemical make-up of the mucus (perhaps affecting color, temperature, viscosity), carrying meaning
* Drawing visual patterns
* Sending vibrations through the mucus layers
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***Slow Down, You Move Too Fast...***
We're talking intelligent snail-like beings, so what if they have no audible communication at all? Their civilization values art and visual esthetics. Slime is laid down on paper (originally digested plant matter left to dry, but now made) and since snails are related to octupi, why not ink? The snails are masters of chemistry, and they control the drying process so various acidities and inks stay separate. A statement naturally takes time to dry, acids etch the substrate, and the effects on the paper would include complex watermarks and three-dimensional wrinkling. So that much like calligraphy, slime art-writing is as much about beauty (to a snail) as it is about communication.
Communication by visual manipulation of one's foot and eye stalks, as well as chemical signals, can be used to communicate rapid information. As technology has evolved, snails could stand on pads, sending signals through their foot, laying slime on an electronic detector that rapidly interprets signals. Still, the old, slow ways are best, and such crude communication is considered tactless. After all, who can show the true skill of their artistry through a chemoreceptive PAD? Honestly, the youth nowadays in such a hurry, with their electronic doodads...
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Yes, but it would be such a limiting form of communication nearly any alternative they could improvise – banging sticks on the ground or against their shells, for example – would be more [robust](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/99582/are-there-any-natural-forms-of-communication-as-robust-as-speech-vocalization).
**The downsides of slime**
* Body language would be necessary to signal that one is about to 'transmit' and the intended receiver should be prepared to 'receive'. An intended recipient who isn't present or isn't looking the right direction would be oblivious to this.
* You can't communicate to more than one receiver at a time, and they must be immediately present and willing to receive. These snails can't shout. An intended recipient who doesn't *want* to receive the message can simply refuse to track the slime message, and the sender can't override this without physical violence.
* Receiving a message is labourious: depending on information density you may have to follow in the slime track of the sender, unable to scan ahead.
* Assuming a linear method of encoding, there can be no interjection, no proper dialogue: A sends in full, B receives, B replies in full, A receives. Literally snail mail.
**The upsides of slime**
* The message can endure until the slime degrades or is mechanically disrupted enough to obscure the contents. Bad for privacy, but good for leaving messages to a receiver who isn't yet present.
**Improving on the familiar gastropod**
Rather than leaving trails in the dirt as our snails and slugs do, your xenoslugs have evolved their organs to fire info-dense packets of slime at each other, with great accuracy over several metres. Much of their exposed tissue is porous and receptive to this, skin composed of tastebud "ears".
As a medium, the complexities of the language could be well outside our capacity to understand. Think [polysynthetic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polysynthetic_language), but in multiple dimensions: scent, colour, viscosity, density, chemical reactions, etc. The tiniest squirt could take thousands of words to translate.
This still wouldn't be as good as vocalization in many respects, but orders of magnitude better than slime trails.
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I think slime is not an efficient way of communicating, because it will slow down the communication rate, no matter what route you choose.
* chemical substances: they will need to diffuse in the slime layer of the emitter and then in that of the receiver, plus the time for the molecules to diffuse via the medium, be it air or water. There is a reason why pheromones are sprayed.
* optical signals: whatever substance you inject into the slime, it will have again to diffuse to become visible, and then whenever you want to change message you will have to dispose of the previous content. If you compare it with the mesmerizing capabilities of an octopus skin, you see this approach will also be not competitive.
* sound signals: here too, slime seems more of a sound damper than a sound transmitter. And it would require the emitter and the receiver to be in physical contact. Else sound emission directly in the medium would be more efficient.
Probably the only way might be to use the slime as an optically active layer, and change its thickness to alter the diffraction patterns of light. The same way a drop of gasoline on water lets you see a rainbow, by changing the thickness of the slime the creature could modify the diffraction behavior and thus communicate by using it. However this would be strongly directional, which can be an advantage or a disadvantage.
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They can make piece of thick, nearly solid mucus that they can hold with two appendices. Then they vibrate the mucus. It will work exactly like a guitar string. Think of spiderman making a short piece of web. This produces sound, much like our vocal cords, and they can talk this way.
This approximates human voice very well, i.e.: females and infants would be smaller than adult males, so their "cords" would be shorter and/or thinner thus having a higher pitch. Or you can make the females larger to reverse this and give the species a more alien feel.
They could also stick the mucus to surfaces to make a permanent voice instrument somewhere.
A slug could also make multiple cords to make chords. Or a group of slugs could make a chorus.
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To expand on Li Jun's point and a previous answer to a similar question they can transfer fluids with chemical messages close range with body contact. It doesn't have to be French kissing but a form of communication that needs bodily contact or spitting at close range, something like the system Bonobo's have with every greeting being based on touch leading to sexual encounters to affirm a result but it doesn't need to be sexual in their minds.
How this translates to a language that can span distances or be passed along in generations without physical touch I dont know but as a personal form of communication this method could work.
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Primarily a biological question, but I'd also love to dig into social implications.
Here's the story -
Humans have colonized at least one other planet and trade / communication remained open for some time before a *massive* and *catastrophic* event took place that effectively isolated the planets completely. Note: haven't nailed down an exact cause yet, though I'm leaning towards hostile alien occupation that cripples the systems and regresses technological advancement to pre-historic times, or simultaneous world wars that lead to a similar outcome.
Here are the questions -
(1) How many generations would the isolated populations have to go through before their genomes were incompatible for reproduction? Is there any evidence for a timeline of separation of species like this? What kind of time frame am I looking at? I'm thinking Darwin's island birds, though I don't know of any generation estimates. Clearly something that can happen within a relatively short time-span (millions of years or less).
(2) Assuming both populations were able to recover and re-advance technologically, what would the social implications be once "first" contact was made? If one system was able to win the space race in a land-slide, would they look down on the other as inferior (animals / barbarians) and be left alone as some sort of nature preserve? What if advancement was at a similar pace and apparent evolution was minimal, with the exception of the inability to procreate?
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***If there was a driving force, then very quickly; otherwise it's extremely variable***
If you WANT your two groups to be unable to interbreed, then you can have the colonists use some sort of genetic manipulation as their technology starts declining to make them more compatible with their new native world. I imagine them living in domes, and realizing that without advanced tech that they can't get replacement parts for, they'll all die unless they (tolerate extreme temps/are immune to arsenic/can use stereoisomers present in native organisms).
A lot of changes, or a few big ones, would move critical genes to spots and regulatory sites (or even new chromosomes) that mean the resulting offspring are non-viable or sterile mules. Some might even render the populations unable to eat the same foods, or they could even be allergic to the other population! The allergy thing could even be non-genetic if you wanted (everyone on planet X has traces of compound X, and everyone on planet Y naturally reacts to compound X because it resembles the protein of a common parasite).
Without this preemptive change, speciation can take centuries or millennia - it's up to you and mutation + evolutionary pressure. Some hominids were able to hybridize with H. sapiens (like the neanderthals) while others probably couldn't. I love biology because it CAN do almost anything, even if it usually doesn't.
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If you are also open to a social answer, your populations could be genetically compatible, yet still not mate between themselves.
From a racial perspective, the two groups could diverge quite easily, having a different skin tone / eye color / hairstyle ... They would deem the other people to be disgusting (just look, they are so barbarian they don't even have a clan tattoo!).
This may feel not disconnected enough to our world, though, so you could have other reasons. Maybe the Spacers will always wear space suits, with the Earth counterparts unwilling to mate with someone on a space suit. Or quite the contrary, the Spacers always wearing special suits on their atmosphere, they will only intimate when being completely naked, which was abhorrent for the mentality of the other group.
Another strategy for species differentiation would be that they mating cycles diverged. Perhaps, even before, separation, the human species slowly changes and end ups only being fertile during a full moon. Later, when the groups gets separated, the colony slowly adapts to the gravity and moon cycle of their new world. When they meet again, they have different cycles which precludes them from having an offspring (or perhaps they will only converge once every thousand years).
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**You can manipulate your mutation rate.**
If two isolated human groups mantain the same selective pressures and the same environment and the same ecosistem, you will have to wait a lot (maybe thousands of generations) until the changes are signifficant to make their genetic code incompatible.
But, you can also include in your story a slightly increased mutation rate (for any reason) in one of the human groups, and create an ecosistem that could give some competitive advantage to some specific mutations (perhaps very short humans could need less calories, or could eat grass or other things available in their environment, or they could evolve a thicker skin due to the atmospheric conditions) In that case, you could achieve the genetic difference you need in just a few generations (perhaps 20 or 30 could do the trick). You have good real life examples of the influence in the animals of an increased mutation rates in Fukushima, Chernobyl, and Three Mile Island.
And about the second question: Both isolated human groups will evolve thinking "they" are the humans (no matter if they evolved green skin and horns), and historically, humans tend to dislike other humans that are very different to them (different to their own "normal human" concept), so... yes, I suppose some conflict could be unavoidable, how much and what type of conflict? Well... that is totally opinion based :) But I suppose it may depend on how "racist" or "mature" any of the two groups are.
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It would take as long as the two colonies take to adapt to their environments. As a group evolves to their location, their genome changes. Wait long enough, they can make an infertile hybrid. Wait even longer, and incompatibility finally arises.
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I think I have established democracy, but I am very unintelligible on how they are called in the real world because I doubt I invented something new, I am just politically dumb. **Could you please say which type of government I created for my settings so I can look up some details and further inspiration?** *(It is not supposed to be perfect government - it is a transition from Feudalism and Colonialism in my scenario.)* If someone wants to point out the biggest flaws and biggest advantage I would welcome it very much. *(Again the system is supposed to be flawed because the races in the world are as clueless about democracy as I am)*
**Lore:** The settings is a fantasy world with technological advancement between the 18th and 19th century of our history with multiple races and magical beings and has potent but far from all-powerful magic as well. This democratic system, called Concord, was invented by NiceGuysTM Old-Bloods after they had to give their knowledge to "lesser-races" in purpose to amass enough power to defeat Dark Realm (Propaganda name, they were just Old-Bloods dominating others, but being mean about it). Once done, they could not easily control the races and soon succumb against the pressure of musket armed "Lessers" demanding the same rights since they shed blood for them and egalitarian movements of exhausted people after long bloody war.
There are still plenty of sovereign nations and even succeeded secession countries, but this is like the central hub of the world and even countries outside of Concord's sphere of influence taking note of their "suggestions".
Eligibility to vote is granted by being Citizen (being able to be drafted OR serve X hours in public services OR compensation - 'buy it' OR earn it by merit). They can also own property(real-estate), land, and run business. Exception are Old-bloods who have citizenship granted by birthright. For other races, citizenship is not hereditary.
Another status is Inhabitant - Individuals without the right to vote (Unregistered, incapable of service, draft and without the ability to buy citizenship) but they have the right to work, rent, chattel and conduct informal business.
**Cabinet of Deputies:** Proportional representation of each race based on the number of their eligible voters in Concord. Race choose their own representation. Mandate is limited for 4 years with re-election. Current members of Cabinet cannot apply for Chancellery. Their purpose is to address the concerns of citizens and propose laws. Law with enough votes gets moved to Chancellery.
**Chancellery:** Voted in by citizens regardless of race for 6 years (but staggered, so 1/3 is open every 2 years). They are limited on 51 members - Voting has two rounds, the second round is two most voted people from each district - absolute winner is one with an absolute majority (repeated till one wins). It's members participate in specialized committees and commissions. They can delay laws and return them back to Deputies, but Deputies can override the veto with an absolute majority and bypass Chancellery straight to the High Council. Deputies cannot override electoral law, constitutional law, and international treaties which once denied by Chancellery stays denied until voted otherwise.
**High Council:** Candidate can be only a member of Old-bloods and being Venerated. Their Mandate is time infinite, but can be voted in or out absolute majority from Chancellery and Cabinet together. They appoint committees, judges, declare wars and ratify laws into validity or inviting new members/races to the Realm. They cannot create laws only ratify them or veto them, but their veto cannot be overridden. *Old-bloods are three founding races and Veneration is the highest distinction granted by Council for a contribution towards Concord.*
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Edits:
*1) Specified property as real-estate to separate chattel from it*
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Advantages and Disadvantages is subjective, for me? or for your national stability? For the citizens?
I think that a governments description is about giving it context with other types. In comparison to the real world, maybe a Apartheid Government?
**If someone wants to point out the biggest flaws and biggest advantage I would welcome it very much**
1. It may force a race divide that in practice is less and less relevant as cultures exchange occurs.
2. If I was rich enough, I could buy new citizenship and votes. (vote for me, or repay a loan).
3. Why do the Cabinet of Deputies ever go to Chancellery? Is it an absolute majority to send to the Chancellery and to by-pass them?
4. The High Council has basically absolute power, they might not be able to create law, but they can otherwise parallelizes everything. They probably control a faction in the Cabinet of Deputies and basically run it all.
5. Every other race is constantly proving their community members are worthy of citizenship. Sort of think maybe they spend all their time reapply for their child's citizenship, just to get votes. That sucks.
What is good? its good for the Old-bloods, you get all the political power and all the other races constantly sacrificing for the greater good of the community, then you repay that with taking away citizenship each generation.
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The two closest systems I can think of in the real world would be a **Representative Monarchy** and an **Aristocratic Republic**. These systems maintain both feudal and democratic systems side by side.
A Representative Monarchy generally has a house of commons and house of lords similar to how you have your Cabinet of Deputies & Chancellery and your High Council. In fact everything about your Concord from historical events and motivations to structure very closely lines up to Colonial Era England in every respect other than there not actually being a king. If your Old Bloods started off a Feudal society, it is unlikely that your history would oust the king since the government never actually toppled.
An Aristocratic Republic is more like what you see in Ancient Rome. They had a complex tiered system of citizenship similar to what you are talking about where being native to Rome or one of the privileged territories conferred all sorts of rights and privileges as did belonging to a noble house or simply buying a rite of citizenship or serving in the military. The Roman Republic also had an elected senate of nobility and multiple assemblies of elected common folk which is again similar to your High Council and your Cabinet of Deputies & Chancellery. They also had no king so this system more closely resembles what you are talking about in terms of structure. That said, your history does not necessarily support an Aristocratic Republic. Feudalism pretty much guarantees that someone will be at the top. The republic of Rome was only possible because they HATED kings. They had kings when they were an Etruscan territory, and when they rebelled and gained thier independence they did everything they could to build a brand new government that would resist monarchy by design. If your Old Bloods were a true feudalism, then thier king would not just give up that power without a proper rebellion.
**Advantages and Flaws:**
The biggest advantage here is that these systems balance out the powers and needs of people of different social classes. The upper-class prevents the lower-class from creating unsustainable tax and welfare programs that would empty the state treasury and collapse the nation's economy, and the lower-class prevent the upper-class from creating a system of law that just turns citizens into slave labor. It would be kind of like if the USA replaced congress with one house made purely of democrats and the other made purely of republicans. It would prevent either group from ever legally gaining full control of the government.
The biggest flaw in either of these systems is that lords and commoners don't like sharing power, and not having a legal recourse to take full control of the government can lead either group to rebellion.
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it really does sound similar to the roman republic which was basically a **republic flavored oligarchy**. especially during the later days of the republic. your non-old blood races are very similar to roman slaves functionally.
The minutia of operation matter less than overall structure. The high council is the only one with power since they both write the laws\* and judge the laws, the Chancellery and Cabinet are little more than a puppet scapegoats.
\*but they can't write the laws you say, but they can, whether or not they can legally write the laws is irrelevant, since they pick who is on the other "banches" via gerrymandering, who is on what committees, and have final say in laws, they just reject anything they don't like, and Chancellery/Cabinet members that will do what the council wants will be the only ones who ever pass laws and thus have popular support. It is even perfect for making the system seem more egalitarian than it is.
Note a first of the finish line voting system strongly favors two parties and strongly disfavors minorities. Basically anyone not it the two most numerous races will have no say. A three way split and a 51% voting system is not stable, but the only thing that can change is the number of sides. Worst the two dominate parties don't even have to have the two majority views, just the most irreconcilable views. CGP Gray does a great job of breaking down the problem with first majority wins voting systems, [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo). This also means most of your citizens are likely unhappy with the government but can't do anything about it becasue they believe it is their (the voting public's) fault.
One problem you may want yo consider is **crossbreeding**, if representation is determined by race then whomever decides where crossbreeds or just how the race lines are differentiated has a huge influence on the government, they can essentially gerrymander without actual maps. examples: are forest sprites gnomes or elves, are half elves human or elf, are Drow elves or their own race. These decisions can have a huge impact on the political landscape and which department controls them has a lot of power, which is sounds like would be your council again. They can also do this but changing the standards of citizenship. Which they can do indierctly, what are the standards for public service, or the standards for draftability, ect.
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The system you are describing should be anywhere in the broad field of [republics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic), where rights to elect and be elected depended mainly on citizenship. It’s rather unusual that it is possible that a child of a citizen does not get citizenship by birth but details lie in the hands of the creators of such a system. ^^
Advantages and disadvantages can’t be described that easily as those depend mainly on the question ‘advantage for whom?’, from a global view there is no advantage of any political system.
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The world has been there, done that, got the T-shirt. It is, essentially, variations on a theme of most WASP governments since the 1400's.
What you are describing is basically not democracy at all, but really just a political system. It is not government of the people, for the people, by the people, it is government of the people by the politicians for the politicians.
It is an adversarial system of win-lose government that is based entirely on mistrust. It is a system of 'us-them', not 'we'. That is, the checks and balances essentially mean that no one can trust anyone else, everyone's motives are to be suspect, and therefore everyone must be held in check. The 'winner' is the party that can dominate through the adversarial system and manipulate the hate and vindictiveness against the other side to its best advantage. One side presents their platform, the other side does their best to demolish it, and the people get to vote on who made the best presentation, who scored the most points, which side best represents and fights for their biases and prejudices. But being 'for the people' it is definitely not. It is government for the side that wins, and everyone on the losing side ... well ... loses.
What your missing, however, is the implied 'P' part of WASP governments - the sense that there is an overall overriding 'god' that will guide the fate of humans in some 'godly' direction, independent of what human governments do, and that this god is the only thing that can be truly trusted. No matter what us poor humans do, somehow it will all be made right in the end by god, that god will intervene in our mistakes. After all, it is god, not our politicians, that is ultimately responsible for the 'people'. Politics is just a game played by humans, but the really big stuff - morality and human worth - are all handled by religion. In our religion, we can trust. Everyone else is to be held in the utmost suspicion, in it for themselves, not for 'us'. (Notice the small 'g' on 'god'.)
So as an adversarial system, you have at least two sides (although you do not mention it, it is inevitable that such a system will devolve into party politics). You have various factions all competing for power, and the public gets to cheer their side on through regular elections. Ultimately, the winner takes all, until the next election, in which case everything might switch over to the other side, which them takes all. Except that, well, with the 'checks and balances', everything has the possibility of becoming stalemated until some faction or side inevitably tries to take dictatorial charge.
Your system is just a variation on this theme - making changes in the definitions, limits, powers, and performance criteria of the various 'levels' of checks and balances, adjusting how they are 'elected', who is a member of the 'evaluation candidate selection committee', and modifying who has the 'right' to cheer on one side or the pother, and 'vote' their approval. Yet it is still, in its essentials, an adversarial system.
The inevitable result of these systems is that they create a power vacuum because of the mistrust and continuous competition, so the real power is assumed by either the elitist financial class, or some religious overlay, that really makes the truly important economic and social welfare decisions - who is poor, who is wealthy, who has health care, who is an indentured slave, who owns land, who is a renter. Just like the NFL - the players compete on the field to 'win the championship', gain fame and fortune, get fans and followers, participate in adversarial win-lose competitions in front of millions, but the real money and power is all in the oligarchs that govern the league. The games are not about being 'for the people', they are all about 'for the league owners'.
Your system will work probably as effectively (or perhaps ineffectively) as any other WASP system since the 1400's, and will lead to the same type of societal stratification and inevitable demise.
But 'democracy' it is certainly not.
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If humans had the ability to physically travel to a universe similar to our own, how different could its fundamental constants be and still allow humans and other terran life to survive there long-term?
This would obviously require that matter, stars and planets are still able to exist, and that Human biochemistry still functions sufficiently to allow survival long-term.
What effect would these changes to the physical constants of the universe have upon humans placed in such an environment? Would there be any additional limitations or advantages?
Additionally, is there any combination of changes to the fundamental constants that would allow a long-term human-survivable universe to have the following characteristics:
* Planets have the same orbits as in our own universe.
* Stars are larger and cooler (I.e. redder) but do not significantly change the Goldilocks zone, save perhaps to move it outward such that Earth would be hotter but still survivable.
* Brighter night sky due to more/closer/larger/brighter nearby stars, and/or a hydrogen-fusing Jupiter
* An earth-sized world in the same position as Earth with respect to its primary with lower surface gravity and an atmosphere with equivalent pressure.
Or even:
* Clusters of separated solid and liquid matter suspended in an atmosphere with equivalent pressure to that of earth at the equivalent distance from the centre of gravity as earth's sea level. Very low gravity.
For this case, gravity bleedthrough from a very close parallel/alternate universe (our own) would be permitted in order to allow such a world to be human-viable.
**Edit**
I am well aware that any significant change to any one of the universal constants will result in a universe uninhabitable by humans, for reasons than our biochemistry just won't function, to stars not forming or burning out too quickly, or even to atoms not being possible... and an insignificant change won't likely result in anything other than human biochemistry just not quite working as well as it could, and nothing else noticeable.
So, this question is more about *combinations* of changes... can we change several of the constants in such a way that changing one would push the universe toward unsurvivability in one direction, and changing another would push it the other way, just happening to make it survivable.
Is there a combination of factors - including different stellar masses - that could allow a planet orbiting its star in the same orbit as Earth, but the star might be fusing helium without it engulfing or roasting the planet.
It doesn't actually matter if life as we know it could never spontaneously occur or evolve, since my intention is to transplant life from our universe to the altered universe. In a way, it could even improve matters for purposes of my setting if any human scientists *over there* could conclude that their universe *isn't* viable long-term (more than a few tens of thousands to a million years into their future). If they can predict that their version of the sun will become a supernova in no more than a thousand years from now, all the better.
So, for my purposes, I only need the altered universe's solar-system analogue to be human-survivable, or even to be able to exist for an internal duration of 10 million years at a minimum.
So, all I *really* need in this new, altered universe is:
* An Earth-sized world (not necessarily earth-mass or composition) with an atmosphere (or capable of retaining a transplanted atmosphere) also similar to that of Earth's in pressure, orbiting at the same distance and with the same periodicity from its solar system's centre of mass as Earth in our own universe.
* Human survivability with a transplanted biome for one million years. It doesn't have to be pleasant or easy.
* A system primary star that puts the earth-analogue planet near the inner edge of its goldilocks zone, and appears optically to be bigger, redder, and possibly dimmer. I don't care if it has to burn helium to meet the requirements or if it can do so with hydrogen, and other things must change so that it doesn't engulf the inner planets... or if it must have a different mass to our own sun.
This is a companion question to [When universes collide](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/177656/75), and I'll be having lifeforms from Earth seeded repeatedly onto this other universe's planet, which can take care of atmosphere too, if necessary. Survival of any of it greatly beyond the scope of the story is irrelevant.
Time need not pass at the same rate in this altered universe as in our own, as each will have its own seperate time dimension.
Finally, if no other option is viable, I may be open to a little handwavium in the form of introducing a factor or two that we either don't have or aren't currently aware of also being tweaked to bring things back to being human-viable.
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It sounds like you are asking if we can play around with the fundamental constants of the universe and still have it capable of playing host not just to generic life, but human life.
Based on the observed "coincidences" around the [anthropic principle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle#Anthropic_'coincidences') I am afraid we don't have that much room to maneuver.
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> The observed values of the dimensionless physical constants (such as the fine-structure constant) governing the four fundamental interactions are balanced as if fine-tuned to permit the formation of commonly found matter and subsequently the emergence of life. A slight increase in the strong interaction would bind the dineutron and the diproton and convert all hydrogen in the early universe to helium; likewise, an increase in the weak interaction also would convert all hydrogen to helium. Water, as well as sufficiently long-lived stable stars, both essential for the emergence of life as we know it, would not exist. More generally, small changes in the relative strengths of the four fundamental interactions can greatly affect the universe's age, structure, and capacity for life.
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What would happen to humans traveling to these exotic universe?
Their atoms would probably, due to the new constants they would have to adhere, become unstable and decay.
"Houston, I am seeing the light" would probably be the only sentence we would hear back from them.
[An interesting exploration](https://counterbalance.org/cosmcrea/spitzer-frame.html) of the Anthropic Principle which I think pertains nicely to this question.
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Electromagnetism cannot even be modified by even a fraction of a %. Molecular structures found in biology are formed under very tight controls. Minor alterations would cause the rules of chemistry to change which would make your DNA restructure in ways that would for all intents and purposes turn your body into solid cancer. It could also cause materials in your body that do not react to spontaneously combust as things resettle into thier new chemical bonds. Between the two of these issues, jumping into a universe with even slightly different rules of electromagnetism would probably be a very unpleasant way to go. Such a universe may still have life, it just would not be compatible with our version of life.
Because the speed of light is so tied up into electromagnetism, it is reasonable to assume that manipulating the speed of light would have unintended consequences that would affect how electromagnetism works; thus, also off limits as far as safety is concerned.
The strong force, weak force, and gravity would give you a bit more wiggle room as long as you don't need your timelines to match up between over-layed universes. Messing with these you could mess around a decent amount with the way stars and planetary cores form, without making the universe total inhospitable.
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> Planets have the same orbits as in our own universe.
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If gravity were greater or less than it is, you would have to speed up or slow down the orbits of the planets to maintain the same orbital distances. This mean your other Earth with lower gravity would have a longer year and vise versa.
If you mess with the strong force you can change at what points stars fuse and explode. Messing with this could mess a lot with the composition and behaviors of the planets and stars without changing the orbital distance or period.
Messing with the weak force will not have a lot to do with this.
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> Stars are larger and cooler (I.e. redder) but do not significantly change the Goldilocks zone, save perhaps to move it outward such that Earth would be hotter but still survivable.
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Higher gravity would cause a smaller bluer hotter sun that burns out more quickly, and lower gravity would cause a larger redder cooler sun that lasts longer. Despite being bigger the red star would make Earth colder because there were be less fusion happening; so, less energy would be radiated by it. The physics of a helium burning red star, and a hydrogen burning red star are not the same; so, to make predictions about your stars, you should think of your sun as a large red dwarf and not as a small red giant.
Changes to the strong force could also red/blue shift a star since it would make fusion easier or harder under the same gravity. But doing this would make your red shifted stars smaller and your blue shifted stars bigger which is the opposite of what changing gravity would do.
Changes to the weak force could push radioactive decay to make the Earth's core hotter or cooler. Making the weak force stronger would make the Earth's core hotter in its infancy, but would expend the Earth's radioactive fuels that keep the core molten faster. So, there are a few ways to play with this to heat or cool the world a bit differently, to compensate for the heat of the sun a little bit.
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> Brighter night sky due to more/closer/larger/brighter nearby stars, and/or a hydrogen-fusing Jupiter
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Jupiter fusing enough hydrogen to light up the Earth's night sky requires significantly more gravity or weaker strong force. This means you would not have this phenomenon with a red sun, but rather a blue one. This creates a bit of a paradox though because blue stars burn out so much faster than yellow ones that changing gravity enough for Jupiter to become a red dwarf like this would not give life on Earth enough time to evolve before being consumed by the sun's Red Giant phase. If the Earth somehow survived in this universe, the sun would merely be a solar remnant by now like a white dwarf or a neutron star. I would not put money on Earth having any life on it at this point... also, there is a good chance that the Earth and Jupiter alike would have been destroyed by the red giant and supernova phases of the sun's life cycle.
A better approach here would be to bring the moon closer to the Earth. The relative brightness of a full moon is 11 orders of magnitude greater than that of any star; so, a small change here will have a much greater effect than on the stars themselves. The moon is believed to have been created by a massive asteroid impact long ago. Even a very tiny change in the constant of gravity could have caused this massive impactor to miss the Earth, or put the Earth in the path of other impactors, or just make the massive impactor have to make a few million more laps around the sun before syncing up with the Earth's orbit. So, a slight nudge in the constant of gravity could make the moon hundreds of millions of years younger (and therefore closer), it could make multiple moons, or it could make no moons at all.
Changing the weak force should not have a huge impact here.
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> An earth-sized world in the same position as Earth with respect to its primary with lower surface gravity and an atmosphere with equivalent pressure.
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A noticeably lower gravity would not have the same atmospheric pressure. Less gravity would make the Earth's core less active which means the Earth would be slower to release new gases into the atmosphere. Lower gravity also means a shallower gradient to the atmosphere that we do have so less of the air would be down low for us to breath. Putting more of the air up higher and less magnetism from our active core also mean that solar radiation would whisk it away faster. Some of this may be offset by a less radiation from the weaker sun though. (Higher gravity would reverse all these variables and probably give the Earth a runaway greenhouse effect leaving us looking a lot like Venus.)
A stronger weak force might make the Earth's core warm enough from radioactive decay to compensate for less gravity, but again, you have to worry about having enough fissile fuel in the core to maintain that heat.
Messing with the strong force too might produce an Earth with enough fissile fuel to maintain this, but then you are looking at a complex balancing act of these three forces which will have all sorts of consequences for the universe as a whole which would probably prevent our entire solar system from actually forming.
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> Clusters of separated solid and liquid matter suspended in an atmosphere with equivalent pressure to that of earth at the equivalent distance from the centre of gravity as earth's sea level. Very low gravity. For this case, gravity bleedthrough from a very close parallel/alternate universe (our own) would be permitted in order to allow such a world to be human-viable.
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This would require a re-writing of physics on a much bigger level than some basic universal constants, but my guess is that whatever makes this happen would probably be so alien to our physiology as to result in a very unpleasant demise.
**Making Your Hellscape:**
To get a darker world with red skies and increased temperature you want to start by increasing the weak force. This will hasten radioactive decay making the core of the Earth much hotter and increase volcanic activity. The increased number of volcanoes will spit out more CO2 and water vapor into the atmosphere which scatter lower frequency lights than O2 and N2 which will both create a greenhouse effect and shift the appearance of the sky toward white instead of blue. *As an added bonus, nothing says hellscape like a planet with lots of volcanoes!*
Alone, this would give you a lethal runaway greenhouse effect; so, you also need to drop the intensity of the sun by either decreasing gravity to reduce the amount of fusion causing pressure inside the sun or by increasing the strong force which would stabilize nuclear binding strengths making fusion harder to achieve. Either way you get a redder darker sun.
With a red sun shining through a "white" atmosphere, the sky should then appear red at all times.
This said, small changes have big outcomes, and the more you you go back in time the more significantly changes impact the present. If you make these changes at the beginning of time, then Earth will never form the way we known it. If you want planets that are in the same places between universes you should introduce a divergent point in the timeline. Basically, you say that instead of two universes that have always existed, you say that the universes split X number of years ago and thier constants drifted apart after the split. This way you can place the stars and planets along with what they are made out of all in the same places, but then go back a few million years ago and then allow them to evolve separately past that point. This way the Earth will still have continents in about the same places, and still have all the fissile fuel it needs to keep the core molten, etc.
The only significant hazard this might have on human physiology could be a greater amount of ambient radiation. Minerals that are not radioactive on Earth would be radioactive on Hell; so, your colonists will need to be a lot more careful about heavy metal poisoning. A lot of your early colonists will probably die of cancer, but by eliminating things like tungsten, lead, and gold from consumer products and designing architecture to insulate against ground radiation should solve these issues. If the humans on your other world natural evolved there (not a colony from this world), then this can just be handwaved away by saying these humans have evolved to live in higher radiation levels. On Earth, there are creatures than can survive in 100 times the radiation a human can; so, we know biology allows for some variance here.
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